EGN NEWS DESK
Sam Ash, the family-owned chain of music shops that provided numerous learners and dealing musicians with guitars, drums and different devices, is closing all of it areas after 100 years in enterprise, it introduced this week.
Derek Ash, whose great-grandparents, Sam and Rose Ash, opened the primary Sam Ash retailer within the Brownsville part of Brooklyn in 1924, mentioned the corporate’s 42 areas couldn’t compete within the period of on-line purchasing.
In March, Sam Ash introduced it was closing 18 areas, with the hope of shopping for the corporate time to outlive, Mr. Ash mentioned. But he mentioned that closing all of the shops ended up being a “necessity.”
“Quite a lot of this has been the transfer to on-line purchasing,” Mr. Ash, the corporate’s chief advertising officer, mentioned in an interview. “There are so many selections, and to take care of a retailer with that a lot choice may be very troublesome.”
Sam Ash has shops in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Ohio, Mr. Ash mentioned. Some will shut by the tip of the month, he mentioned. All will shut by the tip of July.
The information, which the corporate introduced on Thursday, saddened many musicians who recalled shopping for devices and gear at Sam Ash or simply stopping in to check out guitars, amps or keyboards — a tactile, communal expertise that may’t be replicated on-line.
Michael Whalen, a two-time Emmy Award-winning composer and recording artist who lives in Queens, recalled going to the Sam Ash retailer on West forty eighth Street in Manhattan, in what was often called Music Row, to purchase synthesizers, recording gear and studio audio system within the Nineties.
Back then, the world was filled with music shops like Manny’s Music, Rudy’s Music and Alex Musical Instruments, and Mr. Whalen would possibly run into one other musician he knew. But these shops have both closed or moved. The Sam Ash store on West forty eighth Street was changed greater than a decade in the past by one other location on West thirty fourth Street that’s now additionally slated to shut.
“Since the pandemic, you go across the metropolis and also you’re continually remarking in any respect this stuff which have closed,” Mr. Whalen mentioned. “This seems like that form of denouement. The metropolis is altering a lot and lots of people accuse Manhattan of being a spot just for superrich folks. I can see that as a result of the locations that made it really feel like a neighborhood are going away.”
The rock guitarist Steve Stevens, who has performed with Billy Idol, remembered strolling right into a Sam Ash retailer within the Forest Hills part of Queens in 1983 and shopping for a black Kramer Pacer guitar for about $700. He performed that guitar, he mentioned, whereas recording the hit album that Mr. Idol launched later that 12 months, “Rebel Yell.”
“I at all times felt like household on the W48th road retailer,” he wrote on Facebook on Friday. “The Ash household had been good to me over time.”
The firm traces its roots to a different period in New York. Sam Ash settled within the metropolis after immigrating from Austria in 1907, when he was 10, and labored within the garment business. He additionally performed the violin at weddings, dances and bar mitzvahs, and was decided to open his personal music store. He and Ms. Ash pawned her engagement ring for $400 to make a down cost on what was to turn into the primary Sam Ash retailer, in response to the corporate’s web site. She later acquired the ring again.
Over the a long time, Sam Ash employed many musicians, giving them a gentle paycheck whereas they hustled for gigs.
Luis Infantas, a manager on the West thirty fourth Street retailer who’s a drummer in a postpunk band referred to as Black Rose Burning, mentioned prospects might at all times rely on “actual, musician-caliber recommendation and gear.”
“That’s the one factor that made us totally different from the competitors,” he mentioned.
But generally, he mentioned, prospects would come to the shop simply to check out an instrument that that they had researched on-line. Then they’d go residence and purchase the instrument on-line.
Mr. Infantas, who has labored for Sam Ash for 29 years, mentioned that follow, often called “showrooming,” underscored how exhausting it was for conventional shops to compete in opposition to on-line behemoths like Amazon.
Even so, working at Sam Ash was “the following smartest thing to being onstage,” Mr. Infantas mentioned, “since you had been across the gear you like, round musicians, and also you had been listening to music whereas working.”
Customers by no means knew who would possibly stroll within the door.
Once, on a Tuesday night, Mr. Infantas mentioned, he bought screens and keyboards to Stevie Wonder, who was shopping for them for a efficiency on the Obama White House. Another time, he mentioned, James Gandolfini stopped in to purchase drums for his son.
“Things like that you just don’t get to expertise,” he mentioned, “until you’re at an establishment like Sam Ash.”
