A Guitar Center store has finally opened in Anchorage
 

I’ve been in Guitar Center stores many times before, but it’s always been when I’ve been traveling to other cities, because we never had one in Alaska until yesterday. Now one has opened in the Midtown shopping mall that used to house the Sears store before it shut its doors last year.

It’s not the biggest GC I’ve ever been in, but not the smallest, either.

As I walked past the electric guitars on my way to the acoustic room I saw Gibson Les Pauls and SG’s and Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters. There hasn’t been a Gibson dealer in Anchorage for quite some time, so I took the sight of the Les Pauls hanging on the wall as a hopeful sign.

Sure enough, in the acoustic room there were a few Gibsons as well as Martins, Taylors and Breedloves in there, as well as a few Guilds and LOTS of Yamahas.

Most of the guitars on display were the low end models made by those companies, with the only more expensive Martins being one D-28, one D-18 and a 000-18. There were lots of HPL Martins, though.

It was somewhat similar with the Gibsons - mostly lower end walnut guitars, with only one J-45 to be seen, and one Songwriter. The J-45, though, for any of you who might be passing through Anchorage and are suddenly struck by the urge to buy a good guitar, is a very nice example. It’s better-sounding than most of the J-45’s I’ve ever picked up and played in a music store.

So it’s a new addition to the music retailers that we have here. My fear is that GC will stay in business only long enough to drive most of our existing Anchorage music stores OUT of business, then close down themselves a few years down the road.

But there’s nothing I can do about that, obviously.

Anyway, Guitar Center is in Anchorage for the foreseeable future. We’ll see how it plays out.

There was one nice incident that happened there today, though: I had played all the guitars I had time to play, and was walking toward the door when I heard someone say: “Wade?”

I turned around and there was a vaguely familiar-looking young man wearing a Guitar Center employee tee shirt. He told me his name, and I realized he’s one of my former students from a music camp down in Prince William Sound that I used to teach at every summer.

I don’t think I’ve seen him in ten years, but he remembered me, and so we had a nice time catching up until I really DID have to leave.

So that was a happy surprise.

Anyway, Anchorage is getting more like the Lower 48 states every year, and GC opening a branch up here is just one more indication of that.


Wade Hampton Miller

That's a shame...

Well, like I used to tell the tourists after they expressed surprise at things like stop lights and a Safeway store: "Anchorage is not that much different than most small cites in the Lower 48. But it is only a 20 minute drive from Alaska."

That's really funny!

Well a tepid congratulations to Anchorage residents. What's next? A major league baseball team?

I often use that line myself. I moved to ANC in 1993 right after some of the big box stores first came to town. Apparently that made the whole city much different. People told me stories of buying cases of copier paper at full list price plus shipping at office supply stores. Costco and Office max put an end to that. Unfortunately Lowe's also put an end to long time family owned hardware stores like the one in Spenard (I want to say McNabbs?) and many independent True Value stores. So you take the bad with the good.

I actually bought a Taylor 114 to keep in Anchorage to avoid bringing a guitar on the airplane for my several trips each year. It was purchased from Best Buy when they had a music section about ten years ago. Mammoth Music didn't have one to in stock while I was in town working that week. The Best Buy music corner went away after about four years though. GC may suffer a similar fate.

A current student of mine, Gene Anderson, lives in Anchorage, and I’m sure he’ll be spending some time there.

He’s not only a great guitarist, but quite good on harmonica as well!

Howard Emerson

Back during the early 80s oil boom, there was talk of an NFL franchise...

Spenard Builders Supply?

We use to call the high prices (attributed to shipping costs) "The Alaska Gouge." There were a lot of businesses that couldn't adjust to actual competition. I was living to the north of where Spenard Road crosses the railroad tracks in 93. Off of 36th.

One slow summer Sunday a couple from Cincinnati bit on that line and asked to see Alaska 20 minutes away. They were on their honeymoon, which was going to be spent on a river float trip on the North Slope, and had just flown in. As they were also quite hungover from the reception before boarding their flight, eventually they asked if the was somewhere that they could get a bit of the hair of the dog. As I had already sussed out that they had a sense of humor, and as we were already down the Arm a ways, I took them to the Bird House. For the uninitiated, the Bird House was a bar in an old log mining cabin by Bird Creek. The old cabin had been sinking into the ground ever since it was built, with the window's now about ground level. But not at the same rate, so one end was deeper than the other, and they had had to nail wood stops on the bar to keep drinks from sliding down it. Not sure if there was a floor or not underneath the wood chips. And the walls and ceiling were festooned with IDs, Drivers Licenses, and bills of foreign currency with peoples names on it. And lingerie. Lots of bras panties and whatnot stapled to the ceiling and hanging down. In response to my customers query, as I joined them for a beer at the bar, I explained that the bar would buy a round for anyone sitting at the bar in exchange for a "donation." But there were rules. First was a females only rule. The second was that the donation must be being warn at the time, and that removing the donation from one's body could not be done under ones other clothes. And third, any other apparel could not be replaces until after the donor had stapled the donation up, which often took several tries to get a staple to stick. As we got into a second round, the newly wedded couple looked at each other. The husband said "it is up to you, dear." The wife asked Doc, the bartender (yes the bartender was named "Doc.) for a stapler, and made a donation. After a few more rounds, the couple politely declined the use of the ptarmigan call (I had warned them) but did fall for the Bird House pickle (spicy doesn't begin to describe it) and the Bird House chicken dinner (hard-boiled eggs, 2 for 50 cents, three for a dollar). And eventually the good wife decided to make a second, more serious, donation. Eventually I poured them out at the Captain Cook hotel, downtown, and wisely called it a day. (I had not matched them drink for drink. After all, I was a Professional)

By the way, the Bird House eventually burned to the ground, a fitting coda to a bit of Olde Alaska. I think that there is some tourist trap facsimile at Chillicoot Charlies.

I did receive a post card from them after they went back home, thanking me for a great beginning to their honeymoon and to their marriage.

The Bird House was the kind of place where you went only to take friends and visitors from out of state to have a drink so they could marvel at the picturesque Alaskan squalor of the place. Here's the exterior of the building:


Here's the hallway into the bar:


And here's the charming interior:


I was only in there three times. I found the place to be intensely claustrophobic. It was the worst firetrap imaginable, because there were no windows and only one way in and out. Plus there was all that highly flammable tinder stapled to the ceiling and walls.

I could only ever stay there for one quick beer before my innate sense of self-preservation compelled me back out the door. When I hosted friends from out of state I'd be like: "Finished your beer? Do you want another? No? Good. Let's go."

But you can see the decor for yourselves. The first time I went there I stapled my Stockholm library card to the wall - I had spent the previous summer in Scandinavia, and was in Stockholm long enough to take books out of the library and read them (English language books only - my Swedish language skills are less than rudimentary.) Since I didn't see myself traveling back to Stockholm any time soon (and haven't,) I decided that the Bird House Bar was as appropriate a place to put the card as anywhere else.

One of the stickers in the first interior shot needs to be explained:


Binky was a female polar bear in the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage. Some idiotic tourist decided that Binky looked like she'd enjoy some company, so the woman climbed over the outer guard rail, presumably before climbing over the higher fence.

Quick as thought, Binky was suddenly right there at the front of her enclosure, reaching through the fence and grabbing the woman's leg. This first image is blurry because it's a screen capture from an old videotape, but it gives you an idea:


The woman was rescued, hospitalized and - fortunately for her - had only minor injuries from Binky's teeth and claws. But Binky retained a souvenir of the encounter: one of the woman's shoes, which she kept as a trophy and gnawed on for weeks afterwards.


If I remember correctly, in the aftermath of the incident some assemblyman made noises about having Binky euthanized, but the public reaction was immediate and immense: Binky was a polar bear who had simply acted like a polar bear, and if anyone should be put down it was the idiotic tourist. Binky and her souvenir shoe were folk heroes so far as most of us were concerned.

Years later, when my family and I were visiting the San Francisco zoo, my wife and I got talking to one of the zookeepers there. When we mentioned that we were from Anchorage, she told us that she'd been in Anchorage when Binky pounced, and was really impressed that the public there had rallied in Binky's defense. "She was just acting like a polar bear," I said. "Wouldn't people here see it the same way?" "Oh, no," she said. "There'd be calls to have the animal put down."

So the zookeeper liked our more even-handed outlook towards wildlife in Alaska.

Anyway, my predictions about the Bird House burning down some day were correct, but fortunately the fire occurred in the early morning hours after the bar had closed and before it was supposed to open. It was in the newspaper the next day; when I woke up one morning my wife told me: "The Bird House burned down" and my immediate reaction was: "Oh, my God - how many people were killed and injured?"

But fortunately the place was empty at the time.

It didn't all burn down, and some portions of it were salvaged and built into the popular bar Chilkoot Charlie's in the Spenard district, including the Bird House bird figure from the outside of the building shown in the first photo. I'm pretty certain that the first photo of the interior that I've included was taken at Koot's, because the ceiling isn't low enough to have been in the original location.

It's the second photo that gives you the true scale of the place.

Okay, enough Alaskan barroom history for now. Brief acoustic guitar content: a guitar-playing friend and I took our guitars down to the Bird House one time and sat in the corner playing for a while. That was sort of fun, and playing music kept my site-specific claustrophobia at bay for a while, but not long enough to want to go back and ever play guitar there again.


Wade Hampton Miller

Oh man. That is one frightening place to have a drink in.

Glad the bird survived though.

If you look closely at the second photo of the interior, you’ll notice that there are ashtrays on the bar. This was back before the Municipality of Anchorage had any no-smoking laws. So there you are sitting in that firetrap, and there are people lighting and smoking cigarettes all around you.

It wasn’t a place I liked to hang around....


whm

What's the name of the Pizza Place/Microbrewery on the left on the main road into town coming from Seward? Or Seaward? Everytime we went it was packed! I had my Martin Backpacker on that trip last summer.

I do miss having one or more Guitar Centers nearby. Originally from the Seattle/Tacoma area, I usually went to the Tacoma one. Moved to the big island of Hawaii 12 miles from Hilo. We do have some small music stores, but nothing like GC's. Most of the guitars I'm interested in, I'd have to order from Amazon or even Target online.

Depending on things shake out, there may not a Gibson dealer there for long.

Regardless, it is good to read about a new music store opening shop up there in NW Cañada. :)

Mooses Tooth. Its always packed for a reason...

No, it wasn't SBS. It was a small family-owned old style hardware store with a name that started with an "M", but I cannot recall it now. Senior moment.... It was actually on Fireweed just east of Spenard Road and west of Arctic. Probably closed in 1996-1998. I bought from them whenever I could.

My wife still has a Binky pin complete with dangling sterling silver tennis shoe, bought at the zoo gift shop. A couple of years later there was an inebriated teen who climbed into Binky's cage too, to swim in the pool. The papers were somewhat vague about the nature of his injuries, but let's just say that stupidity is now unlikely to reproduce.

We finally gave up on Moose's Tooth pizza when it became necessary to wait 45-60 minutes for a table at nearly any hour of the day. And they would not do take-out orders because their oven could not keep up with the on-site diners. Great pizza though....