Local Music Shops

Gentlemen I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I have a degree in absolutely nothing. I’ve been willing to do jobs others aren’t at times they’re not willing to do it and I’ve always made plenty of money. Boom times, recessions or whatever. Did I survive 15 degree weather with winds cutting my skin and nothing but literal blood and feces the only hint of warmth? I’ve been there. That’s what I consider a “mountain of hardship”. It sucked but I went to work and paid my bills. These days I’m blessed to not work as hard but I paid my dues, dues many others aren’t willing to pay. So no, I really have no empathy in this regard. I was handed nothing and am a middle class slob with the rest of the middle class slobs and happy to be here.
Love this. The idea that everyone who has earned something was somehow given it or had a leg up is victim mentality BS of the highest level. It’s out there if you’re willing to shovel the crap it takes to get to it.

To the OP, I totally loved having local music stores coming up because we didn’t have anything else back then! You paid literal MSRP for everything. So it wasn’t wine and roses, and the shop owners took full advantage of being the only place you could get instruments. Their business model played out and all of them went out of business in my area. No one wanted it that way, but as a struggling musician who wasn’t sucking a silver spoon, there was little reasonable choice in which price I would be paying. I bought what I could locally, but large purchases went to mail order. I miss the personal friendships in the same way some folks miss full service gas stations.

We do have one local store, all cheap instruments and school band equipment. Still, I’ll buy stuff there to support local business because I like to do that. Certainly not against that, but I’m not a bad guy when I spend my hard earned cash wisely and go for the best deal.
 
I’m not saying screw anybody. I’ve been taken in a few 3 card Monte games in life, myself. I’m saying get out there and work hard. Bellyaching never paid a bill. I didn’t “get mine” that way and dont think many others will have much luck that way, either. I’m no genius, if I can do it anyone else can, too. “I cant” needs to be erased from the English language. No one HAS to go to college or any further in college than they themselves choose to. At 18 I was a complete moron but knew 200k in debt was probably a horrible idea.
You, who recently admitted not having borrowed for college, have very little insight into just how far beyond a "3 card monte" game the entire college loan, textbooks, supplies, and housing are. A whole generation of kids got sold into perpetual debt that is designed to be unrepayable and is not clearable via bankruptcy like virtually every other kind of debt. What 17 year old kid looking for college has any idea about that? The system is set up to do this, through laws written by bankers and designed to entrap. It's criminal, and those responsible for setting up the laws that allowed it to happen ought to be severely punished. You have no corner on the working hard thing. We're all working hard, but your narcissistic lack of empathy only lets you see your own difficulties....
 
You, who recently admitted not having borrowed for college, have very little insight into just how far beyond a "3 card monte" game the entire college loan, textbooks, supplies, and housing are. A whole generation of kids got sold into perpetual debt that is designed to be unrepayable and is not clearable via bankruptcy like virtually every other kind of debt. What 17 year old kid looking for college has any idea about that? The system is set up to do this, through laws written by bankers and designed to entrap. It's criminal, and those responsible for setting up the laws that allowed it to happen ought to be severely punished. You have no corner on the working hard thing. We're all working hard, but your narcissistic lack of empathy only lets you see your own difficulties....
Narcissistic lack of empathy? That’s rich, considering I have one in her third year of college and one in his junior year of high school. I have a front row seat to what college is and the loans surrounding it, my friend. By the way, they weren’t born 18 years old, so thank heavens I can count to 18 and knew just how long I had to prepare. They will not be saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, mostly because we are making good decisions and I decided it was something worth busting my ass for. I cant speak for other families choices but if they end up destitute over college, apparently they made some bad choices.

We are handed the game and the rules. We all play our hands the way we choose. Since time immemorial there have been winners and losers. This is nothing new.

I recently looked into taking some classes at MI for myself. figuring its somewhat a trade school of sorts, the price was astounding. ON LINE classes were north of 40k a year. For 40k I can probably just hire Steve Vai to play the 20 gigs I have during the year. I used a genius level tactic: I said NO. I didn’t see the value. Everyone and anyone has this power.
 
Narcissistic lack of empathy? That’s rich, considering I have one in her third year of college and one in his junior year of high school. I have a front row seat to what college is and the loans surrounding it, my friend. By the way, they weren’t born 18 years old, so thank heavens I can count to 18 and knew just how long I had to prepare. They will not be saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, mostly because we are making good decisions and I decided it was something worth busting my ass for. I cant speak for other families choices but if they end up destitute over college, apparently they made some bad choices.

We are handed the game and the rules. We all play our hands the way we choose. Since time immemorial there have been winners and losers. This is nothing new.
Good for your kids. Not many kids these days have college funds. Their parents' poor choices and/or outright poverty are not their fault and they should not be punished or disparaged by the likes of you for it, nor should the laws be set up to put them in eternal debt for trying to get educated so they can get better jobs and break the cycle of poverty.

The system is set up to rob the poor and give to the rich, to gaslight the poor and middle class into believing that isn't true, and to keep the middle class disdainful of the poor and their "poor decisions". You have obviously never been truly poor, and had to make impossible choices just to survive. Poor people generally work far harder just trying to survive than almost anyone gives them credit for. All of your pat, dismissive answers about how others' simply didn’t work hard enough and deserve their situation, there have always been winners and losers, and all that crap, amount to a big zero. People's lives are in ruin despite hard work and doing the right thing, and you sit there with your trust fund kids and look down your nose at them because they are obviously crap people who deserve their lot in life. How very Dickensian....
 
Good for your kids. Not many kids these days have college funds. Their parents' poor choices and/or outright poverty are not their fault and they should not be punished or disparaged by the likes of you for it, nor should the laws be set up to put them in eternal debt for trying to get educated so they can get better jobs and break the cycle of poverty.

The system is set up to rob the poor and give to the rich, to gaslight the poor and middle class into believing that isn't true, and to keep the middle class disdainful of the poor and their "poor decisions". You have obviously never been truly poor, and had to make impossible choices just to survive. Poor people generally work far harder just trying to survive than almost anyone gives them credit for. All of your pat, dismissive answers about how others' simply didn’t work hard enough and deserve their situation, there have always been winners and losers, and all that crap, amount to a big zero. People's lives are in ruin despite hard work and doing the right thing, and you sit there with your trust fund kids and look down your nose at them because they are obviously crap people who deserve their lot in life. How very Dickensian....
guess again. I grew up on food stamps, welfare cheese and met every social worker in 1980 NYC. Even when we had food, half the time they were shutting off the lights. My “trust fund” consisted of crematorium bills. Thanks for playing. The pretty lady at the door has your prize on the way out. You know, its actually possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s not always everyone else’s fault.
 
One of my local shops adapted to survive and is doing great in the age of Internet giants.

https://themusicden.com/
Just that shop's site reminded me (and a few other posts from you guys)... I'm about 3 1/2 hours from Chicago and 4 hours from St. Louis, so I've been there a lot (went to college in St. Louis). When I go to those cities, I love hitting music shops, I can spend a day or two just doing that. Even though you see a lot of the same type design builds today, guitars fascinate me, of course the older gear to the extreme. Old amps... all that is so cool. I like the local music shops that don't feel like warehouse, where they have their own vibe. It's so cool, it's my equivalent of other people's favorite little dive bar, pub or restaurant I guess. Wherever I'm at even for work, like in Austin, got to hear some good blues, and the guitar shop I went in was just overwhelming, stuff everywhere! Like a kid in the candy store... seems like I always find a gem that I buy or wanted to buy so bad!
 
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You, who recently admitted not having borrowed for college, have very little insight into just how far beyond a "3 card monte" game the entire college loan, textbooks, supplies, and housing are. A whole generation of kids got sold into perpetual debt that is designed to be unrepayable and is not clearable via bankruptcy like virtually every other kind of debt. What 17 year old kid looking for college has any idea about that? The system is set up to do this, through laws written by bankers and designed to entrap. It's criminal, and those responsible for setting up the laws that allowed it to happen ought to be severely punished. You have no corner on the working hard thing. We're all working hard, but your narcissistic lack of empathy only lets you see your own difficulties....
Don't let me butt in, I just have a comment about college. Now they push credit cards and all kinds of stuff on the kids. They have cards where the parents get the bill just for Chik-Fil-A and computers in the on-campus shops When I went, I was bewildered by having to buy $200-$300 worth of textbooks and required miscellany. All college did was teach me how to read closely and think critically. Calculus and biochemistry was just how much can you memorize and then crazy difficult questions. I had an astronomy professor whose multiple choice went from a - k routinely... it was just a game, but I learned some stuff they pounded in our heads every year that I had to know, and then I was able to think on my feet on a job. The job was very different. They are raising tuition, it is astronomically higher than it was in the nineties, and it was expensive then. It is a racket. And the poor do get screwed. And then they get screwed again and again for not having any money. It's brutal!
 
Love this. The idea that everyone who has earned something was somehow given it or had a leg up is victim mentality BS of the highest level. It’s out there if you’re willing to shovel the crap it takes to get to it.

To the OP, I totally loved having local music stores coming up because we didn’t have anything else back then! You paid literal MSRP for everything. So it wasn’t wine and roses, and the shop owners took full advantage of being the only place you could get instruments. Their business model played out and all of them went out of business in my area. No one wanted it that way, but as a struggling musician who wasn’t sucking a silver spoon, there was little reasonable choice in which price I would be paying. I bought what I could locally, but large purchases went to mail order. I miss the personal friendships in the same way some folks miss full service gas stations.

We do have one local store, all cheap instruments and school band equipment. Still, I’ll buy stuff there to support local business because I like to do that. Certainly not against that, but I’m not a bad guy when I spend my hard earned cash wisely and go for the best deal.
That's basically all I can do is support them by buying strings, picks, accessories, shirts, etc. Maybe have some PRS and a few higher-midrange guitars, but I order what I want. I will say that the less expensive guitars are not as bad as they were back in the day. Most are totally playable, and if I come across the right MIM Strat, I'm going to block it and upgrade the hardware and pickups... and yes we got reamed at full retail price. But they would also deal, throw in a case, throw some strings in, come down a little bit, and take a trade-in (when I was desperate - got reamed on that trades too). I've also got some of the stupid bluetooth stuff (I guess a decade ago now) to play around with. Every owner here is getting ready, or has retired. There's one shop that got bought out, and I haven't seen what is exactly going to happen, but new location and a rumor they are carrying Suhr! That is funny if you know how much I love Suhrs. Doesn't everyone, take care man!
 
Don't let me butt in, I just have a comment about college. Now they push credit cards and all kinds of stuff on the kids. They have cards where the parents get the bill just for Chik-Fil-A and computers in the on-campus shops When I went, I was bewildered by having to buy $200-$300 worth of textbooks and required miscellany. All college did was teach me how to read closely and think critically. Calculus and biochemistry was just how much can you memorize and then crazy difficult questions. I had an astronomy professor whose multiple choice went from a - k routinely... it was just a game, but I learned some stuff they pounded in our heads every year that I had to know, and then I was able to think on my feet on a job. The job was very different. They are raising tuition, it is astronomically higher than it was in the nineties, and it was expensive then. It is a racket. And the poor do get screwed. And then they get screwed again and again for not having any money. It's brutal!
The way to bring down tuition is simple.


Stop paying it!

En masse. As a country. I have zero qualms funding a 4 year tax funded college education for everyone, performance based. I got messed up on CC debt when I was younger, too. To the point I figured if I buried my head in the sand it would go away. Then they tacked summonses to my door to appear. I called them all one by one and negotiated many thousands down. for a belated Christmas gift, I got a 1099 for the tax bill.
 
I am pretty sure everything is very cool in Japan, the nation with fastest average internet speed for individuals, years and years now.
I’m looking forward to going, hopefully after NAMM 2025. Want to use my cali trip as a springboard to get out to Asia. Take about a month. I keep seeing their stores and they look like 48th street here in NYC used to look. Looking online, I can get top tier Ibanez shipped to my door from them about 1k bucks cheaper than I can buy it here.
 
I am pretty sure everything is very cool in Japan, the nation with fastest average internet speed for individuals, years and years now.

It’s very interesting to me; they also have the most surprising paradox of many companies still heavily relying on fax machines and floppy disks! To the point where a member of the federal government has been assigned the task to modernize those aspects of their economy.
 
The examples of small businesses reaming customers in the old days are poignant, and so true. That’s one enormous advantage of the way stores are today, competing with internet pricing.

The part that I long for is diversity, just different stores with different vibes, and different fortes, maybe a different culture based on whoever founded the store, and of course, different stock! It’s sad thing to imagine every store being the same.

Like I said, I don’t trust a single salesman anywhere for anything, even people I like, at a Guitar Center, a boutique, or a middle of the road mom and pop. Aside from intentions, people just don’t always know enough to help you even if they think they are.

So I’m glad you can receive 1,500 contradictory pieces of advice on forums and sort out what seems to be true haha. I always gain whatever knowledge I can and try to make my best judgment when it comes to gear, and I think when you find genuine people who want to help, it’s a beautiful thing, but it’s no more common than you find that sort of thing in any other aspect of life. That’s my pessimistic view.
 
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Ever since 2020, we have seen a concerted and effective top down effort to destroy small businesses in favor of the generic big box. This is pervasive across all industries and forms of endeavor.

Recently in my area, the best local burger place shut their doors because of these engineered conditions. McDonalds, Burger King, and Sonic are still standing, even though their pricing is grotesquely out of proportion with the quality of the product they provide.

We are losing specialized expertise, individuality, choice, and artistry across the board, and it's being done on purpose.
 
Ever since 2020, we have seen a concerted and effective top down effort to destroy small businesses in favor of the generic big box. This is pervasive across all industries and forms of endeavor.

Recently in my area, the best local burger place shut their doors because of these engineered conditions. McDonalds, Burger King, and Sonic are still standing, even though their pricing is grotesquely out of proportion with the quality of the product they provide.

We are losing specialized expertise, individuality, choice, and artistry across the board, and it's being done on purpose.
I'm not doubting you, but if I wanted to provide examples of this concerted effort to someone, what laws or regulations or other leverage could I point to?
 
Inb4 thread close.

Anyway....the scam of college is government subsidized loans with no real criteria for who can get them. They're risk-free returns for the companies that have the in. That's not how loans are supposed to work. They're supposed to balance risk to reward. And so are the people taking them. This situation is a joke, and it's directly responsible for the insane tuitions. No one has any skin in the game except for people who have been fed lies about how great the returns are.

It worked out okay for me almost entirely because of my family's life insurance policies. But, I too was sold the lie of "go to college and get a good job". I have 2 degrees from one of the most prestigious technical universities in the entire f*ckin' world.

No one has ever asked about them at an interview. And, I didn't even give my current employer a resume....a friend got me an interview and they wanted to see a demonstration that I could do the job. They didn't know where I went to school until someone randomly read my bio on the company website.

At 18, I had no idea what I wanted to do or what I would be good at. But, the whole first degree was a complete waste....I've never used it except in conversation. The second one was mostly unnecessary....I work in that field every day, but there's literally one project out of dozens or hundreds I've ever done that actually used anything I learned getting that degree. Frankly...most of the foundations of it came from high school, not college. And I could have learned it on the job. Everything useful from my tech degrees is available for free online if you can think of the right phrases to search for.

I don't think it was that bad of a decision for me. But, that's because I paid it off with life insurance payouts instead of buying a sports car or something.

Lying about value combined with government subsidized loans is the problem with higher education.
 
Inb4 thread close.

Anyway....the scam of college is government subsidized loans with no real criteria for who can get them. They're risk-free returns for the companies that have the in. That's not how loans are supposed to work. They're supposed to balance risk to reward. And so are the people taking them. This situation is a joke, and it's directly responsible for the insane tuitions. No one has any skin in the game except for people who have been fed lies about how great the returns are.

It worked out okay for me almost entirely because of my family's life insurance policies. But, I too was sold the lie of "go to college and get a good job". I have 2 degrees from one of the most prestigious technical universities in the entire f*ckin' world.

No one has ever asked about them at an interview. And, I didn't even give my current employer a resume....a friend got me an interview and they wanted to see a demonstration that I could do the job. They didn't know where I went to school until someone randomly read my bio on the company website.

At 18, I had no idea what I wanted to do or what I would be good at. But, the whole first degree was a complete waste....I've never used it except in conversation. The second one was mostly unnecessary....I work in that field every day, but there's literally one project out of dozens or hundreds I've ever done that actually used anything I learned getting that degree. Frankly...most of the foundations of it came from high school, not college. And I could have learned it on the job. Everything useful from my tech degrees is available for free online if you can think of the right phrases to search for.

I don't think it was that bad of a decision for me. But, that's because I paid it off with life insurance payouts instead of buying a sports car or something.

Lying about value combined with government subsidized loans is the problem with higher education.
The alternative is telling 80+% of applicants they can’t go to college. I’d be fine with that so long as a state funded 4 year ride was in place for them. I’m not a fan of astronomically priced fancy schools. I still maintain anyone with hustle in their heart will always make money and land on their feet. You’ll just have more options with an education.
 
Ever since 2020, we have seen a concerted and effective top down effort to destroy small businesses in favor of the generic big box. This is pervasive across all industries and forms of endeavor.

Recently in my area, the best local burger place shut their doors because of these engineered conditions. McDonalds, Burger King, and Sonic are still standing, even though their pricing is grotesquely out of proportion with the quality of the product they provide.

We are losing specialized expertise, individuality, choice, and artistry across the board, and it's being done on purpose.
I’m not going to pretend to understand it because if I did I’d be IN business myself but it seems the heavy hitters can sustain losses year over year and finance their operations where maybe the little guy gets told no for the business loan.
 
@Bruce Sokolovic I understand the conclusions you drew from your life experience, and why you drew them, but I completely disagree with your analysis in many ways. I feel like you and I could start a discussion where we just go back and forth, and we might exhaust these arguments in about ten years trying to rebut each other. I feel awful that these are the ways you look at it, but we can't go any deeper without opening more cans of worms and turning this thread into a series of essays. I also am wary of the need for either of us to have "the last word," in a forum thread and that's just a trap that can lead to performative argument, to "win" in front of an audience. Suffice to say, I don't concede the points or implications in what you were posting last night, and I'm unconvinced by your reasoning. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts, but on this, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
 
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