An Inside Look at Our Interviews with the Curators of the City
Words by Avery Martin; Photos by Lydia Norton
Indy CD & Vinyl is built around the belief that music should be for everyone, no matter the genre, format, or level of familiarity. For more than two decades, the shop has operated with a simple philosophy: the niche is not being niche at all. Co-owner Andy Skinner has helped shape the store into a space with a deep, all-encompassing selection, while also extending its role beyond retail through in-store performances, community events, and partnerships with local organizations. Rooted in Indianapolis’s often-overlooked cultural history, Indy CD & Vinyl offers a place where physical media becomes a shared point of connection.
Avery Martin: How would you describe your shop’s philosophy when it comes to curating music?
Andy Skinner: Our philosophy of how we curate is that everybody's welcome. Indy CD & Vinyl has been around for twenty-three years; the idea has always been to have the deepest selection of every genre, period. Our niche is not to be niche.
AM: What do you think sets your store apart in Indy’s vinyl landscape?
AS: We opened a part of our store called “808”, an extension of retail, adding a third space for people to come, sit, hang out, and foster community. We have the ability to have bands play in the shop, host the soft launch for the Indiana Music Alliance, and non-profits like Girls Rock!, the Indiana Music History Project, and Musical Family Tree events.
AM: What does community mean to you in the context of a record store?
AS: We're selling something that people are deeply, deeply passionate about, and there are only a handful of reasons why you would want to come to a store and spend money on a physical product to listen to and consume the music. So the idea that we are in retail sales, that absurdity, isn't lost on us, but we also know the market we are in and the people we serve. There has to be some connection with the people who choose to spend their hard-earned dollars on the things they are deeply passionate about.
AM: Do you notice certain genres, moods, or types of customers that feel distinctly tied to your neighborhood?
AS: Indianapolis has an amazing cultural history that is woefully underreported. Our story is that we've embraced that cultural history. The people who are into soul 45s and the people who are into jazz LPs, they're being serviced here again, alongside the folks who like mainstream pop music and are buying their first records. It's a spot for all of them.
AM: Are there any local musicians or bands you’ve supported early on?
AS: There have been innumerable amounts of local artists who have performed here as part of that initiative to expose local music. So, we've been there from the start. We've also run a few record labels over the years, under the umbrella of the record store. There's also been a DJ dance night that we host at the White Rabbit Cabaret for the last nine years. It's on the last Saturday of every month, and it's called Spellbound, and it's specifically for dark alternative, goth-adjacent; we call it the dark rave. Someday, some anthropologist or sociologist is going to say, Wow, what you guys had here in Indianapolis was amazing, but there's just grainy social media clips that prove that it actually happened. So we started recording the bands, and then we started putting them out on limited edition vinyl.
AM: What do you think keeps people coming back to physical media, even when we don’t need it?
AS: We need it. When my favorite band decided that they weren't going to stream their music on Spotify anymore, I had to make a conscious decision to go and figure out how to play said band.
AM: What do you think people get from vinyl that they can’t get from digital?
AS: Owning the physical media, especially on vinyl, as long as you take care of it, 100 years from now, you're going to be able to play it, and nobody's going to take it from you.
AM: What shifts are you seeing in what people are buying, discovering, or talking about?
AS: TikTok is important. It's become the front door of the internet for a lot of people. So, the influence it's having on what I call classic titles, I attribute the Fleetwood Mac Rumors phenomenon and, my personal favorite, the Jeff Buckley Grace phenomenon to TikTok. I'm for it, I am on board, please come in and buy Grace on LP.
AM: What album best captures the spirit of your store? Why?
AS: I would say any of the first four Björk records, The Sugarcubes' Life's Too Good, and anything on Factory Records.
