Final notes for Keeney Bros.

Keeney Bros. Music Center is closing after 30 years in Moscow.

The building, located on the corner of Third and Washington streets, is for sale, and owner Dale Kenney said he is liquidating the store’s inventory.

The business also had a Clarkston location that closed about four years ago.

“We have been the primary music store (in Moscow) for 30 years,” said Keeney, 67. “There have been others, but nothing like what we provided, especially with the repairs.”

He named COVID-19 and Amazon as his reasons for closing. His sales are 30 percent off what they were 1½ years ago, he said.

School bands and rock bands aren’t performing because of the pandemic, so those markets are gone, Keeney said.

“If you’re not out giggin’, you don’t need to buy strings all the time,” he said. “You don’t need to buy cables all the time.”

Vern Sielert, professor of trumpet and director of jazz studies at the University of Idaho, said he and his wife, Vanessa Sielert, director of the Lionel Hampton School of Music at the UI, used Keeney Bros. over the years for instrument repairs and to purchase various musical items.

He preferred getting his instrument taken care of at Keeney Bros. rather than sending it somewhere else for repair, Sielert said. He encouraged his students to go there, too, and many did.

“It’s going to leave a real void,” he said.

The closure marks the end of a business that began when Dale Keeney moved to Moscow 43 years ago.

A music store called the Music Room, which was located on the corner of Sixth and Main streets, where Maialina Pizzeria Napoletana is now, brought instruments for Keeney to repair at a Spokane music shop where he worked.

He accepted a part-time job at the Music Room while simultaneously starting Keeney Bros.

At first, the band instrument repair shop was in his attached garage. He then moved to another house, where he still lives, and operated out of that basement and garage for 12 years. After that, the business moved into the current building.

Besides selling and repairing instruments, Keeney played drums professionally for 49 years, including 36 years in a band called the Fabulous Kingpins.

The band played in cities like Spokane, Seattle and Boise, and it was a recent staple at the Pullman 4th of July celebration.

“As a drummer … you get to hit things and make people dance,” Keeney said. “Now what other profession do you get to make people dance and smile and have a ball? Music is it.”

“If you’re not out giggin’, you don’t need to buy strings all the time. You don’t need to buy cables all the time.”

Dale Keeney, owner of Keeney Bros. music center, explaining how the pandemic has cut into his business