BASEMENT ROUNDUP AT CORB’S HOUSE
Alberta country musician Corb Lund has a lot of leftover tour merchandise or “merch,” hanging around — T-shirts, shot glass, beer mugs and what have you. He’ll be selling it all off in the southeast community of Ramsay. Lund talks about the sale with Mike
Q What’s the idea behind the garage sale?
A I did it a couple of years ago in Edmonton when I was living up there. What happens with touring merchandise is that you finish up a tour and you wind up with three larges and one small of this design, and then a medium and two XLs in that design, and two of these coffee mugs or whatever and you can’t take them on the next tour … So you end up with a basement full of odds and ends, which I’ve been accumulating since 2004 or something.
So the main goal with the Edmonton one was to clean out my basement and my garage and sell a few things and make a couple of bucks, but it turned into this really fun thing. The attendance was way more than we expected and I played a tune in the corner of the garage on my acoustic guitar and chatted with people and hung out — it was really fun.
And I’ve still got a bunch of crap in my garage so we decided we’d do a Calgary version.
Q So does that mean we’re getting Edmonton’s leftovers, the stuff they didn’t want, or is there actually some good stuff?
A (Laughs) I’ve actually added to the mess. It’s cool. We’ve done a lot of experimenting with merch over the years, so we’ve got a lot of weird stuff like comic books and water bottles and baby onesies and shot glasses.
Q Are you also using this as an opportunity to get rid of crap
that you just don’t want?
A You mean like an old couch or whatever? No, not really. I might have a couple of music-related things, but primarily it’s merch.
But I totally could get rid of a few lamps if I wanted to. (Laughs) I never thought of that actually. Maybe I should. I could sell some gig-worn jeans, like game-worn jerseys … Actually, come to think of it, I have some game-worn hats that I’m going to sell.
I’ve got a handful of old hats I don’t need anymore, some old boots, stuff like that.
Q And how set are the prices? Are you willing to haggle?
A Yeah, I’ll probably haggle a little bit. The stuff we’re trying to get rid of we’re going to sell cheap. But, yeah, we’ve got room to move. That’s part of the fun, right?
Q So is this at an actual house?
A It’s a buddy’s house. It’s an actual garage. At the Edmonton one we had some local kids set up a lemonade stand the second day. It was pretty cool. And we had the mayor — he wasn’t the mayor yet, he was campaigning — but Mayor (Don) Iveson stopped by.
Q Are you throwing down the gauntlet for Mayor Nenshi?
A I told him about it. I saw him at Stampede and told him all about it … You can put in that if the mayor comes by I’ll give him a free T-shirt, as incentive. (Laughs) Unless that’s viewed as political corruption, I’m not sure if he’s allowed to take a gift. Q And is all of the stuff guaranteed? One hundred per cent satisfaction guaranteed? Are you willing to stand behind this product? A Oh, yeah. For sure … Especially the shot glasses. I guarantee they work. I’m hands-on, I try this s--t out myself personally.