An Open Letter To Fender: Effortless Revenge

Dear Fender:

We here at TheToneKing.com have begun preparing for NAMM show in Anaheim this January. As we reflected back on all of the coverage of great new gear hitting the market, we remembered the little prank that Gibson played on you by sticking an SG in your NAMM booth.

Now, don’t get us wrong; TheToneKing.com loves a little good-natured ball-busting every now and then.  Hey, maybe you guys even had a laugh with the Gibson guys about it afterwards over a Fresca.  But Gibson’s “prank” struck us as crossing the line.  Surely, your folks spent lots of time preparing for the biggest music industry trade show in the continental U.S., not to mention the not-insignifcant amount of money you probably spent on that space.

So, maybe Gibson should’ve saved the yucks for a different time and place.  But we also believe that turnabout is fair play.  So, if you’re curious as to whether Gibson can take it as well as they dish it out, we kindly offer the following suggestions for the second volley in what could turn into the most epic prank war in the history of the music trades.

1) Tell everyone that “Gibson has realized the error of their ways and started building Stratocasters!”

Imagine the confused looks and head-scratching something like this would generate!  Yeah, plenty of companies out there have taken more than a drop of inspiration but from the classic Strat design, but Gibson doesn’t need to do that. They have the goddamn Les Paul and SG! Only a classless dick would try and steal something that wasn’t theirs.  And do they really think they’ll be able to compete with the likes of Fender? The guitar-buying public will start petitioning the city of Memphis to check the water supply going into Gibson headquarters.  It would totally…wait…MJ just sent me a link to an article on MusicRadar.com…

Hmmmm……

Really?

Um, OK, well, it turns out that Gibson ALREADY TRIED SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

jh-gibson-white-460-85

 

 

 

 

 

Um, that’s not a Fender there buddy. Se that penis shaped headstock? That’s what some in the industry call a dick move.  Doesn’t Gibson love suing companies over things like this?

Well, scratch that idea.  But it’s ok, we’ve got others!

2) Tell everyone they’ve re-designed a classic model into the most tragic-looking guitar ever!

Robot Gumby on acid.  A melted bowling ball festooned with Christmas lights.  The mutant offspring of an old Vox Starstream that caused such panic to look at, it had to be locked away in a concrete vault buried beneath the Lincoln Memorial.  And it’s a new version of one of Gibson’s classic models.  NAMM attendees thought it was weird that a Gibson was hanging in Fender’s booth?  Wait until they get a load of this.

Just based on the descriptions above, we could come up with something really mortifying in Photoshop and start dropping images of our shocking mythical beast into various forums across the Internet.  I’m sure all sorts of wacky things could be done to a perfectly good Les Paul or a Firebird or…

Oh my….

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=447d8NXqztQ’]

Let us simply move on and never speak of this moment again.  We just wanted to have a little fun, not traumatize people.

3) Tell everyone they’re jacking up prices!

OK, third time is the charm!  Having run out of slightly less caustic prank ideas, let’s just go big.  Tell everyone they’re raising prices!  Most Gibsons are already quite pricey to begin with, so this is going to sting for sure.  Can you imagine the reactions?

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd9UCrEzsgs&list=UU50DFDbb-_6ebSLyQwWLuvA’]

Oh wait, they ARE raising prices!  And part of the reason is that they don’t think anyone can tune his own guitar, so something called a “G-Force” will go on nearly every new 2015 Gibson.  Fantastic.

 

4) Set up a how to bake your own maple neck booth. 

When you all of a sudden find yourself short on wood, which seems to happen often to Gibson, you can always bake your necks til they look like rich ebony or charcoal. Whatever you want to call it. 

Most of us would just call that burnt.

 

5) Send a lawyer over to Gibson’s booth to advise them how to export woods out of foreign countries. 

Gibson always seems to have a problem with getting wood. Maybe they just need a few pointers from someone who knows something about the Lacey Act. Of course, if the lawyer doesn’t know anything about the intricacies of protected wood conservation laws, they could at least let advise Mr. Juszkiewicz that sometimes is just best to keep one’s mouth shut.
You know what, Fender?  Just ignore the ideas in this letter and keep doing what you’re doing.  Gibson seems to be taking care of all the heavy lifting for us.

See you at NAMM 2015,

TheToneKing.com

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