Pull open Vertigo Music’s heavy wooden door by its tarnished brass handle, and you might hear the warm voice of a tall man asking a customer how his new car is running or if he caught the Minus the Bear show at the Intersection last Friday.

There is a cash register in front of him, but the tall man could easily pass for a customer in the record store he manages. His name is Herm Baker, and he wears no-name jeans and a faded T-shirt, an outfit that coordinates with the store’s scuffed hardwood floors and chalky brick walls.

Baker has managed Vertigo Music since it opened 11 years ago on Division Avenue in downtown Grand Rapids.

While the digital download has forced many record shops like Vertigo out of business, Baker attributes the store’s success to the relationships he has built with his customers.

“I know a lot of my customers by their first names,” he said. “I see them at shows, and I consider them part of the Vertigo family. It’s building that relationship that keeps you coming back to a place, and I think we’ve done fairly well.”

Abbie Evans, a senior marketing major at Grand Valley State University, has been shopping at Vertigo for more than three years and said the store’s friendly environment keeps her coming back.

“They have great music playing that the person at the register chooses, and it’s nice to talk to them about it,” Evans said. “They’re very nice and give recommendations that have always worked out in the past.”

That type of service can be hard to find at chain retailers that make most of their money on things other than music.

Baker said that the inability of chain retailers to satisfy his musical appetite was one of the main reasons Vertigo exists.

“We opened the store because it was something that I was looking for as a customer,” said the 50-year-old Grand Rapids native. “The stuff I was looking for, I couldn’t find in town. We realized that there was a niche, and a lot of it was underground, alternative, smaller-label stuff.”

Vertigo’s thin, wooden shelves hold approximately 20,000 new and used CDs and 18,000 new and used vinyl LPs, all of which are categorized into genres ranging from “Acid Jazz” to “Indie Rock.”

“We look for things that we know our customers are going to like, and we try to avoid the mainstream things that you can find anywhere in town,” he said. “A lot of stuff you can’t find anywhere but here.”

Customers that can’t find what they are looking for at Vertigo often tell Baker the artist and album title, and his response is usually, “I’ll have it in by next Tuesday.”

Vertigo employee Jeremy Ensley has heard some strange requests during his 6 years working at the store, but he said Baker always does his best to get the customers what they want.

“(Baker) spends a lot of time digging for releases that are out of print and hard to find,” Ensley said. “He knows collectors, so when they are ready to get rid of some of their records and CDs that they’ve been holding on to for a long time, he can put them into stock, and he knows who’s looking for what.”

[email protected]