Music on the Move: Quimper Sound downsizes to Uptown
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James Schultz, owner of Quimper Sound, holds a Paul Reed Smith custom 24 semi hollow guitar that just arrived at the shop made from woods he picked out in 2021. Beacon photo by Derek Firenze [/caption]
There’s not usually such solid tunes accompanying the Water Street shuffle as a business steps to the side to find a new location. But you can’t stop Quimper Sound owner James Schultz from playing the music that he loves.
“I bought Quimper Sound because I love records. I get a chance to get up there and be the DJ and talk to people about records,” Schultz said.
While the business is staying in Port Townsend, there will sadly be fewer records and chances to talk about them.
After taking over the business in 2018, when it was located in the “Under Town,” underground part of downtown Port Townsend, Schultz moved the store up onto Water Street. Now, he’s been forced to elevate again to Uptown in the previous location of Bear Root Apothecary across the street from Aldrich’s Market.
Leaving the thriving tourist traffic of Water Street is not an easy choice. The building that houses Quimper Sound’s Water Street location recently sold, and the new owners have made it difficult to stay.
“The offer that I received was one with a dramatic increase in monthly rent and only a one-year extension offer, which in a retail business with inventory is ridiculous,” Schultz said.
And so the Water Street shuffle continues its mournful dirge, a tale as old as any in this town.
“It’s a very expensive dance. It costs a lot to move a business,” Schultz said.
The new location comes with additional drawbacks. The shop will be dramatically smaller, moving from 2,250 square feet down to 1,400. This required Schultz to reduce inventory by 50% with a blowout sale in the record department. Additionally, he had to let go of two people from part-time positions and reduce the hours to three days a week for in-store shopping.
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If you look closely, you might be able to see the cracks of aging added to this brand new Gibson 1959 re-issue where a changed formula in the finish shrinks and cracks the way it would have if it were actually 60 years old. Photo by Derek Firenze. [/caption]
Schultz is dealing with the dilemma well by thinking creatively, which is something he has experience with. Before taking over Quimper Sound, Schultz also owned a massive guitar store in Seattle, which he closed during the pandemic. He then brought everything left over the water into the record shop.
Now that he’s losing the foot traffic of downtown, the record store will only be open Friday through Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm. The guitar side of the business will be by appointment Monday through Wednesday, giving Schultz time to process online orders for his custom guitars.
“Normally I would say we are the largest stocking independent Paul Reid Smith guitar dealer west of the Rockies,” Schultz said as he noted that his stock is down right now because he’s sold through so much.
“We’re also one of the largest Gibson dealers on the West Coast,” he added.
One of the benefits of the new location is a backroom where those guitars will be displayed in a humidity-controlled environment Next to a 8x8 modular vocal booth. This “loud room” removes between 26-31 decibels depending on the frequency allowing people to demo instruments at rock and roll volumes without creating a nuisance to the neighborhood. While the booth was available downtown to demo guitars, having them on display to choose from alongside the booth adds a new depth.
“It’s almost like you walked into a separate shop inside the shop,” Schultz said.
Once you see some of the guitars Schultz has collected, the reason for the display is clear. For some of the high-end pieces in the shop, Schultz travels to pick out custom woods, focusing on Pacific Northwest varieties like western red cedar and bigleaf maple.
“Things that come out of the northwest, that’s our signature,” Schultz said.
“We’ve got 8 wood library runs coming in the next few months,” he added, referencing the custom series of guitars made from wood he hand picked. “We’ll be back to being the biggest stocking dealer here, but hopefully not for long,” Schultz said with a wink.
Another upside to Uptown is the culture shift those few blocks bring. Instead of the fast pace of tourism, Schultz sees the more laid-back local vibe as a good thing.
“I’m more at ease than in the tourist district of downtown,” Schultz said. “I look forward to some sanity. Uptown is so much more calm than downtown. It feels like Portland in the 90’s to me,” he added, joking about the “Dream of the 90’s” skit from the television show Portlandia.
To welcome the neighborhood to the new location, Schultz is having a soft-open on Friday, August 2, starting at 11 am.
