The Great Great House Of Guitars
[Go Here for the WHOLE H.O.G.]
Meet the Master of the House of Guitars
by Emily Nelson
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The name is Armand Schaubroeck, and the address is Irondequoit, N.Y. If you’ve never heard of him or the town, you sure aren’t a rock star.
Mr. Schaubroeck sells guitars, drums, keyboards, and amplifiers from his store - the House of Guitars - to the likes of Metallica, Aerosmith and Motley Crue, as well as a host of lesser-known bands.
House of Guitars, dubbed "the Hog" (for its initials) by local teenagers, appears more rummage sale than successful business. The facility, formerly a feed store, sprawls through five cavernous warehouses connected by passages so labyrinthine that even employees get lost. Mountains of concert T-shirts and piles of new and used CDs fill one room. Autographs of famous customers adorn a wall, and ceilings are plastered with rock memorabilia including a pair of Elvis Presley’s leather pants. When pressed, Mr. Schaubroeck first estimates that his inventory includes 9,000 guitars; but after a stroll through the packed basement, he changes that to 11,000.
Ozzy Osborne stopped in during his first solo U.S. tour in 1980 and returns when touring through nearby Rochester. House of Guitars has "a great, vibey atmosphere," he says.
"It is total guitar heaven and the high point of any tour," says Matthew Sweet, the alternative star whose hit "Girlfriend" is a college-party staple. Mr. Sweet missed the sound check before his March show in Rochester because he couldn’t tear himself away from the store, which is open seven days a week. He also "blew off an hour of interviews" to linger at the Hog, he confesses. The tab for his latest visit: several thousand dollars for three guitars. "I spent money I shouldn’t have," he says.
Mr. Schaubroeck built the business by departing from the guiding principles of most music stores. Rather than keeping guitars locked in glass cases, he encourages customers to try out the instruments. He even built small rooms so shoppers can hook up the guitars to amps and play as loudly as they like. Moreover, he stocks just about every make of instrument or can get it, while most music stores specialize in a single brand.
"Guitars are very personal," explains Jim Survis, guitar technician for Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. Mr. Survis can’t remember how he first heard of the store, noting simply that "all the pros know it."
A few years ago, Metallica wanted to see Mr. Schaubroeck’s wares but only had free time after a concert in Rochester. So Mr. Schaubroeck, who closes the store most nights at 9 p.m., reopened at 11 p.m.; the band brought beer; and Mr. Schaubroeck and co-workers got to watch while Metallica played the guitars.
He also indulges the locals. For instance, when a new album is slated for release on a Tuesday, Mr. Schaubroeck reopens the store at midnight Monday, the earliest moment allowed to start selling. This spring, a line of more than 300 waited outside the doors for the midnight release of U2’s "Pop" and stayed until 2 a.m. as a local restaurant gave away pizza. Mr. Schaubroeck also knows that beginners like to play the same instruments used by the stars, so he hangs photos of stars playing a particular instrument next to the display holding that guitar.
Mr. Schaubroeck, 53 years old, never went to college and at one time seemed destined for a troubled life. He tells of being arrested at 17 with two buddies, pleading guilty as a youthful offender to burglarizing neighborhood stores and schools, and serving 18 months in a reformatory in Elmira, N.Y.
But after his release, he founded the business with his two younger brothers, Bruce and Blaine; they initially worked out of their mother’s basement. The timing was perfect. It was 1964, and Beatlemania was sweeping the U.S. After a few years, their mother could no longer tolerate the blaring noise of customers trying out amps, so she sent her sons packing, and they rented a nearby storefront. The brothers slept on the floor of their rented space, surviving on milk and cold cuts kept in a refrigerator that a customer bartered for a guitar.
"I loved the lifestyle," Mr. Schaubroeck says. "We couldn’t afford meals but we were living cool and honest and straight and working hard."
Today, House of Guitars has annual sales of about $7 million and employs more than 20, including Mr. Schaubroeck’s two brothers. Though Mr. Schaubroeck’s mop of hair is now gray, he still cultivates the look of a rebellious teen. And he still works promoting new talent. He lets unknowns perform on a stage in his store free of charge, as customers pass by to listen. Upstart bands from Boston and New York often seek his advice on their sound. Mr. Schaubroeck even built a recording studio in the store’s basement and founded a record label, Mirror Records. This also indulges his own music ambitions: He just finished mixing one of his own songs, titled after its refrain, "I Don’t Want to Conform to This Society."
Mr. Schaubroeck hires musicians as sales clerks because they are knowledgeable - but gives them months off at a time to tour. Member of the Chesterfield Kings, a local heavy-metal band, have worked for House of Guitars for 17 years and record on Mr. Schaubroeck’s label. With waist-length platinum hair and wearing a black sweatshirt and black jeans, the group’s guitarist, Andy Babiuk, wades knee-deep in vintage amps in one room. "You can’t walk into any music store and get this," he marvels.
Such inventory glut originally scared Mr. Schaubroeck’s accountant, Jerry Spiegel, until he realized the logic. The Schaubroecks "don’t turn their inventory as fast as they should, but they carry older things - so once they become out of stock at other places, [House of Guitars’] prices go up." Amid the store’s jumbled inventory, for instance is a 1947 D’Angelico New York - Mr. Schaubroeck calls is the "Stradivarius of guitars" - which sells for more than $50,000.
As Mr. Schaubroeck tells it, he simply can’t pass up a good instrument deal. Once, when a U.S. band called The Group Limited wanted Vox amps because the Beatles used them, he tracked down the equipment’s maker in England, ordered $9,000 of amps c.o.d., and took a Greyhound bus to Syracuse to pick them up, carrying the cash in his pocket. Mr. Schaubroeck has never gotten a driver’s license.
