A local record shop moved from one side of the courthouse to the other over winter break.
Landlocked Music relocated Jan. 2 to a more spacious building on South Walnut Street. The new store is two blocks from its former location. It now sits between the Trojan Horse and the Bishop Bar, and near the Comedy Attic.
“We needed room to grow," co-owner and co-founder Jason Nickey said. "Our old place was getting claustrophobic and we thought, ‘Why not?’”
Posters of artists like Prince, My Morning Jacket and John Coltrane cover Landlocked’s walls — some signed. Records play in the background as transactions are made, and large street-facing windows offer natural light.
“This place has an overall better vibe than the last one,” IU junior Grant Mitchell said.
Mitchell said now that Landlocked is bigger, it has a wider variety of music on display — especially CDs. Mitchell is a resident of the Brick House, a popular house show location.
The recent move is not Landlocked’s first. When Landlocked opened in 2006, it was located on South Walnut Street where the Bloomington Transit Center is today. The store relocated 3 years later before moving again this month.
Lack of space for music was Nickey’s biggest motivation for moving, he said. The new store is 50 percent larger than the previous one, and there is a second room in the back waiting to be filled, he said.
Bloomington resident and self-proclaimed “recordhead” Donovan Romine, 33, said he comes to Landlocked for soul, punk, jazz and other records. He moved to town around the time the first store was built and has visited all three of Landlocked’s locations, past and present.
As someone who has watched the store evolve, he said the new location has promise.
“I trust the people who run it,” Romine said.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story had an error. Jason Nickey is a co-founder and co-owner of Landlocked Music. The IDS regrets this error.
