MUSOS Corner plan to plug one of the biggest holes in the Newcastle music scene by offering a state-of-the-art performance space for all-age performers and punters.
Shortly after Newcastle-based company Winarch Group purchased the iconic store from co-founder Sandra Lindsay back in May, work began on turning former warehouse space into a fully-fledged live music venue.
The performance space features a stage, lighting and sound system, bar tables and benches and is capable of hosting a crowd of between 100 and 150 people.
The innovative toilet design even features a light and bathroom sink made from a snare drum and an acoustic guitar paper towel dispenser.
Winarch Group founder and director Paul Lambess believes that it should be "fun and cool" to come into a music store.
"If you go into this music store you can actually hear live music," Mr Lambess said. "We think that's pretty cool and that's a first from what we can see."
The performance space will also be used for school education programs and product demonstrations, and will be available for hire for album and EP launches, particularly in the all-ages space.
Newcastle's all-ages scene has struggled for over a decade to find appropriate venues since the 2013 closure of The Loft. In the meantime venues such as Drone, The Commons and Softys Clubhouse have come and gone and the Adamstown Uniting Church have also held all-ages gigs.
"Because this is not a pub or a club, it's part of a music store, that's an attractive thing," Mr Lambess said of Musos Corner hosting all-ages shows.
"I have four young kids who are all into music and I want them to be able to go to a safe, inspiring place where they can grow their passion for music.
"Unfortunately kids don't have a lot of options to do that. This is a space that's really built with that in mind."
Last week Mr Lambess was announced as the successful bidder of veteran journalist Glenn A. Baker's extensive music collection.
The Australian Financial Review reported Mr Lambess paid $314,000 for the collection, which includes more than 50,000 vinyl records, 30,000 CDs, cassettes, books, news clippings and memorabilia complied by Baker over half a century.
Mr Lambess plans to get the collection catalogued and then hopes place it on exhibition at Musos Corner and at the $235 million Cedar Mill Lake Macquarie events hub at Morisset, which is under construction.
"We're excited to share the collection, but to also keep it together," he said. "We've already had offers of 'can I buy this' and 'can I buy that and split up the collection?'
"We said no. We see it as an amazing piece of Australian music history collected over someone's life time."
Earlier this week Mr Lambess started going through the collection and he was ecstatic to find original copies of Jackson 5, Michael Jackson and Beatles records.
"It's a treasure trove of goodies," he said. "After an hour or two I thought I had enough. I had to buy myself a record player so I could play them at home.
"It's probably like a chocolate bar. If you eat a few rows it's nice, but if you eat the whole bar you feel sick. There's just so much in it. I'm just gonna enjoy little bits of it for a long, long time."
Meanwhile, construction is continuing on the Cedar Mill Lake Macquarie 30,000-capacity amphitheatre on the former Morisset Golf Club site.
The dome stage is complete and earth-moving works are underway.
Rain and construction delays have pushed the expected completion date back to late 2025.
"We're continually getting promoter interest, so we're keen to deliver it as fast as we can," Mr Lambess said.
"The 2026 season is what I think it will be, which is anywhere from November 2025 to March 2026. It's in that window."
