Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre

Canada's smallest music store

Jeremy Behn

UPDATE ON OUR TRANSITION

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As of August 31/21 the retail location for Mtn Fruit is no longer. We, Kevin John and I, Jeremy Behn, are moving the repair aspect of the business to a home based shop. We have a growing list of repairs to resume when the new space is ready, which will be some time in October. For the moment the business name, phone number (messsage only) and email, website and FB page will remain the same. The new physical address (which used to be 312 4th St) will not be posted as this is my home. Repair work will be by appointment only and the address given during these arrangements. There will be no retail at the home location. I will update this post once we resume repairs, thanks again for your patronage and your patience!

COUNTDOWN TO RETAIL CLOSURE!

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Reminding folks that as of August 31st the entity known as Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre will no longer be occupying their location at the Kemball Memorial Bldg. This entity was seemingly comprised of the collaborative energy of Kevin John and Jeremy Behn but it was moreso the all inclusive synergy of every musician or person who came thru our entrance and connected with us. Whether about the repair of their instrument, the purchase of an unusual consignment or to tell us they’d been married right where we were standing 30years ago! We’re going to miss connecting in this space but look forward to new venues of connection and creative collaboration. Hope to see you for a good bye before we close and perhaps you can take home a good deal to help me get rid of all this ‘stuff’! Musical ‘stuff’ though it is!

CANADA DAY CELEBRATION DEFERRED

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Letting folks know that we are closed today, not in celebration, but in support and allegiance of my friend and apprentice Kevin John. Whose father is a residential school survivor. Having grown up in the midst of four indian reservations I am only, just now, coming to full realization about why they exist at all. We are closed today in memory of the ‘children’ and their families who were torn apart, abused and many ‘murdered’ by the newcomers to this land. Also in recognition that abuse and oppression is ongoing against first nations peoples. I must do my part to help shape a canada that is fully participating and acting to heal, value and cherish our indigenous brothers and sisters. What that looks like exactly for me will unfold moving forward but I’m starting by saying we have some listening and compassionate work to do if we want to celebrate this place along with first nations in the future.

Mahsi Cho

Jeremy Behn

CLEARANCE SALE

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Hi Folks,Beginning today until the end of July all accessories are 15% off! All instruments are 10% off (consignments subject to owner approval) until the end of July! Plus we will randomly pick items for one week rotations of more aggressive mark downs (these will be more spontaneous and not online so visiting the store is how to reveal these offers). We have some interesting new Eastmans in stock and some excellent consignments, including a Fairbanks/Vega Tubaphone Banjo with Bart Reiter neck. Come visit, message, email or phone us for further info. Clearing most of our inventory by summers end is the goal which may be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for! Look forward to connecting over the summer…

CHANGE A COMIN

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To all the wonderful folks who have graced us with their presence at Mtn Fruit over the years. We are transitioning to a home based shop at the end of this summer. We’ll be focusing on repairs and exploring yearnings to handcraft our own instruments. Can’t find the words to say how incredible it’s been to have connected with so many beautiful people in Canada’s smallest music shop and we look forward to continuing that relationship with our new direction!
Mtn Fruit

PLEASE ASLO NOTE OUR CHANGE FOR SUMMER HOURS…

No longer open on Saturdays as of May 1st! Apologies for any inconvenience!

Thanks Mtn Fruit

Repair and Retail Opening Full Time!

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After testing the waters out for a couple of weeks we’ve decided its time to hit the ground running! We have had a steady stream of repairs and inquiries over the last two weeks and in order to keep up we are very happy to announce that Mountain Fruit Folklore will be returning to our regular pre-pandemic hours:

Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5.
Closed for lunch 1-2.

Experienced luthiery work from restringing, to refretting, neck sets, full restoration, to bow rehairs, crack repair, violin family set-up, bridge work, and more! Including a line up of new and used stringed instruments and accessories!
Come say hi! 

Repair and Retail Opening Part-time

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We are very happy to announce that Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre is re-opening!
Please only one person/household in the store at a time, as it is a small space.

Our schedule is only part-time for now. We are testing the waters at 3 days a week: Thursday, Friday & Saturday 10-5. But that may change depending on how business goes week-to-week, so keep your eyes open. We are just going to move with the current on this one.
We are always open to make appointments an email is probably the fastest way to get in touch with us outside of business hours: info@mtnfruit.ca

“Octave Viola” or “Chin Cello”

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Here at Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre we have a healthy obsession with the unusual and uncommon. This viola will be getting a special set of strings designed to allow it to play a full octave lower than a traditional viola. Putting it down in the cello range.
The initial fitting of the bridge to the top is complete. The fit will be finalized and the remainder of the carving including enlarging the heart and kidneys will happen once the Wittner fine-tuner tailpiece arrives.

Stay tuned in to our blog for the next set of in-process photos!

Yonder Still

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In our latest instalment of Live From The Pew, Luthier Jeremy Behn steps out from the work bench to deliver an original song.
Yonder Still is an honouring song to all of our loved ones who have gone before us.

Recordings

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Chris Cullen had the opportunity to record the Vespers and Eastern Orthodox chanting put on by Father Nellis and his parish, it was a really interesting and enlightening experience and it produced a lovely recording.

If you have any interesting ideas about local and community recordings or content please contact us and let us know.

Happy New Year

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We’ve had the pleasure of having Carl Marsh and Tom Van Deursen sit down at the pew and play a song for us recently and we are excited to continue the Pew series into the New Year with more local performances lined up.

Natasha Hall & Yoomi Kim – Live At Saint Andrews

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Chris Cullen had the pleasure of recording another Christmas concert for us and it turned out really well. Amazing performers and performance and a lovely space, we would highly recommend seeing them the next time they come to town.

Holiday Hours

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Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre will be closed Dec 22 – Jan 6th
Regular working hours will resume on Tuesday Jan 7th, 2020.
Happy Holidays to all, and travel safely

Live From The Pew Returns

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Live From the Pew is back and we are so excited, to revamp this series with a brand new standard of production quality brought to us by Chris Cullen and Kevin John. We hope to continue this series for a long time to come and want to feature the many local artists Kaslo is home to.

Breedlove 12-String Bridge Repair

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This Breedlove Twelve-string came in with the bridge blown off.   It is signed on the inside by Larry Breedlove and Steve Henderson and the label shows it was made in Tumalo, OR in 1991, which means it was built before the Breedlove Company officially went in to production.

There is a “good-old-fashioned” glue-the-bridge-to-the-finish trick that almost all commercial builders use to make it look like they’ve done an immaculate job of removing finish from the area where the bridge will be glued to the top. Rather than removing all of the finish beneath the bridge they leave some behind. This means the bridge is resting up on that layer of finish and wood-to-wood contact of the joint is minimal. You’re sacrificing tone and sustain big time, as well as endangering the longevity of the joint… BUT it does look like you did a very neat job… and it’s way easier to do. I’m sure there is an equation that shows that the number of bridges that blow-out is out-weighed by the time saved on doing a proper job.

I traced the outside of the bridge with a knife and began removing finish to the line. Here is an in-progress picture; the top and right edges have had the finish removed to the score line. You can see how the line I traced along the bottom and left hand side still has plenty of finish inside it. The unique outline of this bridge made the process way longer than with your standard acoustic guitar bridge that you would find on most guitars.

 This design of the bridge also contributed to the joint coming undone. It is made up of three different pieces of wood with some different grain directions. The lack of bridge pins changes the direction of force exerted on the bridge by the strings. Combine this with the odd shape and you have a piece of wood that is prone to warping and a joint that is prone to coming undone.

After removing finish to the score line we level the area of the top and set the bridge in place on the raw top wood to see where and how much it is warped. Time to start fitting the bridge to the top using a combination of removing wood and bending wood with heat and water. After a whole lot of patient and careful work we have arrived at a very nice joint and it is glued up with hot hide glue, the luthier’s favorite.

And the moment of truth… It’s holding under tension! As we’d expect with a solid wood-to-wood mate. This joint is much more sound than it ever has been, but it’s always a suspenseful moment when you put strings on a guitar for the first time after a major joint is re-glued.

The guitar sounds great! We’re are more than happy at being able to give this guitar back to its owner with many years of life in it, and sounding better than ever.

Assiniboine & The Red – The Small Glories

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Cara Luft and JD Edwards have done it again. This a pair of truly brilliant storytellers. Critics have put them up there with Shovels & Rope, and Mandolin Orange as some of the most prestigious contemporary musicians of their genre.

It’s been said many times that a place will make such deep impressions on a person that it can not be helped but to influence their art, and I hear the Canadian landscape portrayed here in all it’s diverse beauty.

The album opens with a heartfelt love song to Alberta that makes even this mountain boy feel a yearning for the prairies. “Johnson Slide” tells the tragic story of the natural disaster that took the lives of a family very close to many of us in this community. In each case, every part in every song has been carefully tailored to best serve the story being told.

Every moment is ripe with emotion and story, in direct lineage from the likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. “(Seeger) was the king of uniting people through singing,” Luft says. “There’s so much animosity and divisiveness in our world these days… as artists, part of our job is to somehow create unity.”

Add this to the list of great albums of 2019!

Fragile, Handle With Care

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We were pretty shocked when we unboxed this guitar to find that it had been badly damaged during shipping. It must have taken a very hard blow to the top. As you can see in the pictures we have a crack about 14″ long. There were a couple of other smaller cracks which will have to be dealt with as well, and the four braces that crossed the split had come detached from the top. We decided it would be a good opportunity for the apprentice to gain some experience on a big job.

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