The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page V9

www.velocityweekly.com ve ocity 9 Cover Story When John Timmons had no idea what else he could do, he sold records. As a high school kid in Evansville, he sold records. As a college dropout trading the Arizona desert for the shady streets of the Highlands, he sold records. Even when he have a store, Timmons sold records, loading up his van with LPs every weekend and trucking around to record shows and flea markets, selling ultra-rare vinyl gems to ultra-nerdy audio snobs. His apartment was a record store, too, until Timmons got sick of customers who realize the open 24 hours a day.

So in 1985, he opened a real shop on Poplar Level Road, just to get some peace and quiet at home, but still watchful for a chance at a legitimate career. He called the place Ear X-tacy. Every few years, when the store started feeling a little too cozy, Timmons would abandon it for more square footage and more record racks, all the while wondering what he was going to do with his life. Twenty years later, it appears that Timmons has figured out what to do with his life, much to the pleasure of people who still believe that a record store should be more than a slot at the mall or a section at Wal-Mart. It began with a tiny storefront that is now under an expressway onramp.

Timmons got a $5,000 advance on a credit card and started first alternative record store. Now, Ear X-tacy inhabits a space on the busiest strip in the Highlands, offering rock, rap, indie, bluegrass and every other sub-genre under the sun, as well as T-shirts, stickers and all manner of knick-knackery. Last year, Ear X-tacy did over $3.5 million in business, selling 188,422 CDs and 12,480 LPs, and who knows how many Beatles lunchboxes, Bettie Page postcards and action figures. The store will celebrate its 20th anniversary with special sales and a month full of in-store performances. Filling a niche Timmons and Ear X-tacyhave flourished despite all other evidence that new music retail is a serious nosedive.

think luck and timing and the fact that we filled a niche early on and that been really good about branding the the 49-year-old Timmons said. you ask about a record store in Louisville, hopefully Ear X-tacy comes to mind Timmons first arrived in Louisville in 1976 with a job offer and little else. He had worked at Karma Records in Evansville throughout high school and stayed in touch with the owners. When Timmons realized college in Arizona agree with him, he called up his old friends, who were opening a store in Louisville and needed a manager. felt like home Timmons said of his new city.

Before the hit, Timmons had already moved on to another local record store chain, Vine Records, and then Phoenix Records, which included waterbeds and pipes among its inventory. The store concept proved to be a fad. But when Phoenix closed, it provided the motivation for Timmons to set out on his own, selling records from his apartment and van. That led to the Poplar Level store, a 300- square-foot space that the newly christened Ear X-tacy quickly outgrew. The next move was to 2431Bardstown Road, where, with the Great Escape comic book store, a one-stop shop of sorts was created for Highlands habitues jonesing for a pop-culture fix.

Room to move To get his name out there, Timmons ordered a run of 500 bumper stickers with the store name (ripped off from the band XTC) in a thick typewriter font (ripped off from the band Cheap Trick). Even the original yellow and red colors were ripped off from and Tower Records. Soon, kids were coming in the store, swiping a stack of stickers and hustling out the door without spending a dime. Ear X-tacy stickers in their untouched form or cut up and rearranged to spell other phrases became a must-have accoutrement for bumpers, skateboards and guitar cases. In 1990, Ear X-tacy moved closer to the heart of the Highlands, to a small shopping center on Bardstown Road near Grinstead Drive.

Even if Timmons himself might have been content to stay in that cozy corner storefront, the business, the merchandise and the customers demanded more room to operate. understand that a certain appeal for people who want to root around on the floor for stuff or want to shop in a cramped, jammed store that have Timmons said. trying to do is build a store and continue to grow a store that I would want to shop The great leap forward came in 1994, when the demise of a Pier One Imports store at 1534 Bardstown Road suddenly created a vacancy. Timmons pounced, not sure how he was going to pay for it or how he was going to fill all those shelves. Going big A man who barely 10 years before had been selling records out of his apartment now had all the space he could handle.

No more stacking records and CDs under the display bins. But he also had, for the first time, real debt. Timmons took out a $20,000 loan and worried his store might not survive. Ear X-tacy was thrown a lifeline in the form of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, a then-fledgling network formed to help smaller In an era when megastores and Internet downloads squeeze the independent record shop, John Timmons thumbs his nose at the skeptics and celebrates 20 years of Ear X-tacy BY JOSHUA HAMMANN FILE PHOTO Erin Fenton sampled a CD at one of Ear listening stations..