New owners plan to amplify Musos Corner business with 'super store'

On Friday the Cedar Mill Group, the tourism and events branch of Newcastle-based company Winarch Group, purchased Musos Corner from co-founder Sandra Lindsay just in time for the store's popular May the 4^th Sale on Saturday.

It follows Cedar Mill's acquisition last October of Newcastle's Olive Tree Markets.

For Cedar Mill founder and director, Paul Lambess, buying the music instrument and equipment retailer was personal.

At 15 Mr Lambess did work experience at the store and he bought his first drum kit, a Sleishman, as a teenager there.

"I [bought it on lay-by] and it was probably $6000 and it took me six months to pay it off," Mr Lambess told the Newcastle Herald from Nashville music store, the Guitar Center, where he was doing market research.

"I used to catch the bus from Belmont, the 363, to Charlestown and then change and go to Newcastle and put down another $50 or $100 or $200 after I'd worked.

"Fond memories, but it took a while to pay off."

Cedar Mill Group was promising to invest heavily in Musos Corner. The first step will be finding a permanent home for the store in Newcastle, with its current base in the old Spotlight building in Hunter Street only temporary.

The next step is the more ambitious dream of creating a second store as part of Cedar Mill's redevelopment of the former Morisset Golf Course site into a 30,000-capacity live events venue.

Cedar Mill Lake Macquarie is the first of six live event venues the Winarch Group is building throughout Australia, including one in Pokolbin.

"We'll always keep a store in Newcastle and want to stay in Newcastle, it's part of the music fabric, we believe, of Newcastle," Mr Lambess said.

"However, we do see a vision of a super store based at Morisset, as well, on the Cedar Mill site and really making that a music hub of artists, of concerts, of beginners and of retail.

"Musos Corner, in its next chapter, would be really fantastic at the Cedar Mill site at Morisset. But the immediate plan is to get us into a permanent new home in Newcastle and give it some fresh blood and maybe increase the drums section."

Sandra Lindsay and her late husband Ian bought Foleys Pianos in 1967, before splitting the business and setting up Musos Corner in the early 1980s.

It became an integral part of Newcastle's music scene and national and international artists regularly visited and purchased equipment from the shop when passing through the city.

Over the years Musos Corner survived a fire in 2005 and then flooding in 2007, before Sandra's son Andrew returned to Newcastle from London and rejuvenated the store and launched its famous Star Wars-inspired May the 4^th Sale in 2008.

The annual sale attracts hundreds of customers, some who camp overnight in the street hoping to score deals of up to 90 per cent off.

Andrew Lindsay was being groomed to take over the ownership of Musos Corner but he died in December 2022 from pancreatic cancer aged 51.

Sandra Lindsay, 78, has worked in music retail for 57 years and said she was confident Mr Lambess and the Cedar Mill Group would ensure that Musos Corner had a prosperous future.

"He was the right choice because he's local for a start, so all the staff could remain," Mrs Lindsay said.

"There were a few people in line to look at that, but that was my decision because they would keep the name and that's the legacy and it was very important to me, particularly since my son passed away."

Mrs Lindsay said in retirement she plans to relax and travel.

"The crazy thing about it, I'm out serving great-grandchildren and I started out serving their grandparents and parents," she said.

"It's been a great 57 years and lots of fun."