“Lay down your weary tune” Bob Dylan wrote and the Byrds echoed, “Lay down the song you strum. And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings.” This is just one of clarion calls that might lead one to the musical oasis that is the Brothers Guitar Shop in Yorkville on the Upper East Side. It’s not just folk and folk rock that resonates with siblings Frank and Shawn Gorelik. Classic rock, metal, blues, funk, jazz, rock and roll— these bros have an infectious passion for it all.
Shawn, 36, and Frank, 39, are the business and creative minds behind Brothers Guitar Shop at 316 E. 84th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. In a family style, they got their entrepreneurial spirit from their parents, both of whom have operated sucessful Upper East Side businesses for years.
Their mother, Vicky, owns Windows, Walls & More on First Avenue, and in 2017, the siblings bought their father Michael’s long-standing Second Avenue hardware store, which they grew up working in. “I was pricing things when I was eight, nine years old,” says Shawn. That location is now closed, but the brothers opened two others in its place: First Avenue Supply is on 82nd, and New York Paint & Hardware on 87th…