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.
