ear X-tacy was a Louisville, Kentucky "alternative record store," owned and operated by John Timmons. The store announced its closing on October 31, 2011, after 26 years in business.

History

ear X-tacy first opened in 1985 in a 500 ft2 (46 m2) building stocked with John Timmons' personal records "and a cash advance on his MasterCard." The store name came from the band XTC, of which owner John Timmons is a fan. As the store grew, it changed location three times over a period of sixteen years; it then remained in the same location, in a former bathroom fixtures showroom on Bardstown Road just south of Eastern Parkway in The Highlands, until late July 2010. It then moved to the Douglass Loop, a former streetcar turnaround point on Bardstown Road about 1 mi southeast of its previous location but still in The Highlands. ear X-tacy carried a wide variety of CDs, cassettes, and vinyl records, and also carried a large stock of DVDs, including many hard-to-find items. In 1995, Timmons launched the ear X-tacy record label, which released records by Louisville-based musicians such as Tim Krekel. Due to financial issues, ear X-tacy moved for the final time to a smaller location in 2010, just south of where their previous location was on Bardstown Road. However, the financial issues continued and ear X-tacy owner John Timmons made the decision to permanently close. ear X-tacy officially closed on October 31, 2011, but due to the amount of unsold inventory still remaining after the close, the store held a liquidation sale in December 2011 before officially closing for good. ear X-tacy also operated a second location in the Eastgate Shopping Center in Middletown from 1992 through 1998. The store's signature white-on-black logo stickers spawned a local fad wherein people cut up and reassembled the distinctive letters to form other words or phrases, such as "racy aXe" or "area X." A documentary on ear X-tacy was released in 2012 under the title Brick and Mortar and Love.