Record Store Spotlight: Wits’ End Records, Murray, KY
We had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Tim Peyton, owner and founder of Wits’ End Records, who recently opened their doors on Halloween night, 2024. Read on below to learn more about what’s going on musically down in the western corner of Kentucky!
1. Can you tell me a bit about yourself? i.e. What got you into music? Have you always wanted to operate a record store?
I've grown up here in Murray, Kentucky - lived here my whole life, essentially. I've been fortunate to travel quite a bit, so I don't feel like I've "missed out" on "seeing what it's like out there," so to speak, but I really love it here, love the community, and the people who have built that community. Some of my earliest memories are hearing my mother sing, and her always playing cassettes or having the radio on in the house, or in the car. Like many people, unfortunately, parts of my childhood were very dark, and, looking back, I can see just how much I was leaning into things like music to help guide me through that darkness. I think music helped save my brain, and soul, in a real way, and it has just always been what I've been drawn to. By the time I was 7 or 8, I started regularly performing in our local community theatre, many of the plays being musicals, and I think that was what kind of sealed the deal, knowing early on that "yup, my life has to be centered around this kind of stuff," one way or another. By the time I was a teenager, and began playing guitar in my bedroom, then in garages with my buddies, leading to playing shows in the corner of the local Mexican restaurant (long live El Mariatchi Loco) and kitchens and living rooms across town, the DIY ethos intertwined with it all in my heart, and dream felt like it had a reason, if it ever needed one. I have spent a good majority of my adult life organizing DIY shows, and playing music with my closest friends, which has led to meeting and befriending some of the best people on earth.
I have always wanted to operate and own a record store. It's really all I've ever wanted to do, and essentially all I've ever done to support myself financially, longterm, messing with records. I feel like it's pretty much the only thing I kind of know how to do, so might as well go for it. Ha. Opening Wits' End, with my fiance and a gaggle of lifelong friends, has been an absolute dream come true, and I couldn't be happier about it!
2. Can you give me a bit of a backstory on Wits' End? How long have you been in operation, are you the original owner, etc.
The existence of Wits' End has, at once, been a long time coming, but also came together rather quickly when things really started rolling. Doing something like this has always been in the back of my mind, but I was never sure if it would actually happen, in the way that I knew would serve the dream justice, for myself and others in our community. Wits' End is, at its core, a record store, but it is also a venue/performing space, art gallery, and community gathering zone. We decided, for real, that we wanted to do this at the end of 2023, secured a building within a few weeks, with the invaluable help of someone who has been a lifelong mother-figure to me, and immediately started putting all the puzzle pieces together to make this come to life: complete renovation of the space, building a stage, putting in new floors, endless painting, gathering of inventory, and a whole cauldron of things that come up when getting a new business off the ground. My fiance and I are the owners of the business, and our dear friend Tim Johns is the owner of the building - we officially opened Halloween weekend of 2024 with a spooky bang, and we've been having a blast ever since!
I also want to be transparent and say that in this time I was also dealing with some serious mental health issues, and a lot of amazing people stepped up, gave it their all to make this all happen while I wasn't at 100%, and it's an honor to name them: my fiance - Lu Colby - Tim Johns, Scott Cook, Matthew Rowan, Cara Mooney, Shaina Goodman, Jordan Ferguson, Addi Milford, Autumn Johnson, Arian Cantrell, Meg Vaught, Austin Carter, Tish Usher, Shelby and Dalton Ashley, Fate McAfee, Melanie Davis, Stephen Montgomery, Uncle Paco, Rambo, just to name a few!
3. Can you tell me about how your process for sourcing records? Anything you feel like is a “must have” for your store?
For the first few weeks, all of the inventory was a combination of records that myself and our buddy Tim Johns were able to let go of, before we were able to get set up with a distributor - once that happened, we began weekly orders of new records, and just a couple months ago we opened the floodgates and started buying/trading with the public. It has been awesome. I'm always on the hunt for records, though - anytime I'm able to travel, I'm gonna try to sniff some out! Ha, we'll source 'em any which way!
Variety is key. Our main goal has been getting a thumbs up from the longtime, serious collectors, the casual buyers, as well as people who are just getting into vinyl and people who are curious about it - so far, so good! We really try to have a little something for everyone.
4. Have you noticed any customer trends in your store? Genre’s people gravitate to, etc.?
We are honestly selling a lot of a little bit of everything, which is fun, and what we're going for! We sell plenty of modern pop - Chappell Roan has been the #1 seller across the board since we've opened - and I've noticed that a lot of young people who buy something like Chappell or Sabrina Carpenter, also like to buy a bundle of the cheap bargain bin records, they want something they are really familiar with, along with something random and new to them. Some college students will come in a pick a handful of records, often from the bargain bin area, seemingly at random - it doesn't even matter what it is to them, it's a record, and that is so cool to them, which is just amazing! We have a lot of great Brazilian music that has been carefully curated, plenty of awesome weirdo/ambient/noise shit, punk, funk, jazz, indie/alternative, country, classical - you name it! I will say that no one seems to take care of their records, minus maybe jazz purists, like longtime metal-heads - if a pile of OG Iron Maiden, Sabbath, Metallica, etc. comes through, I'll bet money on almost all of it being pristine. Love it.
5. What is your favorite record store? How did your experiences there shape what you do now and your tastes?
That's so tough. Can't just pick one! I'd say Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis was probably the first one that blew my mind when I was a kid. Grimey's in Nashville has always been incredible and has kind of set the tone in a lot of ways for record stores in the last couple decades. Phonoluxe is another fantastic shop in Nashville with a lot of history. Feel It Records in Cinci is wildly cool, shoutout Sam! Seasick Records in Birmingham, AL is wonderful. There's a fantastic little shop just a few minutes up the road from us in Benton, KY called Benton Vinyl that I really enjoy, as well as a great store called Bricolage Art Collective in Paducah, KY that has a good selection of records. I love the way these places just immediately bring on a sense of relief and naturally invite you to stay awhile and flip and flip through some wax. My shoulders always drop and a sense of calm comes over me when I enter a great record store.
6. What is something you’d like to see more of in the record store/music scene? Both nationally, and locally.
I think it's apparent that the arts are under attack by the powers that be like we've never seen in our lifetime, so it's very important for places like record stores, places that archive/document so much artistic history and expression, to pay attention to their communities' needs, beyond just selling records. A good record store is "by the people, for the people" in my eyes. Music is the medicine, it's often a pure form of love, music is real protection for a lot of people, that's something we can't forget. I hope record stores keep leaning into that as much as possible.
7. If you were going record shopping for yourself right now, what’s the one release you’d be looking for?
Hmmm...I'm a diehard Guided By Voices/Robert Pollard fan, I've been collecting that stuff since I was a kid, so I'm always on the lookout for any of that. Over the past couple years, I've also really been diving into 60s/70s gospel music, the real shit, so I feel like I'm in heaven (pun intended) when I come across a good pile of that. It just feels like some of the purest forms of artistic expression period, it's so powerful. For people with a bit of Church Trauma, hearing "gospel' music all the time growing up and ultimately associating negative memories with it in the long run, I think it's important to find a way to take some power back for yourself within that realm, finding the beauty, because it is there - hearing REAL gospel music at this point in my life is just so healing.
8. Is there anything else about Wits’ End you want to share?
I'm just so excited to see what the future holds for us. A lot of people put their full hearts into this, and it's really paying off so far in ways we couldn't have even anticipated. We are now having live music in here, almost two times a week, from local/regional and touring bands alike. We will hit social media soon, so people can more easily keep up with what we have going on, and our website witsendrecords.com just launched a few days ago. We'll be hosting an album release party of sorts for our pal S.G. Goodman this summer, we're stoked for that. We're just super grateful, for all of it! <3
I wanted to say it's really an honor to get to do this with y'all. Truthfully, meeting people like Mike Montgomery and Christopher Mueller, and seeing how they have intertwined such a sense of community in Candyland Studios and SofaBurn has been inspiring, and was one of the things that led to finding the confidence and wherewithal to open up Wits' End.