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Marge Levin Passes
Behind every great man is great woman.
That can certainly be said when it
comes to Marge Levin, the wife of Chuck
Levin of Chuck Levin’s Washington Music
Center. Levin passed away last month
at the age of 81. She built the business
together with her husband while raising
three children. She was always the smiling
face behind the counter at the store.
In lieu of flowers, the Levin family asked that donations be made
to the Parkinson Foundation of the National Capital Area. Funeral
services and graveside services took place on March 5 in Silver Spring
and Adelphi, Md., respectively.
Times Square Store Closes
Morganroth Music Center, located in the Times Square section of
Great Falls, Mont., closed on Feb. 27. The store’s other location in Missoula
will remain open, however. “This is a decision we’ve been tossing
around for six months and analyzing,” Gary Bowman of Morganroth told
the Great Falls Tribune. “It’s something we didn’t want to do and held
off as long as we could. We had no idea when we (opened in Great Falls)
that the economy would tank like this. And with the cost of business
increasing, it was a decision we needed to make.”
The Great Falls store employed two people.
Music & Arts Donates
100 Instruments
Music & Arts, a retailer with stores in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake
and Kempsville, Va., recently surprised students, educators and families
with a donation of 100 string instruments to support the first Soundscapes
pilot program in Newport News, Va. Music & Arts’ representatives
hand-delivered violins and cellos to the program’s 65 first-grade
students in the Soundscapes program at Carver Elementary School as
part of their holiday celebration. “I was touched by the magic that was
in the room that day. The smiles on the faces of the children and parents
at the event were priceless,” said Music & Arts Regional Manager
Mike Ditonto.
Students participating in the Soundscapes after-school music education
and social change program meet for two hours, three days each
week. During the first year, students explore different musical instruments,
starting with bucket-drums and their own voices. Over the year,
they also will work with recorders, stringed instruments and horns.
Business is Born
Howard Brinson and Timothy Martuzas opened Musicology in
Watertown, N.Y., with a grand opening celebration on March 6. The
two friends performed together on stage for many years. The store is
located on 241 State Street. According to the Watertown Daily Times,
the store contains about 100 to 120 guitars, percussion products, amplifiers,
and more. A heavy focus will be placed on selling Canadian and
American instruments. Lesson rooms are located in the rear of the
store. Martuzas was the former owner of Martuzas Music. “We want
to have a sofa back here with some reading material, someplace for
parents to sit down and relax and maybe watch their kids while they’re
getting their lessons,” Brinson told the newspaper. “We want this to
be a place where anyone can come and enjoy the musical atmosphere.
We’re trying to create a community feel to the place.”
Letter to the Editor
Don McKenzie, president of Steam Music in Topeka, Kans., contacted
us to comment on a letter written by Larry Miller of Metronome
Music that appeared in the Music & Sound Independent Retailer column
in our January issue. The January letter regarded store break-ins.
Here is the full comment.
“Dear Music & Sound Retailer:
I concur with Larry Miller’s letter about the need to bar windows
and doors to prevent after-hours music store forced entrances. In my
38 years of conducting business in various locations, my store has
always been broken into without window barriers. My store has never
been broken into with window barriers installed.
I presently have a 16-foot chain link secured over my store windows
and half-inch steel tube stock over the door windows. The chain link was
purchased from the scrap pile of a local fence company, and the bar stock
was purchased cut to length from a local industrial supply business. It was
an inexpensive solution to the need for barriers and it works.”
Music Store a Gem
Working Class Music & Mineral has moved from Laconia to Portsmouth,
N.H. Owner Greg Walsh sells a full line of instruments at his
store and also sells gem stones, his other love. Walsh has played music
for 35 years. As for the reason for moving the store, Walsh told Seacoastonline.com:
“Portsmouth seems to be the only area of the state that has
an economy left. Last summer, my fiancé and I were visiting Portsmouth,
and this seemed liked a really cool town and place to be.”
The store is located on 90 Fleet St. Among the brands Walsh carries
are Peavey, Aria, Samson, Jay Turser, Tascam and Roland.
A Super Night
Music and the Super Bowl
have always gone hand-in-hand.
One needs to look no further
than the halftime show this year.
But the connection between an
independent music instrument
retailer and the Super Bowl is
much more distant. Until the
Super Bowl on Feb. 7, that is. One
of the commercials during the
New Orleans Saints 31-17 victory
against the Indianapolis Colts
featured an independent retailer:
Bob Turner, owner of Phoenix’s
Bizarre Guitar and Drum Store.
Turner was part of Miller Brewing
Co.’s “The Little Guys on the Big
Game,” a promotion highlighting
how small businesses are dealing
with the recession. Turner told the
Arizona Republic he received an
unsolicited call in late November
telling him he could perhaps be in
a Super Bowl commercial. Turner
understandably thought it was a
prank, or worse, someone trying to
steal his identity. It was no joke. “It
was like being struck by lightning,”
Turner said, when he described
realizing the promotion was not a
scam. “I felt like going out and getting
lottery tickets.”
Miller Brewing identified
Turner’s store from the Internet.
The company then sent Turner a
camera to film a video about the
store and was drawn by his engaging,
down-to-earth personality. “He
came across as a guy who started
his own business and worked his
way up,” Joe Abegg, national brand
manager for Miller High Life, told
the newspaper. “It was all about his
non-pretentious, no-BS attitude, and
that fits our brand values.”
Turner and three other small
business owners were flown to Los
Angeles in January to film the commercial,
which ran for 30 seconds
during the Super Bowl. “The whole
thing about this commercial, it’s
giving (the stage) back to the little
guy,” Turner told the Arizona Republic.
“They’re sick of Budweiser
spending all that money on talking
horses and dogs.”
The Super Bowl was the
highest-rated television show in
history.
12 April 2010