We were kids before box stores, internet sales, and ... shucks, years before the internet itself. Back then one of the few places you could buy a drum or cymbal in this neck of the woods was a little music store called Banko's, a tiny mecca in the Naugatuck River Valley town of Ansonia. Banko's was legendary. Jaguars and Silvertones hung from the ceiling like stalactites. Voxs and Super Reverbs were canyon walls marking a path from the door to the cash register where you would find Frank Banko, a gentleman who confided that he'd once won a date with beauty queen Bess Myerson. If the avalanche of instruments wasn't cool enough, Banko's had a 40% off list price policy -- standard practice today, but exceedingly rare back then. One visit made you a believer.
Frank has been gone for awhile and most of the rarities he sold when they were standard issue/no-big-deal instruments have been gone for decades. Recently, however, the store changed hands and is headed toward a dual role as both a store and community music center. We had the good fortune to poke around in the mysterious innards of the building and will be offering what we discovered. We didn't find any Supraphonics in the original wrappers, but we did come home with a large cache of useful vintage parts, hardware, heads, sticks, and exotica. We'll be getting these treasures into the shop soon, so as the saying goes, "watch this window!"
Frank has been gone for awhile and most of the rarities he sold when they were standard issue/no-big-deal instruments have been gone for decades. Recently, however, the store changed hands and is headed toward a dual role as both a store and community music center. We had the good fortune to poke around in the mysterious innards of the building and will be offering what we discovered. We didn't find any Supraphonics in the original wrappers, but we did come home with a large cache of useful vintage parts, hardware, heads, sticks, and exotica. We'll be getting these treasures into the shop soon, so as the saying goes, "watch this window!"
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