Words by: Joseph Massaro

Reporting by: Joseph Massaro, Carson Werner, Alaina Jonathan, Terrence Dickey & Margaret Stewart

Photos and Video by: Alaina Jonathan and Terrence Dickey

Armand Schaubroeck, one of the co-owners of the House of Guitars recounts his life from being in jail, meeting Son House and almost collaborating with Andy Warhol. (Photo Credit: Alaina Jonathan)

To say Armand Schaubroeck has experienced a lot throughout his life is an understatement. From an ex-con to a businessman and rock ’n’ roll punk to a radio host, you can say the 74-year-old has lived quite an interesting and wild life.

Armand was born Jan. 20, 1944 in Irondequoit, NY. Growing up, his life wasn’t easy. His father Armand Schaubroeck Sr. suffered from PTSD after serving in World War II and was held at a veterans hospital in Canandaigua, NY all his life. Armand would visit occasionally, but was never able to fully interact with his father. His mother, Doris Schaubroeck, raised Armand and his siblings as a single parent. Growing up in a single-parent household, Armand admits he was on the wild side.

“We would receive small government checks that we would use towards food, but we couldn’t use them to make payments on the house, so my mother would have to work in a factory, which was tough for her because, at the time, people really didn’t like women taking a man’s job,” Armand said. “At a young age, I was kind of the father because I was the oldest, but I got in trouble and was a little bit on the wild side.”

Shortly after graduating from high school in 1962, at the age of 17, Armand was sentenced to three years to a maximum security prison in Elmira, NY for safe-cracking and committing a series of 32 burglaries. He was never caught at the scene, but one of the members in his juvenile gang returned something they stole and was caught by police, blowing in the rest of the gang. Armand would serve only a year and a half of the three-year-sentence, but as one would expect, his time in prison took a huge toll on his life, especially at such a young age. Later, he would reference his time in prison on nearly every album he’s ever made and has vocalized his support of helping prisoners re-enter society.

“It would be cool if companies such as Kodak or Xerox had them [prisoners] do some work and trained them in there and hire them when they got out because they need a job even if they hit parole,” Armand said. “I’d like them to not worry about money and society so much, but just finding the right woman and try to make it because you’d be a lot happier.”

After being released from prison, Beatlemania was sweeping the United States. As Armand and his younger brothers, Bruce and Blaine, observed the fan frenzy and every boy on the block wanting to be either George Harrison or John Lennon, they saw an opportunity to open a guitar shop in the growing demand of rock ’n’ roll. Their first shop however, just happened to be in the basement of their mother’s house. From running paper routes and working at local meat markets by day, the Schaubroeck boys sold guitars by night. Their business would become known as the House of Guitars.

“Guitars were much harder to get into at the time,” Armand said. The music industry was very reserved and it took a long time to get the major brands, but the times were changing.”

While selling guitars and instruments to kids wanting to form garage rock bands, the Schaubroeck boys would soon find themselves alongside their friend Ozzy Thorne, forming a band of their own called Churchmice. A year prior to this, Armand had already released a single alongside his friend Dick Tosti under the name Kack Klick. However, the Churchmice soon discovered they weren’t able to balance out their business and musical careers just yet, as they managed only to release a 7” single.

Church Mice were a short-lived proto-punk garage band from 1965, which consisted of Armand Schaubroeck and his brothers Bruce and Blaine and friend Ozzy Thorne. (Photo Credit: House of Guitar Records)

Since almost every teenage boy wanted to form a rock band like the Beatles, the Schaubroeck boys were obsessed with finding the exact equipment and instruments played by “the Fab Four” to sell in their store.

“They [the Beatles] were using odd stuff and they were very influential then. George Harrison was using a Gretsch Country Gentleman, John Lennon was using this little three-quarter-sized Rickenbacker, and Paul McCartney was using a Höfner Violin Bass made in Germany,” Armand said. “The German one was especially cool because there was this guy in Syracuse who owned a distributor and a music store and he had an exclusive right to all the Beatles basses coming into the United States and he would bring in a dozen at a time and I would take a bus to Syracuse with a pocket full of cash and buy eight of the twenty basses and I went back home on the bus carrying all these Höfner basses, which would sell instantly.”

Around this time, the Beatles were using Vox amplifiers, which Armand managed to stock in his store after contacting the manufacturer in England. Not only did he do this for his business, but he also did this to supply a band from his hometown called the Groop Ltd., who wanted to sound exactly like the Beatles. Right after this, business began to blow up and the Schaubroeck boys gained the credibility they needed to run a smooth business.

The Vox amplifiers were one of the first products that kickstarted the House of Guitars. (Photo Credit: Joseph Massaro)

Armand’s business was unlike any other music store at the time. The old-fashioned and competitive music stores were different back then. Music store owners were more concerned about teenagers loitering in their stores and wouldn’t sell them anything unless their parents were with them. Also, customers were restricted to using only their eyes to try out instruments. However, if you went to Armand’s mother’s house in the cellar back in the mid-1960s, you’d see kids wailing away and actually getting a hands on experience with the instruments.

Their mother who worked 40 hours a week was not happy after coming home from work and finding her house to be filled with teenagers. She especially didn’t like seeing salesmen in three piece suits with their suitcases trying to take money from her kids. Their mother hit a breaking point and threw everybody out, including her sons.

While having high-enough draft numbers to avoid the Vietnam War, Armand and his brothers took the HOG to several different areas before settling at the location where he operates now. When the business was operating at Charlotte in the late-1960s, Armand was also running a small all-night beatnik-esque coffeehouse nearby the HOG called the Black Candle. It was short-lived, but featured performances from Jerry Porter and the legendary delta blues singer and guitarist, Son House who settled and was rediscovered in Rochester during his later years.

“We made a mistake for paying him [Son House] for two days and on the second day we had to go through the city going bar to bar to get him out, which was okay because we had a whole crowd of people waiting for him,” Armand said. “He didn’t trust white people probably for a really good reason, but when he’d heard I had been to jail, suddenly I was okay.”

In 1972, while still running his business, Armand was asked to launch a campaign for the New York 53rd State Senate district as a liberal candidate. He knew he had no chance of winning, but wanted to act as a populist and bring awareness from experience to issues such as prison reform by debating with the opposing candidates on local television.

Campaign Poster of Armand Schaubroeck when he launched a campaign for New York State Senate in 1972. (Photo Credit: Magazzini Inesistenti)

Around the same time he launched his campaign, he and his brother discovered the location where their store can be found today. They purchased a historical building on 645 Titus Ave. in Irondequoit, which was formerly known as the Grange Hall. The historical building proved to be a great move for the Schaubroeck brothers with room for small concerts and events.

With business going steady, Armand had more time to record and release his own music. In the new building there was a basement that Armand and his brothers helped turn into a music studio. He would go on to record five full-length albums, including a double live album under the name Armand Schaubroeck Steals through his own record label Mirror Records.

Under the new name, his first official release was a triple-LP album entitled “A lot of People Would Like to see Armand Schaubroeck… DEAD.” The album was first recorded in 1968, but wasn’t released until 1972. It was a concept record which was largely autobiographical that detailed Armand’s experience in prison through dialogue, skits and original songs. The gatefold of the record featured original paintings by Armand that he painted while in confinement. These paintings would later be used in 2014, at an art show Armand held in Brooklyn, where supposedly actor and musician, Vincent Gallo wanted to buy one. Armand would soon tour this album across the United States and even appeared on The Joe Franklin Show to promote it.

“His show followed Romper Room in the morning and then played again at night,” Armand said. He [Joe Franklin] said, ‘I don’t know if I should show this record,’ but then he goes ‘oh what the heck.’ He then showed the cover to his televised audience, which featured a bullet hole in my forehead with blood smearing down my face.”

Armand Schaubroeck Steals first official release, “A lot of People Would like to See Armand Schaubroeck… DEAD,” which was recorded in 1968, but released in 1972 through Mirror Records. (Photo Credit: Joseph Massaro)

Before releasing this album, Armand sent some of the recordings to famous American visual artist, Andy Warhol, who soon became highly interested in making an off-Broadway play of it.

“I did a version of this record in the 1960s in the cellar of my mother’s house. I later sent the recordings to him [Andy Warhol] and he got pretty wound-up on it,” Armand said. “I wanted him to do a movie, but he wanted to do it correctly because first you do a play and then you sell soundtrack and movie rights.”

Armand says he met with Warhol a few times at Warhol’s famous New York City studio, The Factory. At these meetings, Warhol suggested that Armand would play himself, but Armand had no time to commit himself to rehearsing a play, so the project never happened. Also around this time, Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas, which erased the chance of the play ever happening. Now you can call these recordings, “lost art” since they have never been reissued.

Armand released his final LP in 1978 called “Ratfucker.” After releasing four LPs, Schaubroeck would then switch his focus back to his store and began raising a family.

Later on, Armand and his brothers would purchase two additional buildings and interconnect all three buildings to make an odd maze-like layout with sharp-turns and long hallways. The purpose was meant to separate the store into different compartments. This included where they would sell instruments and equipment, give music lessons taught by Fred Costello & Costello Music at the House of Guitars School of Music and sell a large collection of music memorabilia and music formats, such as vinyl and CDs in addition to putting on free concerts and meet-and-greets. This new look not only gave the unique museum-esque layout that is associated with the HOG, but now the store had its accurate famous slogan: “The Store That Ate My Brain.”

The Schaubroeck brothers, Blaine (right), Armand (centered) and Bruce (left), in front of their new location on 645 Titus Ave. in Irondequoit, NY. in the early 1970s. To this day, this remains their current store location. (Photo Credit: House of Guitars)

Armand has hired many employees over the years. He mostly tries hire aspiring young musicians so he can help give them the visibility they need to make it as an artist.

Matt Huguley, 25, communications major at The College at Brockport, has been working at the HOG for just over a year. He’s also a music business minor, so working in a business that deals strictly with music is what really brought him there. Huguley enjoys working for and listening to the interesting stories Armand has to tell.

“There’s never a dull moment with Armand,” Huguley said. “He’s [Armand] an outstanding guy and he’s here for the musicians.”

Eric Pinales, 23, took lessons at the HOG before becoming an employee there. Armand would tell Pinales stories about musicians who have visited the store, hoping it would shape how Pinales would interact with other musicians.

“He has pretty much built a landmark in Rochester,” Pinales said. If you live in Rochester, you know the House of Guitars, even if you don’t play music.”

Pinales also went on to to discuss the memorable commercials he would see on television as a kid.

“We would get people in the store from Canada and they would say, ‘Oh my god this is the hop hop Easter Bunny guy,’” Pinales said.

House of Guitars employees, Eric Pinales and Matt Huguley discuss their experience working alongside Armand Schaubroeck. (Video by Alaina Jonathan & Terrence Dickey)

To make these famous low-fidelity commercials happen, Armand approached his good friend Fred Armstrong, the founding father of Animatus Studios in Rochester. Armstrong would help create numerous television commercials for the Schaubroeck brothers, including the famous stop-motion animation Christmas advertisement from 1978.

The famous bizarre and surreal stop-motion animation Christmas advertisement by Fred Armstrong from 1978.(Video by Animatus Studios)

After this particular commercial, HOG was gaining more visibility. Shortly after this commercial aired, the Ramones visited the store and Armand was able to convince one of their managers to feature them in a commercial.

“I was friends with Danny Fields, who ran 16 Magazine in New York City at the time and I asked him if the Ramones would do an in-store [visit the store to sign autographs] and he said sure because they were a brand new band at the time,” Armand said.

That’s what’s so special about Armand and business. He has been able to bring various musicians into his store for meet-and-greets including Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Run-DMC, Greenday, Korn and Tyler the Creator amongst endless others. There’s even an entire wall full of signatures from famous musicians who have visited the store.

Armand Schaubroeck (left) alongside Ozzy Osbourne (right) when he visited the store along with Mötley Crüe for a meet-and-greet at the House of Guitars in the 1980s. (Photo Credit: House of Guitars)

When Metallica was recording their first album in Music America Studios in Rochester, they would do their laundry across the street from HOG. Members of the group came into the store and tried out instruments they couldn’t afford. A decade later, they spent $70,000 on vintage guitars.

“When they [Metallica] were filling venues in their later days, they called up and said ‘If you could stay open just a little bit longer, we’d love to come to your store, but right now, we’re doing a soundcheck.’” Armand said. “I said. okay, that’s fine we don’t usually do that, but they offered to bring beer and here they come in with cases of Canadian beer.”

It’s rumored that when the infamous drummer Ginger Baker of Cream visited the store, he and Armand had a jam session in the basement studio at HOG. However, Armand won’t confirm this or any other rumors of him recording with famous musicians.

In 2014, Armand’s store was inducted into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame, alongside some of the most famous musicians to come out the Flower City.

“I was very honored being inducted. It was at the Eastman Theatre so it was kind of weird because I came out with the bunny ears and a shirt that read ‘Kill Me’ and they rolled me out on a tricycle,” Armand said. “We did it and didn’t tell anybody, the Eastman people were kind of uppity about it but we got no complaints.”

Armand also records his own weekly radio show, “Armand Schaubroeck Spins Vinyl Underground,” where he never plays the same song twice, alongside his son, Aric Schaubroeck. He’s been doing it for three years now, and absolutely loves it.

Armand Schaubroeck in the studio basement at House of Guitars, which is where he has recorded sessions with famous musicians who have visited the store and it is where he records his weekly radio show. (Photo Credit: Carson Werner)

It’s hard to imagine how Armand’s life would’ve turned out if he hadn’t gone to prison or if the proposed Warhol collaboration had played out. However, none of that matters. Armand has accomplished so much in his life, that he doesn’t really need to say much more. You can say, Armand has mellowed out over the past decade, but he is still the face of the business and always will be. Armand’s music emporium has become a landmark of the Greater Rochester area and has armed young musicians with instruments to chase their dreams.