Phoole Fave: Blue Flame Music!

Recover from big-box music store shock by shopping Milwaukee's Blue Flame Music, at 5264 S. 27th Street in Milwaukee, WI, zip code 53221. My husband buys his guitars and amps there, I will get my husband a cowbell there, and I just bought MY FIRST CONCERTINA there (alert alert! Jane the Phoole has a button box!). Dave and Glenn there are both great and fine gentlemen, but it is Dave with whom my husband and I have bonded most closely. He's our kind of art-making life-living guy -- he's a zesty talker and a really enjoyable presence. And he painstakingly fixed my concertina BEFORE I'D EVEN BOUGHT IT when I ham-fingeredly crammed one of the tiny little buttons down inside one of the holes and got it stuck.

So please go and shop for instruments, accessories, strings, stands, picks, pedals, books, cases, lessons, and everything else that makes a sound or carries an axe at this real store, run by real people. They don't seem to have a freestanding intertubez site, but their MySpace page and their eBay store will connect you to this great shop.