Runout Record Shop Gets Ready to Open in West Nashville

When Michael Lovett was 14 years old, he told his parents he didn’t want to go to summer camp. That was OK, but he needed to get a job, because they didn’t want him sitting around doing nothing all day.

He headed down to his neighborhood record store and asked for a job. They were happy to oblige — except for one thing. Michael wasn’t old enough to legally be paid for work in the store. So they came up with an arrangement: The store would tally the hours Michael worked, and he’d use the equivalent of his wages to buy new records. It was a 14-year-old’s dream. But quickly, Michael realized he had exhausted his limited knowledge of what to buy.

“For the next two years, in summertime and after school, I worked in this record shop, and [the owner] guided me through the rock ’n’ roll family tree,” he recalls, “showing me which artists and musicians played on which records, which engineers and studios participated in the changing sound of records, how the labels were related. It was a wonderful slow walk through rock-and-roll history up to that point.”

That experience laid the foundation for several parts of his career path, including work as a songwriter and a sound engineer. Now Michael and his wife Kate Lovett are seeing that early experience pay off again. Last week, the Lovetts got the keys to Runout Record Shop, their new vinyl store.

Through the record-store grapevine, the couple heard that Alison’s Record Shop in West Nashville was up for sale. The Lovetts have lived in the neighborhood since 2012 and drove by the place twice a day — and they saw their chance. “This is really a homecoming, and a dream come true for me,” Michael says.

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Over Labor Day weekend, the Lovetts took a break from sifting through 23,000 vinyl records that were part of Alison’s inventory to talk about their plans for Runout Record Shop. Even from the store’s name, you can tell the Lovetts’ love of music: The smooth place on a vinyl record,  between the grooves and the paper label, is called the “runout.” As Kate notes, it is fun to say: “You should run in to Runout.”

Alison and Brian Warford opened Alison’s Record Shop in 2014, adjacent to Brian’s Theaters & Hi-Fi, the shop where Brian created custom in-home sound systems. The couple decided to move to the beach, where, according to Instagram, Brian has already set up a turntable.

The Lovetts’ business purchase includes both spaces. It will take them a while to sort through the vinyl stacked in both rooms, but they eventually plan to add a coffee shop in the old Hi-Fi space, with room for people to work, hang out and eat soft serve. Michael notes that there are not enough third spaces on the West Side, places where people can just be in community — nor are there soft-serve ice cream shops west of Bobbie’s Dairy Dip. Plans for that phase of the project will likely begin early next year. 

Right now the record store is the primary focus. They hope to open the doors in the next couple of weeks and then hold a grand opening event once the new signage arrives. Michael plans to work in the business full-time, and Kate will do so part-time as she continues her work at Google.

“The shop has been here and been a record shop for a long time, and that’s one of the things that gives us somewhat of an advantage and a place to start,” says Michael. “It has a little bit of an identity of its own, and we’re going through and putting our own identity into it. It’s a general record shop, but with a curated selection — selections of things that folks hopefully are going to want to hear, records with stories, records that have interesting connections to other records.”

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Alison’s Record Shop sold only used vinyl, and the Lovetts plan to add new vinyl as well. They will buy used records from the public, as Alison’s did, but probably not until they finish sorting through the existing inventory. They do plan to have a “crate-diggers sale” to deaccession some of the records.

“There have been some really incredible pieces that we found so far,” Kate says, “like old CMA radio broadcasts on vinyl.” They’re hoping the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum or some other entities might want to hang on to those rarer specialty recordings.

In addition to the coffee shop and third space, the Lovetts plan to add live music offerings at Runout. They know that Alison’s had a long history and a devoted following, so while they have plans for changes, they also want to hear what their customers want. They’ll continue to honor Alison’s frequent-buyer punch cards and gift cards. 

“The community is part of the reason that we took this on,” Michael says. “I grew up going to record stores. I grew up working in record stores, and there was a period in time when you couldn’t find record stores. And so to actually come across a record store that’s been here for quite some time — and have the opportunity to continue selling records and fostering the kinds of conversations and the kinds of community that come along with music? Yeah, that’s what we wanted to do.”

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