Invitation to the 1st Rockademy Live Show

This Saturday and Sunday, the staff of The Laboratory will enjoy the distinct privilege of presenting the first performance of Rockademy Live. The event will feature students of The Laboratory's music instruction program, performing live at The Cherrywood Lounge in Clementon, NJ. The ensemble will be performing classic rock and some newer material, with full production sound and lights.

Rockademy Live is the ensemble performance branch (rock school) of The Rockademy, The Laboratory's in-store music instruction program. Headed by veteran rocker Greg Helm, the group will perform two concerts this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday evening.

What is Rockademy Live?

What is a Rockademy? In selecting a name for the music instruction branch of The Laboratory, the League Of Crafty Marketing Officials endeavored to come up with a name that implied the serious nature of music study, but which also reflected the whimsical aspect of playing music. They scheduled a weekend retreat to a tiny atoll off the coast of New Hampshire, and mused about numerous concepts which more or less supported the mission, and which also tied in with the League's conviction that the logo be a dragon crushing a bowl of fruit beneath it's forepaw, a flaming sword held aloft in the other.

Being unable to craft a name which in any way supported the dragon logo, The League Of Crafty Marketing Officials opted instead for Rockademy. The consensus was that the word combined the term Rock with part of the term Academy. Upon their return to The Laboratory's Deptford Headquarters, or more specifically upon the auditing of their expense accounts, The League Of Crafty Marketing Officials were promptly sacked and replaced by a room filled with chimpanzees and typewriters. This left The Laboratory's executive board tasked with choosing between the chimps' suggestions, and that of their human predecessors. Rockademy ultimately won by a significant margin over the chimps' pick qwsrtychg difdj;dfg;fg/hl.

Let's see where was I.... hmmm.... the boss better be watching this time. There's no light back here, and I think this computer is supposed to be less full of chimpanzee hair.... Oh. Yes. This weekend:

What are the details?

Saturday's performance will be from 5pm until 7pm. Sunday's will be from 4pm until 6pm. The Cherrywood Lounge is located at 1460 Blackwood Clementon Rd, Clementon, NJ 08021.

This will the first live outing for the program and its talented young participants. We're sure it will be a fine couple nights of rocking. Please come join us to see these next generation rockers take the stage. Admission is $10. Tickets are available for purchase at The Laboratory, at the door, and from the Rockademy students.

The Cherrywood's kitchen and bar will be open.

Thanks for reading!

The Ministry of Weekly Specials 

Two Stories About Clearance Items and More

Being our first message of the new year, we have an amazing amount of news to share with you. We picked the most pressing topics for this installment and are saving the rest for later.

Clearance Items!

"OK, old inventory. This is it! This is the end of the road!

Look, it's not you, it's me. I mean, we've been though a lot together. Arriving on the delivery truck, entering into the inventory listing, getting tagged with a price, hanging out with a customer or two. But enough is enough! We've dropped enough hints. The odd sale here, the coupon there, I mean, the writing's been on the wall. It's time for you to go.

It's nothing personal, it's just that, well, there's somebody else. Lots of somebody elses, in fact."

And so goes our Dear John letter to select items in stock at The Laboratory. Except, instead of Dear, it's Old. And, instead of John, it's Inventory.

We've earmarked dozens of items for absolute, rock-bottom pricing. In many cases below our dealer cost. We thought they were really cool, but for whatever reason these items have been passed over. So we're removing all obstacles to price and pricing them to move!

Stop in our shop and witness the many colorful clearance signs hanging about the place. They're like little sheriffs, running out of town those items who have been holding down our floors for quite long enough, thank you very much.

Below, there is another version of this story. It's the truth about the clearance signs that have overrun our store, but we don't think anyone will believe us.

Best of South Jersey

It's that time of year where the readers of the Courier-Post get to vote for their favorite businesses in our area. And this year, we're in the running for Best Musical Instrument Store. We're asking everyone to put a vote or two in for The Laboratory since we're trying to be the best. Ballots are in the Courier-Post's South Jersey section on Friday, February 6th. Also, we have a ton of them at the store, as well as complimentary copies of the paper.

Let's let everyone else know what a great place The Lab is!

The True Clearance Tag Story

One day last month we opened the door to a delightful surprise! Or so we thought... It was a cold January morning, and there at our doorstep somebody had left a basket. In the basket, under some downy blankets, was an adorable litter of colored 6x4 cards! They looked so helpless, huddled together in their little basket. Our hearts melted, and so we took them in and gave them some Sharpie markers, which they are known to feed on. When mom came home, we begged her to let us keep them, and she too had to admit that the little 6x4 cards were too sweet to send back into the cold.

The next day, upon our arrival at the store, we checked on the cards, and sure enough they had gobbled up all of their Sharpies. We plopped another handful of colorful markers into the food bowl the little 6x4 cards shared, and set about opening the door for business. Imagine our surprise when we found at the front door with another basket of adorable little 6x4 cards! There were bright green ones, yellow, orange, red, a cheery spectrum of vivid colors. We called mom over, and with a sigh she said, "we're gonna need more markers!" The next day we found at the door still another basket of the shivering, helpless little 6x4 cards, their dewy eyes pleading for us to take them in. This was getting weird.

Such was our amazement at the newest litter of little 6x4 cards, that we hardly noticed the two previous litters behavior - at first. Having ravenously consumed their Sharpie marker suppers the night before, they were now stronger and bolder! With horror, we looked around and realized that all the little 6x4 cards were clinging to products in our store. Gone were their inquisitive expressions, and now they were etched upon with prices so low that our very senses of business strategy trembled. Beneath our feet, the new batch of little 6x4 cards was already scrambling from their basket, greedily raiding our desks for Sharpies, and scrawling massively discounted prices onto their faces before scuttling over to our fine instruments and accessories and attaching themselves.

A customer of our's cousin's sister's former roommate, who is a little 6x4 card exterminator by trade, informed us that the little cards and the products they attached themselves to could not be separated inside a music store. In a little known property of residual strong force of product placement and little 6x4 card symbiosis within retail music stores, the only way to separate the little 6x4 cards, once they have chosen a host instrument or accessory, is to sell that product for the reduced price. Only then is the life cycle of the little 6x4 card complete, and they can be safely laid to rest in any standard waste can.

Dear customer, you have done so much for us already, it is with the utmost humility and graciousness that we beseech you to help us. Please come to The Laboratory, and fret not the seemingly impossible discounts displayed upon the cards. These products must be freed from these cards, and only through your enjoyment of rock bottom close-out pricing can they be rescued. For us, it is too late. These products must go.

And we now know that, just because they make adorable chirping noises when eating Sharpies, little 6x4 cards are not a good pet to keep in a music shop...

Stop in, cast a vote for The Lab, and check out all the sweet deals on clearance items.

Thanks for reading!

The Ministry of Weekly Specials