HOUSE OF GUITARS PHOTOS <3 SLOANY BLOGNEY

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:32 pm

the giant cab is somewhere in this pile of stuff. the photo came out really really dark. anyone care to work photoshop magic with it?

Justin J · Post by **Justin J** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:59 pm

Mike wrote:Here in England the shops are way smaller, that place looks like you could get lost in there. The most I've done in London is like 4 pedals or 2 guitars or amps before moving shops. They get all pissy if you're not buying something.

you guys don't have massive guitar center style stores? guitar center is great 'cause the employees don't care what you do, even the vintage room in hollywood. i'll just sit there for hours and play every guitar they've got.

Post by **Mike** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:03 pm

Nope, closest we had was Sound Control which is now bust.

Post by **Hurb** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:03 pm

BobArsecake · Post by **BobArsecake** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:06 pm

Mike wrote:Nope, closest we had was Sound Control which is now bust.

The old Sound Control near me in Stockton is now called Reverb, or something, same type of sign as well.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:27 pm

bubbles_horwitz wrote:
Mike wrote:Here in England the shops are way smaller, that place looks like you could get lost in there. The most I've done in London is like 4 pedals or 2 guitars or amps before moving shops. They get all pissy if you're not buying something.
you guys don't have massive guitar center style stores? guitar center is great 'cause the employees don't care what you do, even the vintage room in hollywood. i'll just sit there for hours and play every guitar they've got.

Nothing like the pics above. Swan's in Cardiff is a reasonable size, but I only played (and bought) the one guitar. Dawson's at Reading (part of a chain) is big, like a warehouse unit, but I don't know how they are about you trying guitars. My son played on digital drums there for quite a while (on headphones) with no-one bothering him, while I looked at the synths. I've spent an hour trying Les Pauls in Guitar Village at Farnham when they were quiet (weekday) and they weren't at all fussed. I think it depends on how busy they are. Fret Music in Southampton have some booths, like Anderton's in Guildford, but the owner's an a-hole.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:24 pm

bubbles_horwitz wrote:
Mike wrote:Here in England the shops are way smaller, that place looks like you could get lost in there. The most I've done in London is like 4 pedals or 2 guitars or amps before moving shops. They get all pissy if you're not buying something.
you guys don't have massive guitar center style stores? guitar center is great 'cause the employees don't care what you do, even the vintage room in hollywood. i'll just sit there for hours and play every guitar they've got.

Guitar center here doesn't have shit for vintage stuff. Ive seen 3 or 4 vintage Gibsons in there in the last few years, and Ive never seen a vintage Fender there at all.

Edit: actually, I've never seen a vintage guitar from any other manufacturer there.

Justin J · Post by **Justin J** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:19 pm

the guitar centers around here get a fair deal of vintage stuff. usually '70s strats, but the sherman oaks one seems to consistently have at least one vintage jaguar. and the hollywood guitar center has a massive two-floor room of vintage stuff.

jcyphe · Post by **jcyphe** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:20 pm

timhulio wrote:They got a website? I'd go for the red hagstrom II

The have the funniest philosophy. They never really blowout stock or put anything on clearance. Their whole idea is that sooner or later somebody will want it. So they just have a huge stockpile of guitars. The brothers that run it also air all these really budget commercials on TV.

http://www.houseofguitars.com/

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:38 pm

yea joeys right.

they don't go out of thier way for anyone. hell they only got that website within the last month.

they don't really need to. everyone knows about it. there are autographed photos all over the inside of the place with members of bands posing with the owners....everyone from keith richards to james hetfield.

the value of the store can only go up if they sit on what they have. im assuming they outright own the building by now since its been around for every, so they don't have to pay rent...probably all they need to worry about it rediculous guitar insurance and taxes....and with these burnouts its entierely possible they don't pay either. so awesome

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 6:41 pm

thats not to say that everything in there is vintage either. there is TONS of brand new stuff in there, probably more than a guitar center would stock....the only difference being that they have 1 white, red, or black mexican strat and GC has 10 of them uglying up the place. they have rad (new) oddball shit....all the mexican offsets, brand new time machine custom shop fenders....tons of shit. its just that there is so much vintage shit in there it makes it look small in comparison when it really isn't

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:15 pm

HOG is sweet. Like Rob says, stuff is literally piled on shit. I had to move like 3 $1000+ Gibsons and shit out of the way to get the JOAN JETT Melody Maker out of the case. There's almost no way to grab a guitar without having to move another one, unless said guitar is just on a stand outside the cases. It's insane. They had one of those tiny, tiny, nylon string basses and i was dicking around on it until i read the back and it said like $65000. FUCK.

I searched for BASSMAN TEN but didn't see one. It was probably buried under shit. They had liek 47583 Hot Rod Deluxes and some of them had the special finishes, like orange with black racing stripes. Looks cool, but it's still a HRD.

Also, that was me HAETING the j mascis jazzmaster. FUCK THAT GUITAR.

They also had the Elvis Costello poopcaster. It was awesome looking.

jeff · Post by **jeff** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 11:12 pm

The best thing about House of Guitars is that it's like 4 tiny buildings held together with duct tape and bubblegum. Nothing is level and there are all these narrow passageways stuffed with guitars. I was in there for over an hour, and thought I'd seen everything and then all of a sudden HUGE room full of CD's and records and tapes and t-shirts and crap. It has to be experienced in person.

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:06 am

thats the room shad and I spent all day in. after guitarfest 6000

im pretty sure we got yelled at by hilary after we got home because she always get out of work like at 330 on Sunday and wen don't even break a sweat at HOG until 4 and its still an 1.5 hour drive home

jamieb · Post by **jamieb** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:10 pm

bubbles_horwitz wrote:
Mike wrote:Here in England the shops are way smaller, that place looks like you could get lost in there. The most I've done in London is like 4 pedals or 2 guitars or amps before moving shops. They get all pissy if you're not buying something.
you guys don't have massive guitar center style stores? guitar center is great 'cause the employees don't care what you do, even the vintage room in hollywood. i'll just sit there for hours and play every guitar they've got.

Interesting you say that, as I was just there a week or so ago (I'm assuming you're talking about the one on Sunset) and yeah, they didn't really seem to mind me fiddling around with their vintage stuff, or indeed anything else. They have a sweet pedal section upstairs too, spent a fair amount of time poking around that. I found a huge GC in Vegas as well which is worth a visit.

The guitar shops here are more like dark, pokey, generic instrument shops with a few guitars for sale. They're always owned by some old surly bloke who really doesn't want you to sit there and thrash one of their overpriced Teles to death.

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:21 pm

I have never been to a "massive" Guitar Center. They're all small as fuck and I can't test powerslides.

More Cowbell · Post by **More Cowbell** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 5:25 pm

More Cowbell wrote:How much was that kingman? How did it sound/play?

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:01 pm

hardly anything in HOG has a price tag on it. when you do find something with a tag it is always the highest list price, never MSRP.

tribi9 · Post by **tribi9** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:32 pm

Where's the HOG?

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:07 pm

rochester NY

actually its in Greece NY, a suburb of rochester. right down the street from where Kodak camera's are all made