"Guess what, girls? I'm getting you Gibson guitars for Christmas!"
Posted on 08/26/2011 10:07:48 AM PDT by Nachum
The real endangered species?
I’ve seen a lot of enviro-nitwittery over the years, but this takes the cake.
US Fish and Wildlife officials have raided the famous Gibson Guitars. And the instrument-maker isn’t alone. Antique piano dealers are also in the crosshairs. Why? Because rare, beautiful instruments made of ecologically incorrect materials must be sacrificed at the green altar. Talk about hitting a sour note.
Eric Felten at the WSJ reports:
Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
It isn’t the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian’s ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name “United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms.”
(Excerpt) Read more at michellemalkin.com ...
I was going to blame this on Bush but...
He vetoed the Farm Bill that this expansion was attached to. Twice! (Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008.)
Bush's veto was overridden by congress.
Yep. Guitar players can truly blame the democrats for this mess.
I have, among many others, a ‘57 San Marino Blue Strat. No worries with that one. Maple neck, and whatever they were using for the bodies back then. But my ‘63 Sho Bud Fingertip has Rosewood aprons and necks.
Nice. I was looking for a strat when I bought my tele but I liked it so much when I played it I couldn’t resist. So now I’m torn on my next guitar purchase between a strat with a floyd rose tremolo or a Jackson Randy Rhoads model with floyd rose. I think I’ll have them both eventually.
Mine’s a ‘76 Les Paul Standard bought new.
I think I’ll be playing it exclusively this weekend.
That article is in the WSJonline Opinion sction:
Seems some are also stripping the ivory and ebony keys out of their concert pianos and harpsichords because of this misguided nazi enforcment.
I've got a Mexican-made 50s Classic series. Really a decent guitar! Big fat neck just like I like 'em! Got a few others kicking around the house that I plug into a Marshall stack (that I gotta get repaired because my toddler left it turned on all day while I was at work with nothing plugged in to it. Not good for a tube amp. Fried something inside).
Yes, this was bizarre beyond words. One of these people replaced his ivory keys with plastic so that he wouldn’t have any problems.
Teles? Don’t even ask! I had five, but am down to four, as i gave a mint ‘86 MIJ to my amp tech. My favorite is a frat boy abused ‘91 MIJ, that I put a late ‘60’s maple neck on. It’s my Gatton/Hellecasters guitar. It’s 2 feet away as I peck out this post.
Yes, but you'll kick yourself for selling it and buy another at the inflated prices. Don't ask me how I know this.
You wish.
Now thats funny :-)
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