Photo By: Drew Perlmutter | Stereo, Atlanta, GA
Words by Jim Beaugez
Across the region, music aficionados are creating spaces for deep music listening.
Southerners don’t exactly need an excuse to fellowship—and that goes for family, friends, and yes, even those we haven’t met yet. So, when the century-old Japanese tradition of music listening rooms arrived in the U.S., they became another way to gather around a common interest and share an experience with others.
Inspired by the Japanese kissa, from the word kissaten, meaning traditional tea house, listening rooms are now popping up in Southern cities from Austin to Atlanta. While the Japanese kissas grew out of a love of American jazz music, though, proprietors throughout the South are interpreting the concept in their own ways.
Rod Valle, one of three friends who own Groceries, Etc in Nashville, fell in love with a neighborhood kissa while living in Japan and sought to bring the listening-room experience home. But like similarly inspired rooms across the South, Groceries, Etc puts its own spin on the concept by playing “whatever records are in the air, or what’s in the mood” instead of limiting to a single genre, says co-owner Johnson Phillips.
We explored some of the region’s most intriguing listening rooms and found their eccentricities reflect the flavor of their communities. Here are three to see.
Nashville: Groceries, Etc.
Only two miles separate the rowdy barrooms of Nashville’s Lower Broadway from Lockeland Springs, a picturesque East Nashville neighborhood where streetcars once carried residents across the Cumberland River to the city proper.
Stately Queen Anne Victorians and Craftsman bungalows line the streets, where Groceries, Etc. offers immersion in recorded music rather than the flashy sideshows found at the multi-level bars downtown. But listening rooms cater to a clientele for whom intention and community are paramount.
“This place, I think, is special because it’s so warm and welcoming and comfortable,” says co-owner Tyson Keppler. “It feels like you’re in your good friend’s really cool listening room in their house, and that’s exactly what we wanted. We wanted people to feel comfortable coming in for one beer or many beers, to be a neighborhood gathering place.”
Housed in the attic of a historic building that previously served as a grocery store, the space uses heavily insulated, 10-inch walls to seal out the external world and create a mood space with no set programming. Groceries, Etc. isn’t a case of outside investors cashing in on a trend, though—all four owners live close by and have been immersed in its finer details.
And it’s personal in another way—a large portion of the 1,000-piece record collection comes from the owners’ personal stashes. “This is something we built for us and to be part of the fabric of the neighborhood,” says Rod Valle, another partner, “and that’s the way we want to keep it.”
Birmingham: High Dive Hi-Fi Lounge
The 43-acre manmade lake that gave Birmingham’s Lakeview District its name dried up long ago, but a rising tide of new condos, eateries, breweries, and night spots is relaunching the neighborhood out of dry dock.
Located in an entertainment block cheekily called the Lakeview Marina—adjacent to Seasick Records and Music Park, a courtyard live-music venue—the High Dive Hi-Fi Lounge is an acoustically treated oasis for serious music listeners. “The whole place is built essentially like a recording studio,” says Birmingham musician and record aficionado Will Stewart, who lives nearby and frequents the space.
Bart Stephens, founder and owner of High Dive, fell in love with kissas overseas and began dreaming of creating a place in his hometown where people could unplug and go analog. “Listening rooms offer the opportunity to connect over music and provide slowness and calmness in the face of this hyper-connected, digital, modern world,” he says.
While locals sip drinks and peruse a menu created with James Beard Award-winning Chef Sean Brock, the staff spins jazz, acoustic music, and other genres from its collection of LPs. On occasion, artists like Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas drop in to perform guest DJ sets.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to stumble upon a place like this in Manhattan or Tokyo,” Stewart says, “but to have it in a smaller, old city in the South is kind of a rarity. I think we’re really lucky to have it.”
Atlanta: Stereo
Stereo breaks with the more purist kissa set naturally by virtue of its host city’s funkier vibes. Based in Atlanta’s Inman Park, established east of downtown in the late nineteenth century as the city’s first garden suburb, Stereo shares its neighborhood with eclectic eateries and shops with plenty of foot and bicycle traffic.
“We fell in love with the jazz kissa thing where no one can talk, but we couldn’t really get away with that in Atlanta, unless it was, like, a really weird, dark room,” says Stereo co-owner and resident DJ Caleb Wheelus, who also serves as resident music curator with Danny Fernandez. Alongside co-owner Ian Jones, Wheelus has helped shape the listening bar’s distinctly Atlanta interpretation of the concept. “Our place is very sunny in the daytime and very much a cityscape at night, where the MARTA train goes by every five minutes. It’s definitely not a hush-hush or pretentious spot.
Photo By: Drew Perlmutter
Wheelus, a record collector with a love of acid jazz, hip-hop, psych, and house music, says he encourages his daytime baristas to mix up their sets with Jamaican dub, reggae, and Latin textures. In the evenings, though, when Stereo transitions from café to listening lounge, the staff caters to a clientele of serious record collectors.
“To me, what’s interesting is when you don’t know what’s next,” Wheelus says. “When you have someone playing records, and you’re enjoying the randomness and unpredictability of it, and you trust the person playing records to make it fun and new and fresh.”
