Gibson Guitars, the end of an era

I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. Its not like I did not see this coming years ago, when Gibson guitars was doing everything wrong in my opinion and for some reason or another refused to accept the fumbles. To me this is a wake up call to the American Industry, proof that legacy means nothing when vision is lacking.

I hope dear reader that if you are a guitarist yourself consider holding on to your Les Paul with more intent, since these events will add a lot of historic value to the iconic instruments.

If you are however thinking that right now is the time to buy yourself a Les Paul, I wont be the one to disagree with you here. I fully expect for stores to clearance out their current models at irresistible prices and for some of the big chains to do some heavy bulk buying and bully Gibson into an even more epic financial surrender.

Music is not going anywhere

If you have found yourself reading some overly dramatic articles on this subject, resist the temptation to panic. All that is happening is that another legacy company came to an end. As much as this is a sign of the times, a shift of definitions, I don't expect this to have much effect in the amount of music being produced these days.

What might be accurate to deduce from this whole debacle is that more and more musicians are unwilling to pay the prices for a label "made in america". I'm making this assumption as someone who has been on this field for over a decade and has already perceived the shift in quality and expectation.

Are Guitar Heroes are still around?

This is arguable too, because yes there are at this point thousands upon thousands of guitarist who are just as talented as the ones from days past, but I don't know if the audience for the craft is as strong as it was back in those days. There was a time where being a guitarist for a popular band was as admirable as someone who spoke 10 languages, today its just the think your cousin Joey does on the weekends to pay for the beers.

This is not to say there are no legends left.... yes, there are quite a few who clocked out in the past decade, some that forever changed not only what the electric guitar can do, but the music Industry as a whole, but we still got some legendary ones gracing the stages of the world.

Who is to take over?

I suspect no one, there are no substitutes that will suffice for the die hard fans and as far as I'm concerned I don't think the buyers would be interested anyways. As long as we are consuming more and more imports and the middle class loses their purchase power, more and more American industries will continue to close their doors. They can't compete and as far as I know none of the big guitar companies are doing well. The other giant Fender is also trailing behind on their bills, and their best customer Guitar Center is a ticking time bomb.

What is there left to do? All we can do is sit back and watch the engine come to a complete stop...