Vintage Instruments & The Cactus Cafe - Philadelphia Pa & Austin Tx

I am on the road for a 2 week business trip in the USA- which means too long away from the family. However, as some consolation, I got to visit a couple of interesting guitar places. The first in Philadelphia is Vintage Instruments. This is a business devoted to all sorts of instruments and it is located in the most beautiful brownstone tenement. Guitars are located downstairs in the basement area and this store has a huge choice of vintage acoustic guitars – especially Gibsons, & Martins, but also Nationals. I tried 2 1930’s Gibson L-00s, which were on sale for $4.5K and $4.7K. I found a big difference between these guitars. The $4.5K guitar sounded really thin, but the slightly more expensive guitar sung out. Both guitars were recently re-strung, but the difference was to my ears stark. Just as an aside, the $4.7k guitar had some buzzing in the D & G strings, which was a little surprising in a guitar set up to sell. Service in the store is distinctly idiosyncratic. The lady who served me first just did not listen to what I was saying and was extremely condescending. But if you can put up with this, it is well worth a visit – probably best to phone ahead and make an appointment. Fred is the man to talk to in this shop – he listens & knows his guitars.

 

There is a lesson in my experience – you can’t buy a guitar without trying it out first – especially true of old guitars. If I had splashed out for the $4.5K guitar, I would have been very disappointed. I am not saying it was a bad guitar, just that when I played it, it didn’t sound good to my ears.



The next city I visited was Austin, Texas – where I was lucky enough to spend the weekend. Austin is well known as a musical city – and it celebrates the fact with large guitars scattered through town and naming a street after one of its most famous musical residents (Willie Nelson Boulevard). I wanted to check out two places when in town: The Cactus Café at University of Texas, and Collings Guitars. Unfortunately, I arrived too late to catch the Collings factory tour – which only runs on Friday. I did however get to the Cactus Café to see Chris Knight. The Cactus has hosted lots of great names over the years – including Lucinda Williams, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett and the great Townes van Zandt. They have a nice display of old posters showing past performers right outside the entrance to the café – I took a photo of one of their signed Townes posters.

And here is Chris Knight in action at the Cactus

If you are ever in Austin and feel the need of grabbing some cowboy boots, or a Stetson, then go to South Congress (SoCo) and head for Allens Boots. The picture below shows a small selection of their boots (I resisted any temptation - they are not for me). SoCo is a nice place to visit with some cool shops.

I walked back from SoCo to town (I was looking for a gift for my wife, so I went into lots of the nice boutiques) and happened upon Quincy’s guitars. I was lucky enough to meet Pat the propriator in there. Now, the guys at Vintage Instruments could learn a thing or two from Pat about how to listen to customers and make them comfortable. He is very enthusiastic & knowledgeable and he stocks some great Collings & McPherson guitars. I loved the Collings custom OM2 he had. It was deeper bodied than the standard model (it was dreadnought depth) which added a little more depth to the already beautiful standard OM2 sound. Here is a picture of Pat holding that custom Collings, with some other Collings on the wall behind him.