Quincy Brewing Company rocks!

SHERYL AND I finally made it over to the new Quincy Brewing Company last night. It. Is. Awesome! Congrats to the Craigs and Jim Robesky for opening a way cool space and making it inviting.

What I like about this place is that they've decided to become a brewery, and they aren't overreaching. It's a beautiful historic space they've spent months redoing, and it's perfect for things like trivia nights and maybe even open mic nights, down the line.

Our bartender, Fawn Berry, was knowledgeable about the many beers on tap and super friendly. We met at our music store a few months ago and learned about her organic gardening skills. It was good to catch up and be reminded of her Fawn Berry Apothecary on etsy. Extra ways to support small businesses while we support a new business? Yes.

QBC has partnered with other businesses. They don't serve food or wine and they don't have too, what with the Tap Room being right next door. You can order what you want and it gets delivered, all 100 feet north up the sidewalk. They are pairing with other businesses too like Thyme Square, Butcher Block and the Cheese People. You can order food from anywhere and have it delivered.

Quincy Brewing Company
on 6th near Maine

This is a fantastic idea. Now QBC isn't saddled with a kitchen and the logistical or legal challenges of making food. They serve beer with 16 taps. They do it well.

They brew several of their own beers and the Bayview Blonde is excellent. It's a good idea to do the sample thing, where you write down four beers and they bring you smaller sizes. Yummy! All I'm gonna say is that it's a good thing Sheryl drove me home because I may have had extra of that beautiful Bayview Blonde... She was content with the lamb burger from the Tap Room and found much joy in watching me drink a bit too much.

Predictably the place was packed to the rafters the first week or so it was open, but last night it was not crowded. There was just enough people to keep them busy. It's elbow to elbow on the weekends, so go on a quieter night to get the real feel and ambiance of the place.

They are doing trivia night every Thursday, and they are the last stop on the Halloween Art Crawl downtown, October 25th, featuring ceramic works by local artist Steve Ryan.

Welcome, Quincy Brewing Company! We are thrilled you've picked The District and we wish you many years of success. Cheers!

Matching Mays Bangoleles

The sisters had their
initials on the bags.

A LONG TIME ago my surrogate mother in Quincy, Anne Mays, gave me an old banjolele. It had intricate drawings and signatures on it. I believe she told me it came from her family but I don't remember much about it. We thought it was more of a toy than a real instrument, but it's super cool so we've had it on display in the store since we've opened.

The Mays family is awesome and they basically adopted Sheryl and me. We were close to Anne's husband, the legendary Bob Mays, and we are proud to be downtown and part of an area he was so invested in during his career as a real estate agent and businessman.

Today, John Frank, Anne's son, brought a matching banjolele into the store. It came from a family member in Oregon and has many of the same names on it. Basically both were signed in the 1920s at Camp Shawnee in Philadelphia, Penn. The owner names we can identify are Amy and Helen Sundermann, which happen to be Anne's mother and aunt.


We doubt there is much monetary value in the two banjoleles, but the family significance is huge and we are honored Anne is letting us keep them in the store. Now that we know more about them we can show them off a little bit more.

It would be interesting to find the brand and if there are others floating around out there. We are content displaying the Mays family history at Second String Music, and we encourage you to come in and check them out!

1/5 & Maine is finally here!

IT'S OFFICIAL. The 1/5 & Maine project is finally up and running and for sale. We've called it "Stay Strong" and you can download it here from CD Baby. We will be on other platforms like iTunes and Spotify, hopefully within a week or two.

We will be updating the CD Baby link with a better photo and more info later. We might make some actual CDs as well, but that will be down the road. The material is registered with the US Copyright office.

These two yahoos made an album .....

There are so many people to thank. First and foremost, Isaac Smith of 505 Recording Studio is the best. Not only did he engineer the week-long recording session, he also spent countless hours mixing and mastering the songs. He was an excellent producer, coaxing better performances out of us.

Nate Charles was his "assistant" for the project but he was huge during the recording sessions. I'm not sure how we got the lead guitar parts to come out of the very average lead guitar player, but that was all Nate. He had suggestions to make the songs better and it was awesome to have somebody from the outside with  recording experience to lean on.

Recording is a marathon, not a sprint. There's a lot of doing things over and getting it just right, and not settling for whatever comes out. Nate and Isaac were great at getting to the point of the songs and knowing what we needed.

Thank you to Jack Inghram for playing sax on "Stay Strong." Thank you to Justin Sievert and Brad Fletcher for playing bass. Thank you to Tim Smith for singing "Country Star," which turned out amazing. Thank you to Alicia McCarl for singing her heart out with Adam on "I Really Don't Care."

And, of course, Adam Yates for helping us chase the dream of playing original music. I remember sitting on the sidewalk at Fifth and Maine in the spring and talking about doing it. It seemed like a pipe dream. We worked really hard to get ready and I think we've come up with eight interesting and very different songs - there's classic rock, country, pop, power ballads, a good mix.

If you purchase it, please let us know what you think. I'm at Fifth and Maine during the day!

Closed this weekend

WITH THE TIN DUSTERS in town this weekend, Second String Music will be closed early Friday and all day Saturday. Tin Dusters is a nice event for the city and we support anything that gets people downtown. But it clogs up the streets and makes it tough for people to get to the store, and the Tin Dusters themselves don't spend money in a music store, so we will enjoy this rare weekend off.

We will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday. Sheryl has some fun stuff planned for her Saturday off, and HartLyss plays Friday night at Revelry at 9, Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. at Dame & Hurdle (6th and Maine), and 5 p.m. at the Make-A-Wish benefit at the Tap Room.

Have a great weekend, support live music and be good to yourselves!

Best (doggie) event ever

Puppies and Doggos

WE HAD A great time Saturday for Meet The Puppies Day at Second String Music. Michelle and Ripley brought Jess and her seven kids to the store, and we set up a little wading pool and fence to show them off.

Instantly we had people come over from Electric Fountain Brewing to get their puppy fix. Barista and dog-lover Brianne Campbell sat down in the pool and almost started crying when four puppies jumped on her and started licking her face. Everybody got to hold and play with a puppy, the best therapy for anything.

About an hour into the visit all seven puppies crashed and crashed hard for about 15 minutes. Then they woke up and it was back to puppy play time. Every now and then one of them would pass out, and nothing could wake them - not being stepping on or being licked, nor being chewed on by a sibling.

Jadon

Jadon Smith, the young son of Isaac and Brittany Smith (Isaac owns 505 Studios upstairs), did a great job helping to walk the puppies and getting them to go potty. Travis Hoffman brought his little daughter and she refused to leave. Even Cori and her kids got a charge out of them.

It wasn't just kids. People kept coming over from the coffee shop when they heard all the activity, and I defy you to find another music store with a coffee shop next door hosting a puppy party on a Saturday afternoon. The coffee drinkers thought it was great.

We believe Malcolm, our newest addition, is about the most chill puppy you will ever meet. He's being raised right and will come to live with us at the end of October. At one point Tucker started growling at a puppy and out jumped Jess to protect her young one and give Tucker a piece of her mind. Atta girl, Jess. You are the best mom ever!

Crashed

All the puppies have homes already - Michelle won't breed them unless she had a waiting list. That way all the puppies are assured of good homes.

Sheryl declared it the best event the store has hosted. And nobody spilled anything or passed out in a chair or smashed a guitar off of a roof. So much winning!

Malcolm will be a music store dog, so you are always welcome to come and say hello. He and Angus will love to greet you.

Steve Kerr's perfect response

I HAVE MIXED feelings about athletes who make social statements. On the one hand, maybe they should just shut up and play for the gazillions they've signed up for. On the other, they are Americans and they have rights to express opinions, too.

I stay away from the political fray most of the time. People who know me know what I think, and that's good enough. Everybody has opinions and beliefs and they have the right to vote for who they want.

But for all the idiotic things the guy in the Oval Office says and does, going after NBA coaches Steve Kerr and Greg Popovich is about the most baffling things ever. Both coaches were recently asked about the NBA's issues with China, and both decided it would be better to not publicly comment, at least not yet. That's something the guy in the Oval Office could never do, not comment.

Steve Kerr's reply to the guy in the Oval Office is classic. It's carefully thought out, gets to the point and it makes his attacker look like a fool. Then again, it's not hard to do that to our Twitter president.

Come after me, guy in the Oval Office! On second thought, I'm not famous and nobody cares what I think, so keep going after the bigger fish. I wish we could all be as eloquent when responding to presidential harassment.