Carl’s Pro Band will close May 15, leaving The Music Shoppe as the sole musical instrument store in Bloomington-Normal.
Carl Thacker co-owns Carl’s Pro Band along with his son, Travis. Carl Thacker began his career working for The Music Shoppe in 1975, before becoming a technician for Illinois State University and then opening Carl’s Pro Band in 1994.
The business, at 1806 E. Empire St. in Bloomington, chose to retire the Carl’s Pro Band name and transfer leftover assets to The Music Shoppe, allowing Thacker to retire.
“It's just been a bit of a struggle finding skilled technicians and people that do what we do,” said Travis. “It's kind of a niche market and a niche field for sure, and there's a pretty large shortage of incoming younger technicians, and that's been our real big hang-up is finding somebody to be able to replace somebody with 50 years of experience.”
Many customers of Carl’s Pro Band also are familiar with The Music Shoppe in Normal. Certain school districts, including Unit 5 and District 87, were served by both businesses.
“It's all been a pretty smooth transition, and a lot of our clientele work with both us and The Music Shoppe, so it was a pretty natural fit,” said Travis.
Jonathon Breen, president and owner of The Music Shoppe, said the work done by the two stores was complementary.
“That's always been the foundation of Carl's Pro Band is kind of based on repair, and then the sales would come from that,” said Breen. “From our standpoint, we've had a wonderful repair shop for all those years, but when you look at the dedication to our showroom and the retail space that we've built, you know, our emphasis has been more on that front end.”
David Gualandi, technician and educational representative for Carl's, already has moved over to The Music Shoppe. Shannon Hord, store manager, will do the same in June. Travis Thacker plans to move onto opportunities outside the music service industry.
“I've been doing this for almost 30 years now, and I'm kind of ready to try something new,” he said.
Rekindling a relationship
Breen worked in the repair shop at The Music Shoppe while Thacker was still there. He became president of The Music Shoppe in 2018 after 14 years with Yamaha Corporation of America.
“At that point in time, Carl and Travis and I rekindled the relationship. I had always come in contact with them over the years, seeing them at shows and things during my tenure at Yamaha," said Breen. "And it was great to be able to get together with them. We would get together regularly talking about just kind of the area and how business things were going.
“And when this opportunity came — Carl voicing the desire to want to retire — it just was a very natural fit for us to get together.”
Travis Thacker agreed the timing was right, and it allows for more time for his father to spend with his grandchildren. It also will make for a summer where neither he nor his father work upwards of 60 hours a week — something he said is common practice for repair shops.
The official announcement of plans for retirement was made on the Carl’s Pro Band website on March 1.
“We wanted to do this with enough runway to announce the closure, and work through the transition and make sure that everything kind of lined up so that nobody was really left, you know, in a lurch,” said Travis. “Especially school-wise, because there's an on-ramp there to be able to get everything lined up and make sure all their instruments get fixed over the summer, and we didn't want to do it, you know, in a hurried fashion to where they were kind of left not taken care of.”
On May 1, The Music Shoppe took over rental agreements made with Carl’s Pro Band. The Music Shoppe also will take over school repair accounts and school routes. Some assets already have been brought to the Normal location, with more coming after May 15.
“We're really excited about the ability for us to continue on with the legacy that Carl's has established with their customers and being able to serve them going forward,” said Breen.
