The Depot founder seeks to inspire musicians, create ‘nightlife culture’

Driving through downtown Holyoke last May, Emmy Brown decided she didn’t want to go to college. Then a high school junior, she recalled, “I was trying to figure out if I wanted to work for myself, or if I wanted to work under somebody, or do anything, really.” Now finishing her senior year – and opening a new business to boot – she decided to work with what she loved: “music and technology and antiques.”

Those who entered The Depot LLC for its grand opening Nov. 1 found shelves of classical, rock and pop records; multiple stringed instruments hung along the wall, one shaped like a Thompson machine gun and another almost like a treble clef; Coca-Cola bottles going back to the collapse of the Berlin Wall; and an 1880s hymnal set upon a table corner among scattered jars and a wooden mallet. A Raggedy Ann doll watched the front desk. Sixties rock emanated from a record player courtesy of the Ventures. From his album cover, a depiction of Lawrence Welk observed a hallway connecting the store’s three rooms: one for antiques, a second for practice and a third for instruments. Aside from some instruments set to be used in practice, Brown has everything ready for purchase.

To acquire these items, she said, required a search through “lots of yard sales and auctions.” Roughly 2,000 of her records, she added, aren’t “in my system yet.”

“Some people found out I was starting a business,” she said, “so they gave them to me.”

In addition to her sales, Brown will be hosting lessons in guitar, piano, drums and flute with an eye toward inspiring “a community of musicians and [creating] a new nightlife culture” with outdoor performances coordinated by businesses. She has about five years’ experience teaching; what she can’t teach, she plans to contract out, though finding an instrument she doesn’t know could prove difficult.

Music, she said, has “just always been around me.” Brown’s father, whom her great-grandfather taught to play by ear, performed from ‘94 to 2013 in a punk band called “Hooked on Southern Speed.” When Brown’s family lived in Loveland, Colorado, she said, they had a stage in the basement where they produced music. Her family moved from Loveland in 2013, then four times more before settling in Holyoke; instruments came out before the toys. She began playing piano at age 5 and guitar not long after. Currently, she and her family perform on Sundays at First Christian Church, where her father serves as pastor.

“I play everything all the time,” she said. “I play 17 instruments.”

To form The Depot required her to learn the ins and outs of business ownership. First, she said, she stopped at the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce, who provided “a lot of source material.”

“On the flight to Nashville for a music camp, I read an entire business how-to book for Colorado,” Brown said. “I made notes and wrote my business plan on the way back.”

She finished the plan a week later while driving a combine and harvesting millet for local farmers. The rest of the process continued until September 2021, with The Depot legalized by Colorado Department of State a week before her 17th birthday. Brown acquired its location for rent, 109 N. Campbell Ave., this year in early October.

“I need to do something with all of this,” she said of her musical abilities. “Right now, I play on Sundays, and it’s a hobby – something I can brag about – but I want to do something with it and inspire other people…” 

She drifted from the conversation, looking toward the shelf at her side and the Lawrence Welk album. Behind the shelf’s support, only one of Welk’s eyes were visible.

“See, isn’t that creepy?” she asked, looking at the album. “It’s really scary!”

When walking through the store at 2 a.m., she said, dolls and album cover singers appeared to watch her movements. She explained this phenomenon twice.

The Depot’s first visitor, Gary Herr, a part-time employee of Printers Paper and More, agreed with Brown’s assessment of the dolls and albums, then told her he stopped by to wish her “God bless in your new endeavor.” Three minutes later – now behind the counter – Brown expressed excitement in opening the store; her face, Herr noted, was “beaming.”

Eventually, Brown said, she wants The Depot to expand and diversify. And bring in skateboards.

Its Facebook page can be found at www.facebook.com/the.depot.llc.