Word: chaine
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...Hawkins (Nick Stahl), an escapee from a chain gang, is burying his mother outside her dust-blown shack when the traveling show rolls by. There's more to Ben than he lets on (he can heal the sick by touch), and also more to this carnival. Besides the hootchy-kootchy dancers and bearded lady, there's a real psychic and a comatose but sentient telepath; and Samson answers to an unseen superior known only as "Management," who orders him to hire Ben as a roustabout because "he was expected." Meanwhile, in California, ambitious minister Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown...
When the first store opened, in Hollywood in 1964, founder Wayne Mitchell, a former car salesman from the Midwest, was running a chain of California organ shops. Mitchell bought out a competitor, acquiring a shipment of guitars and amplifiers. Almost as an afterthought, he hung a GUITAR CENTER sign on a storefront on Sunset Boulevard to unload the new merchandise and launched his company from the sleepy world of keyboards into the nascent West Coast rock scene. The Hollywood outlet soon gained a reputation as a place where the stars shopped--some of its earliest customers included members...
...fantasies, there is Guitar Center. The country's largest retailer of musical instruments, with 113 stores in 30 states, Guitar Center provides the teeming ranks of wannabe musicians with guitars, keyboards and digital recording and mixing equipment. Although 2002 was a grim year for many retailers, sales at the chain, based in Westlake Village, Calif., rose 16%, topping $1 billion for the first time. Profits jumped 48%, to $25 million, and investors took note. Guitar Center shares, which trade on the NASDAQ, more than doubled, from $16 in September 2002 to $34 one year later...
...music icons who carry Guitar Center's sales. It's the twentysomething guys with day jobs, weekend gigs and outsize hopes. According to Marty Albertson, Guitar Center's co-chief executive, 43% of the chain's customers are aspiring professional musicians, whose purchases account for 40% of revenues--the largest chunk of any customer group. Among them are strivers like Andrew Geonetta, 27, a singer-songwriter who plays club gigs in Cincinnati, Ohio, a few nights a week and works for an interactive design firm during the day. "I'd love to make a living at making music," says Geonetta...
...Larry Thomas (himself a frustrated rock guitarist), went on an expansion run that included opening new stores at the rate of one or two a month and acquiring, in 1999, the Musician's Friend catalog for $48 million. In 2001 the company purchased a 19-store chain catering to schoolkids and beginners called American Music, and last year it opened a 500,000-sq.-ft. distribution center near Indianapolis, Ind., the largest in the business. This year Guitar Center will open new flagship locations in New York City and Nashville, Tenn.--loud, sprawling spaces designed to attract the stars...