I have a cool guitar town..

[KaiserSoze]

Cool new builder in my hometown of Kalamazoo, MI.  Nice to see a small shop building custom stuff in the former home of Gibson and current home of Heritage. 

 

[fdesalvo]

Lots of history there.  I like it.

 

[Cagey]

Another Michigander! Cool! I lived in Kazoo for a couple years, about 10 in Grand Rapids and a year in Wayland. Loved it. Love that whole side of the state.

 

[Day-mun]

At least you have Ann Arbor close by, KG! Hella-cool town for sure! Dunno what kind of music history there is in the Arb, but the CL ads for pretty good stuff for pretty cheap go on for pages and pages! -Must be all those UofM students selling anything and everything (in addition to having to beg/borrow/steal) to make the rent!  :laughing7:

 

[mayfly]

Isn't Ann Arbor where the stooges were from?

Oh yea - nice guitar.

 

[rgand]

Looks like that new builder makes a fine guitar. Thanks for the pic.

 

[Cagey]

At least you have Ann Arbor close by, KG!

Depends what you call "close by". I'm north of Detroit, so by the time you tip-toe around that terrifying war zone you're roughly an hour out. Personally, I've never been that impressed with the place, and don't know anyone who is. There's a lot more mystique than substance to the place. But, you're right - there's a lotta gear for sale there. It's like Mexico - there's no middle class. You have a few filthy rich and a lotta desperately poor, and neither extreme prices things right. The rich don't care because the money supply is good, and the poor don't care because they wanna flip things RFN. So, good deals abound.

 

[Day-mun]

Forgive my ignorance, KG. -To me, all that over there under "the thumb" seems like "the Detroit area" to me. -My daughter has been living in Ann Arbor for ~the past year and a half, and I've been over there maybe eight or nine times, so I'm still a little enamored with the town. -Fun place to visit, but I sure wouldn't like to deal with that cost of living; my kids' studio rent is about as much as my 3-bedroom ranch's monthly mortgage payment.  :doh:

 

[Cagey]

Yeah, the cost and quality of living is dramatically different on the west side. You can get a helluva lotta house/land over there for what you'd pay here for a bungalow on a postage stamp lot. Also, the political environment is much more satisfying. Actually, most of the state is that way; the only way we get colored blue is due to the I-75 corridor from Detroit to Saginaw where all the moochers live. It's the tail that wags the dog, sorta like New York state. Reliably blue, but only because of NYC. Ruins things for everybody else.

 

[Day-mun]

-Sorry KaiserSoze, I should letcha get back to talkin' 'bout K-zoo!

 

[Hbom]

If K-zoo is so cool....

Why did Gibson go South?

 

[Day-mun]

I'm no historian, but I think the shop in Kalamazoo was the State-side home of the Epiphones, before they moved over-seas to Korea, etc. to save $$$ on labor costs.

I dunno if it is because of being geographically close to K-town, but I know more than a few guys 'round me who still have US-made Epi's that were manufactured at the Kalamazoo plant; -really nice playin' arch-tops!

 

[DangerousR6]

Interesting shape...

 

[KaiserSoze]

Its actually a pretty cool history, from a one-room workshop that Orville Gibson started..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Guitar_Corporation

It's fun to think of all the Les Pauls and 335s to go out of here and whose hands they got into.  Joe Bonamassa played just north of here a few weeks ago and made a special trip down here to have a picture taken holding two of his '59s in front of the old factory.  I'm still hoping to run across a mint 60's SG at some old ladies garage sale…..