Music Store, School Exhibits 'Amazing' Grace After Three Decades

“We’re just jamming out, we’re just starting to really, really blossom,” Patrick Hildebrand said of , even though his local landmark music school and shop has entered its third decade.

Amazing Music Store, a place where people can buy instruments and learn to play them, is where Hildebrand and his teachers instruct pupils on all instruments to play all genres of music. It has been located at 867 Swarthmore (in the alleyway behind Antioch Street’s south side) since December 1980. That’s the same year AC/DC’s hard rock classic Back in Black was released, to put it in perspective.

The proof is in the pudding: check out the store's YouTube clips to see a diversity of energy and goodness emanating from behind Amazing Music's padded, sound-proof walls.

In addition to Hildebrand, a crack team of instructors assemble at Amazing Music to teach aspiring musicians how to play. There’s Michael “Beans” Benigno, “an awesome percussionist,” as Hildebrand puts it, and Hildebrand’s son PJ, who teaches guitar, bass and ukulele. PJ just played in front of 1,000 people a few weeks ago in Colorado with his band The Ooks of Hazzard at Denver’s annual Ukulele Festival. Diana Nile trains people on piano and bass while Justin Citron, who teaches guitar and bass, just launched a band called Trick Pistol.

Thanks to PJ, who has two kids, and daughter Tracy, Hildebrand is a grandfather five times over. But you’d never know it meeting him, he’s just another dude on a musical trip, man!

“We’re doing great with the guitars and the ukulele and the drums and the piano,” Hildebrand said. “We’re just having a great time.”

Hildebrand is proud of his myriad students who have gone on to high achievements in the music industry.

“Travis Powers used to teach here, he does all the sound effects for The Simpsons,” Hildebrand said.

He also noted that Marie Digby, who learned to play guitar at Amazing Music, has just signed with Disney's Hollywood Records while Group Love lead singer Andrew Wesson also honed his guitar skills at the school. Skyler Fiske  (Sissy Spacek’s daughter), Debby Holland of Animal Logic with Stanley Clarke and Stewart Copeland, and Eric Lynn, who plays with Jackson Browne and is the head engineer of Shangri La Studios in Malibu, all count as Amazing Music alumni.

“We’ve been doing it for a long, long time,” Hildebrand said of his business, which actually predates the store itself and goes back to 1973.

Back in the 1970s, Hildebrand and friends jammed a the Arts in Action festival at the Palisades Recreation Center. He also played the long-gone Midnight Madness shows, and more recently, Hildebrand has provided the soundtrack for three annual business expos in a row. Hildebrand, at Expos past, has led a group of his teen students who cut their teeth at his studio on covers of songs by the Beach Boys and other feel-good California bands. Hildebrand and friends will once again play the Palisades Business Expo 2011 come May 15.

“We love to teach,” Hildebrand said. “We’ve taught thousands and thousands of people. We love to give them a good positive musical experience. That’s basically what we’re all about.”