Landlocked Music in Bloomington, Indiana has been around since 2006 and has since proved to be a staple in the small college town. The store has hosted a number of notable in-store performances and curates a collection of music to satisfy almost any taste. With its fifth anniversary coming up in March of 2011, we spoke with Landlocked c0-owner Jason Nickey and got the inside scoop on one of the Midwest's top record stores. A message to any straightforward rock-'n'-roll bands from Bloomington: get in touch with Nickey; he doesn't believe that you exist.

What was your motivation for starting a music store? / What is your background in music?

I had no choice, really. It’s the only thing I’m fully qualified to do; I’m otherwise unemployable. All I ever did at any other job I ever had was talk to people about music and records and try to discover new stuff I hadn’t heard yet. So it was probably inevitable. Also, at a certain point, when you’ve acquired a certain quantity of recorded music, it’s the next logical move.

I worked in record stores all through college, and I’ve worked a bit on the distribution side of things, as well as some writing for magazines, websites, etc., and deejaying at college and then community radio. All of those experiences have come into play to some degree. Also, finding a partner was key. It would be near impossible to do this alone. I’m sort of the behind-the-counter guy; my partner is the marketing/social-networking guy, broadly speaking.
 

Jason Nickey holds the Flamin' Groovies' Shake Some Action

What is the musical community like in Bloomington?

I’m feeling a little negative about it at the moment to be honest, although I’m quite thankful that we have a music community at all given that Bloomington is a small Midwestern town.

There are tons of bands here. But generally speaking, it’s all very arty. Even our punk bands have some sort of conceptual angle. Either that or it’s some horrible crust-folk hobo-bike-pirate friendly punk BS, which won’t ever seem to die here. Not my bag at all.

Showing people a good time seems not to be taken into consideration much. The concept of fun takes a backseat to making some sort of “art statement” or something. I’ve been waiting for years to stumble upon some straight-ahead rock-and-roll band that just plays Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly-type songs non-ironically but with passion and soul.

There are larger musical institutions here like Secretly Canadian and her related labels, and the annual Lotus World Music Festival — both of which have an overall positive effect on the Bloomington music scene. And lest this all sound like a rant, there are a handful of good bands here. Among my favorites are Apache Dropout, who has an LP coming out on Family Vineyard early next year. They’re sort of a ragged caveman-bubblegum band, if that makes any sense.

(And in case you’re wondering, yes, John Mellencamp lives here, but he’s a total nonentity on the music scene. I’ve never seen him at a show or even sold him a record in 15 or so years here, which is a shame.)
 

Tyler Damon holds The Dead C's Eusa Kills

What can someone expect when visiting Landlocked for the first time?

I’d like to think that we have a good balance of the esoteric and the basic catalog that any decent record shop should have. You can find Les Rallizes Denudes next to Led Zeppelin here. We do our best to be helpful guides, so you’ll be asked if you have any questions and then left alone to dig and be surprised. More and more people seem to come in knowing exactly what they’re looking for, or they want to be told what they should buy. Both attitudes I try to redirect.

Sure, I want people to find what they’re looking for, but I’ve tried to create an environment where people find what they didn’t even know they were looking for. That’s what I like personally when I go to a record store, that feeling of serendipitous discovery.
 

Mikey Kapinus (keyboardist from Magnolia Electric Co.) holds a Drakkar Sauna 7"

Give me three great albums that you've enjoyed lately.

Not incredibly new, but the latest Ty Segall LP on Goner, Melted, is probably going to be my favorite of 2010.  The Liminanas LP on Chicago-based label Trouble in Mind is probably the best new release I’ve heard in the past month or so. Sort of reminds me of Shocking Blue, which is a good thing in my book. Also, I revisited The Silos' Cuba LP the other day for the first time in years. So good. Excellent songs.

Which albums has your store sold the most over the past month?

The double-disc version of The National’s High Violet has sold the most, largely due to the label doing a big promotional push on it, offering it to stores at a super-cheap price, and even directing people online to indie shops. Matador/4AD/Beggars Group are true friends of indie record stores.
 

James Paasche holds Reverend Charlie Jackson's God's Got It

What is the strangest request you’ve ever received?

Sometimes friends prank call us and I always fall for it because their questions and requests are always far less strange than the real questions we’re asked. We’ve been asked everything from “Do you carry trombones?” to “Can I get a quote for some work?” thinking we’re the tattoo place around the corner (mind you that this is someone INSIDE the store asking this, surrounded by LPs and CDs).

In terms of the strangest music request we’ve had: since we sort of specialize in strange stuff, strange for us is like Barbara Streisand or something — stuff so common I wouldn’t even waste space on it. The most frustrating questions are less strange than just unreasonable. Like some dude from Denmark or wherever on some cross-country record dig drops in and before even looking at anything says something like, “Where are all your regional private-press funk 45s?” Oh yeah, sure, let me go get them, there’s a whole box back by the toilet.
 

Heath Byers holds most of the Spacemen 3 catalog

Have you had any in-store performances that really stand out?

We’ve had a lot of good ones over the past five years: Besnard Lakes, Indian Jewelry, Daniel Higgs. Our "Breakfast with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy" (Will Oldham) and Lou Barlow in-stores were particularly meaningful to me. More recently, Bare Wires totally killed it to a small but enthusiastic audience.

Any big future plans for Landlocked?

Our five-year anniversary is coming up in March. We’re working on having some sort of show/celebration and customer-appreciation-type shindig. Still in the works. Any good bands want to play? Get in touch. We’re also going to be putting out at least a couple records ourselves in the coming year. Stay tuned.

Crossing the lines of minimalist performer and powerhouse artist, Scout Niblett is one of the strongest voices to emerge in recent years. With each successive album, Niblett emboldens her material with a hypnotic and stirring display of honest emotion and inspired will. Acting as an introspective one-woman force of nature, she eschews superfluous support and production without sacrificing an already demanding sound.

Born in Staffordshire County, near the city of Birmingham in central England, Emma Louise Niblett grew up within the duality of the rural and industrial state. At a young age, she was trained on the piano and violin, and raised on music from the Top 40 countdown, from which she regularly taped her favorites to listen to over and over again. Her artistic roots and an English tradition of emotional repression clashed within her. Though Niblett had begun writing songs on her classically trained instruments, they never acted as an emotional or creative outlet.

When the grunge movement reached English shores, a 17-year-old Niblett discovered acts like Nirvana and Sonic Youth. Kurt Cobain’s powerful voice and raw emotion especially captured her attention, compelling her to move to guitar and becoming a major influence in her burgeoning songwriting. As soon as she got that guitar, she learned a few chords and immediately began writing material. With a stockpile of ideas from her youth on the piano, Niblett began building with simple melodies and heart-pounding vocals.

In college in Nottingham, Niblett split her time between music and performance art. She first took to a stage, but not to sing. Her performance art included multimedia monologues and an almost Cabaret-style exploration of music and images. However, it would not be long before she shared her songwriting with the intimate audiences. “I didn’t want to do anything else,” she says of her advent into performing. “I was pretty stubborn about it.”

For her stage name, Niblett turned to Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the spunky narrator from To Kill a Mockingbird. “The character almost reminded me of myself, but a very free version of myself as a child,” she says. “I didn’t really express myself in the way that she did. I didn’t do that. And I felt that I should have, like that was a part of me that I really repressed. I think music is a way of expressing myself fully.”

From the beginning, Niblett was a solo artist. “I’ve never had a band,” she says. “I never learned other people’s songs. That didn’t interest me.” But that’s not to say that she’s an isolationist. She has contributed to a broad range of friendly collaborations and the odd duet, only to remain a predominantly lone figure throughout her work.

Niblett released her debut LP, Sweet Heart Fever, on Secretly Canadian in 2001, introducing listeners to her minimalist yet powerful and resonant songs. The album also introduced Scout Niblett the percussionist, as some songs were just her stark voice over a rumbling beat. This too would become a signature aesthetic.

Turning an ironic ear to her material, Niblett kept up an irreverent and enigmatic front. In her early shows, the musician would act out in odd yet comforting ways, like donning a blonde wig or engaging in morbid sing-a-longs. After building a reputation as a bold live presence, Niblett began touring Europe. She soon decided to pick up and move to the United States, where her music was being discovered by fans of PJ Harvey and Cat Power. Her constant touring led to a restless lifestyle, as she explored the country while living in places like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Oakland before landing in Portland.

The year 2002 saw the release of the I Conjure Series EP, where again Niblett played the entire album and captured a sparse, moving atmosphere often with only guitars and vocals. Her subsequent releases, starting with I Am in 2003 and Kidnapped by Neptune in 2005, feature the songwriter working with producer Steve Albini, after they met during recording on a mutual friend’s album.

In 2007, Niblett opened her world slightly by experimenting with folk and country lines and even inviting Will Oldham to collaborate on the album This Fool Can Die Now. By this time, Niblett also had gotten into the habit of bringing a drummer on tour with her, rather than flying solo. The new dynamic didn’t change the intimacy of the performance, nor did it lighten the brooding, raw emotion lying at the center, but it did allow the songwriter to focus on bringing a more refined and contemplative approach to her music, one that has expanded her creative outlet.

The latest offering from the artist is her most challenging and heavy work yet. The Calcination of Scout Niblett (Drag City) poses tough questions to our protagonist. The process of calcination is the first step in turning lead into gold, a metaphor that suits the album well. A cathartic and reflective journey, The Calcination… carries an unbelievable weight with strained resolve that explores many of the all-too-often taken-for-granted moments and memories. From the blazing opening seconds, and throughout the intensely personal record, Niblett’s energy never falters.

As always, Niblett’s inner voice speaks and informs her songwriting. A dedicated astrologer as well, she takes subconscious mysteries and lures them right to the surface. “To me, songs really are kind of messages from my subconscious,” she says. “I don’t sit down and try and write something with a concept. I can’t really do that. I just start playing, and then something will emerge that wasn’t there when I started. I can’t say I want to write a song about this and do it.”

She admits that the messages are not always so clear. Sometimes a song written years ago will suddenly become relevant, immediate even. Such is the case with “Pluto.” Written initially over a decade ago, this track only now is featured on her newest album, observed in new light, with new purpose. And it’s not the only one. Niblett hints at scores of works remaining perhaps as live performance only, or even kept further out of reach, until their meanings becomes clear.

Niblett’s raw torrent of emotion is anchored in her deeply sensitive and mature outlook. She takes subconscious mysteries and lures them right to the surface. Looking straight at what most people spend years ignoring, the depth that Niblett’s songwriting taps into is matched only by her staggering resilience, offering respite for the rest of us.

You can get a free download of an Aesop Rock / Jeremy Fish audio/video collaboration of "Tomorrow Morning" from Definitive Jux.

Trent Reznor has strongly reprimanded the US military's use of Nine Inch Nails' music during the torture of overseas detainees.  According to Reznor, any realistic legal options will be "aggressively pursued, with any potential monetary gains donated to human-rights charities."

Experimental and occasionally psychedelic folk group Akron/Family will release a new album, its fourth overall, for Dead Oceans / Secretly Canadian in April. It will mark the group's first effort for Dead Oceans and first as a three-piece.

Stoner-metal bad-asses High on Fire have signed a deal with Koch Records, which will release a new studio album sometime in 2009.  Before that happens, Relapse will release Live from the Relapse Contamination Festival on January 6.

The transition of Conan O'Brien to Jay Leno's old job has created an opening for a new house band on Conan's old show, which was deftly soundtracked by the Max Weinberg 7. Good news for hip-hop and funk fans: The Roots will handle the duties on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

In an interview with Billboard, guitarist Tom Morello states that there may never be another Rage Against the Machine album.

Idiosyncratic rapper Busdriver recently compiled a list of his top ten albums (not limited to 2008) for LAist.com. Portishead's long-awaited third album tops his rankings.

The RZA releases a new selection of tunes for Afro Samurai, an animated series for Spike TV, on January 27.  The soundtrack marks the first release from Wu Music Group, a new label co-run by RZA.

Chicago’s Catfish Haven pride themselves in living in the past; 2006’s Tell Me was overrun with a soul sensibility ala Joe Cocker fronting an instrumental Phil Spector band circa 1958-1966, while the lovable-via-trashy personaes of George Hunter (vocals/guitar), Miguel Castillo (bass), and Ryan Farnham (drums) coupled with the music perfectly.

Unfortunately, they overdid it this time and produced an album so concentrated with throwback that the self-parody became more important than the songs themselves.

“Are You Ready” opens the collection with an attempt at party-anthem status though falls quickly as all reality has escaped through the back screen door and the only thing left for the listener is a failed jingle for a Dr. Pepper commercial. As they venture through the title track and into “Set in Stone,” with a saxophone contributing a nauseating oink and jangling, funky guitar covering up any soul that may have been there in the first place, the listener’s finger rests heavily atop the “stop” button.

The intended disco feel, complete with aforementioned guitar and Farnham’s downbeat bass drum, is forgotten with Hunter’s chorus of, “Open up the gates/Open up the gates for me,” resembling more of a “Best of” collection from the band of a hip, young church exercising their ability to really “tap into today’s youth.”

“Invitation to Love” is the best-written song on the album. With a quiet intro foreshadowing melodies and structure, a fantastic song has been created, albeit on an album from 1995.

“Throwing-back” entails a single era and sound and a capitalization on said sound. The artist becomes that which they gaze so highly upon. Including something as out of place and strong as “Invitation…” reeks of discomfort and questioning of the original idea.

As Devastator continues the confusion slaps one across the cheek time and time again. “Play the Fool” presents itself as a low-rent soul singer fronting a team of all-star has-beens. “Full Speed” is the soundtrack to a NASCAR highlight reel with no humor involved whatsoever. “Valerie” and “Every Day” both hark back to a love lost with slow, heartfelt lines such as, “I thought I had no song to sing/But then you came to me,” and, “When you’re away/My heart just breaks;” poignant to the few that haven’t heard rock ‘n roll for the past sixty years.

With promise and hope imbedded on Tell Me, Catfish Haven seemed on the brink of being the bellwether for a flock of resurgent classic rock bands. Where they went wrong could stem from a number of things, but none of them are worth searching for; Devastator is incomplete, empty, and, worst of all, unaware of its own ridiculous nature.

- Luc Rodgers

Catfish Haven: www.myspace.com/catfishhaven
Secretly Canadian: www.secretlycanadian.com