Each Tuesday, Behind the Counter speaks to an independent record store to ask about its recent favorites, best sellers, and noteworthy trends.
The term “record store” only begins to describe Tender Loving Empire in Portland, Oregon. The multifaceted shop is run by the multi-talented husband-and-wife duo Jared and Brianne Mees.
What exactly is Tender Loving Empire, and how did you get involved in so many artistic avenues?
Tender Loving Empire is a record label, retail consignment shop, screenprinting studio, and gallery focused on supporting local art and music while fostering community exchange. We started in 2006 as a pretty casual, back-bedroom label of sorts, to release Jared Mees’ (my husband and co-owner of TLE) first album, If you wanna swim with the sharks… We quickly expanded the project to publish some books and music by good friends. We had always dreamed of having a physical location for a collective of some type.
It took on lots of different forms (venue, artist studios, coffee shop, store), but we settled on trying our hand at opening a (very) small consignment shop with a relatively small amount of overhead. We worked other jobs and had lots of friends volunteering to keep it open at the beginning. Since then, we’ve just naturally expanded to fit more and more artists and musicians into the fold. Everything has just been a stepping stone, leading to the next opportunity or next relationship. And we’ve worked really hard.
