Guitar shop kudo's

[axmann]

Its been far and in between lately where I really had a great expierience in a guitar shop.I got burned twice on internet shop purchases in the last year(not anyone listed here). My old haunts in Milwaukee are all gone. Most places are guitar malls, thats fine if thats your deal. Its not mine. A buddy of mine got treated like a complete a-hole at the last place around here I really thought was ok. I am talking places with reasonable selections of mid to higher end guitars. So...we get in the car on a nice day and drive a couple hours down in to Illinois. Suggested by a member here, we went to JC'S Guitars. The owner and his wife are first class people. He has a ton of guitars and equipment . Even during their major moving issues he straightened out a nasty equipment problem for me. Without hesitation. Knowledgable, courteous. Straight up. I bought a new DK1 from him. Its stellar. I'll be going back.
Thanks JC's.

[Maiden89]

That's an awesome story. You can always tell the way a business is by looking at thier owners.

I remember when I was buying my first major guitar purchase and I decided to buy from a small local guitar shop. The guitar was my first floating bridge and the owner set it up perfectly and said I can come any time for a complete set up or help replacing strings free of charge. He also always treated me as a friend and not just another customer giving him money.

Needless to say I referred all my friends to him. He offered more value for the money than anyone else, and it wasn't just tangible things like a free set up or free picks, but it was his honest recommendations and help. I think every small business that did this would be successful and have loyal customers

[KingVee]

I wish I could find places like that too...

Although I do have a favorite music store I go to since they always have what I'm looking for (picks and strings mostly, nobody else seem to sell DR strings around here). They don't really stock up on higher end equipment, they'd rather order it for you. I remember in early 2007 when I went to order my KV2, they had a Bolted Steel WR1 and a Shattered Glass SL2H on the wall but I haven't seen anything of that value up there ever since. The staff is usually pretty friendly and we joke around at the register, cool people. However, they do try to make a quick buck on you, like trying to get you to buy a couple sets of "extraordinary" Elixir strings (which are the most expensive out of the rack and quite frankly not good to me) when you clearly went in and asked for DR strings. But hey, it's a business after all, right?

[MetalHeadMat]

Around here we don't have too many good guitar stores, imo at least. We have one who overprices and offends people, (who I worked for ), another with no "good" stuff, mainly extremely low end stuff, with very high prices, another with a reputable name, but absolutely no knowledge about guitars, and extremely high prices, and another guitar store with nothing good run by tools.

However, we do have 2 guitar stores around here I like. One is run by somebody I've known for a long time, and is a really cool guy, but only deals in used stuff. Regardless, he does get some really good stuff in. Another is a chain, but has a few good guys who give their honest opinion, even if it means losing money for the store, and will help you with anything when they're free. They usually have the newer stuff, but not high end stuff other than Gibson's and Fender's, with the 2 USA Jackson's that haven't sold in 3 years, aren't set up, and don't have fresh batteries for the active pickups

Funny story about the place I worked for... They have a no money back policy, you can ONLY get store credit. This one gentleman brought in an accordion to get pickups installed in it. Why? I don't know. So they say they can do it, he pays for it all up front, and happy ending, right? Well a week later he gets a call saying they can't do it, oddly enough. He goes in, picks up his instrument, and asks for his money back, but because of their policy, they would not give him his money back, and only gave him store credit. I'm half certain this is stealing in some way, shape, or form.

*Edit: I did not add names to this list just in case I'm being followed by them, man! But if for some reason you're coming to Windsor and want the names of places to avoid or check out, just pm me and I'll help you out.*

[axmann]

It was a cool place to deal with. They have a couple shops. The big one is in St. Charles. I emailed him what I was looking for and he had them all waiting, clean, set-up, no surprises. It was obvious they have been around guitars for a long time. Look on his website. He has alot of new and used stuff.

[Twitch]

Theres much to be said about the mom and pop shops. I try to shop locally as much as possible, its hard sometimes when looking for something specific, but worth it if you happen to find it. There are some shit hole local shops though too. One of the three here in Columbus seems to buy shit from Trade Tang(bogus ESPs, Gibsons, PRS SEs, even Epiphone) and wont work with you on prices of the legit stuff. I try to stay out of that place at all costs. The other two here in town, stand up guys, truly.

[len]

used to live right up rt 31 a couple of miles in crystal lake il from the algonquin jc's ....
do not miss the snow

[axmann]

What a cluster f**k trying to drive down 31 on last Saturday. What a massive log jam. I live about 150 miles north of there. Yeah the snow,..... its getting old for me too.

[len]

back in in the mid 80's i moved to streamwood,irving park road and Barrington road were 2 lanes back then
then the people came
25,31, randall road used to be farms now there all cluster fucks, ....47 is next......pretty soon the the chicago suburbs are going to spread all the way to rockford