For the past month, a modest storefront next to an ice cream shop at 55th Street and Troost Avenue has been under wraps. Behind the brown paper, Shaun Crowley, the founder and president of Manor Records, has been hard at work creating his latest venture for the nonprofit record label that nurtures local talent.
Crowley started the nonprofit in 2017, with concerts first in a rented house in Shawnee, then moving to a cafe in Strawberry Hill and later a basement space in the West Bottoms. On Troost, he’s doubled the retail space where he will sell used records. This time, Crowley thinks he has the right business model.
“Now I’ll be able to sit here all day and work on helping my artists while I sell a handful of records,” he said. “Hopefully that is going to allow me the time to really help both the organization and the store grow.”
The goal is for the record store to provide a regular source of income to donate to the nonprofit. Crowley hopes the space will become a creative hub for the Kansas City music scene.
“There's no place in Kansas City where you can walk in on your first day new to the city and find out about where the local music scene is and what they're doing,” Crowley said. “I want the new store to do that for people.”
Up front, he’s built a small stage where Manor Records will host concerts. The showroom is filled with LPs, and there’s a room in the back where musicians can offer lessons.
Crowley plans to man the record store Wednesday through Saturday, and on Monday and Tuesday when the store is closed, he’ll teach guitar and bass to students of all ages and skill levels. He already has another musician lined up to teach piano and ukulele.
The storefront will also serve as a concert venue for the artists Manor Records supports. The store will bring back free events from its last space — Songbird Sessions every Thursday, a songwriter open mic and a masterclass educational series.
Crowley started playing in the Kansas City music scene when he was 17, in bands like Rev Gusto and Momma’s Boy. He said he’s eager to share the lessons he’s learned with young musicians just starting out.
“I saw like a glimpse of what it's like to be a real musician, and I don't promise anything like that for the musicians we work with, but I do promise them that I'm here to basically do that grunt work because I know it sucked when I had to do it for myself,” he said. “I really want them to be able to focus on the music.”
Skylar Rochelle is on the board of the nonprofit and has been volunteering for about five years, since she was a senior in high school. She handles press releases for musicians and helps with bookings.
"The ability for us to have a storefront is really important, just to be sort of an anchor for the local music scene," Rochelle said. "It's going to be a really important place where people are wanting to learn instruments or looking to dive into music.”
Rochelle said that the surrounding businesses have been welcoming.
“We've done a lot of work with Blackhole Bakery,” she said. ”It's cool to see everybody lifting each other up.”
The new space will also serve as home base for preparations for the foundation’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Manor Fest is a multi-day music festival held in Kansas City that goes back to the group’s early days in a Shawnee basement. The foundation’s mission is to provide resources and support to local musicians, and Manor Fest is now a cornerstone of their fundraising efforts.
This year, the event will showcase more than 60 local bands across 20 venues in 6 neighborhoods over two weekends at the end of May. All proceeds will benefit the nonprofit organization, Manor Records Fund.
“It’s a lot of grassroots, bootstrap work and I know Shaun's put an incredible amount of work in as well as our other board members,” Rochelle said. “It’s like a total passion project, but it's been really cool to see that it's persisted this long and see how it’s grown in all the ways it has.”
Rochelle said their goal from the beginning has been to incubate local talent and grow the music scene.
“It's super cool to see our local artists get recognized,” she said. "It feels incredibly satisfying to see folks succeed in that way and just get to do what they do.”
Manor Records’ grand opening is from 5-8 p.m. on Friday, April 5, at 5540 Troost Ave., Kansas City, Missouri 64110. Tickets are $10. More information is at manorrecords.com.
