We Declare!

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The original typewriter seems like an archeological find, buried in the necessary clutter of the ear X-tacy office. Under a layer of dust is the machine on which owner John Timmons pounded out the metal-to-ribbon ink letters that would be become an iconic bumper stuck message of cool.

A dinosaur of office equipment, the sturdy Royal slumbers below the shelves where the refined hum of technology now toils for the accounting, purchasing and payroll of the largest independent music store and label in the state. Outside, the pedestrian and motorized traffic is a constant ebb and flow in front of the building that once housed Robert Hall clothing store and later, Pier One. It’s local, independent and yes, it’s weird.

The entire ear X-tacy property is a hub of networking and exchange of ideas and information for a wide-ranging base, supporting independent bands (local and beyond) as well as forward thinking (both global and community).

As for the music – some shoppers know Jitterbug and others know Pogo. Parents who emerged from the punk mosh pit – or the orchestra pit – flip through collector’s vinyl and special issue DVDs. Often, they are tugged away by restless teenage daughters in need of plastic to finance their need for Jonas Brothers, or a son who is curious to know why all the fuss over Mozart. A few women with old crushes on David Bowie – and a few young men with new crushes on David Bowie – buy the import mags and hang on desperately to their spiked hair. And God bless them, the dudes who request “Free Bird” for encores – and mean it – are right at home.

If you spend any time at all in the store, you can spot three generations of music lovers, if not musicians. The business is nearly a quarter century old but its contents are timeless.

“Daddy, what’s a record?” was a comment overheard in the checkout line recently. “Ouch” is Timmons only response. We knew it was bound to happen – that a school aged child might not know the finer points of a Ticonderoga #2 pencil – but what do you do when you’re listed in the books as a record store?

“Fortunately, people still want to hold/own something tangible – a book, a CD, a record,” says Timmons. “Vinyl is making a huge comeback, and it’s kids buying it, as well as the old folks like me. Kinda bucks the trend, you know.” Though a digital download store is available at www.earxtacy.com, Timmons admits, “We’ve always been a ‘record store’ and I plan to continue as long as people want to still buy music.”

While growing up in Scottsdale Arizona, then Evansville Indiana, Timmons played drums for years. It was the Beatle’s movie “Help!” that pushed him and fellow fourth graders over the edge, and a band was started. Later, after a $50 boost from his mom for a drum set from Woolco, the kid was on his way. First to frat party cover bands and then across the river.

Moving to Louisville in 1976, Timmons worked for an Indianapolis-based chain, Karma Records. He managed the popular music-books-accessories retail destination on the corner of Bardstown and Bonnycastle, now Cafe 360. New to Louisville and living large in a small basement apartment on Cherokee Road, Timmons’ cross country move was fueled by discontent while studying photography at Arizona State University. Having been employed by Karma in Evansville, he kept in touch with them until an offer came through for the Louisville store. He packed all his belongings into a VW Beetle and didn’t come to a complete stop until ...

“The Highlands was immediately attractive to me because of its uniqueness, so unlike anywhere I’d ever been before. Great little independent shops gave it a flavor unlike anywhere else,” says Timmons.

But, in Louisville, with nowhere to practice and focused totally on the Karma (and later Vine Records) task at hand, Timmons was drumless. In the late 1970s, while working at another locally owned record store, Phoenix Records, he met up with another music fanatic, Brian Talley. “He was already a drummer, playing with a ‘new wave’ band called Dead Serious,” says Timmons. “Brian and I, along with his wife Kathleen, decided to start a band. So I went out, bought a guitar and amp at the pawn shop, and away we went.”

Timmons expounds on his musical journey:

“This was the era of punk and D.I.Y. ... the Sex Pistols, Ramones, etc. I told myself ... I can do that. Well, with our band, Jil Thorp & the Beat Boys, we did actually play, record and travel. No music lessons, just the desire to create and play music. Stutter was mostly an improvisational group, led by Jim Adams and Jeff Jobson, who asked me to join them.

“With my incredibly limited musical ability, in Stutter, I was the one with probably the most ‘talent.’ I still have guitars, and my wife Denise bought me a set of drums. After years of not playing, I’m starting to get that bug again. Talented, no ... but passionate about playing and creating again.”

Two-cents go a long way. Timmons offers his advice for entrepreneurs starting out or changing directions: “As far as advice I’d give to others, and I have been giving to myself lately, is this: Forget that you ‘can’t possibly do that.’  Just do it. Really. If I can open a business how I did, it can be done. If someone with no musical talent wants to play, you can. The important ingredient that makes the impossible or unlikely happen, is the passion, desire and will to do whatever you set your heart and mind to. Simple.

”That’s how I could open my own store, playing music in a band. In a way, I do feel like I’ve come full circle. I’m re-energized with my store; I’m looking forward to playing music again, even if it’s just in my music room at home. It’s time.”

This July 4th, Timmons and staff are hosting their annual “Indie Day” celebration, held out on the ear X-tacy patio. The free event showcases the cream of the independent business crop, with opportunities to meet and network with merchants and groups ... plus a lot of swag for the taking.

“While businesses come and go, it’s the independent stores and the incredibly friendly people that make the Highlands truly ‘home’ for so many, and attractive to those who don’t live in the ‘hood,’” Timmons says. “The Highlands community is truly that. It feels like family, this neighborhood we call the Highlands. I can’t imaging living or working anywhere else.”

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Mark Forman and Susan Linville met in 1995 while working for the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival. Linville, one of the founding members of the Necessary Theatre, now in its 18th year, has established herself as an integral part of the Louisville independent theater scene. Forman also has his work, cues and creativity cut out for him, taking on the tasks of graphic designer, sound designer, actor and associate producer for the company.

But, the couple’s biggest production thus far has been sons Jacob and Moses. Wrangling her two “wild boys,” as well as all the creative personalities in the theater, Linville is also a birth doula (labor coach) and has been a stay-at-home mom for the past seven years.

No one could script what Linville accomplishes as a doula – supporting women and their husbands through each stage of labor. She took on this vocation after directing “Birth: The Play” at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2006. Forman, in turn, is available to take care of the children during the spontaneous and long hours that childbirth presents.

In a role with enough energy, twists and emotions to send a star running for the understudy, these parents and business partners inspire the thought, “work is play and plays are work.” They reside in the Deer Park neighborhood of the Highlands, where the curtain never closes.

How does a couple blend independent thinking in work and at home?

“I am lucky to work for myself: as a doula, a theater director/manager and a mom. In all of those fields you do have a ‘customer,’ someone who calls the shots, in a way,” says Linville. “The great thing about how we have worked our theater company is that we have been together for so long – Mark and I have worked together in the company for 13 years and Tad Chitwood, the artistic director, has worked in the company since 1993. So, we all know each other VERY well. We know how to communicate with each other for the most part and this gives us the freedom to speak our minds – to lay it all out there without too much fear.”

Forman explains, “We try very hard to be mindful of how we consume things, and what those transactions mean. The first thing we try to do is keep our money local. Keeping our money local means that we buy from independent businesses and individuals like Wild and Woolly video, the Bardstown Road Farmers’ Market, and Field Day Family Farm. It also means that we are teaching ourselves how to build and grow things for ourselves.”

The family composts and collects the worm castings for use in their potted plants and vegetable garden. Says Forman, “To me, being independent means living a ‘do-it-yourself’ life as best we can, and when we need help, we look for it locally. Growing up in the D.I.Y. ‘80s and being influenced by the punks who were telling us to question commercialism and corporate rock, it was difficult to escape without a desire to change the way we consume things and without a healthy skepticism about how we are sold things in this culture. Growing new soil and making vermicompost, to me, is so punk rock.”

Any advice for those eclectic couples who might want to pursue this work/life balance?

“Oh ... if you can hire an accountant ... do it! I’m joking, sort of, but the business end of things is the hardest part for me,” claims Linville. “I just want to talk about and do the art, not the budget or the fundraising ... ugh. I think if you can give a little away – a little control of the business end of it – to someone who you trust loves it as much as you do, that’s the key.”

Forman’s advice: “Prepare yourself for giving up your creations. Once they are created and shared, sold or given away, they don’t belong to you anymore.”

Does the “Keep Louisville Weird” local/independent business campaign describe the Highlands?

Linville states, “The Highlands seems to be the Louisville Mecca for independence. It seems that all the local business is focused in this and surrounding areas. It’s such a smash-up of all different walks of life with loads of crazy artists thrown in here.”

“Keep Louisville Weird,” says Forman. “Louisville owes so much to the Highlands for that weirdness. I grew up in Lyndon, and the Highlands always seemed so exotic to me. It seemed like a place where if a group of kids wanted to start a punk band they could, and then they could suddenly end up in SPIN magazine. It seemed like a really fertile place, creatively, and a place I definitely wanted to live. Things seemed so possible here. They still do. Honestly, I never thought I’d ever be able to own a home here, and even now I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of such a beautiful and creative community.”

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The elements of Jen and Cory’s work are always at opposition – glass and wood, flame and blade, in the studio and under the sky. Cory, owner of Limbwalker Tree Service, has a partner and 13 employees. Jen is a designer, a graphic artist, a glass craftsman, an educator ... and a full-time mother, though she is quick to assure me those things are “definitely not in that order.”

After working through college for their degrees, working for others, then years of seven-days-a-week business building, the leap to self-employment required some very calculated decisions about minimizing their cost of living. The list included building Jen’s studio themselves in the back yard, no cell, no cable, and a wood-burning stove for heat. For eight years, Jen had no automobile. Yet their freedom to travel, dine out and treat themselves to music purchases and movie rentals along the way has rounded out a very comfortable and virtually debt-free lifestyle.

As a certified arborist, Cory built his business from the ground up. Literally. With oaks and pines shooting up over 50 feet in the air, every job is held in a branch office. The pleasant irony of his work is that while he’s hanging from pulleys and ropes from ice- and wind-damaged trees, someone across town is benefiting from the recycled wood in the desk that Petry does not covet. Cory’s dad, John, claims that “If you love what you do, it’s not work.” A tall order, but the parents of toddler June Briar Petry seem to bring a lot of love to everything they touch.

I ask how the couple perceives “independence” in their daily lives.

“We have aspired to live a life of physical, emotional, cultural and spiritual independence,” says Jen. “Physical independence is my health, the food that I eat, the place that I live, the tools and clothes and art and clutter I interact with. I mean how many things can you honestly control in this world? What goes into your body is about the only one ... and that’s remarkably, sadly difficult in 2009. Emotional independence is true self reliance.”

The couple’s family tree is local and, though they didn’t meet until long after college, they grew up less than 3 blocks from each other, between Bardstown Road and Spring Drive.

Jen’s grandfather had his own tool and die business, her dad owned an architectural firm, and her brother is a partner in a surgical practice. Cory’s dad started a medical practice and his grandfather and great grandfather started VG Reed & Sons printing. “Amazingly, with the exception of only one, all these businesses are local and still in their prospective families,” says Jen. “Maybe everyone has as many examples of entrepreneurship in their immediate families, but we both certainly came up having a lot of examples.”

Jen says she would never have made the decision to have a family without the opportunity and flexibility to be home with her children. “I started my business full time just before we were married, and it took a few years to establish it and create this window of opportunity. I am not working full time right now, but I still do enough production to keep up with gallery orders and commissions. Limbwalker is really growing and gaining a reputation, so the timing was also right there. Cory has been able to support us since my income has slowed down.”

Cory indicates that Louisville is a good fit for the entrepreneurial couple: “Jen’s opportunity to be an independent glass artist would be impossible in San Francisco or New York City or Chicago,” he says, citing the cost of living and the unlikelihood of having space in the backyard to build a studio. “Louisville has the perfect combination of urban action, excitement, inspiration, old fashioned elbow room, good neighborhoods with reasonable home prices – and a family and support network to help grow your kids up.”

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