HOUSES OF

THE

HO LYCAMERON FUKUYAMA1

Dedication 3

foreword 5

Chapter 1:

Artisans 10

Chapter 2:

Resonance 19

Conclusion 26

Works Cited 30

TABLE

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ONTENTS

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Dedicated to Mike, Kevin and theamazingly 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 andFreestyle Academy for putting it all together.

Dedication 3

foreword 5

Chapter 1:

Artisans 10

Chapter 2:

Resonance 19

Conclusion 26

Works Cited 30

TABLE

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Ded ication

3

4

foreword

WhenIfirstwalkedintoGelbMusicforthefirsttimeIwasexpectingeitherasmallone-room-shopwithspecificgenreofinstrumentsoralargedepartmentstylefloorwithsectionedinstrumentsandblaringmusic,bothofwhichIwasfa-miliarwith.However,whatIfoundatGelbfitneitherofthesepredefinednotions.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 in-creased 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. Thisdocumentaryunitgaveusthetaskof“findinganuntoldstory”inourcommunity. 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 cus-tomers and staff at Gelb, I learned that Gelb’s success and personality was a result ofitsuniqueenvironmentandofavarietyofspecificfactorsthatmadethissmallshop 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 GelbthatstruckmethefirsttimeIsteppedthroughit’sdoor. 5

Monterey Pop Festival, California, 1967: following a 45-minute show to a crowdofthousands,aguitaristbythenameofJimiHendrixendshisperformanceof“WildThing”inthemostdramatic,spectacular,flamboyantandpossiblyde-structivewayimaginable.Helightshisguitaronfireandproceedstosmashit(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.

I ntroduction

6

Anyone viewing this event would tell you there was a clear and powerful connection between the artist and his instrument that con-tradicts 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 be-ginnings of civilizations. It is because of this tight correlation between in-struments 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 character-ized by intense dedication and un-paralleledexpertiseandwasascul-turally 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 commer-cialization and the emergence of in-dustrial production? Thankfully, no.

7

Today there still remain a few humble bastions of melodic sagacity and, like manywonderfulthingsintheworld,youjusthavetolookalittlebitclosertofindthem. While there might be some who would argue that this creativity and dedi-cation 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, en-suringqualitycraftsandservicesandbringingmusicandexpressiontothepeople,itexistsmodestlyinasmalllocalbusinessknownas

Gelb Music.8

Gelb Music. 9

Why might Gelb deserve some praise for your Gibson ES-330, Fender Black-top Stratocaster, or even your Native Instruments DJ controller? We don’t usu-ally 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:

Chapter 1 :Artisans

10

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 depart-ment, played with the Doobie brothers and has done all kinds of stuff with great artists (Craig).

11

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 de-scribes, “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 theyaremakingalivingasamusician.”A passion for the craft is not only a huge factor in determining a business’s success (D&B), but also contributes to Gelb’sextensiveexpertiseinitsfield.Somuch so that local instrument producers and big names in the guitar and instru-ment companies have taken notice of Gelb and gone out of their way to work and hear from them personally as Kevin explains:

12

If you’re a good business and your true to your customer you get a reputation. That be-comes 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 cometoexpectfromapersonorplaceforbetterorforworse.Itisdependantonwhatstandardssomethingisheldtoandislargelyreflectedbythecompanysome-thinginvolvesitselfwith.InthecaseofGelb,thereputationofthestoreisreflectedby how involved the shop is with its brands and manufactures as Mike describes:

13

[We] also have custom shop guitar builders from Gib-son 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 get-ting rare wood to making his drum sets and why it sounds dif-ferent... 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 feed-backisaresultoftheshop’sexperienceandex-pertise. 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 mar-ket 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 in-struments and music (Graham). From this huge market of new products from both companies large and small, Gelbstrivestofindonlythebestandmostpromisingproductsthatitknowsfromexperienceit’scustomersreally 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 actu-ally 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).

15

Inretailthisconceptiscalleda“valuechain”ortheabilityofabusinesstomaintain 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 cor-related to the degree of control a business has over its value

chain (Lewis & Dart, 109).

Basically,it’sabusiness’abilitytounderstandthe“demand”andcreatetheproper“supply”toserveit.Whileotherstoresachievecontrolofavaluechainthrough the production of their own personal store brands (think Costco’s Kirk-landoranythingwiththeword“Joe”initatTraderJoe’s)(Forbes).Gelbdoesn’tneedtoowntheirproductsbecauseofthissymbiotic,mutuallybeneficialrelation-ship between the shop and instrument manufacturers. The customer and profes-sional 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 expertsallunderoneroofandcreat-ingaperpetualcyclebenefitingtheentire musical community. However, the other side of this consumer/pro-ducer value chain is the consumer, the customer, the artist, the audience. How does Gelb contribute directly to the people that make the shop pos-sible? Besides the staff being profes-sionals and active consumers of the products, Gelb differs from traditional retailers by offering their customers more than just a shop in which they canbuy“things”.Gelbofferstheircustomers an education, a chance to better understand the music that they are participating in. Lessons for nov-ice musicians are one way the Gelb utilizestheirhighlyexperiencedstaff,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 be-ing 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 relation-ship 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).

17

Beyond individual lessons, Gelb also holds workshopsandclinicsoninstrumentspecificsandset-upsforexperiencedartiststofurthersharetheirknowledge 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 play-ing 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 soft-ware how does it work?’ Well there’s someone [here] that uses it all the time (Craig). TheseareallexamplesofGelbexpressingvaluetoitscustomers,themu-sicians and the artists of tomorrow, and equipping them with the tools and know-how to play the music of the future. Whether it’s through working with the manu-facturesorone-on-oneinteractions,Gelbstrivestoimprovetheexperienceofeveryperson 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

Asclicheasthesaying‘thecustomercomesfirst’is,it’strue.Valuingyourcustomersisanimportantaspectofbusinesssuccess.Abusinesswon’tflourishwiththemotto:‘thecustomerisexpendable.’InmusicstoreslikeGelbthisdedica-tionisevenmoreparamountbecausetheircustomersarelookingtofindaninstru-ment that is going to be unique, and possess incredible sentimental value. Some people even take out insurance on their instruments or give them names (Ander-son). When dealing in this trade, it’s important to understand where the customer iscomingfromandensurethattheyarewellinformedandsatisfiedwiththeirpur-chase,nottreatingthemlikechildrenbuyingglorifiedtoys. 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 customerintoaquickpurchase.Forexample,let’stakeacomparablebusinesslikeGuitar Center, probably the largest distributor of instruments in the nation. How-ever, 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 in-structor Josh Friedman illustrates the trade-off like this:

19

I’ve had horrible customer service ev-ery time I go into Guitar Center...Ev-ery single time. And I’ve gone there so many different times. And it’s with dif-ferent 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 war-ranty? What happens if it breaks?’...

It’s a money making thing...I’ve never had great customer service from Guitar Cen-ter because the people there, I think they work on commission, and so they are al-ways 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 busi-nesstechniquecalleda“neurologicallink”,whichrepresentsabusiness’sappealto customers and is one of the largest factors in determining whether or not a busi-nesswillsurvive.AcommonexampleofthisistheStarbuckssyndrome.

As proof of the Starbucks connection, one needs only observe the long waiting line at a Starbucks in an airport right next to a McDon-alds (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, re-member that a business’s neurological link to the customer is created by the busi-ness 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.

21

On the opposite end of the spectrum, for Gelb, it is connecting with each customer individually and providing an informative andpersonalshoppingexperienceaswellas 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 PeavyEVHWolfgangStandardelectricgui-tar(anitemIfoundtobeincrediblyspecificand elusive), I eventually brought it with me to Gelb during one of my interviews to see if they could possibly help me. It took oneglanceattheinstrumentandfifteensec-onds of searching for the clerk behind the countertofindthecorrectpartandmakemy guitar whole again. A month-long plight solvedinunderaminutewiththeflatchargeof$10.Needlesstosay,Iwassatisfiedwiththeir 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 Chick-enfoot, 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 com-ing 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 marketandelaborateonwhyitisanexceptionalbusiness.

23

I’m not going to say that [Guitar Center] doesn’t have peo-ple that know what they are talking about...but, I feel that if you’ve been doing something for 20 years and you’re tak-ing 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 experi-ence from here. They have certain things they do very well. They also have very deep pockets...there’s some basic corpo-rate 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).

24

It would be unfair to paint a business as “the badguy”justbecauseitisinoppositionandhasadifferent style of operating. After all, it is a competi-tion to survive and chain stores are simply utilizing theadvantagethey’vegainedsincetheyfirststartedshowing up. But to a place like Gelb, and other simi-lar 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 mu-siccomesfirst.AsKevinputit;

I always have a store that would make [artists] inter-ested. 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

Conclus ion 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 storesandmoremoney.”Whilethisisavaliant,althoughratherstereotypical,am-bition 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, com-mitted 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 dedica-tion and going above and beyond to improve itself with every chance it got, it became a well known and re-spected 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 mindthatforGelb“moreofthesame”meansanything 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 chal-lenge 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 musi-cians walking through the door to shop or hold clinics and more students learning how to play gui-tar, drums, bass or how to sing. It means more quality and more satisfiedcustomers.Althoughitisentirely possible for Gelb to open another shop elsewhere, it’s obvi-ous 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 vi-sion 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 pas-sion that is shared by all musicians from the novice sitting on his bed learned his firstchordtotherockstaronstagelightinghisguitaronfireinfrontofacrowdofcheering fans. More than a store, Gelb is a temple to this passion. It is a store cen-tered around music and musicians and a promise to the world that a passion for the sacred art will always be fostered. 29

Works Cited“AndersonGroupoffersinstrumentinsurance.”MusicTrades.Feb2010:74.Student ResourcesInContext.Web.23Mar.2013.“CostcoCanRingUp$115WithItsSteadyGrowth.”ForbesInc.15Mar2013.Web. 22 Mar 2013.Craig, Mike. Personal Interview. 24 Feb. 2013.Fletcher,Dan.“Top10Music-FestivalMoments”TimeEntertainment.TimeInc. 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.”USAToday.24Jan.2013:03B.StudentResourcesInContext.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.“PersonalManagementStrategiestoMaximizeCashFlow.”D&BSmallBusiness.10 Dec 2012. Web. 19 Mar 2013.Townsend,Mark.“BainSeenLackingExitFromToys‘R’UstoGuitarCenter:Retail.” The Washington Post. 15 Mar 2013. Web. 21 Mar 2013.30