Backseat Sandbar

This morning at 10am, a ton of local media and fans of ear x-tacy filled the record store for a press conference with owner John Timmons to address “potential changes to ear x-tacy.”  In sum, ear x-tacy is is trouble and they have been for the past three years.  In order to stay above water (or rather return to the black), Timmons made a plea, not for our charity, but for our business.  The times have changed and more and more people are downloading on-line every day.  Some legally, a lot illegally.  Bottom line, if you want ear x-tacy to stick around, purchase your music there (they even have an on-line store).

Timmons also took questions and admitted that there is a possibility that the store may close or change locations.  Word is someone has even offered him FREE RENT in a different location.  While it would be a huge loss to the highlands area and the general psyche of the status of supports, I’d rather have ear x-tacy in a new, possibly smaller location, than to not have it at all.  If you look at great record stores in other areas such as Grimey’s in Nashville and Shake It! in Cincy, they are not in the best area in town, but they create their own traffic.  They ARE the destination, not the area.  Ear x-tacy can survive a move.  They have before.

Timmons also mentioned the possibility that another option would be to downsize in the current location and share the space with another business (perhaps upstairs or wall off the back room that is mostly used for CD’s.  Ear x-tacy’s lease is up in March, but he said the owner may give him a little extra time to work out their negotiations.  Let’s hope they work it out.

On a related note, there were a ton of local artist present, including Jim James and Patrick Hallahan of My Morning Jacket.  I could list all of the other local artist, but it would go on forever and I know I would leave people out.  Also, I saw a lot of familiar faces in the local music scene, including bloggers, PR/Management folks, festival curators, concert promoters and venue owners.  Everyone was gathered in one room, for one reason…we all love ear x-tacy and want to see it do well.  It really said a lot about how close-nit we all really are and how much everyone cares about this important part of Louisville’s history AND FUTURE.

Here is the video of the press conference in four parts (damn youtube time limits)…

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

PART V

more pics…

Tags: changes, closing, Ear X-tacy, Highands, Jim James, John Timmons, Kentucky, lease, Louisville, Moving, My Morning Jacket, New Location, Owner, Press Conference, Records, Rent, Save, Store, support, Update, Video

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Louisville. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.