YARDLEYS GUITAR SHOP

[Ryan]

Are you thinking of City Music Ryan? That was under the bridge and just around the corner.

Cheers, Alan.

Hi Alan,
This could be it, i'm not too sure. I brought a roland streetcube from this particular shop i'm on about, around 5/6 years ago. But i've just remembered that i still have the original box for this amp in my loft. I usually keep my receipts so i will have a look to see if it's in there, as this should have the name of the shop on, I'll let you know if i find it
Cheers
Ryan

[alanbakewell]

If I remember rightly, a chap called Graham owned / ran the shop. It was next to or close to, a sandwich shop. As you walked through the door
you were surrounded by acoustic guitars on stands at floor level.

I'm not 100% sure but there might have been a glass case on the wall containing the higher end acoustics.

Certainly five or six years ago, or possibly longer, would have been the times when I used to visit.

Cheers, Alan.

[Ryan]

Can't remember if there was 2 or 3 levels, but yeah it was the acoustic level as you walked in. You then went down to electric guitars at the bottom, it was quite a big shop. I'm sure there may have been a section for the drum kits by the acoustics aswell.
Cheers
Ryan

[ecca]

That was it Al, City Music, you and I went there some years back when you were looking for one of your many guitars that you flogged 2 weeks after you'd bought it.

[noelford]

Our group was based in Nuneaton and we often went into Birmingham to browse he music shops in the sixties. Yardleys was one of the main ones, along with the one a little way down Broad Street, on the left, where I bought a fair bit of kit including a DeArmond Volume & Tone pedal. Anyone remember what that shop was called?

The music shop we used most, though, was Cranes, in Far Gosford Street, Coventry, where the manager was Mr Poole. Anyone else remember that? I bought a Burns sonic there, and my first and second Gibsons (a 335 and a 345), but they had to be ordered in from the USA. The shop is long gone now but I still make the long trip there occasionally because my guitar tech's place, Noiseworks, is, coincidentally, just over the road from where Cranes used to be.

[alanbakewell]

That was it Al, City Music, you and I went there some years back when you were looking for one of your many guitars that you flogged 2 weeks after you'd bought it.

I must have told you 10,000 times this week not to exaggerate.

[Tigerdaisy]

I remember Musical Exchange in Snow Hill (I remember having to negotiate all the dodgy under passes to get there)- a fairly large elongated shop with loads and loads of second hand guitars. I swopped a Roland D50 once for a brand new Les Paul which I was unable to tune satisfactorily to my ears anyway- soon got rid of it. There used to be a branch in Coventry also- don't know why they went out of business.

[ecca]

The one in Broad Street was George Clay's.

[noelford]

It was indeed! Thanks, Ecca. I remember going in there and seeing my first Gibson 'in the flesh', so to speak. I also remember, very clearly, being shocked to see that it had those 'cheapo wire-wound strings' as opposed to the proper ones (flat wounds)! How times have changed.

[Ryan]

I remember Musical Exchange in Snow Hill (I remember having to negotiate all the dodgy under passes to get there)- a fairly large elongated shop with loads and loads of second hand guitars.

I think this may have been the 1 i'm thinking of, as i walked under some dodgy under passes when i walked from Birmingham centre.
I went on the tram, to the same shop, from Wolverhampton once, and i think i got off at either St Paul's or the Jewellery Quarter stop, then walked down to it about 10 mins walk. If i remember right, i'm sure the building had a large graffiti painting on it.
The reason i wanted to know what is called, is i wanted the post code to put in my satnav (as my missus is driving now) so i could go and have a look if its still there.
Cheers
Ryan