Hey Seattle, it’s been too long. We, the former employees of The Trading Musician, are starting a brand new music shop in the U District - just three blocks from the old place, right across from Cowen Park. We’re excited to see you all again at Re-Animated Music, and we want to share the story and the mission statement with you.
When the old place shut down last year it left a massive crater in our music scene. Many of us grew up going there, met bandmates and best friends, bought our first and tenth and favorite guitars, and we know that many of you did too. We were able to help everyone from local folks just starting out to high profile touring bands. We always took pride in being accessible, affordable and fair - but more than that it was a place to see your friends, talk about music, learn about weird gear and get a pack of strings or a pair of drum sticks. We were a refreshing alternative to the big corporate hellscape of a music store up the street.
We all tried working and shopping at other places, but the DIY ethos just wasn’t there, and we didn’t feel they shared our values of how a music shop should be run. These core principles are imperative to what we want our new shop to be:
Keeping instruments available to everyone without a huge paywall or price point that bars the average musician from obtaining vintage equipment. Continuing to serve the community as a resource for information and education. Hosting workshops and empowering you with the knowledge to properly use and maintain your gear. Stocking an extensive library of parts, and providing the services you need to make your instruments the best they can be. Making sure that everything we sell is set up to our standard of playability regardless of price. At its core, we want this new store to be an inspiring place that has the things you need and the off-the-beaten-path treasures you didn’t know you wanted. We want the focus to be on helping our peers - not getting rich.
It became clear that if we wanted to stay in the industry, we needed to start a place of our own. After months of searching, we found the perfect location earlier this year, and we’ve been working to get it ready ever since. The people we meet walking by every day, the musicians we talk to at shows, and the folks that pull over just to look inside all seem really excited for what’s coming.
Our hope was to be open for business back in June but we encountered some massive setbacks with the city. Our renovation and build-out quickly ballooned to double the initial cost and tripled the timeline to open. We heard the same story from all our friends who are contractors, tradespeople, business owners - that this city has no interest in making it easy for small businesses to start up or stay afloat. There are endless and ever-changing hoops to jump through, and every license and permit along the way is expensive. Even seemingly minor regulations can have huge, prohibitively costly implications and these things can, and have, bankrupted businesses before they even get off the ground. Not a problem if you’re a massive corporation or tech company, but the very same hundreds of thousands of dollars are expected of ordinary people, DIYers and independent artists. Since there is no system in place to help lessen that burden, what ends up happening is exactly what you’d expect: the big companies flourish while the mom-and-pops go out of business if they ever exist in the first place.
This is not an accident. Cool alternative businesses usually don’t present a big economic gain for the city, so there’s very little incentive for them to make it work. It’s a calculated effort to prioritize profit over people and community. This is why we have fewer and fewer shops like the one we aim to build. The odds are increasingly stacked against us.
As local musicians, we know people need this kind of place. Places to be together and learn from each other. Places to invent new sounds and fix broken instruments, where everyone involved knows it’s about bringing the music to life - not getting rich. It’s up to us to take care of each other and support the few spots where we can still encounter vibrant interactive art.
We're committed to making it happen. We are here putting in the work, and we are so close to being ready to share this with you, but the costs so far have been pretty staggering. None of us had startup money and after the unexpected and expensive remodels the city required (and the months of rent it took to complete them), we are facing some super intimidating loans. Your donations will be immensely helpful in recouping some of our debt and covering those extensive building costs while we get started. We are endlessly grateful for whatever you can contribute, and we hope that you’ll come hang out with us when we open the doors - we’re shooting for Halloween.
P.S. There are plenty of other ways to help out aside from donating. Please get in touch with us if you have used gear you’d like to sell or donate. We could really use some rugs and carpet - and probably more stuff we’ll think of later. We want to hear from you, even just to talk. There's an option to contact us on this page, or we're on Instagram @reanimatedmusic.
Organizer
Re-Animated Music
Organizer
Seattle, WA