Electric Ladyland sits proudly on 85 West st. Bristol, it’s been running since 1976 selling vintage guitars. Seeing how fast Bristol is developing it’s incredible that shops like this still survive as the rents are pushed up to pull in big businesses which strip the character out of our cities today.
Outdoor Live, an independent film company made this great documentary about the shop a year ago in which the shops owner, Steve Baker, starts by saying “What do you want me to do? Stack shelves in Tesco? It’s just not going to happen”. He started renting the shop for £5 per week in 1976. He bought a couple of cheap guitars, restored them and sold them…and so it went.
Steven genuinely cares about the music and the struggling artist. After watching the documentary you can’t help feel he’s built up a lot of good karma over the years…there’s also guitars in his store which you just won’t find at others…it’s a real treasure trove and you don’t get any hard sell.
Recent visitors to his store were Bear’s Den – band member Andrew Davie fell in love with a guitar which will now feature on their new album Red Earth & Pouring Rain due for release on 22 July. They made this short film about their visit.
You can pre-order the new album here: http://www.bearsdenmusic.co.uk/