If you’ve never been to Chris and Heather’s Record Roundup and Collectibles at 2034 W. Montrose, you don’t have much time to remedy your situation. Chris Ligon and Heather McAdams are closing down their country-themed LP and tchotchke store and moving to Delaware.
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Heather and Chris started the store as an outlet for all the stuff they had accumulated–much of the merchandise comes from their own collections, gleaned from flea markets and estate sales. “My mind goes free in junk stores,” says Heather. “We just tried to create a store where we would like to go.” Half an hour in the Roundup can yield Johnny Cash’s Live From Folsom Prison LP, a cat-sized sombrero, a panel from one of Heather’s cartoons, a hand-colored poster of Dolly Parton, a black-and-white photograph of a little girl in a cowgirl dress, and a pulp novel subtitled Life in the Limbo of Lesbianism. Currently for sale are a pair of enormous papier-mache chicken drumsticks.
“Everything here is handpicked,” Heather says, and looks at the display case. “Like that stupid jar of colored sand.”
Not surprising, maybe, but still a loss. Heather calls the store “pretty small potatoes in the country scene,” but the Roundup regulars disagree. “If you look at every alt country performer in Chicago, every one of them goes to the Roundup, and every one of them buys records there,” Tuten points out. Heather’s annual hand-drawn Country Calendar, featuring artists from Pee Wee King to Patsy Cline, has become a staple, as has the accompanying Country Calendar Show. “It’s like they’re trying to witness for country music wherever they go,” Kelly Hogan says.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/copyright Susan Anderson for City 2000.
