Guitar Stores Keep Closing
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- Guitar stores seem to be closing down at an alarming rate all across the world, from Sam Ash in the USA all the way to Goodwins in Dublin.
Today I take a walk around Dublin City Center to see what guitar stores are left.
Some Neck guitars Reverb store
(Reverb affiliate link) tidd.ly/3SnVBYM
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What is killing stores here in Australia is the rent prices. Guitar shops need a lot of real estate and floor space, and unless you're selling heaps of gear on a daily basis, you will struggle to pay the rent.
It is mate, we've got one family owned shop left...
All the rest sell Gibson, Epi, Fender, Squier and the odd Gretsch...
If you want anything else, you have to buy online, l prefer to play a guitar before l buy....
Especially at the prices we pay!!
Landlords think they should get all the money from a business. ( lazy bloodsuckers)
same problem everywhere. Rent is crushing many businesses. You cant simply just have a store a couple guys and just swing cruise because well " atleast rent is affordable " . Its a struggle just to keep lights on.
morning frustration is the coolest vid ever
@@MicroSBs Yes mate, seems like it's everywhere...
The one l said that's still open (competing with the chain stores) they've owned the shop for years, maybe why theyre still going (?).
At least they sell Tokai, Eastman, a few local brands .. plus theyve got 30s Martins, pre Gib Epis, a few pre CBS Fender's, proper Vox's (all out of my price range!)... I'll buy strings etc there, and the Eastman Parlour.. just to help keep em in business.
Gear the others don't carry, the rest have to carry what theyre licenced to sell.
A Murphy Lab is $18-23k AU!! Fender CS etc.
Former Perfect Pitch employee here! Worked there in the early 2000s. I sold Flea a tin whistle once.
Which key?
@@makeperceive Probably a D.
I also worked there for a bit. Hi x
Bought my first guitar in Perfect Pitch 😢
@@famousdavemusic Makes sense.. Flea probably likes to blow a D.
As an ex guitar shop owner my slow demise was down to people buying accessories online. It wasn't down to price it was the convenience of shopping from home and getting it delivered next day. And yes I buy my stuff online now for supplies for my guitar repair business. No local music store left 😢
This. The same thing has happened in many different businesses. People would still come for the big purchases but the small things they would just get on Amazon. That was half the revenue stream gone. Picks, strings, cables, tuners, polish, straps etc. If you sold a Les Paul one day you probably had as much profit from selling that stuff as the big sale made you.
Exactly. Fucking China and Amazon. They have both Walmarted music stores
Yes, I do that also. Not even the convenience, but just the lack of choice in the shops. Also the bad advice, I learn more from RUclips movies. And for me the most important, in a shop you get a used product (how many times tried), I want a brand new product (factory sealed).
Its definitely pricing. The last 4 years has seen prices skyrocket. In many countries guitars have gone up 50%+ and salaries are the same barely going up. So people are mostly buying second hand,especially amps.
@@HansNederland The lack of choice is a huge part of it. I'd prefer to buy in store. I'll happily drive an hour just to pick up what I want today. But my local shop(s) don't have what I want most of the time.
I bought a player telecaster from a real life store the other day and that was great but most of my guitars, the picks I use and on all my downtuned guitars the strings I use aren't available in a real shop.
Part of the problem is that the big brands make it almost impossible for smaller stores to carry their products. Six or seven years ago, my local store was stocking Fenders, Gibsons, etc. There were never many, but at least they had them. Today, because of forced sales quotas, they can’t afford to sell the top names.
I can understand this in a way, I’ve seen small shops get big name brands, struggle to sell even a couple of them because they are a small store, then go out of business taking the stock with them and likely never paying the invoices. It’s almost like the brands are “investing” in the smaller stores, giving them access to 10-30k worth of stock, if they sell them all, they give them access to more, if not they have lost 10-30k and likely won’t see that again for a long time. Nowadays taking chances like that is not such a great idea anymore.
@@nihilvoid4112 Yeah, that seems true. A double edged sword. What can we do but try to support your local. Buy strings, accessories, etc.
@@stockholm1752picks, cables and maintenance stuff.
I’m so naive and ignorant to retail markets, I didn’t even think this was a thing. There’s a great music shop close to my place, but I hardly visit. Why? They don’t sell the guitars I’d like to try.
What a world…
@@nihilvoid4112 If that would have anything to do with it then they'd just ask for upfront payment
"Stores Keeps Closing" not just guitar stores. The internet has completely changed way we shop and the businesses we can support. Big box stores and online shopping has limited the consumer's options. Before the internet, there were multiple shops of every kind offering great deals if you were willing to shop around. The loss of local stores has a huge impact on local economies. When a stores closes employees are impacted, but also the people that service the property, and the people that sell the things that keep a property up and running. Supporting local business is so important because they help make a strong community.
At the same time, it's not a charity. Too many local stores of all types don't even bother to inform their employees or themselves about their products nor do they even carry a good inventory. Sorry, but if you can't help me make an informed purchase or have an inventory for me to put my hands on, I'm not spending MORE money to just support your business.
I work in goodwins at the moment and have been there for 10 years, i appreciate you making this video it'll be good to look back on, all the best
Sorry to hear it’s closing, bought my first guitar there great store hope everything works out for you and the rest of the staff 👍
I bought a guitar there also. All the best.
@@smithfield06 thanks man I appreciate that and all the best to you
@@DiggingFrance thank you my friend I appreciate it, all the best to you
Here in the US it's the same. Everyday I drive by the empty building where the music store I grew up going to used to be. It got taken out by the '08 recession (it kind of held on until 2010 I think). We only have one music store left now, a family owned shop that's been around since the 60s. I was afraid it would close when Guitar Center opened, but it somehow seems to be doing better than GC.
I worked in Goodwins from 2002 to 2006. Liam is a legend, some of the stories he has from back in the day! I learnt so much there from guitar/amp repair to the local music history in dublin. I hope Liam has a great and long retirement, he's a living legend! So sad seeing the place almost empty. I'm on tour for 3 more weeks, hopefully they're still open when i get back
It's been that way in America for decades now.
Even the big box stores are struggling and dying now.
And once the competition is done for, the big online retailers will become gatekeepers - reducing service & value for customers, demanding exorbitant margins from producers.
I am a luthier and I live in the Dominican Republic. This is probably the only place where the number of stores has increased in the last two years. Perhaps because the 40% duty is an effective barrier to purchasing on online portals such as Amazon or Reverb. Every day I see someone trying to open a repair service or a small guitar shop. I suspect it won't last long
Support your local music store. You'll miss them when they're gone. Excellent video.
most musicians aren't rich, and local stores are considerably more expensive most of the time.
With what ?
Everyone’s struggling to pay bills :/
Clearly not because they've disappeared and few knew or cared. They either are not interested in the products at all, or they went somewhere else to buy - and they did that because the experience of buying from somewhere else was better. You know once upon a time a rather arrogant Alan Sugar guffawed at the idea "the British public" would buy things online. Him and his group of Tottenham hotspur supporting buddies who were the owners of big retail stores that were full of people openly mocked the idea of the internet. Well they were stupid and wrong - and that's not hindsight, it was obvious at the time they were stupid and wrong - and now those big online retailers have gone. This isn't about small ma and pa retailers struggling against the man - the man failed too - and they deserved to fail because they were arrogant and stupid - and nothing took anyone by surprise. They had all the time in the world to have won online, but they mocked the idea. They figured they understood British people. They figured the working classes were like them, ignorant about technology, not understanding or trusting of (at that time) the new-fangled internet thing and wanting to walk into stores and touch products.
But even now as people in these comments waffle on about 'buying guitars is a tactile thing - it obviously fucking isn't because these stores have been dead for 20 years. All that's happening now is they realised you're supposed to lie down and shut up when you're dead. I mean, look at the people who buy guitars (a) Beginners who get a cheap guitar - well they don't need a shop full of guitars, they don't know anything about them, they just want a cheap guitar to start learning - that's easily done online (b) People who own one or two guitars, they might buy one every 10 or 20 years - well, you know if they want to try a bunch of guitars they may as well take a trip once every 10 or 20 years to a guitar expo or show, (c) People who collect guitars because of OCD - well they don't really play them and they're happy as pigs in shit being able to buy a bunch of stuff online from a huge choice take it out the box and either send it back or hang it on the wall with the rest. There's really not a great business model for a store that has about 10 or 20 guitars from 3 or 4 brands because only one group of their potential customers will buy that's group (b) and they only buy once every decade or so. That's literally the last time I bought a guitar, and I bought it from a store, 20 years ago. I have one other used guitar I got about 7 years ago, and I'm about ready to get another. It's not surprising guitar stores die because the product they sell lasts decades of casual use and they mostly sold £99 or £150 guitars to beginners and packs of strings. The rabid lunatics that sit in comments saying "I have 50 guitars....I have 75 guitars" - well these people don't need a guitar shop because they don't play the guitar. Like Bernie Marsden. Ostensibly a guitarist but he had hundreds of guitars. Most of which never came out of the box. Or, if they did they were hung on a wall. Well, your biggest guitar customers are more than up for buying online. They love it. They can get any brand, they can get most of the models from that brand - they can sit salivating at pictures one night and have it on the doorstep the next day. You go into your local store 20 years ago and tell them you wanted an Ibanez and he started crying that Ibanez wouldn't let him sell guitars and you should get a Cort because they're the same - well what use is that to our guitar buying nutter that wants a new guitar every month?
My local shop only has absolute beginner level equipment. Besides cables they only have the most expensive ones. The strings are the standard flavor slinky and dr mostly. I’m not sure who buys a $200 squier strat and amp pack that also buys a mogami cable for $20/ft.
I supported my local guitar store for more than a decade and they still went under. This is a deeper issue.
Internet is the new shop
Thomann and Sweetwater are on top
But guitar stores are important cos you need to experiment with different guitars in order to find what works for you
@peteandurnot And that's the problem, people try them out at store and then buy online.
@@MrCleitusthat’s what I do.
Sweetwater, eh? Never really considered them until now - thanx for todays P.U.T. (Pretty Useful Tip) - happy strummin'.
@@MrCleitus so true
I do the same
You try and then buy cheaper online
Best of both worlds
All I could see, possibly because of the tone of the video, was nostalgic snippets of my favorite movie The Commitments. My grandpa had a music store and sold it as well. I grew up in there. It hurts that the store experience is dying, but with the ability to have a guitar delivered and send it back if you're less than happy, lots of people are happy. In the last 4 years though I've bought 7 guitars, and the ones I bought online are NOT as good as the ones I played in a store and couldn't live without.
Well I've bought most of mine online and they are great
Guitar shops will always be more inspiring than any daft website. We all stood there in awe as little lads and took it all in.
Makes me slightly tear up seeing the empty wall in Goodwin's. Been there many times over the years and always was one of my favourite shops.
It's not just guitar stores, it's every kind of independent stores are being driven out by Amazon and online shopping. Store fronts are filled by large chain stores, restaurants, doctor's offices etc. Interesting downtowns and small unique villages are gentrified into blandness and it's going to continue to get worse.
This is exactly why I buy all my stuff from my local guitar shops and try to balance them out evenly. I love my local guitar shops and hate the idea of having to buy online, there's something special about just going into a shop and trying stuff until you leave with something you never thought you'd buy. I'd be heartbroken if my local guitar shop closed
In the US at least, this happens because people can’t afford it anymore. The cost of living is too high for regular people have the extra cash to go into a local music store and buy a nice guitar. You can’t maintain a business in that environment. The monopolization of the guitar market is a big part of it, but most people can’t afford to buy a guitar from the monopoly either.
Well that and you have companies like Sweetwater and Guitar Center that have massive purchasing power brick and mortar stores don't have.
I've been to maybe close to a dozen guitar stores, some repeatedly, and in nearly all of them the staff sucks. I don't mean like they are rude or anything. They just plain ignore you. Not a "hi" when you come in the door, not a "what you looking for", or "can I help you find something", just a few dudes standing around yakking to each other and overall acting like you are annoying them because you may ask them something or God forbid, buy something and interrupt their conversation.
I've been to two smaller ones, that were great. Greeted you, asked what you are up to. Both just had one dude behind the counter, and one maybe had a dude walking around trying stuff. So it felt right asking questions, and in one case I bought an SG and some extras.
Certainly most stores in Europe won't hassle customers like that because most shoppers don't want pushy salesman and more people will leave if they start asking them what they're doing or what they're looking for than vice-versa. I think music shops have the problem that the products they sell don't stand up to heavy use, they make a noise and the only reason you'd go into a shop is to pick it up and try it. e.g PMTOnline which is the only guitar store I've been in for decades have big signs telling you not to touch anything - well then what's the point? I can buy online and send it back if not touching it is the thing - and no matter how much space they have and how much stock they will never compete with a place that has a warehouse.
If a place is going to exist where you can go and physically walk in then it needs to be a place like the guitar shows where you have a wide choice and where everyone can pick up and play stuff - someone has to take the hit on stock. I get why smaller retailers can't have 'demo models' of everything, but without them guitar stores are mostly pointless.
And, ultimately, the places selling online with warehouses are generally shops - these shops that went out of business are the abacus sellers of the computer age, the people who proudly wanted to continue the tradition of shoeing horses or hand-knitting socks. It's been obvious for perhaps 30 of those 50 years KDH is going on about the store being there that they would have to create an online presence or go out of business and they chose to go out of business - and if this particular store is because of retirement, fair enough - but you can see that Lee at Andertons got an established business that worked in a particular way for his grandparents and parents, but that he had to adapt for the modern age and that's what he did - and that's why he currently has a guitar shop. I mean there is an issue where online places ship an unopened box from manufacturer -> you - which firstly makes you wonder what the point of the supposed 'retailer' is - because, make no mistake - they are potentially doubling the price of the guitar - maybe they've cut that margin because they do very little and to be very competitive but a lot of them are not really doing anything other than temporary guitar storage and shipment. The logical next step is they'd get rid of that. It's the same thing where Andertons / Thomann are effectively buying or creating brands so they can cut the margins there.
But when you see the prices Chapman guitars are in Andertons now (more or less half their usual price) it's clear the margin at the retailer is ridiculously OTT for what they do - and the supposed 'manufacturer' who isn't of course, Chapman. Both Chapman and Andertons are taking a big wedge from guitars actually made by someone else - and they're doing next to nothing for it. It makes no sense and the obvious logical thing for the people who can actually make guitars to do is to thank Lee and Rob and just make and sell guitars direct to us - and we know that putting 'chapman' on a guitar is probably the reason they can't sell them at half price - but what chapman does show - is what we always knew, you put the name of a popular guitarist on the guitar to sell it, you don't need a brand. Ibanez sell mostly on the back of Steve Vai for years and now Tim Henson.
@bethlehemeisenhour8352 Both are horrible. The pushy salesmen and the disinterested moochers just cashing a paycheck.
I'm older than you my friend. I've been a guitarist and musician for 45 years. Liverpool, my home city used to have numerous guitar stores. The famous Frank Hesseys, where I bought my first new strat back in 1979. Right next door was Curly Music, Jam packed every Saturday, you couldn't move. There were big music houses like Cranes and Rushworths. Dolphin music (now PMT) also in the city center in the 90s when Dawsons also joined in. All gone now, no music scene left. All the venues I used to play, 'the star and garter', 'Milos', 'The Lincolns inn', 'The Metro'... so many more, all gone. I feel so sorry for the youngsters today. Not only will they never feel the thrill of their favourite musicians suddenly improvise their music and extended a live song, because it's all backing and click track driven now. Quantized and auto tuned, but they don't get to spend a Saturday doing nothing but drooling over actual guitars in a physical environent. Buying a guitar is a tactile experience, it's not like buying your IPhone on line. Heck, you CAN actually go into a physical store and hold an iphone. Pointless, but you can do it.
Oh come on. Audiences couldn't even hear the beatles and most of the acts on stage during the 70s were drug-addled. This silly "things were better in my day" from internet grandpas makes no sense. There's nothing that happened anytime in the past that is objectively any better than a Jacob Collier gig or any of a large number of gigging artists - the problem is you just don't know anything about modern music and, why would you? The whole idea about music is, you like it the most when you're a teenager and mostly the bands you like for your entire life are those bands that were around when you were a teenager. That's the only reason you think they are better. They are not. It's just subjective taste.
Well teenagers today are enjoying other bands and artists that you've never heard of. Or perhaps they enjoy the couple of hugely popular artists that you snidely look down on. But, let's face it, they are playing to audiences of millions, making billions - make no mistake here when a skilled musician or parent watched you dancing about to whatever band you liked, those musicians and parents thought you were stupid for thinking it was great - because it really wasn't. And those skilled musicians couldn't believe what big stadium acts got away with. You know if Jimmy Page had a career that's because you, and millions of kids like you had no fucking idea about music because he's really not that good. Ozzy can't sing a note, Iommi cut his fingers off - there's no skill required to make a popular band in the 70s any more than today. Perhaps less. Neither are the stones. Or the beatles. They are average musicians at best. They created popularity out of fanaticism - exactly the same thing that Taylor Swift does.
But the really skill performers existed then but they weren't playing stadiums and they exist today. If you want to go and see someone who can really play their instruments you can, but you won't because you'll like whatever music you started to like when you were a teenager same as everyone else - and you really won't like it as much as you did back then. Just as when your parents gave you an easter egg when you were 10 you were running around the room in joy. Today you might like chocolate but you're not losing your shit over it. Everything that makes a kid run around the room in excitement that's an 11 out of 10 is about a 6 out of 10 when you're over 50 at best. Or you're simply not interested in it any more. Well, make no mistakes, kids of today find plenty of things to get excited about.
@@michael1 I can't wait to hear the brilliant music that's come from someone who proclaims that the Beatles were "average musicians".
Well? Don't be shy lad.
Man do you actually go to gigs 😅 I have seen so much cool stuff of late that isn't to backing tracks or click. It's all out there if you can be bothered to look, sure a lot of mainstream stuff is performed that way now, but there is literally shitloads of stuff done the other way.
@@MrAwesomeSaucesome"its all out there" yea it is and it all (mostly) contemporary and saturated autotune shite music does not have the soul it once had think what the older gentleman trying to say making music on a laptop not for everyone and they didnt need that in the 18th century either to make masterful works you Tech hotshots, just some actual creative talent.
I'll back this man up. I'm not as old as him. But the music scene has changed drastically. Large cities still have an underground music scene. The area I'm from used to have small local shows at clubs and hotel convention centers. It's dried up to nothing now. Used to have 5 music stores. Now we have two that are barely alive.
I live in the 2nd biggest city in france and when I was a kid we had to chose from a dozen guitar stores. Now there are 2.
So many closed since the late 90's, Rock Steady, Music Maker (Mary's Abbey), both city Walton's stores, Instrumental, Musician Inc, Perfect Pitch. It's the same in Australia now, what's left is junk/budget instruments.
Yes. This is happening all over the world. It's tragic. I used to love going to guitar shops, to meet people and discuss, you know, music related stuff. I live in Oslo/Norway and there's almost no guitar shops left. Sad.
This is happening in all parts of the world.
I live close to Chester in the UK and all the music shops have closed,
The nearest ones are in Liverpool or Manchester that are worth visting.
No one can compete with the online box shifters, the rents and rates have to be added to the asking price
by independant shops making it impossible to make a living out of it.
Same here in Canada. Besides our main music chain/franchise (Long & McQuade), guitar shops are virtually non-existent
Yep.
Except in the biggest cities, yes.
L&M destroyed lots of small businesses or bought them out and then ruined them.
Yeah L&M was great in the 80s. They slowly choked out the industry and now it's just guitar center north. Soulless drones selling chinese junk and treating the customers like trash.
Tom Lee still here in Vancouver!
You're right. I see it here in Ottawa too.
Thankfully where i live there still are a few guitar stores, my only complain is that they overprice stuff
They've got overheads.
Overprice only compared to the internet. For.retail, they're actually pretty low.margin
@@halcooper3070 yea definitely. For smaller music stores it is practically impossible to match the giant internet distributer.
Rent, insurance, electricity heating, staff. You’re paying for the convenience of being able to try out the gear and to bring it back if it’s faulty.
So just for context: i am working at a music store in Austria. The same plague of dying shops sadly affects us here too.
Just a small thing about the "not getting deals" thing. The problem that i have experienced is less that the big shops are dogidly persuing the srp (suggested retail price) but that the online giants like Thoman push the prices so low that on most items there is no space for a deal. On some products we male so little that the only way to financially sustain ourselfs is through cashback programs or else we would go negative on some instruments.
P.s. thanks for your video. I was recently in Dublin and visisted most of these shops. I love the city and i hope they will stay open for longer. Thanks for your message.
It doesn't help the the guitar manufacturers are asking astronomical prices for their guitars today. Gibson Les Paul starts at 2k, you can buy the exact same guitar for six hundred bucks without the Gibson name on it. Crazy
@@drop830Have a quick look at Australian prices for guitars and amps mate...
Absolutely insane!!
@@drop830 yea that too. I often saw products prices rise while the retail price would fall. Sometimes I am surprised that there are and stores left.
@@drop830I bought a new Les Paul in 1998. It was £1100. Today the same job (which I’m no longer in) pays twice as much and a Les Paul costs twice as much. There was a period about 10 years ago where currency, excess stock etc. made guitars very inexpensive. Where they are now is more the norm than the exception.
@@drop830yeah it’s not the exact same guitar nice try
You can Thank Guitar Center for a large portion of the current situation, they move into a city and intentionally undercut the prices of all the local shops until they go under, then raise their prices without the fear of competition. This was their business model for decades and it worked very well until all the online stores took over.
Doesn’t affect Europe though. No Guitar Center there. It’s gone from brick and mortar retailers to medium and large online businesses taking over.
Now Sweetwater is killing Guitar Center.
@@crisvis8905thomann, music store koln and Gear4music have done a number on music shops in Dublin.
@@crisvis8905. Guitar center killed themselves, with a little help from sweetwater
I remember growing up being able to take the train down to NYC and hang out on West 48th Street. It was literally a scene. You'd see session guys, pit players from the Broadway shows, guys in town playing bigger shows etc. The amount of gear they'd move in and out of those places was astounding. If there was new stuff out, Manny's or Sam Ash were going to have it in stock before anyone. Then things changed. They decided to change the area (Times Square) to a glorified shopping mall. That then drove up the rents on storefronts in the area and forced them out one by one. I think only Rudy's is left now. Guitar Center opened a massive store in Times Square on the other side of Broadway about 10 years ago and it initially made up for the losses, but it's Guitar Center with all the issues that come with it such as clueless staff, stuff that's damaged and needs repairs before you take it home and used items that are priced as something other than what they are. The other problem with the "mom and pops" on the whole is they don't cover the ranges. The ones near me all have low to medium priced stuff. They have no ins to get something special if you want it. There are a few more high end shops in the state that do a healthy business and can get what you need, but it's literally the opposite side of the state from where I live.
Trust me, it's happening everywhere around the world. If your rent, bills, business expenses, etc. are going x2, x3, x4 but the revenue is not going x2, x3, x4 then you die as a business. That's the nature of the turbo-capitalism we livin right now. I was literally passing by Denmark Street today and I was surprised that in a span of literally a year or two, several music stores have closed, i think only 4 or 5 are left there as of today.
belfast is somewhat similar; a few years ago we had three, but now its two (one of which is mainly an amp store)
Here in Glasgow, we are fortunate to still have 4 in the city centre, as well a couple of others further out in the city. But it's not what it used to be 10 years ago and like you said there's always the dread of one day waking up to find a guitar shop closing down done due to the rent pricing going up and being closed down in favour by the council of another pointless business/office building and lavishly expensive hotels that the city doesn't need.
Very cautious times we live in
Yeah. I got my first guitar out of... I forget what it was called, it was just down Argyll Street from Victor Morris, anyway. Second hand LPC knockoff. A couple of years later, I got my first not-actually a knockoff guitar out of... McCormacks (or MacCormacks, I forget which... it was more than 20 years ago), up on Bath Street. Biggars on Sauchiehall Street - while not specifically a guitar shop - went a few years ago, but I think they're out in Hillington now.
The same here in Australia. Pretty sad seeing the old great guitar stores closing down.
As an American guitarist and fan of Irish artists, this is heartbreaking to witness. It's happening all over, I'm afraid.
It’s everything. Even if people go into a shop and try something, the chances are they’ll go on line and see if they can find the same guitar for cheaper. Same for bookshops or shoe shops. Once we’ve lost physical retail then we’ll realise how online will use their power.
I’m from Waterford and growing up my family used to make a weekend of going to Dublin and letting me roam around the guitar shops trying out guitars and pedals and all that. Most of my guitars I got new were from MusicMaker, Waltons and XMusic. I went in, spent ages looking at guitars, played a few, picked the one that felt and sounded best. Loved doing that. Those guitars are some of my favourites I own and use the most day-to-day.
I live in Berlin now, and even the biggest music store here Just Music, closed back in January. A staff member told be it was because of Thomann. I bought an acoustic on their last day of business and was still able to sit down and compare a couple of models and play them for a while before I committed to one. The frustrating thing is now there’s very few places to go and actually try out new guitars. The handful of other guitar shops don’t carry brand new guitars or new releases so it’s really hard to know even where to go to compare and play different models in the capital city. It’s so sad.
I think that carries the risk for less diversity of guitars in the market, because fewer people will buy what they can't and no-one else has tried. People use all sorts of models and brands of acoustic guitars (at the more affordable end unlike the higher end where Taylor and Martin has the same duopoly as Fender and Gibson) and I couldn't tell you half of the brands I've seen being played but for electric guitars specific brands and models mean everything even to the novice player.
Thanks for the tour. Very cool city.
Oh my, goodwins is gone :( I used to visit this store
The trouble with guitar stores is that once you buy your guitar you don't need much more for a while. I still got my guitar from 1989. Also people are buying more online now.
Worked in Goodwins in 2004, Evan and Liam were such brilliant fellas. Sad to see it go.
in paris, and supposedly many towns, most stores have closed down since the end of the 90s. Instruments have been replaced by fast food
Thanks for making this video. I did my TY work experience in goodwins about 20 years ago now. Sad to see it too close down but at least it’s for a retirement and not going out of business.
As a Dublin-based musician, I always try to make the trip into town for strings and other bits and support local, and have been known to pick up a pedal or on-sale guitar on a few occasions as part of my patriotism.
But I’ve so often asked in stores about a deal or price reduction on items, asking if they’d price match the likes of Thomann, etc, and they just can’t. Smaller stores aren’t shifting the volume of stock that permit them to offer deals to customers and not get on the bad side of distributors and their RRP.
I think we’re heading toward a world where the only choice will be to buy direct from manufacturers and they can set any price they want, and a physical store will say FENDER or GIBSON over the door, not MusicMaker.
So shop local where you can, otherwise we may not be able to shop local at all.
Regarding your grandfather's purchase, my father bought my first good guitar when I was 14 in a shop that no longer exists called Sound Gear.
The guitar was a Yamaha SF600 and it cost 320 pounds (Punts) second hand.
I was a professional musician for 10 years and that was always my main guitar.
It went to a new owner only 5 years ago.
There was a time when you could spend a whole day just wandering around the guitar shops in Dublin because there were so many. 😊
That Ibanez LP has a cool story!
My town has a few guitar stores other than Guitar Center but they aren’t like the retail shops from the 90s. They have a little bit to look at, some new some used, but mostly shops for repairs.
One of my favorite shops back in the day had a big room full of new and vintage gear, and a little bit of boutique, and they had a play corner with amps, guitars, and pedals for everyone to play with, or to try out a purchase. The repair guys were always happy to talk shop and give advice.
It's sadly the same the world over mate!!
We had a family owned shop that wd sell new, used and was a pawnbrokers for instruments as well (this is late 80s)...
The room with 2nd hand gear had amps and pedals... the owners encouraged us lads to hang around trying different brands.
There was no hassling for a sale, we'd spend an arvo trying different amps and allsorts.
The old man was a luthier, who'd fix ur guitar or upgrade the pickups etc...
Now everythings sent away (at cost)... the shop is long gone now, we didn't know how good we had it.
The main street of my little town in Canada had a music store with a big room full of old and new, lessons upstairs, treasures in the basement, and the building had a 15 foot high 1950s lit up sign on the front proudly announcing it was a music store. It was a local landmark before the condo goblins swallowed it whole and left a steaming hot pile of bland in its place.
This is truly sad. One thing I’ve noticed is more secondhand shops, often out of town. They can be quite interesting as the stock can be more varied than the big box shops.
So it seems i ended up in the right place. Tokyo. It is insane the amount of guitar stores you can find and many of them with 5,6 floors, each floor dedicated to a particular brand or style of music. There are some crazy prices of course, but you can find anything. They even still have Tower Records which disappeared from places like New York ( as far as I know ). Sometimes progress means stepping on the brakes and staying with what works. The famous 48th street in New York was like a homeless hangout last time I went back. Only Rudy's music was open ( I think they moved too a few years back ), Sam Ash had moved to 34th or whatever, Manny's is gone ( and so is Sam Ash now for good )
I can see why this is happening I work in an post parcels there are hundreds of guitars coming through every week mainly from Germany
I remember a lot of those stores. Travelled from Cavan to see them all and bought my first instrument with my father's help in music maker. I bought stuff from most of those stores. People travelled to the city to see them. I go to Drogheda now. The Sound Shop for the last 20+ years. Dublin discourages motorists nowadays with traffic layouts. Takes a long time to get in by car and park and if you're buying something expensive, you need a car to take it home.
This is a brilliant video.
It is very sad to see so many music shops shut down but thanks to this vid I now know where to go.
So thank you.
My career was in retail for thirty years. Rents got crazy before Celtic tiger and as more developments were built, there was a push to get rid of small businesses and bring in foreign chain stores. Then when internet became accessable on phones, customers would come in store, research and shop on line.
As a kid in the 80s. Guitar stores were buzzing and inspirational places. Always good places to watch people play and chat. Miss that now.
Use them or lose them I suppose.
High street and other shops will continue closing. It is much easier to just order online and if do not like it, return it in 30 days or 20 or whatever.
Slowly, supply depots\store\warehouses will have a few booths, where you go and choose from whatever they currently have if you'd like a hands on experience.
I worked at one of the best ones in the Phoenix valley, Sam Ash. I was so bummed when they announced the closure. That was a great store. 100 years, family owned, and now gone.
My brother bought me my first guitar in Goodwins. He took me guitar shopping before Christmas when I was 15. It was weird seeing the shop nearly empty.
I've said this for years. I work at a very large elementary school. Young kids do not listen to music that much and they do not play instruments anymore. Been like this for about the past 15 years or so. They didn't grow up with the radio, they didn't grow up with MTV. Music is not a big deal them.
so this is why when they hit the age where they need a soundtrack (16,17) music in a style that a few decades ago was aimed at tweens is what they think it the all time best stuff.. They really don't have a clue and it's not really even their fault, but they're gonna be gullible and lame
@@colinburroughs9871 well my friend, I can only tell you what I do. I do the playlist for the office and it's always full of good music. When I find a young kid just a little interested in a music, I offer to buy them an instrument. That's my small way to play a part. Unfortunately, they really don't even care enough for that. I know one single kid in the largest elementary school in the county that plays the piano. He started taking lessons several years back and just got obsessed. Other than that, I've offered to buy so many kids guitars and other instruments to get them involved in music but they show absolutely no interest. It absolutely breaks my heart that it's dying right in front of us. I don't really have an answer. I've honestly tried everything.
Modern music suffers because most of the talent now is concentrated on games and software writing and diverted away from musical composition and lyrics with any depth amd meaning. Another sad aspect is the lack of care and attention to detail in tuning up instruments in many existing music shops in out of town shopping centres especially with second instruments with unusual tuning such as octave mandolins, bouzoukis and folk stringed instruments.
Bought my first acoustic in Perfect Pitch & my first "proper" acoustic in Goodwins, was always great to drop in & see what they had & pick up a few small bits. Liam was a great soul to chat to, a real gent.
It is so much cheaper to run an online store from an obscure location than a brick and mortar shop in a highstreet. And you won't have the kids "testing" your merchandise and wasting your time. Sad thing though.
It's not just guitar shops. Fishing tackle shops have almost the exact same problem. Customers can come in, hold an expensive fishing rod, see if they like how it feels and check out the build quality etc - and then go home and buy it on line with a big discount that a small shop can't afford to offer. Shops can't sell "big ticket" items and are reduced to selling stuff with little profit margin.
the closest guitar store to me was like a 30 minute drive (and then a 30 minute hunt for parking) away. they offered repairs and pedals and all kinds of things that you might need as a guitar player. i remember seeing Midi controllers and basses and synths in there too. all around this lovely little music shop. it closed down cause the guy got too old to run it. Now for the two guitars i need to repair i gotta drive 45 minutes to go to Guitar Center and hope they don't send me somewhere else or try to sell me something else. it's really sad when specialty stores like that close
There's nothing like going into a guitar store and actually playing a guitar for yourself before you buy it. I always get nervous about buying guitars online, and truth be told, I find it an exciting experience to go guitar shopping in person when I'm making a big important purchase like that.
It makes me sad as well to see how few guitar stores there are now. I think it's a mixture of things - online retailers like you said - and also people being less interested in guitar driven music by greater and greater degrees. I live near Manchester, and I love Forsyths Music and have bought guitars from them in the past. I try to support them and go in often, but the truth is I can rarely afford to buy more than a pack of strings or two. The number of people in there seems to be getting less and less each time I go...
When I was a young Dublin guitarist back in the 80's there were far less shops. You had Music Maker just off Capel St., Goodwins on Capel St, then Waltons and McCullough-Piggots. The newer shops that you mentioned were all Celtic Tiger shops that sprang up in the 90's but that ship has sailed now. With the abundance of second hand instruments on Adverts and Donedeal, and the big online suppliers like Gear4Music and Thomann, going back to 4 or five bricks and mortar shops sounds about right to me.
Sad to see Goodwins and so many other places closing. Perhaps there will be a return to actual physical rental outlets in the future when people start to reminisce about having a conversation with an actual person before buying their instruments.
As a working musician for over 25 years, I would have to add that the move to purchasing more of my musical supplies online has vastly increased in the last 7 years. I used to buy my monthly 10-12 packs of strings from a local store until I they increase the cost of them 100% with zero notice (I’m sure they have something to do with rents etc.), I couldn’t justify paying that much of an increase for strings I knew I was already paying more than the online prices, but I had being ignoring as I wanted to support the local store. These kinds of differences in cost drove me to use online suppliers and there was no real coming back.
All that said, I feel for those who are losing their businesses. Their overheads must be huge to have to charges so much more.
Liam was a great representative to what music stores where about. He’d go out of his way to satisfy his customers, his customers vice versa.
Even 20 minutes before gigs in the Porterhouse he was on hand.
This is my saddest loss of all stores
Goodwins also introduced me to a phenomenal luthier Frank Tate also of Capel St.
Anyone remember Musician Inc on Drury Street? I got my first guitar (a cheap Tanglewood acoustic) there 20 years ago. When I used to work in College Green, I'd spend my lunch hours bouncing between all the guitar shops in the area - Musician Inc, Music Maker, Perfect Pitch, Waltons - it was fantastic, as I got to get a little taste of guitars I could never afford back on minimum wage! The other thing that strikes me about then and now is the variety and amount of stock. I'm glad Music Maker is still with us, but they have a fraction of the stock they used to - the walls feel bare in comparison. Fewer brands and less variety within brands. Buying an instrument and playing music can be such milestones in someone's life, and it saddens me that the kind of experience I had as a teen can't be had anymore.
It stopped making sense a decade ago to have a gear shop that sells new instruments. They just become de facto showroom floors for online sellers. The only path I can see is used guitars and amps, particularly quality off-brands like Ibanez and Washburn, moreso if you can find yourself someone who can repair busted amps. Not boutique or "collector" stuff, just good workaday gear. Then the store can provide an upgrade path, from beginner to amateur to dedicated player.
I know one little store that survived because there were lots of bars nearby that still had live music, and it was the only place within 50 miles to sell strings, cords, sticks, etc.
The sad truth is for many people watching a RUclips video is enough to convince them to buy without trying. In the old days we just had no idea what was out there and we either discovered things on our own or via a friend, and occasionally an enthusiastic guitar store employee. There was no other way to actually know if a new product you saw in a magazine was hype or the real deal. Now that has all changed… the cost of keeping a retail store open when you’re doing most business online is prohibitive. And younger folks don’t know any different. I’ll be surprised if there’s any stores for music in 20 years…
i worked in goodwins in 1972-1974 when mrs Goodwin owned it.Mrs hanway and mr ryan were there also.Mrs Goodwin send me to guitar lessons to Pat Conway so i could help keep the guitars in tune for customers. i enjoyed working there.
Here in Australia, same thing. Most people have less disposable income, and it becomes important to get the best deal, which is usually online. Quality will suffer because we can't try before we buy any more. But, the average quality of a cheap guitar is better than it was in the 70s.
Same with when I grew up in the 60's-70's. There were electronic stores everywhere also. You could hobby yourself away till the end of time it seemed. You could literally fix and tinker away on anything to your hearts content. Starting in the mid 80's you started to see the decline down to about the only thing around was a radio shack. Can't even find that now. But back to the guitar point, here in Baltimore there was Ted's. Everything imaginable. and then they had a massive fire. They did open up a few streets over from where they used to be eventually, but they are not even a shell of what they used to be. I can't imagine all the vintage destroyed that day......So sad.........
The only electronic supply store in my city of 750,000 closed last year. With shipping everything now costs twice the price.
Some Neck looks like a great old school shop. I miss those spots. They’re disappearing rapidly all over the UK.
Anybody here from the North of England remember the short lived Tone World in Ancoates Manchester? Probably the finest, high end store I’ve ever been to. Ran by Gary Sharpe who used to manage Sounds Great in Cheadle, which under his care was also a tremendous shop, and an early UK Suhr dealer etc. I often wonder how Gary’s doing.
Never knew Waltons used to have a store in town. I live about a 10 minute walk from the Blanch one and I feel like it's fighting a losing battle. I'm in quite often and see very little foot traffic, but I'll keep supporting it to the end.
Amozon has dismantled retail across the globe .the one that really worries me is pubs are closing at an alarming here in scotland we lost 3 from my town in a couple of years .😢
I can go online and find the exact make and model I want. If I go to a local, even guitar center, I may find that guitar but will probably have to settle for something close if that.
Yeah. Some people go and try out guitars and decide on the spot to buy one. I tend to have a colour, fretboard, pickups etc. in mind.
my local guitar shop has around 40 guitars at most so i have no chance of finding the guitars i want
As someone who has moved around England a lot, I can vouch for there being less and less music stores around. In the last two places I have lived in you would have to visit another city in order to find any music stores. When I was a school kid it was quite normal to see three or four music stores within a couple of miles in many city centres. From what I have seen they slowly started disappearing at a similar time and rate as many venues stopped hosting live bands and everything you heard on the radio became ever more dependant on a mixture of synths and samples. This was before Amazon started to be well known.
If anyone remembers 48th St in NYC during its heyday, is was practically mecca for guitarists. Now, it's all gone. Even where I live, a lot of music shops have closed over the last 15 years. It sucks, I'm the kind of guy who needs to run the racks and find a guitar that has something special to it. You are not going to get that ordering a guitar online.
Very sad to see bought my first guitar in Goodwins still have it and still plays beautifully 25 years on
I visited Music Maker while I was in Dublin last year. Lovely fellas working in there. Sad to see the others go. The same has been happening in London for decades now
The rents in Dublin are crazy, it's cheaper to buy online because they don't have the same costs, you need competition, you are right!
When people are happy to just blindly buy on the internet, it's not surprising shops close! I bought my last guitar on the internet and had to take it back because it was covered in dings and the neck was awful (well, not unless I had it straightened and fret dressed), which you can see and pick and choose in a physical shop. The only thing I buy online is pedals, amps, strings, leads, etc. Stuff that either works or it doesn't!
48th street here in NYC used to be Guitar/Music row, but the rents have killed it.
@FreeEngland1We all know why? What’s that supposed to mean?
@FreeEngland1 I don’t live in NY. I asked you what you meant. Just say whatever you mean.
@FreeEngland1 No, I didn’t, you mong.
@FreeEngland1 are you referring to 9/11? Or the sub-prime mortgage crash that precipitated the financial crisis of 2008? Or what? I'm another Brit and I've no idea what you're talking about.
@FreeEngland1 I didn’t say that you pleb.
I recently imported some Fender Hybrid II guitars from Japan and I had to buy them online obviously. But I would much have preferred to pick the quilt or flame maple top that I wanted rather then get a randomly selected one. Also one of them had a pretty serious pickup alignment issue. I contacted the seller and got the standard "they're all like that" and they're not. if i was able to go through a physical store, i wouldn't have any of these problems
Here in Nova Scotia, the reasons for the demise of music stores are:
* Fewer places to play live music, so fewer musicians buying.
* Business costs have skyrocketed.
* Less competition due to big companies buying out the little guys.
* On-line competition.
~
When I was just getting into guitar, i wanted a gibson les paul. I waited 6 months for my local "mom and pop" shop to get some gibsons. They kept telling me they didn't carry them "at the moment". They kept telling me they were gong to start carrying them soon but that day never came. After I found out exactly how hard gibson makes it for a dealer to carry them, I realized there was NO WAY that little shop would ever be able to afford it and they were just lieing to me. So when they went out of business, i didn't care.
My regular luthier is no longer selling guitars and moving to a smaller shop to focus on the luthier side. He mainly cited slumping sales and noted almost everything on sites like eBay and Reverb was seeing far fewer sales and views. Cheaper guitars are getting better and buying online is easier (and cheaper) than ever. There are a couple of big name stores around here which are great to go to purely for the variety which you don't see in a lot of the non-chain stores.
Same for the tech guy I go to. He made the move from before Covid.
Up in Belfast there is one store Matchetts Music on Wellington Place that has very little in the way of proper Gibson and Fender USA. I remember there was Marcus Music, Guitar Emporium, Music Matters, Dawsons all gone now.
Really cool youre dad took care of that thing and wanted to pass it down. I would be honored to do the same.
Mixed feelings about guitar stores. Always felt like the blokes that worked there would prefer if I didn’t come in and ask to try anything because of the hassle. ‘This job is not really what I do, okay? I play keyboards’ - that was the feeling I always got from them.
It's been that way in the U.S. for about 2 decades now. I live in one of the biggest cities in the country, with a population of 1.6 million. We have 1 music store left.
First guitar was bought in Sound Gear on Portobello, Rathmines end. 1986 I think. Still there, I'm told. Still have the old Encore bass somewhere. In the early nineties Music Maker opened and we thought were in Disney Land...but apart from the yearly sale..even a bottom end Washburn bass was expensive in those days. Remember Walton's and Goodwin's. too. Thomann kind of removed the shops from my buying experience.
Some of the formative memories of my musical life were in small local music shops, I remember standing in there for hours as a 14 year old looking at expensive guitars on the wall that I thought would be nothing but a dream for me, occasionally finding kind staff who would let spotty little me bash out a few chords on a Les Paul or something which would leave me on a high for a week. It makes me sad that young musicians today rarely get to experience that. When I got more experienced, I met lots of local musicians at those stores, formed bands, got hired for sessions, etc. My current most local store has had to downsize a bit, but they are thankfully still there and show no signs of that changing any time soon.
Im really lucky with my home town, we have a music store here which is also a guitar school and they are really doing fine. They offer low end, mid range and high end guitars in like 100m^2 and 200m^2 music school. Super cool concept and I did spend like my whole childhood there haha
Really sorry to hear this. Sending my regards to Liam, Ken and the team
local used guitar shop by me charge outrageous prices, they had a shecter solo-2 which had obvious signs of use priced at retail. shops like that are dying for a reason
It's so funny that you posted this today.
I saw this morning that my local one is closing due to him retiring - just like the video thumbnail.
I remember that I asked around for guitars and basses back in 2022 and 2023 on a store about a 10 minute walk off from home, used to buy strings and picks for my cousin's classical guitar there, it closed mere months before I got my first bass, and I still wish it was open, that place had a godlike atmosphere and I feel like they would've had at least one pretty loyal customer, since I wanna commit to music production
A number of additions to the list of formerly available stores. Won't go too far back, so many or all of these will likely still be visible on Google Street View if you go back to the earliest available images:
- Musician Inc. on Drury Street, which was rebranded to Xmusic (distinct from the Guitar Center turned Xmusic store on Exchequer Street).
- Instrumental on Bachelors Walk.
- Waltons on Parnell Square East/Cavendish Row, a second Waltons site.
- McCullough Pigott on South William Street. More of a general music store than a guitar store specifically, but had guitar stuff. Only closed last year after 200 years (though they changed location during that time).
- 2 Yamaha stores. I at least remember playing a guitar in the one on Aungier Street back in the day (think was an RGX -TT), though there was another store beside Instrumental on Bachelors Walk.
Also, corrections:
- The street with all the guitar stores mentioned at the beginning is Exchequer Street, not Wicklow Street. That road is Wicklow Street east of the junction with South William Street, which is where you are when you introduce the topic while talking to the camera and probably where you took the shot of the street sign.
- The Green Hen restaurant is not where Perfect Pitch used to be. Perfect Pitch was next door in what is now Designer Exchange, which still has a white facade like Perfect Pitch. In fact the Green Hen and Perfect Pitch coexisted for a while.
- Dublin is a city with "fewer and fewer" guitar stores, not "less and less" guitar stores :-).
Sam Ashe just closed in Tampa, FL and had a clearance sale, but I’ve read many comments online not to bother, all the good stuff was already gone when the closing and clearance was announced. That leaves GC, and one excellent locally owned guitar store in S Tampa called Replay Guitar, and I highly recommend it. Opened in 2016 and they work on all my guitars. Sam Ashe bought out Thoroughbred, and Paragon is long gone. Replay is the place to go to shop local in Tampa.
I live in a pretty small town that had a music shop, the owner was a nice guy and i genuinely felt awful when i heard he had moved shop to a smaller town due to business drying out.
Got my first electric in Goodwins. Amazing memories of walking in and browsing, found a black strat copy, got a mini marshall amp and the rest is an addictive history for me
My local store downsized a few years ago, now they basically do lessons, set ups and repairs, but don't stock many guitars. Its very sad because I would often buy instruments there that were maybe a bit more than they should have been or maybe they weren't the best but I loved supporting that place. There's a new store in the same town now but it doesn't have the same feel.