Three months into its tenure at 302 Ellicott St., Logan Music continues to offer gear repair and retail, while planning to expand into offering lessons and rentals.
Co-owner Jeremy Logan says that right now, repairs are the biggest part of the business.
“It’s by the job, depending on how hard of a job or how complicated it is,” he said, explaining how he charges customers for repairs. “A 12-string that just came in, normally a restring for a guitar is $25, but it’s a 12-string, so it’s double the work. If an acoustic comes in with a broken top or something like that, it’s going to take a lot to fix that — a lot of time and a lot of gluing. If it’s something that needs gluing, I like to let the glue sit overnight, just to make sure everything’s nice and strong. A lot of times, it’s just waiting for the glue to set.”
Logan said the store will probably offer renting of gear soon.
As to the traffic coming in, Logan said it depends on the day.
“It’s, repair-wise, maybe two or three guitars a day. And then, people come through looking for strings or stuff they need for their guitars,” he said. “I figure with Christmas coming up, too, we’ll start getting a little busier. We can take in band instrument repairs, too.”
Some people come in to buy and sell guitars.
“We do consignments, too. A lot of people are bringing in stuff to sell on consignment,” he said.
Before coming to 302 Ellicott St., Logan said, he had space at the flea market in Clarence on Sundays. This is Logan Music’s first brick-and-mortar location, he said. It opened in late August.
Logan and Paul Runfola are business partners at Logan Music.
“He takes care of more the teaching side,” Logan said. “We’re going to be doing lessons here, too, but not through him. He does just the guitar, bass … We’ll have someone doing violin, all that stuff.”
Runfola offers guitar lessons over at St. Anthony’s in Batavia, in a studio he has there, Logan said.
“We’ve got a piano and keyboards, and voice guy who does it there, too. At Logan Music, there is space at the back of the store for holding lessons. Logan hopes to start offering lessons in the next couple of weeks.
“I’ve got a guy that does pretty much anything with strings, like violin, cello and all that stuff, then another guy who does guitar, bass and ukelele, too,” he said. “It would be normal hours. We might change hours around, depending on what lessons we get and how much.”
Guitars for sale, both electric and acoustic, line one wall and Logan said he has three bass guitars, along with bass ukuleles.
“I’d like to do drums, but I don’t really have the room right now to do them. Drums take up a lot of room, so it’s just kind of hard to carry,” Logan said. “One guy wanted to sell one set, but I didn’t have room. We just took pictures of it and put it up on the board.”
Down the road, Logan may look to move somewhere with more space to be able to sell drum sets. He’s not sure when that would be, though. When he opened on Ellicott Street, he had an agreement with the property owner to be there for a few months.
“We’re here another three months or so. He (the property owner) said we’ll get together and talk, and see if it’s still the right thing or I do have to go somewhere else, if I need more room. Right now, it’s doing pretty good. Right now, it’s a good size for just the guitars and all that.”
Logan said he worked at the legendary Roxy’s Music in Batavia for about 13 years, repairing instruments with strings.
“That’s what I went to school for — for building and repairing,” said the graduate of the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix, Ariz. “That’s pretty much anything with strings. It teaches you the basic foundation on how to build pretty much anything string-wise, except for pianos.”
Of his days at the famous Roxy’s Music, Logan remembers that Roxy’s owner, the late Rose Caccamise, knew pretty much everyone in the area.
“Working with the schools is what she was pretty big on all that,” he said. “That kept the place going, too. She was a good businesswoman, learning how to charge people for repairs and everything.”
