(upbeat music) - Kansas City, Kansas City, here I come.

Yeah, we're gonna go to Kansas City.

It's one of the great foundation towns of American music.

Think about Count Basie, think about Charlie Parker.

And today, alternative bands carry the swing in that town by the Missouri River.

We're gonna look into the stores that have that vibe.

So we drove into Independence down the road from Kansas City, and we found the musical kingdom of Planet Queen.

So we're here in Independence, Missouri at Planet Queen Records.

I'm also here with the Planet Queen Brain Trust.

Introduce yourself to the cameras.

- I am Kimmie Queen.

- And I'm Cody Wyoming.

(smooth jazz music) - [Kimmie] I started working in record stores in the early 90s for Streetside Records, Penny Lane Records, 7th Heaven.

- How did you come up with the name Planet Queen?

- It was a Cody idea, but my name is Kimmie Queen.

That is my real last name, so.

- She had another name for the shop that was very good and it very sort of emulated what she wanted to do.

But I said, "You're missing a big chance to name your store after a T-Rex song."

- [Tom] How would you describe your store to somebody who had never been to Planet Queen?

- I would describe it as a... Okay, one thing I noticed working at really large stores, the general customer, not the digger like me and you, but just the regular person has about 15, 20 minutes to spend.

There you go.

I don't have new records.

I'm used only currently.

Hopefully someday I'll get into the new game, but I'm not there yet.

And I like to make sure that I have most genres represented.

I need to grow my classic a little more, but I have jazz, blues, rock, alternative rock, every kind of jazz actually.

And modern records come through as well.

So I do have new when they come to me used.

- Well, I'm seeing on the walls here everything from speeches of Malcolm X to Gil Scott-Heron to Tom Petty.

You mean sort of like that?

- Exactly like that.

- Yes.

Well, there's an eclecticism here that expands beyond just physical music.

You have what I would call interesting cultural fetish items that relate to somebody who is on one level or another a music fanatic.

- Correct.

Lots of doodads and tchotchkes for people to look at and laugh at.

And I want people to come in and have a good time.

- And when I was growing up, that's where you got buttons and stickers and cheap sunglasses and things like that was at the record shop.

That's where you got your spike bracelet.

We wanna be here for the community and provide the full record shop experience, you know?

- Right.

- I like my thing is finding- - If it's in here, it's for sale.

- ... the right item for the right person.

I'm like a love connector.

- You know, I like talking to people about music and I'm glad that I have a place that for my job I can come in and talk to a 16-year-old kid about Led Zeppelin.

And that's invigorating to me.

And finding out that a dude comes in his 60s and he's really into The Sisters of Mercy and I'm just like, "Oh, wow."

And we've got a customer who is an OG punk rocker and he's got copies of Punk Magazine and the first Ramones record signed and he got them in the day and he's told us all kinds of stories, because we have the opportunity to talk to him.

- That was part of the plan.

(upbeat music) I hope that it grows with the local music scene.

That's part of my goal.

The only new records I have are local merch.

Those are the only new I have currently.

So I do support local bands.

We're in local bands, so that's part of our passion is making sure that people hear about those stuff in their own community.

We are doing in-stores.

Cody's played quite a few in-stores here and a lot of my partners.

- I'm free.

I work free here, so... - [Kimmie] Rex Hobart has done it.

- Rex Hobart.

- He's a local country western recording artist.

- Who's on Bloodshot Records.

- Who's very popular.

- [Cody] And Marty Bush, who just put out a great new record he played in here.

- Nate.

- Nate Hofer put out this amazing record of ambient pedal steel guitar that he recorded in a decommissioned nuclear missile silo for the natural reverb of the cement, the part where the missile is.

He put a fender twin amplifier out there and then he put amplifiers all over the whole thing and then recorded this beautiful ambient music on pedal steel.

- It is gorgeous.

- [Cody] And he came and did an in-store with his record.

- Eric Vakes, who's one of our favorite singer songwriter, power pop artists, Eric Vakes.

We sold a lot of his album.

We need his again.

We need Nate's again.

- Freight Train Rabbit Killers played here.

Mike McCoy, who's a local KC mainstay.

He's an Austin guy now, but he was in very popular bands in Kansas City.

- Share UK.

- Yeah, I mean, that was his big deal.

- Cody plays guitar with him.

(swing jazz music) (swing jazz music continues) - KC has the overpowering tradition and legacy of swing jazz.

I mean, the Count Basie Orchestra, people like Mary Lou Williams, of course.

- Oh yes.

- You know, Charlie Parker, musicians like that.

- Bennie Moten.

- Bennie Moten's- - Jesse Stone.

- ... big band here.

And it was a jumping place.

It was where you know, Coleman Hawkins dueled to a standstill Lester Young and then burn out the engine of his car racing to St.

Louis to make a gig the next day.

- Prohibition basically didn't happen here and it brought in so many great musicians.

There's a lot of reasons, a lot of factors that went into that stew of creating that environment that allowed so much amazing music to happen.

- The Oklahoma Dust Bowl brought people here.

- Also, the Tulsa Race Massacre.

There was a radio show, I forget what show it was on, but it was on five o'clock in the morning.

And after Joe Turner after he would get done with his gigs at night, him and Pete Johnson, some of the other guys would go over and then they would do live radio show at 5:00 a.m.

and it was an AM signal that could reach all the way to Toronto, New York.

And so, you know, cats in Harlem were listening to Joe Turner, you know, early on on the radio, because they'd get home from their gigs and go home and listen on the radio, see what was happening in Kansas City.

- Had an enjoyable morning coming to the Planet Queen Record Store, the Planet Queen Kingdom.

I wanna thank the both of you for taking your time to do so.

And may this matriarchy prosper and forward in Independence.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Appreciate you coming in.

- Thanks for coming in.

(upbeat rock music) - You know, there are two stores called Josey's Records.

There's one in Dallas, Texas, but today we're visiting Josey's in the heart of KC.

We're here at one of their very established long-running record stores, known as Josey Records.

I'm here with the man in charge, Christian.

How you doing, my man?

- Doing good.

(upbeat rock music continues) - Since being here last it seems you've just made the store nicer and nicer.

- Yeah, trying, trying every day.

Posters up, more product out, change things around.

- I like how when I walked in, the first thing I see is a rack of new vinyl and everything from the Melvans to Thelo-Nious Monk.

Business is good.

Store is popular.

And as always, local record stores tend to be intimately involved in the music scene where they're located.

- Yes, yeah.

- Which leads me to ask, you do in-stores with local groups?

- We do.

We have a thing called First Fridays here, which is a big art walk, and we'll always book local bands on First Fridays.

And we try to do a second Friday with local music or maybe a Saturday.

So we're always trying to book new up-and-coming local bands or bands from Lawrence that happen to make it here.

So yeah, very supportive of that.

We have shows down in the basement, so.

- So everyone I know that works in a record store, and if they work in that record store and they have in-stores, there's an in-store moment that stands out in their mind.

Which one is it for you?

- Personally, my favorite was Sweeping Promises.

So they're based out of Lawrence now, recently officially signed the Sub Pop.

They decided to do record store day two years ago?

Yeah, they played here and that's probably my favorite in-store.

Largest in-store would be Gracie Abrams who did an acoustic set back here by the garage door.

And that was a lot of fun.

They had people all the way to the back, people waiting outside trying to watch through the window, people trying to listen behind the garage.

(hip-hop music) - [Tom] Might wanna talk a little about Josey Records in Dallas.

What brought them to wanna open up in Kansas City?

- Yeah, definitely the flagship shop.

We were the second one.

They, Warwick and Luke, the owners, were DJs.

They also worked at Bill's Records in Dallas at a time.

They were big fans of Music Exchange, which I'm not familiar with that.

Ron Ricks used to run it, and they would come up here and shop, and then at the same time DJ certain warehouses down in this area when this area was pretty much a ghost town.

(upbeat rock music) - [Tom] What is the record store day like for you here?

- We had a line from... It was the first time we had people camping out, like, let's see, 3:00 in the afternoon the day before, which we hadn't had down here.

We get people showing up around 4:00 a.m., but this was the first time people were showing up super early, and the line just wrapped all the way down the block and back around this way.

So yeah.

And we open up at 7:00.

The line didn't end.

It was a constant line from 7:00 a.m.

'til about 2:00 p.m., just constant.

- You see a line of people waiting to get into a record store or a nightclub or a music venue.

There's a party going on.

- Yeah, yeah, and then we try to make it a party.

We have bands playing, we'll have DJs playing.

We usually have some food trucks.

- [Tom] And as far as music genres, can you kind of tell us what's the trend here for all those?

- I mean, our biggest seller is always gonna be rock, be it the experimental, more avant-garde stuff.

We have a little section for soundtracks, metal, all that what kind of come after, but the biggest is just the used rock and indie rock.

(psychedelic rock music) - What's your favorite example of memorabilia for you?

- Ah, geez, memorabilia.

I'm trying to think here.

Just anything in the shop?

- Well, you know, the thing that maybe somebody would come in and go, "Hey, is that for sale?"

And you go, "No, my brother."

- It's that Madonna poster over there, so that's the one.

And I don't know how many people I've tried to see try to peel that off.

Yeah, that's a big one.

We've the little furry guy over there, the 45 case.

People ask about that.

And then our "Ghostbusters", the Slimer poster up front.

- As always, whenever I come to KC, it's a pleasure to check you and see what's going on.

I wanna thank you for your time.

- Thank you, appreciate it.

(psychedelic rock music continues) - Here's a store named in honor of a musical provocateur and godmother of the Kansas City scene.

We're entering a store of alternative musical possibilities, Sister Anne's.

And here we are at Sister Anne's Records, which is a beautiful room.

In fact, it's two beautiful rooms of music, coffee, and music lovers.

Jim, I know you're having a musical day.

- Every day, yeah.

- Tell us a little about the store.

- [Jim] All right.

Well, we have a full service coffee bar and some really nice pastries, a top-flight pastry chef, and a pretty well-curated selection of music.

We try to have the good stuff from every genre, so.

- I was looking through the stacks and that's definitely the case.

I mean you have what would definitely be called a well-curated collection of not only rock, but jazz, but soul 45s, as well as a really, really nice international section.

And I've also found everything running the gamut from between Brother Jimmy Swaggert and Megadeth.

So, you know, all bases are covered here.

- [Jim] We had a strong record collector community in Kansas City, so we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that.

But yeah, we pick up a lot of tourists.

And interesting thing about folks passing through town, I think we get quite a bit of them, because we open at eight o'clock in the morning being a coffee shop.

So a lot of folks will kind of catch us before they have to catch their flight, right?

Or, you know, if they're just visiting for a short period of time, they end up hitting us first, because we open so early.

- I've been doing this since 1985.

Worked at a lot of stores around town, just the only job I've ever had.

- [Announcer] Look, I've got some new records, let's try them.

(funky jazz music) - [Frank] I love it, I learn stuff every day still, 40 years into this, and I'm still learning.

- I met Frank when he owned another record store.

It was probably like '96, maybe.

He had a place called Ermi, '95.

- It was like that, it was earlier than that.

- Okay.

- '93, '94, around there.

- And you were a customer?

- Yeah, I was a customer and a friend of mine was putting out a 45 of a band from Kansas City and a band from San Francisco.

And so I was helping him out with that project.

So I took some copies into sell in the store.

I'm, you know, 16, and so that's how we met.

And then a couple years later, we were working together at Recycled Sounds.

And yeah, so we worked together there for a number of years, ended up roommates.

When Recycled closed, we had talked about doing this and it just, it took us about a decade or a little longer to- - A little longer.

- [Jim] Little longer to get our ducks in a row.

And but yeah, yeah, here we are.

(funky jazz music continues) (funky jazz music continues) - [Tom] How did you come to name the store Sister Anne's?

- Well, a woman that we worked for back in the '90s, her name was Anne Winter.

She was basically the godmother of the Kansas City underground music scene.

She had her store, she had a radio show, she put on shows.

She was a part of the Coalition Against Censorship.

She was just one of the kind of people that made things happen.

- A sister courage.

- Exactly.

And she made me get a radio show.

She was just like, "Frank, you need to be on the radio.

Come down to KKFI where I have a show as well and get on, come on, come on."

And so I did, and it was amazing.

It was a great time.

One of the best things I've done, you know?

And that was because of her.

She encouraged me to do that, and she was like that with everyone she met.

She was just a great, great person.

I wanted to honor her memory by naming the store after her.

She taught us how to do all this.

Everything that we do here, she taught us how to do.

- At 15, I started applying for a job, you know, and I put an application in once a month for a couple of years and was running flyers around town for her, volunteering to work at the booth festivals, just being as underfoot as possible until they finally relented and hired me.

Yeah, it was great.

I had to have two other jobs while I worked there.

I had my record store job that I got paid in records for and then a job to buy records with and then a job to pay my bills.

So yeah, it was good.

Yeah, learned a lot from her.

(funky jazz music continues) (punk rock music) - Kansas City is the birthplace of so much good music and it has to permeate not only the streets, but the racks in the store.

You have people coming in that are got that look and they're like, "Well, I'm in Kansas City.

I might see a saxophone player jumping out of a 10-floor window to the ground."

There's a certain multiplier effect of that when I see somebody buying, say, a Billie Eilish record, and then also grabbing something by Nina Simone or even Julie London.

- Nina Simone is still so popular.

- Very popular.

We sell a lot of Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra is very popular to the under-35 age set, more so than I've ever seen.

- Right, I think probably one of the bigger contemporary female artists that we've sold is, we sell a lot of Amyl and the Sniffers records.

They're great.

And yeah, we've moved quite a bit of those.

What other... Wet Leg is another girl-driven band that we've sold a lot of their stuff.

They're great, we played it in the store all the time.

So, but yeah.

- Surfbort.

- Oh yeah, Surfbort.

Yeah, we love Surfbort.

- We love Surfbort.

- [Tom] When it comes to in-stores... - All of these racks are on wheels.

You could just move them out of the way.

We have a stage in the basement that we bring up.

Works out real nice.

- [Jim] Yeah, it's a pretty serious setup.

(punk rock music continues) We've got local heroes.

The Nature Boys are having an album release party here, so that's real exciting, they're fantastic.

- They're our friends and they asked to do it here, and we're honored to have them here.

- I'm looking around and, you know, visually you've done nicely.

You've got these large portraits of albums from Miles Davis to The Cramps, but is there anything that, you know, memento blasts from the past?

- The Prince standup that is above our walkway there, I've had since it came out back in, I guess, the 90s, I guess.

That's something I'll never get rid of.

I love it, and it adds quite a bit to the decor of the shop.

(punk rock music continues) - I know that I've met two kindred spirits.

We're all vets in being musical pharmacists in a world sorely in need.

Hm?

- How long has your shop been open?

- 46 years.

- 46 years, wow.

- Before that, I worked in the music business for about five or six years.

But it was a very fortunate thing for me to be able to open the store, because at that point, nobody would give me a job.

- That's exactly the reason that I'm here, yes.

- Unemployable.

- Yep, yep.

(group laughs) (punk rock music continues) - Our musical cup runneth over.

We're at that city by the Missouri River, and the stores that we visited are well-stocked, well-run, and tied into the community.

Always more reasons than one to go to Kansas City.

(upbeat soul music) Originally from Belfast, Ireland, Van the Man Morrison, once wrote a song called "The Eternal Kansas City".

And to the world at large, KC's name is always linked to the best of American music.

What was your very first record, the first cassette, for a certain generation, the first CD that you can remember turning you out and making you spend your money on it?

Some music that just, you know, changed your world.

- [Kimmie] Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons four disc collection.

- The very first LP I walked in and laid my own lawn mowing money down was for Cheap Trick's "One On One".

- "Stand By Me" soundtrack.

It was... I love that movie and all the music when I watched that movie just fell in love with it.

I just remember asking my mom, went to Venture, I think.

I think it was Venture, and bought it it wasn't at a record shop, and this is when my parents were going to Peaches in St.

Louis.

I think first one, like, as I got older and my taste changed, if that even counts, would be "Faith No More" Real Thing.

- The first record that I ever received as a gift was Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil".

And the first album that ever hit me so hard that I was like, this is my stuff that I really identified with was probably the Dead Milkmen's "Big Lizard In My Backyard".

But the first CD that I ever purchased was The Cramps' "Flame Job".

And yeah, that was, you know, always loved The Cramps, but when I got a CD player, little Discman unit, that was the first one I bought.

- My first record was Cheech and Chong, my very own first record, Cheech and Chong's "Big Bambu".