The local music mom-and-pop shop is dying and that’s a damn shame.
I had no clue what I was going to write about this week. I hadn’t heard anything astoundingly good in the last week, so it had been a struggle to come up with a topic. Then I went home for a friend’s wedding (you know you’re getting old when your friends start getting married for reasons other than a broken condom) and decided to pop into the shop where I bought my first real guitar.
Boy, was I disappointed.
The walls were still full of guitars, but only three of them were well known brands. There wasn’t even a Les Paul in the shop, which should be illegal in Wisconsin. The amplifiers, which used to take up almost a quarter of the store, were now shoved into a corner, and only two of them were big enough to be used for a gig. Half of this space was also just speaker cabinets, which are useful, but only if you have an amp head to go with it.
Gone were the drum kits, sticks and heads. They didn’t even indicate that they still sold drums of any sort. Even the racks of sheet music were decimated, which doesn’t bode well for those who are looking to teach themselves music or buy supplies for their lessons at the shop.
What took up all of this space that used to be like a holy grail of everything you needed to start your own band? Well, there were some studio speakers, a few floor speakers and a bunch of DJ equipment. Don’t get me wrong, that stuff is all useful, but this shop used to subsist on selling and renting band instruments for elementary and middle school kids and selling equipment to local bands.
When I was still living at home and in a band, I spent at least $800 there as a senior in high school. That’s just a guitar, an amp and a used PA for shows. I wasn’t the only one in the band that got things there either; we bought most of our equipment at this shop, because they knew us. I’d say in the course of our two year run we spent upward of $5,000 at this shop.
When I was back this weekend they no longer even carried the type of guitar strings I play.
What happened? Well, the economy for one. The other is that the Walmart of music shops moved in across town.
Don’t get me wrong: Special ordering parts for your guitar or amp can get expensive. But going to Guitar Center and having them tell you your amp is dead when it’s really a simple repair is unfortunate. Especially when the $300 it’ll cost you to replace the amp with a shitty solid-state model is more than you have. Take it to the mom-and-pop shop and instead it only costs you $70 because they knew exactly what was wrong and got a deal on the part you needed. That sounds so much better.
I’ve bought almost all of my equipment at the little stores, mostly because they could answer the questions I asked and weren’t trying to sell me the big ticket items when I obviously couldn’t afford them. It’s not that I’ve only had bad experiences at the Guitar Centers of the world, but up until this weekend I had had nothing but great experiences at the local shop.
I don’t blame the owner Randy for the shop changing so much, or not being able to stock the same quality instruments they used to. I just find it disappointing that I’ve been writing about how rock isn’t dead, and yet I can’t get a decent guitar from my local shop.
Maybe the situation is different in Madison, and after my disappointment this weekend I have every intention of finding out. If anyone is aware of a shop in town, please send me an e-mail, as I’ve discovered a few shops I need to check out, but I am sure I didn’t get them all.
I’ve been impressed by the wealth of the record stores in Madison, so hopefully the music shops will do the same for me.
Do you feel like the local shops are going strong? Is Jeremy just pissing and moaning about nothing again? Let him know at jgartzke@wisc.edu.
