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Outside the Music Loft on Carrboro's Main Street, you may find musicians at odd hours slipping dollars and quarters into an old vending machine. Their prizes? Anything from new drumsticks to mandolin strings to (coming soon) DATs.

Riding the wave of vending machine innovation and stemming from a pure love for music, Lance Ashley and Dan Merlin bought an old vending machine in 2003 and have since stocked it with all the things a musician might need at a moment's notice, 24 hours a day. Regarded as a service to the local music community more than for-profit, the machine offers potentially needed items to those musicians playing at Cat's Cradle after Music Loft store hours. Stocks include complete sets of guitar, mandolin, and banjo strings, as well as an assortment of picks and other musical necessities.