The North Haven native is opening a shop where musicians can not only buy, sell, trade, & get repairs, but also hang out & chat about music.
NORTH HAVEN, CT — Long before he became a musician, Andre Roman used to ride his bike around his hometown of North Haven, past the green and the small row of shops lining Linsley Street.
Many years and bands and guitars later, Roman is opening a shop where musicians can not only buy, sell, trade, and get their guitars and amps repaired, but also hang out and chat about music.
The shop, Roman Electric Guitars, located at 4B Linsley St. in North Haven, will open its doors to the public for the first time on Saturday. Its proprietor is hoping it fulfills his lifelong dream of having his own storefront while offering musicians a new place to recreate some old-time vibes.
While the shop itself is brand new, the idea for the shop has been percolating in Roman’s mind for quite some time.
“It was always there in the back of my head for years how cool it would be to have a store,” he said, especially one in his hometown. Earlier this year, he was driving down Linsley with his mother and said to her, “You know if I was ever to have a store, those little spots would be perfect.” Two weeks later they were driving by once again and saw a sign on the door of the former North Haven Shoe Repair shop that said “business closed.” Soon after Roman was touring the space and then renting it. Renovations proceeded with the help of a multitude of family and friends to update what was needed while retaining some of the charm of the previous shop.
Stocking the store with gear was not an issue in the least.
“I’ve hoarded instruments forever,” said Roman with a laugh. “I’ve always had way too many, but not enough.”
Ant Reckart — Roman’s bandmate in rock trio Pinto Graham and fellow guitar aficionado — will be co-curating the selection of primarily electric guitars (though there are also a few acoustic guitars currently available). Amps, pedals, strings, drum heads, and drum sticks will also be for sale.
The space will also operate as a full repair shop — any kind of instrument repair from set-ups to refrets to refinishing, according to Roman. Sean Hannah of Heavytone Amplifiers will be handling the shop’s amp repairs while Roman will be handling all of the guitar repairs with the goal of keeping it affordable as well as affable.
“We’re all musicians who were broke forever,” he said with a laugh, “so I want it to be a place that people can come and feel like we’re not pricing musicians out.”
The initial inventory consists of guitars from Roman and Reckart’s personal collections, and they want the shop experience to be personalized as well.
“We want musicians to come in here — local, traveling, touring — and be able to comfortably buy an instrument that’s play ready,” he said.
One of those instruments is a 1965 Harmony Rocket that Roman referred to as a “classic American-made guitar.”
“If a musician came in and played it they would say, ‘Wow, this is a great guitar.’ It plays great, sounds amazing, it’s just a great guitar,” he said.
Other guitars in the shop right now include Fenders, Gibsons, a Univox Hi-Flyer, and a “super rare” matching pair of guitars from 1972 by Hagstrom. The selection of amps available include Vox, Fender, Orange, and Ampeg. Roman plans on keeping a mixture of vintage and new pieces available and, judging by the amount of people who have already been contacting him about consigning, he thinks the inventory stay in rotation.
He wants to keep the consignment percentages “fair” and is also open to swaps.
“I’d rather people be happy with what we can give back to them,” he added.
Roman — who can currently be seen and heard around the New Haven area playing live with the bands Pinto Graham and The Danglers — got his first guitar at age 10. A Dinosaur Jr show with his father and brother a few years later — “I was like, that was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard,” he recalled — cemented his “total obsession” with guitars. After playing in a few bands in high school he ended up playing bass in Murdervan, a well-known and highly revered New Haven-based band that toured “a lot.” He honed his guitar repair skills while doing all of that touring, getting used to fixing “unpractical problems” with guitars on the spot with limited time to do so, getting better at it as he went along. It got to the point where people started bringing him their instruments to fix when he was home as well.
Living and working in New Haven also helped Roman develop long lasting friendships and connections in the local music community, specifically his job at now-closed Cutler’s record store where he worked for around 12 years, calling it an “amazing place to work” where “everyone was like family.”
“Working there introduced me to not only people in the New Haven music scene who then became lifelong friends, but to a world of music I hadn’t tapped into or even thought about at the age of 21 or 22,” he said.
Cutler’s was also where the seeds of the bands he played in were germinated.
“I was able to hang with people who had been around the scene for years, talking guitar, songwriting,” he said. “I’d get invited to jams, to fix people’s guitars…just being and living in New Haven at that time was super important to me.”
And speaking of jams, Roman is planning on hosting intimate live shows in the space, focusing on “acoustic, more mellow stuff” for now. The first of those is scheduled for Oct. 18 to celebrate the newest Ponybird album release with sets by Ponybird (aka Jennifer Dauphinais) and Lys Guillorn.
Roman is also interested in eventually hosting workshops where he can teach something like basic setups and/or instrument repair and maintenance.
“I’m grateful that people will pay people like me to do it [the repairs], but I think spreading the love is where it’s at,” he said. “It’s such a customized thing. We could have the same guitar, and I hand it to you and you would want it to feel different than I would.”
The shop will have a few non-instrument offerings as well. Musician Brian Harris, who also plays in the band Pinto Graham with Roman, will be curating a small selection of used vinyl. Roman has even put a call out to his visual artist friends with an interest in hanging some of their work on the walls along with the guitars. With the addition of records and art to browse, he hopes it helps make the shop a place where people want to spend time.
“We just like to sit around and BS about guitars,” Roman said. “If people want to do that, great. If people come in and want a set up and they have some time in the middle of the day, they can hang out here while I do it. I want people to be able to come in and feel comfortable.”
From the Dinosaur Jr playing in the background to the cozy sitting area near the entrance, it felt like Roman was already well on his way to making this spot a home not too far away from home.
Roman Electric Guitars has an Open House scheduled for this Saturday, Aug. 30 from 12 to 4 p.m. They are conveniently located on the bus line and free street parking is available as well. More information about the shop and its offerings can be found on their Facebook and Instagram pages. A website is coming soon.
The New Haven Independent is a not-for-profit public-interest daily news site founded in 2005.