London Harmony: Doghouse Read Online Free PDF

but I was just as proficient on the electric bass.  Beggars can't be choosers.
    I was sitting on a bench in a gorgeous park, it wasn't huge, like Central Park in Manhattan.  But it was quite relaxing.  I'd have to look up the name of it later.  I took a picture for my scrapbook.  Then I scrolled through the listings of one of the most musically affluent cities in the world.  Louie's Horn, there were a ton!
    One caught my eye, it stood out from the rest, probably because they had a picture of the place.  It appeared to be a half run down building, with so many instruments and parts in the windows that you couldn't see through the windows.
    It looked like a junkyard to the music gods and it was making me salivate. Broken Note was its name.  You can never judge a book by its cover.  They specialized in instrument and equipment repair but also carried instruments, and some really obscure brands were listed, marking them as elite to me.
    That is the kind of place that real musicians would flock to, not those antiseptically clean shops that treat instruments simply as stock on the shelves.  It was also the only one out of two hundred listings, thirty of which were in the city core, that had a perfect ten-star rating.  They were bound to have a public board I could scour and pin some cards.
    Unfortunately, I was a couple miles away at the moment.  I sighed and pulled up the transportation maps on my cell.  I grinned at it, amazed at the functionality of a modern phone, it was like having a complete office in the palm of your hand.
    I frowned as I read.  Apparently the buses and the tube only take Oyster Cards or credit cards for payment.  No cash, I wouldn't use my only credit card, I'm sure it was expired by now anyway.  I looked over at the taxis rushing about.  They would cost an arm and a leg.  So I looked up how to purchase an Oyster Card.  I grinned and looked up at the entrance to the Tube across the street.  I could get one at the station below.
    Minutes later I was the proud owner of an Oyster Card and on a bus heading across the city core toward Broken Note.  I hopped off the bus and a block later I was standing in front of music nirvana.  I noted a Tube entrance just across the street.  That was good to know, it would make getting back to the hostel easier.
    I looked around.  The building was plastered with playbills on every available square inch of outer wall.  It looked like an old auto repair shop or gas station to me.  That added to its charm.
    As I entered, an old style bell, on a coiled metal spring, tinkled above the door.  I was amazed at the dusty stacks upon stacks of instrument parts and instruments all haphazardly grouped together in some sort of chaotic semblance of order.  If you didn't know what you were looking at, you'd think it was someone's old uncle Jerry's stash of hoarded junk. To me, it was like looking at rolling hills of gold.
    I caught myself popping my earbuds out and whispering in awe, “Wow.”
    I heard a man cussing with a heavy Welsh accent, “Bloody hell.  One moment!”  I found a rack with an eclectic mix of music books and was surprised to find an old Jazz book, dated nineteen forty-eight.  I looked inside and there were some classics in it.
    The back counter had an antique cash register on it, and behind it a curtain parted and a thirty-something man stepped through with a gruff expression.  He had tanned skin, dark hair, and a beatnik patch of black hair on his chin.  Every inch of the muscular man was covered in tattoos, including his face.  I'd swear he just walked out of either a nineteen sixties television show or that modern Ink Artisans show.
    I smiled at him, he was a walking contradiction in the way he looked.  His gruff expression turned into a smile.  Then he asked, “And what can I be doin' for you, lassie?”
    I almost chuckled as he poured on the Welsh charm.
    I looked at the music I was holding.  “Well for one, I don't see any