Live at Wits' End Records // Intercultural Microgrant Guest Blog
The following guest blog is from 2024 Intercultural Microgrant recipient Wits’ End Records, a new record store, live music & community space in downtown Murray, KY. They received support from the Josh May Memorial Fund. Learn more about this project at kyrux.org/microgrants/2024.
From its inception, Wits’ End Records has been community driven and cultivated.
In early 2024, property was purchased in downtown Murray, Kentucky to house the envisioned record store, music venue, and community space. After months of renovations, dreaming, and planning, Wits’ End opened its doors on October 26, 2024. The majority of the labor for the space was contributed by locals who believed in Wits’ End’s vision, who lended a hand in every aspect from general repairs, painting, flooring, and building the necessary infrastructure for both a retail space and venue. Take a look at the renovation process below.
As with any small start-up business, certain aspects of one’s vision will take time and an accumulation of resources to fully actualize a dream. Along with providing Kentucky and the surrounding region with rare and eclectic records and music related products, Wits’ End is dedicated to evolving into a hotspot for live music, with hopes of both creating the most enjoyable experience for listeners and artists alike. For anyone familiar with the business of live music, small venues are crucial in the development of performers. Small music venues are where many of your favorite artists were first given the chance to cut their teeth. They are a vital part to the music ecosystem, where performers build confidence, are discovered by others, and provide a sustaining heartbeat to the local culture.
Here is the live room coming to life with the stage in progress.
Tim Peyton, the co-owner of Wits’ End, has hosted bands in living rooms, kitchen corners, and venues where there were no stages. Some notable bands and artists include: Kelley Deal of The Breeders, Mannequin Pussy, and Parquet Courts just to name a few. He has hosted bands from all over the United States and abroad, as well as played in local projects for many years. Creating a venue space that felt comfortable for DIY projects and national touring acts has been a priority and an initiative that has been coming together, piece by piece, over time. There are many aspects of a venue that are important to securing both its sound quality and ease for the artist and fans. Wits’ End has constructed a stage that is both comfortable for the singer/songwriter and bands containing many members. The live room is an ongoing project, and the to-do list for creating the ultimate live venue is still long. Thanks to RUX, one very important aspect of the live room has been accomplished, which is to secure a professional mixing board that can be utilized to facilitate great live sound as well as serve as a tool for heart projects.
The retail counter both functions as a check-out space, storage, and a home to house the venue's sound equipment. Located in front of the stage, the live engineer is able to survey the room and stay intune to the performers needs. The new soundboard can be seen at the far left side of the service area.
Lu Colby, the co-owner of Wits’ End, checks out a customer at the point of sale station during a performance.
Wits’ End has teamed up with Slough Water Records, a label started in 2015 by local musician S.G. Goodman. Slough Water Records, has been on pause since Goodman’s signing to Verve Records in 2019. Goodman has plans of more activity and releases in the near future, and has teamed up with Wits’ End to make it happen. A heart project both companies feel strongly about is documenting artists who play at Wits’ End. Murray is conveniently located between many major touring cities, and has for many years been a pitstop for performers from all walks of life, levels, and identities. Providing artists with a live recording for free is a perk that many venues do not prioritize, but in this content driven world, both Wits’ End and Slough Water Records sees this as an opportunity to support touring acts. Not only will recording live shows at Wits’ End provide artists with material they can use to promote themselves, but it will also serve as oral documentation of the history of live music in a small rural town. With Slough Water Records experience in releasing music, future plans involve perfecting live recordings from Wits’ End in order to release compilations of performances to the public.
After receiving the Josh May grant, both Wits’ End and Slough Water Records have begun the process of learning the ropes of live recording on their new board, and are gaining better insight into what else is needed to accomplish their goals of capturing quality recordings. Here is a walkthrough of the recording process as of now.
Check out a few of the live recordings captured live at Wits’ End. We plan to grow this initiative by adding necessary gear for better mixes, sound treating the live room for more controlled sound quality, and after spending more time behind the board and gaining experience, we plan on releasing compilations of performances both digitally through streaming and on physical mediums. Kentucky has a deep and vast music history, Wits’ End and Slough Water Records have teamed together to add to that tradition by representing an area of Kentucky that often gets overlooked for its artistic contributions. This recording project has and will attract artists from both across Kentucky and beyond.
A special thank you to the family of Josh May, the generous folks at Kentucky Urban-Rural Exchange for making us recipients of their grant, and to the performers who allowed us to practice recording during their shows. Please follow the link below to stream a few of our recent performances.
—Wits’ End Records
The Kentucky Intercultural Microgrant Program is a seed grant to support two or more individuals or organizations collaborating across distance, difference, or sector on projects that celebrate and connect Kentucky's people and places.
Launched with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Fund for the Arts, the Monument Workshop at UK, the Josh May Memorial Fund, and individual donors, the 2024 Microgrant Program invests in a series of seed grants (awards from $250-2000) to support short-term projects that foster dialogue, connection, or collaboration among Kentuckians from disparate backgrounds, identities, or experiences. Projects that involve diverse partners and invite the public to participate are preferred.