Celebrating Nashville Music: Jason Gano Discusses 8th Avenue Guitar Works and Its Role in the Music Community

Takin’ A Walk Nashville - Buzz Knight Media Productions

In this episode of Taking a Walk Nashville, host Sarah Harrelson visits 8th Avenue Guitar Works in downtown Nashville, a new creative hub founded by Jason Gano,

Key takeaways

• Over 30,000 musical instruments are diverted from landfills annually by Merck LLC through refurbishment.
• Refurbished instruments receive personalized care from skilled technicians who are also musicians, adding emotional value and craftsmanship.

Main topics

• Sustainable music industry practices
• The history and transformation of a former Dollar General into a creative hub

Notable quotes

"We pay you for the mystery. That's what we pay you for." – Jason Gano on renovation challenges.

"There's a lot of love that has gone into every instrument that's here." – Jason Gano on refurbished guitars.

Conclusion

8th Avenue Guitar Works stands as a testament to sustainability, community, and the enduring power

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 4 (0:28) Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (0:35) On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus, or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (1:11) Taking a Walk Nashville. Hey Speaker 6 (1:13) everyone, it's Sarah Harrelson, your host of the Taking a Walk Nashville podcast. And listeners, today we have a special episode for you coming straight from 8th Avenue South in Nashville. We are at 8th Avenue Guitar Works. It's a new creative and collaborative hub from Merck LLC, which is Musical Instrument Reclamation Company. They just opened a few years ago, and I'm sitting here in the shop with the CEO and owner, Jason Gannot. Jason, thank you for being here today. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's so fun being here. I was at the grand opening, and there's people here testing out the instruments. And I know 8th Avenue South very well. My alma mater is Belmont University, which is right down the road. We're right across the street. You can see in the video Zany's Comedy Club is behind us. But this particular building that 8th Avenue Guitar Works is in now, it used to be a Dollar General store, correct? Speaker 3 (2:09) It was a Dollar General for 40 years. Speaker 6 (2:11) Wow. Speaker 3 (2:12) Yeah. And it was as Dollar General as it could be when we got the property. We walked in and they had cleared out, but they left a lot of the old fixtures and things. So you could still tell it was a Dollar General. Speaker 3 (2:27) general contractor was like, how are we going to do this? And I'm like, well, that's what we pay you for. And we ended up with this beautiful space. Speaker 6 (2:35) That's so cool. And talking about Nashville history, Natalie was telling me when you guys were cleaning out and renovating the place, you found some very historic artifacts, didn't you? Speaker 3 (2:46) Yeah, yeah. We had a license to sell tobacco that was from, I think it was the 20s or 30s. Speaker 6 (2:53) Wow. We Speaker 3 (2:53) found in the rafters. That's really cool. Yeah. And we managed to expose the brick here on the side of the building. And the original owner of the building came by and told us that those bricks were actually made downtown Nashville. Wow. Speaker 6 (3:13) And Speaker 3 (3:14) brought here to build the building in the 1800s. Speaker 6 (3:16) Wow. That's amazing. Such awesome history in this building. So let's talk more about this space and how it is used now. So for those who don't know, Merck LLC, it's the guitar manufacturing industry's leading partner. You guys keep over 30,000 instruments out of landfills every year, which is awesome. And Franklin Guitar Works, that's Merck's national online storefront offering refurbished guitars and parts. But now 8th Avenue Guitar Works, they offer... this on more of a hands-on in-store space so in the shop musicians can see feel and hear the instruments and what a thoughtfully refurbished instrument is like so Jason what makes refurbished and instruments different from newly made instruments yeah Speaker 3 (4:06) well first let me start by saying so MIRC has been the leader in our industry for taking back all of a company's instruments that got returned or instruments that didn't pass their quality standards to start with. And they don't really want to spend any more time or money on those instruments. They're concentrating on getting new instruments out the door. We buy all those, we bring those to our facility that's here in La Verne, and then we have 60 people that work on those instruments. And the biggest difference between a refurbished instrument and a new instrument is one of our techs has worked on it, who is a guitarist, is a wonderful technician, and... loves the guitar. So there's a lot of love that has gone into every instrument that's here. It's been set up, it's been played, it's been cared for by someone who really wants to make