HMT Hijinks

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

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!!

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

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

Join the Nose Flute Revolution

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

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.

Phew!

Well, it's done...mostly. It took about 10 hours to move merchandise & displays over, and another couple of hours getting the new store to an acceptable level for business tomorrow. Those of you popping in in the next couple of days will likely find a bit of chaos, but we're working on it. After some scheduling snafus with RCN, we have most of our phones & internet working (it wouldn't be a phone company if they didn't make you wait, right?).

It's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle now figuring out where everything's going to go in the store. Everybody's been asking if we're going to have more space. Not exactly...but it's just organized differently. We have several rooms: upstairs there's the guitar & mandolin salon, the harp & dulcimer room, and violins/exotic strings/Indian instruments/used winds & brass. On the main level we have the usual wall o'banjos by the front counter. Customers can walk around and get their strings, picks and other accessories. The book & cd room is off to one side, the accordions have their own room on the other side. A short hallway and then there's the large room, divided into less expensive guitars & amps, drums/percussion and kid's stuff. Finally, all of our storage/overstock/cases/packing & boxes mess will be confined to the basement--hopefully eliminating some of the characteristic clutter in the main merchandise areas.

On the positive side...once everything gets organized, the store is going to look really nice. Everyone who has been in the new building has been impressed with the look. It's going to be a nice vibe keeping with our folky tradition. The "pickin' porch" on the upper level should be finished in the next couple of days. You will be able to relax out there and look out over downtown Takoma Park as you strum on that Goodall guitar! There is definitely a buzz and excitement among the staff. Of course, it may take us a bit longer to find things, as we discover where we have actually put them!!

I had my hands too full today to snap pictures of the moving process, but here's a couple of the now very-empty rooms at the old store. I'm holding off taking pics of the new store until things look a little better.

Signing off, fairly exhausted but really proud of our staff and volunteers for a great job today!



Empty main room


Aftermath of the moving tornado



Goodbye guitar room!


ps...despite the hopes of many, we did not find Jimmy Hoffa. The search continues.