How much does a guitar's country of origin matter?

[TeenageShutdown!]

It wasn’t directed at you, everyone-is-entitled-to-your-opinion guy. However, since you’re quite bored, you could make yourself useful & do all my spell checking for me. Necks, tyme, eye, wil, twy, 2, spel, betore...

And yes, that is what I would tell you directly to your face. Spend a day in a construction field & you’ll be told the way it is whether you like it or not.

[Larry Mal]

Whatever, chump. I'd respect you more if you stood by what you said, but it doesn't make any difference to me.

Thanks for the support, Megan, as always. I think I'll take this as being another one of my "maybe social media isn't for me" moments and pull out. This site does that to me from time to time.

Maybe this time it will stick.

[TeenageShutdown!]

Oh boo hoo. Does a liberal need a hug & told how special they are?

[mackerelmint]

Here, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt because this seems so out of character.

https://al-anon.org/

and if that's not your speed, try https://cthreefoundation.org/

But if your problem is just that you're an asshole, you could always try switching over to drinking bleach.

[shadowplay]

I try to avoid products not made in a democracy as much as I can and I try to buy items made where they pay a living wage and don't employ children.

However like Larry I fundamentally I believe items should be made where they were originally designed, be they shoes and accessories, appliances, cars or guitars, so if the Chinese (or anyone else) want to design their own guitar then they are free to knock themselves out, they just shouldn't be making American designed guitars. For example a Yamaha SG is as fine a guitar as any made in the USA.

I can afford to be selective and I acknowledge that many people are in economic handcuffs but at the same time I've had it out with folk in here who say they have no money for an original American Fender but who have multiple Chinese guitars and actually could afford a US made guitar. One change I've noticed since I first got a guitar in the early 80's is the sheer of amount of guitars folk seem to have, even serious musicians putting out records back then only seemed to have one or two guitars but now folk who are fully bedroom have 20 guitars. I'm not immune from overconsumption myself, since I've more cars than I can really drive and tens of thousands of records, so I'm not throwing stones, merely pointing out that some folk are going for volume with the money that could buy original Fenders.

Some people have very little money but some folk are a little selective,like the guy on OSG with 3 AVRI's who told me he couldn't afford to pay for music.

I'd also say that I've a philosophy that means that I'd rather have one great thing than multiple dross and I'm willing to save for it, be it clothes, shoes, homewares or guitar and I'd doubly not get into debt/credit for my dross* which seems to be a big fucking problem everywhere.

For the record I thought Fenders old system of mainline guitars and student models was a good one and back then IIRC US made Fenders were comparatively expensive and there was less of them in the secondhand market where anyone with brain tends to shop.

D

*im convinced that many people use credit to buy things they'd not touch with a ten foot pole if they had the liquid cash. For example I think the leased car market is driven by easy terms giving access to poor, forgettable and ultimately disposable product that really only has newness as a selling point.

[Futuron]

When you see all the souvenir boomerangs with "Made in China" stickers on them, it is a weird feeling. It's like 'foreigners selling our stuff back to us', but you know what? It doesn't offend me or anything. A human from Earth invented the Stratocaster. What's the big deal if humans from Earth buy Strats made by other humans from Earth? Perspective I suppose. So if it matters which country Strats are built in, does it also matter if today's Strats come from a different county in California? Where should you draw the line between your local neighbourhood and the next one? And why should that even matter/happen? Thinking about that doesn't take away the weird feelings of course - when you get hit by something that is just too close to home that came from too far from home.

[Larry Mal]

Oh boo hoo. Does a liberal need a hug & told how special they are?

Ah, you found a way to get stupider.

[Trout]

Some people have very little money but some folk are a little selective,like the guy on OSG with 3 AVRI's who told me he couldn't afford to pay for music.

Hilarious, and also a bit sad

[mgeek]

Bourbon comes from Kentucky, champagne comes from Champagne, Gorgonzola comes from Milan, roquefort comes from the south of France, scotch comes from Scotland, and Stratocasters come from California- or at least they should.

Yeah I'm totally down with this. The coolest thing is when someone has come up with an idea and then executes that idea and makes the results of that idea available for sale.

My fetish is guitars from England, I don't think it's a patriotic thing because 1/ patriotism is largely a tool by which those in power trick morons into voting against their self interests and 2/ most of the time English guitars sound and play like ass, but I do find them fascinating and pretty pleasing to look at. I suppose, sensibly I'd enjoy collecting them then play something good on stage, but I'm a pervert, so I wrangle them into shape and get them playing and sounding their best, even if it nearly finishes me

[Embenny]

Oh boo hoo. Does a liberal need a hug & told how special they are?

Ah, you found a way to get stupider.

Seriously.

As an aside, if you listened to anything Larry actually said, you'd be able to tell that he's generally what would qualify as a centrist by historic North American standards, and what would probably be viewed as right of centre if he were living in, say, Sweden.

This forum has done a great job of not descending into petulant ad hominems. I don't think you'll find yourself very welcome here if this is how you conduct yourself.

[Larry Mal]

I loved that. Being a middle of the road centrist that I am, I get flak from all sides. The left wing people tell me I'm an out of touch douchebag who is an impediment to real revolution due to my middle class bourgeoisie status, one guy even quoted Malcom X saying "The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man," and that was supposed to be what Malcom X would have thought of me. If only I would wake up, they tell me.

OK, sure.

Of course, to the right wing cult of the nation I'm nothing short of a radical socialist committed to forcing red-blooded Americans to submit to Maoist central planning.

It was with some surprise I was referred to as a mindless, chest beating ultra-patriot yesterday. That doesn't happen to me a lot.

And then of course immediately I end up being a liberal snowflake crying out for a participation trophy to be handed gently to me in my safe place.

By the same person.

We live in interesting, yet stupid, times.

[Larry Mal]

ISpend a day in a construction field & you’ll be told the way it is whether you like it or not.

And then I didn't even understand this... like, "spend a day in the construction field"? Like the construction industry? I mean, I would imagine I would be told the way it is, since it would be my first and only day on the job, right?

But I know that despite the second grade use of English, the underlying meaning is that I'm too much of a pussy to handle construction like real men do.

Thanks for the heads up... I'll avoid that, then. Let me know if there's anything else I'm too much of a pussy to do.

[Ceylon]

A guitar's country of origin matters to the point that any time a thread about it is started on any music forum it racks up page after page of increasingly heated argument that veer off in both political and metaphysical directions. This never does not happen.

[Larry Mal]

You are correct, I never should have said a single thing on this thread.

[Meme Library]

Sorry guys I didnt mean to start an argument! Really was just curious the difference in quality between countries!