State of the Shop: 2019

How about them fiddles? I had to hang my "fiddle wires" again tonight so I could get this swarm of bowed honeybees off of my fretted wall. It's been a while since I've needed them.

That aside, let's talk business. 

Last year was up a quarter in overall value for sales. That's good -- but it's mostly due to fewer, higher-value instruments coming through. The reality is that for me, and for a lot of retailers of instruments, 2018 was pretty brutal. There was a 6-month stretch where the market collectively held its breath and prices began to nosedive until November. Fortunately, I can always pick-up slack in sales by turning to my impossibly-large to-do repairs pile -- something I'm incredibly fortunate to have and something I appreciate very much in workload and also in your faith in me, dear customers and friends.

The market really is changing out there, folks. Despite urgings from customers for me to have plenty of ukuleles, whenever I do go out on a uke-buying spree, I find that they're not moving anywhere near as fast as they used to and my margins for selling them have shrunken quite a bit. I'm not even making my time back in full on them, now, when I buy/sell them. "Time was" that I'd put one up and it'd be gone the next day and someone would be happy to have a rope-bound, '20s, mahogany-bodied uke for around $200 that plays on-the-dot. I think the over-saturation of great, pretty-looking, inexpensive import instruments may be part of that change and also maybe it's that those who've been collecting have gone to the next rung of instruments -- Martins and Gibsons and fancier old Kamakas and whatnot -- that I don't tend to stock as there's even less gain for pain in them. So -- if you wonder why I don't keep a full house of ukes anymore, this is why. It makes me a little sad because I still love these instruments.

As far as the guitar-market goes, "name-brand" acoustics are still red-hot, though the less-desired models have all taken a bit of a price-hit. Second-tier acoustic instruments like Regals, Harmonys, and Kays have all dropped a bit and, as such, there's some very good value to be had in them right now. The reverse is true of their electric counterparts -- they're starting to edge-up again and I'm a little surprised at what prices Harmony Rockets, for instance, fetch. The mad-rush on Japanese electrics that sort-of surged 5-10 years ago has dried-up for the most part and is now focused on the quality models -- though that's a niche within a niche. "Time was" I could buy funky old Japanese electrics, fix them up, and make my time and parts investment back when I sold them and thus recycle them for the next generation's use. That's not true anymore -- just like the ukes -- so even though I like the fun-factor and the alarming array of flavors they come in, there's no sense in stocking them. Shipping costs coast-to-coast are so much higher these days that they can comprise 30%+ of the overall value in some of these weirdo instruments, now. It's part of why I can't even list a $200 guitar, really, as it might cost $60-85 to get it out to California.

This isn't all bad news, by the way -- it's just what I've been noticing. To me it's just a reason to push the little grey (well, they're kinda pink) cells and move sideways, instead.

As for my own story -- I took a long, hard look at what I want to do with my work-life over the next few years during our holiday break. With two kids, an instrument business, a cooling-down (but still steady-in-the-summer antique business), community obligations, recreational music obligations, and performance obligations, my life was just getting too crazy.

I'm sure you've noticed, if you're a customer, that things definitely slip around here communication-wise and that timeframes expand and expand. Part of that is my infernal art-studio attitude towards the work at times (sometimes I just need to not crank things out in order to do a good job cranking them out when my brain is hooked into it), but a larger part of the problem is just distraction. I've just been split in too many directions and that's been hurting my effectiveness (and enjoyment) in any one direction.

To get to the point: for the next couple years, at least, I've decided to stop playing live shows. That's a big step for me, as it's been part of who I am for the last 15 or so years, but while I was on break (I didn't have any shows in December, really) I was actually getting to play music at home and enjoying it in a way I hadn't in years. I've also been getting to spend extra time with the kids and family and that makes a whopper of a difference in lighting-up good areas of the brain.

There's also definitely a split-personality disorder -- artistically -- between performing and learning/creating. That last bit is what I'm going to highlight in things to come. I'm planning to share a bit more of my "back porch" music through video and records instead of live.

The upshot of that for gigging folks is that I'll be listing a whole bunch of practical live/recording gear in the next week or so as I absolutely loathe storing equipment that could be used instead.

In regards to the next stages of where I take the blog/media experience with these instruments and the history -- I have some ideas I think are neat and some field trips/excursions/visitations I'd like to try this year, so we'll see where it goes -- but my goal is to blend the business/history/reference/personal music/life and spaces in Vermont more and more. I've been investing in some new equipment to make video/audio recording better-quality, easier, and faster -- and trying to eliminate areas of the process that feel like kinks or stumbles. Those parts drag things down.

My business goals this year are simple, though, really -- trying to get things done more on-time, streamlining how I communicate with folks so I don't put you all on hold for forever, and learning to say sorry, can''t do that more often when necessary. Part of this business really is a bit like being some sort of doctor or psychologist or aid-office for musicians.

I've realized that a million little cuts in my schedule or work-time that I've made to help people out in one way or another are taking a toll on my stress levels and bleeding me, too. I'm not talking dollars, specifically -- but I'm realizing that trying to help everyone when they're in need of XYZ at the moment doesn't necessarily fulfill that objective of actually helping the majority of my customers, acquaintances, and friends. It delays and pushes-back and may help in the short-term but hurts in the long-term -- forcing procrastination that I don't even want in the first place because, frankly, I'm excited by all of the work I do as each problem is different in some aspect even if it's the same problem.

It's a really tricky path to navigate as in this business and with the folks I work for and with -- we're all artists to some extent, so emotions are captured in all of these objects we're messing-around with. Even if you just play to "make some noise" for yourself as my friend Norm puts it -- that stuff is lighting-up your brain and making you into a better version of yourself -- illuminated, lights-off, strobe-lighted, Bud Light-drunk, or whatever its effect might be. That's at least fractionally art in my book.

On the crazy, chop-shop, experimental instrument side of things -- yeah, I don't give up. There's no profit in it, but there are fresh challenges I want to overcome and try. Ideas? Here are some I've been throwing-around in my head restlessly -- and let me know which ones you're interested in seeing first...

• (1) A lightweight, sympathetic-string (tunable), resonating device that's loud enough to make a difference hardanger-fiddle-style and clip easily onto the back braces of guitar-like instruments...
     
• (2) Next-gen long-scale banjo bass -- 40" upright scale with upright strings, fretted, and 22" or 24" rim size...
    
• (3) Utilitarian acoustic guitar body -- braceless design, all ply, adjustable saddles, either made with through-neck or cut to accept standard bolted/Fender-style necks...
    
• (4) Magnetic-pickup electric classical guitar done in the method of the tin electric uke from '18. I've noticed an Instagrammer using the design (with credit) on some nylon-strung tin "banjos" -- cool & thanks!
   
• (5) Plastic pink flamingos -- I have two vintage ones burning a hole in my brain. I've thought of all sorts of weird stuff to do with them -- use one as a mic stand, make some sort of drone-box with them, build them into the weird spring-box things or passive resonating device (perhaps to be put in front of a cranked amp), make a bowed instrument like an erhu or kokyu out of them, make one into some sort of harp, make some sort of Hawaiian-guitar-like thing using the bodies as resonant chambers... who knows?

I'll leave you with that kind of crazy to think about.

Anyhow, thanks for reading, and here's to a bright and hopefully-wild 2019. I am soooo tired, now. Before writing this nonsense I was sorting through my equipment boxes and moving walls of cases back and forth. To sleep!