Tag Archives: Landlocked Music

Landlocked Music Bloomington Indiana

Record Shops, vinyl road rage, , , , , ,

by Joe Wallace

The first stop on the cross-country record store road trip we call Vinyl Road Rage was a familiar one-–Landlocked Music in Bloomington, Indiana.

Bloomington is a great place to be if you’re a fan of good record stores, indie music, and weirdness overall. Landlocked Music has plenty of that–mostly found in the used soundtracks, ambient/experimental, and miscellaneous record sections. It’s easy to become a big fan of Landlocked as they’re open to a lot of musical craziness both genre-wise and in terms of format.

I found a nice selection of cassette-only projects which always makes me happy. I think today’s cassette culture people are totally nuts and I can’t imagine releasing anything on tape, which is why they are totally awesome to have around.

It’s good to see people fighting conventional wisdom so hard–AND making an interesting success of it as near as I can tell. Shine on, you crazy cassette people. (PS-I would love to know about cassette-only projects for coverage here. It’s just too retro not to do! Get in touch.)

Landlocked Music has a wonderful experimental/avant garde section that definitely needs a look if you’re a fan. I always gravitate toward the soundtrack/miscellaneous categories first as I’m a rabid collector of weird vinyl in the last couple of years.

While it’s true that I’ve covered Landlocked before, they deserve a second mention. Not only is the selection great, well-organized and fun to browse, but the staff are friendly and fun, too. The best record stores seem to have people who get it–the old cliche about folks being too cool to talk to you doesn’t exist at the really good shops I’ve found time and again.

Personality goes hand in hand with selection and Landlocked has both. Always approachable, never pretentious, and full of surprises (one visit I spotted a vinyl cutter on display and apparently for sale…) your opinion of Indiana as a vinyl destination will change after a stop here, rest assured.

Honestly, I wouldn’t go on and on about how fun and easygoing this shop is if it hadn’t been for some of the truly bizarre and unpleasant experiences I had at other shops on the road trip. When you find the awful stores, it makes places like Landlocked Music seem even more noteworthy.

Join me on Facebook as I’m quite active there and am always glad to make new friends–especially those obsessed with vinyl. Also, you can become a fan of the official Facebook page for my upcoming book WTF Records: The Turntabling Guide to Weird and Wonderful Vinyl.

Vinyl Road Rage Day One

vinyl road rage, , , , , , , ,

by Joe Wallace

Vinyl Road Rage Four is well underway–the cross country indie record store vinyl blogging trip started in Chicago and I’m now camped in a Super 8 Motel just about 40 minutes from Nashville Tennessee.

The first stop was Bloomington, Indiana for another look at TD’s CDs and LPs, plus the always wonderful Landlocked Music. Both shops are definitely worth your time if you’re anywhere near Bloomington Indiana. I’ll post more details on the first day tomorrow–it’s been a very long day, but for now, feast your eyes on my grubby little v-blog on the day’s vinyl finds. (See the Youtube clip below).

As always, I’ll be blogging about the highlights of the day and saving the in-depth record store reviews for a bit later on when I’ve had time to catch my breath. Suffice it to say that today was a long, wonderful and wonderfully weird journey. Stay tuned for the details on that…here’s the vid clip.

On these videos, bear with me, it’s a work in progress and the flaws are PAINFULLY obvious.

 



Landlocked Music, Bloomington Indiana

Record Shops, vinyl road rage, , , , ,

by Joe Wallace

There are plain old boring record stores, and then there are indie record stores that simply define the business. Landlocked Music is one of those stores that, for me at least, define what a record store should be all about. Landlocked isn’t too big, it’s not too small. It’s in a space that is absolutely perfect for the volume of records and the variety of merch they carry.

I tend to gush a bit when I find a store I truly love and Bloomington has not one, but TWO great shops. Landlocked is the first.

The store has a great selection of both new and used vinyl, nicely categorized and with price ranges that serve budget-minded crate diggers and collectors who know what their titles should be worth and are willing to pay accordingly.

The thing I was most impressed with is that the store tends to fill out my favorite genres rather well. There is a good selection of electronic, experimental, obscure funk, off-the-beaten-path stuff for slightly jaded record store addicts like me. A good effort has been put into least a decent showing across the genres outside the usual R-n-B, grandpa rock, new indie, and punk sections.

I found an Emo Phillips live performance record here, as well as Sonic Youth and Lydia Lunch, so I’m probably a bit biased in this department. I love obscurity on vinyl, general weirdness, and any of late 80s/early 90s alt/indie/WTF projects so I had a very happy experience with Landlocked Music.

On top of that, the shop is friendly, well-organized, and above all FUN TO BROWSE. There are plenty of record stores where the atmosphere is non-existent, the shopping is clumsy and painful (you only have one set of knees, after all) or the records are jammed in so tightly that you can’t look through them easily.

Landlocked gets major points on all fronts. I will be returning here again all the way from Chicago for another visit or three. I recommend Landlocked to anyone within driving distance as it’s not only a great place to find the vinyl, it’s also situated near plenty of great restaurants and other fun.

Or, to put it more succinctly:

Shop. This. Store.