VILE: 'Guitar Center' Comes For Musicians Throats During Pandemic
By: Graham Alexander
If you love music - if you like musicians….don’t shop here.
This Saturday, if you head to your local Guitar Center music store chain - you may be witness to one of the most transparent, wholesale, vile, and immoral acts committed against the musicians of the music industry since the tech industry decided to remove most value from recorded music 2 decades prior.
An advertisement for Guitar Center’s abomination unto musicians…targeted to reach musicians that largely haven’t worked in 5 months.
‘Guitar Center’ is hosting a ’sellers only’ music instrument/gear ‘open hours’ session where they will purchase musicians used musical instruments for upwards of 60-80% below market value. Now normally, i’d say…hey; if you’re willing to sell for that - or have to…go for it. BUT Guitar Center’s wall street terra firma capital backed suits have dreamed up this immoral and predatory purchasing session 5 months into worldwide shut downs of public events that have caused musicians to go ‘gig-less’ for the majority of the year thus far. Further, as the U.S. continues to grapple with the COVID19 virus and its economic tolls - some cities believe live music won’t return fully until 2021.
So picture this; you’re a musician….you’re broke from the previous 5 months….and all you have left are your tools of the trade……you’re also hungry.
See where I’m going with this?
The long failing corporate owned Guitar Center chain of music stores has been disintegrating for a decade in the face of the changing music industry and the collapse of music as a past time for many of the up-and-coming generation. Guitar Center has continuously been downgraded to junk credit ratings by major firms which followed with huge reorganizations, layoffs, a decreasing store experience for the consumer and practices like forcing American manufacturers like Fender to distance themselves from America’s largest music instrument retailer.
Guitar Center’s newest stunt is another in a long line of pathetic approaches that terra firma capital organizations engage in that ultimately destroy their own industry for the sake of profits in the moment. Make no mistake, soaking every dime from musicians during the worst crisis for the music world since The Great Depression - separating them from their tools of trade during a time of duress only serves to harm the health of the music industry in the long run. Removing musicians long term ability to work for the sake of short term corporate profits while having enough bailout and investment group cash on hand to weather the storm while banking on the economy returning and reselling musicians used gear at proper market value…..is a predatory practice that cannot be condoned by any musician or music fan….hell, it shouldn’t be condoned by economists either.
Now, what i’m going to say will elicit cries of ‘but what about the employees of Guitar Center???’ but bear with me here;
this is more of a PSA so that you are aware of how Guitar Center’s suits REALLY think of musicians; we don’t matter…and we never have….and we never will.
Former Guitar Center Executive, Mitt Romney. Don’t let the smile fool you…they all look like this.
I’m not a fan of cancel culture….but do yourself and all musicians a favor and purchase direct from the manufacturer, small music stores struggling to remain in business (you can find many of these on ‘Reverb.com’ (note; this company just increased sellers fees by 5%….which is also pretty vile….but at least its a portal for small business) ….or even Sweetwater.com.
Avoid giving these Mitt Romney looking Ayn Rand loving Terra Firma American Psychos the ability to claim profits on the backs of out of work musicians and allow them to collapse into the ground where they should have been over a decade ago. As for their employees? They’ve been waiting for the hammer to drop for years…let the free market rise a music instrument retailer that cares about the health of its own industry. Oh and since most of the employees are musicians any way, consider hiring them to play music for you - they’ll be happier doing that anyways and they’ll probably make more than they do at Guitar Center.
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