Back in the "sucking seventies," the fledgling, Pre-Sidney Guitar Sys Inc was under a two fold assault. The oil crises and stagflation brought profit margins down and pulled point of purchase costs up. As if this were not catastrophic enough to a company barely ten years old, Disco had reared its ugly head. The mechanization of popular music was kicking into full swing.
Had Morty and Saul Williams made a disastrous mistake in the first place renaming their Wurlitzer franchise the "Guitar Sys Inc" from its original "Organ Center?" Had the Beatles and their ilk been little more than a short lived blossom on the hyacinth of retail?
Would Sidney ever have bought them out with his Chinese ill-gotten gains? Indeed not, if they had not lived.
As America went into the eighties, Keyboards were looking more and more like the future-Moog synthesizers became increasingly de rigueur for the modern commercial music act. There were closed door meetings in which the guitar as dinosaur became used with increasing and vitriolic frequency.
At this critical juncture Morty and Saul’s previous careers as used car salesmen came to the plate, saving the day! In an inspired Tequila Sunrise moment, Morty spoke the immortal words, "Hell, we’ve got a lot of musicians losing their jobs. Let’s buy their instruments for pennies on the dollar and resell them as vintage to the people who majored in Accounting, and other such real gigs!"
The birth of a great idea always seems like a rebirth of an old one. Many of their clients saw right through their strategy, usually at the point when they needed to sell their own gear.
As all of us in The Company know well, the point of cash transfer in retail music can occasionally get "outside the box." At any point in a given day, an effective sales associate may be carrying as much as eight thousand dollars in cash.
A lot of these deals were closed over a bottle of whiskey and a case of beer. More often than not the client wanted an extra $50 or so over the finally agreed upon cash price.
Sometimes folks got a little rowdy at some of our tougher East LA locations. Meticulous clean-ups following such transactions were necessary to ensure that the store was appropriately retail ready for the following day’s opportunities.
On December 12,1980 at 9:13pm, Phineas "Geezer" McGinty probably saved Saul’s life, (as well as saving the company’s medical group untold thousands of dollars in reconstructive surgery), by beaning the late Rock Great, Ace Feelie, with his broomstick as Ace was delivering his second uppercut to Williams’ nose. It turned out old "Geezer" had studied Oak Staff Shaolin!
McGinley not only doctored Saul, but he discretely evicted Ace through the store’s receiving doors. Feelie’s subsequent death of a heroin overdose early the next morning was much mourned in the LA musical community, and the Medical Examiner found no correlation between the beaning and his tragic death.
As if all that were not enough, "Geezer" even had the store buffed and retail tight by 10:00 that very night. Saul’s grateful parting words to him that fateful evening were, "Geezer, as long as we’ve got a broom, you’ve got a job!"
The Golden Broom Award is now bestowed on an annual basis at our Managers Award Banquet. It constitutes one of five of our Company’s formal recognitions of an employee’s outstanding utility and achievement. BACK TO THE CONTENTS