Old School Music Instrument Store Appreciation Thread

[EOengineer]

I’m lucky to have a couple small family owned music stores here. One is open like one day a week by appointment only and they sell primarily super boutique acoustic and jazz hollow bodies with the rare amp on consignment. I’ll occasionally swing in and chat with the owner, who is a cool guy, and may eventually chase one of their Eastman acoustics.

There’s a good size fender dealer here who has expanded to carry Vox and ESP recently. They also have a TON of Martins. This was our jam in High School. We’d slip in here all the time and never waste an opportunity to fumble through Metallica and Nirvana tunes while demoing the latest and greatest Digitech RP-6 through a solid state Fender. I ended up snagging a 97 Strat Deluxe Plus brand new from them on blowout for $700 when I was 17. What a score.

I have daydreams about how soon I can quick my software job and go work in a music store chatting gear all day. No place I’d rather be.

 

[Sheep]

Gonna jump in here for the one post this started from. I was going through some of my old stuff and found my Jeff's Music Shop card. The person this post started on. I hadn't seen Jeff in a long long long time, can't even remember the last time to be honest, but it was probably close to when he passed.

Jeff was awesome. Just a super chill dude. I bought all sorts of stuff from him. He knew how to get stuff so crazy cheap. I got such nice gear and he'd buy stuff that had blemishes that normally sold for a ton of my money back then and he'd just make up a price right there based on how well he liked you. I got all of my guitars from him except the Harmony I started with.

I have no idea how my dad knew about this guy when he took me there the first time, but I kept stopping and visiting Jeff for years and years after that just to talk or buy strings or do whatever. He always remembered me.

Just felt really sad looking him up and not even seeing much of an obituary or anything really about him at all other than this post. I remember one of the last times I was there, he was really trying to get healthy. He did have some health issues. I'm not sure what was wrong, but explains why he passed at 50. Sucks for the community as a whole though. He obviously did well enough to pay others to come work for him. He had one of the old old fender guitar techs there doing guitar repair and setup for a while. That guy was ooooold.

Figured I'd comment in though to share along with some level of memory of Jeff seeing as there really isn't anything about him online at all for such a great guy and what he did to help people get into music.

 

[Holden Afart]

Dicks Country Store, Gun City, and Music Oasis in Churubusco, NY!

 

[laxu]

One guitar store just closed in Helsinki after years of service. I bought several pedals from them online, but their small showroom was in the worst location. Basically any time you tried to test an amp and turn it even a bit louder, an upstairs neighbor would call the store to complain it's too loud. I felt really bad for the storekeepers because guitar is inherently loud, and we weren't talking about cranking an amp but turning a little 15W Vox style combo to 2.

I'm as guilty as anyone for ordering lots of stuff from Thomann in Germany, but I do like that my current city still has a couple of guitar stores left so if something new comes out, I'll try to check them first. Often the pricing is competitive.

Support your local stores, folks!