House of Guitars
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| Industry | Retailing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1964 |
| Headquarters | 645 Titus Avenue Irondequoit, New York, United States |
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Key people
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Armand Schaubroeck and Bruce Schaubroeck |
| Products | music, instruments, DVDs, posters, lessons, accessories |
| Website | houseofguitars.com |
House of Guitars, Inc. is a store selling guitars, percussion and other music-related items in Irondequoit, a suburb of Rochester, New York. Billed as the "Largest Guitar Store in the World," it has a prodigious collection of new, used and vintage guitars, amplifiers and other musical instruments, a large collection of music recordings on vinyl records, cassette tapes and compact discs, music videos, T-shirts and other rock memorabilia. The store’s slogan is “For the Rising Young Stars from Earth.” An alternate slogan they have is "The Store That Ate My Brain." In numerous ads on late-night local television in the 1970s, the House of Guitars insisted, "The House Of Guitars Is Cooler Than Hollywood."
The House of Guitars was initially founded in 1964 by brothers Armand, Bruce, and Blaine Schaubroeck in the basement of their mother's house in Irondequoit, New York. In 1972 the Schaubroeck brothers relocated the House of Guitars to its present-day location in the former Irondequoit Grange Hall building at 645 Titus Avenue. Since the initial relocation in 1972, the House of Guitars has purchased three additional adjacent buildings, interconnecting these buildings for means of expansion This had led to what some consider a bizarre 'maze' like layout, where separate store rooms containing music related equipment are connected via long hallways, sharp turns, un-level floors, et cetera.
"...'30 years of Cool' have taken a toll on the three-story stone building that once was the Irondequoit Grange Hall. The floors creak loudly under trampled carpeting, and so many bands have signed the walls that the messages are nearly illegible."
The store is said to have obtained the first Vox amps that came over to the United States. Schaubroeck had put in an order to Vox in England when The Beatles came to America, having known that George Harrison used Vox amps.
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Wikipedia