Walking in Memphis

[Scastles]

. I really got the impression (since the tour was so short and uninformative) that the only reason they offer it is to draw people into their store to buy stuff.

...besides the $15 a head (or was it 20) to tour the place.

[johnallg]

Amazed no one has yet......

[harley]

Just spent a few days in Memphis. Great experience. Lost count of how many juke joints I went into, and not just on Beale, but in areas I was sort of warned not to travel into after dark. Some great blues, and just general musicianship. But what really struck me was how many folks I saw playing Epiphones, all models. While I realize a Gibson factory is there, no Epi's are made in Memphis.

I grew up in Memphis before heading west and I didn't realize hoiw much music there was there that I Just took for granted until after I left. You're right about the level of musicianship. Part of that may be the level of the competition.

As for the Epiphones, I have a couple myself and, while I'd like to have more Rick basses, I wouldn't trade my Allen Woody Epiphone bass for anything.

I'm glad you had a good time there.

[melvinsrule]

I work occasionally with the band Melvins. In the 90s a friend of ours, Shelton Williams.....aka Hank III, got us a "VIP" tour of the factory. I don't know if civilians were allowed in back then. Well, it was buzzing with seemingly happy workers. I was surprised to see that most of the workers were young, knew the Melvins, and looked trendy in the alternative sense. The master guys in their private spaces of the custom area looked more like what I thought luthiers would look like. The weirdest part of the place was a separate area where there were maybe four dozen Les Pauls with one-of-a-kind graphics....one had Bill Clinton's face on it. The host said that they were going to be destroyed because a disgruntled employee sabotaged them in a way that made them "un-Gibson." He wouldn't tell us what the employee had done, but said the hardware would be stripped off and then the wood would "go to the shredder." We went upstairs to the an office and met a lady who worked with the bigshot artists like Jimmy Page and Joe Perry, and the magníficos Los Lobos. There were signature models there that we played briefly with. One of our party wanted to get a nice SG, but she wouldn't give him a deal any better than some schlep at Guitar Sh*tter would. She said that discounts are based on how many magazines and TV appearances someone made, so we left pretty much disappointed. I have recently heard through little birds that Gibson is in trouble with creditors, but that's just backstage gossip.