Kerns Is A Medley Of Memorabilia -- After 14 Years, 85-Year-Old Owner Reopens Burien Music/Pawn Shop

It's been 22 years since teen-agers first crowded inside Johnny Kerns' music store Wednesday nights for the legendary Battle of the Bands, but Gordon Kjellberg remembers it well.

As one of Kerns' sales clerks, he helped put the weekly jam sessions together. Now 47, Kjellberg witnessed countless local teen-age bands play their music for the young crowd that danced, applauded or simply watched and listened. Instruments ranged from guitars bought from Kerns' own store to the tin cans, washboards and other refuse that band members found in their garages.

Much to the disappointment of Kjellberg and hundreds in the neighborhood, the battle of the bands ended four years later, when police advised Kerns that teen-agers were using marijuana at the events. Kerns closed his store four years later, retiring at age 71.

But retirement was not for him. After 14 years of pursuing other businesses, Kerns has reopened the Burien store that once saw throngs of teen-agers dancing to the beat of a homemade drum. The new store, called Kerns' Music and Loan, is a curious mixture of pawn-shop merchandise and nostalgic memorabilia that characterize the owner.

As a pawn shop/music store at 15226 First Ave. S., Kerns' Music and Loan offers a collection of odds and ends that seem to be more at home in garages and attics. Kerns sells guitars and microwave ovens, drums and clothes, clarinets and a 20-year-old IBM computer. Kerns plans to expand his merchandise line to include guns.

And to add to the mishmash, Kerns also offers loans.

But the store's walls, lined with photos, hats, programs, plaques and other memorabilia, make up a larger-than-life scrapbook of Kerns' experiences, telling the story of the 85-year-old's music career.

Kerns first showed an interest in music when he was 10 and living in Minneapolis. Area merchants gave out used instruments to neighborhood children and paid for a music teacher to give short lessons to the group each Saturday morning.

Kerns said that when he brought the baritone horn home, his mother looked at him skeptically. Kerns didn't feel much more confident, himself.

"I didn't know which end to blow in," he said.

But from that moment, he decided that he loved to play. Mastering the trombone and Sousaphone as well, Kerns soon played in different bands for Minneapolis-area clubs and events, ranging from church gatherings to Chinese funerals.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Kerns boarded a cruise ship, playing in the ship's band, for a two-month trip around the world. Landing in Seattle, Kerns met the woman who is now his wife of nearly 65 years.

Holding a variety of jobs in pawn shops and music stores, Kerns continued to play in various bands, even organizing one during World War II. The Home Defense Band, in its three-year existence, played 140 engagements at hospitals and military bases around Seattle.

Kerns opened his own store at his current location in 1970, where area kids got some of their first instruments at cheap prices, said Vicki Nutter, a guitar teacher who also bought one of her first guitars from Kerns.

But when the site of the weekly Battle of the Bands and the place where kids got some of the best deals on instruments closed in 1978, Kerns moved on to selling and exporting organs. Different shops rented the store location over the next 14 years. But when the space opened up four months ago, Kerns moved back. Business opened July 1, and since then the store has seen a flurry of interest from both customers and well-wishers who said Kerns' store was a part of their past.

But music is not his only love, as can be seen from photos on the wall. Kerns is an expert fisherman and proudly wears a red cap with a fish coming out of the brim.

He prides himself on having a large circle of friends. "I make friends wherever I go," he said. Often, he gives new acquaintances necklaces with 24-karat gold-plated pendants.

And Kerns appears much younger than his 85 years, tossing off suggestions that he retire. Jokingly attributing his young appearance to "Good whiskey and good women," he also said that his daily routine of walking three miles and eating only two meals have kept him from aging.

But age, in fact, can be an asset for him. He likes to flirt, and, sometimes, it even works. He's says he's gotten first-class seats by charming flight attendants.

"I'm old, so I can get away with that."