By SOPHIA JIMENEZ, Velocity Contributor
Every morning, Mike Keysboe stands in front of a room full of curious 4th graders, teaching different subjects from multiplication to grammar. But once the final bell rings, he trades textbooks for turntables, heading to Long Live Vinyl Records—his newly opened record store in Palos Park. For Keysboe, music isn’t just a hobby, but a passion he’s finally turned into a reality.
His lifelong dream, born from childhood afternoons listening to music in the car with his father, has come to fruition in his store at 12916 LaGrange Road. Though it’s challenging working a full-time job while running his own business, it’s all worth it as it allows him to inspire, connect, and share his passion with fellow music lovers within the community.
Keysboe teaches in Berwyn, which is sometimes an almost 50-minute commute to the shop.
“I should change the numbers on the door to say 4-ish,” he says.
Keysboe is working all day, every day, with no days off until May 30, when school lets out for the summer.
“I just kind of struggle through this brief period of time, but as the store has been open, it’s become very successful, and it keeps growing,” he said.
Ideally, Keysboe wishes to retire from teaching and work at the store full time. He’s just waiting for the right time, but his willingness to do both at once proves his dedication and faith in the community he’s creating at Long Live Vinyl Records.
It took a long time for Keysboe to get where he is now. He has worked at many different places ranging from other record retail stores to Best Buy and even Ulta Beauty. He moved from Illinois across the country to Portland, Oregon, and back again. But Keysboe wouldn’t have had it any other way. All these steps and stages of life have led him to his lifelong dream of owning his own record store.
Even though Keysboe didn’t start his teaching career until 2011 or open his record store until just last year, he has had a strong interest in both music and teaching from a young age.
“I wanted to be a teacher a long time ago, when I was actually in high school, but I didn’t get into it,” he said. “Not that anybody was trying to steer me away from it, but I was just told that it wasn’t a very high-paying profession.”
Keysboe attended Moraine Valley from 2004 to 2006, taking general education classes, and later transferred to Saint Xavier University, to pursue a degree in business administration. He ended up getting into the world of retail and working in record stores.
“I really felt I belonged there,” said Keysboe. “I really loved doing the job. I loved being around music all the time, listening to music all the time, and the people who shop at record stores are great. They just love being there, and it’s always fun to talk about music with other people.”
While working in the music retail world, Keysboe has got to know a lot of people in the industry. One of the great “perks of working in the music business” was getting to meet many of his musical heroes, including Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of the band KISS.
“I still have all my pictures from that day, and that was just a lot of fun,” he says. “It was just a very surreal experience to grow up in the ’70s listening to them and being so infatuated with the bands, having seen three of their concerts back in their heyday when they were very popular, and then to end up sitting in a restaurant with them having lunch. It was just a very surreal experience.”
Unfortunately, while he was working at Best Buy the retail record industry underwent a huge change, with vinyl record sales going down and CD sales going up. Eventually, with the rise of digital music platforms like iTunes and Spotify, the music department at Best Buy closed, and Keysboe ended up at Ulta Beauty as a replenishment analyst.
“I loved all the experiences,” said Keysboe. “Like any job, there’s always positives and negatives. There were things about all those jobs that I absolutely love and have such great memories about, including Ulta, Best Buy and every job I’ve worked at, and if they’ve all led me to this point right now, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
With the resurgence of vinyl records, Keysboe decided now was the right time to open his store. A whole new generation is discovering the magic of vinyl, and at the same time the older generations are reexperiencing vinyl and enjoying it all over again.
“I like to say my customers are all from ages 7 to 77,” said Keysboe. “A gentleman was in here last month, and he brought two boys, they were 7 and 8 years old, and they were both holding records, and I made a comment to him about how great that was, and he said that both of them, all they asked for for Christmas were records. And I just thought that was the greatest thing.”
Before landing on the name Long Live Vinyl Records, Keysboe made a list of roughly 200 different names.
“I just thought, vinyl, it’s basically come back from the dead. And it’s huge again, it’s the biggest-selling physical form of music. I thought the name of Long Live Vinyl Records was very poignant.”
Although some may see a digital music platform such as Spotify as the enemy of vinyl records, Keysboe has no quarrels with it: “I think anything that gets people into the music is fantastic.”
He does, of course, have his preference. “I appreciate the sound of records and how much fun it is to open up a record and put that on a turntable and sit there and hold this beautiful 12-inch by 12-inch record. It’s like a piece of art, and you get to pull the lyric sheet out and read the lyrics of the songs that you’re listening to and you get to just enjoy this beautiful piece of artwork. It’s so much better than listening to music on a streaming service.”
Keysboe has created a welcoming environment for new and veteran music lovers to expand their vinyl collections. He has made plans to carry CDs and other merchandise after receiving many requests.
”All the customers make it so worthwhile,” Keysboe said. “I try to listen to what the customers are looking for, what they like about their store, what they like to see in the store, and I take all their feedback seriously.”
He hopes people have a good time shopping and walk away with a good memory of the store, wanting to come back again because they found something interesting.
“There have been a lot of friendships that have been born in this store with customers interacting with one another, and now they’ve become friends. It’s like a community and I just would love people to come in here and enjoy the community of music lovers.”
Velocity 
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