By Julie Mullins
Photo By: Joe Lamb

Looking for an old-school, European-made Izod Lacoste shirt? How about a pair of primary colored, floral-print polyester pants? A 45 of Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady?” Or perhaps simply a good cup of coffee?

When people speak of supporting local music, consider that for some it means more than just going to see them play live music. Think purchasing power!

I spoke with a handful of local musical luminaries who not only embrace the DIY ethos of independent music, but have chosen to keep it even more real through their own indie retail ventures — or, should I say, adventures.

Local singer/songwriter/guitarist extraordinaire Kim Taylor juggles a lot of balls being a musician and a retail entrepreneur and keeping it all together. She owns and operates Pleasant Perk, a coffee shop in Pleasant Ridge, and says she enjoys the freedom having her own business brings her.

About five years ago, she purchased the Perk from its original owners, who were friends who moved to Wisconsin. As Taylor puts it, “I was a coffee addict then, so it only made sense.”

Kidding aside, it’s clear Taylor’s life and priorities extend beyond caffeinated bean concoctions.

“My life revolves around the caring of several things: my shop, my writing and music and my family,” she says. “I have an 8-year-old son and we home-school him. I just try to keep these things going as best I can. A lot of sleep helps.”

In an email exchange, Taylor says the coffee shop keeps her grounded — no pun intended.

“It’s like a family there for me,” she writes. “It has certainly helped me learn how to deal with people. I was an only kid and have always been an introvert. Being in an environment where you are constantly interacting with people has been good for me.

“When I first owned the shop it was really hard for me to always be around people, serving and talking and trying to be happy and trying to make them happy. I’ve relaxed into it a lot more over the years and it has carried over onto the stage as well.”

Dealing to support one’s habit sounds like what the folks at Avant Garage have raised to an art form. And sleep, or lack thereof, is something these self-proclaimed packrats say they could use more of.

Northside’s hip, off-the-wall secondhand shop is owned and operated by a four-person collective: Brian Driscoll, longtime bassist with The Tigerlilies (18 and a half years, he says), Lisa Walker and Chuck Cleaver (together in Wussy, plus Cleaver leads the Ass Ponys).

Driscoll, who used to collect and consign vintage items to Ali’s Boutique (whose owner is now an Avant Garage partner too), says, “I was doing this anyway, and it was kind of a good excuse to keep doing it, to keep piling up stuff.”

For the past five and a half years “or so,” the inimitable vintage junktique has been a premiere one-stop shop for all things offbeat, from the nostalgic to the off-color and anything in between. As Walker says, “Between us and Brian, we’ve kinda become the go-to people in the neighborhood when somebody needs something tacky or unusual.”

She mentions that she’s seen stuff from the store show up in national band photos and cover art. Cleaver enthusiastically describes a Mussolini ashtray that director Terry Zwigoff had ordered from the store that appeared in the film Ghost World.

“It’s like, ‘Terry Zwigoff bought that off me,’ ” he says, smiling.

There’s a real spirit of quirky fun at Avant Garage. Oddly enough, the three owner/musicians I interviewed chose kitschy religious relics as their favorite items in the shop.

Driscoll shows me a “Cruci-fish” (complete with its original box), a quasi-crucifix carved from a fish skeleton. The other two were disappointed they couldn’t light up a box-framed, backlit 3-D portrait of Jesus Christ for me. (Alas, the bulb was burned out.)

For the owners/buyers as well as for the customers, the rewards gleaned from the hunt for “treasures” are many.

“It’s fun to be in the store because friends visit,” Driscoll says, “and you meet people and there’s something that you prized a lot and somebody finally buys it and you’re like, ‘I can’t believe it was out there that long and you got it!’ ”

He laughs. “I don’t know, it’s kinda satisfying to see somebody find something and get excited about it. Often people who are kinda buzzed come over from The Comet and play around and that’s OK — dress up, I really don’t care. It’s fun.”

Walker says she feels good about providing a service.

“I try to promote individuality,” she says. “So if somebody looks good in something, I’m gonna let them know, but I’m gonna go for the thing that looks more interesting.”

She also believes in keeping prices affordable so high school and college kids, or anyone on a budget, can shop there — even herself.

“Half my wardrobe is from here,” she says.

The goods might come from anywhere, but estate sales are essential for sourcing their merchandise, Driscoll says.

“Nothing else will get me up at 8:30 on a Saturday morning,” he says. “I’m always excited when I’m driving to these things, like, ‘What am I gonna find? What am I gonna find?’ I usually find something, but there are times when you go and there’s nothing, and it’s just terrible. But that’s just a part of it.”

Another part of making ends meet means supplemental “bread and butter” occupations: Driscoll works as a painting contractor, Cleaver as a stonemason and both he and Walker work shifts at The Hideaway restaurant.

Does Avant Garage somehow become more an extension of their music-making selves?

“It all goes together,” Driscoll says. “It’s part of the aesthetic. I mean, the clothes that we sell here, I wear them. It’s all part of it, the whole: clothes and music and books.”

“I think a lot of the stuff that we do is kind of an assemblage of things and people, even our CD cover art,” Walker explains. “When I do our cover art, it’s basically photographs of stuff that I buy that instead of putting in the store I keep. I also use it for our imagery on the Web. All of the stuff I use to visually associate with the band is basically stuff that we put here in the store.

“You’re not defined by your stuff, but you kind of define it — like the things that you choose to collect or to represent you. I think as a band you’re presenting something to the world, and as a store you are, too. So there’s a lot of overlap actually.”

Cleaver concurs. “Like she said, Wussy’s kind of a ragtag assemblage of things. None of us are all that good as musicians, but when you combine what we do we manage to be better than the sum of those parts. But we somehow seem to be able to assemble something that people enjoy.”

Sounds like a good plan for any functional collective — be it band, business or both. ©