RIP Gibson?

[motorbike guy]

I still want a Les Paul Supreme.

and an ES 295

and a 56 gold top Les Paul

and a 59 LP jr doublecut

and....

[Tommy]

I still want a

56 gold top Les Paul

and a 59 LP jr doublecut

I also want both of these things...

[matthew]

...they have been riding on their past greatness, publicity and brand loyalty for like 50 years.

Indeed. The same can be said for all of the large manufacturers and their brands to some degree perhaps save Rickenbacker since to the best of my knowledge it carries very little debt, places quality far over quantity, manufactures virtually everything in-house and domestically...and is notoriously persnickety with licensing retailers.

[Anthony Flack]

...they have been riding on their past greatness, publicity and brand loyalty for like 50 years.

Yeah, so has Coca-Cola. Of course they have.

The point is that their brand and their flagship guitar models are enormously valuable intellectual property. All a company has to do is be called Gibson and continue to make those famous guitars to a reasonable standard and it will be a license to print money for as long as guitars exist.

For that reason, they are not going to go away. They might change owners, and they might not own Philips anymore, but they're not going to stop making SGs and Les Pauls.

[elisha wiesner]

of course they're not going away. From he articles I've read, the guitar division of the company is currently profitable, it's the other crap and poor business decisions that have got them into trouble.

[Redline]

Henry Juszkiewicz Gibson CEO said:

"The fact is, we don’t see ourselves as a guitar company, we see ourselves as a music lifestyle company."

—
Ugh

[Anthony Flack]

Ha! That would be news to everybody else in the world, who sees them as a guitar company. What the fuck is a "music lifestyle company"? Are they going to start selling skateboards and bags of weed?

[Ike]

Gibson started in Kalamazoo, as y'all know. After they moved it down south, a bunch of luthiers/number-crunchers stayed behind and started Heritage.

This is a really ugly chapter in the life of this local business. Employed (s) a lot of people around here.

Bummer. http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/ind ... r_sou.html

[biscuitdough]

They laid off experienced custom shop employees this week.

In keeping with their "lifestyle" branding - you know, a rich dad can have a $5k guitar in his rumpus room or whatever, "it's the same kind Billy Gibbons plays".

I hope Fender hires them to fix their razor-sharp-fret problem or puts them to work churning out a batch of affordable Gretsch Penguins ($3400 for MIJ factory production?!)

[bishopdante]

Ha! That would be news to everybody else in the world, who sees them as a guitar company. What the fuck is a "music lifestyle company"? Are they going to start selling skateboards and bags of weed?

"Lifestyle business" AFAIK is a term applied to companies which are not primarily motivated by money, but instead to produce a comfortable and pleasant schedule and work environment - ie the business is set up to produce a lifestyle for its founders/employees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business

That probably isn't what the quoted Gibson CEO was intending people to understand.

That sort of misuse of jargon does rather suggest worrying incompetence.

[agiant]

they have a plan b: the Mosaic masterpiece

http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2018/Custom/Les-Paul-Junior-Mosaic.aspx#LPJRSCPSL11871

[Redline]

Ugh. At least the fretboard is made of real wood.

[agiant]

$4199 lol

[Thanasis]

they have a plan b: the Mosaic masterpiece

http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2018/Custom/Les-Paul-Junior-Mosaic.aspx#LPJRSCPSL11871

There's lots of other stupid guitars on that page...

Like this one for instance....http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2018/Custom/Modern-Flying-V.aspx

Also this one looks like someone left the case open while they were painting their bedroom ceiling.
http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2018/Custom/Les-Paul-Custom-Moonless-Night.aspx

[Redline]

Thanasis wrote:

Also this one looks like someone left the case open while they were painting their bedroom ceiling.
http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric ... Night.aspx

I do remember seeing a 70's Flying V in a similar finish, but it was multi-colored sparkles and looked like Ludwig Black Galaxy drum wrap. It was pretty great.

That isn't.

[SecondEdition]

Henry Juszkiewicz should have been thrown out decades ago.

[total_douche]

If nothing else, senescence will free Gibson from Henry eventually... but there are a million more Henry Juszkiewiczes graduating from business schools every year, so it doesn't really matter. The only real solution is to destroy the world's business schools. They only graduate idiots anyway.

[hellholiday]

There's lots of other stupid guitars on that page...

Like this one for instance....http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2018/Custom/Modern-Flying-V.aspx

I like the look of that one.

Personally I do not like Les Pauls. With all the guitars you can choose in the world any time I see someone play a Les Paul I think 'you like GnR'.

[Redline]

There's lots of other stupid guitars on that page...

Like this one for instance....http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2018/Custom/Modern-Flying-V.aspx

I like the look of that one.

Personally I do not like Les Pauls. With all the guitars you can choose in the world any time I see someone play a Les Paul I think 'you like GnR'.

It was great to buy Les Pauls before Guns and Roses existed, because everyone wanted Stratocasters. You could buy Les Paul Customs and old Les Paul jrs. for well under 1000 bucks, while people were paying way too much for Strats, even crappy ones.

[Big John]

Those were heady days I saw a great bargain Les Paul in a pawn shop that had been fret scalloped with a round file. and had a Floyd Rose routed and installed by the same would be luthier with a key hole saw and chisel.

It looked like it once had a beautiful flame top but the guy tried to cover up the repair and apparently fire damage with some white house paint that was worn off in a lot places.

The glory sale days. I could have got a classic reliced.