When Lauren Calvert went to a record shop and the proprietor was too occupied with a televised basketball game to sell her a Patsy Cline CD, she knew it was time to start her own store.

In July 1994, In Your Ear Music Emporium opened in downtown Sylva.

“I knew I didn’t have the discipline to live somewhere as beautiful as here and sit in front of a computer for a job all day. And I was tired of driving to Asheville to buy music,” says Calvert. “So I filled the void in the music business.”

In Your Ear now attracts customers from Franklin, Nantahala, Bryson City, Murphy and Robbinsville. It has grown from its original offering of 1,500 titles to a stock of 8,000.

Calvert, who the manager calls the “heart and soul” of the store, describes some of the advantages of the staff’s involvement and experience at an independent record store. She tells the story of a customer who did not buy a recording she was interested in because it was available for $2 less at Wal-Mart.

“There was a lady looking at a KISS album, and I offered to meet the price. But I said, ‘Have you listened to the album? Because fans have told me it doesn’t meet their expectations for a KISS album.’ I let her listen to it and she didn’t end up buying it, but she did walk out with six other CDs.”

“We don’t sell singles. I want to sell collections,” she says.

As a successful businesswoman who has sold many collections in the past seven years, Calvert speaks to an entrepreneurial group every year. The morning of the interview she had been discussing her theory on the success of e-commerce businesses.

“In most brick-and-mortar stores, employees are not knowledgeable enough,” she says.

Vendors like In Your Ear are an exception, selling experience that is not a commodity. “We specialize only in knowledge.”

In addition to having enough knowledge to help customers, In Your Ear employees are discouraged from using phrases like “it’s our policy,” a refrain that reflects the mentality of chain stores. They also help widen the store’s range of music by selecting several CDs each month to add to the stock. One staff member who was part of Smoky Mountain Drum’n Bass, a group with a hybrid of Appalachian and techno influences, is an expert in the electronic genre, another in pop and country, and another in “rap and anything old, weird and obscure,” says Calvert.

“We hand pick all the music. Chain stores get music [they don’t choose] delivered on a monthly basis and have to shelve it.” Calvert says chain stores shelve junk simply to look full.

She enjoys recommending the music she is so involved with, but many customers are afraid to buy anything that isn’t popular. “Some people want to buy rap from the best-seller rack. They don’t want to be enlightened. They want to listen to what everyone else does.”

It is the long-term customers that support stores such as In Your Ear. Calvert says that patrons have suggested much of what they carry.

“We practically stock by the input of customers,” she says.

For fans of music that doesn’t make the Top 40, Calvert stresses willingness of independent stores to special order.

“You can walk in here today and in two to three days we can have a special order. We order twice a week. I can almost say that nobody turns around in the time that I do,” she says.

It is because of special orders that In Your Ear was able to survive when it first opened with a limited amount of merchandise.

Calvert says that keeping an independent record store open and contending with corporations is a scary business with only a 20- or 30-percent profit margin.

“Big buyers like Wal-Mart get price breaks. We’re competitive with Wal-Mart prices, but it’s because I cut my own throat a lot.”

In addition, she has had to design the enterprise herself.

“You open a chain, you get a book and it tells you how to do it. I have to figure it out.”

She also worries about the impact on small stores of the recent trends of burning copies of CDs and downloading mp3s .

“I listen to music for everything, liner notes and all.”

However, Calvert says of the challenges of the music business, “Things you like come easier.”

Though she says she can’t go home and listen to music to just hang out anymore, she has strong opinions about it.

“If I had to give up all music except one band it would have to be Crosby, Stills and Nash.”

Calvert enjoys classic rock like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Little River Band, and Joni Mitchell.
“Anything from the 70s.”

She has been involved in many shows, setting up the stage and equipment for well-known artists such as Ben Harper, Leftover Salmon and George Clinton. She also plays guitar.

Another or Calvert’s interests is graphic design, the area she has a degree in. She uses these skills for creating displays and an atmosphere unlike most plasticized franchises.

“Album covers were designed 10x10 for artwork. Artists’ names were always at the top where they stuck out of the rack. Now, with the small CD format and the crazy artwork and the titles, you don’t see when you’re looking at them, it’s easy for CDs to be overlooked,” she said.

She is proud of a CD display counter created from an old school window that the whole staff worked on and the corrugated metal used to decorate the walls.

“Our look sets us apart,” she says.

“When we first opened it looked like a dingy little hole in the wall like you would find in New York. Kids felt comfortable but adults didn’t like it.”

The store has recently been renovated. In the future the business will expand to include a clothing and small furniture store and possibly a wall for showcasing local art and Internet stations at a window overlooking Main Street.

“I went to Scotland on vacation and I was chomping on the bit to get home with new ideas. In seven years there has never been a day I didn’t want to go to work,” says Calvert.

“I’ve got to think about the 13-year-old kid rebelling against his parents and the grandmother trying to buy a gift. In a small store you can see your customers, watch their patterns and what they buy.”

With jazz playing, two young men investigating an Eminem album, a girl requesting Squarepusher, and a child in a listening booth, In Your Ear seems to be succeeding at reaching a wide audience.

 

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The Smoky Mountain News