The Steel Guitar Forum

Then and only then if I were desperate!

Used to go to local music stores and they would treat you with respect as a fellow musician. Their attitude was “hey you’re a player, I would not dare insult you trying to sell you shiit when you know your shiit”!
Now it’s like going into a Dollar Store. “hey you’re just another Ahole musician so buy some shiit or don’t, but don’t let the door hit you in asss on the way out!!!

I go to a few but I live kinda far from them,One has a large selection of guitars,and amps,Strings repairs very nice people,The other one is a vintage guitar place guitars,amps,cool stuff also a very nice guy who runs it.When I lived in Anchorage There was a guy who owned a little guitar shop and was insulting one time I walked in and noticed that he had a P.R.S. hanging up,So I asked if I could check it out?He said"You can't afford this guitar,only doctors,and lawyers can,Are you just kicking tires"?And one time when my mom was living near Fort Lauderdale,I went to a place where they had to buzz you in...Everything was behind glass like a museum,I almost beat the crap outta the guy.

I forgot,The guy who had the little guitar shop in Anchorage used to sleep on a cot in a back room.

When the BIG BOX stores took over, initially it was ok. Around here the small store guys started working in the BIG stores, that was ok. But then, over time, it gradually degraded to just clerks dressed up as musical Instrument experts. It isn't so much that they don't treat people with respect, its that in many scenarios they have no clue what they are talking about, no knowledge of what they are offering for sale on the SALES FLOOR. You ask a question , an uneducated buyer gets an ear full of BS from an uneducated Sales Clerk.

TRUE story:

Last year I went into GC to buy a Compressor Pedal, I finally decided it was time to add one, plus I had this $100 Bill burning a hole in my pocket. So I'm checking out a couple of Peds, my focus was on the Keeley. A young gal with purple hair comes over and starts to tell me that I'm picking the wrong one,she started telling me about the one the famous players use. She was pretty insistent. I just said well I just wanna check these two out, the Keeley and another, maybe a Boss, don't remember.

She gives me a cord and I plug in , the Keeley has the 4 knob control which is what I wanted, I set it for very gentle ever so slight attack, barely on, I liked it. She however started telling me how to use it, obviously to her I didn't know. I kept thinking to myself, here I am, 3 times her age, does she not stop and think for a moment that I may have been playing 3 times longer than she has been living ? No, she doesn't,she continues with here's how they should be set up.

I said to myself, enough is enough, time to give her a lesson in reality, maybe even life. In real time thru a Deluxe Reverb and very slight compression I lit into the solo for Vince Gills Little Liza Jane followed by Peaceful Easy Feelin'. She steps back and says " Holy Crap" that sounds friggin awesome. I laughed and said..yeah you're right, I'll take it !


I can only imagine what she would have said if I told her the Compressor was for my Emmons Pedal Steel. But I didn't, I saved her from herself.

Tony Yes!another time I decided to buy local also while living in Anchorage Alaska.I wanted to put a new set of strings on my Dobro...I asked the gal behind the counter if she had any Dobro String sets?"Huh"?I'm staring at a set ,She's trying to sell me anything,I finally pointed getting warmer,Warmer Bingo!Oh like a National?Then I had to explain the difference,but she was nice,She breathed a sigh of relief when I Split.

Bo, I know exactly what you are talking about.

Tony Prior wrote:... I kept thinking to myself, here I am, 3 times her age, does she not stop and think for a moment that I may have been playing 3 times longer than she has been living ? No, she doesn't,she continues with...

Run into this all the time, the ubiquitous "old people know nothing" attitude; no respect for age anymore.

Tony Prior wrote:When the BIG BOX stores took over, initially it was ok. Around here the small store guys started working in the BIG stores, that was ok. But then, over time, it gradually degraded to just clerks dressed up as musical Instrument experts. It isn't so much that they don't treat people with respect, its that in many scenarios they have no clue what they are talking about, no knowledge of what they are offering for sale on the SALES FLOOR. You ask a question , an uneducated buyer gets an ear full of BS from an uneducated Sales Clerk.

TRUE story:

Last year I went into GC to buy a Compressor Pedal, I finally decided it was time to add one, plus I had this $100 Bill burning a hole in my pocket. So I'm checking out a couple of Peds, my focus was on the Keeley. A young gal with purple hair comes over and starts to tell me that I'm picking the wrong one,she started telling me about the one the famous players use. She was pretty insistent. I just said well I just wanna check these two out, the Keeley and another, maybe a Boss, don't remember.

She gives me a cord and I plug in , the Keeley has the 4 knob control which is what I wanted, I set it for very gentle ever so slight attack, barely on, I liked it. She however started telling me how to use it, obviously to her I didn't know. I kept thinking to myself, here I am, 3 times her age, does she not stop and think for a moment that I may have been playing 3 times longer than she has been living ? No, she doesn't,she continues with here's how they should be set up.

I said to myself, enough is enough, time to give her a lesson in reality, maybe even life. In real time thru a Deluxe Reverb and very slight compression I lit into the solo for Vince Gills Little Liza Jane followed by Peaceful Easy Feelin'. She steps back and says " Holy Crap" that sounds friggin awesome. I laughed and said..yeah you're right, I'll take it !


I can only imagine what she would have said if I told her the Compressor was for my Emmons Pedal Steel. But I didn't, I saved her from herself.

Made my day, brother!!!

I feel very fortunate there is a local mom'n'pop music store here in this mammoth alpine valley (about 125 x 75 miles) with only about 50,000 people. I support them whenever I can. I'm an acquaintance of the proprietor, who is a wonderful guy. He's not having and easy time of late, and is well worthy of everyone in this community's support.

http://lightshinemusic.biz/

I try to support the smaller local music stores as much as possible. But when they don't have what I need I usually order online if I don't need it for a gig TODAY...

Now with the covid restrictions, big music stores are limiting the number of shoppers allowed in the store. They don't want you to "browse and shop".... I loved looking for deals on used instruments and amps, now they want to know what you are coming in for...

Jack Hanson wrote:

Jack Hanson wrote:I feel very fortunate there is a local mom'n'pop music store here in this mammoth alpine valley (about 125 x 75 miles) with only about 50,000 people. I support them whenever I can. I'm an acquaintance of the proprietor, who is a wonderful guy. He's not having and easy time of late, and is well worthy of everyone in this community's support.

http://lightshinemusic.biz/

Thanks for sharing the link to your local music store, and I have to say you and the Hanson Boys have chosen a magnificent area of Colorado to settle in. Nothing as beautiful as a thunder storm rolling over the Sangre de Cristos.

Here's a couple of links to Denver area music stores where I spend my money. One has a huge selection of
fx pedals and knowlegeable staff, the other an old school store run by the sons of the original owner.
I imagine the staff at both stores know what a pedal steel guitar is, and DC/GL sells single strings ( EB & others)) and are happy to make sets for my steels.

https://flipside-music.com/#

http://www.drumcityguitarland.com/

Donny Hinson wrote:

"Run into this all the time, the ubiquitous "old people know nothing" attitude; no respect for age anymore."

Sad but true - but it also something my mom would say when she got that treatment from younger people. What I want to say is it's not just our generation that gets this treatment from a younger generation but also previous generations also were dismissed by younger people.

Here's my local store!

https://www.empireguitarsri.com/

I am lucky because it's a cool store with cool personnel (Mike, Mike, and Keith) and way-cool guitars.

I am unlucky because I have to wrestle with myself to not buy yet another one of those cool guitars!

Chris

I feel you Bo. Been against the idea that 'Bigger is Better' as an automatic truism since Day One. GC and the way you usually get treated is 'Exhibit A' in that case.

'Human Scale' wins in most situations:

Smaller stores, not impersonal mega-boxes.
Smaller amps that still get the job done...
Smaller organizations, both the one you 'work for' as well as the ones you 'have to deal with'
Smaller bands. It's harder to be useful and find your slot of 'sonic space' in a 7- or 8-piece unit
Smaller towns to live in. Or at least some version with 1920's-style neighborhoods, with mixed-use retail and work-options all together very near home.
Smaller restaurants where the staff has time for you and the chef has time to work with care.
Smaller music venues (yes, I even prefer playing to a smaller crowd who are right there in it with you than the festival-sized mob across the field that's only half connecting to the music).

I'm baffled as to why 'Smaller is Better' doesn't get more play. The rule gets broken when I go for boxers over briefs, but that's really just another version of preferring a 'human scale' thing. And it's not about size; The Boys were never meant to go 'tight and airless.'

Guitar Centers are the worst of all.
I go to NYC to visit our daughter who lives there and stopped in the E 14th store.
I walk in and ask the guy if he has ANY pedal steel or steel guitar related stuff.
He glares at me as says "What's that"?
I thought he was BS-ing me and went on to explain the instrument
Still nothing
He was in a gig way over his head.
Anyone with any basic knowledge of music would have been able to know what I was talking about.

They're the Walmart of music stores. For a while Best Buy (an electronics store) and Walmart offered instruments here in St Louis Mo. Guitar Center was not much different but had more gear.

W. C. Edgar wrote:Guitar Centers are the worst of all.

Shopped there a few times, not blown away but OK. Then we wanted to buy an amp which our son wanted for a Christmas present.

The thing turned out to be on sale which ended that very day at I can't recall, say 6PM. We were doing a phone order and called several times. Could not get through. Finally did, with about 5 minutes on their time limit, started giving the info and the call dropped.

Called back, got through fine, gave the details - and the price was way higher. The girl said the sale was over. I explained THEIR unavailability and the dropped call, and noted that even the call we were on now STARTED before 6PM. Nope, no dice, said she could not override it, too bad. I said forget the whole thing and have not dealt with them since.

Haven't been to a GC in a couple of years--and it'd been most of a decade before that. Come to think of it,when the good deals disappeared, so did I..... Anyway,last time I went in I needed some resonator strings. Nobody understood what I was talking about until a fellow geezer came up and saved the day. I've had much, much better luck at Wildwood.In fact,my only gripe about them is they don't carry pedal steels!

Yip been there many times...Online is my music stores!

Before you buy any sort of fx pedal be sure to check here on Forum. It will save you a whole lot of money.
You will be so ridiculed by folks here as a person who can't play without your crutches that you'd be afraid to show up at a gig with pedals.
Hey Toni somebody told me you wanted a Compressor Pedal for your steel. wow what a sissy!!!

Stuart Legg wrote: Hey Toni somebody told me you wanted a Compressor Pedal for your steel. wow what a sissy!!!

Yeah I know, I admit it openly !

I've been called worse names !

Truth, when I finally put that Keeley in my small board, I think the first gig I forgot to push the button to turn it on ! I was probably thinking " man this sounds good".

I know, they have medicine for this.

I was once browsing in the Guitar Center on 14th Street in NYC and found a nice Gold Star banjo in a "clearance" section. The headstock had snapped but was still being held together by the veneer. A little Titebond, a clamp, and it was (almost) as good as new. A thousand dollar banjo, they let me have it for $50. Sometimes it's good that they don't know what they're doing.

I stopped by a local music store a while back. I got there just as they were opened and went in just to buy a set of guitar strings and get out. I new where the strings were and what I wanted I ran in a got them and carried them up to the cashier. He rang up the sale and the amount was $6.78. I handed him a $20 bill and he kept fooling around with the register while I was waiting for my change. the cash drawer was wide open, so I said to him" Just give me $13.22 change so I can go. He looked puzzled and said." I wasn't much of a math student in school".
He would have had a hard time when I was growing up. I worked as a cashier in a supermarket while I was in high school. You had to figure the change yourself.

Jeremy Steele wrote:found a nice Gold Star banjo in a "clearance" section. The headstock had snapped but was still being held together by the veneer. A little Titebond, a clamp, and it was (almost) as good as new.

Lesson to be learned here, guys! One simple bash isn't enough! Multiple bashes, run over it with your car, and maybe a highway flare in the pile of what's left!

Greg Forsyth wrote:
Sad but true - but it also something my mom would say when she got that treatment from younger people. What I want to say is it's not just our generation that gets this treatment from a younger generation but also previous generations also were dismissed by younger people.

Fortunately, I was not brought up in that world. Where (and when) I came from, you may have felt disdain or disrespect for older people, but you never spoke or acted it out. It just wasn't done.