The interior of Brick Row Music .
Joel Weaver repairs a guitar .
“ We sold a beautiful D ’ Angelico guitar ( retail price usually between about $ 900 and $ 2,200 , depending on the model ) on consignment , which is awesome and we want to be a hip store , but we also really like these ultra-affordable guitars by a Chinese manufacturer called Johnson ,” Davis said . “ They ’ re basically copies of old 1930s Martin ( a highly-respected American manufacturer of acoustic guitars ) designs .
“ Whoever in China is in charge of building the Johnson guitars knows what they ’ re doing , because they sound really good ... almost oddly good ,” Davis added with a chuckle .
In addition to guitars , Davis and Weaver have also had good success selling ukuleles , partially due to the instrument ’ s popularity in online videos seen on sites like YouTube and TikTok .
“ Last Christmas , we sold a lot of ukuleles . We had a whole Christmas tree display of them ,” Davis said .
Another thing that Brick Row music prides itself at is being able to offer personal , face-to-face customer service that can be difficult to get from large music retailers .
“ I , myself , love ordering from Sweetwater , but when you order a guitar online , it ’ s not going to be set up how you want it right out of the box , so one of the things we can offer is a very quick turnaround on setup and repairs ,” Davis said .
“ Joel does most of our repairs and setups here , but we also have a bass player named Craig Langford who ’ s a Martin-certified repairman who can do more advanced repairs ,” Davis explained . “ We also have a guy named Roberto Rosa , who ’ s a retired electrical engineer who used to work in Silicon Valley and does our electronics repairs . He ’ s also one hell of an accordion player .”
This personal , non one-size-fits-all approach has also helped the shop earn repeat customers .
“ We had a guy from Rockwall who was here on business who stopped by and we just had a long , friendly chat with him ,” Weaver said . “ A few months later , he drove all the way out here to buy a guitar from us and he said it was because we treated him so well .”
While the retail and repairs aspect of the business is something Davis and Weaver strive to do well , they each give equal attention to teaching lessons and running the attached recording studio .
“ Joel teaches most of the lessons around here ,” Davis said . “ He teaches guitar , banjo , mandolin , ukulele and bass . I occasionally teach , but my session and touring schedule is so insane that I mostly leave that part of the business to Joel .”
With the studio , Davis uses it extensively for his many projects . In fact , when the interview for this story was being conducted , he was in the middle of recording backing tracks for a project for a guitar magazine . However , he has also engineered sessions with local musicians in his studio and has also helped some of them navigate the music industry through his long list of connections .
Some of the up and coming artists from the Northeast Texas area that Davis has been actively working with recently include :
GREENVILE LIFE 10 HOLIDAY 2022