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 “8th 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...
trust me, I wanted to hate them. I went in once and was given a pretty crapy value on a guitar I was thinking about trading. Later I found an amazing deal from them, it was a really cool mohagany body/neck guitar with P-90's. They had mistakenly priced it at $75.00 and I snapped it up. I called to confirm and talked to the owner, even though it was a mistake and only a $75.00 deal. The owner was very cool, honored price and gave me great service. Even through in some strings, and a strap. (it was a guitar I purchased to give to a friend learning to play). I just bought a kemper profiling unit for about $300-$400 under market. So even though my initial impression was to not like them, I've had nothing but a good experience (don't trade gear with them, sell on reverb) buying from them. I'm not a fan or a homer, just a working musician. They are a business and do need to market themselves, they take risks and try stuff. I would just say, don't let one weird add, throw you off. I mean what else is there, we all hate guitar center...:-)
ReplyDeleteA business trying to be successful by getting on the radio...Oh the humanity. Big deal. I'd expect that kind of silly hipster attitude from a 19 year old college freshman, not a middle aged- man.
ReplyDeleteYou’re wrong on every level. KQ ~SUCKS A$$~ and so do ALL the businesses that chose to advertise on it. The End.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteA business trying to be successful by getting on the radio...Oh the humanity. Big deal. I'd expect that kind of silly hipster attitude from a 19 year old college freshman, not a middle aged- man.
ReplyDeleteCB, your idiotic comment on a ONE YEAR OLD blog post was so significant that you felt the need to post it twice? LOL! Good work, ya f#ckin' jackass. Welcome to the internet - using it will get easier. Just give it some time.
ReplyDeleteWell here you are getting annoyed at my comments on a ONE YEAR OLD blog post, so mission accomplished. P.S. you're ugly.
DeleteThis is all very unusual, "CB." ...and most unexpected.
Delete