To borrow from Jack Nicholson's character, Morris Udall, in the 1997 film As Good As It Gets:
Kimber Lanning makes me wanna be a better man.
The funny thing is, I've never met her. Never even heard of her before SPM writer Joy Hepp walked into the office a couple of weeks ago and pitched the idea for a profile of possibly the most influential - if not the most ingenious - person in the Valley's music and arts community today [See "Modifying Arizona's music scene," Page 6].
Perhaps Lanning has made her way in the local scene so inconspicuously for so many years for several reasons, but a couple, in particular, come to mind.
Lanning is neither egomaniacal nor has she whored out the good name of her businesses - in both Stinkweeds Record Exchange and Modified Arts - to make a profit. Lanning's independently-owned and beautifully obscure empire of creative arts is an endangered species on the brink of extinction in the local marketplace.
Rather than performing market research and analyzing her target audience, Lanning actually treats her clientele as if they were people, not merely data on a spreadsheet of unidentifiable numbers.
Doesn't sound so innovative, does it? Rather, it's common sense. In fact, in this age of homogenized, pre-packaged mega-music stores, Lanning isn't so much a pioneer in the local music scene as she is a throwback to the moms and pops who operated some of the most colorful small businesses in the Valley during Mill Avenue's heyday of the 1980s and '90s.
But unlike some of her independent brethren who seem to have accepted their lot as exiled small businesses, like Gentle Strength Co-Op, Cookies From Home or Changing Hands Bookstore - all of whom were either forced out of prime real estate on Mill or put out of business altogether - Lanning is actually taking the corporate-owned chains head on.
"Think independently, buy locally," more a unifying creed than a slick slogan, is Lanning's creation. And, ironically, this non-conformist attitude is one all of us who care about creative art and progressive music - including the aforementioned independent gems - should take to heart.
As Lanning warns, "The more people who choose to shop at Wal-Mart, the less of a variety we're going to have in the future."
Sure, many could argue that not everything Stinkweeds and Modified have to offer is of the most artistically challenging. But it is different. My hope is that we all would rather have Lanning present what she has to the Valley than pander to big record labels for the same standardized crap.
It's by SPM following the same philosophy that you won't catch us floating a cover shot of "Hollywood's hottest stars" or an already big-name act to get you to pick us up. It's the local angle we want to give you. And by finding the most inconspicuous, we think, translates into the most original content.
I guess you could say that Lanning doesn't simply make me wanna be a better man; she makes us wanna be a better mag.
Reach the editor at joe.watson@asu.edu.
