My friend has been building amps as a hobby for several years now. He has a few nice ones he would like to sell, perhaps even start a business. Where is there a good place to sell one of these one of a kind items? I've tried local guitar shops and they only want to buy name brand stuff. Ebay isn't really good for selling unique items such as this. Any help please. Location, location, location. He needs to be in a large city that has a big, preferably eclectic music scene. NYC, Nashville, Austin, N.O. BUT...making handmade custom amps is not a way to fast big money, or even a way to make a substance level living very soon.
I used to own a music store in Queens. My friend, Tony Bruno built his first amps a few blocks away in his mother-in-law's basement. When that was no longer feasible, he moved his operation to the basement of my store. For years, a few of the local guitarists, myself included, used to take his amps on gigs and try them out. Tony and I built the sound system and were the first sound men for Chicago Blues, a club on 8th Av, where Tony had guys like Magic Slim and Otis Rush use his amps. I myself had a large collection of vintage Fender amps but once I got my 2 Bruno amps, I sold all of them and have used nothing else since, and that's for the last 12 years.
Tony has a pretty big following and counts Billy Gibbons, Marshal Crenshaw, G.E. Smith and Bob Weir as customers, to name but a few. He has a website www.brunoamps.com and in my opinion makes the best amps in existence. Why do I tell you all of this? Because even with all of his acheivements he has yet to make it big, because the operation of making his products is so cost and labor intensive. Try getting in touch with him, but it probably won't do any good as he is very quirky. Kind of a prima donna, if you will. But check out his site and his product and ask yourself, 'with a line like that why isn't he rich?'
That said, if your friend wants to proceed he should go where the business is and put his product out there. He'll have to do a lot of freebees, run himself ragged and eat a lot of frustration and hard times but you never know, he just might make it. There is a lot of well entrenched competition, though so let him be forwarned. first place id start is find a really good guitarist in a good band and have him/her play thru your amps and spread the word around by playing gigs lettin people know what they sound like.word of mouth travels fast in the music world.later-john I'd try craigslist. It's free so no big deal if it doesn't work. If you are local to me (hawaii) I'd be glad to try one out The pawn shop in your area. |
