March 28, 2024 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Charlie Madden
Earth Pig Music and Smoke Shop on Uintah St., roughly a mile from the Colorado College Campus might offer a pleasant escape from the real world. The air is still as customers slowly peruse the shelves of records and CDs. Tim Atherton, who owns the store, pops in a funky reggaeton CD before he talks about the history of the shop and how he views its role in Colorado Springs.
“I do well with the real,” says Atherton, an unshaven, middle-aged man with intense eyes and an honest smile. He has owned the music and smoke shop since 1992.
Non-digital, tangible, real.
A record and CD store in today’s world of technology, may be a fading concept if not a forgotten one, but now more than ever some people are longing for ‘the real.’
Atherton has owned Earth Pig Music and Smoke Shop for 32 years. He was born in Minnesota but had an upbringing he explained where his military family would “gallivant around the planet.” The latter end of his childhood took place in Hawaii, he said, and from there he moved to Colorado Springs where he has been ever since.
Atherton’s father was nicknamed Earth Pig. The nickname’s origin could be a “hippie thing” or in connection to his military unit, said Atherton. His father dreamed of opening a music and pipe shop after retiring from the army, and Atherton joined him after leaving college.
The store is on Uintah St. in a retro strip mall surrounded by a pizza shop and liquor store. The small store has two main sections: one side with mostly CDs, the other all records. Green, yellow, red and blue walls are reminiscent of an elementary school. Posters of old album covers and musicians cover the walls, giving customers a sneak peek of what they can find sifting through the shelves.
Atherton perches behind the counter protecting the glass pipes.
“I guess I’m the bartender, so to speak… minus the booze … music will help you… What did Bob Marley say, ‘One good thing about music when it hits you, you feel no pain,’?” said Atherton.
Atherton’s laid-back personality and connection to customers are the reasons people continue coming back. Conversations about life, kids and hot springs filled the store on a day in February. Such conversations help Atherton fill the bins with music people want. From recordings of live Bob Marley concerts to Taylor Swift, Earth Pig has options for everyone.
Based on the industry standard, Luminate Year-End Music Report, 43% of all albums sold in the U.S. in 2022 were vinyl, and Gen Z are 27% more likely to purchase vinyl records, according to a Cleveland.com report.
“It’s made me have to learn new things,” Atherton said about a younger generation of customers requesting new music in the shop.
He mentioned that he has no formal business experience or education but follows a simple business model to keep Earth Pig afloat: “Be nice to people. Make more than you spend.”
These two rules seem to be working as many people flooded in and out of the door in about an hour. Atherton described his customers as a celebration of humanity.
“They come in all shapes, sizes and colors,” he said. So, it might not be crazy to assume that Earth Pig has sparked interest from CC students who live just up the street.
For CC student Brayden Ellis ’26 who has been shopping at the Pig for the past six months or so, it’s a combination of environment, good music coming through the speakers, a great selection of merchandise and good conversation that keeps him coming back.
“Having music tangible in your hands as somebody who loves music is a special thing,” Ellis said.
Ellis is one of many who enjoy listening to records on top of streaming music. The more artists that are streamed could be a reason that more and more people are buying records.
“It’s kind of akin to reading a paper book, rather than on your kindle,” said Andres Carrizo, a professor of music at CC.
Listening to a record bridges the gap between streaming music on a phone and going to a live show, Carrizo said. On top of that, people love the covers. “When you are listening to a record on vinyl… there is essentially a piece of art, which is the covers.”
Earth Pig Music and Smoke Shop caters to all types of people who live in Colorado Springs. Whether CDs and records are a main form of music entertainment for some, bring nostalgia or bring a collectors and experiential element to music, Earth Pig’s popularity suggests people still appreciate ‘the real,’ as Atherton likes to call it.