Great deals and a big surprise: if you spend at least 30$ at Matt’s, you will get an Emergenza Ticket for free! here is an interview with Matt, musician and owner of Matt’s Music Center in Boston, Emergenza enrolment and meeting point! First of all: tell me your impression about your experience with Emergenza. So far Emergenza has been run very professionally and I''m glad to have my stores be a part of it! Do you think working with Emergenza is a way of investing in the future, that is in young musicians, who are your customers to be? The more young people that get involved in playing music, the better it is for all of us. It''s good to see a festival in Boston that encourages musicians of all ages and levels to get up on a stage and perform live. Is your aim to create a place to share musical experience, not only a plain music store? All of us at Matt's are performing musicians. Not only do we sell some of the best brands available at the lowest prices in the USA, but between all of us here we have a massive amount of experience in the music industry. Right now, between my two stores we''re teaching about 300 students a week. Plus, we have a huge website (www.mattsmusic.com) that features just about every product that we sell. We're not really just a plain music store, that's for sure! of course you are a musician, aren’t you? Sure I am! I started playing piano when I was 6, then switched to trumpet and I''ve been playing guitar since I was 12. I've got 2 degrees in music, one from Dean College here in Boston and one from the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood CA. Do you play in a band? I've got a band called Trigger Effect, we play modern metal or nu metal... whatever you want to call it, it's pretty heavy. A couple years ago we toured the northeast opening up for Iron Maiden and Rob Halford from Judas Priest. We were also picked as one of the best unsigned bands in the USA by Sam Goody Record Stores recently. In which way your being a musician affects the way you run the store? I Know what's good and what isn''t when it comes to gear. If I wouldn''t want to use it myself or play with someone that was using it... I probably won''t sell it in my stores. When and why you decided to set up a music store? I started working in a store in 1985 and I eventually worked my way up from taking out the garbage and polishing guitars, to running the place. After about 10 years of doing that I figured I'd go off on my own and open my own store. My first shop opened in 1996 and my second opened in 2002. It's been challenging but overall it's been a lot of fun. It makes me happy to see little kids learning how to play music, plus I get to hang out with some pretty cool people and I'm surrounded by some very cool gear! What do you think about Boston musical scene? Right now I think Boston's Music scene is a little weak. There aren't that many clubs for bands to go out and play live in and it's tough to get people to go out to see those bands that do gig. That's why a festival like Emergenza is good for Boston! Any special project for the future? We'll be having a big sale and selling all the gear used as the backline for the Emergenza gigs after the winner has been announced. And, we'll keep offering great gear at the guaranteed lowest price in the country. We ship all over the world so we'll continue to grow as long as the economy is strong. We may have Jenna Jameson here for a day in April supporting Jackson Guitars... check our website at www.mattsmusic.com for updates on this! I'd like to say "good luck" to all the bands participating in Emergenza this year! Any of the bands playing in the festival are entitled to special discounts and sales here at Matt''s Music. If you're in need of gear, get in touch with us and we''ll hook you up with some great<