This is way too good to just talk about on IMM: Gibson Guitars supremely embarrassing Tea Party pandering "Government Series"

I just can't even:

http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Les-Paul/Gibson-USA/Government-Series-II-Les-Paul.aspx

first of all, henry, you broke the law by importing illegal madagascan ebony.

second of all, why the f*ck would ANY company make a political stand on ANY divisive issue? you have just succeeded in alienating a lifelong gibson customer, and i'm guessing i won't be the only one. i will never again buy a new gibson guitar as long as you are president.

there, happy?

can't believe they didn't make that a Ted Nugent signature model

is this Gibson being pissy that the feds smacked them down for using endangered/illegal wood?

Yep. They are also claiming they won I guess. Which if you count paying a $300k fine, being forced to donate $50k to fish and wildlife, and forfeiting $250k worth of illegal wood as winning well

Wow, they actually came up with something dumber than the Firebird X. Kudos!

i hope this is a clever ruse and that if you place an order for this, people from Gibson will just come to your house and rob you.

All things can be reduced and distilled down to branding, I guess.

I know that my industry is not actually the most embarrassing industry out there but man, between this and dorks putting leather clad women draped over their gear IN ADS IN THE ACTUAL YEAR 2014 its hard to believe it isnt sometimes

lmao they made a guitar that is the color of a plastic cafeteria tray and claimed it was some kind of protest?

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/images/products/main/29399/13091/cambro-1418cl161-tan-14-x-18-camlite-tray-12-case.jpg

i mean, seriously

yeah i have the feeling that the board meeting featured a conversation along the lines of "should we make it look ok? nah, only super stupid people are going to buy it, just use the cans of factory rejected primer and call it a day."

This is a terrible, terrible shitty move, but still not as bad as Danelectro supporting Proposition 8.

well shit i had no idea about that, guess i wont be reordering any of those for the shop

this is all news to me. why any guitar manufacturer would take an explicitly political stand is a headscratcher.

Gibson sounds like a terrific company

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Gibson-Guitar-Reviews-E6869.htm

this is all news to me. why any guitar manufacturer would take an explicitly political stand is a headscratcher.

Fender's Stalincaster nearly sunk them in the early 50s.

xp Gibson, the Electronic Arts of the guitar industry

part of the problem with gibson is that their CEO is from all accounts a bonafide megalomaniac. so when the raids for illegal wood happened, he became a poster child and darling for the "jack booted thugs coming for our freedoms" wing of the tea party. never one to fail to believe his own hype, dude got super into getting lauded at conferences of deluded psychopaths, and now he can't get off the pipe of being a repub corporate hero. please note that each of these guitars comes with a hand-signed certificate from henry himself - which you know, who the fuck cares if a CEO signs some shit for you. gibson appears to be stuck with him, so odds are he will happily drag the company the rest of the way down the siphon as long as he keeps getting winkmoticon love letters from ted cruz in his inbox.

ha snoball, a dude in the store said the exact same thing to me earlier today

here's a classy gibson fan in the comments:

james early • 4 days ago −
Despite being a Fender fan (own a Lead II & Lead III) I friggin' love it, just wish it had an old-style double cut Melody Maker body and slim/thin neck. To taunt the pathetic poser-in-chief Gibson could make a laminated body like an Oreo cookie with watermelon seed shaped tuners and Skittles for fretboard markers. Impeach the messianic minstrel !
11 •Reply•Share ›

yep, 11 upvotes.

Well I strongly doubt the Wm Wrigley Jr Corporation would allow Skittles in such a design barring a hefty license fee, at least

Thanks for my new display name jjjusten

haha ok now the industry press is even clowning them, which never happens. i am totally in favor of this turn of events

oh hahahaha among the other aspects of "winning" apparently gibson spent $2.5 million to fight their case. which they lost.

This is a terrible, terrible shitty move, but still not as bad as Danelectro supporting Proposition 8.

― And when you f--- up, you go backwards (snoball), Monday, February 3, 2014 6:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

;_; not getting rid of my DE reissue but this makes me very sad

Well technically it was Stephen Ridinger, owner and president of Evets Corporation, which owns the Danelectro name, who donated money to support Proposition 8.

I mean seriously

hahaha i know

Is that supposed to be the color of tea with milk in it? I don't understand how a baby shit guitar is a symbol of sticking it to the man.

Sorry to hear about the Danelectro clown, too.

http://www2.gibson.com/products/electric-guitars/flying-v/gibson-usa/government-series-ii-flying-v.aspx

"An Iconic Axe - and this "V" stands for victory!"

i dont think the word victory means what you think it means, dudes that are $3 mil poorer.

also might want to do some dictionary research on "infamous"

This Guitar is symbolic as it is a beautiful instrument. It houses more than great artmanship, it houses the " Freedom of Speech". Those of us who have PAID A PRICE to be called " American" , get it. Those of you who have never left mom's basement while dreaming to be the next Hendrix will not get this post , yes ?

kind of feel like saluting a guitar right now

This is a terrible, terrible shitty move, but still not as bad as Danelectro supporting Proposition 8.

― And when you f--- up, you go backwards (snoball), Monday, February 3, 2014 11:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:(

GOVERNMENT TAN

this is amazing

I can get really mad about how Gibson retains all the Gibson cred when their new model guitars, even the topline ones, are just middling compared to price-comparable models from other makers

i think (even without this whole goofball stupidity) thats on the waning side for the big 2 (fender and gibson) honestly - legacy brand loyalty is dependent on maintaining that legacy, and neither of those brands are really pulling that off vs. say marshall or martin etc.

haha ok now the industry press is even clowning them, which never happens. i am totally in favor of this turn of events

― Corpsepaint Counterpaint (jjjusten), Tuesday, February 4, 2014 11:26 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Where are they getting clowned?

wow what assholes & what an ugly guitar

xp Gibson, the Electronic Arts of the guitar industry

― And when you f--- up, you go backwards (snoball), Monday, February 3, 2014 6:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

EA came out very strongly in support of gay marriage fwiw

jjjjjjjjjjjj is there a good rundown of the critical details of the illegal ebony case anywhere? i'd only heard of this thru perusal of rightwing media which surprise hasn't talked much about the company getting spanked

The 'smith is correct -- handmade, good quality Thunderbird copies are available from independant luthiers for was less than the sucky T-bird Gibson makes with those dreadful pickups, and for Gibson money, you can get the one Mike Lull makes, which is fantastic.

we're sort of in the 'mass craft beer' era of guitars aren't we

i'll see what i can find, mostly reported in trade magazines which are kind of invisible on the web most of the time to keep music corps from freaking abt sensitive data xxpost

this is sorta ok i guess http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0807/Gibson-Guitar-Corporation-admits-to-importing-endangered-wood

It's not the 90s, but it's a good time for small bass builders. They may all be starving and about to sell out, but the instruments are good.

Well, regardless of their BATSHIT politics, I just entered to win an LP with an MSRP of $7,800 from AMS.

"We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted, and a matter that could have been addressed with a simple contact a caring human being representing the government," he said in his statement.

he said what

oh my god

"why didn't the government invite me out to tea and ease the conversation over to this sensitive subject after inquiring after the well-being of my family?"

Those affidavits supporting the search warrant that authorized the raids alleged that shipments of imported Indian ebony and rosewood were given false labels to circumvent import restrictions.

The settlement says a Gibson employee learned during a 2008 trip to Madagascar — the source of some of the ebony wood that was seized — that it was illegal to import unfinished wood and sent a report about it to his superiors, including company President David Berryman.

...

Last year, Blackburn and fellow U.S. Reps. Jim Cooper of Nashville, a Democrat, introduced legislation they said would protect people from charges for unknowingly possessing illegally imported wood, and would require the federal government to establish a database of forbidden wood sources.

A coalition of environmental, logging industry and musicians' groups oppose the measure.

i guess there's a kernel of a problem here: if you can't tell where the wood is coming from and/or you can't know whether those sources are deemed illegal or not, any prosecution could seem capricious. (though what's reported here is that the company's leadership knew)

funny that the industry lobbies oppose legislation clarifying the matter. which tells me most high value wood is hella dirty.

the internal memos havent leaked but from what i hear they arent exactly unclear, including a thing where they set up a weird drop off warehouse location where they would go pick up some of this wood directly as they needed it to avoid records of shipping it directly to the factory or having a large quantity on hand, which would have made a really awful subplot for the wire docks season or something

If you go specifically to a country to look at wood, you are pretty damn negligent if you claim you have no idea what the legality of importing from that country is!

I mean, if the wood was from somewhere else and you bought it through a middleman you could claim ignorance, but obviously that wasn't the case

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u120/kingkonggodzilla/Screenshot_2014-02-10-16-29-00_zpsf40deffd.png

Get a load of these fucking chuckleheads.

Oh the sweet sweet lols:

http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/real-estate/2014/04/12/gibson-guitar-sells-nashville-property-nearly-m/7634993/

Wait, what happened? They ditched their plant?

Sale and leaseback it looks like.