Zia more than a record store

Would-be indie record store customer, a middle-aged dad: "Hi, do you have the song 'I Just Called To Say I Love You'? It's for my daughter's birthday."

Semisurly indie record store clerk, hipper-than-thou, and on the portly side: "Yeah, we have it."

Customer: "Great, can I have it?"

Clerk: "No. No, you can't."

Customer: "Why not?"

Clerk: "Well, it's sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells 'I Just Called to Say I Love You'? Go to the mall."

This scene, taken from the film adaptation of "High Fidelity," novelist Nick Hornby's connecting-of-the dots of love, heartache and music set largely in a record store, neatly encapsulates the appeal of indie music shops: They're for true believers, the people who live for this stuff and, the same could be said of the people who shop there.

"The people behind our counters are the same as the people in front of our counters," says Brian Faber, manager of Zia Records, an independent music chain with eight locations, including two in Las Vegas. "You don't get that at Target. The guy who you buy music or a movie from in our stores is probably going to talk to you about it."

These kinds of stores aren't just stores, they're de facto social hubs, places where die-hards congregate, where scenes are formed, where new discoveries are made.

They form a crucial bedrock for any music community, and Zia has been doing it for 30 years, since launching with a small store in Phoenix in 1980.

They've been in Las Vegas for a little more than five years, even though many similar retailers have come and gone and the record store itself is seemingly an endangered species these days.

But Zia's ties to the locals run deeper than just serving as a place to buy used Metallica CDs.

"It's just important for us to be a part of our communities," says Faber, 40, who has been working in record stores in one form or another since he was 21. "We want local bands to play in our store, we want to sell local artists, we want to have community groups use our stage for meeting places."

As the way we consume music has evolved, increasingly done in digital form -- hands off, detached, no interaction with anything other than a computer screen -- shops like Zia are more and more relevant.

Here, connections are made with something other than a modem.

"I think digital music is so disposable, you get it, you use it and then you're done with it," Faber says. "It doesn't let people connect with music. With stores like Zia, people can come in and find that again. They love that feeling, because music is emotional, it means something in your life. To share that with people, that has real value."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.