http://islandcityacoustics.com/

Island City Acoustics, 201 Front Street, Minocqua, WI (2026)

09/14/2026

It’s Monday! And the Northwoods is finally slowing down a little bit. I know we have the fall motorcycle ride coming up and then of course Beefarama. But soon after that we should settle into a calmer pattern…. Maybe? 🤔 It’s been a crazy summer, but we’ve had a lot of fun! This last week as the weather changed Sylvia and I enjoyed a lot of playing on the dock and jamming with friends. As Sylvia and I have learned what it is to play with other people, we’ve come to realize that music is better together. There’s just something about sitting on the dock with your feet in the water, listening to the wind and the waves while you pluck away and sing together.❤️ It’s healing! We are closed now on Sundays, which is a nice breather. But if you need anything, feel free to give me a call or text and I’ll help you out. And moving forward we’ll see if we change our hours a little bit more throughout the week. But because we live in the shop, it’s really easy to be open because we just like spending our time in here. So if you ever see us in here outside of shop hours, just knock on the door and come on in! Thanks everyone for coming out and supporting the shop and supporting our jams, we love it! 🥰

09/11/2026

Happy Friday everyone! Every morning I get up and come out early into the shop with my coffee and play my mandolin. I practice for a while and let my brain dive deep into the music before the rest of the day begins to distract me. So after playing and doing a little thinking this morning. I realize that things are slowing down here in the beautiful Northwoods so we’re going to change our hours for the shop. 🕰️Monday through Saturday will still be 10 to 5 but we will be closed on Sundays. Since Artcoustics has shifted now to 2:30 to 5:30 we want to be available to be there. But that being said, there will be days when we will be open on Sundays simply because we’re hanging out in the shop which is an extension of our home. ❤️ So if you’re traveling through town and you need something, feel free to call the shop and if I’m around on Sunday, I’ll help you out otherwise if you see the door open, and the lights are on, come on in! It’s shaping up to be a beautiful day so get out there and enjoy it everyone!

09/07/2026

There’s a lot of pictures in this post, but we did a lot this week! The first picture is a sketch that was done while while someone was watching Artcoustics at Earth Goods yesterday afternoon. How cool is that!😍 She has incredible talent! Thank you for sharing that with us. We got to go to the Warehouse in Eagle River that has an open mic the first Friday of every month and see some incredibly talented people perform! We‘ll definitely be back. Sunday Artcoustics was a blast! And Sylvia performed for the first time ever in front of people with her fiddle! Great job, baby!🔥 We were entertained in the shop by several different people throughout the week.🤘 and we were able to connect a lot of instruments with their people this week as well. Thank you everyone for stopping out and supporting the shop and keeping us going. It means so much to have not only the support of the community, but all the tourists that travel to our beautiful hometown. We literally couldn’t do it without you and we wouldn’t want to do it without you! ❤️ we know that as Fall/Winter slows things down here in the Northwoods that we will do a lot of jams and workshops here in the shop and with other local businesses in town. We are working on new ideas to beat those Winter blues so stay tuned! We love this community!!!!! Making music together is not only a transformative but magical experience.

Here’s a little schedule shift for Artcoustics as we transition to Fall/Winter time. The time is now shifting and Artcoustics will be from 2:30 to 5:30 starting on Sunday the 13th. It will be an open mic and jam. September 27th is Beefarama weekend so we will have no Artcoustics that weekend which means the next Artcoustics to be scheduled after that will be on October 4th. That will also be an open mic and jam. But moving forward on October 18th, when the next one comes up, it will just be an open jam. We are going to try something different. So the 2nd Sunday of every month will be an open mic and jam and the 4th Sunday of every month will be a jam. OK, hopefully all that makes sense!

09/02/2026

Here’s our jam schedule for September! There could be changes coming up, but we’ll keep everyone updated. We hope to see everybody out at the jams and playing music with friends! 🤘🏻🎶 call the shop anytime with questions. We are open Monday through Saturday 10 to 5 and Sunday 12 to 4, for now… We might change up some of our hours this month. 715-614-0286. It has been brought to my attention by Perry “Bluegrass” Smith that there is a incorrect label on the calendar and Bluegrass jams are every other Monday NOT Tuesday!

08/31/2026

What a week! We had a lot of fun this last week here at the shop and out and about. It was “play on the porch day” on Saturday so we did that at the Minocqua Museum. Thanks Minocqua Museum! You’ll see that in the first video clip that comes up, everybody had a lot of fun, and even though it was gloomy and rainy outside, it was the perfect place to play with our friends! 🎶 We got to see our friend Nate Grebe perform out at the gaslight Square in downtown Minocqua, great job Nate! 🔥 we had a lot of people come through the shop this week and were able to help some amazing instruments find their new homes! A beautiful Eastman to friends and family so they could share it with everyone in their Home here Minocqua ❤️ and a gorgeous tone devil F-style mandolin also to someone who’s local! So much fun! One couple bought our last remaining Madsen guitar made by Andrew Madsen out of Neenah Wisconsin for their son as a gift. He is the last picture in the lineup here playing it a few days earlier. I bet he’s going to be surprised! And that brings me to another point, Andrew Madsen is currently finishing up two more guitars for us that we will have within the next couple of weeks so watch our page because I’m sure they will not stick around long! 🤘 And a big thank you to Jenny Dodge of Tempered Chaos Studios for letting us purchase her beautiful handmade stained glass guitar for our shop! It lights up at night and will bring beautiful colors to the shop over the long cold winter! ❤️ love it!

And finally our jam schedule is going to change up for this next month. I will post that here within the next couple of days so watch for changes. One to note right away is that Northern Waters Distillery will be closed on Tuesdays starting next week, so this coming Tuesday, 9-1 is the last jam there for the season, so come on out from 5-7.

08/29/2026

Come on out and join us!!

08/23/2026

Another little recap of the second half of our week as we gear up for Sunday Artcoustics over at Earth Goods! We jammed at Northern Waters Distillery, jammed at the shop and Sylvia and I worked on some songs together in a secret little spot that I know on a beautiful afternoon outside. A certain fellow (let’s call him Steve) once told me, “ I love to play my guitar in beautiful places”. So I took his advice, thanks Steve! Playing outside is awesome! Speaking of playing outside….. We got some new McPherson all carbon fiber guitars made in Sparta Wisconsin here in the shop, they’re amazing! Stop in and try them out.

We also got to see the Lakeside Hippie’s perform at Andy’s Encore, (you can see Perry getting his bass loaded for the gig). That was so fun! Lot’s of people stopped by the shop and supported us this week. Thank you everyone ❤️ We couldn’t do it without you! We also met Chase and Audrey from Caldwerwood Guitars in Iowa City Iowa this past week. They just opened their shop a couple of months ago! If you find yourself in their neck of the woods, swing on y and check them out! The last picture is of Chase getting surprised with a Mandolin for his birthday from his wife during our jam session. 🤘 That’s pretty cool! Thanks guys! The lead singer (Dave) from the band Janus stopped by and picked up a couple of sweet guitars. Then we had Chelle pickup this nice little Loar mandolin after I installed a pickup in it for her! We’ll see you at Artcoustics this afternoon!

08/21/2026

McPherson guitars!!!! 🔥 We are officially a McPherson dealer! These guitars are awesome, we just received our first two yesterday afternoon and they are something you absolutely must come into the shop to experience. Not only do they look absolutely amazing. They sound amazing as well. The two that we currently have are the “Sable” models. One with honeycomb carbon fiber pattern, and gold tuners, and the other with basket weave carbon fiber pattern, and black chrome tuners. They are set up with medium gauge strings, which is hard to believe because the action is so close I would never guess I’m playing medium strings instead of light strings. The fret-board floats above the top of the guitar to allow for more resonance along with the side hole cut out. There is no truss rod because there is no truss rod needed! The guitar is made with the relief built right into the neck and they send an extra saddle with if you want to change your string height. Super cool!! They both have pickups installed and custom hard cases. Did I mention they’re handcrafted right here in Sparta Wisconsin?!

I’ve been playing the Octave Mandolin and as usual my instrumental ADHD has kicked in again and now I need one of these guitars! I’m going to do my very best to resist keeping one of these and instead just play it while it’s hanging in the shop and hopefully someone will come in and buy one so I don’t have to be tempted anymore. Although then I will order more so I’m not sure that there’s a way out of this musical cycle, but there are worse things to deal with. 😆 Come on in and try them out for yourself. Open 10-5 Mon-Sat and 12-4 on Sundays

08/19/2026

I got a little behind on posting so here’s a quick post showing the last few days this past week. We had a lot of fun with Northern Waters Distillery jams. You can see “Mando Matt” behind me with his arm in a sling from rotator cuff surgery, (I did get him to smile, a little bit)! Even though he hasn’t been able to come out and join with his mandolin he has still come to the jams and supported us with some great singing, thanks, Matt and heal fast! I’ve been there before buddy! 💪 and we have a picture of Nate installing a pickup on a new Bourgeois guitar, good job, Nate it turned out awesome! And you can see Lucky Luke performing at Sunday Artcoustics hosted by Leah at Earth Goods. Always amazing, you never know who will be there! ❤️ A little clip from our bluegrass jam led by Perry. And of course, some pictures of the awesome people that came in and supported the shop this last week. There’s plenty more to come as well! As soon as I finish messing around with a few of the pictures of the Krazy Days event in Minocqua where we had Rough Sawn and the Lakeside Hippies play, I will post that as well. And if we don’t see some of you at the jam tonight at the shop, keep on rocking until next time! 🤟🏼

08/18/2026

We have a big weekend coming up! 2 shows in one!

You can find us over at Chequamegon Adventure Company (Andy's encore) this friday the 21st! We will be playing 5-8. Come on down and say hi!

But then on sunday the 23rd, we will be playing over at Bad Bones BBQ! Also 5-8. Come get some good food and hang out for a while 😄

We have one more gig planned for this fall, but it might be one of your last chances to see us for a while. That being said, we are looking for places to play this fall! So if you or anyone that you know is looking to book a local band, shoot us a message!

Take er easy pals! Hope to see you this weekend! 😀

Island City Acoustics

09/14/2026

09/11/2026

09/07/2026

09/02/2026

08/31/2026

08/29/2026

08/23/2026

08/21/2026

08/19/2026

08/18/2026

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