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Visiting some family in the Twin Cities area. John (my girlfriend’s brother-in-law) is as much of a guitar nut as I am. He has a ‘64 335T that he has been trying to sell on consignment for awhile. It was at Willie’s, currently at Lavonne’s in Savage.
First up: Lavonne’s. Great guitars as always. I test drove a ‘38 Ward’s L50 style guitar that apparently was made by Gibson. I was hoping it was a couple of hundred, but it was $2000. A little much for a department store guitar IMO. John’s guitar is the dark red 335 with the Bigsby on the far right. List price—$26K.
Then on to a guitar show at the Eagan Civic Center. It was like a big pawn shop—80% crap, and 20% top shelf stuff priced way too high. Fun to look at the stuff though.
Then on to Willie’s. They had to move from their prior location in a nice St. Paul neighborhood when the building owner jacked the rent up by 100%. Their new place doesn’t have a lot of character (and you need an appointment to really spend time with the guitars), but there are a lot of beautiful guitars.
This is Willie with John’s guitar from a magazine article a few years ago.
I had my eye on an old Guild which I thought was $350, but I misread the tag and it was actually $1250. Not bad, but the frets were pretty worn. I don’t need another acoustic archtop right now.
Finally, we visited Willie’s old neighbor, Snuffy’s Malt Shop, which was also forced to move to a new location. The new place has most of the vintage charm of the old place, and some of the best malts you’ll ever put in your stomach. All in all, a good day.
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04-22-2023 10:58 PM
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That was fun to read. Thanks
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Nice pics and read. I had planned to go to that show in Eagan, since I hav not been to that annual event since they moved it from the St. Paul National Guard Armory by the state capitol to Eagan years ago. However, instead I bought a Jimmy Foster 7 string archtop via the local Craig's List yesterday. Based on your report, that was the better decision anyway.
Regarding appointments at Willie's, they told me shortly after they moved that the reason is that is how the zoning laws in that neighborhood work. He did say that if you just stop in to pick up strings or something and are just passing through, then you shouldn't need to do that. I have bought a few guitars there as well as strings and straps. I always call ahead because I never know what else I will find there anyway.
Lavonne's is where I bought my 1995 Gibson Citation recently. They sold a couple of guitars for me over the past several months too. Nice old timey music store, many of which are disappearing these days, so cherish Lavonne's since they are hanging in there.
When Willie's was in the old neighborhood, it was a fun time to shop there and then go into Snuffy's. If I bought a guitar, I could put it behind the counter, go to Snuffy's, and then come back to pick it up. Willie's is actually closer to where I live now, so it is about half the drive. A friend lives only about two blocks from the new location.
By the way, Willie's has a youtube channel. His sense of humor comes through in many of those videos... https://www.youtube.com/@williesguitars
Tony
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Yeah Willie’s a nice guy. We chatted with him awhile yesterday. He remembered John’s 335T. (John had an offer from a guy in NJ, but it fell through. Lavonne’s is taking John’s guitar to a show in Fargo, ND, today. The sales guy said that there are a lot of rich docs there looking for collectible guitars! Must be plastic surgeons or neurosurgeons…)
Originally Posted by tbeltrans
Nice pics and read. I had planned to go to that show in Eagan, since I hav not been to that annual event since they moved it from the St. Paul National Guard Armory by the state capitol to Eagan years ago. However, instead I bought a Jimmy Foster 7 string archtop via the local Craig's List yesterday. Based on your report, that was the better decision anyway.
Regarding appointments at Willie's, they told me shortly after they moved that the reason is that is how the zoning laws in that neighborhood work. He did say that if you just stop in to pick up strings or something and are just passing through, then you shouldn't need to do that. I have bought a few guitars there as well as strings and straps. I always call ahead because I never know what else I will find there anyway.
Lavonne's is where I bought my 1995 Gibson Citation recently. They sold a couple of guitars for me over the past several months too. Nice old timey music store, many of which are disappearing these days, so cherish Lavonne's since they are hanging in there.
When Willie's was in the old neighborhood, it was a fun time to shop there and then go into Snuffy's. If I bought a guitar, I could put it behind the counter, go to Snuffy's, and then come back to pick it up. Willie's is actually closer to where I live now, so it is about half the drive. A friend lives only about two blocks from the new location.
By the way, Willie's has a youtube channel. His sense of humor comes through in many of those videos... https://www.youtube.com/@williesguitars
Tony
Sheryl Crow stopped by the day before I last visited Willie in his old location. Dang, my timing’s always off.
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I thought the original willies was kind of a clutter box with gear shoe horned in all over the place from what I recall. I also recall the salesman Kenny being a big shot really bragging on the then boutique fulltone gear and junk monster cables. This was the late 90's, we used to drive down from north MN and buy gear. i don't get the whole make an appointment to shop for gear. Sounds dumb.
I wish Mars music was still there. Now that was a guitar shop.Their guitar wall must've been 150 feet long and 30 feet high. Or seemed like it.
Anyways, yuk to Minneapolis and MN in general. What a damn awful place.
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Lavonne's looks like a nice shop. As already stated, not many left.
I like that trans black Hamer (Studio Custom?) in the third picture.
I worked for a company based in MN for 22 years. The headquarters was in Egan for a while. Lots of nice folks out there, and I had many good times. It was kinda culture shock for a Jersey Boy, had to adjust my driving habits etc a bit ha ha.
The prices for vintage stuff are not for me. I owned some old guitars back in the day and, for the most part, my current non vintage guitars are better for me, especially considering the price tags.
Cool road trip thanks for posting.
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Interesting journey.
I don’t often see a good days guitar hunting from the US.
Thanks for sharing.
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The Twin Cities has never been a particularly good area to shop for archtop guitars, at least in the 35 years I've lived here. There has only been a handful of people playing jazz guitar professionally around here to begin with, so there doesn't seem to have ever been a stock of these instruments locally to begin with. And when they do come up for sale, they often languish for months or even years with little interest in them- which is probably like many other places in the US.
And in general, the archtop guitar market has priced itself out of interest to me. The prices that are being asked for factory instruments are just silly and the prices being asked for craftsman made instruments are astronomical. $30,000 for a guitar? Jeepers. If you can afford it and you want one, more power to ya. I could afford it, as long as I never admitted to my wife what I paid for it, but there's no way I'd be willing to spend that. I could not justify it to myself- I can't even justify spending $4000 for a Gibson ES-175. Even sillier to me would be spending $4000 for a Telecaster. I think I will just stick with what I have: 17 inch archtop made by Matt Cushman, Ibanez GB10, Stratishcaster and Telecaster I put together myself, a Rick Turner RN-6- and my old flattop, which was the first guitar I ever purchased back in 1979. How much more stuff do I need? I haven't gigged in years and have no particular plans to do so. I could frankly probably sell everything except the flattop and be happy.
I have never been able to understand the collecting mindset very well. I've tried collecting things (e.g., fountain pens) a few times, but very quickly find myself looking at this pile of stuff thinking "why do I own all of this? I can only use one of them at a time."
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There have been times when Willie's would be closed to the public if some big name player was there so s/he could shop in peace. He did that for Keith Richards and a few others over the years. I haven't heard about them doing that for some time now though. They do deal with big names still though. Not that long ago, they had one of Joe Walsh's Les Pauls up for sale. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Not addressing the quoted post, but instead an earlier post in this thread by somebody else...
I have never heard bragging on the part of the staff, but Willie is a walking encyclopedia of guitar lore and is always fascinating to listen to.
Tony
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I do have several guitars, more than I need. I have been selling them off as needed to cover the cost of obtaining more recent purchases. I haven't gigged in MANY years, but since I enjoy playing even for myself, I do enjoy a nice guitar. Thinking about it, it has been fun working my up into some high quality instruments with the buying/selling/trading. It isn't a constant thing for me, so it doesn't replace actual playing. It can be a bit like trading baseball cards, I suppose. Originally Posted by Cunamara
I am done with buying/selling/trading archtops now because I have a very fine 6 and a very fine 7 string, and there is probably not much further up the chain to go with these anyway, nor is there a need for me to have more. I seem to be gravitating away from my flattop guitars these days and pretty much am playing chord melody on my archtops. So it is likely that the only flattops I will eventually hang onto would be my carbon fiber models since they don't require care beyond changing strings. As with the archtops, I have a 6 string and a 7 string flattop in carbon fiber, as well as a smaller 6 string carbon fiber travel guitar I take along when my wife has to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
When I did gig years ago, it was a job at a time when there weren't many jobs to be had and it still paid well. It was steady 6 nights a week, a week in each town, for a couple of years until I got tired of being on the road all the time. I don't understand people gigging when they get paid very little and get treated poorly, and then complain about that. I would simply find another way to make a living if that were the case for me, just like with any other job. But, then, we all have our own perspectives and what I would do is probably not what somebody else would do. It is all good.
Tony
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The price of vintage guitars at the well-known shops can certainly be jaw-dropping. Thing is they aren't making any more of these sought-after Gibsons, Guilds, etc.
That said, there are always some decent guitars out there. If I wanted a good used jazz guitar for $1000 or less, I could easily have found one at Lavonne's or Willie's. I think the "real" price on the Guild was not too bad in today's market. The looks may not be perfect, but the mojo is there.
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A little confused here...isn't the $1250 guitar a Gretsch not a Guild? Don't think Guild was even around in 1949. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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You're right. I often get the names confused. I could attribute this to getting old, but I was addle-brained even before I got old(ish). Originally Posted by SierraTango
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Anyways, yuk to Minneapolis and MN in general. What a damn awful place.
This is an interesting subject. When I was active mid ‘60’s through mid ‘70’s, there were no music shows being hosted, at least to our knowledge, back then. I too went to the Eagan show this past Saturday. That was my first exposure to a music show.
I sold my guitar through LaVonne’s in 1982. I visited Willie’s last April. In both situations it was nothing but a positive experience…and I would definitely go back to both. I’m thankful for the music stores that we do have. Back when I was active we had quite few great stores to do business with. If I ever think it’s lacking, I can always buy a plane ticket to go find utopia.
When I was employed, I worked many trade show booths and travelled extensively. I’ve been in all but three states on business and have been to Belgium and China. In doing this I’ve met MANY different people. After being involved with many manufacturing processes, technologies, company personnel, their customer bases, including a wide range of personalities, looking back, I’ve never resorted to tar and feathering any of those people and their situations as being below me.
Having been born, raised in and have lived my entire life of 75+ years in Minnesota, maybe I’m a bit biased. I don’t live in or agree with the politics of Minneapolis or the Minnesota State Government but I do think Minnesota, along with quite a few other states, are good places to live, regardless of a perceived lack of appeal to the guitar world.
When we are willing to distill our view of a city or a state down to a few condescending comments, based upon some visits to a few music stores, we unknowingly speak volumes about who we really are. Oftentimes that behavior is juvenile or immaturity. Other times it is just a lack of integrity, tact or class.
Tom
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Having been born, raised, and lived 20+ years of my life in MN, I am similarly biased. I just didn't want to type all my bitter memories from there down in a post about a guitar shop. "Perceived lack of appeal to the guitar world". How about no appeal? The state is a shithole. You can call me juvenile, immature, lacking integrity, lacking tact, lacking class. I have heard every insult and taken enough shots from my "fellow" Minnesotans.The whole "MN nice" is a bunch of BS for starters. Name calling and shit talking is probably the most popular sport in that state with binge drinking coming in at a close 2nd and fist fighting right behind it. When a place lacks opportunity you fill the void with extracurricular activities. Cabin fever is conducive to alcoholism drug abuse and brawling. The friends I had there are mostly all dead from opiates. Anyhow, thanks for bringing me back home and reminding me why I dropped out of high school to get out of there. Originally Posted by TAA
As for my "tarring and feathering" of Willies, it's just your typical high end store with an element of big shot bragging. Pretty much every boutique type shop with more exclusive products has the same general attitude so it was par for the course. I guess that's an attack now? Who cares? Thanks for listening.
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Didn’t mean to strike a nerve. You just proved a point, we are all different. All of us walk away from the same situation with different conclusions, observations and expectations. Each of us have either a positive or negative outlook on life, our choice. Both of us have made ours.
This ends the discussion. Our fellow forum members do not need to be exposed to more of this.
Tom
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Most of MN folk think it's a fine place to live. Having never lived anywhere else of course. This ends the discussion says you. Ok "boss". Originally Posted by TAA
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Not much to add. If you like someplace, fine, if not--your opinion.
I lived in MN for 7 years. Minnesota nice was real, though there was a passive-aggressive streak that only came out in certain situations. May be preferable to aggressive-aggressive like you have in certain cities in the NE, or shamefaced lying (as my parents said about my ex-wife, "You know we love her to death"--emphasis on death) as I experienced in the Deep South. YMMV.
As far as guitar stores, I've been in a lot in the Midwest. I've met a few curmudgeons at smaller shops--one guy in Madison comes to mind. Not at Willie's in the past though. Willie's, Lavonne's, Lidgett's (Council Bluffs), Dietz (Omaha) and Dave's (La Crosse) have always been the kind of places where anybody could walk in from a shlub to a celebrity, and they'd let you play and check out the merch without much interference, as long as you didn't mess with the $20K guitars.
I will say the atmosphere at Willie's has changed not for the better since their move. That's not necessarily Willie's fault, just the way it is. No windows in the current place--it used to be a Buddhist temple apparently. Zero, maybe negative, curb appeal. I don't care for the "appointment" policy, and it will probably inhibit my desire to go back, but it is what it is.
Anyway, back to regularly scheduled programming.
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I live in St.Paul and have been a Minnesota resident for basically 45 years now. Having grown up in various places before that as a young lad New Orleans, Princeton,N.J. etc. here’s my viewpoint.
Overall the Twin Cities offers a lot for not being an over populated metropolis. And it certainly has become more diverse in the last 20 years for sure.
A great place to raise a family, education, park system,etc. the weather is always a crap shoot for sure. But where isn’t it any longer?
Peter Wagner Lavonne Music I’ve know for over 40 years, and it would be hard to find a more honest broker for sure! I also like Dave Rogers at Dave’s Guitar in the same way!
And finally there is no great East Coast Italian Food in the Naples tradition. But thank God or I would weigh a ton, Lol!
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Interesting comment about Willie's current location formerly being a Buddhist temple. I didn't know that. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
As I mentioned previously, the appointment thing was explained to me as being zoning laws in that particular neighborhood. I was also told that if you were just stopping by to pickup some strings or something, that you could do that without an appointment. I have been there a couple of times since they moved and purchased one guitar during those visits. I did call ahead and had no trouble with being able to go when I wanted to.
Apparently, where they originally were, the landlord(s) jacked up the rent pretty high. That is the reason I am glad to own my home instead of renting in retirement. I don't want such surprises. If anything, I am glad that Willie didn't just throw in the towel, instead choosing to keep his business going.
It was a sad event when The Podium had to move from its long time Dinkytown location (it did move a time or two around that neighborhood over the years). Jeff retired and the people who took it over closed it after a while. That place was an institution for many years and nothing else has taken its place.
For me personally, I am much more interested in the guitars and stuff than in how the store looks. It doesn't have to have curb appeal for me. In fact, I always like those cool little off-the-beaten-path music stores that are stuffed with goodies to find. Groth Music used to be like that when they were in downtown Minneapolis years ago. I would take the bus down there on a Saturday morning, go over to Schmitt and browse their books in that loft overlooking the store and then wander across the street to Groth to just browse all the cool old stuff. Many of the books I bought at Schmitt are now long out of print and I am glad that I was able to get them before that happened.
Groth moved to Richfield in a much brighter, open and well lit store. It is still a decent place, but a completely different vibe that is probably more appealing to many people than the old location.
I still haven't made it out to Dave's in La Crosse yet.
When I was working full time and travelling, I always enjoyed going to Guitar Solo in San Francisco. The first few years I went there, it shared a small building with a grocery store over by Golden Gate Park. Later, they moved to a crappy neighborhood by Candlestick Park and they had shed a lot of their stock so it wasn't as much fun. It was also enjoyable to go to Gryphon in Palo Alto off the Oregon Expressway. I was working in Sunnyvale for a while, so these kinds of places were a nice reprieve from the whole Silicon Valley thing. In any city or town, it can be fun to browse those smaller shops. Unfortunately, the one I liked in Rochester, MN, not far from the Mayo Clinic closed during/after all the COVID shutdowns.
Anyway, just some thoughts on those cool small shops...
Tony
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There were and still are some good shops around. Eclipse Music, B Sharp, Chuck Orr, American guitar and band and Knut Coupe. Knut Coupe was right across the street from my high school.
Thanks John
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I moved to the area in 1978 when I got off the road and settled down. I remember those shops that are now gone - B Sharp and Knut Coupe. I believ Eclipse Music is still around, but am not family with American Guitar and Band. I remember Chuck Orr We were passing through town on the way to another gig and I wanted him to do some work on my guitar at the time, but he couldn't get to it for another week or so. That was my only contact with them. Originally Posted by powerwagonjohn
Tony
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History is great!
In the mid ‘60’s to mid ‘70’s, when our group was active, we visited Mr. Lopez @ B# on Central Ave. a lot and bought most of our Fender amps there. One night, 8 April 1997 we played @ Mankato College and after parking the hearse with all of our gear in it, except the guitars, someone stole everything. The next afternoon we were scheduled for Wakota Arena. Paul “Big Daddy Wags” Wagner gave us (3) Vox guitar amps and a PA system for the mid afternoon job. Wagner Music really came through for us. We eventually bought the Vox equipment. That kindness in never forgotten!
Tom
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I started collecting Italian Eko guitars a long time ago but came to my senses and stopped after two. Then I collected axes - from Stone Age to the present and from three continents. Why the hell? My wife collected sauciers: Art Nouveau, Deco and older. Russian, Scandinavian, French, German, Italian. Why on Earth? Now that we are approaching the terminal station, hoping for some congestion in the railyard: so sorry, offspring. At least my axes will crush her sauciers in a jiffy. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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Until I read this thread, I was unaware of the number of people who live in the Twin Cities that are on this forum. Learn something new every day.
Anyway, I have lived here since 2000 and agree that this has never been much of a town for archtop guitar shopping. The Podium was good when it was around, but they're gone. When Podium closed, their repair tech moved to Fret Central in Northeast Minneapolis; they're co-located, may even be co-owned by Quinn Violin. Now I see that they are by appointment only, too. Anyway the repair tech knows his way around an archtop. I've been very happy with his work on my Artist Award.
John Galich
Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area
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