by "Big John" Campbell

March 27, 2005

Well, for the looooongest time, Webb's Music was the one and only music store in Antioch. He had a monopoly. The nearest competition was about 20 miles away in Concord. Jimmie D. (everyone referred to him as "Jimmie D.") milked his monopoly for all it was worth. He was an official dealer and repair facility for both Fender and Gibson, and a couple other brands. 

Jimmie D. had a big sign on the front of his store that read "We service and carry parts for ONLY what we sell." In other words, if you bought your instrument elsewhere, he would not help you with service issues or parts. And his prices reflected his monopoly status. Mind you, he had employees that were nice and helpful "regular" folk, but Jimmie D. himself was a hardnose. 

Now as you can imagine, in the local high school those days there were a lot of garage bands. Every band member from every band, basically disliked Jimmie D., for attitude, pricing and service reasons. A lot of them did drive that extra 20 miles just to NOT do business with him. He was the guy everyone ragged on.

Ultimately, one of those high school kids, a guy named Jeff Gill, opened a competing music store in Antioch, and then it was all over for Jimmie D. Jeff took nearly all of Jimmie D.'s business, Jeff was very customer oriented and friendly. That was the beginning of the end for Webb's Music.

Today, Webb's Music looks like a condemned building, it's literally falling apart. Now Jeff has the monopoly at Gill's Music.

Webb made a big line of speaker cabinets before he started making amps. Webb has the standard 2x10, 4x10, 6x10, 2x12, 2x15, 4x12 and a huge 4x15 cabinet. All were loaded with old Eminence speakers that were inefficient and had not much high end. The cabs themselves were well made. You should have heard that 4x15 being driven by a Showman head.

Jimmie D. did agree to be a sponsor merchant for the local high school yearbook. Part of that got him an ad in the yearbook. The ad consisted of a bunch of high school musicians going to Webb's and standing in front of a couple big Webb cabinets and having a photo taken, which would appear in the yearbook along with some ad copy about the place. One year, one of the guys in the photo put his hand over the Webb logo on the front of one of the cabinets. This was done intentionally and not noticed until the yearbook was printed. Jimmie D. was rather upset over that. All the locals thought it was funny.

I guess the moral of all this is you reap what you sow. If you have an attitude and "selective" customer service, people will find a way to get back at you. OTOH, if you really try to help your customers and are a nice guy, nobody will have an axe to grind.

Anyway, I hope the "estate" can get it together and resume support for those amps. The store is a wreck, they'd probably have to sell them mail order direct. Jeff might agree to carry them, but I don't know....