Malibu Music Helps Community Heal After Palisades Fire

As Los Angeles grappled with the devastation of early January’s Palisades Fire, the local music community found itself among the many affected. The wildfire, which ignited in the Santa Monica Mountains on Jan. 7, tore through the Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu neighborhoods, left destruction in its wake.

But the impact extended beyond homes and wildlife, with many businesses, included those in the MI industry, being forced to shut their doors. Without electricity and with access to certain parts of the city of Malibu cut off, operations came to a standstill. Among the affected retailers was Malibu Music, a guitar shop known for its rare and high-quality stringed instrument selection.

“We had to close for at least a week, maybe longer,” said Todd Montgomery, the store’s manager. “Our entire city was without power for around 10 days and everything was shut down. The fire essentially split Malibu in half, cutting off access, so you can’t drive all the way through from Malibu to Santa Monica. With no power during that time and major road closures, traffic came to a standstill. Even after reopening, we’re still feeling the effects because there’s no easy way to get here from Los Angeles.”

While the fire didn’t affect Malibu Music’s structure directly, some of its guitars suffered due to the lack of proper temperature control during power outages.

“Some of our guitars were affected since we couldn’t run our humidity and temperature control during that time,” Montgomery said. “A few developed small cracks due to humidity changes, and some strings got crusty, but fortunately, there were no significant losses.”

Rather than focus solely on its own business stresses, Malibu Music turned to community aid. The store is currently offering discounts to fire victims, helping musicians replace lost instruments and equipment at reduced costs. Additionally, the shop has partnered with local schools to provide free beginner guitar lessons as a means of stress relief.

“We’ve had a lot of sad folks come in that had all their guitars burned, so we’re offering them discounts to help them get going again and get a guitar,” Montgomery explained. “We’re also doing outreach to the local schools where we’re giving free guitar lessons for beginners or people pretty new to the instrument for stress relief and community rebuilding. We’re doing that for the next month, and kids can borrow one of our guitars if they need to. Those are two [ways] we’re helping the community.”

Malibu Music’s team has also been tackling the challenge of removing hazardous toxins absorbed into the wood of guitars, a process that is both difficult and delicate.

“One guy came in and he lost 31 guitars in the fire,” Montgomery said. “Some other people are bringing in guitars that are smoke damaged, and we’re trying to help them get the smell out of it, which is tough because of the toxins. It’s not just wood burning, it’s all the pipes and the insulation of buildings.”

The store became an unexpected sanctuary for those battling the devastation of the Palisades Fire turning into a refuge for firefighters and emergency responders who had been working tirelessly to contain the fire.

“We had a city of firefighters, paramedics and emergency responders who were camped out here for the whole time,” Montgomery said. “They were from Idaho, Oregon, Northern California, all over the place. Some of the troops would work all night. If they had a guitar player or two in their little group, they would often come in for two or three hours and sit on our couches and strum guitars to relieve stress. It was interesting to see how therapeutic it was to these guys to just put a guitar on their belly and strum.”

Malibu Music is offering free guitar lessons and discounted prices as part of its “Music Heals” program, every Saturday from now until March 1. MI