Lounge Guitars
Story By Chris Archibald
First appeared - Issue #9

As a regular visitor and annoyer of Lounge Guitars it was unfortunate not to have time for a chat with Steve Muslovich and Ian Campbell, so an email Q&A had to do. Steve is a man of many words and is always good for a laugh, especially on the momentous occasion of the opening of the new Lounge Guitars premises on Harrogate Street in West Leederville.

For the uninitiated Lounge Guitars started as a Subi market stall by Ian and it’s definitely best if Steve explains this part. “I would visit of course and secretly monitor his progress. Seriously though it was a great store, you had acoustics made from the finest horse glue in Indonesia right next to a 1967 Fender Telecaster and of course you always had the “piece of crap guitar” sitting on the lounge out front for $50.00, a tradition we still follow when possible. So the market stall prospered and Ian found himself in a situation to either expand the market stall with pictures of guitars on Cottesloe beach in handmade jarrah frames or move to a real street address.” From then on for the next eight years the lads developed a reputation for getting some rare and very different vintage and new equipment through the store. They also have a reputation for the most chilled out rehearsal rooms around, with mystery stains and possessed air conditioners being the norm.

Lounge Guitars have some of the coolest gear around when it comes to vintage equipment. Often a resource for Vox and Fender, as well as some of those pedals that could only have been made in 1973, I often find myself annoying the hell out of Ian and Steve by spending countless hours trying to bargain them down. As Steve puts it, “Customers find it refreshing to go to a store and not see the same thing every time. The rehearsal rooms are certainly something most guitar stores don’t offer, but our enduring quality is Ian and I. Up until recently when Grant joined, Lounge never had any staff, it’s always been Ian and myself so we share an intimacy and flexibility with our customers that most stores would find hard to match.” It is with little trepidation that Lounge Guitars strive towards another milestone in the shop’s history. Asked if Ian and Steve still like each other, Steve replied “sometimes”.

The work at the new shop is going ahead as planned with bigger and better rehearsal rooms going in soon. This has been a long time coming with a lot of hard work in between to bring the new shop into reality. As always Steve has the last word, which isn’t really a bad thing. “We have always been known as a muso’s store and that’s what makes us unique, so I would like to stay as a grass roots store, but there’s no reason why we can’t fertilise it in the future.”