Re: The Boneheads at Groove City Guitars in St Paul Minnesota

In September of 2014 quite out of the blue, I received a Facebook “friends request” from a new Minnesota music store.  As a traveling musician at the time faced occasionally with long weekend afternoons to while away in The Twin Cities, I accepted the request and put their location on my mental list of places to stop next time I had a time to drive around fondling guitars and amps “down south.”
 



As a new business clearly trying hard to use social media to their advantage, I immediately noticed a steady stream of “for sale” items start to appear in my newsfeed, and that was cool with me.  I also noticed that they were presenting their business as somewhat of a “hippie guitar boutique” with high quality gear, funky rugs, and groovy furnishings.  On a morning in late September I was shocked and annoyed to see this advertisement posted by Groove city.  Disgusted by the idea of a cool music store “selling out” and turning their business into a ridiculous media circus powered by awful commercial radio, I said aloud at my desk, “Eeeewww!  Ska-REW that!”  I thought about leaving a negative comment but chose not to.  Less than 5 minutes later, another person “somewhere out there” took the words right out of my mouth by posting “KQ?  Epic Fail.  I will NEVER visit your store.”  A few minutes later, another outraged person did the same, and a predictable backlash by “pro awful commercialization” people ensued.  I could no longer resist, and I posted a comment something to the effect of “Way to go.  I would expect this sort of thing from Guitar Center (the Menard’s of Music).
 
Groove City responded by posting the following:


“We have never seen Eric or Tom in the shop, and none of the guys recognize them. Oh well, somehow they friended us, and everyone has a right to their own opinion! I'm sure if they ever come to see us they will feel embarrassed by those negative remarks about advertising with KQ. It's always best to have all the information, and see a business first hand before making generalized statements, positive, or negative.
  

I responded with:

“YOU sent ME a friends request like TWO weeks ago, and I live 200 miles away.  That is how long I've been aware of your shop, and you WERE on my list of stops on my upcoming Cities trip.  My annoyance stems from the fact that up until today, the image you presented of yourself here was ~very~ much NOT one of a music store that would choose to permanently stigmatize itself with such a sellout circus side show association with soulless big business radio.  Good luck.”

They deleted my response, so I posted it again…and then a third time.  Then, I was promptly “unfriended” by Groove City Guitars.  Seriously?  Looking back through their photos well composing this post, I’ve noticed that ALL the comments associated with that advertisement have been deleted.  Weird, huh?

I took two things away from this bizarre interaction.  The first one is that ANY business that would behave in such a manner isn’t worthy of my patronage.  Yes, I’m curious as heck about their collection of quality and vintage instruments, but they “8^th grade girl-ed” incorrectly in a public forum and alienated me forever.

The second is that giant broadcasting companies are both destroying American radio AND dumbing down the county.  No single organization should be allowed to own and manage 460 stations the way the Cumulus Media does, and the sooner those large corporations are broken up, the better.  As far as I’m concerned, the list of advertisers on those stations serves as a personal “black list” of business to avoid.

Sorry, Groove City Guitars.  No sale... 

Four Horse Johnson Returns to Sparta Sound.

My wife and I used to have what was known as a “land line.”  That was a telephone wired directly into a worldwide network of cables.  We got rid of ours over 5 years ago, but it was through a communication over that system that I was asked to join up with a new local band as the lead guitarist.  My bass playing friend asked me to help out with a new project involving a drummer unknown to me and a mutual acquaintance who was a songwriter.  When I hung up the phone, my wife asked, “What was that all about?”

“Oh, you know…just another band looking for a hired gun,” I replied with a smirk. 

She rolled her eyes and said, “Right…” with no lack of sarcasm.

To this day I can still shrug my shoulders in the midst of a band conversation, say “Don’t ask me.  I’m just the hired man,” and effectively annoy the hell out of all them.

Anyway, that band eventually took the name Four Horse Johnson, and with the exception of a 2 year “hiatus,” we’ve been playing together in one form or another ever since.  It was in 2008 that we entered the recording studio at Sparta Sound (a deconsecrated church in Sparta Location between Eveleth and Gilbert Minnesota ) to record our first CD “Transmission,” and just last night we were back to begin work on our 2^nd CD.  Between the 4 bands with which I’ve performed since 2007, this will be my 6^th recording project.  Last night went surprisingly well, and I plan to post recording updates here from now until the completion of our CD tentatively named (according to me) “Carbon Monoxide Sea Shanties.”

 

 

 

"Are All These Your Guitars?"

Hey, Look.  STUPID Google Blogger is finally allowing me to post photos using Internet Explorer 11. 

That was a long blogging "hunger strike." 

;-)

Anyway...way back in the late 1980s as a teenager with a small pile of saved $ from my paper route and new summer job, I placed a call to the long since defunct Rainbow Music in Poughkeepsie, New York hoping to acquire an American Standard Fender Telecaster.  Oddly enough, though no fan of either one of them, I'd observed both Bruce Springsteen and Prince playing butterscotch colored Telecasters with great interest, and that's what I was after. 

The sales person said they were OUT of that particular model, BUT..."We have a couple of Esquire re-issues.  They're basically the same thing as a Telecaster, and we have one in Butterscotch."  Being young, inexperienced, and more than a little naïve, I took his word for it and "pulled the trigger" on what was to be one of only a handful of guitars ever shipped to me sight unseen, and when the UPS driver showed up with it a couple days later, I was NOT wild about this new instrument. 

An authentic re-creation of one of the world's first commercially successful electric guitars, my Esquire had simple electronics and only one pickup.  Also, Fender's colors "butterscotch" and "butterscotch blonde" couldn't be more different.  It was YELLOW!  To make a long story short, I made peace with the instrument after having a local guitar shop install a neck pickup and properly set it up for better playability.  It was with that guitar and a borrowed Marshall JCM 800 half stack that I made my debut as a legitimate lead guitarist in front of an auditorium filled with my school's 7th through 12th grades (well over 800 people) while ripping The Kink's "All Day and All of the Night" a "new one," and it was also through that instrument that I learned to LOVE the feel and tonal capabilities of a Telecaster-style guitar. 

In my early 20s, I experienced a bit of a "downturn in fortunes," and was forced to sell my modified Esquire, and I've been without a similar instrument ever since.  Thankfully, I recently arrived a point in my existence where finances and my music "career" came together to drop a new Telecaster into my hands. This new axe is a dream in every way, and I'm looking forward to fetching it along to the recording studio when my band starts work on our 2nd CD this week.

Twangy shredding will surely ensue...