Gibson... again...

[PullThePlug]

It will mean nothing. An insignificant belch at best. The video is already on its way deep into the quagmire of Internet ADHD and will be old history a week from now.

THIS. RIGHT HERE.

Recreational outrage is getting so old too. It's hip to complain about something you don't really care about and/or won't do much about. The crybabies on the first few pages made that abundantly clear.

 

[mcnach]

Why? They're just chunks of wood and metal.
I've destroyed several for fun.

I don't know. Destroying perfectly useable things 'for fun' when there's a lot of people who struggle to make enough money to get to the end of the month, let alone buy an instrument... just seems like a bit of a... wrong move, let's say. I don't mean to insult anybody. It's a bit like ordering a large pizza when you just want half just to throw away the rest. It doesn't matter that I can afford it. In my own town there's people who struggle to buy food, so it feels very wrong to knowingly waste, and especially to call it "fun".

 

[40Hz]

Au contraire, Henry J. didn't destroy anything which is one of the reason why the brand name sunk. I've seen at least a few Gibsons from this millennium that should've ended up under the crusher.

Possibly. The auto-tuner needed to not exist.

 

[mcnach]

Looks not unlike the automobile manufacturing business when things go very wrong with a model. I worked at the Saturn plant (for a contractor) back in the '90s. Somewhere in there was a recall for thousands of their cars that had bad coolant added in manufacturing. Something highly corrosive. Thousands were shipped back from retailers and customers (all customers got a new one) rather than repaired, engines replaced, or donated to mechanical schools. Returned to the plant and destroyed in the crusher. Just like that. Better, I suppose, to keep that under control rather than have faulty product still out there, in the view of the company.

A car I can understand, there's a big safety aspect. A guitar? Stamp a big fat "QC reject" on the headstock and let someone else enjoy it.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Some bean counter probably decided the labor cost of scavenging parts wasn't worth as much as a tax writeoff.

The limited run of 20 Flying Vs sold in the 1960s were built from parts that had been sitting in the warehouse. Gibson has sold off parts with their name on it before...read up on Thunderfunk bass amps...and there is a long history of "seconds" with the number 2 stamped on the headstock, not to mention blemished guitars sold to employees.

So what's next in the ongoing train wreck of Gibson?

Again, these guitars in the video are widely acknowledged to be amongst the most TERRIBLE GUITARS ever made AND they have the word "GIBSON" on their headstock. Gibson management realized that the company would be best served by "destroying the evidence" that their "Brand Name, Blue Chip, Premium" company -- in a weak moment / month / year / era? -- had designed and then green-lighted and produced such a turd.

I'll bet if these guitars said "brianrost" on the headstock, you'd want them th'own off a cliif or burned in a pit, too. These were NOT '60s Flying V's, nor would they ever be.... these were terrible, instantly obsolete, train wrecks of a guitar. Gibson was trying to put the train wrecks in the past.

 

[JimmyM]

Wah wah freaking waaaaah! I guess the majority are intent on being whiny babies about it no matter what the facts are, so I'm out.

 

[40Hz]

That and not anticipating that someone present would think posting a video of hundreds of new guitars being smashed would be really cool. Seems like they are out of tounch with the Youtube, Facebook, etc culture.

Yep. The realtime connected world. Which is the domain of the new generation. And supposedly the demographic Gibson says they most actively want to court.

Unless Gibson can make a case to convince the younger players out there that they want to play a Gibson, ol’ Gibson is in big trouble. My generation has already bought most of the gear we’re ever going to. And we’re starting to drop like flies along the way. So we’re a long-term market dead end for Gibson. Literally.

Gibson’s future, if it has one beyond the nostalgia seekers, lies with the current crop of new bands - and even more with the younger ones coming up fast behind them. It’ll soon to be their music world entirely. Hope Gibson gets who they’re dealing with and how things work in their world.

 

[Yango]

Followed by dozens of videos and social media commentary bashing these stupid worthless "instruments" that Gibson gave away.

There’s just no pleasing some people.

Anyone complaining about a free guitar would have to be a complete wank. Even if it is a crap one.

 

[gln1955]

Check the interview. He's not some teenage YouTuber who thought posting such a video would have been "cool".

Who said anything about teenagers? Anyway, there is the part where he says "I thought it would be a cool thing for people to see what happens to guitars....". The point stands that Gibson should have been aware that that could happen and covered themselves with an NDA.

 

[JimmyM]

I know I said I was out, but it occurred to me that this is worth mentioning to those who love telling other people what to do with their money...

The Gibson Foundation has donated over $30 million worth of gear to charity so far, and they're donating a guitar a day to charity for a year.

So tell me, whiners...what have YOU done for charity? Donated a pile of used crap that nobody wants to Goodwill so they have to throw it away instead of you?

 

[giacomobass]

You do that. I’ll be waiting.

If you were saying that it's not going to hurt Gibson's corporate image too much after all, I would probably agree, but only since their reputation is already so low after the recent communication mishaps that it couldn't get much worse...

Anyway, even if I were to judge solely by the number and rate of replies to just this thread (compared to other TB discussions), I don't think it's going to settle very fast. The original YouTube video is at 160K views and reactions are popping up on guitar channels. The news is on major guitar websites (e.g., Guitar.com and MusicRadar); folks are talking about it on reddit right now.

Meanwhile, another "cool" video has been posted by the same guy...



Good luck, Gibson!

 

[lz4005]

I don't know. Destroying perfectly useable things 'for fun' when there's a lot of people who struggle to make enough money to get to the end of the month, let alone buy an instrument... just seems like a bit of a... wrong move, let's say. I don't mean to insult anybody. It's a bit like ordering a large pizza when you just want half just to throw away the rest. It doesn't matter that I can afford it. In my own town there's people who struggle to buy food, so it feels very wrong to knowingly waste, and especially to call it "fun".

I never said they were usable.

That aside, tell Hendrix, Trent Reznor, Richie Blackmore, Kurt Cobain, John Entwistle, Krist Novoselic, Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck and hundreds of others it's a wrong move to destroy instruments.

Oh, and Paul Simonon.

 

[40Hz]

There is no need to destroy inventory (and to film the destruction) to write them off. The books have to show the value of the inventory on the balance sheet, period, not the actual physical presence in the shop

Yep. When you do a write-off like that you don’t need to show anything. You may need to provide some documentation (usually just a written statement from you) saying the inventory was scrapped, and that’s the end of it. That is all it will usually take to satisfy most tax auditors. Because it’s a criminal offense to lie to them.

The only time I ever saw where some sort of photo evidence was provided for scrapping inventory was when businesses were dealing with pissy creditors or opposing parties in a lawsuit. But even then it’s not a requirement. A statement under oath the stuff got dumped would be sufficient for legal purposes if it ever came to that. If the other party wants to dispute it, then it becomes their job to prove the business lied about it.

 

[ajkula66]

I don't know. Destroying perfectly useable things 'for fun' when there's a lot of people who struggle to make enough money to get to the end of the month, let alone buy an instrument... just seems like a bit of a... wrong move, let's say. I don't mean to insult anybody. It's a bit like ordering a large pizza when you just want half just to throw away the rest. It doesn't matter that I can afford it. In my own town there's people who struggle to buy food, so it feels very wrong to knowingly waste, and especially to call it "fun".

First of all, I doubt that any of the destruction pictured was performed primarily "for fun" purposes. Having said that, there's nothing stopping anyone from having fun in their daily job even if that job entails crushing a ton of guitars that should've never been produced in the first place.

That would've cost an awful lot to support even if Gibson were to give them away.

Whose very existence in the market would further tarnish the company's already damaged reputation when it comes to QC and sensible product line.

That would likely turn any kid that it was given to into a Gibson hater at best and music hater at worst.

You do bring up a very valid point about the society in general, though.

There are thousands of tons of perfectly usable food being destroyed every single day all over the world while a large portion of the globe is still starving.

Anyone else around here familiar with pictures of thousands of acres covered with used VW cars that were pulled out of service once company's finagling with emissions became public ? What do you think will happen to them?

Not to mention that an average apartment building in NYC sends more to the landfill in a week than this entire operation did.

As concerned as I am about condition of the world that will be left behind for my kids and grandkids, this is *not* anything worth noting on the ecological level.

As much as I love Gibson products I would have had no problem with sending the crusher to do what it did in the video. They should've started destroying the defective gear at least a decade ago, but better late than never.

My $0.02 only...

 

[Cousin Iggy]

I think that this could have been a great PR move: "Gibson excises the demon of bad design decisions with a backhoe".

But they just forgot to be the ones to release the video... oops

 

[foolforthecity]

I’ve noticed “NDA” popping up several times. In my experience, and I’ll let a business lawyer chime in at will, employees sign on with a company and in doing so agree to follow company rules, regulations, confidentiality, etc. I’m guessing the folks involved in the videos will have a somewhat shortened future with Gibson if they were direct employees. If contractors, their company is probably feeling pretty queasy right about now

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

This came out on YouTube :

Origin of the clip unknown but the destruction of musical instruments, fake or not, is always a bad idea.

Going to guess they are counterfeit.

Make a big deal of it is someone's great idea.

Okay.

 

[lpbfender]

I think these videos were NOT intended to be leaked but were to be used to verify destruction of what the new owners deemed as unsaleable, or inferior build inventory to clear the books of unsold inventory/ plant closure for a writeoff.

While I do not like to see these videos, it does signal, perhaps the start of a new, higher standard for Gibson. Companies shouldn't keep inferior or unsaleable inventory in stock - look at Peavey's announced "$12MM" customer returns and parts inventory auction! Music company's operate a business, beholden to creditors and stockholders.

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

Gibson had B stock in the Norlin era. They would sell them at discounts to employees, or give them to endorsed artists. Apparently, Slash’s main LP was a B stock one.

One of my early 60's SG's is a second.

Near as I can tell the defect was the binding around the neck that had SG red that was coated over with clear.

Basically whoever cleaned the binding did a poir job and did not catch it before final coat.

 

[Coolhandjjl]

in order to write them off as a loss, they have to be destroyed, and there has to be proof of their destruction.. the videos were the required proof of destruction.

no publicity stunts.. no russian collusion.. no ancient aliens.. and no grassy knoll.. although, any those would have made for a better conspiracy theory.