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Edney has come a long way in a short time. Six years ago, he found himself driving through St. Mary's in the middle of the night. "I thought, wow, what a gorgeous town, and I came back during the day to see it in the daylight." He instantly fell in love with the architecture and rolling hills and the river meandering through town, and he decided he'd found the place he wanted to live.
Moving there was easy, but for the next three years, he commuted to Newmarket, where he was selling advertising for the local Junior A hockey team and working on his broker's licence. On the weekends, he was off playing shows with Tara Tuma, the band he'd started with some high school friends in 1987 and had continued to play with since.
"I realized I'd moved here because I wanted what the town has to offer, and I hadn't been able to take advantage of it," he says. "I decided I've got to create something here that can keep me in this town."
After briefly considering a restaurant – having worked in the industry in the past – his market research told him to drop the idea. But he discovered there was a need for music lessons, and it brought together his love of music with his past work in marketing and sales.
He envisioned a small shop that would allow him to teach and sell some instruments and accessories to students and others – along the lines of what the current shop has become. "But I didn't think of it as quite this big," he says.
His marketing expertise kicked in with the branding of the shop. "I could have called it Rob's Music Shop or I could have called it the International Academy of Music, but I thought, no, we've got to have some fun with this. Let's leave those two trains." Then he had a flash of inspiration. "I thought if I call it the world's coolest, the young kids will believe this, since as far as their world goes, it's the only one; it is the coolest. And for the parent's, it's tongue-in-cheek kind of thing."
Unlike many shops run by musicians that focus on high end equipment, Edney wanted to offer affordable equipment and lessons for the entry level and intermediate market. "Our mission statement is about introducing children to music in a fun and safe environment," he says.
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