In Lawrence, Kan., a Home for Theremins and Tropicália

Lawrence, Kan.—Here’s the first thing you should do when you walk into a record store: Take a quick glance at the dividers—the little plastic things, I mean, that separate the albums by Wilco from the ones by Lucinda Williams. More than the promotional posters littering the walls or the music blaring over the PA, it’s those dividers that will tell you what you need to know about the place.

Love Garden Sounds—just stroll down Massachusetts Street, the main drag here, and look for the storefront emblazoned with the giant squid straddling the planet Saturn—more than passes the test. At Love Garden the dividers are colorful, hand-scrawled, and littered with names that seem to trace an alternate history of rock music. Stand amid the stacks of LPs, turn to the left, and you might spot The Monks, a bunch of American GI’s in Germany who tonsured themselves and played ... well, see for yourself: People might’ve called it punk rock if that term had been coined by the mid-'60s. Look to the right, and maybe you’ll see Clara Rockmore, a theremin virtuosa who made Tchaikovsky sound like he was scoring Lost in Space. Or perhaps you’ll find your interest piqued by a divider that announces an entire section devoted to “Eccentric Soul Compilations.”

This is the music that matters to Kelly Corcoran, Love Garden’s owner. Mr. Corcoran looks like he was sent to the shop straight from central casting (you know the drill: beard, hoodie sweatshirt, generally laconic demeanor). And while he spent a few years working in Washington for NPR, it’s hard to escape the notion that he’s landed in exactly the right spot. When Lawrence Biemiller and I stopped by the shop late one morning, he was in full-on record-geek mode—holding court at the checkout counter, bringing a customer up to speed on the Beach Boys’ catalog (“Well, Pet Sounds is widely regarded as the classic ...”).

If you’ve read press reports on The Plight of the Independent Record Store in the past few years, chances are you’ve heard one of two dueling stories: Either shops like Love Garden are falling, one by one, at the hands of corporate superstores and Internet retailers, or they’re basking in an unlikely renaissance, buoyed by a new breed of vinyl devotees. According to Mr. Corcoran, neither tale gets it quite right. In a college town like Lawrence, he says, there’s plenty of room for a record store to thrive. But you’ve really got to know what you’re doing. That means keeping tabs on the local music scene, schlepping out to people’s houses to buy used records, and staying small enough to adapt when customers’ tastes change.

Oh, and knowing your clientele helps, too. When I ogled an LP I’d thought was hopelessly out of print—an underrated classic by Arthur Verocai, a Brazilian songwriter from the early ‘70s—Mr. Corcoran nodded in my direction. “Get it before it’s gone. I just got the last 20 from the label.”

Off the album went, into my already-bulging pile of purchases. “That line works on every record person,” he said with a wry smile. “But in this case, it’s true.”