Louisville Independent Business Alliance celebrates Independents Week and local business - American Independent Business Alliance AMIBA

Friday, July 6, 2007

Sound Effects

Celebration at ear X-tacy promotes support for local businesses

By Jeffrey Lee Puckett
The Louisville Courier-Journal

From its opening day in a storefront on Poplar Level Road 22 years ago, ear X-tacy records has championed the notion of locally owned and locally grown business. It isn't a radical or complicated idea: City government should support local business development, and consumers should spend their money at local businesses.

It's a win-win situation. You get a better pizza at Za's or Jockamo's, and they thrive. You get a better pour at The Nachbar, and James is happy to take your $3. You wander into ear X-tacy with $14 burning a hole in your pocket, and Bryan Peters will find you a record worth buying.

That's the basic concept behind Keep Louisville Weird, a coalition of Louisville businesses dedicated to maintaining a unique Louisville as opposed to one filled with chain stores. John Timmons, owner of ear X-tacy, got the grass-roots Keep Louisville Weird campaign started several years ago and is still pushing for the idea to grow through the recently formed Louisville Independent Business Alliance.

Tomorrow from noon to 4 p.m., the store at 1534 Bardstown Road will host the second annual Indie Day celebration, a free mini-festival featuring 16 local businesses, five bands, free food and drink and lots of raffles and door prizes.

There will be booths from Keep Louisville Weird, Rainbow Blossom, Wild and Woolly Video, Art By Mags, Arts & Crafts -- Miss Pinny/Angry Blue, Flying Shaman, Shear Artistry, The Safety & Security Store, Highland Chiropractic, Monkey Drive Screen Printing, Carmichael's Books and Quest Outdoors.

Bands performing inside the store will be IamIs, noon; Brigid Kaelin, 1 p.m.; Dangerbird, 2 p.m.; John Whitaker, 3 p.m.; and The Broken Spurs, 4 p.m. Food and drink will be provided by Bearno's Pizza, Stevens and Stevens Deli, Old Town Wine & Spirits, Havana Cola and Derby City Espresso.

"It's definitely a wide variety of people this year, which is kind of neat," said Rebecca Cornwell, an ear X-tacy staffer who has been the primary organizer of both events.

"Everyone has been really open to volunteering, sharing tables, giving stuff to the raffles -- everyone seems really excited. We tried to fit as many people as we could. We even talked about doing it somewhere else, but obviously we want to try and drive business into the store too."

While Cornwell probably had you at free food and music, the giveaways will include a Paul Westerberg autographed guitar, gift certificates from Wild and Woolly, Heine Brothers' Coffee, ear X-tacy and The Safety & Security; more than 750 gift bags provided by record labels, filled with CDs and T-shirts; and even a dinner party with Philadelphia band Hoots & Hellmouth. Every record in ear X-tacy's indie-rock section will also be 20 percent off all day.

"I think they've done an amazing job of pulling this together," said Whitaker, who will perform his upcoming new album, "Leave It With Your Airplanes," in its entirety and give away a sampler disc with pre-orders. "I'm probably more excited to see everyone else play."

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