Fender Peep Show

haoli25
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Sat Sep 24, 2011 8:09 pm

That might be fun!

Bill


Fender guitar factory now playing to an audience

It's taken 65 years, but guitar-loving 'kids' are finally being allowed into the candy store.

In a move designed to amplify the emotional connection between music fans and iconic instruments created at the Fender guitar factory in Corona, Calif., the company's new chief executive, Larry Thomas, has opened the factory for tours along with a new visitor center he hopes will turn the facility into a major tourist destination.

The visitor center, which opened Monday, encompasses a modest museum with exhibits on Fender legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Beck. Visitors also will encounter a salute to the company's founder, electric guitar innovator Leo Fender, on their way into a showroom filled with guitar equipment, accessories and memorabilia as well as a room where potential customers can create their own customized guitar on the spot.

Ringing the room are the titles of songs that were recorded with Fender products, running chronologically from seminal '50s hits such as Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line," Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and Dale Hawkins' "Suzy Q" through '60s, '70s and '80s rock classics, including the Beach Boys' "Surfin' U.S.A.," the Doors' "Light My Fire," Derek & the Dominos "Layla" and U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name," to more recent material such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Scar Tissue" and Coldplay's "The Scientist."

In addition, free guided tours through the massive factory where Fender still turns out thousands of its signature Telecasters, Stratocasters, Precision Bass instruments, amplifiers and other equipment will be offered to the public for the first time in the company's 65-year history. Gibson Guitars, one of Fender's chief competitors, has long offered tours of its factory in Memphis, Tenn.

"As a brand, [Fender] is a part of all of us who are musicians," Thomas said. "It's a household brand, and there's not any guitar player — whether they play Fender or another brand — who doesn't have something special in their heart for Fender."


Invited guests and visiting musicians have typically expressed enthusiasm at seeing the inner workings where planks of ash or maple are cut into the familiar shapes of the different Fender designs, where pickguards are stamped out of plastic, where and pickups are forged and wound. Customers might even get a glimpse of Abigail Ybarra, who was hired at Fender in 1956 and who still winds guitar pickups by hand the way she's been doing it for more than half a century.

"The best-case scenario is a year and a half from now, when you're tourist and you're in San Diego or Anaheim and you come out in the morning and look at that big [board] that says you can go to Sea World or Disneyland, that there's something that says 'Take the Fender Factory tour.' That's the best-case scenario: that some guy will say, 'We're going out to Corona today; I want to see the Fender factory.'"

(full article: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/22 ... y-20110922)


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neverfoundthetime
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Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2009 2:14 pm
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Sun Sep 25, 2011 3:03 pm

Oh, I wasn't paying attention.... I just read peep show.....

;-)


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