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By Jeff Spevak
Democrat and Chronicle
(Friday, June 21, 2002) -- AT 9:59 ON Tuesday morning, Trisha Johnson and John Cashwell,
both of Rochester, are standing in the parking lot at 645 Titus Ave., waiting for
the doors to swing open at the House of Guitars®.
"Somebody's coming right now," says Cashwell, spotting some movement inside the
door. "They put a chain on it and everything."
"Can you blame them, with all of that in there?" says Johnson.
But now it's 10 a.m. and the chain is off the HOG.
"That's the thing about this place," Cashwell tells Johnson, as they take in the
mountains of CDs, tapes, posters and T-shirts in the warehouse-sized back room.
"You can be looking for something, it can be right in front of you, and you don't
know it. Then you ask them, and they go right to it."
Indeed, the HOG has a reputation for being somewhat disheveled when it comes to
stocking merchandise. It's not complete mayhem. But everything looks a bit askew.
Technically speaking, Johnson -- who was searching the racks of gospel tapes --
and Cashwell weren't the first customers in the House of Guitars® that day. As is
often the case, the store opened at midnight on Monday, taking advantage of the
technicality that it's actually Tuesday morning, the official release day each week
for most major new albums.
Korn's new CD, Untouchables, was the featured attraction. "It was a good
one," says HOG owner Armand Schaubroeck. "Long lines, the crowd was excited."
The House of Guitars® is well known as an Irondequoit institution, although it has
shifted around the area since Schaubroeck set up the first store in the cellar of
his mother's Irondequoit house in 1964. He bought the current building, an old Grange
Hall, in 1972, and "we've been adding buildings to it, hooking them together, ever
since," he says.
Now it's home to an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 guitars and 4 million albums, CDs
and tapes. It could be successfully argued that the House of Guitars® is the best-known
independent record store in the country, after being the subject of admiring profiles
by both People magazine and The Wall Street
 Journal.
The guys from Aerosmith, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Rezner, Eric Johnson, Peter Gabriel,
Brian Setzer, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Korn, Dickey Betts and Emerson, Lake and
Palmer are among dozens and dozens of acts that have purchased instruments from
the House of Guitars®. Marilyn Manson was looking for an American-made guitar and
settled on a small Rickenbacker that appeared with him on the cover of Guitar Player
magazine. Everclear bought from the HOG the mandolin seen on the cover of the band's
2000 CD, Songs From an American Movie, Vol. 1: Learning How to Smile.
When then-unknown Metallica was recording its first album at a studio on East Avenue,
the band would hang out at the HOG. "We'd ask, 'Can we help you?' " Armand recalls.
"They'd say, 'Nah, we don't have any money, our laundry is drying down the street.'
"
A few years later, when they did have some money and were headlining a show at Darien
Lake Performing Arts Center, the band called and asked if the store could open at
midnight, after their show. "They said, 'We'll bring the beer,' " Armand says. "They
brought a couple of cases and spent $70,000."
Armand's brother Bruce is a co-owner. Brother Blaine and sister Beryl also work
there.
He is selling keyboard synthesizer and volume pedals to Mark Goodloe, who has driven
in from Auburn, Cayuga County, where he is the resident sound engineer for a Broadway-style
theater. "There is a small music store in Auburn, and they can usually order things
for you," Goodloe says. "But the House of Guitars® has a better selection."
What sets the House of Guitars® apart from most is the museum-like aura and the labyrinthine
arrangement of rooms filled with instruments it sells -- and refuses to sell. Particularly
the massive guitar collection. Many of the guitars are autographed: The names Les
Paul, Dave Matthews and Brian Setzer are scribbled on guitars.
Some of the guitars are goofy, such as "The Intimidator," an electric guitar celebrating
the late racing legend Dale Earnhardt. Some are exotic, such as the 1913 harp guitar
built by Orville Gibson himself. Armand himself designed the Schaubroeck Gibson,
a gleaming instrument that has the qualities of both an acoustic and an electric
guitar; it sells for about $10,000.
"The guys from Metallica came in and just looked around," Bruce says. "They said,
'There are things here I've only seen in magazines. And dreams.' We've got to keep
it like that."
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