Favorite Music Shops

Subject: Favorite Music Shops
From: DWDitty
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 05:26 AM

Two things I love to do when traveling is to go to a baseball game if the home team is town and to try to find the coolest music shop in the city. My favorite still is Youngblood's in Guilford, CT. The shop is filled with quality string instruments and there is a large room with Oriental rugs and velvet couches to sit and play to your heart's content. I once purchased the most beautiful maple J-200 I had ever seen from George. After 2 - 3 weeks, I realized that I hated the guitar - it just didn't "fit". I took it back to George, and he said, " I promised myself that I would not wind up with the wrong woman or the wrong guitar. Your on your own as far as the woman is concerned, but I can help you out with the guitar." Without any question, he took it back and allowed me to select another guitar. I have been playing my Guild F-50R ever since.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Earl
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 02:48 PM

In Portland, Maine I'd recommend Buckdancer's Choice. They have a great repair department and they carry everything from hurdygurdies to theramins.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: DWDitty
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 04:02 PM

Theramins?

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Bert
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 04:24 PM

Are they anything like Acumins?

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Ralph Butts
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 04:24 PM

DW...

Theramins are played by moving your hands (body) through an RF field produced by two antennas. Changes in the field are amplified and sent to playback equipment. Probably one of the earliest 'electronic' instruments.

BTW, I'd love to get my hands on a hurdy-gurdy, but they're so expensive (and LOUD)!

...Tiger

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From:
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 04:35 PM

Speaking of expensive & load, there's this girl I know who........................

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Bert
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 04:38 PM

http://edcen.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/hurdy.htm

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Roger Himler
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 06:10 PM

DWDitty,

The Beach Boys used a theramin on the song "Good Vibrations" to make that eerie sound.

In Baltimore, you cannot beat Appalacian Bluegrass in the Catonsville suburb. Not the biggest store around, but real friendly and down-home. Bare wood floors and little decoration (feels like an old-time general store). They have a little bit of everything for the (mostly) acoustic musician. The focus goes well beyond blue grass.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Dave T
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 08:42 PM

In Ottawa I like the Ottawa Folklore Centre. They've recently moved to a new, more modern facility. Personally, I think the old one had more character (uneven, bare wood floors), if a lot less room. However, they were really running out of room, especially for the music school. They have a great staff and a nice selection of new and used instruments ranging from starters to vintage (primarily acoustic). I often stop by to just browse around, see what's new etc. I usually find a hard to find CD or something else I can afford.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Sep 98 - 11:03 PM

Here I go again. I, like DW Ditty, travel a great deal. I always look for the "real" Irish pub, and the best local music store. I have travelled every part of the country and have found some really great shops. But none can compare to Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. It is in an old IOOF (Foresters) building. It caters to blues players, but its real strength is in its acoustic and trad instruments. There is virtually every type of stringed instrument you can imagine. Harps, zithers, autoharps, hammered dulcimers, a fiddle room, mandolins, mandolas, octave mandolins, dobros, bodhrans, whistles, sitars, banjos, and every manner of vintage and new acoustic and electric guitar. And all the accessories you can imagine. The most amazing thing for me is the room that holds the expensive new and vintage guitars. You just walk in, pick one up and sit down and play. No one bothers you, or hangs on your shoulder or gets nervous. You just play as long as you want. There is plenty of help if you need it. Their repair shop is second to none.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: DWDitty
Date: 10 Sep 98 - 08:48 AM

I have not been to Elderly Inst, but Mandolin Bros in Staten Island offers a selection of fabulous instruments. Like Elderly, you can pick up a $75000 to $100000 vintage acoustic and play it without anyone hanging over you. I'm not sure the incremental $ are justified (at least for me) but there is a very definite "difference" when you play the finest instruments ever made. BTW, Mandolin Bros, like Elderly, has a great set of catalogs and info of interest to stringed instrument players and lovers.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Earl
Date: 10 Sep 98 - 09:06 AM

Elderly and Mandolin Brothers are my two favorite music stores though I've never been in either. I buy most of my stuff mailorder.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Jon W.
Date: 10 Sep 98 - 11:12 AM

Salt Lake City is fortunate enough to be home to two outstanding shops, Accoustic Music and Intermountain Guitar & Banjo. Both have a real homey, low-tech atmosphere and will let you play the instruments without worries.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 10 Sep 98 - 12:36 PM

I agree with DWDitty that Youngblood's in Guilford is a great place. We have bought many instruments from George. One of them was a loaner he gave us while he worked on another of ours. Not so stupid.

The best place I've found for recorded and sheet music is The Music Box in Hamden, CT. They have one of the biggest selections of bluegrass recordings in the area, (an area where NOBODY carries bluegrass) and you can find just about any songbook and sheet music in any genre you could possibly want.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: BSeed
Date: 11 Sep 98 - 01:51 AM

I just discovered Mandolin Brothers on the web, surfing banjo sites. What a fantastic inventory they have! And I don't mean only the $15,000 vintage instruments. Has anyone ever played a Nechville Banjovie (it's a small 5 string banjo: the neck is about 15 frets long, but the top five are missing, making possible a lot of high sliding)? There are no brackets so I don't know if it's possible to tighten the head, but still, it's intriguing: and cheap ($99.00). I'd never heard of Nechville banjos before a couple of weeks ago when Alison Brown played in Berkeley.

Mandolin Brothers is at www.mandoweb.com.

--seed

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: BSeed
Date: 11 Sep 98 - 01:56 AM

Max: Could you get Elderly Instruments, Mandolin Brothers, and that harmonica source to put links on Mudcat? I'm sure Mudcateers who haven't seen them yet would welcome them. --seed

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: harpgirl
Date: 11 Sep 98 - 06:51 PM

Next to Elderly, my other favorite is : www.Gordonsstringmusic.com...harpgirl

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Sep 98 - 08:02 PM

Good idea, Seed, but Max has it set up so we can enter links ourselves. - I'll start a "Music Shops" category on our links page and enter Elderly. Maybe others can enter the ones they like best.

Click here

to get to the links page in a hurry. Otherwise, there are links to "links" at the top of the forum page, on your personal page, on the Mudcat Home Page, and scattered around at other strategic locations. You have to be registered to be able to enter links. If you do enter a link, be sure to check it every once in a while to make sure it's still working. You are the only one who can delete links you've entered (well, we all know that Max can do anything...).
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: BSeed
Date: 11 Sep 98 - 09:07 PM

Joe, I was suggesting that Max contact the stores and get the links in the Support the Mudcat, so the 'cat gets a cut (there's a song for someone). --seed

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: DWDitty
Date: 11 Sep 98 - 10:08 PM

Hey, Barbara. I, too, am fond of the Music Box - have been going to them for over twenty years. Of course, Cutler's in New Haven offers a fine selection as well.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From:
Date: 13 Sep 98 - 07:22 PM

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 09:35 PM

I knew I said this before! Bringing this older thread back up to the top.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 01:26 AM

hammered dulcimer
joins guitars, banjos and such:
Fifth String Thursday jam

--seed

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Mudjack
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 02:05 AM

When in southern California, Claremont CA has the Folk Center on Yale Street in the Village. Besides being a great music store, it is also a folk music museum that is officially registered with California as a museum.It began back in the heart of the sixties and has been a special place every since , a must see for any folkie. Every spring they sponser and put on a great little folk festival.They're the greatest. Tell em Jack sent you.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Mudjack
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 02:27 AM

When in southern California, Claremont CA has the Folk Center on Yale Street in the Village. Besides being a great music store, it is also a folk music museum that is officially registered with California as a museum.It began back in the heart of the sixties and has been a special place every since , a must see for any folkie. Every spring they sponser and put on a great little folk festival.They're the greatest. Tell em Jack sent you.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 12:30 PM

I forgot there were two threads of the same name going and when I failed to see the haiku I posted above at the end of the other one I figured I must have clicked "clear entries" rather than "submit message" last night when I wrote it (inspired by another couple of threads).

lots of work to do
but I'm wasting time again
lurking on the 'cat

--seed

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: Big Mick
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 12:37 PM

Happy to Val. And it has been a while since you were there, they haven't been in the little shop in some time. Stan Wuerbling(the owner) bought the old Foresters building on North Washington St. in the Old Town area of Lansing. It is about a mile north of the Capitol on Washington.

The shop and business have flourished. Today they are the largest distributor of Martin guitars in the world. They publish four different catalogues and have a thriving world wide mail order business. The shop is a day long adventure. You will find three different rooms of stringed and percussion instruments. Every folk/blues musical instrument you can imagine from Strad's to Strat's. Just a play on words, don't know if they handle Strad's, but a lot of fiddles grace their walls. Citterns, Bouzouki's, Sitars, mandolins, bodhrans, whistles, guitars, stand up bass's, harps, you name it, they have it. And one room devoted to top end guitars. You can walk in, grab Martins, Collings, Larivees, Taylors, Gibson's and on and on and sit down and play. No one will bother you unless you abuse an instrument. Want to plug one in? Just head into either the acoustic amp room or the electric guitar amp room, plug in and let 'er rip. It is pretty cool to pick up a $15,000 guitar and start playing. Looking for vintage, they got em. Many are on consignment. I just checked out a beautiful custom Martin for one of our fellow Mudcatters, which he subsequently bought. Looking for songbooks and instructional video's??? If it is in print, they likely have it, including A Bonnie Bunch of Roses by our own Dan Milner. How about CD's of folkie/blues/Ethnic performers? Yep, you can find our own Art Theime, Dan Milner,and many Folk Legacy (Sandy and Caroline Paton) performers on their shelves.

They have a website which I believe is located at www.Elderly.com

Enjoy, and by the way, stick around here for a bit. I think you will like us.

Big Mick who is using a computer in the Portage, MI public library so I hope this comes out OK.

Subject: RE: Favorite Music Shops
From: mountain tyme
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 01:14 AM

In the home state of, and just down the road from, The Mudcat Cafe, is a great folk music shop. With a very helpfull owner and large selection for some thirty years now, The Bucks County Folk Music Shop between Norristown and New Hope PA may even be able to supply you with custom (your choice of alloy) banjo parts. Fine selection of vintage folk insts. parts, music and instruction.