Depot Town has a new business that is sure to raise eyebrows with its name: Two Jerks Music.
The owners are two brothers – Mark and Ryan Teachout – who are originally from Flint but have fallen in love with the Ypsilanti community.
Depot Town isn’t known for its booming businesses, but rather for its beautiful infrastructure. It is daring to put a business on a side of town that most residents don’t visit, especially the local college students.
“We already have business here, we live here, we love Ypsi,” Mark said. “We’re the only music store in Ypsilanti too.”
Mark acknowledges the lack of visitors that Depot Town gets compared to big brother Ann Arbor, but he is hopeful that the summer will bring more traffic to Depot Town and his music store.
Customers might be rare to Depot Town, but music stores that sell vinyl are even more rare regardless of the location.
“It’s rare to find collectable records,” Mark said.
The Teachouts are aiming to bring real music back into the scene. Mark said that in order to really know music, you have to listen to a little bit of everything. Two Jerks Music wants to be that outlet for music that caters to all genres.
Two Jerks Music was a lifelong dream of Mark and Ryan that finally came into fruition in December.
“Business has been great since we have opened,” Mark said. “We have a lot of supporters.”
Mark said he wanted to thank his supporters by continuing to give them good quality music and introducing his small time record label called Animal Tapes.
“We [Ryan and I] like the idea of the people getting involved in their entertainment,” Mark said.
Connecting Animal Tapes to Two Jerks Music will bring such musical relief to a small part of Ypsilanti that needs to be reminded of what good music sounds like.
Mark also wants to put a record lathe in the store to give customers an opportunity to create their own music. Using the record lathe will be free of charge. It will also be connected to Animal Tapes and will give local music artist a chance to record new material.
“We’re not just a record store,” Mark said. “We sell collectables. We have an array of different music.”
Before selling records in Depot Town, the Teachouts had been selling and trading vinyl online.
“Most records are ones we’ve gotten offline or collected from a person who has a pile of records in their basement, but we always have to make sure they’re in good condition though,” Mark said. “The record also has to be rare but good.”
The perfect way to know if you have a good or mint condition record is evaluating the physical quality. The record needs to have little to no damage to be considered in good condition. The sleeve of the record also needs to be in good condition.
Mark emphasized that the rarity of the record is important, but not more important that the record being good music.
“People think because they have The Beatles or an Elvis record that it call sell. No, those records can be found anywhere,” Mark explained. “People even think that a classic record is by a person no one has ever heard of.”
There is no perfect way to figure out if you have a great vinyl record on your hands but visit Two Jerks Music to find out.
What’s next for Two Jerks Music?
“I just want to let people know that we’re here,” Mark said.
Two Jerks Music has been featured in a magazine published at Eastern Michigan University and continuously advertises on social media.
To know more about Two Jerks Music, like their fan page on Facebook and follow their blog on Tumblr to get more information about Animal Tapes.
https://www.facebook.com/twojerksmusic
http://animaltapes.tumblr.com/
