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INSIDE EAST SACRAMENTO Oct. 2005 Artful
Cuts and Cutting-Edge Art By Maureen Malloy Allen Wedged between a pizza joint and a doughnut shop is a slice of true East Sac originality. Eddy’s Deluxe Haircuts, located at 3716 J Street, is owned by Rea Reeder, a barber with a fondness for rockabilly music, local art and classic cars. Named after her young son, Eddy’s offers far more than a $13 trim around the edges. When you enter, the first thing you notice are three vintage barber chairs and a rack of pomades and hair grease, products used to steady the pompadour, a popular haircut of the 1950s. Although skilled in all types of cuts, Reeder has the corner on the pompadour market in Sacramento. Rea Reeder is a barber with a fondness for rockabilly music, local art and classic cars. “Higher priced shops refer people looking for a pompadour,” says Reeder. “And that truly flatters me.” There is a huge rack of CDs and walls full of art for sale. Reeder loves rockabilly music, a genre best described as a combination of blues, swing and country with a dash of punk. |
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The youthful Reeder looks a bit like a throwback from the past. Her straight-leg jeans are rolled, forming a wide cuff at the ankles. A black gingham blouse peeks out from under her barber smock. She speaks softly as she trims up a regular customer who lives two blocks away. Although the surroundings and the music are radical, Reeder claims a man of the cloth as a regular walk-in customer.
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It’s not just the music. It’s about the cars. Like a typical barbershop, Eddy’s caters to a mostly male clientele. But instead of girlie magazines, here you’ll find publications with names such as Rod & Custom, Hot Rod and RUST. Reeder drives a flat-black 1954 four-door Ford Mainliner. This barber doesn’t just walk the talk. She drives it, too. When she rented the space three years ago, she knew how she wanted it to feel. But the details evolved over time. “I didn’t want it to feel like a salon,” Reeder says. The plate-glass storefront has been a barbershop since the 1920s, but the empty walls presented both a design and financial challenge to Reeder. She recalls thinking, “I have big, huge walls and I can’t afford to put anything on them.” The solution was to fill the space with art to showcase local artists. Stacy Cooper is among the six artists whose works are currently for sale in a variety of media, including oil on canvas, wood and metal, metal sculpture and photography. There’s even a paper collage created by a middle-school child. Reeder is happy to sell it all. “Who am I to say what’s good art?” she asks. Last year, she hosted an exhibition of young artists from Sutter Middle School that benefited Shriners Hospitals. Through her Web site, eddys-deluxe.com, and word of mouth, customers come from all over Northern California. Says Pony Anderson, a regular customer from San Francisco, “I come here for music, good art and a good haircut.” Reeder may be open to a wide variety of art, but when it comes to music her focus narrows. Ironically, music led her to barbering, a career where she could combine her interests. “Music’s what I do to make it all go down easy,” she says. On any given day, a customer may hear The Ventures, Spade Cooley, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Decca or the Slackers with a little Patsy Cline or Ramones mixed in for interest. Eddy’s Deluxe Haircuts is a haven for a subculture interested in the music, cars and classic haircuts of an earlier time. But “Happy Days” it’s not. Reeder points out, “There are no poodle skirts and no Fonzie.”
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From
Sacramento News & Review March 27, 2003 By Jeff
Kearns |
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After putting off the dream of opening her own barbershop, Rea Reeder found a spot at 3716 J Street that was just begging to be the conduit. She leased the place and opened Eddy’s Deluxe Haircuts |
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at the end of 2001. Since then, she’s turned it into a little
more than a place to part with unwanted locks. On top of being
an old-fashioned neighborhood barbershop, painted a bright mint
green inside that’s reminiscent of Depression-era kitchens,
Eddy’s is also the ultimate rockabilly joint. The shop sells
hard-to-find hair products for greasers, like cans of Flat Top
Wax
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American Greaser Supply and other pomades. But Reeder’s place
is about more than just shaping the perfect pompadour. She also
hosts bands, shows local artists and sells rare music, including
rockabilly tunes. It’s fitting: Music was the whole point of
opening the place. Long overdue for a haircut, I plopped down in
the chair, removed my glasses, turned on the tape recorder and quizzed
Reeder while she hacked away at my unruly tresses.
Rea: I'd wanted to open a barbershop for a couple years. And I'd been looking around, and things kept delaying me, like buying a house, but the main thing that made me want to do it was to listen to my own music. And I actually had given up on the idea until I saw this place for rent. It's been a barbershop since at least 1932. At first, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I just figured nobody can tell me what I have to do, and I can just do it how I want. But, I thought, "If I like what I like, other people must like what I like, too, and they'll come here." Jeff: Have they? Rea: Yeah! Jeff: How's this place different from a regular barbershop? Rea: We don't talk about sports, there aren't any Playboys, and there's no TV--just a lot of music. Jeff: Who comes in? Rea: A lot of different people. The rockabillies and the psychobillies, with the big pompadours. They started telling each other about me, so now I try to have a place for those guys to go. But I also get old men, kids and people from the neighborhood. Jeff: Do rockabillies need a special touch? Rea: Most people don't know how to cut hair so that it's longer in front and shorter in back. People complain all the time that no one can cut their hair the way they want it. The key is to listen to the customers. Too many people think they know exactly how everyone wants their hair cut. If so and so wants it long in front and short in back, that's really what they mean, and I understand why. If they want a ducktail, they want a ducktail. Jeff: You've also got art on the walls? Rea: I change the art every month and take part in the second-Saturday art walk. I'm trying to get the art to flow more with the kind of music I play in here--not mainstream art but more car-enthusiast type art. Jeff: What music is playing today? Rea: The CD player holds 200 CDs, and it's almost full. I put it on shuffle, so you can hear anything from Benny Goodman to The Demonics to Hank Williams to Lloyd Tripp. There's also some Cuban music and surf music. It's my choice. Jeff: Get much response? Rea: Yeah, that's what got me to start selling CDs. A lot of customers would say, "I could sit here all day and listen to the music. Where do you find this?" And I thought, "Wait a minute. I have all this space. I should sell CDs." Jeff: What's for sale? Rea: It ranges from rockabilly to old country like honky tonk, bluegrass, psychobilly. Then there's old punk rock, some indie stuff and old blues. It's an assortment of weird old stuff you don't find. Jeff: Where did the name 'Eddy's Deluxe' come from? Rea: Eddy is my 5-year-old son. Before me, this was called the Enterprise Barbershop, but before that, it was the Deluxe Barbershop. Jeff: What does Eddy think about having the place named after him? Rea:
At first, he wasn't that happy about it because I forgot to ask
him if I could use his name, but he likes it. When we first opened,
I answered the phone and said, "I'm the owner." And
he said, "No, Mom, I'm the owner!" |
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