LOUISVILLE, Ky. -  Maybe you saw the Keep Louisville Weird billboard up in the Highlands in the mid-2000s. Now, the saying still appears on bumper stickers, t-shirts, and other items. What many don't know is where the saying came from.

John Timmons is now a radio host on 91.9 WFPK. He's best known around town for owning the record store ear X-tacy. It was a Louisville staple for 26 years.

"I've always enjoyed what I've done. It's always been based around music, so it's never seemed like a job. It's just something I love doing," Timmons said.

Through ear X-tacy, Timmons became friends with a record store owner in Austin, Texas who co-created the Keep Austin Weird movement. It was through a visit to that friend that Timmons started thinking about what a similar slogan could mean for Louisville.

"I started it not telling anybody what I was doing because I felt that it was either going to take on a life of its own or it wasn't," Timmons said.

If you ever heard Keep Louisville Weird and thought it sounded just like Austin's famous saying, that's because it is. Timmons asked his friend if he could borrow that idea to use here. That's when he quietly put up a Keep Louisville Weird billboard on Bardstown Road. 

"People were asking each other 'what does that mean? Who put that up?' He was very quiet about it," Heine Brothers' Coffee co-founder Mike Mays said.

It wasn't long before people started to connect the dots because the font looked very similar to ear X-tacy's logo. Timmons eventually came forward about Keep Louisville Weird. That's when the shop local movement took off in Louisville.

"There was a lot of competition coming to town that I thought was going to threaten, not only businesses I supported but just the flavor of Louisville," Timmons said.

Unfortunately, ear X-tacy wasn't able to make it in the age of music downloads and online retailers. While the shop local push wasn't able to keep his business afloat, other local business owners say Timmons campaign helped their businesses succeed.

"While I get credit for starting a lot of this, the buy-local movement was going to happen here anyway. It's inevitable. It's everywhere now. We just needed to get the ball rolling," Timmons said.

Local business owners say we need to keep the ball rolling if we want Louisville to maintain its unique character.

"Louisville has a real soul. I believe it's the local business culture that really adds to the soul in this community," Mays said.

Timmons, Mays and other business owners joined together to start the Louisville Independent Business Alliance. The organization still uses the Keep Louisville Weird logan. LIBA now has grown to over 900 members and promotes local businesses across Louisville.