Episode 97: The Guitar Store and COVID-19

Episode Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

Emily: [00:00:00] welcome to the get offset podcast. My name is Emily

Andrew: [00:00:16] and name is Andrew.

Emily: [00:00:18] We’re here with James, owner of the guitar store, which is a, at least used to be my friendly neighbor.

Andrew: [00:00:27] Welcome.

James: [00:00:28] Well welcome. Hi, thanks. Thanks for having me.

Emily: [00:00:32] Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for, uh, thanks for joining us. This has been a while in the works

James: [00:00:36] It, it it’s a completely different world than when we first talked about it.

Andrew: [00:00:43] Yeah.

Emily: [00:00:44] Yeah. And we had talked about it, like maybe back in

James: [00:00:47] April, March, April,

Andrew: [00:00:49] something like that.

James: [00:00:50] Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we could say it’s a different world than if we had talked about it and we just talked about it last week at this point.

So

Emily: [00:00:56] that’s the truth. It’s like, I just would like fear to actually, I just want it over with like, I’d rather it be like ripping off a bandaid than what it has been.

James: [00:01:09] We have to have hope the 21 is, is going to be a good year.

Emily: [00:01:15] Yeah.

Andrew: [00:01:16] I’m definitely holding onto that. Doing my best.

James: [00:01:19] Yeah. Do

Emily: [00:01:20] you like things have been a little haywire since Lemmy died.

James: [00:01:24] It all went downhill.

Emily: [00:01:26] Yeah, I really did. Yeah. He was warning us. He was like, I’m going to, I’m going to bounce

James: [00:01:33] when, when that, which cannot be killed as suddenly found a no longer. Okay.

Emily: [00:01:39] Yeah. Maybe we should have been a little more worried than we were.

Andrew: [00:01:43] Yeah. With that logic. That means Keith Richards is going to go in January.

Emily: [00:01:48] Okay. You know what? Andrew, last time had something like that. It was something about how we need a new plague and then COVID happens.

Andrew: [00:01:57] don’t get to play joke in January didn’t they?

Emily: [00:02:00] So you don’t get too many jokes about that destruction anymore because I fear your collective power.

Andrew: [00:02:08] Well, I am a man of guide, so I’ll take that as compliment.

Uh, so James, uh, so I met James, uh, fortuitously, um, within the first like week I’d moved to Seattle. Um, it’s a funny little story I had. So I was working at guitar center down in Pasadena, down Los Angeles. And I transferred up to the Seattle area because I was moving. So I was, uh, working at the downtown location that is no longer rest in peace.

But, uh, was literally my first day on the job. And I’m like, alright, I’m kind of familiar with how GC works. It’s just trying to figure out the different idiosyncrasies of the store. And, uh, and this guy walks in like super gregarious, super friendly. He knows, uh, the managers at the time, Joey, he knows bender who, one of the other sales reps that had just met and he’s rolling in.

A ton of super amps. And I’m like, what in the world is going on? This is not what I thought my first day at GC was going to be like, uh, and that man was James got to meet him and really fond memory. And I don’t think I’ve actually run into you since then, but that really stands out in my memory is like, Hey, that was James.

James: [00:03:21] Well, it was a weird, it was a weird deal. I, I was wholesaling a pallet of. Amplifiers to the evil empire. Uh, and we both thought we were getting over on each other. So it was, it was really one of those, one of those strange times of why not be your various and why not be weird. And, and, and, and somehow I actually hired Patrick.

Yeah, yeah. That was the day that I hired Patrick. So, wow. It even got stranger. One of the, one of the, one of the guys that was working at that guitar center with you at that time, and. Yeah, that was a, and I used to manage that guitar center back in the nineties. So we, we can roll it back and it’s, uh, it was just a, a fun place to be a facetious set.

Andrew: [00:04:14] Yeah. I mean, I didn’t realize you, you managed it back in the nineties. Crazy.

James: [00:04:21] Yeah, I guess actually early 2000 or 2000 was when I was at that store. So

well

Emily: [00:04:25] that, that guitar center is no more. They moved up to like two blocks North of the trading musician, which just seems like the rudest thing in the world.

James: [00:04:34] Although, you know, if you look at the history and, and first we got to look at now brick and mortar. Retail is a completely passe event. Uh, but if you look at the history of brick and mortar retail, In in am I, a lot of stores have done really well being right next to guitar

Emily: [00:04:55] centers. Yeah. I, I say that, but when I went to the trading musician, right after the guitar center opened, uh, they said that it wasn’t hurting their business at all, because it’s like if guitar center didn’t have something, then they’d go down to trading musician and sort of vice versa.

And they’re very, they’re such different stores. Like, yeah. Like if he wants something that’s. Used and weird the trading musicians, your place. Also, if you want attack, if you want any tech work, I’d probably recommend them over some other places, but

James: [00:05:29] yeah. Yeah. And they can, they can afford to pay more for used gear than GC or, or have maybe a different value or, or see the use in use gear more than, than guitar center.

Can. So yeah,

Andrew: [00:05:46] guitar center, a that habit of really undervaluing stuff, because they, they don’t know very well, especially boutique stuff. They’re like, well, there’s only a handful of these out and I’m seeing listings for 400 and revert, but yeah, we’ll, we’ll give you $90 for that. Chase was federal.

Emily: [00:06:02] Well, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a true story from Andrew.

Andrew: [00:06:05] That is a true story.

James: [00:06:07] Yeah. That’s, that’s a, you know, they, they. I have a hard time bringing people in and filling the positions. And one of the things that happens when you have a large company, is it really so much of the time is, is spent just training someone how to work in that company. What is, what is the language that we speak here?

How do we do transfers? How do we do a sale? What is the protocol who’s in what level of hierarchy? And if so much time is being spent on that. And the, the huge amount of product. So they sell just in, in their lines. It’s really hard for people to be nerds and stay on top of the other, the other stuff that’s out there.

And maybe by smaller companies that can’t afford to deal with with a large corporation like that. Hmm. Sure, sure. I

Andrew: [00:06:56] mean, I definitely, I agree with that assessment and I agree that boutique has a really hard time in that big box brick and mortar store. The way that guitar center runs it, or the same time, uh, CME and Sweetwater have done a much better job with that.

And I’d be really curious. What specifically allows them to handle the, uh, the new ones of working with the boutique world, but we’re, we’re getting, we’re getting into the sticks here. Why don’t we start with what we’re drinking? And then we’ll move on to what’s new

Emily: [00:07:28] in coffee. I am 39 in the morning on a Sunday morning and I’m drinking coffee.

I think it’s the I don’t. So my band have, uh, two of them do a. Pickup box or delivery box every week from the market. Um, that’s pike place market, uh, for those outside of Seattle is thing. Um, and they always get like more coffee than they can use. So I think it’s either called the market blend or the Seattle blend from one of the roasters down at, um, at the market.

It’s good, especially good. When you put an ice cube in it, so you can drink it more work quickly.

James: [00:08:13] What are you drinking? Andrew?

Andrew: [00:08:15] I, I am not drinking anything alcoholic partially because it’s a, before 10:00 AM

Emily: [00:08:22] nine 40 on a Sunday,

Andrew: [00:08:23] nine 40 on a Sunday. So that’s part of the reason the other part of the reason I’m not drinking alcohol is I can’t for the next couple of months. Doctor’s orders. Uh, I had my sleep study done.

I think I talked about this a couple episodes ago and I felt like a modular sense. I had like 30 patch leads attached to me at all different points on my body. Uh, came back and have some happy answers and happy answers, meaning I just know why I haven’t been sleeping. The downside is part of settling into the new routine is taking a teetotal or break and, uh, adjusting to some new treatment options.

So. That’s all of that said I’m drinking Kirkland, cold brew with chocolate milk in it.

Emily: [00:09:02] Ooh, chocolate milk is always a good choice for cold brew.

Andrew: [00:09:05] I think it works really nicely and it’s not overly sweet. I find when I get like a cold brew from somewhere else, it just kind of, there’s just way too much sugar in it to cut the

Emily: [00:09:14] bite.

Well, that’s, I think that’s part of the brewing process. Sometimes cold brew is just a lot sweeter.

Andrew: [00:09:21] Depends on the beans, right?

Emily: [00:09:23] Lots of

Andrew: [00:09:24] factors.

Emily: [00:09:25] Yeah. What about you, James? What are you drinking?

James: [00:09:30] We kind of talked about this a little bit before we got on the air. I, I was going to go across the street here to the coffee shop and grab a cup of coffee.

And, and as I was walking across the street, doesn’t have the rudest people I’ve ever seen in my life just ran in front of me. And I think they meant to knock me over. But. They didn’t, but I knew, I know they were trying to assault me and they got in my way, so I couldn’t go get coffee and be here on time.

Uh, I went back and I found a can of, uh, the Yerba latte, enlightened mint flavor, and it’s lukewarm and it’s almost gone. So. Uh,

Emily: [00:10:12] it’s I guess it wasn’t that bad.

James: [00:10:13] It’s not that bad. I think it would be better if it was chilled and I kind of feel the effects. I’m a little, you’re not jittery, but like I probably will move this squeaky chair out of my way and a little bit, and just stand for the rest of this.

Andrew: [00:10:32] Are you feeling enlightened?

James: [00:10:34] Aye. Aye. Aye. I wouldn’t say enlightened, but I might be a little, I might wax a little spiritual today. Holler. Right.

Andrew: [00:10:44] I can roll with that.

Emily: [00:10:45] Andrew speed a little bit. That’s I mean, not as spiritual as if you had the year of a latte and then you played the Iowasca pedal from chase bliss, but still

James: [00:10:57] that’s that’s, uh, that’s some special next level.

Uh, I’d have to start a band with one of those names. That means nothing. That sounds like they’re going to be really loud and heavy and is really just quiet and dark. Right.

Emily: [00:11:16] I’ve always wanted to start a band called absolute nightmare. That was like that. That sounds like a metal brand right ass Anthon for short, like I’ve given a lot of thought to it.

Andrew: [00:11:32] Alright.

James: [00:11:34] That’s a, I’m trying to picture, does that have the issue of having words that actually make a phrase with each other? That I was part of a discussion yesterday about how, how to have a real metal band. You kind of have to have two words that. Don’t really blend in with each other

Emily: [00:11:56] example.

James: [00:11:57] You give me an example.

Oh,

Emily: [00:11:59] you’re you to some metal and hardcore Andrew.

Andrew: [00:12:02] Sure. But I want to hear his examples.

James: [00:12:05] Uh, it could be something like urine, gaffer.

Emily: [00:12:10] Yeah. You’re in gaffer.

James: [00:12:13] Yeah. And then decide project would have something to do with that. It would be, it would be lighting. Wall bender.

Emily: [00:12:24] Yeah. So those are like, like you roll the dice on top of a dictionary.

James: [00:12:30] Yeah, totally. It’s a, it’s one of those. You had the boggle game from the nineties and you shook it, but, but you just put nonsense word on the dice.

Andrew: [00:12:41] Sure, sure, sure. I could see, I can see where you’re going with that. I don’t disagree.

Emily: [00:12:45] Oh, I thought you were going to say it has the problem with having the F word in it.

James: [00:12:51] I just heard a kitten. That’s aye.

Emily: [00:12:54] Oh, yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Yeah. I think I’m the only one with access to these. Um, isn’t that cute? But I was at, um, I was at the PR and turnout beggars group when EFT up, uh, released an album or was like about to go into an album cycle. And, uh, I, I forget exactly how they were handling that, but they were looking at the band.

Um, wholly and, uh, I guess the PR firm, Holy, um, they, they would call it Holy Frick and, and emails. Holy Frick. It just sounds like something that they would say the pulley and dynamite.

James: [00:13:42] Yeah. Yeah. It made it a much more indie band. Gosh, Holy Frick. Give me some of your Holy Frick Napoleon.

Emily: [00:13:53] Eat your day in case Villa.

James: [00:13:56] I’m just, I’m just picturing, throwing things at Alama, but

Emily: [00:14:01] what’s the Lama’s name? As I say it’s like Sharon or something. Tina. Yeah, no, that’s a movie that like, I was not on that way of life. Like I watched it a couple of times, including once in theaters and I was like, what? I don’t, I don’t, I just do. I like it.

James: [00:14:22] Yeah, it was, it was a weird one. I, I started at the Seattle film festival and. You know, I, a friend of mine, Stan had tickets for us there. You want to go see this movie? It’s about a guy who has like these boots and big puffy hair. Awesome.

Emily: [00:14:39] That sounds like a plot. That’s a great,

James: [00:14:41] yeah, it was like, that

Andrew: [00:14:42] was the plot.

James: [00:14:43] Yeah. It’s 11:00 AM. Sure. I’ll I’ll I’ll walk down and meet ya. Yeah.

Andrew: [00:14:48] But yeah, it’s definitely a. It seems like a completely pointless movie, but it somehow taps into like what makes a movie, a cult classic with a one-liners and the strange lovability of the characters and that it is just a much better movie when you’re not sober, but.

Emily: [00:15:07] Well, everyone I knew who was obsessed with it. Like these were middle school and like early high school kids, they weren’t, they weren’t getting drunk or high and watching Napoleon dynamite. They just loved it more sincerely

James: [00:15:18] than that. Sure, sure. But

Andrew: [00:15:19] middle school, like dumb kid syndrome, I think.

Definitely. Does not qualify as being sober either. Like there’s a level of like, you hear what he said, guys, that kind of falls in the same category for me is like, as an adult, like, Oh yeah. I’m like just finished off a whole, whatever. I might be imbibing and laughing like that. I don’t know.

James: [00:15:41] So maybe, maybe getting, maybe getting high regresses you to middle school.

Andrew: [00:15:45] There we go. Now we’re talking.

James: [00:15:47] When was the first time that you got high?

Emily: [00:15:50] Ooh, personal question, right?

Andrew: [00:15:53] This is a personal question. Um, couple of years ago,

Emily: [00:15:57] 29 for me probably.

James: [00:16:00] Okay.

Andrew: [00:16:00] 23 for me.

James: [00:16:02] So I was in middle school, but anyway,

Emily: [00:16:05] there are lots of kids in my middle school who got high. I was just very, very goal oriented in middle school and high school.

Like I really very badly wanted to go to NYU. So I just studied a lot and played a lot of guitar. That was my middle school at high school. That was not fun.

Andrew: [00:16:26] Well, real quick, let’s run around. Let’s chat about what’s new. I don’t know about you guys, but it’s been an eventful week for me. So I have so much to share.

Emily: [00:16:35] Let’s start with you because I know that you’re very excited that you finally got.

Andrew: [00:16:40] Uh, yeah, so let me start with my new gear day. A new gear day was yesterday for me. I had a little bit of a trade going on and I walked out with a first run Pelican noise, worked 60 cycle hum, 50 50

James: [00:16:54] pedal,

Andrew: [00:16:55] which I’m really excited about orange.

It is orange. Therefore it’s a good pedal. And that’s, that’s my criteria. Uh, but I’ve been wanting one of these for quite some time. The trade was made available by someone, uh, one of the owners who was giving theirs up. And I couldn’t say no. So I did it and made it happen. Pretty excited about that.

Emily: [00:17:17] Nice.

What’d you trade for it? That’s part of your trade up

Andrew: [00:17:21] series, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, for those of you might not have been listening long enough, uh, about year and a half ago, I started out with a. Electro harmonics Muff overdrive, which is like a 20, $30 tops. Uh, um, one knob overdrive. And it’s, I didn’t like it at all, but, um, so be it.

And I started trading it, um, trading up and up and up to see how far I could get it without putting any cash into it. And finally got to a point where I now have two pedals. Well, I had an alter ego V two and a DOD FX 67. And what I traded for was the alter ego V2. And for the first time in this whole process, I added some cash to the deal.

So I did the alter ego V2 plus some cash. But if I sell the FX 67, I get that cash back. And I’m now breaking, even starting with a Muff Odie, all the way up into this, a hard to find gym.

James: [00:18:11] That’s that’s to tell you my, my, my takeaway for your trade up story is, is that I I’ve been. Yeah. In the guitar business for, since the early nineties and a lot of that into big pedal shop, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen them as overdrive sell new.

Emily: [00:18:35] Okay.

James: [00:18:35] So just that being out there in the world as a new pedal or as a used pedal is, is an interesting anomaly to me.

Andrew: [00:18:42] I paid $25 for it, shipped to my front door from someone who decided they hated it and didn’t want it. What

James: [00:18:50] did you think about the meth overdrive when you got it?

Andrew: [00:18:52] I felt about the same way.

I really didn’t like it. Um, and I, I think it’s only usable if you have a master volume for it, or if you’re willing to, just to play at stage volumes. If, if I got it dialed in it in the right, like there’s one now there’s really only one good sweet spot on it. And I just had a really hard time finding it when I did, it was inevitably way too loud for my setup.

Why

Emily: [00:19:14] didn’t you just turn down your master volume?

Andrew: [00:19:17] I mean, that’s how I got to that sweet spot. I just, it never worked quite right in my rig. And you know how church folks are about gain stages. We want that unity, unity gain all the way through like our, our 10 to 15 overdrives and distortions, but not flat as Jesus.

Doesn’t like phys. So

Emily: [00:19:33] sure. What about the swells? Does he like it for the swells?

Andrew: [00:19:37] So, uh, yeah, so I got rid of it and I have not looked back, have not missed that pedal once. Yup.

Emily: [00:19:45] Good. That’s the point? It was funny. We actually did that at the guitars, the guitar, um, the co Tacoma guitar show festival. And, um, I traded the gosh, what was that?

I don’t even know the, the company anymore. It was a timber overdrive.

James: [00:20:06] Do you remember

Andrew: [00:20:06] Andrew? I don’t remember what it was exactly what it was. I just remember. I was like, Oh, this is a small builder. I’ve never really heard of.

James: [00:20:14] Cool.

Emily: [00:20:15] Yeah. But, uh, I don’t remember. I’m going to have to look it up, but, um, I traded that to the same person who you traded.

Uh, you did the first trade for the, the, your, your $20. I

Andrew: [00:20:31] think I did five trades that day. Yeah, I

Emily: [00:20:34] just did. I just did one, but I traded that puddle. I paid a hundred bucks for even for some weird circuit vendor DS. One thing that I then traded for, uh, the infinite jets. So,

Andrew: [00:20:46] so James, for context, when I walked into the guitar show, I had that, um, I think I had the Muff overdrive when I went in and I walked out with a maiden Japan G seven.

James: [00:20:57] You did fantastic.

Emily: [00:20:58] Yes. Yeah. I think that like having a microphone on people and being like it’s part of it. Yeah. Thing.

James: [00:21:06] Like,

Emily: [00:21:07] I think that helps.

Andrew: [00:21:09] For sure, for sure. A other big thing on my radar that happened this week that went live, uh, Fox Cairo and Squatch design co, which is part of the sinusoid brands, family.

Uh, we’ve got a collab up in their store, uh, for the Dunlop mini DVP four. So if you want a topper for your DVP four, go check it out. Tell me what you think. And there’s only a few of them in the shop left. So order one before they’re gone.

Emily: [00:21:35] Nice. Very cool. Well,

Andrew: [00:21:39] Emily, what’s new with you.

Emily: [00:21:41] I have, uh, a lot of new things.

Uh, this week I got the Keeley caverns, the new, uh, Bohemian bunny, uh, limited the

Andrew: [00:21:50] artwork. That one looks so good.

Emily: [00:21:54] Yeah. I’m excited. I think, I think I’m going to play it on. Um, I’m doing a little remote recording session. Uh, today. I’m probably gonna try it today, but, um, The, the thing I’m kinda more excited about is I, uh, so my friend, my drummer, he bought, he wants to learn guitar or play my guitar.

So he had bought this, this really kind of crappy all parts, Telecaster thing, um, on the gear swap, but he’s been trying to, to get rid of it cause he bought a, uh, J maskus Squier, Jazzmaster that he liked a lot

more.

Emily: [00:22:29] So I’ve been trying to help him unload it. And he messages me last this past week and he says, uh, someone wants to trade my guitar for, with plus a little cash for, um, this Epiphone E T two 75, AKA a crest.

It’s like a Crestwood from the seventies. And, uh, so I said to him, If you trade that to him, I will buy it from you. So I traded 250 bucks and an SM 57, and I have a, an up from Crestwood kind of ETA two 75. I think there, I get conflicting reports as to whether they’re different

James: [00:23:11] guitars. They seem pretty similar if they’re not the same thing, you know, that that could have been a different branding.

Change them. Yeah.

Emily: [00:23:24] Yeah. It’s the flattest fretboard radius I’ve ever played. It has a really, really thin the neck also is. It’s interesting. It’s an interesting feel. It’s not for everybody, but I, I of dig it.

Andrew: [00:23:36] I mean, I I’m good with calling it whatever we want. I mean, it’s not like Gibson’s got a history of a really, really holding to the naming convention of, of that series of guitars.

So.

Emily: [00:23:48] Yeah, but it’s, it’s, it’s nice. I’m really, I haven’t had, I guess it’s been almost a year since I’ve had, um, a Gibson or Epiphone branded guitar in my possession. Oh, that’s not true electric guitars. I’ve always, I’m going to have to give some hummingbird til I die.

Andrew: [00:24:05] Reasonable, reasonable. So, James, anything new with you this week before we jump into the main topic?

James: [00:24:13] Well, yeah, I actually, I got one of the weirdest guitars that I’ve. Ever had in a trade this week or at the end of the middle of last week, I guess. Yes. I got a Washburn, Forrest Lee, jr. B bender, acoustic. Why it’s okay. Exactly. So this guy came in the record shop and said, Hey, you know, there’s this Yamaha like, and, and what would you think about trading?

I’ve got this, I’ve got this Washburn and I couldn’t hear him. He’s got a little Scottish accent. We’ve got masks on and it’s a record shop. So music’s really loud. And you mean communication and said the record stores become a pain, but anyway, I was like, well, I’d have to see it. And I thought, I heard him say, as he was walking out the door.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s it’s, they’re gonna be bender. And he just kind of Scrooge McDuck and walked, walked out door and a little bit later thought, did he say be better? And he walked in and I saw an acoustic case and it’s said, okay, well then it’s not what I was. And I opened it up and at the, uh, the.

Strap pin up at the top of the guitar. There is a pulley and it, it has a B bender and what a weird thing. Right? Uh, how, how

Andrew: [00:25:38] do you even begin to do that in an acoustic?

James: [00:25:41] So inside there was a, there’s a rail that goes through the inside of the guitar comes up and on the B pin. There’s a, there’s a it’s instead of being a pin that goes through, it’s a, it’s a little ratchet and it gets twisted that the string is wrapped in that ratchet and it jumps up and goes up a half step.

Um, and, or you can actually adjust it a little bit to go up, you know what you’d like it to go up and right. And yeah, it’s, it’s actually a really solid device. I went into the office. It’s not a thin piece of steel that the bar is everything’s really well done. Well-made uh, the guitar is, is Rosewood with a nice piece of spruce on the top and it sounds great place.

Great. There’s one of those, uh, uh, Torch of life in lays in it, which I don’t really care. I don’t, I’m not a huge inlay, unless it says something like, you know, like someone’s name on it. That is not mine, you know? And yeah, I, I have no use for it whatsoever. And I, unless someone trades me something really weird for it, I will never get rid of that guitar.

I don’t

Andrew: [00:26:58] blame you that

Emily: [00:27:00] you gotta hold onto the weird stuff.

James: [00:27:03] Yeah, that’s, that’s really, the obsession is if, if it’s strange and un-useful, I need to have it. No,

Emily: [00:27:11] I get that. Like most of my guitars at this point are so weird that I’m not really sure how easily I’d even be able to sell them if I wanted to, but I definitely don’t want to people ask all the time to buy my, um, Squire pawn shop series offset.

So it’s like the. The, the pink with the F hole and this offset, and it’s got two humbuckers that look like jazz masters. And, um, people ask constantly to, to buy that guitar for me. But then after I say, well, what do you want to pay for it? They, they stop responding.

James: [00:27:49] All right.

Emily: [00:27:50] Like everything’s for sale truly.

Like, except for my tuna town, everything I have, like has a price, like there’s a price where I would get rid of it, for sure.

James: [00:27:59] Yeah. As someone comes and offers you a life changing amount for anything there’s that. Sure. And even some non-life changing amounts. Right.

Emily: [00:28:08] But yeah,

James: [00:28:09] yeah, yeah,

Emily: [00:28:09] yeah. Totally like, okay.

You want my, um, you want, you want, you want to buy one of my weird guitars? Like yeah. I mean, there’s sure how much, how much, how much, how much money do you want it? Like.

Andrew: [00:28:24] Right, right, right.

Emily: [00:28:25] On a fly. How much you want this weird, weird instrument I have

Andrew: [00:28:28] will. Well, thanks for sharing that story about that acoustic B bender.

I might have to, I might have to make a drive out your direction at some point, just to come check that out. That sounds super cool.

James: [00:28:38] Yeah. I, I, it will be up in the synthesizer room and, and we’ll have to come out and we’ll, we’ll go up. When the shop’s closed up in there in my weird layer and, and, uh, yeah, that’s, the trick would really be to, to be playing some vintage since along with that, to just make it strange in a way that doesn’t make any sense.

Andrew: [00:29:00] Love it. Um, all right. Let’s, uh, let’s jump in our sponsors real quick. And then we’ll, I we’ll jump into the main topic. We got some good stuff today.

Emily: [00:29:13] I mean, Andrew, you’re the one with the pedal from the sponsor.

Andrew: [00:29:16] Oh yeah, that that’s true. I was like, as I’m really good to start, like, Oh wait, I’ve got the, yeah. So I’ve got the pedal hooked up on my board. Um, it’s the, uh, where’s my board. I can’t even see my board from here. Um,

Emily: [00:29:35] It’s the blister and peel, but

Andrew: [00:29:38] thank you.

Thank you. My is still spinning a blister appeal by spend lot effects. So I put that on my board last night, along with, uh, the 50 50 that I got. And so I swapped out the, I had a walrus congra on there and the Mount hood phys. Uh, so I pulled those two off and swatch the other two on, and I’m super blown away by how.

Much range that has the, uh, the appeal side of things, especially with the fat knob. Oh my goodness. That, that cleans up so nicely and gets like these really thick, like jazzy tones. Uh, I mean,

Emily: [00:30:13] okay.

Andrew: [00:30:15] But like, it rolls down to like, just it’s it’s not even a fuzzy anymore. That’s just an overdrive or a boost.

I mean, it got, if you roll the fat knob all the way up and the gain knob down quite a bit, I mean, it’s not even clipping. It’s just now you’re in preamp territory and I just really enjoyed it when I, uh, dimey it out. Uh, it’s still a fuzz, but it doesn’t like. It doesn’t respond. How I imagine a fuzz would respond.

It’s got more of a distortion feel to it, but it’s like sound quality. So it’s like this nice hybrid between the two and not like in like a rat or like a dig Muff way where people are like, Oh, it’s a foot as nodes of distortion. Like make up your mind. You’re like, no, like this is still very clearly its own thing.

And, um, I was really enjoying the sounds. I was getting out of it. Uh, I was stacking it with the two 50. Um, and, uh, playing it with my guitar I’ve got in dropsy and just getting some really gnarly low tones is awesome. So anyways, it’s orange. That’s my criteria for what makes a pedal good. But moving past that fact, it’s actually a really, really, really solid pedal.

And you should go buy one. You should do a

Emily: [00:31:27] photo shoot with the spun loud and your orange guitar.

Andrew: [00:31:33] I can do that. Yeah, that means I have to take it off my pedal board. Are you trying to get me to take it off my pedal board? I told you once it goes on, it’s never coming

Emily: [00:31:40] back. I told you that that’s rude.

Andrew: [00:31:43] It is rude, but it’s a nice pedal.

I don’t want to give it

Emily: [00:31:45] back. I mean, too bad.

Andrew: [00:31:50] Fine.

Emily: [00:31:52] I gave you the congre.

Andrew: [00:31:55] I know, I know it’s just fun to spin up. It’s just fun to spin up a little bit of drama. Cause he and I don’t disagree as much as we thought we would.

Emily: [00:32:02] I don’t know about that. I disagree with that.

Andrew: [00:32:06] Alrighty.

James: [00:32:07] So,

Emily: [00:32:09] but at James, have you, have you heard of spun loud?

Um, they’re based out of, uh, West Seattle.

James: [00:32:14] No, I haven’t. Who is it?

Emily: [00:32:16] It’s a guy, a fellow named Dan. And, uh, this is the  of his, of his it’s the only, well, actually he has two. Um, but it’s the only one I think that’s really super duper in production right now. Um, yeah, but it’s, uh, it’s nice. Local, always like those local builders, like recovery and spun loud and sinusoid and Lawler even.

James: [00:32:41] Well, I have to, now I have to find one and check it out.

Emily: [00:32:45] Yeah,

James: [00:32:46] do it.

Emily: [00:32:47] Ooh. Tell Dan we sent you. I

James: [00:32:50] will. Well, maybe Dan’s listening and Dan could say, Oh, I need to talk to James too. I

Emily: [00:32:57] think he does. Listen.

James: [00:32:59] There you go. Hi Dan.

Emily: [00:33:01] Hi Dan. Hi

James: [00:33:03] Dan.

Emily: [00:33:05] Oh, that was weird. And I’m sure you regretted it as soon as you did it.

Andrew: [00:33:08] I don’t regret

James: [00:33:09] much,

Emily: [00:33:11] but you do regret that. Is that where that’s going?

Andrew: [00:33:13] No.

Emily: [00:33:14] Alright. Alright. Alright. Alright. Okay, cool. Uh, so, um,

Andrew: [00:33:19] so topics today. Topics Dave. So we brought James on the show. He, uh, he’s the owner of the guitar store and that’s been through AI, some serious ups and downs with the world of COVID and now some changes with the USBs.

And we wanted to bring you on to have a, a free form conversation about what your experience has been like as a business owner, through these trends. Well, sometimes, and just kind of talk and process through that. And. And then we’ll transition the conversation into what you think things are gonna look like moving forward.

And what are some of our takeaways for other business owners and for consumers who deal with business owners as we’re all moving forward, uh, in the world of hopefully soon to be post COVID, but not for, not as soon as we would, like, how does that sound?

James: [00:34:06] It’s going to be awhile.

Andrew: [00:34:08] We

James: [00:34:08] can. Yeah, that said, I think the first thing through everything that, that you just brought up.

Well it into his wheat. I think for sanity sake, I have to accept. And I think everybody else does it. This is going to be awhile. We’re going to, we’re going to live with, with this disease, with this virus and the after effects and the side effects for quite a while as a society and sure, sure. And that.

That doesn’t mean that everything has to be doomy and gloomy in India. It just means that we have to accept the fact that, that uh, we’re we’re going to have to do some work. Sure.

Andrew: [00:34:47] We got to adapt and overcome as best as we can.

James: [00:34:51] Yeah. And that’s a bummer cause I, you know, I just want to play video games and guitar and, and, you know, um, play around with my cats and do nothing all day.

So yeah. Uh, yeah. But that doesn’t happen.

Andrew: [00:35:09] Right? So if I may, uh, if I may poke and prod a little bit, it, a little bit of a painful memory, uh, the guitar store location in Seattle is shut down. And could you tell us a little bit more about. The circumstances of that and kind of what our takeaways are, uh, looking back, cause that happened a few months ago.

James: [00:35:28] It did, it happened. It happened in March. Um, well, every, everyone in the state of Washington, not everyone businesses that were selected as not essential in the state of Washington or shut down, uh, in the middle of March this year. I actually a few days before that we, a couple of weeks before that we had started to limit our operations.

Uh, the shutdown was evident. It was, it was something that we saw coming. Uh, we had, when the local school districts started to close schools, we closed our, our in store teaching program and we had. Put the door to a buzz in. So we could limit the amount of people coming into the shop, requested that everybody wash their hands.

When they came into the store in one of the bathrooms we had, and just try to start limiting the amount of touches that people would have on instruments. At that point, we didn’t know how long this lived on surfaces. There was, there was a lot of information, it was unknown and we took a fairly conservative approach.

Early on, uh, early meeting a week before everything shut down. Uh, but in the middle of that week, we had a sewage backup from 83rd street, uh, you know, in the city line that backed up water into our bathroom in the teaching area, and then seeped out onto our, our, you know, through the teaching room, into the Salesforce and.

We couldn’t get anybody from the city to come in, uh, which effectively condemned us in a place where we had to have people wash their hands coming in. Uh, and then a few days later, the statewide mandate came to shut down the store and that was an indefinite period. Uh, about a month into it, it became obvious this was going to be a long shutdown and.

At the end of April, still not be no gay resolve and getting the, the, the city to do anything about the sewage issue. Uh, we decided to move out of the store. Uh, we were as our lawyer terms that constructively evicted from the location. And I spent the month of may traveling back and forth from port towns and where I live.

Taking a ferry over to Seattle filling my van up, bringing stuff back over to port towns. And I have a record store out here and a storage warehouse, uh, that was in the middle of being turned into a synthesizer museum and is now just a storage warehouse, um, and just moved all the product out to get it out of there.

And it was me and. Yeah, unfortunately, that really drove home. The idea that I, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to look for another place in the Seattle area. I had been previously, uh, the building had been purchased and we knew that we only had a matter of time if that was nine months or three years in that spot, uh, before the, the demo was going to happen and the condo would start to go up.

So I’d been looking for places. In North Seattle to move the shop to, uh, I I’ve just, I decided after hauling everything out so quickly that I, I’m not going to at least for the mid-length future look for another location in Seattle again. So yeah, I

Emily: [00:39:10] mean, that’s fair. It’s, it’s a, it’d be a really odd time to start.

A brick and mortar thing in a new location.

James: [00:39:18] I, you know, what, what are, what do you even do? We’re out here. We’re limited to how many people we can have in at a time. I still don’t like the idea of people touching and handling the instruments. And then they can’t just go back on the wall. And, you know, the question comes, how do you disinfect something with a nitrocellulose finish?

You

Emily: [00:39:41] let it sit for three days.

James: [00:39:44] So every time that I demo a guitar, it’s now off the floor for three days. Know, so I’m doing appointments and, and try to have people set up to appointments that doesn’t, I’m not completely strict on it. There was a kid that came in yesterday and he, he came over from Whidbey Island, uh, you know, walked on the ferry and walked over here and he asked about an instrument and I said, well, you know, I’ve gotta do appointments.

He’s like, yeah, I knew I should have called. And what do you think that he ended up buying a West Paul and Michelle. Hey, happy ending. He was actually, he walked out of here, like, like kind of floating across the street, uh,

Emily: [00:40:25] a new guitar glow.

James: [00:40:26] Oh, he was, I think he was like the first serious instrument that you’d ever owned.

So, um, you know, and, and I, I. You know, there, there there’s, there’s the map world. And then there’s the, what things get sold at world. And he got it at the, what it’s been sold at world and said, wow, that’s cheaper than, than, you know, the behemoth stores. And, uh, you know, uh, that’s, that’s less than online.

It’s like, well, yeah, you, you walked in and we talked like human beings and you were pretty cool. Right. So, um, Yeah. So anyway, that that’s where this is. And I, I expect we’re going to see another shutdown again. Uh, seems like the state of Washington is. Creeping back up with infection rates. And, um, you know, we just heard yesterday that, you know, on this side of the water, out of the peninsula, that, that the hospital in Bremerton had 30 infections that they, they tested positive.

They came positive feedback yesterday morning in the hospital.

Emily: [00:41:28] That’s not good.

James: [00:41:29] No, that’s when that’s, when you start to see the real issue and when healthcare becomes unable to serve. That is the concern that, that everyone who seems to take this seriously has

Emily: [00:41:41] it’s like, I think I saw a tweet that said, uh, when things opened back up, it’s not because COVID is gone.

It means there’s a hospital that available for you.

James: [00:41:51] Yeah. And, and if the hospitals go out,

Emily: [00:41:55] then that’s when we close things back up.

James: [00:41:57] Yeah. And yeah, so that. Yeah, that was more reactionary

Emily: [00:42:02] than I would like, but,

James: [00:42:05] well, that’s, that’s it. And we’re, and the good news is, is that it sounds like we’re rounding the corner of we’re understanding.

And we have people who actually know what they’re talking about that are understanding what options may be available for unrolling, vaccines and, and treatments. And. Lowering lowering D the bad effects of the infection when it hits. Um, yeah. I, and we have to have hope for that, and we all want it to be gone.

Uh, it, I don’t believe that it’s going to miraculously just disappear one day, but between hygiene and science, Yeah.

Emily: [00:42:51] Hopefully we can figure something out. Yeah,

James: [00:42:54] yeah, totally. For sure.

Emily: [00:42:56] I know that, um, just even in general, before, before COVID like fender, I put out studies showing that, you know, more people in general are buying guitars online than before.

So, I mean, I, I think it’s very hard for a lot of people to just go in and spend the amount of money or make the investment they would make on a guitar, um, online completely. But I what’s kind of your perspective on that. Do you think that there will always be people who want to go in and actually feel the guitarist in their hands?

Cause I know a lot of women who are first time buyers, they just. Buy something online because they don’t want to go into a store because they don’t really either, they know what that situation is going to be like, or they are, and they don’t like that. Or they have no idea what it’s going to be like. And they’re kind of afraid for the worst.

James: [00:43:51] Oh, yeah, that that’s, I mean, you just, you just said it a couple of different points there, right? Um, I’ll start with the first one that fits the buying online is only going to increase and that’s at all levels. That’s from the beginner, uh, the cheapest guitar on Amazon, which. Don’t buy that, um,

Emily: [00:44:15] aren’t space correctly, people.

This is the truth.

James: [00:44:18] Yeah. If you, if you want to play that guitar a year from now, that is not the guitar you want to buy.

Andrew: [00:44:24] You’ll just find yourself throwing it off a bridge.

James: [00:44:26] Yeah, it, this, this will be, uh, this, this experience will not be fun or enjoyable for you at all. Uh, to the real high end collectable instrument.

Yeah, I sell more Gibson, Paul Reed, Smith and fender custom shops online than I ever would in the store. Wow.

Andrew: [00:44:44] That’s wild

James: [00:44:46] by far by far. And you know, that was one that was when I was in a major metropolitan area with a very well established, very well staffed store 

Andrew: [00:44:57] or the moment they got into town.

James: [00:44:59] Yeah.

And. Uh, you know, part of that is I, I take, I have, I have a photo set that I like to use with every instrument. And there are 15 pictures that I like to get up of the instrument. Uh, I like to have at least a short video that’s out there if it’s not just on social media, but actually on listings, too.

People who are in the market for those instruments, know what they want. They know what it’s going to play. Like. They, they’re not just blindly buying something and they’re willing to take that risk. The, the people that really should have the experience of an in store are the ones buying the first instrument.

Uh,

Andrew: [00:45:45] totally

James: [00:45:46] there there’s something about it. Uh, someone comes into the store, let’s say they don’t, they don’t know. They’ve never even held an instrument before they ever hold a guitar. For me, they played clarinet in, in middle school or there was a piano in the house growing up, or, you know, my grandma had an acoustic guitar or, you know, but we can, we can, we can learn an E chord and a G and, and maybe even if there’s some type of advanced person that they can, they can switch those two.

While we’re sitting there and Lauren just, they don’t even know what it means that they, that they’re now have a cord there, but they, they they’ve been showing something, um, pick a few things up and it’s really weird about instruments is that I can tell you everything about why it, what it does and why it’s made.

But as soon as you held something that is right, you have no alternative that is that you belong to that guitar. Yeah. And, um, you know, well, why is this? I don’t know, because it fits your hands perfectly because it fits your body perfectly. Uh, because you saw it on the wall when you were attracted to it.

Yeah.

Emily: [00:47:02] I always say buy the guitar. It’s like when, when you’re buying, when I was buying a bicycle for commuting, um, I got the advice. Don’t buy the cheapest bicycle. Don’t buy like the bicycle that makes the most sense to buy, buy the bicycle that you also like the way it looks. That’s going to inspire you to take it out and write it.

And it’s the same for good cause otherwise it’s just gonna sit in the garage or sitting in the wall or in a closet.

James: [00:47:27] Yeah, the, the closet, the closet, or under the bed, anytime it goes back in the bag or a case is the worst thing that happens for a beginning guitar player.

Emily: [00:47:35] But they get the advice also that it’s the best place to keep your guitar for, for safety reasons.

But I don’t, I don’t take guitars out of the cases.

James: [00:47:43] No, they did. Do you know how heavy they are inside the case? Like they’re, they’re like, they’re like 500 pounds or more. That’s a five person job to get that out of there. And if it’s under a bed that you need, like three people to push it from behind to get it out.

And yet the way it works.

Emily: [00:48:00] Oh, it’s like when you, when you, when, when you I’ve always asked, I got the advice once that if you see vintage equipment yeah. Is just like pristine it’s because no one ever played

James: [00:48:09] it. Oh on vintage stuff, especially. Yeah.

Andrew: [00:48:13] Oh yeah, no, I, I definitely resonate with that. I had to keep my guitars case mostly through college and looking back, I play now more than I ever did in college because now I’ve got my own place and I’ve got my guitars up on the wall sitting right next to me and I can just, I pick it up and I’ll just play it for.

Couple of minutes before eating dinner, whatever it may be. But if there were the case, I just, even as someone who’s been playing for a few ample of years, I’m not as likely to, well, let me go grab the case and go throw it on the couch and open it up and find somewhere to then put the case. So I’m holding the guitar and it just it’s, it’s a drag.

Emily: [00:48:48] Well, it’s like in the winter, I keep my hummingbird in the case for humidity purposes and I played a lot less in the winter.

James: [00:48:54] Yeah, sure. Yeah. That’s

Emily: [00:48:57] when they’re on the wall, they’re just also like, kind of whispering your name, like that episode, the Twilight zone with the, with the, a slot machine.

Andrew: [00:49:05] No, that’s creepy now I’m asleep.

And again, I’ve got sleep issues,

Emily: [00:49:10] a little less haunting, but it’s funny how a few minutes was a guitar turns into two hours.

James: [00:49:15] It’s nice. It’s a nice thing to do. It’s it’s meditation.

Andrew: [00:49:19] So, so James, how about online sales are only going to go up and for beginners that that’s really where the in person experience value is there’s a couple other points Emily drop that you’re going to get to.

James: [00:49:31] Oh yeah. And, and, and the one that has bothered me for so long, um, the inclusion aspect, uh, guitar shops. B and B note, so music, music, instrument stores, you have two different types, right? You have, you have, so the, the B and O store, which has band and orchestra, and, you know, that’s your, that’s your student instruments, uh, type of, you know, school instrument type of store.

And then you have the rock shop, which, you know, could be stores like mine or the neighborhood guitar store, or, you know, a guitar center. Those have always been. Bro bro stores. Oh, yeah. Right. And, and how, you know, traditionally it’s it’s look, let’s look back in the eighties when just, it was like the worst of all cocaine fueled, uh, you know, RA WK type of thing to now.

It’s, it’s, it’s had a hard time kicking that, uh, that, that. That kind of sexist feel and yeah, and that has, you know, so I’ve inserted a store. I, you know, I, I, I thought, you know, how do, what do I even do? I, I, you know, I don’t want to put a sign out that says, you know, Hey, let me target you. You are welcome.

Uh, because that seems really disingenuous in Genuis. If I want to just say I, I want people to be welcome and. You know, so my whole goal has always been, if you walk into a guitar store, you know, my store, um, I want to treat you like a guitarist. And, and the people that I’ve always been more wary of are the ones that aren’t guitarists, right.

Or, or that don’t that? Not that they’re not guitars, but more where they’re not interested in the guitar at all. Okay. Now, now you’re, I don’t know why you’re here, but you know, there’s your safe, there’s your security aspect. Yeah. But the, uh, you know, how do you, how do you take a traditionally. Sexist male environment and turned into something that says, you know, you’re a woman you come in here and this is a spot that opens you up as a place, a tool shop for you to create out of, um, and, and not be placating, you know, Hey, look at the pink guitar we’ve got,

Emily: [00:52:02] Oh, I’ve, I’ve been to those shops like let’s Oh, teenage girl.

Have you seen these guitars that are shaped like flowers?

James: [00:52:10] Yeah. It’s like, come on. Do you think that, do you think that maybe, um, do you think that maybe a everyone’s different and, and B, if we’re selling creativity, we’ve got to put everybody create what they want. So I don’t know. It’s a, you know, it’s like when people come and go, I want to, I want a guitar to play metal on.

Cool. What guitar are you looking for? Right?

Emily: [00:52:42] Yeah, you can play metal RBC, rich. You can play in that alone. Any guitar.

James: [00:52:47] So, you know, it’s like, well, you know, I don’t really want a jazz bass cause I’m not into playing jazz. Right.

Emily: [00:52:56] I mean, it’s in the name. It’s confusing.

James: [00:52:58] Yeah. So it’s, it’s been, it’s been an interesting thing.

I’ve I’ve you and I have a mutual friend and Susan Palmer that who was, um, in, when Susan was teaching at the shop, we talked about this and, and, and Susan, how about hiring? How about hiring more women? And it’s like Susan I’ve I’ve had, you know, at that point, wait, I think I had been open for six years.

I’ve had three women apply for a job. You know, one of them I hired. Yeah, one woman I hired, uh, one woman came in and wrote her resume on the spot and a crayon and yeah. And talked about, you know, abductions and, and, uh, you know, she was, she was not balanced. Uh, and, and the other woman just did it. It wasn’t going to be work out.

Right. You know, cause just times would never work. How, how can you hire more people? If you have three people apply for the job, um,

Emily: [00:53:55] I mean there that you could do active recruiting. That’s that’s one thing that I think, um, uh, it’s it just takes a lot more time and energy, and sometimes you actually have to pay somebody to find, to do that active recruiting for you and it’s yeah, it is hard.

I will always see that it’s not easy. It’s easier to say then done when it comes to hiring more women. And like, I also want to see more women applying for these types jobs, just in general.

James: [00:54:22] Yeah. And that, that was, I mean, that’s really, if, if, you know, and, and I, I did, I did, I will say I tried to steal a few stuff, students and to, um, you know, to, to get in, but yeah, that’s, uh, it’s, it’s a, it’s a.

It’s a thing. If you want to make a change, you got to put yourself out for the change too. So it’s, it’s a two way street,

Emily: [00:54:44] but it is a little weird, like as a, as a woman who like is applying for jobs, I do also look to see, are there already any women working there? Maybe, because if there’s not, that’s always like that.

It’s a big risk that you’re taking. If you’re like, well, am I going to be the first or the only, or the second woman working there? Um, so like it does kind of sorta create a cycle that I think has it takes a lot more work to actively break. Um, that kind of cycle and, and, and it’s in a lot of industries.

It’s not just the musical instrument and the, and I’ll say I’m seeing a lot more women working and doing outreach on behalf of, uh, the brands that we work with as get offset. Um, like surgical errors industry industries, uh, they’d make those really nice big spring reverb units. Like they’re, they’re a U S team has a woman on it and she’s the one that reached out to me.

Earthquaker does great jobs at that. I know walrus has now more than one female employee and, um, It’s I think something that’s changing more now. I think women are seeing themselves now more working at these companies and being hired by these companies or anything like that. So I think, I think that it’s on the horizon, but it’s more we’re gaining on it.

James: [00:56:06] It it’s, it’s evolving. Um, I, you know what, one of the things I’ve seen and, um, you know, you take yourself as an example, uh, Women influencers are, are, are becoming more prevalent and changing the game, um, and really taking control. When, when you, when you actually own your career, uh, that it puts you in a place to be.

More out front and that’s his company started working with more influencers with diversity and not just hiring the same white guy with, with puffy metal hair. Um, you know, the, you know, the same Aquanet, uh, uh, metal influencer over and over again. It, it, that changes the landscape.

Emily: [00:57:00] Yeah. I’ve actually been getting at a couple of brands lately because like, Their brands, some of their they’re few, like people I’ve worked with before or I’ve demoed their products and they did a launches and they didn’t have a single woman.

Launching these pedals. I’m like, Hey, y’all know, I’m the, I’m not the only one who does this. Uh, I’m happy to send you a list of other names of people that maybe you could include in these, but like, what do I have to do to get involved in more of your product launches? Like old blood noise? I, I. Do their product launches all the time.

And they’re very excited to work with me and I love their pedals and I’ve done them with strong women and a couple others, but, you know, I’ve like, I know small potatoes, but those kind of bummed me out when I see like, All of these, like my peers and the demo space, I’m like premiering a product together.

And then I have to go and ask for it separately. And then I lose the, the jump on it a little bit. I’m like, well, you know, I would like to be involved. So I just have to ask like, Hey, next

James: [00:58:06] time. It’s a, that’s the, that that’s a self promotion, a vicious self-promotion machine to that, that the influencing.

And, um, yeah, that’s, I, I know a lot of people have management that are, you know, it’s now become such an industry, but I think that there’s it because it is something that’s. So, uh, fan interactive said. This, this can be a wide open spot for change. And I look forward to seeing how I, part of me hates the influencer game so much that we’ve created.

Mmm. I created this strange world with social media that that has become very vapid. Uh, the other part of me is like, okay, there’s some serious empowering. Abilities that can come out of, out of this and yeah. Yeah. Honestly,

Emily: [00:59:06] I got tired of saying, where are the women in the demo channels? I’m like, Oh, I mean, I have some nice cameras.

I’m good enough at guitar. Why, why the hell am I not doing this? And I just did it

James: [00:59:19] because you weren’t, that’s why

Emily: [00:59:22] I think that’s the thing. Like, how do you, how do you start a demo channel? Will you start a demo channel? Like you, you, you don’t even, you don’t even need more than an iPhone and like a Tyszko interface.

Like you can do these things. I’ll like with a lot less gear or a lot less of a financial, like investment than you think.

James: [00:59:43] Yeah. But if it’s funny, I just watched your Tyszko video. Uh, and it, and it made me want to, um, I’m going to have a. We’re talking with them about some other brands they do. And, and that’s, I need to have them send me, uh, the Tyszko interface for myself now because of watching your video.

Emily: [01:00:02] Oh, I know. It’s like, I’m trying to get my mom to get one because she is picking like, my mom is the reason I play guitar. Like she had a guitar. Um, and she’s getting back into it. So she’s getting her first electric and she is asking about amps and I just kind of want to be like, Hmm, this might be enough for you.

Like, you might be really happy with just this little interface pedal. Cause she doesn’t want something that like is audible. Like, so maybe you don’t want an amp. Maybe you just want an interface, but trying to explain to her like what an interface is

James: [01:00:32] a

Emily: [01:00:32] little difficult, but that’s a cool, it’s a cool little pedal.

Like I would take that on vacation.

James: [01:00:38] Yeah. Oh God. And it’s so powerful to be able to have that, be able to have that way to connect to media. Yeah.

Emily: [01:00:47] And it doesn’t sound bad. Like none of these plugins on garage band or cakewalk sounded bad. Right. I did think like, yeah, like I wouldn’t submit that as like the final, like I’m recording a project today for personally that might be released commercial.

I’m like, yeah, I’m not going to do that. Like, if I’m just like practicing or learning a song and don’t want to get out, like plug in my entire pedalboard it’s it’s sweet.

James: [01:01:12] Yeah. Yeah. Pretty soon. We’re just going to plug things into our brains and. Nice then, then it will only be judged on the, uh, our, our ability to create.

Andrew: [01:01:26] He love it. Um,

Emily: [01:01:28] I know that the one, the one other thing that we kind of want to talk about today, um, if we have enough time to really get into it is, uh, the postal service and everything that’s happening with that. At least that’s what Andrew had communicated communicate to me. Ooh,

Andrew: [01:01:46] there we go.

Emily: [01:01:48] Great Heights.

Andrew: [01:01:52] So USP has, has been through some interesting political shenanigans last few weeks, couple months. And it’s been really brought into the public eye. And now everyone’s starting to go wait a minute. What, and something that I’ve been acutely aware of, I mean, Fox, Cairo’s such a small time business. It’s not like it’s severe impacting my, uh, my way of life right now, but I have been noticing.

Uh, how USP as times have been increasingly getting worse and worse and how that’s been impacting my business. And I can only imagine from your perspective, doing a lot of shipping, what that’s been like for you. And I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are on that and kind of how you’re navigating that as a business owner.

James: [01:02:33] It is interesting and scary. I don’t want to play the victim role here as the business owner, but, but yeah. Got, it seems like every level of our government from, from the local, you know, the, the city and County to the state, to the federal have, have really decided that this year they’re going to do things to make it hard for all of us to be in business.

Um, you know, the, the thing that has saved my has saved my shop is that I’ve been able to really rely on shipping. Part of that was. We use priority mail for pedals. We, we have an agreement that we’ve been working with, the assumption that, that they’re going to keep their word with the us postal service for a price and a delivery time on pedals.

Uh, and, and the fact they’re going to get a to people’s door. Uh, this is as far as I’m concerned as a national utility, similar to the interstate highway system. And if. And this has been, this has been changed and altered. And, uh, you know, if you listen to some, it’s been sabotaged for political reasons for, for, uh, delivery of ballots and the, in the upcoming election.

Uh, if you listen to others, it’s because of, uh, absolute incompetence. If you listen to some it’s because that system was broken and we need to change it now, uh, I think. I don’t really care what it comes down to for that. I’m going to go for my selfish thing, that, that if I don’t, if I don’t have the ability to make a living, I then have, then I don’t have the ability to make good on my commitments to people.

And there’s nothing that I like worst than that. Uh, so we ship on an average day between 60 and a hundred pedals out of the store and. Primarily those go out via United States, postal service. We have time commitments that we have offered. If it’s sold through a third party site, such as reverb, where it says that it’s a two day shipment or Amazon, which has that expectation also, uh, you know, the consumer has voted that they want these subsidized government subsidized delivery systems to work for them.

Um, you know, this is, this has been a vote by, by purchasing influence. And the funny thing is, even though people will tell you, Oh, I bought this pedal on reverb. You know, I bought this pedal on eBay. I bought this pedal at Amazon. I bought this thing from Amazon. They, they, they did that when everything went smooth and it got there.

But if for some reason it doesn’t get delivered in time, even though it got shipped in time. They’re mad at the retailer. They bought it from so right. Yeah. Selfish thing. I just want things to go smooth. I have been offered a commitment. I pay on time. I deliver things on time to ship on time. I put in a lot of work to do that.

And I, and I see that there’s a strange sabotage and it has been sabotage. We’ve taken out sorting machines. We have, we have, uh, uh, Taken off hours from postal delivery, corks, uh, you know, their head, there has been a pretty obvious attempt to change the system when it wasn’t actually broken quickly. And the guise of that is that, that it wasn’t making profit well it’s, it was never set up to make profit.

It was a public utility,

Andrew: [01:06:20] uh,

James: [01:06:21] exactly. You know, so yeah. Yeah, without getting too political. Uh, the I, and I, and I say that, I say that kind of as a joke, cause I’m about to go there. Uh, you know, I, I’ve seen my, I’ve seen my County government do things to throttle business, and I’m out here in a, in a small town where there’s a lot of retirees who life for them has not changed much at all.

I don’t know what, I don’t know what people are complaining about. Um, Yeah, I’m retired. Uh, and they go around and they count masks inside of restaurants and businesses and see how many people were inside of them and, and report people if, if the business is not, uh, able to keep people in line because that’s safe, that’s safely our job, I guess, um, right to the state level where we’ve, we’ve had, you know, we were shut down as being non-essential.

And yet you could still walk into Walmart and go every, every area of the Walmart, including the record area and buy records to compete with us. Aye, aye. So I saw that and now we’ve have the federal government and the administration, um, Who again, just it’s something that is against the American public and against American businesses.

I mean, this is the same bozo who this week came out and told people to boycott Goodyear tires, who was one of the largest employers in its region,

Emily: [01:07:54] in the United States. Yeah.

James: [01:07:55] I mean, you know,

Emily: [01:07:57] all of their competitors are in other countries.

James: [01:07:59] Get your cat sound ready. This is, this is complete treason and sabotage.

But, um, anyway, I don’t want to get too political there. I don’t really, you know, I’m I’m anyway,

Andrew: [01:08:10] I mean, to a certain point, it’s, it’s almost impossible to remain apolitical when it’s down to no, the students coming after is making it the U S completely inhospitable for, for business. I mean, that’s, there’s no way around it.

James: [01:08:25] At this point. We have to look at it as, um, we have an enemy agent who has, uh, who has. Taking over the executive branch of our government.

Emily: [01:08:36] Cool. Um, well that’s, none of that is cool. That’s all very bad and upsetting, but, uh, it’s, it’s always interesting. Cause people talk about these things sometimes as if they are like, hypothetical’s

Andrew: [01:08:48] right.

It’s an abstract concept.

Emily: [01:08:51] Yeah.

James: [01:08:51] This

Andrew: [01:08:52] is just happening in Washington, D C

Emily: [01:08:54] and people like don’t understand that the actual, um, Issues involved and how people are affected. But I trans we do want to be respectful of your time. We know you have some businesses to run. Uh, a couple of them. Um, is there anything you want to say before?

Uh, before we close it up, like where people can find, um, the guitar store now or how people can, uh, shop in person or online for your, for your businesses?

James: [01:09:23] We just hit a crescendo there with a, you know, boom big. Ah, um, and then now we’re going to go, okay. Let’s let’s talk

Andrew: [01:09:29] about if you’ve got a few minutes, we can flush it out.

For just a couple more minutes before closing out.

James: [01:09:34] Yeah. So, um, then, and I will say just quickly that with the, on the, on the postal DOE we have definitely seen things showing up late to consumers. Uh we’re definitely. And I, you, I’m a member of a number of groups with like, you know, an eBay sellers group and an Amazon sellers group, and people are people in other industries.

In that group are noticing this often. And, and both reverb and eBay have gotten in touch with us and said, this is what we’re looking at. Uh, we are monitoring the situation and we’re trying to figure out publicly how we make the statement to try to do with consumers. And, and, um, yeah, it’s hard with pit when people, and

Emily: [01:10:14] cause when people pay with PayPal, if they don’t get the thing in 30 days, even if it’s on the way.

And provable on the way sometimes pay apologists, well refund the buyer’s money and the buyer gets both.

James: [01:10:26] Yep. Yeah, it’s sure

Andrew: [01:10:29] I’ve got a friend in another industry. Who’s a third party, Amazon seller who was saying that they’ve had, they’ve just straight up lost money because the they’ve had several units show up late.

And when something shows up late on Amazon and a seller complains, Amazon says, cool, we’ll give you a full refund yet to keep the product. And that’s coming out of the seller’s money, even though the seller shipped on time and did everything right. Right, which is,

Emily: [01:10:53] I usually just get $5 back. Is all I ever

James: [01:10:56] get?

Amazon will refund a seller or we’ll refund a buyer completely, or they’ll, they’ll make a small payment, whatever they arbitrarily feel. Amazon is so weird to sell on it just, it it’s, it’s funny when reverb changed, their prices went from 3.5% to 5% last month or the beginning of this month, or there was uproar people who were, you know, we’re going to boycott reverb.

I’m never going to sell there again. And it’s like, go try selling on Amazon reverbs. 5% Amazon at the end of the day is about 25%. Yeah. So anyway, um, Hey, so you asked about where I’m at now and I’ll put some shameless plugs in, uh, a few years ago. I moved back to port towns in Washington. I’m out on the tip of the peninsula and yeah, the Northeast tip of the peninsula.

Uh, there’s a record store that I purchased that I’ve been going to since I was a kid equipper sound records. It’s been in port Townsend since 1974. I moved it when I bought it, there was a huge collection in storage, 65,000 records that were in storage at the old owners house. And I, I moved to a bigger location on water street, which is the main street on you’re on the water, uh, and brought all those records in.

Now the guitar store is evolving into this location here also upstairs. I have a vintage synthesizer museum that I am still. In the process of moving in and opening, we’re going through about 200 vintage keyboards and taking them and making videos of each one, which we’re going to, we’re going to watch the videos hopefully by the first quarter of next year.

And then as people are able to start coming in and touch things again, have a place for you. You can come in and have an interactive hands on chance to play things that maybe you’ll never see anywhere else. Uh, bring your, bring your laptop, record the local studios. Get to borrow stuff for free. Uh, so the local studios will have, uh, a huge vintage synth collection to use and, and really trying to promote the arts here.

This, this weekend would have been the thing festival.

Emily: [01:13:12] Oh, that’s right.

James: [01:13:15] Which was the unsats Sasquatches replacement. After, after STG plus Sasquatch, the location for Sasquatch, the. And you Adam, Zacks moved it out here to Fort warden and it was a, it was a phenomenal success. Last year was great. Uh, they actually had the cast and Napoleon diamond dynamite on and did a reading, which was the various, uh, you know, uncle Rico was out playing uncle Rico.

Okay. Um, yeah. So this, this little community here is starting to become. It has been a music community and has been growing. And, and I wanted to have something out here that was going to give a real unique experience for people who made it this far out. We’re still working on that. That’s our post COVID thought we’re going to come back and we’re going to have a place where people can come into the record.

Stores is incredible. I only sell LPs here. I don’t sell CDs. I, I, you know, I have quite a few new releases. I have. A lot of obscure releases and yeah. Tens of thousands of used records. It’s a vinyl junkies kind of place. You, you, it’s a good place to walk through and been searched and pick and, and, uh, you know, we’re doing record store day next weekend for one of the rescheduled record store days.

I still have no idea how that really works with the three different record store news this year. But, uh, like everything, we’re all learning and. As always we’re online. Still the Seattle guitar store.com website is up, or you can go to  dot com and Lincoln, all the inventories. There were shipping daily. Uh, got a fantastic time.

Heck and Jordan Wagner is working out of here who does from finished keyboards to amplifiers, to guitars. And he’s the cool thing about Jordan is that he is, he’s a fan. Of the instruments he’s working on it. Like, like you get something back from him and you’re going to get an earful about how cool it was and who used it and, and what neat things happened with it.

Uh, that’s exciting. And, uh, yeah. Get back into having kids, kids programs, Centrum, which is a, an arts foundation out here has as a lot of. Educational programs and music camps during the summer. And we want to really evolve into having that be something that we’re sponsoring more and more of. So that’s what I’m doing.

I’m still working towards the future and working towards this being a blip of a year. Yeah.

Andrew: [01:15:55] With everything you’ve got going on. I think it’s a. More than fair for me to assess that the U S government greatly benefits from having you around in our communities, that our communities benefit from that. And I really think, I think that I’ve really got it.

My fingers crossed hope today that we’d see some major changes happening in government that make things more hospitable for it, for everything you’ve got going on. Good gravy. You’re like that. And that’s all I’ve got work. I’m like, dude, you’ve got a lot going on. And so much of that is it sounds like it’s geared towards the betterment of the community.

I think that’s, that’s rad on so many levels.

Emily: [01:16:35] Totally.

James: [01:16:36] We have, everyone has to work local. You know, if, if that’s, um, as small, it’s just being nice to somebody you don’t know.

Not immediately disagreeing with everyone hearing other people’s sides. I I’ve really, I’ve really tried to understand other people’s sides of things. I have my own opinions and I’m, I’m highly opinionated and, um, Yet, I still have to try to have empathy and figure out what other people, why other people believe what they believe and, and understand where I’m wrong in that.

And if I am, then maybe I can evolve. Uh, and one of the hardest things I see is the lack of forgiveness that we have in this world right now. And we’re going to have to have a lot of that to get through everything that we’re going through. Uh, and that’s hard because that, that means that maybe someone who’s offended me, I might not have to keep on being offended by them.

And that’s a change, right. That, that’s a, that’s a really tough thing. I, you know, for everyone, everyone I’ve ever met, that seems like a tough thing for them. And, uh, So, yeah, I do. I try to focus on the community. I can’t change the big world a whole. I do bitch about it a lot. I rant a lot. Uh, I’m a true gen X or, and that’s what we do.

We, we rant and duck and. Yeah. So, you know, I’m happy to have been on, on the get offset by, I don’t think we even talked about an offset guitar really wants,

Emily: [01:18:17] we’re not really a podcast about offset guitars. It’s a more of a fun, more of a pun. Yeah,

James: [01:18:25] sure.

Emily: [01:18:25] Reference.

Andrew: [01:18:27] We’re interested in offsetting the culture of the gear world for the better.

And I think, I think what you’re doing 100% falls in line with that vision and we appreciate you for it.

James: [01:18:40] Yeah. Well, let me, let me, uh, let me, if it sounds like we’re, we’re getting to the point of leaving, let me, let me leave you with what the, the great insider joke that everybody I know has been sharing lately is, you know, well, cool.

I can’t wait to see you at Nam this year.

Emily: [01:18:56] Likewise. Likewise are our digital digital Nam and a digital urn. Um, but, uh, yeah, so everyone listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for understanding. Thank you, James. If you enjoyed the podcast, please consider subscribing, uh, leaving a review on iTunes. We have merck@getoffsetpodcast.com slash shop. We have a Patrion page at get offset podcasts, a whole patrion.com/get offsets and a checkouts it, check out the YouTube channel as well.

Andrew: [01:19:33] And if you’re in the market for buying a guitar pedal, go hit up the guitar stores online shop and consider buying from them this week.

Emily: [01:19:41] And it’s exercising patients. If it doesn’t get to you in three days

James: [01:19:46] and you might be able to use my name and the number 15 at checkout for something I don’t know.

Andrew: [01:19:50] Oh, Oh.

Emily: [01:19:53] Ooh. Nice. Nicely done. Well. Uh, again, thank you, James. Thanks for everybody. Um, until next time, my name is Emily.

Andrew: [01:20:02] My name is Andrew.

James: [01:20:04] Goodbye.