Guitar Flick - Carmine Street

[rabbit]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...guitars-review

[neatomic]

saw it..a cool flick...as a guy that spent time hangin' in that shop..[in the robert quine days (he practically lived there!)]...it's an ok little film

rick kelly has travelled his own path with the reclaimed wood from old nyc buildings guitars for quite awhile..a trailblazer of sorts...

glad to see him getting some kudos..a good guy

cheers

[mad dog]

Rick is a great guy. I met him several years before he started that shop, in Frederick MD. We were both craftspeople, traveling around, showing our wares at big juried craft shows. He had these wild guitars. I liked him, liked what he was doing. So it was cool to see Rick land in NYC and flourish on Carmine Street. Have to check out that film.

[neatomic]

ps- good bit about a rick kelly old wood tele in this vid of old pals guitarist bill kirchen and legendary repairman dan erlewine

kirchen plays it around the 1 minute mark...and they detail it around 3:50 in

cheers

[Cunamara]

Apparently John D'Angelico got some of his wood the same way. At least if the interwebs is to be believed.

[joelf]

I've known Rick for years. A doll, and one of the fairest men on the planet. Did me a million low or no-cost favors.

I only wish I heeded his advice against buying any Martin selling for less than $2,000: 'They'll fall apart in a year.'

All I could cobble together was $1,400 for a new auditorium--maybe it was a D-18, I forget. The guitar, largely due to my own negligence, but also at least somewhat bolstering Rick's assertion (and my own suspicion) that Martin has recently cut corners on materials, developed 3 huge cracks and a gaping hole at bottom. I was in tears.

To illustrate the difference between a mensch and a pirate: I 1st went to Matt Umanov, from whose shop I'd bought it. I was hoping for anything, since Martin assumed no responsibility for the damage. Matt came down himself, and through a snake-like 'smile' gave me the whole rehearsed speech: 'I know how you feel....it's just a guitar, not an arm or leg....would cost more to fix it than to buy a new one....hey, we teach guitar repair, I'll give you $50 for it'.

I knew he was a scumbag, having dealt with him for years, this really drove it home. BTW: his staff were all the greatest guys---and only thinly veiled their contempt for the boss. (Saddest thing about the closing: they lost their jobs--except for the repair shop, those guys are working). Matt owns the building and landed on his feet.

Rick fixed my guitar for $60, and I luckily unloaded it for 1/2 of what I paid. I was better off, it never blended w/horns in a jazz group like the Martin I have now does. And I learned my lesson re care and feeding of Martins---and to lay off the stupid pills.

But the dual character study reveals in just one of many extant stories what Rick Kelly is about. Long live he and Carmine St. Guitars!!

[neatomic]

i'll cut umanov some slack...he personally goes back to where it all began...the first shop to actively do mods in nyc area..the great dan armstrongs shop..young matt worked alongside dan and bill lawrence..dans son kent armstrong...the genesis

opened up his shops downtown nyc...a tricky neighborhood to do biz in...survived for decades

rick kelly had a different thing..he was a builder..didn't have a huge inventory of mass manufactured guitars

a place for both..but yeah ricks alright! no pretense!!..no bs..

wish him all the best in these dark days

cheers

[joelf]

Maybe Matt was OK in the beginning. Who knows what happens to people? Maybe he felt he had to become a hard-ass, and maybe he had reason. Just relating my own memories. My dealings with him, going back to 1980, were never pleasant---but I sure loved hangin' in the shop, BSing with the staff, trying out guitars. (Bought one of the earliest Godin 5th Ave. Kingpins from Umanov's. Still have it and love it---it's my only electric).

Matt or no, Umanov's is a part of Village and guitar history, and I'm sorry to see it go...

[Gitterbug]

I've seen a tv document, perhaps just this one. Lovely. However, seen from afar, the little guitar workshop/shop on Carmine Street is a cute local curiosity. Leaving personalities and attitudes aside (I've only met Matt U. once and he was bitching at his employees), I'm just asking whether wood from a historic NY building makes a guitar a better instrument than, say, near-petrified, 500-year old pine timber retrieved from a from a half-burned log cabin in Äkäslompolo, Finnish Lapland. Such localized guitars are expensive souvenirs or rarities with a questionable resale value, unless the tone wood makes them stand out in the long term. All I know of solid planks is that mahogany, maple, ash and alder are considered superior to pine and spruce. In my book, a real guitar is a hollow one.

The discussion on this thread also evokes the question of how the trade should treat its customers, especially pro musicians. Sounds almost like Carmine St is a near-charity, whereas Bleecker St was a near-ripoff. As a micro-entrepreneur making TOOB ultra-light speaker cabinets, I'm constantly struggling with pricing. While it's deeply rewarding to deal with performing artists and offer them a substantial discount against exposure, knowing most of them have to count every cent to make do, I end up in the red simply because most of the direct customers fit the bill. Some of them promise demo videos in exchange, but few actually deliver. Plus, shaky hand-held mobile phone videos just don't have the testimonial power, especially if the minuscule speaker has been tucked under the keyboard because it fits there. OTOH, if I raise the MSRPs to allow for heavier discounts, the trade says no thanks.

I have offered my products (over 200 sold, some 30 to the U.S.) to several U.S resellers, but not one has cared to respond. Should I try Carmine St.?

[John A.]

This business of calling Matt a scumbag, and the follow-ups damning him with faint praise and accusing him of being abusive to his employees are messed up. He ran a good shop and was a pillar of the community. Nobody's perfect, and maybe your experiences bothered you. I can't and wouldn't dispute that. But to shovel sh*t on him this way reflects extremely badly on you.

I grew up a few blocks from his store, and continued to shop there after I left the neighborhood. had many positive interactions with Matt over the better part of 40 years, as a customer and as a person. I got some great deals at his shop. Ditto for my interactions with Rick Kelly, whom I continue to frequent. Not cool at all to use a thread about good things happening for one as an opportunity to dump on the other.

John

[Hammertone]

Glitterbug:
Carmine St. is not a near-charity, despite the filmmaker's conceit. It is a tiny shop and an interesting place. Rick has been around for years, and sold his guitars at very reasonable prices until recently. In the past @5 years, he has significantly increased his prices, which are now comparable to those of several other equally highly-regarded "boutique" builders of solid-body F-style guitars. He is VERY well-known among plank guitar fanatics, especially those who favour telecasters with large necks.

The point of the wood is that it is actually "tone wood [that] makes them stand out in the long term," from old-growth trees, hundreds of years old. All the romance stuff about it being from famous old NYC buildings is simple marketing bullshit. In that sense it is the same as 500-year old pine timber retrieved from a from a half-burned log cabin in Äkäslompolo, Finnish Lapland.

"All I know of solid planks is that mahogany, maple, ash and alder are considered superior to pine and spruce. In my book, a real guitar is a hollow one." This is not true of solidbody guitars, and only partially true of hollow guitars. Cost considerations drove Leo Fender to use cheap, easily-worked, readily available wood when developing Fender guitars (and he used pine in the early days as well as as ash and alder). It turns out that, tradition aside, pine is a superb tonewood for plank guitars, along with spruce, redwood, cedar and a few other softwoods. The right pine is resonant and light. It doesn't require extensive modification to be useful for F-style guitars. These woods were not used in the early days simply because they were soft and dented easily, but, these days, beat-up-looking plank guitars are widely accepted.

The world of hollow acoustic guitars, related instruments and orchestral strings is a lot older that the world of solidbody electric guitars, and certainly involves much more knowledge and technique. That world settled mostly on maple and spruce a long time ago for various reasons, although guitar makers certainly broadened the range of wood being used. The world of solid-body guitars is simply different, and offers many other valid choices when it comes to wood - empress wood, primavera, limba, anigree and so forth.

There's no harm in asking Carmine St. if they want to offer your products, but IMO you'd be better off focusing on larger specialty retailers in large urban markets where musicians use public transit or cabs on a regular basis, and for whom ultra-small / light / portable gear offers real benefits. Of course, the current precarious state of live music performance will have an impact on your plans.

Here's very nice pine-bodied plank guitar from a very talented boutique builder:

[neatomic]

well writ hammertone!

cheers

[Gitterbug]

Thank you, Hammertone!

[Squeezebox]

I saw the flick recently and quite liked it. Marc Ribot turned up, just as I was hoping he would. Oh yeah, Frisell is also in the movie and plays a bit. The scene with the property dealer checking out the store felt strange, was it real or a set-up? Just like from a scripted movie.

saw it..a cool flick...as a guy that spent time hangin' in that shop..[in the robert quine days (he practically lived there!)]...it's an ok little film

I am a big Quine fan and the part where they focused on a photo of him in the store felt like a fitting nod. Never been in NYC, but sometimes I think I should make the pilgrimage to the store because of the Quine connection.

[Hammertone]

...Never been in NYC, but sometimes I think I should make the pilgrimage to the store because of the Quine connection.

You might want to do that sooner rather than later. Rick is old, and AFAIK does not own the building. Whenever the lease is up, rent will probably quadruple or quintuple and the place will disappear. I don't think he'll be at it much longer. Maybe he will keep banging away, or Cindy will keep it going, or it will relocate to somewhere out in Queens, but I think the clock is ticking. Such is life. I have many pleasant memories of hanging out at Mandolin Bros., or at the various 48th St. guitar stores - all gone.

"...And the Road Warrior? That was the last we ever saw of him. He lives now only in my memories."

[neatomic]

cool kelly clip...from turkish news broadcast!

cheers