 Oh, how time sure flies. This month, we celebrate our 25th anniversary. Our first issue came out in December 1983 and was evolved from Sound Arts magazine, which was also owned by Vinny Testa, publisher of Testa Communications’ four magazines: The Music & Sound Retailer, Sound & Communications, DJ Times, and ClubWorld.
Our first issue, which was called The Music & Sound Electronics Retailer, featured a photo of Quiet Riot in the upper-left corner that accompanied a story that debated if music videos help to sell instruments. “One negative factor in MTV’s ability to sell equipment used in the videos is the trend toward concept videos and away from live concerts, so that less exposure is given to the product,” we wrote.
However, dealers were reporting the music video boom was one of a few factors leading them to be confident for a strong holiday sales season. “Last year, everyone was afraid of spending their money, but that feeling is letting up,” we wrote. “There was a fear that something drastic would happen in the economy.”
 Our first issue reported that Unicord sued two retailers for “gray marketing.” Also covered was how January 1984 would be the biggest NAMM Show ever with 325 exhibitors sprawled across 152,345 square feet of space.
Goodman Music in Los Angeles was our first “Dealer Dossier” in that same issue. Electro-Voice ran our first advertisement on p. 2. Other advertisers in our premier issue included Peterson, Audio-Technica, Yamaha, Washburn, Fender, Ultimate Support Systems, and Panasonic.
Rewinding a little, Testa’s father was an electrician, but also a buff in terms of musical equipment. “He played harmonica but he put a guitar in my hands when I was 6 or 7,” Testa said during his NAMM Oral History interview. “It didn’t help that much. I never became a great guitar player. But it got me involved in the industry anyway.”
Testa, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up on Long Island, graduated from St. John’s University. Despite his interest in music, he initially planned on becoming an attorney, but things changed in high school. He began writing songs with a high school friend. His career sprung forward from there. He worked in a cubicle next to Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who wrote 53 hits, including “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling.” He also worked with another writing duo who weren’t slouches either: Carole King and Gerry Goffin. King and Goffin wrote 24 hits of their own, including “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “The Loco-Motion,” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman.”
Testa actually got to do a little more than just sit next to the famous songwriters. “In those days you did demos of songs for other artists, so if you wrote a song for the Ronettes, you’d try to make it sound like the Ronettes,” said Testa. “So I got a lot of experience working in a studio with an engineer in those days. And being a freshman in college at the time, it was a pretty wild experience playing tambourine on some Goffin and King records. It was pretty wild!”
Although songs Testa wrote were not No. 1 hits, plenty made it as album “B” sides. He also became a popular music producer.
Dedicated to Serve You
Getting back to The Retailer, its February 1984 issue was marked as volume, 1, No. 1. So some might say the December 1983 issue was a predecessor to issue No. 1, tantamount to Amazing Fantasy #15 being the predecessor to Amazing Spider-Man No. 1 (although perhaps not as valuable). We’ll let you decide.
“I originally wanted to do an educational journal to teach retailers some marketing ideas and some merchandising ideas because musicians are often the ones who open music stores,” Testa said. “…For the most part, nobody grows up and says when they graduate with a master’s degree, ‘I’m going to open a music store!’ It’s the nature of our business, as it was at the time especially. So [providing] them with an educational journal wasn’t the wisest move. So one day I woke up and said, ‘Why don’t we make it like a newspaper? Make it like a tabloid and put some undercover spies going into retail stores and writing about them?’ And we did. We’re the only tabloid. It’s hip looking. It’s got a strong, strong readership, and it’s been a good, long run.”
 The Music & Sound Electronics Retailer was changed to its current name in January 1989. Before this issue, whose cover sports a silver background, the only other times the cover was not white were the June 1993 and July 1994 Summer NAMM issues featuring black covers. Other milestones include the debut of the Music & Sound Awards, which were first handed out at Summer NAMM in 1986. Award presenters included the late John Entwistle of the Who and Michael Winslow, famous for his impersonations in the Police Academy movies and, much more recently, GEICO insurance commercials. Winslow performed a dead-on Jimi Hendrix impersonation during the award ceremony. That night, Rose Ash was presented with a lifetime achievement award and West L.A. Music grabbed the first Dealer of the Year award.
MI Spy Debuts
 “MI Spy” debuted in October 1988 and although it may be both the most loved and hated in the magazine, it is perhaps the most talked about. So it’s MI Spy’s 20th anniversary this year. The column’s popularity made it possible to have entire issues dedicated to “MI Spy” in the past. One example was our July 1, 1999 issue when we had an “interview” with MI Spy to try to determine who he or she is. MI Spy gave little away, however. Spy has visited close to 1,000 retail stores in his/her 20 years of service and has undoubtedly racked up massive frequent flier miles.
Dan Vedda Joins Us
“Veddatorial” launched in 1996 and Dan Vedda, who owns and runs day-to-day operations of his Cleveland-area store, has at times been referred to as “the voice of the independent retailer.” Vedda’s first article was a guest editorial in July 1996. He became a monthly columnist in October 1996.
Vedda’s guest editorial had plenty of parallels to a topic very much in the news today: Best Buy. “Big-Box retailing has worked for Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Office Depot, and others, and for a commodity that most people use (like refrigerators, paper towels, Post-It-Notes) it seems effective,” Vedda wrote in July 1996. “However, you can make the big-box concept work only with high volume and airtight overhead. The big-box guys say that themselves. I also know from my years [working] at Sears, that the easiest cut to decrease overhead is payroll. Hire fewer people, pay ‘em less, and cut the coverage to the bone. The last couple of times I was in Best Buy, I really annoyed its employees by asking questions: ‘Do you have this TV in stock?’ and ‘Can you call me when this printer is available?’ (The answers to both were no). We can’t get away with that in our industry.”
Vedda also writes other assorted news stories, and columns, including “Print For Profit,” which offers print music sales advice, and Drum Corp International reviews. He has spoken at NAMM shows on several occasions and is part of NAMM’s Recreational Music Making group.
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