By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — For many Rockfordians, Ralph Nielsen’s music shop on Seventh Street was a place to buy instruments, take lessons and make a connection in the music industry.
It was a special place for Miles Nielsen, too, who took vocal lessons at his grandfather’s shop and spent time there as a child. The shop ran for about four decades until the late 1990s.
“I used to sort nuts and bolts there for 50 cents an hour when I was a kid,” said Nielsen, a touring musician and the son of Rock-and-Roll hall of famer Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick. “My brother Erron and I would sit there with these little cigar boxes of parts for hours on the weekends.”
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Now, Nielsen and his wife, singer-songwriter Kelly Steward, and their friends and business partners Trea Mihalovich and Drew Gibson, are preparing to open a new downtown venue that pays homage to Ralph Nielsen’s Music Box Gift Shoppe while bringing its own unique vibe to the city.
The Music Box of Rockford, 218 E. State St., is designed to celebrate the city’s rich musical history while adding a more vibrant live music scene to downtown. The owners hope their creation is both original and nostalgic all at once.
“I hear all these stories about how it was so cool, you could go and see live music anywhere, any night in downtown Rockford back in the day,” Steward said. “That’s the idea is to start that again.”
Opening plans, a peek inside
Right now, the 2,600-square-foot space that formerly housed Midwest Rustic has been stripped bare as work begins on roughly $125,000 in renovations, according to a city building permit.
The owners said their goal is to be open by Valentine’s Day.
The design from Studio GWA, which the owners plan to show off in their storefront Saturday during Stroll on State, shows a full bar along the west wall and the Music Box stage at the rear of the space.
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The walls will eventually be lined with art from Rick and Karen Nielsen’s collection, and the seating arrangement will will change depending on the type of show.
“Everything is going to be movable because every show is different,” Steward said. “It will change depending on the show and the vibe we want.”
The space will also have a private green room for musicians before the show.
“We want this to be as friendly for the artist as it is for the patron, too,” Nielsen said.
The owners, under TAKADAM LLC, bought the building for $315,000 in mid-September, according to records with the Winnebago County Clerk & Recorder.
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Mihalovich and her husband, Gibson, live in Phoenix, Arizona, but have family in the Rockford region. They met Nielsen and Steward through music and later forged a plan to create this listening lounge in Rockford.
“We go to all these other cities and they have these things that resemble something that we’d like to have here, but we don’t have it,” Nielsen said. “There’s not a lot of places to play music. There’s not a lot of places to listen to music.”
The listening lounge will be open as a full bar on nights when there is no scheduled musical act.
“We’re not saying that we’re not going to be a bar that plays sports,” Nielsen said. “If it’s Sunday and there’s great football on, we’re going to have TVs in here, we’re going to have football on. It’s going to be a fun place to watch games, too.
“But when there’s music going, those TVS will be off.”
He said they may also incorporate stand-up comedy into the entertainment lineup.
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As for music, you can expect everything from full bands to duos and solo artists in a wide range of genres. Some of the early performances could come from musicians such as Roger Clyne from Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, Leigh Nash and Kevn Kinney from Drivin N Cryin.
But the ultimate goal is for customers to trust the owners’ ability to curate consistently good shows, so that patrons show up even if they don’t recognize the name of the band on the bill.
“I think it’s also a learning curve for us as well as Rockford, getting comfortable paying, say, $20 for an artist that you’re not sure you’ve ever heard of, but you have to trust that our taste is going to put them in here for the right reasons,” Nielsen said.
“That’s what we want to become. Somewhere that when you walk through the door you know you’re going to get quality.”
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Address: 218 E. State St., Rockford
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas