A new music instrument retailer, Guitar Wars, recently relocated to downtown San Jose. For anyone old enough to remember when Guitar Center left downtown 40 years ago, this is welcome news.
As I walk in from First Street, about 50 electric guitars hang from one wall. Various amps line the floor below. Underneath a glass case, I see stomp boxes and other effects. Cords and straps appear on racks. Farther down, a few repair stations definitely seem like they’re being used.
Continuing into the back area, acoustic guitars hang from a white brick wall, while violins hang from another wall. There are banjos and mandolins, plus a few racks of analog and digital synthesizers for sale. Old easy chairs sit in the middle of the room, with various punk rock patches sewn into them.
What’s more, Star Wars junk is everywhere: Models, signage and other paraphernalia. The shop offers lessons and other activities. Maybe even gigs. Who knows.
As usual, the history won’t leave me alone. Guitar Wars is a far cry from when this address was L’Amour Shoppe in the early ’90s, essentially the last adult video and magazine store still left downtown from the previous decades’ seedy porn underbelly. Everyone who went to the rock clubs on South First stumbled into the L’Amour Shoppe at one time or another, in various states of sobriety.
The porn shop occupied the street level, while some of the employees lived in the dump upstairs, known as the Dinuba Embassy. Dinuba catered to the dregs of downtown’s rock and punk population and threw some of the best parties. Bands played on the roof while a few hundred folks crammed themselves into the hallways or various rooms. It was porn, booze and rock & roll, the likes of which San Jose will unfortunately never see again. At those parties, one actually felt like San Jose was finally becoming a real urban place with a real music scene. Alas, the city shut it all down. If a Bellarmine graduate had owned the L’Amour Shoppe, then the politicians would have allowed it to stay, of course.
But let me get back to Guitar Center. The downtown San Jose franchise opened in 1978, not in the SoFA District, but over at 96 N. 2nd Street, across from St. James Park, in the same building now abandoned and covered with urine and garbage.
Newspaper ads from that time reveal some rocking history. The Guitar Center grand opening celebration included a free Fender Rhodes piano for whoever bought an Arp Omni 2 synthesizer. Imagine that deal nowadays. The store also gave away free Maestro Echoplexes with additional purchases. The Echoplex was an old-school analog effects unit with a magnetic tape delay. By the late ’70s, there were several different versions. I discovered one many years later, but it was an amazing machine to make a racket with.
That wasn’t all. Throughout the grand opening months at the downtown Guitar Center, Pignose amps were $59.95 and new P.A. systems started at $499. Another ad promoted a free drum workshop with Les DeMerle and an Arp synthesizer clinic with John Shykun.
At the time, the Guitar Center chain, which had originated in SoCal, was just starting to go nationwide. Meanwhile, downtown San Jose was in massive decline, so the local franchise only lasted until the mid-’80s, when a bigger location near Valley Fair materialized. Same old story.
Now we are in 2026. A completely different, unrelated place, Guitar Wars, has relocated from its previous South San Jose location to the SoFA District—itself a neighborhood brand that started with a live music focus, so I can see much potential for such a business. Anyone can. The SoFA Street Fair unfolds twice a year and already features kids from School of Rock on at least one stage. This is often one of the most uplifting components of the whole festival. Plus, the Ritz now has all-ages shows and Pete Be Center waits in the wings. If more kids come to the neighborhood for music lessons and gigs, all of downtown will be a better place.
If downtown is ever going to become anything, it needs a music instrument retail shop. Go ahead. Prove me wrong.
