For over 20 years, Bloomington-Normal record stores have been bringing art and culture to the community. Two mainstays, Reverberation Vinyl and Waiting Room Records, have built a following by hosting live music in their shops and the community.
Waiting Room Records is hosting its 4th annual free music fest, We’re Just Trying to Do Something Nice, Okay? at the Connie Link Amphitheater at 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 30.
The show will raise donations to support Clover’s Cat Club, an animal rescue service in Normal.
A Labor of Love: Live Music and Local Record Stores
When you walk into Reverberation Vinyl or Waiting Room Records, you’re greeted by walls of sound and culture. Some if it you may be familiar with — a Nirvana record on the wall or a poster for an upcoming Tyler, The Creator album — but for the average listener it’s a feast for the senses.
Your eye will dart across strange album art on records from previously unknown bands, you’ll hear something you’ve never heard before spinning on the turntable behind the counter, and you’re surrounded by shelves and shelves of vinyl records. These spaces exist all around the country, all around the world, but every local record store is a little different, shaped by the tastes and passions of its owners.
I’ve been shopping at Reverberation and Waiting Room since adolescence. Both record stores are mainstays in the community that have each been around for more than 15 years, respectively.
John Anderson, the owner of Reverberation, has helped stock my shelves with obscure psychedelic instrumental bands [like Monta at Odds], classic R&B records [like D’Angelo’s classic Voodoo], and early country 78rpm records. He’s also been hosting live music at his Main Street shop for nearly 10 years, with intimate shows from local bands like Swim Ignorant Fire and Yea Big, and internationally touring groups like Mdou Moctar.
“The shows happening at Reverberation Vinyl are some of the best shows happening in Bloomington-Normal right now,” says Stefen Robinson, a Bloomington musician [Yea Big] who has played [and watched] numerous shows at Reverberation over the past few years. “For me, personally as an artist, I have been able to grow at Reverberation [live shows] in ways that don’t happen for me when I’m playing at bars or other shows where people are half-listening. People come [to these shows] to hear the music.”
Robinson has also played We’re Just Trying to Do Something Nice, Okay?, the outdoor music fest hosted by Waiting Room Records. “And I just love what [owner Jared Alcorn and Waiting Room] are doing. I’ve played the last three years and I loved it.”
We’re Just Trying to Do Something Nice, Okay? [Again]
Waiting Room Records, located next to Stave Wine Bar and Mother Murphy’s on North Street in Uptown Normal, has been around since 2004. Waiting Room is where I go to get popular new releases [while doing this story, I grabbed a copy of Tyler Childers’ new record Snipe Hunter from the New Arrivals bin and I have a copy of Alfredo II by Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist on order], 2010s hip hop vinyl, and CDs [I still buy CDs].
I stopped by Waiting Room Records to talk to the shop owner Jared Alcorn about music and their upcoming music free fest.
The OPEN sign says “Come on In. – R.L. Burnside”, in reference to a song by the same name from the legendary Delta Blues singer/guitar player. The CLOSED sign makes a Townes Van Zandt reference. There are countless little references and artistic flourishes throughout the shop, giving your senses a lot to take in. When I came by, I was greeted by Jared and the rumble of a hardcore vocalist and crunching guitars on the sound system.
Before we dove into talking about the festival, we chatted about music and some mutual friends’ bands. I mentioned to Alcorn that a free compilation CD Waiting Room put together back in 2011 introduced me to The Mountain Goats for the first time, who quickly became [and remain] one of my favorite bands.
“Oh, that’s rad!” he exclaimed.
I could tell it meant something to him that he had helped me in some way. “For years I assumed nobody listened to those CDs, but in the last few months I’ve had a bunch of people tell me they loved those.” In the same spirit, Alcorn is more interested in doing something good than promoting a live event. The festival’s name We’re Just Trying to Do Something Nice, Okay? is aptly named.
“Having bands play is fun, but what if we could help someone? Wouldn’t that make it even better?” Alcorn said the whole idea behind the festival really is just to simply do something nice.
For the first three years of the festival, Waiting Room donated all earnings from the fest to the Humane Society of Central Illinois and have even had animals up for adoption at the event. All of the animals put up for adoption found new homes at the festival in previous years.
Last year, the festival featured music from Robinson and other local ambient musicians, but “this year will be a little louder,” said Alcorn. He tapped one of his employees to curate the bands this year, with an emphasis on emo/post-hardcore acts. There will be sets from Normal's own hardcore adjacent Blind Baby, Chicago post-emo band Frontega, and more.
“We try to stick to local bands [at the festival], to help bring attention to them,” says Alcorn. “Literally, we’re just trying to do something nice."
We’re Just Trying to Do Something Nice, Okay? is why Anderson and Alcorn keep doing what they’re doing. The “okay?” is a bit of a defense against the morally ambiguous stereotypes of the live music promotion business. It’s not about money or coolness or status for these two record shops. It’s about doing something nice and creating space for people to come together.
Reverberation Vinyl and Waiting Room Records have achieved longevity in the age of streaming through curating an ever-changing genre-bending selection of vinyl records, hosting live music, and trying to do nice things, okay?
