Final note for music store Final note for music store (January 13, 2006)

After nearly 50 years, Sonica Music Co. shuts its doors

By Molly Tanenbaum

Tony Carcione fondly recalls how his music store on Castro Street was a community gathering place. He can still remember the names of the men who would stop by each morning for coffee and donuts on their way to work.

"It was like going to a barbershop where you hear all the news," Carcione said. "We had chairs back there and everyone had their favorite mug."

Carcione, 74, has long since retired, and the store he founded, now called Sonica Music Company, has switched locations, names and owners, though the intimate neighborhood feel remained the same.

But now, after nearly half a century in the community, the store will close its doors at 260 Castro Street at the end of this month. Sonica's window cases, once filled with instruments, are mostly vacant. Inside, the store's remaining stock of music books, accessories and guitars is all on clearance.

Mike Macgirvin, the owner since 2002, is sad to close the store after its long history in Mountain View -- but paying $1,000 out of his own pocket each month to keep it going was no longer feasible.

"I really love it, but at the same time, I have to eat," he said woefully.

Sonica, which was called the Mountain View Music Center until 2004, offered the complete package: lessons, instrument repair and rentals, and just about anything to fit the needs of budding music students and professionals. By selling high-quality instruments, contracting with local school band programs for music and instrument rentals, and repairing instruments in an honest, affordable way, it filled a niche.

But now, it's following in the footsteps of other independent businesses -- such as the recently closed San Antonio Hobby Shop in the San Antonio Shopping Center -- that have fallen victim to changing times.

"Small stores are just a thing of the past," Macgirvin said solemnly. He admitted that even his wife shops at Wal-Mart and Costco instead of smaller stores.

Tony Carcione III, son of Mountain View Music Center's founder, speculated on other factors leading to Sonica's financial troubles: the lack of funding for local schools' music departments, resulting in fewer contracts with the store; people with demanding jobs who have less time to devote to music; and the fact that popular instrument manufacturers like Yamaha will only sell their merchandise in bulk to certain stores for large lump sums.

The news of Sonica shutting down comes a year after Draper's Music Center in Palo Alto closed its doors. Both stores served multiple generations of community members over the years, and now the number of small music stores in the area is dwindling.

"I'm really sad that any independent music store goes down," said Diana Tucker, owner of West Valley Music on Grant Road in Mountain View. "It may give me more business, but it means the area is less healthy musically."

Tucker added, "It leaves open a big hole, between this and Drapers, for yet another big-box [store] in the area coming in and destroying the small-business atmosphere, which is bad for music because it's all about the one-on-one, not about large shelves full of things."

When the Mountain View Music Center first opened in 1956, it was hardly a struggle for Tony Carcione to attract business. An accordion player who had toured with the USO show in Korea and Japan earlier in the decade, he gave private accordion lessons around the Peninsula at $3 per half hour, and demand was high.

It wasn't long before he and a fellow accordion player, Ignatius D'Angelo, became business partners and opened up their first store on Sterling Avenue. They sold guitars and other instruments, and had small studios for teachers to give lessons in accordion and piano.

But that was just the beginning. In 1958, Carcione and D'Angelo moved the store to Castro Street, across from where it is now, and made it a full-line music store with more instruments, sheet music, accessories, and additional studios for lessons.

Because the Mountain View store was doing so well, Carcione was able to open a Los Altos Music Center on Main Street in 1963, which he ran until he closed it in 1986. D'Angelo ran the Mountain View store, which closed from 1976 until '86, when Carcione reopened it at its current location.

The store also changed merchandise to cater to the current trends in music. When the Beatles became popular, it focused more on guitars and drums. It also carried record players, then HiFis, then stereos -- and Carcione sold and repaired TVs on the side.

But the main thing that Carcione prided himself and the store on over the years was the high quality of service that the store provided. Even after he retired from the business, he continued to do repairs instrument for the store, which kept customers loyal.

"He must be one of a dying breed -- personal service and really caring for your instrument," said Joseph Tensuan, a Mountain View resident and musician who has been going to Sonica for as long has he's lived in the city -- 20 years.

"He's the only guy I trust to fix my instruments. Nobody else," Tensuan said. "He always wants to be there when he hands you the instrument so he'll show you what he did, and he'll show you what to do next time so you don't break it."

More recently, Tensuan has brought his son James, a St. Joseph 8th grader, to the store on weekends, and the two have purchased several instruments, including a ukulele and a guitar. James has also taken guitar lessons and wants to become a musician.

"I'm probably going to pass by there and think of it and be really upset," said James about the store closing.

When Carcione retired in 1986, his son, Tony III, took over the business until January 2002, when he sold it to Macgirvin, a former Netscape software engineer from Sunnyvale who had been funneling his own savings into the shop to keep it afloat. Macgirvin says he can't do that any longer, and that wants to go out quietly. He assumes that a restaurant will replace his shop.

With Sonica gone, local musicians will have to go to places like West Valley, Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, or Haight Ashbury Music in Sunnyvale.

Carcione is sad to say goodbye to Sonica, but says he feels good knowing that the store was able to touch the lives of so many budding musicians in the area.

"One of the nicest things that came out of it was that so many customers become your friends, and then we worked with the second generation, their children," he said. "A lot of the kids that took music lessons in the store later went into performing."

E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com

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