A "Storewide Clearance Sale" at the Chicago Music Store?
Fat chance.
Oh, they're having a sale. But clearing out 30,000 square feet of dusty back rooms, a cavernous basement, the mezzanine filled with old (used and new) instruments and accessories?
Not going to happen. Several buyers would have to show up with semitrailers and a lot of dough to clear that place out.
But Chicago Music Store's 90th Anniversary Sale is possibly the first authorized chance for the public to poke around amidst those mythical backroom piles.
Feasible or not, owner Mark Levkowitz says he sincerely wants to clear out a lot of the piles of old stuff from the quirky old-fashioned store on the corner of East Congress Street and South Sixth Avenue.
Much of the stuff in the back rooms is used, some of it vintage NOS (new old stock), instruments and gear that was never used.
Rumors of legendary vintage instruments, especially guitars like 1960s era Fender Stratocasters and Gibson Les Pauls, abound. But Levkowitz doubts there are any of those, though he does say the legends are based in fact. In years past, he says, valuable old instruments were found. His favorite? An old King Super 20 alto saxophone. But then Levkowitz is a sax player.
He says there's no sure explanation for some of the old instruments that have been found. He suspects that some were stashed by would-be thieves, who planned to come back. Others might have been misplaced. His dad, Joe, and his uncle, Phil, were never obsessive about inventory or organization.
Known as Joe Chicago and Phil Chicago to many customers, the brothers died within two weeks of each other in 2004.
Established by Levkowitz's grandparents at another location Downtown early last century, seven of their children worked in the family store. Eventually, Joe and Phil took over and moved the store to its current location in 1967.
The 90th anniversary is something of a guess. Levkowitz said the family started out as a general store and eventually branched out into used instruments.
"My dad and uncle built this business extending credit, letting people take a guitar and an amp on a handshake," he says.
As to the freed-up space, Levkowitz says he'll probably just fill it with new merchandise.
A tour of the usually off-limits rooms explains the potential for myth. It takes 45 minutes to walk the aisles snaking through the back rooms.
What explains this glorious musical mess?
"My dad and uncle had a saying, 'No reasonable offer refused,' " Levkowitz says. "But, if they didn't think it was reasonable. … " He gestures to yet another pile of dusty boxes.
Musicians come from all over the world to get a peek at what's behind those roped-off "Employees Only!" areas.
Asked to drop some names of famous customers over the years, Levkowitz says: "Johnny Cash bought a guitar from us about 20 years ago."
But ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons probably holds the title as the most regular and biggest spender, he says.
"I'd follow him around with a notebook. He'd point and say, "I want this, and that, and that and that. Ship it to Houston and bill me for it."
Club Congress entertainment manager David Slutes says most of the touring bands "make a beeline for the Chicago Store before soundcheck."
Slutes, a founding member of the Sand Rubies, found his favorite guitar there, a 1960s Vox teardrop.
Members of Spoon stopped in last week, Levkowitz says. And in the last couple of years Sheryl Crow came in and bought a guitar, and Beck bought a bunch of old gear before playing the Rialto.
Perhaps the store's biggest claim to fame came when Martin Scorsese used it for a scene in his 1974 drama "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."
"I grew up in the store," says Levkowitz, 55. "There was a lot of love. Sometimes it didn't show. My dad used to say, 'That's too good for you.' But it was a selling technique."
If you go
• What: Chicago Music Store's 90th Anniversary Sale.
• Where: 130 E. Congress St.
• When: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.
• Cost: "No reasonable offer refused," says the ad.
Did you know?
Rainer Ptacek, the Tucson blues musician who was known far and wide as Rainer, worked at Chicago Music Store as a guitar repairman.
A video on YouTube shows Howe Gelb and Rainer's son visiting Rainer at work in 1994.
Rainer died of a brain tumor in 1997.
