Lawrence, Kan.—Here’s the first thing you should do when you walk into a record store: Take a quick glance at the dividers—the little plastic things, I mean, that separate the albums by Wilco from the ones by Lucinda Williams. More than the promotional posters littering the walls or the music blaring over the PA, it’s those dividers that will tell you what you need to know about the place.
Love Garden Sounds—just stroll down Massachusetts Street, the main drag here, and look for the storefront emblazoned with the giant squid straddling the planet Saturn—more than passes the test. At Love Garden the dividers are colorful, hand-scrawled, and littered with names that seem to trace an alternate history of rock music. Stand amid the stacks of LPs, turn to the left, and you might spot The Monks, a bunch of American GI’s in Germany who tonsured themselves and played … well, see for yourself: People might’ve called it punk rock if that term had been coined by the mid-’60s. Look to the right, and maybe you’ll see Clara Rockmore, a theremin virtuosa who made Tchaikovsky sound like he was scoring Lost in Space. Or perhaps you’ll find your interest piqued by a divider that announces an entire section devoted to “Eccentric Soul Compilations.”
'Chronicle' Web editor Brock Read at Love Garden Sounds
This is the music that matters to Kelly Corcoran, Love Garden’s owner. Mr. Corcoran looks like he was sent to the shop straight from central casting (you know the drill: beard, hoodie sweatshirt, generally laconic demeanor). And while he spent a few years working in Washington for NPR, it’s hard to escape the notion that he’s landed in exactly the right spot. When Lawrence Biemiller and I stopped by the shop late one morning, he was in full-on record-geek mode—holding court at the checkout counter, bringing a customer up to speed on the Beach Boys’ catalog (“Well, Pet Sounds is widely regarded as the classic …”).
If you’ve read press reports on The Plight of the Independent Record Store in the past few years, chances are you’ve heard one of two dueling stories: Either shops like Love Garden are falling, one by one, at the hands of corporate superstores and Internet retailers, or they’re basking in an unlikely renaissance, buoyed by a new breed of vinyl devotees. According to Mr. Corcoran, neither tale gets it quite right. In a college town like Lawrence, he says, there’s plenty of room for a record store to thrive. But you’ve really got to know what you’re doing. That means keeping tabs on the local music scene, schlepping out to people’s houses to buy used records, and staying small enough to adapt when customers’ tastes change.
Oh, and knowing your clientele helps, too. When I ogled an LP I’d thought was hopelessly out of print—an underrated classic by Arthur Verocai, a Brazilian songwriter from the early ’70s—Mr. Corcoran nodded in my direction. “Get it before it’s gone. I just got the last 20 from the label.”
Off the album went, into my already-bulging pile of purchases. “That line works on every record person,” he said with a wry smile. “But in this case, it’s true.”
6 Responses to In Lawrence, Kan., a Home for Theremins and Tropicália
11223140 - January 12, 2011 at 11:02 am
Thanks for the very nice feature and video. The incredible lack of comments here reinforces what Bob Lefsetz says all the time about popular music — it used to run the culture, now it is merely a footnote, and tech is king. Brock held up a few album covers, hopefully viewers recognized “Paris 1919″ by John Cale, and I agree with Brock it would make many lists of desert island discs. Love Garden looks like a great record store, music nerds like myself would be very happy to visit (or live) there.
jimeddy
bradall3n - January 17, 2011 at 11:50 am
Great to see Love Garden get its props! Kelly is so smart about knowing what it takes to keep a local record store in business. Left to someone less savvy and thoughtful about getting people to buy records, who knows if Love Garden would still be around providing great records to the denizens of Lawrence.
eelalien - January 17, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Long live record stores like Love Garden and long live vinyl! I have 3,000+ vinyl LPs as well as close to a thousand 45s, CDs, and even cassettes (yep – tape!). Sure, I also download stuff from Amazon and iTunes, but there is still something special about being able to hold a vinyl record in your hands and pore over the cover art, photos, and liner notes that don’t require a magnifying glass. More power to you and your ilk, Kelly Corcoran!!
ktr121 - January 31, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Small edit — It’s Massachusetts Street (‘Mass Street’), not Massachusetts Avenue… Thanks for the article!
rdittben - February 1, 2011 at 12:51 am
Lawrence Biemiller in Lawrence, Kansas, going “full-on record-geek mode?” Nah! This can’t be the same Lawrence Biemiller who the Chronicle dispatched to San Diego last year to report on the San Diego Community College District’s $1.6 billion dollar environmental state of the art educational facilities construction program? THAT Lawrence B was all about the serious business of gold LEED certifications, advance building design and siting analysis. The deeper story behind the presence and community support for “Love Garden Sounds” is that Lawrence, Kansas, is home to Kansas University (KU), a place with a very hip and progressive home-grown artistic and cultural vibe. Without great fanfare, KU has nurtured over a dozen Pulitzer Prize winning authors, Hollywood movie stars as far back at the 1920’s, and other dynamos of American Arts and culture. The “other” story masked by a cursory visit to this record shop is the story of the many social idealists who have been nurtured at KU and have taken that commitment with them outside Lawrence, Kansas, where they are making major impacts on lives of others. For example, a KU alumna is a major financial supporter of successful on-going environmental clean-up advocacy efforts in San Diego, California. Another KU graduate is responsible for the Asian Development Bank’s requirement that six percent of all economic development infrastructure the bank finances from Thailand to India include environmental preservation and restoration. Untold thousands of poor children in the Bangkok delta will live longer lives because of cleaner water there attributable directly to the actions of the KU alumnus. Like the Japanese art form of “Kabuki” the visible progressive artistic vibe of Lawrence masks a deeper and more nuanced series of moves behind the public screen. The real “story” of “Love Garden Sounds” and what it really represents, has yet to be told. To paraphrase Edgar Dykstra’s (late Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, and the mathematical theoretician behind computer networking), who said “Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes,” Love Garden Sounds isn’t really only about records.
bhread - February 3, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Thanks for pointing that out, ktr121. Just fixed that mistake! (Evidently now I’m confusing Lawrence’s thoroughfares with Washington DC’s.)