I haven’t really participated in recent years, but I still have a deep fondness for record stores. I remembered 30 of them fondly back in 2014.
30 Record Stores for Record Store Day (Facebook, April 19, 2014)
From 1969, or thereabouts, until 2005, or thereabouts, I spent as much time as I could in record stores. They were the most sacred places in the world, the places where I learned everything about music, made purchases that changed my life more times than any other action, and sometimes even made friends.
These are the ones that changed me the most, kind of in order. Some of them were obviously fantastic, while others were comparatively lame, but sometimes the latter served as my emotional lifeline anyway.
From 1969, or thereabouts, until 2005, or thereabouts, I spent as much time as I could in record stores. They were the most sacred places in the world, the places where I learned everything about music, made purchases that changed my life more times than any other action, and sometimes even made friends.
These are the ones that changed me the most, kind of in order. Some of them were obviously fantastic, while others were comparatively lame, but sometimes the latter served as my emotional lifeline anyway.
1. Sam's Yonge St. HQ - The first record store I ever went to. We’d go as a family maybe once a year, buying mostly 45s. My favourite place in the whole world for a few decades.
2. Sam's Cedar Heights Plaza in Scarborough - Saturday mornings I’d ride my bike from my house on Ivy Green down this street that we still have to name every time we’re there - “Hiscock” - to go to Sam’s for their 9am, $1.99 special.
3. Vortex, Dundas & Church (original location AFTER the Augusta St. location in Kensington that I think I missed). Bert Myers sold our fanzines, This Tiny Donkey Looks Rather Lost and The Hanged Men Dance, in this tiny store where I traded in a hundred records or so, and bought closer to a thousand. I also bought cassette bootlegs of live shows here, including three very memorable ones: Patti Smith, Richard Hell and John Cale. One of the guys who worked there did this as a sideline and Bert let him keep all the money to help out his situation.
4. Kop's (when it was mostly 45s and in its location much farther west on Queen St.)
5. A&A's Yonge St. HQ. Lisa and Kim worked there. The 45s selection was pretty decent, and they had a “BASS”, so we were always there getting concert tickets.
6. Records on Wheels Yonge St. - Rob Bowman. Steve Kane. Carla MacDonald. Debra Lary. Tickets - lots of tickets. The best place to get tickets. Bootlegs. Picture sleeve 45s - lots. Zines.
7. Record Peddler - Ben Hoffman, and his long hair. Punk Brian (Youth Youth Youth). Some shitty intimidating times, but eventually it became a bit of a comfort zone. Buttons! Lots of buttons. Tickets. Zines. Melody Maker. NME. New York Rocker. Probably the best punk and new wave and marginal music selection ever (?) in Toronto. A regular hangout for me and various friends, especially Sara, Grant, Dave Keyes.
8. Star Records (also Eglinton Ave. E. in Scarborough) - Star Records, the same chain as the famed store from Oshawa, was a one of the few places you could buy bootlegs in Toronto. There, RoW on Yonge and the Record Peddler. Managed by my friend Dave Curtis for many years.
9. Vortex - Queen St. W. & Portland upstairs. I think they merged with Kop’s by then, or something like that? I know I continued my buying and selling here well into my grad school days.
10. Peter Dunn’s Vinyl Museum - bought many of my Scott Walker, Walker Brothers and Love records at the Yonge St. location.
11. The Disc Shoppe (or Discus?) - Super crappy record store in Cedarbrae Mall in Scarborough. Still, it was one of the two places I’d go to pick up my weekly CHUM Chart, and I frequently bought singles and K-Tel albums there while my mother was off at Woolworth or Zellers. Right across from “Signor Marco Pizza”, where I first enjoyed pizza (as bad a pizzeria as this was a record store, but culture happens where it happens).
12. Rotate This - saw bands like Sloan (I think?) play there, or maybe I’m misremembering. Glad it emerged, even as I was starting to buy fewer records.
13. Zounds (Eglinton Ave. E. in Scarborough) - speaking of Lisa Godfrey and speaking of BASS (see A&A's above), this OK record store often found me lining up to get concert tickets, though sometimes Lisa helped me avoid that chore.
14. Sonic Boom - I go in to buy 33 1/3 books, t-shirts and just to look around. I’m not a record or CD buyer anymore, but I’m glad there is still sacred ground for those who are. I generally go to the big one on Bathurst, but happy to swing by the Kensington location from time to time.
15. She Said Boom - I tend to buy books there occasionally, not CDs or LPs, but feel warm and cozy knowing that great used record stores still exist. More of a College St. thing for me, but I like the Roncy store too.
16. Driftwood - Queen St. W. Kind of nondescript. Still managed to buy a hundred or so great records there over the years, usually while doing the rounds of other record stores and bookstores. Grew out of Round Records at Bloor & Bay (where Holt Renfrew is), but I may have missed that entirely.
17. Ernest Tubb’s Record Shop - Nashville. Was tempted to buy many 8-Track recordings, still in their plastic, as well as Johnny Cash reading the New Testament.
18. HMV Yonge St. - For a few brief years in the early 90s they had great selection, great prices (all those $3.33 specials), and it was bright and fun. I would go from loving it to hating it. Sam’s still generally had a better selection, so I’d usually end up going to both.
19. An incredible used record store in Ann Arbor where I bought a shitload of blues, jazz, “serious rock” and other fine matter in 1989.
20. Lunch for Your Ears - New York City, late 1980s, purchased some Minimalist and guitar noise recordings. Tiny but great place.
21. Tower Records HQ in NYC in their heyday.
22. The Jazz and Blues Record Store or whatever it’s called in Chicago, before it got forlorn and depressing.
23. A&A’s, Scarborough Town Centre - met Gord Cumming there. My sister’s friend Rosemary worked there (I think that was her name). She dated Ivar Hamilton from CFNY, I think.
24. Soundscapes - I am one of those people who would be happy to own everything that Soundscapes sells.
25. Vortex - Yonge & Eglinton. Still there, right?
26. Around Again - on Baldwin. There forever. I bought and sold my copy of LaMonte Young’s record there. Sold the best stuff I had before moving, and just generally found it a mellow, peaceful place to sit with music for an hour or two on weekends.
27. Cheap Thrills on Yonge St. - the first used record store I ever went to maybe?
28. Pandemonium
29. Paradise Bound
30. Don's Discs (Queen & Landsdowne - can't remember when it closed)