Stinkweeds is expanding its iconic Phoenix record store. Here's what's new for customers

It's been 18 years since Kimber Lanning moved Stinkweeds, her independent record store, into its current location on Camelback Road just west of Central Avenue in Phoenix, a much smaller space than its previous home in a Tempe strip mall at Apache Boulevard and Dorsey Lane.

"That store was 1,800 square feet," Lanning says. "And this store is just shy of 1,000. So it's a tight fit. And it's always been a tight fit. But I think that we've done a great job of thoughtfully designing a store that fits a lot of merchandise in for a store its size."

Now Stinkweeds is expanding. It's enclosing a courtyard to add 300 square feet of space for customers and merchandise, with an additional 300 square feet of office space above that.

How Stinkweeds made Kimber Lanning 'a fierce advocate' for local businesses

Lanning, who's also the founder and CEO of Local First Arizona, a nonprofit focused on strengthening local businesses, opened her first Stinkweeds in an unassuming Mesa strip mall at Dobson and Guadalupe roads next to a Little Caesars Pizza. That was 1987. She was 19.

Two years later, the store moved to Dobson and Baseline Roads in Mesa. In 1995, it moved again — this time to its Tempe location.

"Part of the journey and why I'm such a fierce advocate for locally owned businesses is because, historically, we created really cool destinations and other businesses opened up around us," Lanning says.

"And all of those locations became infinitely cooler because of us. But then we ended up getting our rent raised because of the coolness factor, right?"

The only way around that, Lanning finally decided, was to purchase her own building, which is how she came to find herself at Medlock Plaza in Phoenix.

"This was my first opportunity," Lanning says. "And it was what I could afford."

Remembering Jack Curtis: How the man who discovered Alice Cooper shaped the Phoenix rock scene of the '60s

'The resurgence of vinyl has been transformative for Stinkweeds'

In addition to investing in expanding for the customer experience, the Stinkweeds team has grown since the vinyl resurgence turned the industry around. The core group is now Lanning, store manager Lindsay Cates and longtime employee Dario Miranda.

"People often look at me when I say we've been here 36 years, and they're like, 'How did you survive the Napster years?' Lanning says with a laugh.

"And it's fun for me to think about how we did survive and the moves we made to have exceptional customer service, to build a fan base and to really dig deep on specialty types of music that the big box stores wouldn't touch. So I think we've made really wise business decisions for what we want to do."

Zachariah Willekens and Caleb Dailey joined the team in 2021 as business continued to recover.

"The resurgence of vinyl has been transformative for Stinkweeds," Lanning says.

"We're buying tons of used records. We have more online sales than ever. And we just don't have enough space for buying and pricing records, packing orders to ship out. It's a whole different world. So we're adding a second story to serve as a significant office space for us to do a lot of the behind-the-scenes work."

Their current office is approximately 4 feet by 6 feet.

"It has one counter where you can shrink-wrap records and some storage," Lanning says. "That was it. It's only big enough for one person to stand there. And we've run it that way for years and years and years. Everything else is done at the front counter. So this is a way that we can be better at what we do."

The Stinkweeds expansion means more room for in-store concerts

In addition to feeling a little less cramped while shopping, the expanded customer area will allow Stinkweeds to host more in-store concerts.

"Dario has worked really hard to put a lot of our bins on wheels," Lanning says. "And we have a plan in place where we're gonna be able to do shows much more comfortably inside, which is kind of kind of old-school.

"When we were in Tempe, it's shocking to think of all the significant bands that came through and played inside Stinkweeds from '95 to '99. It was remarkable."

Among the artists who performed there were Elliott Smith (who earned an Oscar nomination for a song he wrote for "Good Will Hunting"), riot-grrrl legends Sleater-Kinney, Neutral Milk Hotel, Don Caballero, Blonde Redhead and Pedro the Lion.

In 1999, Lanning spring-boarded off the momentum of those in-store concerts to open Modified Arts, a downtown Phoenix art gallery that became a major touring hub for up-and-coming indie acts including Arcade Fire, Fall Out Boy, My Morning Jacket and Vampire Weekend.

The move to Medlock Plaza meant Stinkweeds lost its indoor space to host those in-store shows.

"I put a little stage in outdoors, but it's just too hot to do an in-store at least six months, if not eight months out of the year," Lanning says. "So it'll be nice to have more flexibility to do that inside."

As for how the expansion will affect what they'll stock at Stinkweeds, Lanning says they plan to carry more of what they've always carried.

"We're very confident with who we are," Lanning says. "We're not looking to change that at all."

Weekend plans? The best things to do in Phoenix this weekend — from rock legends to fun with Lego

Stinkweeds will remain open through the renovation

The store is staying open through the construction work, which should be done by mid-October. The entrance is now on Camelback, not through the courtyard off the parking lot.

"Venue Projects is doing the remodel and they initially thought we were nuts," Lanning says.

"They were like, 'You're not gonna be able to stay open.' I was like, 'No, no, no, no, no. Wait. We have a plan.' I've really gotta give it up to the team for utilizing the door on Camelback, the way we rearranged the store. We have a new temporary wall that really shields all the construction going on behind the store and we only had to pull out about a bin and a half."

More Phoenix culture: How Crescent Ballroom proved the doubters wrong and helped make downtown vibrant

'It's a really thoughtfully curated store still 36 years later.'

The space is even tighter for now, but Lanning says customers are sticking with them through the process.

"We're over the moon about the opportunity to offer so much more," Lanning says.

"We don't have any desire to have multiple locations. We have a desire to deepen the work that we do and continue to be about relationships and people who truly love music. My mom would say, 'It's what you do with what you got.' And thankfully, there's a lot of music lovers out there who really love what we're doing. I mean, it's a really thoughtfully curated store still 36 years later."

For Lanning, it's all about the relationship Stinkweeds has managed to build and nurture with the music fans who shop there.

"I believe that bookstores and record stores are essential parts of the community that really create an environment where people can share ideas and share enthusiasm for artistic expression," Lanning says.

"So for me, this is just about thanking the community for what I consider to be their long-standing partnership and belief in us. We have people move away that send us 50 bucks a month and say, 'Send me what I would like' because they trust our taste so much.

"These are people that I've known most of my life. So it's really not a record store. I mean, it is, but it's so much more than that."

Details: Stinkweeds is at 12 W. Camelback Road, Phoenix. Hours are 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. Sundays. Shop online at www.stinkweeds.com.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Iconic Phoenix indie record store is expanding. Here's what's coming