Part Two

We went looking for vacant shops and settled on Shop 8 Shoalhaven Arcade. It was the right size for what we wanted and because music shops are destination shops it didn't have to be in the main street. Other shops in the arcade sold wool, coffee, soap, sewing machines, cut hair and sold tools.

We immediately started teaching organ as most of my students followed me to the new business. We then started looking for the organ and piano brands we would support. The organ industry was in turmoil as sales were declining and the boom times of the 70s was just about over. Thomas, Kimball and Lowrey had already closed their doors. Hammond USA has also gone but was bought by an Australian for a short period before being sold to Suzuki Japan. Wurltzer USA had also been closed having been bought by Hohner in Germany.

Hammond Organ Australia gave us a good deal, a mix of stock we payed upfront and some consignment stock as well. We also took on their range of Atlas pianos. Before too long we would own all our stock with the profits put back into more stock purchases. We also started stocking sheet music and music albums.

Jill and I were living off the work we did outside the business. We formed our own band "A Taste Of Honey" playing organ and drums for wedding receptions. I was still playing in the old time dance band and I was also playing with "D Syndicate" a 60s and 70s rock & roll band.

We took regular trips to Sydney with the trailer and scanned the Trading Post paper to purchase second hand pianos. Thanks to the experiences of Nick Kuiper from my first job I was able to fix these piano with ease ready to be sold the following week.

We also took on consignment stock from people wishing to sell their instruments.

One of our customers had put their Baldwin Marquee organ on consignment. Glenn Derringer had designed this instrument after leaving Wurlitzer and joining Baldwin and had released an LP "Diamond". I was keen to get reacquainted with this organ. I recorded some numbers then Jill and I did some duets with Jill on the piano. I don't know how we ever found time to do this.

Glenn Derringer Diamonds

Norm	Jill and Norm

It Had Better Be Tonight	The Man From Snowy River

Stars Fell On Alabama	Jessica's Theme From The Man from Snowy River

Here's a cheesy radio advertisement for fathers day 1984. I played the background music and it was produced by and played on radio 2ST 91.7 Nowra.

Soon it was time to expand our range into General Musical Instruments (GMI). As the photo shows we started with some guitars, then over time added Casio keyboards, electric guitars, amplifiers and drums.

When in 1986 the Hammond organ company was sold to Suzuki in Japan they dropped out of the home organ market to concentrate on the professional organ market. We need to find a new brand of organ. The Technics brand by National/Panasonic was leading the way forward by owning Pulse Coded Modulation (PCM) technology and using it in all its products from digital video cameras, CD players right through to its organs, keyboards and digital pianos. Taking on the Technic range was the best decision we made as the keyboard and digital pianos were to take over from the organ boom.

Jill and Norm with the first GMI purchases from 1985 including the ever faithful J210 guitar from AMS that we sold tons of over the years....


Jill and Norm Bailey married 25 November 1985	Margaret, Norm, Jill, Ken


Nowra Festival street parade with Norm at the organ and Ken at the wheel 1986.	Jill's mum Margaret and sister Glenys help with the preparations of the float	Technics organs arrive in 1986 and our ever increasing line up of GMI


Norm and Jill 1987/88

1991 1986 to 1991 we experienced some serious growth expanding into a second shop (shop 2) with organs and pianos on display and shop 8 continuing to expand with more and more GMI profits being put back into stock. Our accountant was concerned with stocking levels telling us we have too much and we should reduce it, but I thought if we don't stock it we won't sell it. I was thinking most people would drive to Sydney and pick it up Immediately rather than wait 2 to three days to be delivered. And I was right....our stock kept increasing and so did our sales. Soon our accountant relented and agreed saying this was the only business he had ever seen do this....

"The recession we had to have" in the early 90s were actually very good for us as people tightened their spending but they put a lot of thought into what they bought. Playing and learning musical instruments were high on peoples lists of things to do that were not considered luxuries or a waste of money and offered high value.

Something must be said about our ever faithful Nissan Urvan we bought second hand with 180,000 km. We put over 450,000 km on the thing travelling all over the state for deliveries and pickups, even to Melbourne a few times. It was very well known and when we retired it (traded it in Sydney with all the sign writing still on it) it was on its second engine and was very, very tired. However that's not the end of the Urvan's story. As it turned out some English backpackers bought it and travelled right around Australia in it. We started getting reports that it had been spotted in various states and towns so we knew it was still out there. Then one day these young lads made the pilgrimage to us in Nowra because they had received much attention on their travels. They told us they had have a trouble free run in the "Wombat" because of the World of Music logo and the black painted nose. RIP Urvan, it deserved it.

The old trailer was getting on and we need something bigger to carry more pianos back from Sydney. My father also need a trailer to carry his T model Ford that he had restored, to rallies So we decided to purchase a car trailer and my father set about enclosing it and putting a folding down door on the back. I still use this trailer to this day, although we have removed the signwriting.


Shop Front 1993

Computers and me......
My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A purchased in 1981. It was way ahead of its time boasting a 16 bit processor when everything else in home computing was 8 bit and it was able to display colours. I learned to program it at first in Basic and then in Assembly Language. I added the Peripheral Expansion Box containing its own linear power supply and a full-height 5¼" floppy bay and room for 8 expansion cards. I added the 32k memory card. This was a great computer but was a flop for TI because they wanted to control the source of all software for it and did not allow any 3rd parties to develop software for it. With the lack of support from the emerging game industry computers like the 8 bit Commodore sold like hot cakes. After Atari lost $111 million after taxes in the third calendar quarter of 1983, it was discontinued.

(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was developed as a standard in 1983 so that musical instruments would be able to communicate note, sound patch numbers, volume, sync with each other and exchange info. This standard took off very quickly and soon every keyboard, synthesizer, organ had MIDI and then interfaces for guitar, drums, brass & woodwind would be developed. Sequencers able to record notes and information were also released to the market.

Unlike many formats it was accepted industry wide and is a testament to how well it was developed that it is still used today without any changes. Show me any format in the world that has achieved this...

In 1985 Atari released the 1040ST computer with MIDI interface built in. So without delay I bought one along with Steinberg Cubase and a Roland MT-32 MIDI module and set about learning all I could. Eventually this made it into the shop in the late 80s to demonstrate MIDI keyboards and the range of Yamaha Synthesizers and modules and also Edirol, which was the Roland company education range of keyboards.

By 1990 we had our first PC running Windows 2 or 3. We used it for sheet music database and customer ordering. I learned to use MS-Dos which Windows operated above and was soon able to build PCs and set them up.

Roland released their Sound Canvas range including their MIDI interface card for PC and plug in sound card range as well. I was on the ground floor running with this technology and we were for a while one of a few stores in NSW able deliver sales and service in this area. People would drive down from Sydney to purchase from us. We also stocked a lot of software like the very popular BAND-IN-A-BOX and what would be known as MIDI files (songs of the day pre programmed in the MIDI code in the general MIDI format sold on floppy disks). Kind of like an electronic karaoke.

Then again a few years later as the PC became more powerful and were able to record audio on several tracks and play them back while recording another track, we were on the front of the wave here as well. We stocked many different sound cards depending on how many tracks you wanted to record at once. We were also one of the first stores to stock the first CD-R Rom burners that recorded at 1X speed (real-time). That meant that if your CD was 50 mins long it would take that long. You would pray every time you burnt a CD, if Windows had any kind of hiccup or decided to do something more important the burn failed and you had that was known as a Frisbee (the only thing you can do with a failed disc). We did very well from this part of the business for a time but soon the Sydney stores caught on and hired people with the necessary skills.

We joined World Of Music buying group in 1989 put together by group manager John Martin. This gave us the chance to coordinate stock at bulk buy prices and distribute out to other members in the group. Also we were able to do national advertising campaigns for TV and print mediums we could never afford by ourselves. One of the largest benefits for us was the colour catalogue. We would distribute 1000's of catalogues to every home from Shoalhaven Heads to Ulladulla. It never failed and would always see a huge spike of sales when used. Two examples of catalogues are provided below, one from early times and one from 2003.

Shops...
We started in shop 8 and we expanded into several different shops in the arcade when it became necessary. We used shop 2 as a organ and piano showroom and built in two teaching studios. When shops 7 & 8 came on the market we decided we would purchase them rather than pay rent. As luck would happen eventually we added shops 9 & 10. We rented shops 7 & 10 to other businesses and used 8 &9 as SCM putting a door way between them and moving the organs and pianos from shop 2 into 8.

Shop Front 1993

Shop 9 Laundromat and Stewarts wool shop 1993

Shop 9 New fit out late 1993 New store room and amp room at rear.

Moving stock into shop 9

My father Doug with paint brush in hand

More security bars required to keep the wolves at bay.....

Clinics... were a big part of our Business. We would hire a venue, our suppliers would provide an artist, we would move some of our stock to the venue and put on a show. These were very popular and we were able to attract up to 400 people to an event when city stores were only getting under 50. So our suppliers supported these as often as possible. We did clinics for Technics keyboards, Maton, Fender, Ibanez, BC Rich and Jackson guitars, Mapex and TAMA drums, Boss, Zoom and Digitech effects, Yamaha keyboards and possibly more. Some of the people were repeat presenters and include:
Michael Fix (Maton Guiars)	Todd Hunter (of Dragon)	Killing Heidi	Rex Goh (Air Supply)
Finbar O'Hanlon (BC Rich)	Ian Jones (Mapex)	Adam Pedretti (Mapex)	Adam Church (Mapex)
Terry Murray (The Fargone Beauties)		Phil Manning (Takamine Guitars) 1993
Plus representatives of the various companies:
Billy Moore (CMI)	Claver Harper (Pro Music)	Dave Hinds (Australis Music)	Glynn Mason (Fender Aust.)
Adam Karolewski (Dynamic Music)	Rupert Hyde (Kawai)	Then the talent of our staff


Bomaderry Bowling Club auditorium was a regular haunt for us. Rex Goh clinic May 1998	Bomaderry RSL auditorium - Fender clinic 11 May 1999

Rex Goh and Dave Hinds May 1998	The stage is set for our Fender clinic 11 May 1999

Ian Jones and Adam Pedretti 22 February 2001	Technics Keyboard KN1000 clinic 1991

Terry Murray 11 May 1999	Finbar O'Hanlon

Michael Fix Bomaderry RSL November 1998	Billy Moore Bomaderry RSL

Staff...we couldn't have done this all by ourselves so over the years added more staff. In the end we had 6 staff members. One particular member no only was a great demonstrator, musician and teacher he also had building and electrical skills and went beyond duty by building studios and amp rooms for us . I have not sought permission to mention their names or use photos so you will not find them mentioned or displayed here. Photos of staff in the above catalogues have been blurred for the same reason.

Some Brand Names Stocked in the First 20 Years
Organs Pianos	Beale, Hammond, Kawai, Technics, Samick, Steinbach, Wurlitzer, Young Chang, Yamaha, Zimmermann
Keyboards Synthesizers	Technics, Korg, Kawai, Roland, Wurlitzer, Yamaha
Guitars Acoustic	Cole Clark, Daisy Rock, Fender, Godin, Maton, Martin, Ovation, Samick, Seagull, Takamine, Washburn, Yamaha
Guitar Electric	BC Rich, Charvel, Cort, Danelectro, Daisy Rock, Epiphone, Fender, Gibson, Godin, Ibanez, Jackson, Peavey, PRS, Washburn, Yamaha
Amplifiers	Behringer, Boss, Fender, Hartke, Laney, Marshall, Peavey, Vox
PA	Behringer, Bose, Electro-Voice, Fender, Peavey, Samson, Yamaha
Effects & Recording	Akai, Behringer, Boss, Digitech, Kawai, Ibanez, Tascam, Roland, Yamaha, Zoom
Drums Cymbals	Mapex, Meinl, Paiste, Pearl, Tama, Roland, Sabian, Sonor, Zildjian
GMI	Augustine, D'Addario, DR, Dunlop, Ernie Ball, GHS, Suzuki, Yamaha, Hohner, Lee Oskar, Sennheiser, SIT
Microphones	AKG, Audio Technica, Behringer, Electro-voice, Rode, Sennheiser, Shure
Brass Woodwind	Amati, Armstrong, Conn, Jupiter, Moeck, Yamaha
Plus lots more.....

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