Local music store hangs?

B

Bozozoid

Platinum Member
We use to have one where you could catch up on the local happenings. If I was bored on a Saturday it was always down to the local music store hang to talk drums..music or even your favorite pizza. Just a very relaxed vibe where you could spend as little or as much time as you'd like. Just a memory now 😢.
 
I stop into Sussex County Music regularly just to see what's going on. I always advise them on price when a used drumset comes in. I used to hang out at Alto Music in Middletown, NY, which is the largest independent music store on the East Coast. No more. During Covid, they went to more of a warehouse format, and you had to make an appointment if you wanted to try out anything. You can browse these days, but there's not much to look at, and no more hanging and socializing for fun. Consequently, I haven't made a major purchase at Alto in a few years.
 
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There’s one place that a lot of guitar pickers hang out at from time to time. I swear there are only like 3 drummers in this town doing anything.
 
Here in Powell River the music stores came and went over the years, but since 2011 it's been Rockit Music and coffee.
Local boy and owner/operator Rob Reed is a long time drummer who got tired of corporate life, and decided to get into musical instrument and accessory retail( apparently for the sole purpose of plumbing the depths of his own capacity for masochism!) We are in a town with a rather good
music scene, but still a fairly small and limited customer base. So he started serving coffee. And espresso. And lattes. And mochas. He set up tables and chairs (judiciously distanced from sensitive merchandise!) and used caffeine to create the best music store hang around THESE parts, at least!
I go there for a cup and a chat( or to order/pick up gear) at least twice a week. A few years ago, I dubbed the place "Scuttlebutt Lodge"
after a TV show from my childhood (anyone who watched Canadian TV on weekend mornings in the late 70's might remember Red Fisher;))
Always a great spot to cross paths with local players. And I was in the store, just by chance, having a cup and a chat, when that old fellow walked
in and said he had an old set of Gretsch for sale. Turned out to be the Round Badge Olive Satin Flame kit! I know the big box stores can avail
themselves of quite broad distributorships and continuous supply chains, but I MUCH prefer to support the types of folks who originally built
the musical instrument retail industry. And for the most part, it was the little, independent mom and pop outfits that built it.
Support your local businesses, friends. They need it a LOT more than the multi-national conglomerates!
 
I used to see different folks when stopping by the music store, and could have a little chat. The few times I stop by these days, I rarely see anyone I know there, if anyone at all. The internet has kinda killed things... I love chatting with the owner, but he's pretty busy, has a couple different businesses as well as a live event production company, so I don't often get to see him, and I don't wanna bother him when he's out back attending to that stuff. I try to chat a little with his regular counter guy, but he and I just don't mesh well. Nice enough, we just don't connect, not his fault.

I don't get the same old vibe when visiting other, bigger music stores in the more populated places near here, as well. Perhaps if I was a local and visited more often, that would be different.

Kinda sad. I miss it.
 
Any time I go to Revival Drum Shop, I know I’ll be walking into a hang. At their first two locations, they had these chairs set out specifically for sitting and chatting/hanging. It’s always a revolving door of people coming in, and you never know who will be walking through the door. It’s much different than the other music shops in town.
 
for me, that is any time I go into Columbus Pro Percussion!! It is my home away from home
 
In L.A., for drummers, it's Pro Drum in Hollywood. Always been a great hang, and the one actual drum shop that's survived the growth of online sellers, and Guitar Center & Sam Ash. Not that most of the big stores are places to hang, but drummers still do a lot of shopping there.
 
No Way Jose said:
Isn't that like hanging out at Walmart?
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Not really, it was a great way to network and get work.

Got my first paid gig by getting my face known at my old drum shop. Also meant you got dibs on any cool used stuff that used to come in and this was before eBay etc so you could get some steals.

Fond memories of my old local drum shop Drum Attic in Wolverhampton, alas that's all that's left of most drum stores. Sad thing is a lot of music scenes revolved around music shops. There used to be a little music shop a couple of miles from me in Dudley called Modern Music that was known to have seriously big names as customers in the 60s/70s/80s Planty and Bonzo being 2 as well as Slade (obviously) and Dexy's. I remember those guys could get you or repair anything.
 
The shop I always went to when I was growing up in New Jersey was just like this, we could walk in on a Saturday afternoon and just hang for a few hours. Play some demo gear, chat with staff, thumb through magazines, no pressure to buy anything. It was awesome. That is far from the case in my current area of Florida. We have one independent instrument shop with stupidly high prices and very nasty unhelpful staff who follow you around the store repeating "you better not be trying to steal anything" (sure dude, I'm going to pick up this 5pc kit with full set of hardware and cymbals and just run out the door lol) and will 'encourage' you to leave if you haven't made a purchase within ten minutes. We also have an independent drum specific shop and that guy can be cool... in small doses... if he is in the mood. Even then, the extent of his "cool factor" is telling you that you are dumb for asking for Evans heads in an independent drum shop and not Aquarian because, as he often likes to explain, "Evans is a huge evil corporation who only cares about supplying big box stores and screwing over the little guy while Aquarian gives price breaks to independent shops" (can you tell I've heard this from him a few times? Sorry but I could care less about your margin as a business owner, I like the gear I like and I want it at a reasonable price. I'm not going to buy something I don't want or need just to keep your business afloat. If your business is failing it's not my responsibility to spend more money for something I don't want just to save you). If you don't buy something by the time he is done with his 'rant of the day' he won't kick you out BUT he will completely ignore you verbally while staring at you with a pissed off look the rest of the time you are there. Besides those two we've got a guitar center and a few pawn shops, dont need to explain what those are like.

So yea, I don't really get to "hang out" in a shop anymore.
 
mikyok said:
Not really, it was a great way to network and get work.

Got my first paid gig by getting my face known at my old drum shop. Also meant you got dibs on any cool used stuff that used to come in and this was before eBay etc so you could get some steals.

Fond memories of my old local drum shop Drum Attic in Wolverhampton, alas that's all that's left of most drum stores. Sad thing is a lot of music scenes revolved around music shops. There used to be a little music shop a couple of miles from me in Dudley called Modern Music that was known to have seriously big names as customers in the 60s/70s/80s Planty and Bonzo being 2 as well as Slade (obviously) and Dexy's. I remember those guys could get you or repair anything.
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yep...I was one of the very first "customers" at Columbus Pro, waaayyyy back in 82 when they first opened. It was just donw the street from my best friends house, and we would walk there on weekends as tweens, and be in there all day. Probably super annoying to the owner, Jim Rupp. But now, 40 somethign years later, I am a regular, Jim still owns the place, and has good memories of me "growing up" with the store. He says that I am one of the "best non-payed reps" for the store. All of my students get thir stuff there, and I have heard that they get the "Jim from Watterson" discount when they buy stuff.

It is cool to be known!!!
 
roncadillac said:
The shop I always went to when I was growing up in New Jersey was just like this, we could walk in on a Saturday afternoon and just hang for a few hours. Play some demo gear, chat with staff, thumb through magazines, no pressure to buy anything. It was awesome. That is far from the case in my current area of Florida. We have one independent instrument shop with stupidly high prices and very nasty unhelpful staff who follow you around the store repeating "you better not be trying to steal anything" (sure dude, I'm going to pick up this 5pc kit with full set of hardware and cymbals and just run out the door lol) and will 'encourage' you to leave if you haven't made a purchase within ten minutes. We also have an independent drum specific shop and that guy can be cool... in small doses... if he is in the mood. Even then, the extent of his "cool factor" is telling you that you are dumb for asking for Evans heads in an independent drum shop and not Aquarian because, as he often likes to explain, "Evans is a huge evil corporation who only cares about supplying big box stores and screwing over the little guy while Aquarian gives price breaks to independent shops" (can you tell I've heard this from him a few times? Sorry but I could care less about your margin as a business owner, I like the gear I like and I want it at a reasonable price. I'm not going to buy something I don't want or need just to keep your business afloat. If your business is failing it's not my responsibility to spend more money for something I don't want just to save you). If you don't buy something by the time he is done with his 'rant of the day' he won't kick you out BUT he will completely ignore you verbally while staring at you with a pissed off look the rest of the time you are there. Besides those two we've got a guitar center and a few pawn shops, dont need to explain what those are like.

So yea, I don't really get to "hang out" in a shop anymore.
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man, we had a dfew little independent guitar shops who had the same vibe as your story above...usually ran by the guy(s) that nobody wanted in their bands b/c of that attitude...the persecution complex guy. It was painful to go in, but a lot of the time, they had cool used gear that you wanted to check out, so you had to deal with the "woe is me" and drama
 
roncadillac said:
The shop I always went to when I was growing up in New Jersey was just like this, we could walk in on a Saturday afternoon and just hang for a few hours. Play some demo gear, chat with staff, thumb through magazines, no pressure to buy anything. It was awesome. That is far from the case in my current area of Florida. We have one independent instrument shop with stupidly high prices and very nasty unhelpful staff who follow you around the store repeating "you better not be trying to steal anything" (sure dude, I'm going to pick up this 5pc kit with full set of hardware and cymbals and just run out the door lol) and will 'encourage' you to leave if you haven't made a purchase within ten minutes. We also have an independent drum specific shop and that guy can be cool... in small doses... if he is in the mood. Even then, the extent of his "cool factor" is telling you that you are dumb for asking for Evans heads in an independent drum shop and not Aquarian because, as he often likes to explain, "Evans is a huge evil corporation who only cares about supplying big box stores and screwing over the little guy while Aquarian gives price breaks to independent shops" (can you tell I've heard this from him a few times? Sorry but I could care less about your margin as a business owner, I like the gear I like and I want it at a reasonable price. I'm not going to buy something I don't want or need just to keep your business afloat. If your business is failing it's not my responsibility to spend more money for something I don't want just to save you). If you don't buy something by the time he is done with his 'rant of the day' he won't kick you out BUT he will completely ignore you verbally while staring at you with a pissed off look the rest of the time you are there. Besides those two we've got a guitar center and a few pawn shops, dont need to explain what those are like.

So yea, I don't really get to "hang out" in a shop anymore.
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Which drum shop in NJ? I'm guessing Glenn Weber?
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
yep...I was one of the very first "customers" at Columbus Pro, waaayyyy back in 82 when they first opened. It was just donw the street from my best friends house, and we would walk there on weekends as tweens, and be in there all day. Probably super annoying to the owner, Jim Rupp. But now, 40 somethign years later, I am a regular, Jim still owns the place, and has good memories of me "growing up" with the store. He says that I am one of the "best non-payed reps" for the store. All of my students get thir stuff there, and I have heard that they get the "Jim from Watterson" discount when they buy stuff.

It is cool to be known!!!
Click to expand...
I totally forgot the "you come here all the time discount" Shows how long its been since I went to a brick and mortar music store.

It seems an alien concept to have a drum shop ran by drummers and not salesmen too.

It just shows that looking after your customers goes a long way and yes I'm jealous your store is still going!
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
man, we had a dfew little independent guitar shops who had the same vibe as your story above...usually ran by the guy(s) that nobody wanted in their bands b/c of that attitude...the persecution complex guy. It was painful to go in, but a lot of the time, they had cool used gear that you wanted to check out, so you had to deal with the "woe is me" and drama
Click to expand...
I once went into a small guitar shop in Nyack, NY. The guy had maybe seven guitars hanging on the wall. I ran my fingers across the strings of an old archtop, and the owner's angry response was, "Don't touch that!!" told him to go F himself and walked out.

Next time I was in Nyack, he was gone. Out of business. Good riddance.
 
BobC said:
I once went into a small guitar shop in Nyack, NY. The guy had maybe seven guitars hanging on the wall. I ran my fingers across the strings of an old archtop, and the owner's angry response was, "Don't touch that!!" told him to go F himself and walked out.

Next time I was in Nyack, he was gone. Out of business. Good riddance.
Click to expand...

yep...I don't get how people have that mentality, and expect other people to want to be there
 
mikyok said:
I totally forgot the "you come here all the time discount" Shows how long its been since I went to a brick and mortar music store.

It seems an alien concept to have a drum shop ran by drummers and not salesmen too.

It just shows that looking after your customers goes a long way and yes I'm jealous your store is still going!
Click to expand...

yeah...I feel like CPP is a "lone bastion of old school" in our town. There is never pressure to buy going in there. Of course, the people there do need to make a living, but the idea that they will make more money if you KEEP COMING BACK is the big thing. No one thinks that way anymore
 
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