Tweet
Good morning gentlemen, long time no post. I got an email about this thread from a couple friends out here. There was so much secrecy and BS behind the JCF Series and plenty of misconception on what happened. I was told that Newc was out here bashing on me for fucking up the series. I took a quick read and not sure if he was referring to me but I think some BS need to be cleared up as Newc was never in a position to know what was going on behind the scenes with the Admins, dealers and Jackson.
First of all, the JCF Series was initiated, controlled and executed entirely by the JCF Administration (which I used to be a part of). Each of us had our own duties regarding the series. During the beginning of JCF01, we speced the guitar out and started looking for bids from some of the larger Jackson dealers. Since I was in Tulsa, OK, I hit up Lloyd at GuitarXpress right here in Tulsa. At the time, Lloyd was trying very hard to be the #1 independed USA Jackson dealer. With that title, Lloyd got special treatment from Jackson, Artist Relations seminars(I remember spending an afternoon with Marty Friedman........weird little dude), bragging rights and better wholesale pricing. Also by doing the JCF Seried, Lloyd got an immediate "in" with the entire JCF community. It was a "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch my back" deal. So, long story short, Lloyd gave me and the JCF Admins his promise to do JCF Series guitars at a certain price point based upon his costs. You can thank me for getting JCF01 guitars so silly cheap. From all this, pricing/deal costs became my responsibility.
JCF01 went off fairly well on the business end but many of the guitars had production flaws that were entirely inexcusable. There was lots of bitching and moaning about problems with the guitars but when Jackson said "no problem, send them back for repairs" most people didn't bother to get their guitars fixed. I sent mine back for repairs and got it all lined out. I don't know if anyone else actually sent theirs back, maybe one other.
When it came time for JCF02, the Admins agreed to do the Robbin Crosby Big Red V. My job was once again to take our specs to Lloyd and GuitarXpress and get pricing. I did my job and a couple weeks later Lloyd came back with pricing. The pricing was as I remember, around 50% higher than the JCF01 guitars. Now please understand, back then Jackson was owned by AMIC based out of Ft. Worth, Texas and Custom Shop USA guitars were much cheaper than they are today. The admins were on a personal level with the head guy, Donnie Wade, and Kevin Easton who at the time was Donnie's goto guy for getting anything done. Because of this relationship, I was on the phone with Donnie occassionally and Kevin Easton all the time. One day when talking to Kevin on the phone about JCF02 and pricing, he let it slip that the pricing quoted to Lloyd/GuitarXpress was nowhere near what he told me. Yes, this was a major fuckup on Kevin Easton's part and the beginning of the shitstorm that came from it.
After finding out what Lloyd's real cost was on JCF02 and finding that he lied to me and the JCF Administration about it, I conferenced with the other JCF Admins(we had our own private section of the JCF Forum for this) about the situation. The UNANIMOUS decision among ALL ADMINS was to go shop JCF02 to other dealers since Lloyd had basically went against his word and was trying to screw us. I want to make this perfectly clear. This was the decision of the JCF Admins as a whole and not my decision.
Before we started shopping JCF02 to other dealers, I tried to calmly confront Lloyd while sitting down for lunch one afternoon about pricing. At first I asked that he simply go back and recheck his pricing info as I thought there had been a mistake made and the pricing should be lower. I gave him an opportunity to make things right before confronting him about the info I had gotten from Kevin Easton. I told him to recheck his figures and get back with me. Lloyd did not take the opportunity to makes things right and I eventually had to tell him that I knew what his cost were. About this point the shit hit the fan as we tried to give JCF02 to Matt and Lloyd threw a shit fit about it. Lloyd contacted Donnie Wade in Ft. Worth and went ballistic that Kevin Easton had given out pricing information. From there it all snowballed as Donnie Wade tried to protect Lloyd and said that we had to do the JCF Series through GuitarXpress only. As you can imagine, the Admins were not going to put up with that shit as we had decided to give JCF02 to Matt.
From there, things got worse, Donnie became a jerk and yanked out exclusive JCF serial numbers and at that point the series was dead. That is pretty much the end of the story until a year or so later when Fender entered the picture and current JCF Admins(I had recently left the JCF administration) got with the Fender guys and managed to get JCF02 back on the drawing board. I 100% commend the current admins for getting JCF02 done. If Donnie Wade and AMIC had still been the owners of Jackson, it would have never happened. JCF02 gone done through a lot of hard work by Sully and few others.
As far as JCF03, between the nightmare that was JCF01 and JCF02 and what current custom shop pricing is, I can't imagine it ever happening. I certainly wouldn't want to do it.
Having said all that, I still own both JCF01-00 and JCF02-00. They are both locked up in their cases under some bed or in some closet somewhere in my house.
Now newc, if you want to blame somebody for the JCF02 problems and the death of the series, you can lie blame sqarely on GuitarXpress and Lloyd.
First of all, the JCF Series was initiated, controlled and executed entirely by the JCF Administration (which I used to be a part of). Each of us had our own duties regarding the series. During the beginning of JCF01, we speced the guitar out and started looking for bids from some of the larger Jackson dealers. Since I was in Tulsa, OK, I hit up Lloyd at GuitarXpress right here in Tulsa. At the time, Lloyd was trying very hard to be the #1 independed USA Jackson dealer. With that title, Lloyd got special treatment from Jackson, Artist Relations seminars(I remember spending an afternoon with Marty Friedman........weird little dude), bragging rights and better wholesale pricing. Also by doing the JCF Seried, Lloyd got an immediate "in" with the entire JCF community. It was a "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch my back" deal. So, long story short, Lloyd gave me and the JCF Admins his promise to do JCF Series guitars at a certain price point based upon his costs. You can thank me for getting JCF01 guitars so silly cheap. From all this, pricing/deal costs became my responsibility.
JCF01 went off fairly well on the business end but many of the guitars had production flaws that were entirely inexcusable. There was lots of bitching and moaning about problems with the guitars but when Jackson said "no problem, send them back for repairs" most people didn't bother to get their guitars fixed. I sent mine back for repairs and got it all lined out. I don't know if anyone else actually sent theirs back, maybe one other.
When it came time for JCF02, the Admins agreed to do the Robbin Crosby Big Red V. My job was once again to take our specs to Lloyd and GuitarXpress and get pricing. I did my job and a couple weeks later Lloyd came back with pricing. The pricing was as I remember, around 50% higher than the JCF01 guitars. Now please understand, back then Jackson was owned by AMIC based out of Ft. Worth, Texas and Custom Shop USA guitars were much cheaper than they are today. The admins were on a personal level with the head guy, Donnie Wade, and Kevin Easton who at the time was Donnie's goto guy for getting anything done. Because of this relationship, I was on the phone with Donnie occassionally and Kevin Easton all the time. One day when talking to Kevin on the phone about JCF02 and pricing, he let it slip that the pricing quoted to Lloyd/GuitarXpress was nowhere near what he told me. Yes, this was a major fuckup on Kevin Easton's part and the beginning of the shitstorm that came from it.
After finding out what Lloyd's real cost was on JCF02 and finding that he lied to me and the JCF Administration about it, I conferenced with the other JCF Admins(we had our own private section of the JCF Forum for this) about the situation. The UNANIMOUS decision among ALL ADMINS was to go shop JCF02 to other dealers since Lloyd had basically went against his word and was trying to screw us. I want to make this perfectly clear. This was the decision of the JCF Admins as a whole and not my decision.
Before we started shopping JCF02 to other dealers, I tried to calmly confront Lloyd while sitting down for lunch one afternoon about pricing. At first I asked that he simply go back and recheck his pricing info as I thought there had been a mistake made and the pricing should be lower. I gave him an opportunity to make things right before confronting him about the info I had gotten from Kevin Easton. I told him to recheck his figures and get back with me. Lloyd did not take the opportunity to makes things right and I eventually had to tell him that I knew what his cost were. About this point the shit hit the fan as we tried to give JCF02 to Matt and Lloyd threw a shit fit about it. Lloyd contacted Donnie Wade in Ft. Worth and went ballistic that Kevin Easton had given out pricing information. From there it all snowballed as Donnie Wade tried to protect Lloyd and said that we had to do the JCF Series through GuitarXpress only. As you can imagine, the Admins were not going to put up with that shit as we had decided to give JCF02 to Matt.
From there, things got worse, Donnie became a jerk and yanked out exclusive JCF serial numbers and at that point the series was dead. That is pretty much the end of the story until a year or so later when Fender entered the picture and current JCF Admins(I had recently left the JCF administration) got with the Fender guys and managed to get JCF02 back on the drawing board. I 100% commend the current admins for getting JCF02 done. If Donnie Wade and AMIC had still been the owners of Jackson, it would have never happened. JCF02 gone done through a lot of hard work by Sully and few others.
As far as JCF03, between the nightmare that was JCF01 and JCF02 and what current custom shop pricing is, I can't imagine it ever happening. I certainly wouldn't want to do it.
Having said all that, I still own both JCF01-00 and JCF02-00. They are both locked up in their cases under some bed or in some closet somewhere in my house.
Now newc, if you want to blame somebody for the JCF02 problems and the death of the series, you can lie blame sqarely on GuitarXpress and Lloyd.
Hi Greg! 
Comment