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DARK SECRETS: Guitar center | Vintage Vibes

“I think people got scared to play it”: Guitar Center CEO on why Stairway to Heaven was banned in guitar stores

All roads – or stairways – lead to a scene from a certain 1990s comedy classic

Guitar World

“Most retailers simply make copycat products and charge a little less. That’s completely uninteresting to me”: Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto aims to defy skepticism with his new house brand – and insists we don’t need more Les Paul or Tele clones

The CEO’s Guitar Labs ambition – to create an in-house guitar brand that’ll last a century –has its detractors, but Dalporto argues his crowd-sourced approach is essential in achieving such a lofty goal

Guitar World

“We need our community’s help”: California music store appealing for aid following the theft of four Fender Custom Shop Stratocasters

Wild West Guitars is pleading for help recovering the guitars, two of which were made to commemorate its 25th anniversary

Guitar World

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“I don’t know how to say this without bragging”: This guitarist butchered classic riffs at Guitar Center to rage bait fellow customers. Then Jack White sent her his guitar

Charlene Kaye's viral videos have bagged her one of the world’s most bonkers signature guitars

Guitar World

“A lot of guitar players are like, ‘Oh, well, Jimmy Page was fine with that, so I guess I don’t need more fret access, or I don’t need better balance’”: Tosin Abasi on the art of designing cutting-edge instruments that keep the guitar’s core

The Kaizen – which Abasi designed in collaboration with Ernie Ball Music Man – looks to drag guitar design into a bold new future

Guitar World

“Would you rather we didn’t listen to customers? That we just hide in our offices and listen to some corporate shirts pontificate on pickup choices?” Guitar Center CEO responds to backlash over the brand’s in-house guitar project

Gabe Dalporto gives his take on why gearheads should contribute their ideas to Guitar Center’s new Guitar Lab initiative

Guitar World

“New S-styles from Ibanez? They company probably couldn’t believe its timing”: This week's hottest new guitar gear – including a pedal you can wear on your wrist (sort of)

New AZ models from Ibanez, a fresh baritone for Ed Sheeran, and the final piece of Misha Mansoor's Jackson Juggernaut jigsaw all headline this week's roundup

Guitar World

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“We’ve got the company on a good trajectory. Now we’re playing offense”: Guitar Center has joined forces with the founder of Reverb – what does this mean for the retail giant?

David Kalt spearheaded Reverb for six years and has been brought onboard as Guitar Center enters a new era

Guitar World

“I was on tour, doomscrolling. I got a targeted ad, and it showed a picture of this guitar”: The time Misha Mansoor found his lost Jackson Juggernaut signature guitar in a Guitar Center

Mansoor was left with seller’s remorse until social media saved the day

Guitar World

“You can get a little bit of everything”: Grace Bowers’ tone tips to get the most out of the Gibson SG

There’s one pickup position she hardly ever uses

Guitar World

“These songs are played a lot. They’re often not played well”: Top 10 riffs played in-store at Guitar Center revealed

And Stairway To Heaven is conspicuous by its absence

MusicRadar

“These songs are played a lot. They’re often not played well”: Guitar Center reveals the 10 most-played guitar riffs in its stores – and no, Stairway to Heaven isn’t one of them

CEO Gabe Dalporto surveyed GC staff to discover the riffs that torment them on a daily basis – but some surprisingly big names don’t get a look-in

Guitar World

“I get a call from Guitar Center in New Jersey. They go, ‘Your Explorer was in here. We just sold it to some guy’”: Richie Sambora hired a private detective to recover his stolen Gibson

Sambora was recently reunited with his prized 1976 Gibson Explorer, 41 years after it was stolen out of a warehouse

Guitar World

Suspect linked to organized crime ring targeting Guitar Center stores across the US arrested

Police in Redmond, Washington, confirmed that the crime at the Redmond Guitar Center location is part of a concerted effort spanning at least three states

Guitar World

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MusicRadar

“We are about to do something insane… and you're the designer!”: Guitar Center is launching its own guitar brand and it wants players’ input with its design

CEO Gabe Dalporto wants to build a “a revolutionary guitar” and would like you to slide into his sub-Reddit with some ideas

Guitar World

“Guitars haven’t changed that much in the last 50 years. We’re about to change that”: Guitar Center is setting up its own in-house guitar brand – and it’s asking players for their help

Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto says the retailer is going to build “the best guitar that has ever been made”

Guitar World

“I can't walk away, so I've come back to do the thing I know how to do best, which is play”: Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival announces 2026 lineup

Now in its seventh edition, the festival is set to take place in Austin, Texas – and features Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa, and John Mayer, while Trey Anastasio, Tommy Emmanuel, Julian Lage and Pete Townshend are all making their Crossroads debut

Guitar World

“I walked into a Guitar Center one day and took it off the wall. It launched 1,000 ships of people chasing that sound”: The guitar that changed Billy Corgan’s life

It soundtracked two of the biggest alt-rock albums of all time, but as the Smashing Pumpkins leader remembers, the guitar itself was far from expensive

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Guitar World

“He said the first guitar was an accident of God. By the fifth one he said, ‘OK, you’re a guitar maker’”: Carlos Santana was one of Paul Reed Smith’s earliest champions – but he thought his first guitars were too good to be true

Smith looks back on his early partnership with Santana in Guitar Center CEO's new 'Inside the Noise with Gabe Dalporto' podcast

Guitar World

“I showed up on the first day of shooting, saying, ‘This is a guitar I bought at Guitar Center. I want to use my guitar in the movie’”: Jack Black reveals he still owns the Gibson SG that characterized School of Rock

The off-the-shelf guitar became a piece of cinematic history in 2003 when it was featured in the once-in-a-generation movie

Guitar World

“They called the police and said, ‘This is Mark Tremonti’s guitar’”: Mark Tremonti once had one of his earliest PRS guitars stolen – but a fan bought it back for him from a Guitar Center parking lot

The gorgeous single-cut was thought to be lost forever, until one eagle-eyed fan saved the day

Guitar World

“It must be hard to be a guitar god, because a bunch of people fancy themselves guitar gods and are annoying about it. But she actually is”: Lucy Dacus joins John Mayer in singing the praises of this emerging guitar genius

Forget sweep-picking and next-gen percussive acoustic fingerstyle guitar, Dacus says it's all about the bravery to play something different

Guitar World

“Time to add a 5th JHS pedal to my rig? With 25% off this just-launched distortion, it’s hard to resist”: All the guitar gear that has caught my eye this week – including the unmissable Black Friday gear discounts I’m eyeing up

The Kilt celebrates its 10th birthday, Fractal goes up against IK Multimedia and Line 6, and Tom DeLonge reaches for the stars (literally)

Guitar World

Every year, Rob Scallon and Andrew Huang write and record an album in a day. For 2025, they did it in an open Guitar Center – and used any gear they wanted

The two YouTubers have taken their First of October recording project to the public domain

Guitar World

“No, that doesn’t sound right”: Robert Trujillo gatecrashes group Enter Sandman lesson at Guitar Center

He then joined in with Dave Kushner, Senior Director of Music Education at Guitar Center, and Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto to play the riff with the students

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