Here are five of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. [More]
guitars
That’s The Horrible Sound Of My Vintage Guitar Jammed In Delta’s Service Elevator
By 1.7.13
Musician Dave Schneider of hockey-themed rock band The Zambonis and Hanukkah-themed band The LeeVees usually carries his guitar on when flying to a gig. You know, so baggage handlers don’t get their paws on it, he can keep an eye on it, and did I mention the part where he doesn’t trust baggage handlers with expensive musical instruments? [More]
Best Buy Music Department Cares About Your Guitar Very, Very Much
By 6.7.12
The surprising thing about this story isn’t that a reader received excellent customer service from a Best Buy store. No, we’ve seen that before. It’s that reader Cameron’s local Best Buy store has a full-service music department where you can get instruments repaired by actual professionals. When Cameron brought his guitar to his local store for restringing and repair, he expected just that: new strings and the specific adjustment he needed to the instrument’s neck. Instead, he got a fantastic restoration job on the now shiny, like-new guitar, and didn’t have to pay extra. [More]
Gibson CEO Takes Leave Of Absence From Rainforest Group While Feds Investigate Imported Wood
By 11.19.09
When agents raided Gibson Guitar’s manufacturing facility earlier this week, some articles pointed out that the company’s CEO Henry Juszkiewicz was on the board of the Rainforest Alliance, a group that certifies businesses to sell their goods under an environmentally sustainable label. Now the group has postponed its annual certification of Gibson Guitars, and Juszkiewicz is temporarily stepping down from the board.
Feds Raid Gibson Guitars
By 11.18.09
Yesterday, US Fish & Wildlife Services agents issued a search warrant on Gibson Guitars’ manufacturing plant in Nashville, TN. The Nashville Post writes that they “seized wood, guitars, computers and boxes of files from Gibson Guitar’s Massman Road manufacturing facility.”
Customer Apologizes For Guitar Center Screw-Up
By 2.19.09
Mitch wrote to us last week to complain that he was sent a used guitar instead of the new one he ordered. Musician’s Friend and/or Guitar Center (they’re related) followed up with Mitch and corrected the mistake, but it turns out that Mitch was in the wrong on this one. Here’s his explanation for what happened.
Musician's Friend Responds To Guitar Center Shipping Mix-Up
By 2.13.09
Bob Weibel at Musician’s Friend contacted us only a few hours after we posted Mitch’s story of the used guitar shipping screw up. He writes, “This kind of thing simply can’t happen, ever. We’ve tracked down Mitch’s order information and have been attempting to reach him on the phone to make things right.”
Guitar Center Ships Broken Guitar From Another Store's Inventory, Says Too Bad, Now It's Yours
By 2.12.09
Did you know Guitar Center, Musician’s Friend, and “a few other online music retailers” all share the same centralized distribution center? That’s the explanation a Musician’s Friend CSR gave Mitch when he tried to solve the mystery of the dented, twisted-neck, not-even-from-the-right-store Fender Telecaster. It looks like Guitar Center shipped him another company’s returned item. That’s bad enough, but now Guitar Center says they won’t make good on his order because it’s beyond the 30 day return period. Hey, Guitar Center: What return period? Mitch never got the product he ordered in the first place.
Update: Musician’s Friend has responded with an apology.
By 7.28.08
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Best Buy will start selling musical equipment—guitars, drum kits, sheet music, groupies—in up to 85 stores across the U.S. this year. They’ll also offer group music lessons. Is there anything the Geek Squad can’t do? [Associated Press]
UPDATE: Costco "Conor Oberst" Guitar Was Authentic, Sold By "Internal Mistake"
By 4.12.07
The guitar listed on the Costco website is a single guitar that was signed by Conor Oberst after an acoustic performance in New York on September 16th, 2005. Due to an internal mistake at First Act the guitar was put up for sale on the Costco website.
MPA Hates Sharing Guitarists
By 8.21.06
The MPA has a new public enemy: guitar players. Yes, those scurrilous knaves who share how to play popular songs through secret code, called “tablature.” These heinous n’er do wells notate songs or copy them from song books and share them online. For free. Shudder.
