BSG HISTORY

by Eric McKenna

Well – my friends – where to begin.

This is the very condensed version of the story of Boogie Street Guitars.

Boogie Street or BSG was started as a part time, online, guitar selling ‘project’ or ‘hobby’ by yours truly in March 1999.

In 1999, through a lot of curious and hard work and with the timing of massive growth both at ebay and the internet in general – my hobby just took off.

So much so that around Christmas of 1999 I had this ‘crazy’ idea of taking it full-time come January of 2000.

With just about everyone in my life telling me I was nuts or irresponsible or selfish, I left my rather comfortable corporate job and started – Boogie Street Guitars.

And the rest is history.

Well, it was not quite that easy.

Boogie Street Guitars marketed other dealers new stock and used guitars from 1999 up until about 2003 when I finally convinced a major manufacturer to work with me to build ‘custom’ versions of their already established designs. That manufacturer was Washburn Guitars.

The Boogie Street and Washburn relationship continues to be fruitful and amazing – and I believe has helped both companies expand not only in the marketplace but expand in customers opinions of ‘custom’ and quality.

In early 2007 Boogie Street Guitars teamed with Bernie Rico Jr. Bernie is the son of Bernie Rico Sr, legendary guitar builder and founder of B.C. Rich guitars. Since our partnership, Boogie Street has brought to market some of the most downright amazing and beautiful electric guitars to market and the realtionship continues to grow – rapidly.

In 2007, I also approached Bernie Rico about helping me bring a guitar shape to the market. At the time of this writing, the guitar is tentatively called ‘Brutus’ and the small guitar company I’ve created is titled “Major”.

So there you have it – for now.

Below is Boogie Street Guitars’ latest promotional video – DECENNIAL.

If you have about 20 minutes – it’s sure worth a look. Enjoy!

Pretty cool, huh?

Since early 2004, Boogie Street Guitars has been located in a 2000 square foot private office in the Pittsburgh suburb of Rosslyn Farms. I’ve set up Boogie Street as a purely private experience. Boogie Street is not a walk-in store. And we don’t market strings or picks. And we don’t give lessons. We do indeed accept in visitors who are interested in a particular guitar we have. However, please note that visits are purely by appointment. We do not have ’standard’ business hours.

One of the industries finest guitar techs, Freddy Kowalo, has his operation within the Boogie Street offices. Freddy inspects and sets up ALL guitars that Boogie Street sells. Fred is usually at Boogie Street 1 or 2 days a week and does custom set-up and repair work strictly on an appointment basis.

Thanks for reading – and watching!