House of Musical Traditions

We survived the Ukelocalypse!

2009-07-26T14:58:00.003-04:00

Well. Last week was quite amazing. It was the ukulele invasion, ukelocalypse...whatever you want to call it, ukes were all over the place.

On Wednesday July 22, Dave took our mobile booth to the first ever (and hopefully annual) Ukulele Festival at the Strathmore performing arts center in North Bethesda, MD. The attendance was estimated at 1,500-2,000 for this outdoor festival. There were performances by Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, James Hill, Victoria Vox and Bruce Hutton...plus some other special appearances by uke groups that Cathy & Marcy have been helping. While I wasn't personally there, the pictures kind of say it all. Happiness and uke coolness abounded:

The crowd enjoys a lovely evening. Maybe we could call it a uke-in?

Marcy Marxer leads a performance of a local Brownie troup she's been working with.

The Riders--a group of 30 seniors from the Riderwood retirement community in Silver Spring ukes it up!

Dave Eisner takes a moment out from uke-selling to pose. Most of the inventory we sent over to the booth sold...Dave said people were still shopping at the booth after darkness fell and they had to pack up by headlights!

(the above photos are all courtesy Paul Sharratt. You can see his full Flickr set here.)

The following day, we hosted uke virtuoso James Hill for a workshop and concert. We had so many people signed up for the workshop (22...might be a record!) that we had to move it to a larger space up on Carroll Ave. Below is James and participants doin' their thing. There were varying levels of uke skill in attendance, but James really had something for everyone, and all the participants seemed to enjoy themselves.

Afterwards, James raced over to Seeker's Church for a "Next To the House" concert. While we don't have any pictures/video from that event, I thought I'd post one of his most popular YouTube videos here. Most people's response to James is "I had no idea the ukulele could be played like that!" He definitely blows peoples minds with his virtuosity, and is really showing that the uke is not just a novelty.

Judging from our ukulele sales in recent years, we've guessed that there is a uke revival in this area...but it was really cool to see it in full force. All the uke players had a great time meeting new friends, hanging out and talking shop. It really is an instrument for everyone, from kids to seniors.

Hopefully we'll do it again next year!

A day in the life...

2009-07-08T18:15:00.004-04:00

Whew. It's been quite a day. Just...one of those days, lots of stuff going on. Realized I haven't done a blog post in awhile, so I thought I'd give a rundown of the day's happenings. This kind of a taste of the randomness that is a typical day at the ol' HMT:

First, our former assistant manager and House Tech Geek, Rowan Corbett, came in to help with some computer stuff. The computer we have our store play CDs loaded in iTunes on is dying, so we decided to change things around and transfer everything to our front counter computer, where we can play music from the nicer speakers up there. This will also allow us to get rid of the cumbersome desk and clear some space in our bookroom. Even a year after our move, we're still trying to find ways we can use space better. We're still workin' on it!

We also got a surprise visit from another former assistant manager, Aleta Quinn. She's home for the summer but still working feverishly on her PhD papers for her philosophy program. Our webmistress Darcy Nair also happened to walk in with her supercute daughter Elizabeth, so of course I had to capture the moment with some pictures...

Much of the day was spent putting together an enormous order of ukuleles from the Kala company (in tandem with Dave on the phone), in preparation for the Strathmore Uke Festival on July 22nd, which we will have a booth at. 49 ukes, folks. All colors, styles, shapes & prices. Ukes are hot and we're following the trend!

We also had a good bit of chaos when a semi truck pulled up on the street with loads of boxes for us. We almost thought it was a mistake order that was supposed to go to another store, but no, we eventually figured out it was a bunch of Alvarez guitars that Dave ordered on special. And yes, they're a great deal...the $199 Alvarez is back! rob had to deal with a personal/band emergency where the company duplicating ilyAIMY's new CD rejected the master he'd overnighted to them, so he had to go in search of their preferred brand of blank CD, make another copy, and find a UPS store to overnight it. We're all musicians here and understand the importance of these things, so Rowan stayed on to unpack a dozen guitars to cover for rob.

I've also had to tie up some loose ends for the Old Time Banjo Festival this weekend...we have 4 workshops happening on Sunday and I've got to make sure everything is straight for that. Takoma Groove Camp is also starting next week and some last-minute registration issues popped up...but we've got it under control!

Dave's also been on the phone at home much of the day talking to the folks from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival which just ended last weekend. They sold a lot of percussion for us there, and we're arranging for the pickup of what hasn't sold.

In the midst of all that, we found a happy customer for an Eastman archtop guitar that's been hanging around for awhile, and a home for one of Alvarez' new model guitars that just came in. Been emailing with a guy in Florida very interested in one of our Goodalls; hoping that comes through.

We're also in need of a replacement file cabinet...found one on Craigslist and trying to arrange pickup of that.

The percussionist I'm playing with at a gig tonight called up hoping we had a riq. Luckily, yes...he gave us his credit card number and I shall bring it to the gig tonight! Another person called with a case emergency...they must have an SKB dreadnought case and nothing else will do...willing to pay for overnight shipping from the supplier! Make it so!

Inquiries have come in for samba whistles, oud strings, some Indian instrument even the ethnomusicology major hasn't heard of. Some time spent pacifying customers who have been waiting for their accordion reed wax for months (our supplier has run into a supply problem from their Italian source. What are they doing to the bees over there?).

Phew. I think it's time to go. Now off to the wilds of Clarendon, VA to play steel pan and cello with 50 Man Machine for more musical randomness.

The Breedlove Bus

2009-06-04T12:00:00.004-04:00

The last few days have been pretty hectic around the ol’ HMT (nothing terribly exciting, just one of those strings of days of “stupid busy-ness”). But I’ve finally got a few minutes to post about our visit from the Breedlove Bus on Monday.

I’d prepared for the day Sunday night by going out to procure hot dogs, veggie dogs & accoutrements for our BBQ celebrating the bus visit and our one-year anniversary of our move. Then I parked my car in the metered spot outside HMT to save it for the bus, knowing I’d probably get a ticket in the morning, but chalking that up to the cost of business. Our dutiful parking enforcement officers of Takoma Park did not disappoint of course, even though we had put in a call several days before requesting permission to block that space for the day which went unreturned. Well, we’re a bunch of dreamers.

The bus rolled up just after we opened with Colin at the helm on this gorgeous, sunny day. After some careful navigation, he got it parked on Westmoreland outside the store…

...and after some more finagling, was able to position it in order to expand out the sides to make full use of this mobile showroom.

Breedlove has sent two of these buses touring the country visiting their dealers, and Breedlove reps Colin Besancon and Branden Carpenter (pictured below hanging up a guitar) have been handling the eastern portion of the US. You might think that traveling around the country in a deluxe tour bus on company dollars, showing off some of the best handmade guitars in the world might be a dream job, and well...it sort of is. But you better believe these guys are working hard. While they're on the road it's a 24-hour-a-day job (and often it's just one of them on the bus--they happened to have joined up to visit us). The bus and its contents are kind of like an enormous baby that requires constant attention, supervision, feeding, watering, fueling and emptying.

Anyway...after they arrived, with military precision they expanded the bus and got it ready for the public, hanging up all the guitars for display. Our site offered the additional challenge of having to park on a hill, which caused all the guitars to be displayed at a jaunty angle. But they rolled with it. Below, HMT employees and friends rob hinkal, Erik Sharar and Rowan Corbett get a sneak peak while Colin & Branden continue setting up.

There's HMT teacher Erik Sharar next to some of the lovely Breedlove custom shop guitars--a sunburst Revival Dreadnought (I think), a custom inlaid "Calendar" model, and a Revival tenor guitar.

Every available space was used to hang instruments. Here a Bossa Nova nylon string and an Atlas "Black Magic" hover over the driver's seat.

And there's Colin! We've been working with Colin for years, first in sales, then he moved into building guitars for awhile, and now he's back in sales and on the road. We've had a blast hanging with him at the NAMM show in Anaheim a couple years ago, and he's done training sessions with our staff. It really helps to have such personal service from a guitar manufacturer. It's obvious that everyone at Breedlove is extremely dedicated to producing and promoting these beautiful instruments, and making it fun to boot. Wish we could get out to visit their shop in Bend, OR.

A few years ago, Breedlove started making electric guitars. Being an acoustic shop, we don't carry them, but Colin & Branden still put some up for display. And guess what was the first thing to sell off the bus? Yep, a very happy woman became the proud new owner of a Breedlove Mark IV electric. Colin did some setup adjustments on this one before turning it over to her. What a great thing to have one of their builders on hand to make that happen! Hey Colin, you wanna stay here with us?

We got several curious passersby peeking in, perhaps not quite sure what they would find, but everyone who stepped on the bus was pretty much wowed. Breedlove is definitely getting their name out, that's for sure.

Eventually, Dave's gas grill made it over and we fired it up for some dogs. We even decided we might leave the grill there for the summer--it's a cool thing. So if you stop by on a nice day this summer, you may very well leave with a snack!

After staying open an extra couple hours from our usual Monday schedule and finally closing up the bus, Dave, Colin, Brendan and I headed over to Roscoe's for dinner so we could show them the transformation of the old space. All in all it was a great day, and we're really appreciative of the Breedlove folks setting this up for us.

The Old HMT Transformed!

2009-05-14T16:58:00.006-04:00

Oh happy day! Roscoe’s Pizza officially opened today in the old HMT location at 7040 Carroll. We moved out June 2, 2008, so it’s been almost a year! Paul the Elder walked in this afternoon with a takeaway pizza, and at almost the same time my friend Adam stopped by the store, so we decided to check out the new place. Here’s a little photo essay of our lunch:

Stream displays the pizza Paul picked up—a “Capricciosa” with tomato, mozzarella, artichokes, mushrooms and Italian ham. Yum! We all tried it and I decided I needed more—therefore the lunch excursion!

The outside of the 7040 location. The offices of the Takoma/Silver Spring Voice newspaper are now upstairs--where we used to have our lessons rooms, bookkeeping office, and where Greg Artzner & Terry Leonino (aka Magpie) used to live.

Here’s the bar near the front entrance. They don’t have their liquor license yet, but we look forward to enjoying fine wines and such there in the not-too-distant future. The bar is approximately where our shipping/mail order department used to be located. Somehow that just seems appropriate (heh heh, just kidding Paul!!)

This wall used to hold our banjo selection!

Here’s the view of the main room. I didn’t really get a picture of the kitchen, which is located where our back office and my old desk used to be.

That back wall used to be the home of our repair closet and the Infamous Wall O’ Squeezeboxes.

Rounding the corner, we get to the bathrooms, which is where our book room used to be. I did not make use of the facilities, but I have no doubt they are far more luxurious than our old ones.

Then to the left is their separate dining room which you will recognize as our old guitar room! Hopefully soon they’ll have enough customers to open this up.

I knew the space was going to blow me away—they put an enormous amount of work into this place (kudos John Mangan & crew!). It was definitely surreal walking around the space that I worked in for 9 years, and which had been there for a total of something like 34 years. Check out our posts from June 2008 to see what the space looked like before we moved out. I'm looking forward to enjoying some great food & drink here for years to come!

Oh yes, and there was food. Adam and I split a mixed salad which had a yummy house dressing and just a bit of fresh parmesan…

…and we ordered the “Cafone” white pizza which was supposed to have smoked mozzarella, Italian sausage and rapini. Due to a delivery mix-up they didn’t have sausage, so we substituted grilled chicken. It was delicious indeed. Great thin crispy crust, fresh ingredients, yum! Their pizzas are priced between $8-$12 and feed 2 moderate appetites. They also have a selection of Mediterranean appetizers, salads, panini sandwiches and desserts. I look forward to trying out the whole menu.

The staff was all incredibly friendly; they seemed very excited about their opening day. We met the owner, Ed Gossman. He said they should have their website up and running soon, and they also have plans to have live music.

Well, congratulations to Roscoes—please come out and patronize this great addition to Old Town Takoma Park!!

A visit from the Skeptical Guitarist himself!

2009-05-06T12:43:00.003-04:00

We were thrilled to have a recent visit from Bruce Emery, author of the very popular guitar instructional books "Guitar From Scratch" and the "Skeptical Guitarist" series. Many of our teachers recommend these books--you can read more about them and purchase them from our website. Here's a pic of our salesman Paul "The Elder" comically trying to show Bruce some concepts out of his own book...

Caneridoo!!

2009-04-21T14:05:00.004-04:00

Karl Kalbaugh, our favorite local didgeridoo guy, just sent over these pics of his latest creation: a "Caneridoo" didgeridoo made out of recycled soda cans. This was for an exhibition at The Soundry in Vienna, VA for the Elizabeth Sanford Memorial Art Show (a recycled materials art show).

Karl has been supplying us with his handmade and handpainted didgeridoos (both PVC plastic and wood) for several years. The Caneridoo is not for sale at HMT, but we applaud Karl's vision with combining art, music and environmental conservation!

Cute quota for the day

2009-03-16T12:45:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's Westmoreland Shops open house did bring in a lot of folks to the area who had not been to our new location, so we consider that a success. It did get crazy at times as there were a lot of small children running about, banging on drums, trying out each and every kazoo, and other things that kids do. Some were charming, others...less so.

Sometimes we do get a real charmer though. Our buddy Tim Johnson just came in to pick up his latest acquisition: a left-handed spruce-top Kala tenor ukulele with pickup (yes, he acknowledges he has a problem, but we don't fault him). He brought his son with him, and they came back to serenade me with a duet of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door." Man, it was cute. The little guy even got the "dow-wah" pronunciation. Axl Rose, eat your heart out.

Westmoreland Shops open house this Sunday!

2009-03-10T16:02:00.004-04:00

Please join us this Sunday, March 15 for a special event hosted by the Westmoreland Ave. Shops. Everyone will be offering special discounts & promotions (10% off Celtic instruments, books & recordings at HMT), there will be live music (new acoustic duo Erik Sharar & Melanie Cobb), Reggae Yoga & dance demonstrations, refreshments and more! Click on the flyer below for full information.

HMT at the Wammies!

2009-02-18T11:08:00.003-05:00

House of Musical Traditions was well-represented at the 23rd Annual Washington Area Music Awards ("Wammies"), which were given out February 15. Several of our staff and teachers were winners or nominees:

Christylez Bacon: Winner, Rap/Hip Hop Rapper and Rap/Hip Hop Recording; Nominee, New Artist of the Year and Debut Recording
Ira Gitlin: Winner, Bluegrass Instrumentalist and Country Instrumentalist
Esther Haynes: Winner, Big Band/Swing Vocalist and Jazz Vocalist
Dede Wyland: Winner, Bluegrass Vocalist
Mark Sylvester: Nominee, Folk Contemporary Instrumentalist
Trevor Higgins: Nominee, Live Sound Engineer
Dave Eisner: Nominee, Executive of the Year and Most Supportive of Local Music

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

Chris Bacon at the Kennedy Center

2009-01-30T13:58:00.002-05:00

Our own Chris Bacon will be performing at the Kennedy Center Millenium Stage...

Monday, February 9, 2009

6:00PM - FREE ADMISSION - All Ages

Kennedy Center (Millennium Stage)

2700 F St NW, Washington, DC

www.christylez.com

Progressive Hip-Hop Artist and native Washingtonian, Christylez Bacon, will lead a hour-long concert at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage on Monday, February 9, 2009. The concert is commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History & Culture and the Kennedy Center. The concert features a 12-piece orchestra including String Quartet, Piano, Upright Bass, Tuba, Didgeridoo, Human-Beatbox, and other diverse instrumentation. On top of that, this concert will be Free Admission for the public!

Barack To the Future!

2009-01-14T14:15:00.005-05:00

So last week, Dave had one of his signature brainstorms, and started plotting. He enlisted the help of rob's graphic design talents...

And now we have our "Barack To the Future" commemorative Inaugural t-shirts! Get yours at HMT for $12 (girly t's $15). Comes in black and stylish black!

We also have these for sale in our eBay store!

Various Pictures

2009-01-14T14:01:00.002-05:00

Just a few fun pictures to share...

Paul the Elder, Amelia and Keith amuse themselves with silly hats.

For our annual HMT holiday party we gathered at Justin Trawick's show as part of IMT's "Next To the House" concerts. Here's Chris, Kristen, Brie, Amelia and Paul the Younger mugging for the camera.

So, if you've been to Old Town Takoma Park in the last few months, you can't help but notice the massive amounts of construction. Sometimes it obstructs our daily lives and we've learned to live with the sounds of bulldozers, jackhammers and other large machines. But sometimes the silhouette of a backhoe against a gorgeous winter sunset is just too cool not to capture.

Holidays at HMT

2008-12-17T11:48:00.003-05:00

We're all prettied up for the holidays...

Come in and enjoy a cup of hot cider while you shop! In addition to some great deals on guitars, banjos, mandolins and hand drums, we've got a buy-one-get-one-free sale on general interest music books which are already priced 50-80% off! Lots of great titles about Clapton, U2, Eva Cassidy, history of the blues, and more!

Our holiday hours are:
Dec. 17-20: 11-8
Dec. 21-22: 11-6
Dec. 23: 11-8
Dec. 24: 11-7
Dec. 25: closed
January 1: closed

Sunday Surprise

2008-12-14T16:07:00.003-05:00

We were treated today to an impromptu filming of a music video by Cheick Hamala Diabate, a great Malian musician. Happy to have HMT featured in this and will hopefully post a link to the finished video!

Dear HMT,

2008-11-18T13:23:00.003-05:00

It's been a great nine years, but...

I'm running away to join a Mariachi band.

Love Always,
Juanita

Just another Sunday at HMT...

2008-11-16T15:11:00.001-05:00

Old-Time For Obama!

2008-11-03T13:45:00.003-05:00

In honor of election day tomorrow, enjoy this recently posted video of old-time musicians and volunteers jamming for Obama in Charlottesville, VA. Featuring former HMT employees Joe Fallon (bass) and Lydia Martin (lead banjo)!

FOLK THE VOTE!!

They're on a mission from god...

2008-10-31T14:27:00.004-04:00

In the first of what hopefully will be many entries about what our talented HMT staff does whilst they're not at HMT renting trombones, restringing erhus, shipping out accordion reedwax and otherwise keeping the world safe for folk music...

rob hinkal (current guitar sales guy) and Rowan Corbett (former assistant manager who still fills in occasionally and is also our House tech support geek) are part of the "acoustic grunge" band ilyAIMY, and are currently touring the midwest. They've been to Louisville, Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia MO, where this Halloween morn they graced the stage of "Pepper & Friends" morning TV show.

Due to copyright concerns I don't think I can post the video here, but you can follow this link to the KOMU website...click on "Performances" on the right side, and you'll see the two links for the ilyAIMY performances.

Seemed a perfect opportunity for them to channel another famous musical duo.

Happy Halloween!

Christylez Bacon!

2008-10-12T16:07:00.004-04:00

We welcome to the HMT staff Chris "Christylez" Bacon, multi-instrumentalist and beatboxer extraordinaire! Here's Chris demo-ing a bass recorder...or is it the world's largest pepper mill?

Check out Chris' music at www.christylez.com or www.myspace.com/christylezbacon

HMT Hijinks

2008-09-21T14:21:00.004-04:00

Ahh, it's that time of year again. There's a chill in the air, the crisp and clear notion of fall working its way into our world. The Maryland Renaissance Festival is well underway, which means we're graced with the appearance of the lovely Amelia Adams, our booth manager. But most of all, it's >>insert music of doom<< BAND INSTRUMENT RENTAL SEASON. Now don't get us wrong, we love getting hundreds of area schoolchildren started in their musical career, and it brings in a whole new set of customers to us, which is really nice. However, it just gets well...REALLY busy. And the staff here at HMT has to find ways to decompress and deal with the stress and busy-ness. What I'm tryin' to say is, we get a little goofy sometimes. And here's proof:

Amelia runs with scissors. Don't try this at home, kids.

Amelia & Erik demonstrate the $5 bagpipe.

Kristen captures the rare and elusive pygmy violin. It's sooo cuuuuute!

OK, lemme 'splain. So, we've got Amelia. We've got rob. We've got Paul The Younger. There's a lot of hair going on here, folks. And...we've got a fan. I wanted to get them all in front of the fan in a rock star pose and watch the hair a-flyin'. Well, the fan wasn't quite powerful enough to really capture my vision. But you get the idea. Sometimes folkies have to rock too.

We are on the Youtubes

2008-07-29T16:24:00.003-04:00

Check out our YouTube channel!

Many thanks to Mark Sylvester for tirelessly demo-ing all these instruments. Glenn Tucker did the filming and Trevor Higgins engineered the audio.

Here's a few examples:

Steve Carmody Concert Jumbo

Goodall Concert Jumbo

Weber Gallatin Mandolin

Pictures of the new location--finally!!

2008-07-21T14:18:00.002-04:00

Thanks to our webmistress and photographer Darcy Nair, we now have a virtual tour of the new location on our website. Rather than pasting the pics here, just follow the link to take the tour and see what we look like now!

Yesterday, we had a very successful session with HMT teacher Mark Sylvester. We filmed video segments of Mark playing many of our higher-end guitars. We will be uploading these to Youtube and linking to them on our website so that folks can see and hear what these fine instruments sound like in action if they can't come to the store. Glenn Tucker did the video, with Trevor Higgins assisting in audio so that we could get CD-quality audio on these clips. Stay tuned !

Long lost brothers

2008-06-30T14:38:00.003-04:00

Dave yaks it up with funnyman Lewis Black at his reading at Sixth & I Synagogue

Join the Nose Flute Revolution

2008-06-26T14:18:00.003-04:00

Frequent customer Peter Bankson, who makes an annual order with us for 100 nose flutes, has provided us with a video of what he does with these! Peter is with Faith @ Work and makes annual trips to Guatemala to build elementary schools in a different small village each year. He introduces the joys of nose flute to the locals and they have a great time on their work breaks and after school tootin' away.

For more information check out www.faithatwork.org and www.hmtrad.com/HMT/noseflutes.html

Bueno!

Grand Reopening Celebration July 4

2008-06-25T17:03:00.001-04:00

If you're in town for July 4th, please join us at our new location to celebrate our grand reopening! Festivities will start after the Takoma Park Parade, from about 12-4 pm (for more info on the parade, visit www.takomapark4th.org)

Grammy winners Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer kick things off with a Family Singalong at the Carroll Ave. Gazebo immediately following the parade (approximately 12-12:30 pm).

Back at HMT, Cathy & Marcy will conduct a "Meet the Ukulele Workshop." Bring your uke or try one from the store--see how easy it is to make your own music! 1:30 pm

Other performances at HMT:
Calico Jack (www.janiemeneely.com/cj.html): Maritime Stories & Songs
Kieran & Iseult (www.myspace.com/kieranandiseult): Traditional Irish Duo
Billy Coulter (www.billycoulter.com) and Tommy Derr: Acoustic Roots Rock

Come check out the new digs, try a Goodall, Bourgeois, Carmody or Breedlove Guitar on the "Pickin' Porch," enjoy a cold beverage and listen to some great live music!

If you can't make it on the 4th, stop by when you can. We are carrying new lines of guitars, mandolins and banjos, we're now doing pro audio repair and have a great selection of Audio Technica microphones in stock, among other things. Through July 6th we're offering 10% off any regularly-priced, non-consigned item as part of our grand reopening sale.