It didn't kill us, though it did make us tired! Grand Opening Week is now in the books and we're fully operational at our new location, 1219 Bingham Street on Pittsburgh's South Side. We had the doors wide open all week, and were happy to welcome friends from as far away as New England, Baltimore and California to see what we've been working on these many months. The week was jam-packed with shows every night, played on our new stage, designed and built by our carpenter friend Nate Patterson. We were also very fortunate to have our friend Tony Corbett helping us learn to use our new PA and make the artists sound great in the room.
Monday kicked off with a birthday gift for our owner, Steve Miklas. Steve is hard to shop for, he certainly has most guitar and banjo-related items at his fingertips any day of the week, and bottles of wine and gift cards for coffee have gotten a little old... so our Media Manager Adam Rousseau and I hatched a plan: an original piece of artwork that would tickle his funny bone while speaking to our journey as a business...
Affectionately known as "The Sis-Steve Chapel" or "The Thing" (as in "You gotta see the thing we gave Steve this week!) the man is depicted making that heavenly connection with the dearly departed Bill Collings, whose guitars were absolutely key to our success in the acoustic world. Steve was touched, thank goodness, and the picture is now framed and on display in our store. Want a print? We're probably going to make that happen.
Pretty soon it was time to get into show mode. Night one featured our long time customer with the booming baritone Brad Bendis, who kicked off the evening with reverent renditions of classic country songs from Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and more. Brad was followed by Uncle AL, or Alexandra Aks, who wrapped her opera-trained voice around a set of gorgeous original folk songs. Garnet Ash finished out the night with some original folk pop numbers and we had one in the can, as they say.
Day two brought more well-wishers and a steady stream of friends and customers, and the night brought probably our most eclectic/experimental lineup of the whole week. Pittsburgh folk and world music scene mainstays Sue Powers and Jeff Berman delivered a gripping set of tender original songs on guitar, banjo and dulcimer to open the show. They were followed up by Forest Counties, who played a single extended track with rambling jams that occasionally took a turn for the psychadelic. Oregon Trails closed it out with their noisy dance music (or dance-y noise music?) and had the heads bopping.
The buzz continued into mid-week, and the lineup that night was absolutely stacked! Visiting from Baltimore, our friend Sam O'Hare (who you might recognize from a recent run of demo videos) and his sideman Josh Earls inspired awe with a set of soulful Americana featuring heavenly harmonies on originals and a few knockout interpretations (their version of "Gentle On My Mind" was simply PERFECT). New England's Ryan Lee Crosby answered the call with his expert monotonic blues playing on electric twelve string and slide guitars. The night closed in fine style with locals Penna Players, who never fail to warm hearts with their version of trad jazz. It's so nice to have so many talented friends!
Heading into the back half of the week, the 16-hour days were beginning to drag on us, but we knew we would have to see this thing through. The word of the week as people entered our new store for the first time was "overwhelming" (yeah, you're telling us!) but we can't say we didn't see that coming. Thursday night's lineup was the near and dear kind, with Aaron Lefebvre coming up from Kentucky to hit us with his original modern fingerstyle and Yours Truly taking it back 100 years for some classic ragtime as Jagtime Millionaire. We were very lucky to have one of Western Pennsylvania's finest singer/songwriters Coltt Winter Lepley there to end the night on a high note, with an assist from Pittsburgh's fiddler in the clutch Justin Long.
Friday was soon upon us and it was all starting to feel like a dream, but we sold a few mighty fine guitars to a few mighty fine folks, and were excited to welcome back Boston's Glenn Jones, who happened to be the headliner at the first show we ever put on at our old location. Glenn was in the middle of a marathon tour with young fingerpicking wunderkind Liam Grant, also a close friend who played the old location numerous times. Rounding out the bill were folk rockers Pairdown, which saw myself, Dave from Oregon Trails and Jeff Berman all taking the stage for the second time in the week. I've looked at shows from both sides now.
Was it hard to drag our butts into work on Saturday? Yes. Yes it was. That said, the outpouring of support and the sheer quality of sounds we were able to witness reminded us that this thing really is about MUSIC at the end of the day. We can supply the tools, we even play a bit ourselves, but without music to play, it's just a lot of wood and wires.
We're catching our breath, but we're also energized, let's connect y'all with more instruments!!! Plenty of great events yet to come in 2025!
