Gibson Brands Acquires Harmony Central!

[onelife]

Thanks, in the past I'd tried to fix it multiple times, and it never took. Fixed.

 

Looks good. Is that an old LP Junior you are playing there?

[Anderton]

<<I just hope they knew months ago when they were let go that this was happening eventually. If not, it must have been a hell of a time between then and now. >>

 

None of us knew how this was going to play out, and yes, it was a hell of a time for them. But I couldn't bear to see this site and its heritage disappear. When it seemed clear HC could be acquired, I started looking for options and had several backup plans if Henry wasn't interested. But Henry's attitude made it clear that Gibson was the best fit. I have to give him the credit, he pursued this and made it happen.

 

Of course this won't be 24/7 for me - Gibson is a very demanding mistress - but you'll be seeing a lot more of me, and I'll be working a lot behind the scenes.

 

I also need to give major props to Dendy, Phil, and Chris. They stood firm that HC was the most important thing to them and if there was even the slimmest chance Gibson could acquire the site, they would hold out as long as they could. And here we are.

 

Again, we can't fix everything overnight. But we're on our way!!

[hardtdc]

OMG! I might actually come back since I haven't been around in about two or more years now.

Jury's still out though!

[willhaven]

<<I just hope they knew months ago when they were let go that this was happening eventually. If not' date=' it must have been a hell of a time between then and now. [/color']>>

 

None of us knew how this was going to play out, and yes, it was a hell of a time for them. But I couldn't bear to see this site and its heritage disappear. When it seemed clear HC could be acquired, I started looking for options and had several backup plans if Henry wasn't interested. But Henry's attitude made it clear that Gibson was the best fit. I have to give him the credit, he pursued this and made it happen.

 

Of course this won't be 24/7 for me - Gibson is a very demanding mistress - but you'll be seeing a lot more of me, and I'll be working a lot behind the scenes.

 

I also need to give major props to Dendy, Phil, and Chris. They stood firm that HC was the most important thing to them and if there was even the slimmest chance Gibson could acquire the site, they would hold out as long as they could. And here we are.

 

Again, we can't fix everything overnight. But we're on our way!!

Incredible.

 

Well done on your part and congratulations to the others.

 

I guess the band is getting back together.

[AlamoJoe]

This is such awesome news man...The site is an everyday visit for me and the news that Dendy and Phil and Chris got axed really bummed me out. That and your lack of presence...no new songs or anything..Even Mark has been scarce....I don't post much but I read a LOT of the stuff here...It's kinda like a club I don't quite have the chops to really belong to...But my presence is graciously tolerated in...This is just awesome news...

[Anderton]

OMG! I might actually come back since I haven't been around in about two or more years now.

Jury's still out though!

 

If we get this right, the jury will be such a major part of the site they'll be judging themselves

 

We really think there are a lot of people with great ideas and opinions. While it's cool to have those show up as a post in a forum, we'd like to draw some more attention to the potential of the community.

[Geeter]

I still come in and lurk sometimes. I loved this board before the "upgrades."

Wishing the new management best of luck.

[Dendy Jarrett]

Geeter! Come around more often! (love the name btw: I call most of my drum buddies in town Geeter!

[Anderton]

I still come in and lurk sometimes. I loved this board before the "upgrades."

Wishing the new management best of luck.

 

The good wishes here are greatly appreciated. We're really happy about what's happening, and it seems to be contagious...you have no idea how much the words of encouragement mean to all of us. It's not like we needed any more incentive to get this site back in shape, but y'all are adding fuel to the fire.

 

 

[onelife]

 

The good wishes here are greatly appreciated. We're really happy about what's happening, and it seems to be contagious...you have no idea how much the words of encouragement mean to all of us. It's not like we needed any more incentive to get this site back in shape, but y'all are adding fuel to the fire.

 

 

Count me in with many words of encouragement.

 

I've learned a lot and felt a sense of camaraderie here. It's nice to discuss music, production and even non musical issues here with people who share the passion.

[Mark L]

Seriously, I think this could be the start of something very good. HC has been floundering for years, and maybe this acquisition will put it back on an even keel

 

I know that several people have dismissed it from the start. Words like 'trainwreck' have appeared elsewhere online. I say to those people...at least give it a chance. It could never be as bad as it has been these last few years

 

Hopefully some of the old guard will return, and also fresh blood will be attracted

 

Well done to all concerned and here's to good times ahead!

 

 

(By the way, if you need a UK-based mod to ban all those pesky trolls while you folks in the US are asleep, I'm your man)

[Craig Vecchione]

Craig, who is Henry? I suspect an original founder of the site, perhaps? I don't know much if anything about how the place started...given the building legacy it might be worth an article.

[Craig Vecchione]

 

The good wishes here are greatly appreciated. We're really happy about what's happening, and it seems to be contagious...you have no idea how much the words of encouragement mean to all of us. It's not like we needed any more incentive to get this site back in shape, but y'all are adding fuel to the fire.

 

 

The past year especially has felt like watching an old dear friend succumb to a disease. We've all invested a lot of time and emotion here, too much to let it go out with a whimper as it was. I'm especially happy that the guys are getting their jobs back. Feels like a weight has been lifted. This place has so much untapped potential, and I believe the market is out there to take advantage of the best iteration of HC ever.

[Axe_34]

Well, I guess I'll be the first to say it.

 

I was a long-time member here and developed a lot of online friendships, some of which turned into real-life friendships.

 

I learned a lot about gear, music and, in some cases, life in general.

 

This was a great community.

 

And then the changes started.

 

Although I know many of the decisions were made above Craig's head, I was thoroughly disappointed at how he consistently sold us a line of bull**************** about how great the changes were going to be and if you didn't like the new site, it was user error. In other words, our fault.

 

Over and over he kept that up.

 

And then, when it was clear the emperor had no clothes, he left.

 

The reason he has no credibility to me any more is that he told us over and over how great the new site was going to be and now both he and Henry admit it needs to be fixed or, as they put it, "rejuvenated."

 

Well, which is it? A great site or a broken one? It can't be both. And if it's broken, it means Craig lied to us about how great it was.

 

And as for the neutrality claim.....please. Gibson is in the business of making money. Every other guitar manufacturer is a competitor. Are you honestly expecting us to believe a site paid for by Gibson and run by a Gibson employee is going to be neutral?

 

I guess only time will tell, but I wonder how posts or reviews critical of Gibson will be treated versus similar posts or reviews critical of, say Fender, will be handled.

 

Part of me wishes HC could get back to what it was.

 

But the way its demise played out and the way Craig acted during that slide has left too bad a taste in my mouth to want to come back.

[Brian Krashpad]

 

Looks good. Is that an old LP Junior you are playing there?

 

Close! It's a '90's USA Hamer Special (to which I added a pickguard). Which of course is Hamer's version of the doublecut LP Special, which in turn is a Junior plus a neck pickup. Really fine guitar. Would love to get some more old Hamers, but I'm kinda out of space.

 

[blue2blue]

Sounds like great news! I for one am greatly heartened by the move. It looked like the old owners had their hands pretty full. (And good luck to them!)

[UstadKhanAli]

Best wishes for vibrant, active forums.

[Dendy Jarrett]

Axe_34:

I won't speak for Craig. (He speaks and writes better than the entire lot of us.) But I would like to offer a transparent explanation to a transparent post. There were a lot of backstage issues going on that were out of Craig and Team HC's control. It wasn't until two years ago that we even had "employees". Until then, everyone was an independent. Craig could only convey what he was being promised and told by overlords who were re-walking a mine field with no map of where the mines were (even though the same field had been traversed a year before). And just like any hopeful humanoid, he passed along the information believing (as he should have) that things could only improve. Every time some virtual "rug" got yanked, Craig felt his credibility was diminished. And at some point, it became more than he could stand. Imagine wanting something so bad, but being let down over and over again. (Oh, wait ... you guys know all about that!)

The difference now: He calls the shots!

Think of it like this: We were all in this great community surrounded by beautiful mountains, streams, trails, etc, but we had this very large electric fence around the community. Well, the fence has been taken down.

The irony here is that this community has survived multiple gun-shot wounds, stabbings, muggings and abuse and it still lived!

Why? Because the community is you guys! Musicians are a vibrant and determined bunch. They seem to withstand abuse well, and survive despite the odds.

 

I hope you will visit more often Axe_34, and I hope we all can start to know each other better than "Axe_34". It would be nice to be in an airport somewhere, or playing on a stage somewhere, and have community members say: "Hey, Bob (Axe_34) ... It's me Strat555! Nice playing!" (Made up names).

 

From a personal stand-point, I feel honored not only that I get to hang with Craig, but I can call him a friend. You WILL NOT meet another person who is more determined, and dedicated to you guys. For me, I think we owe him a great thank you for facilitating this move, thus saving the community from withering away.

 

I hope that helps explain some of the history.

 

D

[Ernest Buckley]

According to Gibson CEO and Chairman Henry Juszkiewicz' date=' “The industry needs a neutral, entertaining, informative site where musicians can exchange opinions and knowledge, ask questions, get answers, be controversial, and have a great experience. Think of it as Gibson providing a place to throw a party, and everyone—musicians, the industry, competitors, educators, anyone involved in music and sound—is invited and welcome.”[/size']

 

Amen

[willhaven]

:philbeer: :philbeer: :philbeer:

[Axe_34]

Thanks for the additional info Dendy.

 

I think I need to clarify a bit more.

 

I think I understand what Craig was up against. I've spent the last 15 years working in news media and corporate communications.

 

I have spent more than my fair share of time putting lipstick on a pig. It's not much fun trying to defend and explain things you had little to nothing to do with, especially if you're not happy with those things.

 

That being said, what really rubbed me the wrong way was the manner in which Craig defended the changes.

 

One of the sacrosanct rules of public relations is to never, ever blame your audience for not understanding changes you've made to an organization, its products or policies. That's on you. If they don't understand it, you have not done a good enough job communicating.

 

I felt Craig took an overly defensive posture when he began to encounter push-back from users who were unhappy with the changes.

 

His tone became increasingly condescending and petulant.

 

The more positive way to handle such a situation is exactly how I handle difficult questions from news media and customers: acknowledge their questions and concerns, address them directly, only then redirecting to your messaging.

 

Merely saying, "You're wrong" is not what people want to hear. And I know how frustrating it can be to feel like your message is not being heard.

 

But when faced with that, the best course of action is to ask yourself, "What can I do differently to change this?" instead of going into a circle-the-wagons, it's-us-versus-them mentality.

 

It's all water under the bridge now, but I wonder how much thought was even put into a strategic communications plan for the site redesign. Change management is not something that can be done well flying by the seat of your pants.

[Dendy Jarrett]

Axe_34: Again, I won't speak for Craig. It is certainly unfortunate that you felt he was condescending and petulant, cause I can tell you he hasn't a condescending or petulant bone in his body!

 

He is about one of most level headed people I know.

 

All I can say for now, is hang on, cause HC is getting "fun" again!

D

[Anderton]

And then the changes started.

 

Although I know many of the decisions were made above Craig's head, I was thoroughly disappointed at how he consistently sold us a line of bull**************** about how great the changes were going to be

 

I really appreciate your bringing this up so I can set the record straight. I've been wanting to tell this story for years. The rest of the team knows what went down and can verify all of the following.

 

My mistake was believing the bull**** I was being fed, and passing it along. With Jive, the first question I asked was about their mobile capabilities. "Sure, yes, we got mobile, it will be great!" Did the site ever work on mobile? No.

 

I had been promised the moderators would have an opportunity to test the site thoroughly for weeks prior to launch. We had a couple days at most, and I was horrified by the performance. The switchover to Jive was scheduled to happen while I was in Germany covering Messe (how convenient, that negative Anderton guy wouldn't be around). I was sending out email after email begging MF NOT to let Jive switch it over. But it was switched anyway, and the site crashed in under 5 minutes.

 

When I got back I was furious. I was assured it would all be fixed, and that we would run as well as the Apple site (which Jive also handled). But fixes were implemented slowly, if at all. We were told all the customizations the site required were a problem but had also been told one of the virtues of the software was its ability to be customized. Those technical issues are above my pay grade but for whatever reason, HC's needs were at odds with the company's modus operandi for other sites.

 

After a few months my patience wore out. Jon Chappell and I went to Medford and said we had to at least change the forums back to vBulletin because the forums were unuseable and it was killing the site. I made it very clear that I had put my neck on the line based on believing things were going to work, and they didn't. But I was being blamed as if all this was my idea and as if I had some control over what I had been promised.

 

Craig Johnson, who at the time was MF's CEO, is a standup guy and did the right thing. He directed that the forums be changed back to vBulletin, and wrote an open letter to the community that basically said this disaster was not my fault.

 

But after MF was bought by GC, priorities changed and maintenance of the site was minimal. The site performance just got worse and worse, and Team HC kept saying "this has to be fixed." Eventually there was a decision to switch to the Lithium platform. Again, lots of promises. I truly believe the heart of GC's management was in the right place in deciding to make that switch, but they were sabotaged by those who had the responsibility to do the implementation.

 

This time, Lithium did do what they said they were going to do. What I did not anticipate was that the GC team responsible for HC would flat out lie to me, and repeatedly (FYI those people were fired after I left; I'm not referring to the current regime which was very helpful with the acquisition). I was told user reviews would be migrated; they weren't. They wanted to get rid of Open Jam and the Poli forum and I insisted they be brought over. I was assured they would be, but they weren't. I was livid but told there was some kind of error and the forums got lost. But then Mr. Knobs (thank you, Terry) started poking around the site and found the forums most definitely existed - in a folder called something like "the circular file." He alerted me, I caught them in a lie, and they restored those forums but even that took a fight..

 

The people responsible for the look, feel, and performance of the site were arrogant and dismissive of the community, the moderators, and the editorial team. I was lied to (again) about the moderators having time to test the site. I was lied to about the forums - before the launch I said "Whatever you do, do NOT have light gray type against a white background. Jive had a white background, it made people snowblind, they hated it, and it had to be changed." They said yes, understood, they wouldn't do that and so when people asked I said at least the new site would not have a light gray type on a white background. So of course, the "artists" decided to do light gray type on a white background, everyone hated it, and again, I was left to twist in the wind because as far as the community knew, I had lied about there not being a white background. That was just one example, there were dozens more from scalability to readability to search to...you name it.

 

I was told it was impossible to do certain things from a technical standpoint, yet when Nucleus came onboard, they did those "impossible" fixes. Which is how HC got user reviews back.

 

I'm not used to being blatantly lied to. I do not use the term "lie" lightly; I give slack to people for misstatements or misunderstandings...but what they said was said with the deliberate intent to deceive. I had been spoiled by decades of business relationships with companies that were ethical. I went to the web team and insisted they take public responsibility for these horrible decisions via a feedback forum where people could vent to THEM, not ME, because all this crap was their fault and I was getting blamed for it. They said they would take responsibility for the mess. They never did. They were more than happy to have people assume I was the problem so they could keep their jobs ("not our fault the site's tanking")..

 

I was so upset I blew up and said that while I believed in Harmony Central, the editors, and the community, actions done on behalf of GC had destroyed the credibility that had taken me decades to build. Your post is proof of that. I decided that to save HC, the only thing I could do was fall on my sword (I wasn't going to cause a public stink about GC's people lying to me repeatedly, it was my fault for believing them), and that if I left, then the world would think that Bad Craig was gone so the team could rebuild the site and everyone would give them the slack to do it because now someone else would be in charge. They would have a clean slate.

 

It was a horrible time in my life but I felt that if HC was to survive, the reality was that I was the public face of these disasters and the people at GC were not going to man up and take the responsibility like Craig Johnson did. I was disgusted beyond words. It was a slight consolation when all those people were fired, but by that time, it was too late. I was already gone and the damage had been done.

 

In fact, I felt my credibility had been damaged to the point where I could not continue with my career as I had. People in the industry knew what was going on and were more than happy to offer me a job because they know who I am and what I do. Gibson was not my only option, but it was the best one by far. As I alluded to previously but with less detail, Henry wanted to hire me because he saw what was happening at the site, realized there was something very fishy and inconsistent with my history, and said he would give me the chance to do "Harmony Central right." I was thrilled that I would have the opportunity to crush Harmony Central (okay, I admit I wasn't above wanting vengeance), and then I could hire the editorial team

 

I ended up doing other things at Gibson, which was fine, but neither Henry nor I forgot that a web site needed to be done like Harmony Central, but done right. And now we have that opportunity.

 

And as for the neutrality claim.....please. Gibson is in the business of making money. Every other guitar manufacturer is a competitor. Are you honestly expecting us to believe a site paid for by Gibson and run by a Gibson employee is going to be neutral?

 

I guess only time will tell, but I wonder how posts or reviews critical of Gibson will be treated versus similar posts or reviews critical of, say Fender, will be handled.

 

Well, time has already told because there's a precedent. Look at Gibson's forums - they're loaded with Gibson haters. None of those posts are removed, nor are the people banned. People talk about their Strats and even post disinformation, yet they're still there. The only time posts are removed are caused by violations of the TOS that would get them removed in any forum.

 

As to the economics, the reality is that HC is on the same level as a rounding error on Gibson's balance sheet. Sure, I'd like HC to be profitable so we can re-invest in the site and make it better. But Henry said he'll be fine if HC is able to cover its expenses, which is pretty easy to do given the small size and efficiency of the team.

 

Part of me wishes HC could get back to what it was.

 

But the way its demise played out and the way Craig acted during that slide has left too bad a taste in my mouth to want to come back.

 

Although I gave up on a lot of things, I never gave up on HC. Even after leaving I helped the team behind the scenes on evenings and weekends. I updated my articles so they'd remain current, and contributed new content when they were overloaded. I helped with Music Gear Weekly (which was sabotaged, again by people who are not longer at GC, but that's a different story...). I didn't spend much time of the forums because I knew I was perceived as the problem by some people, and didn't feel welcome even though many community members connected the dots and realized I had been deceived and betrayed. But ultimately, I felt I had to take responsibility for believing the lies I was told, and the price was my former career and a significant amount of my credibility to those who didn't know the backstory.

 

Now to the present. I've been working with Gibson for 8 years and full-time for 2. I've seen Henry argue with people who think Gibson should have a heavier hand on the forums, and say to leave them alone and let people say what they want to say. He will not budge on that so I'm sure he will not change that attitude for Harmony Central. And yes, there is a business rationale: If HC can help more people get into and enjoy music, then the industry will benefit. Gibson is part of the industry, so Gibson will benefit. We'll all benefit.

 

I believe GC was going to shed Harmony Central. I was determined to make sure that the editorial team would have jobs after HC died, and had researched various options. However with those options, it was not a given HC would exist in its current form, but would likely be absorbed into something else and the editors would be hired for their expertise more than for being part of a renewed HC. That would have been better than nothing, but I couldn't bear to see HC die unceremoniously and unloved. Neither could Henry. So here we are. It's my last chance to save HC and I'm not going to let that opportunity go unanswered.

 

The team can verify everything I've said above.

[philboking]

This is great news! Thanks Craig for hanging in there all these years (decades) and keeping the SSS spirit alive.

[UstadKhanAli]

Frustrating sounding story. Thanks, and best wishes going forward.