Performance Music Center in Woburn to close after 37 years
WOBURN -- The Performance Music Center has been teaching musicians to play guitar and supplying them with instruments for nearly 37 years. Now three decades into it, owner Joe Mullens is calling it a career and closing the shop.
"Ever hear the saying, the plumber with the leaky faucet? That's me," Mullens said about his guitar playing after so many years of catering to the store over his strumming skills. "Forty years later, I still get a kick out of selling a kid his first guitar. I have always wanted a shop where this was the center of a community, and where so many people have met band members."
Joe used to play in a band with former employee and friend Anthony Resta, who is now a multi-platinum producer having worked with the likes of Duran Duran and Elton John.
"We have always had the best people," Mullens said. "When I first announced we were closing, everyone wanted to ask when the party is going to be because they want to get together."
Resta later teamed up with Carl Nappa who was Mullens' first guitar teacher at the shop. Nappa is now a Grammy-nominated audio engineer.
"Their careers got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I can go on and on with names, but put it this way, they both have Wikipedias," Mullens said.
Rock star customers
The past 37 years have not only seen famous staff members, but customers.
"Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith used to pop by when a motorcycle shop was next store," Mullens said. "Duke and the Drivers and Gary Pihl from Boston used to come in. Boston had a warehouse not too far from here."
Joe even outfitted the Pixies on their first national tour.
"The drummer used to buy stuff from me, and they go, 'We are going to Russia for a national tour.' I said, 'No kidding!' In fact, I have a postcard from him that he sent me from Russia," Mullens said. His postcard reads "the tour is great, but the food sucks."
After more than three decades of serving customers, there is only one question he has yet to answer. Someone asked him, "What will you do when you retire?" Mullens said he plans to fall in love with his guitar again.
"When you take what you love to do, and turn it into what you do, it means giving up what you love to do. You wonder if you would have done it," Mullens said.
The Performance Music Center will officially close its doors in October, however Mullens said there is still a chance that someone comes and wants to buy the store from him.
