PMT

[prowla]

7 minutes ago, paulmcnamara said:

Apparently Hobgoblin in London is Paul McCartney's favourite music shop....... it's spitting distance from his MPL Offices in Soho Square. Maybe he'll invest in the company?

I didn't even know there was one in London.

[bass_dinger]

24 minutes ago, paulmcnamara said:

Apparently Hobgoblin in London is Paul McCartney's favourite music shop....... it's spitting distance from his MPL Offices in Soho Square. Maybe he'll invest in the company?

 

One of the chaps there (John, who has since left) told me how Paul McCartney was a regular visitor to the shop, and he sold him a Hathway mandolin. Paul McCartney asked for a discount, and after a few minutes of negotiation, John said "in the time that we have been talking, you have earned enough in royalties to buy it!".  All in good humour, and Paul McCartney paid full price.

 

John also taught Paul McCartney a few chords, which he used in a song that he later released - Dance Tonight.

 

 

[Terry M.]

18 minutes ago, prowla said:

I didn't even know there was one in London.

Popped in there last year briefly. As a bassist I thought it had nothing to offer me.This is by no means meant in a slanderous way whatsoever.

[chris667]

21 minutes ago, bass_dinger said:

 

John also taught Paul McCartney a few chords, which he used in a song that he later released - Dance Tonight.

I bet he dines out on that!

 

I really like Hobgoblin, but I have also been a bit disappointed the last couple of times I've been in one. I just felt a bit unwelcome.

 

Massive shout out to Foulds in Derby. Great shop.

Edited Thursday at 15:03 by chris667

[bass_dinger]

12 minutes ago, Terry M. said:

Popped in there last year briefly. As a bassist I thought it had nothing to offer me.This is by no means meant in a slanderous way whatsoever.

Hobgoblin is more your folk music shop - they do have acoustic basses (4 string, fretless and even a 5 string which they made for me). But they specialise in stuff that other shops don't stock: accordions, thumb pianos, erhu (Chinese violin), Indian lap-harmoniums, fretless banjos, marimba, chambord, bagpipes, and a couple of zebra-hides worth of African drums. 

 

If you haven't heard of it, can't play it, and don't need it, Hobgoblin stock it.

 

[choob.squeemer]

Err- fretless banjos      can anybody actually play one  lol

 

[Musicman666]

24 minutes ago, choob.squeemer said:

Err- fretless banjos      can anybody actually play one  lol

 

 

[choob.squeemer]

Ah  that's a shame - can't actually see anything - just a tiny blue square with a question mark in it !

[Andermtc]

On 12/06/2025 at 10:33, bass_dinger said:

 

From that helpful link, we see the following:

 

"Immediately following their appointment, the joint administrators concluded a knock-down sale of £2.4 million worth of stock and “certain intangible assets including websites, trademarks, and commercial data,” for £1.2 million to York-based Gear4music, which said it is not acquiring any part of PMT’s trading business, nor any other assets or liabilities, and has no current plans to use the PMT trading name."

 

So, Gear4Music has purchased the PMT stock.

The question I have in these circumstances is if PMT still owed money to their suppliers, does some of that stock still belong to the supplier?

[Phil Starr]

I'm going to miss the Bristol store, what else will I do when the family are hitting the shops. I'll miss Mansons in Exeter more though. It's been inevitable for some time that these stores would be in trouble. If we all trot off to Thomann and the like for our needs then they are bound to suffer. It's not as if the rest of the high street isn't in the middle of a huge upheaval also. I don't think the situation has been helped by the likes of Gibson and Fender forcing them to carry huge stocks either. The other reality is that the guitar has probably lost it's dominance in music and 'peak guitar' was actually back in the early 80's with perhaps it's own indy revival.

 

On the bright side I'm seeing a couple of independent shops benefitting. Often by offering other services. In Chard (a small Somerset market town) we have The Somerset Music Academy, it's a guitar shop which also offers guitar and other music tuition combined with a repair and set up service. It combines a steady turnover of used gear with a range of um... lesser known brands. Even this has a twist, they are careful what they stock and every instrument gets a set up before they sell it. There are some very playable, nice sounding instruments at reasonable prices. Something you can't get from the warehouses. The tuition gives them a stream of customers for starter instruments and the kids get something decent to start their journey with. I believe they plan on running a rehearsal room too.

 

There's so little competition out there that people will travel to go somewhere you can try before you buy.

[Stu-khag]

On 18/06/2025 at 22:40, choob.squeemer said:

Was in PMT a day or two before they shut in Cardiff   - bought a snark tuner 

 

I found the service in there very pot luck - sometimes helpful - other times zilch

 

I started getting things a few mile out in A Strings a couple of years ago - now 

 

that place is excellent for service - I can get all the things that the other places wouldn't 

 

have in stock - like Neutrik plugs and lengths of speaker cable - or literally anything I asked them 

 

to get in - they have been growing slowly and its well deserved . 

 

 

Had a similar experience with PMT in Cardiff. Some of the staff had been extremely helpful over the years though. Must be quite soul destroying working in a music shop sometimes. 

Really feel for them and its sad that only one music shop in the centre of cardiff now. Heard good things about Moto music on the outskirts but all a bit too high end for the likes of me. 

A strings in Treforest are absolutely fantastic. Looking forward to seeing their new shop also.  I dont think I would deal with any other shops these days. Generally they are really competitive with their pricing but they also quality  check over the instruments and set them up so for that Im willing to pay extra anyway. Really nice staff as well.

[Stub Mandrel]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd0vzrxe2y7o.amp

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gr16yyrp8o

 

[chriswareham]

While we're on the subject of Hobgoblin, a shout out to their London branch. Took my Albanian cifteli there as I couldn't work out how to restring it. The setup guy went through a bunch of different strings until he found one that would hold the tension. Forty minutes of his time and half a dozen strings. He charged me a not unreasonable £1.80, the cost of the banjo string that finally did the job.

[SH73]

I miss GAK never disappointed in customer care

[bass_dinger]

On 19/06/2025 at 21:19, choob.squeemer said:

Err- fretless banjos      can anybody actually play one  lol

 

Rhiannon Giddens can.

 

 

 

 

[Phil Starr]

5 hours ago, bass_dinger said:

Rhiannon Giddens can.

 

 

 

 

Now can somebody tell me what that picking style is called. When I learned it (a long time ago) it was called clawhammer with the pinch being the 'claw'. Now i see internet guides callingthe picking that I call 'frailing' being described as clawhammer.

[tauzero]

2 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Now can somebody tell me what that picking style is called. When I learned it (a long time ago) it was called clawhammer with the pinch being the 'claw'. Now i see internet guides callingthe picking that I call 'frailing' being described as clawhammer.

 

I don't play banjo but a former bandmate who mainly played melodeon also played banjo, and she called strumming by striking the backs of her fingers on the strings "frailing".

[Stub Mandrel]

I learned 'clawhammer' some 50 years ago from my first guitar book. Basically thumbed bass alternates with a pattern strummed with the fingernails.

 

 

AI sayeth:

 

Clawhammer" can refer to two distinct things: a type of hammer used in woodworking and a distinctive banjo playing style. The claw hammer, with its curved claws, is primarily used for driving and removing nails from wood. Clawhammer, as a banjo technique, is a rhythmic style where the strings are struck with the back of the fingernail and then plucked with the thumb, often associated with old-time music. 
Clawhammer (the hammer):

    Purpose: Driving nails into wood and pulling them out. 

Design: Features a head with a flat face for hammering and curved claws for prying nails. 
Suitable for: Woodworking and general tasks where nails need to be driven or removed. 
Not suitable for: Heavy hammering on metal surfaces, as the head can be brittle. 

Clawhammer (the banjo style):

    Origin: A traditional American old-time music style with roots in West African banjo playing. 

Technique: The hand is held in a claw-like shape, and the strings are struck with the back of the fingernail (index or middle finger) while the thumb plucks strings alternately. 
Sound: Produces a distinctive percussive and rhythmic sound, often described as mellow. 
Banjos: Typically played on open-back banjos, which emphasize the mellow tone. 
Other names: Also known as "frailing," "down-picking," or "overhand". 
 

[pete.young]

16 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Now can somebody tell me what that picking style is called. When I learned it (a long time ago) it was called clawhammer with the pinch being the 'claw'. Now i see internet guides callingthe picking that I call 'frailing' being described as clawhammer.

 

The picking style that Rhiannon is using in the clip is not clawhammer. It is an old-time 3-finger picking style, which pre-dates the modern Scruggs-style bluegrass roll which is normal nowadays.

 

This banjo is also unusual in that it is tuned a 5th lower than normal 5-string G tuning, and I think the strings are probably nylon. 

[Phil Starr]

48 minutes ago, pete.young said:

 

The picking style that Rhiannon is using in the clip is not clawhammer. It is an old-time 3-finger picking style, which pre-dates the modern Scruggs-style bluegrass roll which is normal nowadays.

 

This banjo is also unusual in that it is tuned a 5th lower than normal 5-string G tuning, and I think the strings are probably nylon. 

Thanks Pete I was a self taught and not very successful banjo player back in the days when Scruggs was seen as not really folk music. My 'tutors' were Pete Seeger's book and another which I think was called the Art Of The Mountain Banjo or some such name. I spent hours trying to get the picking styles right but foolishly never really got on top of many songs. That three finger technique that she uses was one that I learned at the time. I never heard anyone at the time describe down picking or frailing as clawhammer but certainly now that seems to be common usage. It's nearer 60 years than 50 since I last seriously tried to play the banjo so I may have misremembered

[pete.young]

39 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

Thanks Pete I was a self taught and not very successful banjo player back in the days when Scruggs was seen as not really folk music. My 'tutors' were Pete Seeger's book and another which I think was called the Art Of The Mountain Banjo or some such name. I spent hours trying to get the picking styles right but foolishly never really got on top of many songs. That three finger technique that she uses was one that I learned at the time. I never heard anyone at the time describe down picking or frailing as clawhammer but certainly now that seems to be common usage. It's nearer 60 years than 50 since I last seriously tried to play the banjo so I may have misremembered

 

Art of the Mountain Banjo was by Art Rosenbaum, I think I have a copy somewhere. The first time I heard the term 'clawhammer' was when Ken Perlman's book came out in the '70s. I learned to play about the same time as you: I learnt from listening to Guy Tucker, who lived in Manchester in the late 70s, and from books by John Burke and Miles Krassen. There are lots of terms for the style, and various attempts to bold on esoteric definitions after the fact, but I think it boils down to a matter of opinion.

[RichT]

On 18/06/2025 at 13:30, Mrbigstuff said:

Was going to say the same, It’s obvious where the costs add up.

 

I find it strange that stores tend to stock gear that’s more marketed at beginners. I’d classify myself as a beginner on guitar and hate the idea of having to try gear out in a store, showing everyone how inept I am. However I guess for more advanced players, you sort of know what you want and won’t have an issue buying unseen online as a result, resulting in no footfall for physical shops.

 

I sort of thought the opposite to that, in that as I became more in the market for spending a bit more money on instruments, I lost interest in going to PMT in recent years when the instruments in stock were reduced to nothing but cheaper end Fender/Squier, Sterling Subs, lower end Ibanez and Cort related stuff. 

 

If you're in that mid to higher market, it's preferable to have the opportunity to go into a physical shop and spend time trying things out to find that mythical one that feels just right before laying down well over a grand (or more), but PMT took the option of selling only the cheap mass produced identikit far eastern stuff that you can easily buy literally everywhere else online, giving them no USP. 

 

I'm sure they used to have interesting higher end stuff. When I properly got back into playing and thought I should buy myself a new bass for the first time in 30 years, I went to PMT Cardiff in early 2019, tried a few basses and spent £600 on a nice enough Ibanez. I remember the guy next to me at the till was buying a £2K EBMM Stingray. I also remember admiring all the USA made Les Pauls and PRS hanging on the wall.

 

All that higher end stuff completely went out the window in recent years (or they never ever had it in the Cardiff branch at least, nor the couple of times I visited the Bristol and Portsmouth shops), leaving them competing with the likes of Amazon in terms of what was actually available to buy in store, and you can obviously never outcompete Amazon in shifting huge volumes of cheap mass produced gear, you shouldn't even try. 

 

 

edit:  tl;dr - If they hadn't decided to purge their in-store stock of anything vaguely interesting or higher spec in a race to the bottom which they could never win, they might still be in business. 

Edited 12 minutes ago by RichT