Grown Men With Ponytails: Your Guide to Boston Music Shops

By JoeB
updated 3 months ago

Chances are, if you play guitar or anything else you’re going to have to end up at a music store at some point. Going into a music store is one of the most unequivocally unpleasant consumer experiences I can think of, perhaps rivaled only by buying a coffin. These commission-driven dens of deceit are often a necessary evil, so as someone who has ventured into the belly of the beast more often than most, I offer a guide to some of Boston’s notables.

Mister Music Inc

128 Harvard Avenue, Allston, MA 02134

The spot of choice for every gross-looking Allston musician (myself included), Mr. Music could actually be a whole heck of a lot worse. They once lied to me about how AC adapters work in the name of trying to get me to buy something, but who can blame them? They’re a music store.

Aztech Electronics Inc

246 N Beacon St, Watertown, MA 02472

Aztech is, as you might have guessed, strictly a repair shop, but it is so gloriously legit amidst a sea of garbage that I’d be remiss in not including it. Unless you’ve got a buddy who really, really knows his stuff, take anything that breaks to Aztech. They won’t lie about what’s wrong, it won’t take a long time, and the pricing is more than reasonable. You’d almost think that the music equipment business was the slightest bit tolerable.

First Act Inc

745 Boylston St Fl 300, Boston, MA 02116

First Act craft cool-looking custom instruments and amplifiers for crummy popular bands and Beacon Hill yuppies. The guitars are surprisingly affordable, but I have a feeling that unless you are in Guster or Every Time I Die or something, they probably look a whole lot better than they sound.

Harmonix Music Systems Inc

675 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139

Harmonix created the Guitar Hero franchise, and are based just across the river in Cambridge! If your real-instrument experimentation doesn’t work out, head over here and maybe they’ll cut you a deal.

Daddy's Junky Music Stores

165 Massachusetts Ave, Boston, MA 02115

Ugh. Don’t go to Daddy’s. Aside from the fact that they’re one of the leading proponents of the myth that rock music has anything to do with barbed wire and tribal tattoos, they jack up the price of everything and then have the nerve to call you “bro” when you act confused.

Guitar Center

750 Comnwlth Avenue, Brookline, MA 02445

See Daddy’s. Add the fact that, a few years ago, a used rickenbacker-copy bass was displayed (and eventually, I assume, sold) as the genuine article at this particular GC location, and, well, here we are.

Sandy's Music

896 A Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139

I used to like Sandy’s a lot on paper because sometimes you’d walk by there in the middle of the night and there’d be a group of weird older people jamming on old folk instruments nobody’s ever even heard of. They used to have a cool flying V ukulele in the window. I’ve heard that the owners of Sandy’s are mean and the place is overpriced, but your mileage may vary.

A Short, True Story Illuminating My Weird Disdain for Music Stores

    I first started playing guitar in seventh grade. My parents bought one of those hundred-dollar starter packs at a local guitar shop. The proprietor of the shop was an aging-Robert-Plant-looking dude we’ll call Tim. They signed me up for lessons at the shop, so I found myself there once or twice a week learning arpeggios and the dorian mode or whatever and a bunch of other stuff I’ve since forgotten.
   My guitar teacher and Tim were always sort of icy to each other, and there was a small cast of weird guys perpetually walking in and out of the place. One of them had one of those giant neck brace halos screwed into his skull. I was 12 and didn’t really know what to make of it.
   Eventually my guitar teacher moved lessons to his mother-in-law’s house for seemingly no reason. About a month later he received word that Tim had “fallen” out of a crackhouse window and died, prompting the closure of the guitar store. My teacher seemed pretty unaffected by the whole thing, and in another year or so of lessons we never talked about it again.