HOUSES OF THE
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Dedication 3 foreword 5 Chapter 1: Artisans 10 Chapter 2: Resonance 19 Conclusion 26 Works Cited 30 2
Dedication Dedicated to Mike, Kevin and the amazingly skilled and helpful staff at Gelb music for letting me wander their shop and who, without, this documentary wouldn’t have been possible, Josh Friedman for teaching me everything I know about music and Freestyle Academy for putting it all together.
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foreword When I first walked into Gelb Music for the first time I was expecting either a small one-room-shop with specific genre of instruments or a large department style floor with sectioned instruments and blaring music, both of which I was familiar with. However, what I found at Gelb fit neither of these predefined notions. Something I could only described as a mishmash of interconnected rooms; each with specialized instruments literally hanging from the ceiling. Something I might describe as an uber-boutique. Even having been in there for only about 30 seconds, Gelb struck me as something truly special. It reminded me of the kind of place I imagined Jimmy Page or Pete Townshend might have hung around as a kid. (Something I would later learn was not all that far-fetched.) My curiosity only increased when I learned that Gelb had been in business for over 70 years. Initially, I couldn’t describe what it was about Gelb that peaked my interest. This documentary unit gave us the task of “finding an untold story” in our community. And so, while I knew truly nothing about Gelb besides it’s age and craft, I decided to investigate Gelb based on only the hunch that there was more to the shop than I had yet to see. I was not disappointed. From listening to the customers and staff at Gelb, I learned that Gelb’s success and personality was a result of its unique environment and of a variety of specific factors that made this small shop a big name when it came to music. Through this project, I came to learn that Gelb was anything but a your average store and, perhaps, just what it was about 5 Gelb that struck me the first time I stepped through it’s door.
Introduction
Monterey Pop Festival, California, 1967: following a 45-minute show to a crowd of thousands, a guitarist by the name of Jimi Hendrix ends his performance of “Wild Thing� in the most dramatic, spectacular, flamboyant and possibly destructive way imaginable. He lights his guitar on fire and proceeds to smash it (Fletcher). This strange act of musical arson is considered by many rock enthusiasts to be one of the most beautiful and soulful displays of art and emotion in history. 6
Anyone viewing this event would tell you there was a clear and powerful connection between the artist and his instrument that contradicts this otherwise violent act against an inanimate object. This deep rooted emotional connection and appreciation of music is shared by all people and has been conserved in and through culture since the beginnings of civilizations. It is because of this tight correlation between instruments and their ability to both preserve and shape culture, that the crafting and trading of instruments was, throughout most of history, a specialized artisan craft characterized by intense dedication and unparalleled expertise and was as culturally symbolic as the crafting of a boat or a sword. Where have these guardians of culture gone in the 21st century? Have these sonic sages faded away into history, replaced with commercialization and the emergence of industrial production? Thankfully, no.
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Today there still remain a few humble bastions of melodic sagacity and, like many wonderful things in the world, you just have to look a little bit closer to find them. While there might be some who would argue that this creativity and dedication is all on the part of the musician himself, and that these ‘new age artisans’ have little if anything to do with the crafting of instruments or the production of music in general. I would invite this person to delve a little bit deeper into these ‘common retailers’ and how attuned they are with their profession. One shop in particular, resting in Northern California’s Redwood City, has stood as a sanctum of music for over 70 years. Founded by musicians, for musicians, ensuring quality crafts and services and bringing music and expression to the people, it exists modestly in a small local business known as 8
Gelb
Music.
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Chapter 1: Artisans Why might Gelb deserve some praise for your Gibson ES-330, Fender Blacktop Stratocaster, or even your Native Instruments DJ controller? We don’t usually associate the quality of our product with the retailer we got it from. We don’t thank the car dealer when the airbags on our sedan protect us in an accident, so why is Gelb and its instruments any different? Well, the answer to this lies in the fact that the staff at Gelb aren’t just the distributors of their products; they are also consumers, and active consumers at that. Mike Craig, Marketing Manager of Gelb, describes the shops staff saying:
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We have this staff, Tony Baker, Rich Healy, Bill Schrey, these are guys known in the industry, they are like monster players...They’ve been here for 20 years or longer and they’ve been playing. I played back in high school and they are playing gigs now. Some of the guys go out on tours... Tony Lindsay: lead singer for Santana. Don, who works in our drum department, played with the Doobie brothers and has done all kinds of stuff with great artists (Craig).
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This active usage of their products makes Gelb and its staff of musicians and teachers a valuable resource to both the customer and the producers and is a point of pride for the store. As its owner and manager Kevin Jarvis describes, “Between the teachers and my employees we have about 25 musicians employed. I consider that my greatest feat, that I have 25 off the street and that they are making a living as a musician.” A passion for the craft is not only a huge factor in determining a business’s success (D&B), but also contributes to Gelb’s extensive expertise in its field. So much so that local instrument producers and big names in the guitar and instrument companies have taken notice of Gelb and gone out of their way to work and hear from them personally as Kevin explains:
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If you’re a good business and your true to your customer you get a reputation. That becomes something you cannot advertise away and that’s kind of what we are now, we are kind of a institution and iconic name and people come into the area and, fortunately, often times they seek us out (Jarvis). A reputation is more than how something is advertised to others. It is a set of values or aspects that the outside world will associate with and come to expect from a person or place for better or for worse. It is dependant on what standards something is held to and is largely reflected by the company something involves itself with. In the case of Gelb, the reputation of the store is reflected by how involved the shop is with its brands and manufactures as Mike describes:
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[We] also have custom shop guitar builders from Gibson or Fender come up and talk with some of our guys about what they could do better or what they can add. A while ago we had this guy Justin Novell from Fender, he oversees all the Fender electric guitars. We have Sabago Sound, which is a local company here who does really high end amps, but he’s one of the guys who comes in with tape all over his amp saying ‘This is just a prototype but help me design this’... I got to meet the president of DW Drums and he sat there and talked about his trips around the world getting rare wood to making his drum sets and why it sounds different... We got the president, Jack Swartz, of Fender come down and sat there... and it’s like, out of all the guys in the world this guys is probably one of the top guys... (Craig). 14
Gelb’s highly respected and constructive feedback is a result of the shop’s experience and expertise. Something that it has accumulated over the years and contributes to the store’s value and elevates it above that of larger, corporate stores. One way that Gelb and other local music stores stay informed about the changing music market is through communities like the Alliance of Independent Music Merchants (AIMM) and gatherings like the National Association of Music Merchants convention (NAMM) where around 100,000 instrument vendors meet with manufacturers to showcase the latest and greatest in instruments and music (Graham). From this huge market of new products from both companies large and small, Gelb strives to find only the best and most promising products that it knows from experience it’s customers really want. Kevin elaborates:
This stuff it subjective. I would say that we carry about 5 to 7% of the available product that is made. So we are actually choosing based on our knowledge, our ability to listen to it, to hold it, to play it, and to make a decision whether we have customers that we think would be interested in it, do we stand behind it, do we believe that it’s good, do we think it is clearly above the norm (Jarvis).
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In retail this concept is called a “value chain” or the ability of a business to maintain product value through understanding what the consumer wants and communicating with the manufacturers in order to effectively deliver it.
From an evolutionary perspective, organisms that are able to detect and respond to stimuli quicker have won out in natural selection. This quicker response is directly correlated to the degree of control a business has over its value chain (Lewis & Dart, 109).
Basically, it’s a business’ ability to understand the “demand” and create the proper “supply” to serve it. While other stores achieve control of a value chain through the production of their own personal store brands (think Costco’s Kirkland or anything with the word “Joe” in it at Trader Joe’s) (Forbes). Gelb doesn’t need to own their products because of this symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship between the shop and instrument manufacturers. The customer and professional feedback that Gelb helps facilitate, provides the manufacturers with areas of improvement, resulting in instruments and products that customers and artists actually want being put into production. How’s that for more than a middle-man? 16
Gelb successfully embodies this trifecta of the musical market by housing distributors, consumers and experts all under one roof and creating a perpetual cycle benefiting the entire musical community. However, the other side of this consumer/producer value chain is the consumer, the customer, the artist, the audience. How does Gelb contribute directly to the people that make the shop possible? Besides the staff being professionals and active consumers of the products, Gelb differs from traditional retailers by offering their customers more than just a shop in which they can buy “things”. Gelb offers their customers an education, a chance to better understand the music that they are participating in. Lessons for novice musicians are one way the Gelb utilizes their highly experienced staff, and their access to top tier equipment aids the shop by helping to create the musical community and artists that it wants to support and be involved with.
The way we work together is we, obviously, support [the teachers] and their students and they support us by being great teachers. So it’s a great relationship where we have all the gear they need, we support all the right gear,and they bring in a lot of students and the relationship grows. I mean I walked in the door when I was 10 and and 35 years later I’m still coming down here playing (Craig).
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Beyond individual lessons, Gelb also holds workshops and clinics on instrument specifics and set-ups for experienced artists to further share their knowledge of the craft and the instruments they carry to those who can truly prosper from it.
We’ll have clinics for people to come down and see ‘Well how does this work’, and by knowing more about the gear you’re playing with, you can kinda go home and decipher between, say a combo amp or a tube amp in a solid state. These things that you’re playing you start to hear a little bit better... Overall I think by coming here to Gelb I think people get a good price, a good product all that, but they also get support for their on going questions. ‘Hey I bought this software how does it work?’ Well there’s someone [here] that uses it all the time (Craig). These are all examples of Gelb expressing value to its customers, the musicians and the artists of tomorrow, and equipping them with the tools and knowhow to play the music of the future. Whether it’s through working with the manufactures or one-on-one interactions, Gelb strives to improve the experience of every person that walks through the door with a desire to create music. Because, like any good business, Gelb remembers that it is always about the customer. 18
Chapter 2: Resonance As cliche as the saying ‘the customer comes first’ is, it’s true. Valuing your customers is an important aspect of business success. A business won’t flourish with the motto: ‘the customer is expendable.’ In music stores like Gelb this dedication is even more paramount because their customers are looking to find an instrument that is going to be unique, and possess incredible sentimental value. Some people even take out insurance on their instruments or give them names (Anderson). When dealing in this trade, it’s important to understand where the customer is coming from and ensure that they are well informed and satisfied with their purchase, not treating them like children buying glorified toys. Unfortunately, treating the customer as a unique individual is an ability lost by many businesses when they grow into large-scale chains and corporations. In most cases, the objective of customer service is used only as a facade to propel the customer into a quick purchase. For example, let’s take a comparable business like Guitar Center, probably the largest distributor of instruments in the nation. However, Guitar Center is just one branch of a company that owns stores like Staples and Toys R’ Us and as a result is able to operate on a large scale to produce large quantities at the cost of quality (Townsend). Professional musician and guitar instructor Josh Friedman illustrates the trade-off like this: 19
I’ve had horrible customer service every time I go into Guitar Center...Every single time. And I’ve gone there so many different times. And it’s with different people so it’s not one consistent person. There’s some kind of mentality with Guitar Center that it’s....like a toy store. It’s like; ‘Oh, you need this toy.’... And then at the end they try to up-sale you, they’re like, ‘Oh, well, you should get this’ or, ‘Do you want to get the warranty? What happens if it breaks?’... It’s a money making thing...I’ve never had great customer service from Guitar Center because the people there, I think they work on commission, and so they are always pushed to ‘Sell, Sell, Sell’ and it’s a big company that wants to make money. Whereas people that work at a smaller store, whether it’s Gelb or Gryphon, they are more interested in getting you the right instrument, making sure you’re satisfied. They want you to come back. 20
This desire to build a connection and relationship with the customer is a business technique called a “neurological link”, which represents a business’s appeal to customers and is one of the largest factors in determining whether or not a business will survive. A common example of this is the Starbucks syndrome.
As proof of the Starbucks connection, one needs only observe the long waiting line at a Starbucks in an airport right next to a McDonalds (or any other coffee vendor), with no line at all. Simply providing a great product with a deep understanding of the target consumer is merely the price of entry today. The superior competitors will be providing what we call neurological connectivity (Lewis & Dart, 12). Before you freak out thinking that Starbucks is trying to brainwash you, remember that a business’s neurological link to the customer is created by the business doing something well and providing you (the customer) with something you want or need. For Guitar Center, it is providing a huge quantity and variety of instruments at fairly low prices, something characteristic of corporate businesses these days.
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On the opposite end of the spectrum, for Gelb, it is connecting with each customer individually and providing an informative and personal shopping experience as well as carrying only high end products in order to build trust and prove reliability . After spending around a month trying to track down a replacement tremolo bar for my Peavy EVH Wolfgang Standard electric guitar (an item I found to be incredibly specific and elusive), I eventually brought it with me to Gelb during one of my interviews to see if they could possibly help me. It took one glance at the instrument and fifteen seconds of searching for the clerk behind the counter to find the correct part and make my guitar whole again. A month-long plight solved in under a minute with the flat charge of $10. Needless to say, I was satisfied with their service. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one because quite a few famous names in the music world can none too rarely be seen simply hanging around Gelb due to their quality service and know-how. 22
We had Neil Young come last week just hanging out in the middle of the store. I walked in the shop and I’m like, ‘Oh that’s Neil Young...that IS Neil Young’, yeah that’s kinda weird you know?...We have Kenny Aronoff he’d come in and do a drum clinic and it’s nice because Kenny has played with Chickenfoot, Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, he was doing something for the Beatles tribute where he was filling in for Ringo.... Nine Inch Nails comes into town and his tech crew is coming in here...You have Sting...and while he’s on this schedule where he’s flying back and forth, in between he stops at Gelb and does a clinic and, here you have 50 to 100 people, and he’s sitting one on one... And we try not to make a big deal out of it, and again they are human people and they are usually all just dead cool just chillin out. (Craig). Still, neither the approach to appealing to a customer nor building this neurological link should be considered wrong or morally corrupt. This book isn’t about painting a David vs Goliath battle between small local shops like Gelb and large chain stores like Guitar Center. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses in their business strategies, which is all of relative importance depending on the type of customer. Rather its purpose is to highlight the values of Gelb compared to the rest of the market and elaborate on why it is an exceptional business. 23
I’m not going to say that [Guitar Center] doesn’t have people that know what they are talking about...but, I feel that if you’ve been doing something for 20 years and you’re taking home your work and you’re living your work you’re going to be smarter that the 16 year old guy that is working there. And there’s no discredit to either of them but when you bring something in...you’re just going to get a little better experience from here. They have certain things they do very well. They also have very deep pockets...there’s some basic corporate marketing tactics, if you can call it that, that I think [they] use that we try not to do... I see that with GC where they come in and they plant themselves very close. They’ll say ‘Where do you make your money?’ and then lower it. Some musicians need the money and that’s just the way it is. And the sad part is those small stores will go away and that will be your one choice... and it’s going to kind of suck” (Craig).
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It would be unfair to paint a business as “the bad guy” just because it is in opposition and has a different style of operating. After all, it is a competition to survive and chain stores are simply utilizing the advantage they’ve gained since they first started showing up. But to a place like Gelb, and other similar stores, it is important to uphold certain values and to provide a service to the customers they are proud of. Their dedication to the artist and their music comes first. As Kevin put it;
I always have a store that would make [artists] interested. I always feel that if you have a store that is equipped with the best products that the pro players will use that that will sift all the way down...I’ve stayed true to always paying my bills, doing what I say, never cheating anybody, always being straight-up. And believe it or not, that’s not the case for a lot of businesses. ...Some people come into the store they don’t trust us in the beginning because all the guys that have not held their word or kept their integrity. It’s the number one thing for me and I want my employees to do that, I don’t want anybody being told something that we can’t do, that we don’t do. I think if you come from that standpoint it will serve you well long-term. It’s an absolute. I made that the number one thing because I think it all falls from there. If you don’t have that I don’t think you have anything. 25
Conclusion So what’s in the future for Gelb and businesses like it? For most businesses this question would be answered quickly with something along the lines of “more stores and more money.” While this is a valiant, although rather stereotypical, ambition for most businesses, Gelb isn’t most businesses. Gelb Music is the product of over 70 years of passion driven labor starting with a Chicago born violinist named Sidney Gelb, who followed his neighbor (a certain Walt Disney) to California, and founded a small Bay Area music boutique in 1939. A boutique which is thriving to this day through its current owner and manager Kevin Jarvis and its talented, committed staff dedicated to supporting those who love to play music. It’s a local store founded with integrity, a little more 500 square feet and a few instruments on the walls. Through dedication and going above and beyond to improve itself with every chance it got, it became a well known and respected pillar in the local and national music community. 26
So what is in the future for Gelb Music? Well hopefully it means more of the same. While that mission statement might sound lackluster and uninteresting, one must keep in mind that for Gelb “more of the same” means anything but stagnancy.
Live music is never going to go away. It will morph and change and it may be different product you’re playing. Even DJ’ing, it’s really just a different instrument...The challenge for Gelb is going to be making sure we turn out the right product at the right time...It’s going to have to morph to survive. You can’t sit there and go ‘Everybody like blues music!’ and so that’s all you carry blues guitars and blues amps that’s just silly. Music has opened up even wider you have everything from country to death metal and yeah there may be a majority of people that focus on a certain genre of music that is more popular but I think that the ability to go to those extremes and have products that satisfy those is the way is has to be (Craig). 27
It means more work with manufacturers in order to build better instruments. It means more rock stars and committed musicians walking through the door to shop or hold clinics and more students learning how to play guitar, drums, bass or how to sing. It means more quality and more satisfied customers. Although it is entirely possible for Gelb to open another shop elsewhere, it’s obvious that the focus of Gelb Music has been and will continue to be improving their one humble shop in Redwood City to be the best it can be on the ideals it believes in, or as Kevin put it:
I think that musicians are special to begin with... We speak a language that is universal. You can come from any country and be any color and we can talk...The vision was always, and still it, to be a music store for players...It was basically a crazy idea for a 23 year-old kid. I knew nothing about business. I was just trying to make a music store out of my dreams... It was someplace I wanted to go to. That kind of store on the peninsula. We just started getting the cool lines and it became, really never about making a lot of money, but just having a great store. That was the vision it is now... There’s magic in music and I’m still playing it, I’m still diggin it and I have a total passion for it; from the bands I play with, to the amps I use on stage to the musicians, to the stuff I build, to the stuff I sell it’s one big happy loop. 28
It’s a passion and love for music that makes Gelb the store that it is. A passion that is shared by all musicians from the novice sitting on his bed learned his first chord to the rockstar on stage lighting his guitar on fire in front of a crowd of cheering fans. More than a store, Gelb is a temple to this passion. It is a store centered around music and musicians and a promise to the world that a passion for the sacred art will always be fostered. 29
Works Cited “Anderson Group offers instrument insurance.” Music Trades. Feb 2010: 74. Student Resources In Context. Web. 23 Mar. 2013. “Costco Can Ring Up $115 With Its Steady Growth.” Forbes Inc. 15 Mar 2013. Web. 22 Mar 2013. Craig, Mike. Personal Interview. 24 Feb. 2013. Fletcher, Dan. “Top 10 Music-Festival Moments” Time Entertainment. Time Inc. March 18, 2010. Web. March 12, 2013. Friedman, Josh. Personal Interview. 27 Feb. 2013. Graham, Jefferson. “Music apps and new devices bring instrument stores back for encore.” USA Today. 24 Jan. 2013: 03B. Student Resources In Context. Web. 1 Feb.2013. Jarvis, Kevin. Personal Interview. 23 Mar. 2013. Lewis, Robin, and Michael Dart. The New Rules of Retail. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.Print. “Personal Management Strategies to Maximize Cash Flow.” D&B Small Business. 10 Dec 2012. Web. 19 Mar 2013. Townsend, Mark. “Bain Seen Lacking Exit From Toys ‘R’ Us to Guitar Center: Retail.” The Washington Post. 15 Mar 2013. Web. 21 Mar 2013. 30