Gruhn Guitars Offers Earliest Known Strat
Gruhn Guitars currently has for sale what is being described as the earliest known 1954 Fender Stratocaster (serial number 0100) with original “poodle” style hard case for $250,000. This is an…
GC Responds to Reports of Ares Management Takeover from Bain
In a February 28, 2014 article in The Wall Street Journal, the publication reported that, “Ares Management LLC, which owns the majority of the music retailer's debt, is in advanced…
7 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Workforce (Or, How to Treat Employees Like a Band)
Having employee headaches? Think things aren’t running quite as well as they should, but you can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong? Maybe looking at your team in a…
It’s Enough to Make You Wanna Uke
What a lot of noise – literal and figurative – from such a tiny instrument! Within the pages of MMR and elsewhere throughout the MI industry, one of the hot…
Guitars Get Wired
The future once looked like a high tech playground for computer engineers and quick-witted space travelers. Spock and Chekov commanded spaceships with obscure, touch-sensitive control panels and NASA scientists navigated…
Craze May Be Over, But Uke Sales Are Still Going Strong
From “Tiny Bubbles” to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to “Hey, Soul Sister,” the ukulele has been a mainstay in American popular music for decades. The recent ukulele resurgence was fueled…
Takuya Nakata, President of Yamaha Corporation
In May of 2013, Takuya “Tak” Nakata succeeded Mitsuru Umemura as president and representative director of Yamaha Corporation, Japan. Since 2010 Nakata had held the reigns of Yamaha Corporation of…
Best and Worst of Winter NAMM 2014
Worst Instrument to Sneak Through TSAGood luck fitting this giant Hohner accordion into an x-ray bin. Best Onstage MeltdownWe’ll save her the unwanted Google searches, but this singer songwriter couldn’t stop pondering…
2014 NAMM Show - The Global Ecosystem
There’s always gear and product, but the NAMM Show is about people,” says NAMM president and CEO Joe Lamond about this winter’s annual gathering in Anaheim. “The absolute diversity of…
Rovner Products at 40 Years
[caption id="attachment_49226" align="alignleft" width="800"]Lynn Reeder, Phil Rovner, and George Reeder of Rovner Products.[/caption]It was Phil Rovner’s background as an engineer that led him to a career in the MI business.…
The New Face of Boutique
In a market like today’s guitar industry, sometimes starting small can be a newcomer’s best move. Seattle musician and guitar collector Frank Gross opened his boutique, Thunder Road Guitars, with…
Do Your Business Your Way
In a post NAMM-Show exchange with Gabriel O’Brien, he told me he was excited about some of changes he’s going to be making to the pair of stores he co-owns…