Record/CD stores in Toronto

Man, those guys were horrible!
They ripped me off a few times when I was too young to know any better...

 

I guess that was it. Thanks to all who helped refresh my aging brain cells. Yeah....I bought lots of vinyl from those guys. It was a great, clean store. It kind of reminds me of Phantasmagoria in Montreal.....but that's a whole other story.

R

 

Visited Sonic Temple on the weekend...place is pretty vacant already but I was able to score some old rock mags for cheap.

I'll read 'em once and toss them.

The one I'll probably keep is an old CIRCUS magazine with Aerosmith on the cover. The shot has Steven Tyler at the mic with Jimmy Crespo so I figured I should grab it!

 

You're right, the place I was thinking of was called Incredible Records, must be my "false memory syndrome" kicking in!

 

How about Driftwood Music...Queen and McCaul (on Queen)...that was very close to where Kops is now...

 

There was a guy who worked there a lot in 1997/1998 that smelled so bad you could barely stay in the place; he didn't know music and was an unhappy and angry man. I always wondered why he worked there as it couldn't have been good for business.

They never had many employees who were cool actually; a lot of wanna-be "punks" years after the fact.
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I always liked "Kim" who owned and ran Penguin Music; nice guy!

 

Cool! I had a look, I'm not sure if it's the place I remember or not.

Obviously Peddler was on Queen St. E. at one point. I guess what I want to know is, will everybody swear up and down that it was never on King St. East?

 

If it was ever on King East, then that would have been before 1978 or 1979, because it was definitely on Queen (beside This Ain't The Rosedale Library) when I started buying records there. That was when I first moved to Toronto - I was in a co-op program at university and spent some work terms here in 78 and 79 before moving here permanently after graduating in 1980.

After a few years on Queen, the store moved as mentioned in many previous posts - to Carlton, to Yonge and finally to Queen West. But I'm positive it was never on King any time I shopped there.

 

Trust me...it was the place you remember...
It was a brick building that obviously shared with other tenants...
That's what I remember about it...and the pic is proof.

 

I remember one of the guys at CD Bar telling me they had sold 150 copies of Whale Music by The Rheostatics to American Rush fans. They also sold me my first Smile bootleg.

 

I was able to go to Vortex tonight. Nice little shop, picked up 10 or so discs. Would have liked to have spent a little more time there, but it was getting late.

The best part was that I brought a guy that I work with in Toronto with me. I honestly believe he had never been in a local joint, just places like HMV or Best Buy. Blew his mind. From the great selection (most he had no idea what it was) to the great music playing over the speaker. He will be coming back in the future to be sure.

 

I'm a big fan of Vortex, try and get there at least once every two weeks if I can.
I've bought some gems there but I've also passed on some REAL gems and them immediately regreted it. Which is one of the things I look for in a record store!

Glad you were able to check it out and also open your pal's eyes to what a real record store is like.

 

I'm glad someone revived this thread.

Although I now live in Texas, I grew up in the Toronto area and shopped at Sam's and A&A's in the late '60's and early 70's. I remember on Saturday mornings they'd both match specials and sell new releases for $1.99. First album I bought was Are You Experienced for $1.99 and Strange Days for $2.99. What incredible stores. When did A&A and Sam's close? Bought the White Album new for $5.95. The lines to purchase the White Album were like the Harry Potter lines you see at bookstores now.

 

Amazing story, Peter M.

Regarding those two shops closing, I seem to remember that Sam's closed about 2-2 1/2 years ago, while A&A has been gone since the very early 90's. All that's left of the old Yonge street is Zanzibar

 

I now seem to recall there was another record store on the opposite side of Yonge further south towards Eatons and Simpsons. Much smaller. Just one floor. I want to say it was called something like Sound Warehouse or Music Warehouse. Just can't recall the name. We'd arrive at Union Station and walk up the west side to that store and then cross over to Sam's and A&A.

 

Ah, I miss Penguin. I still have some of their custom bags. In high school I was in there all the time, but I remember for the last year or so they were open they didn't get any new stock. Then they closed suddenly early during my undergraduate days (I think). I'm sure they were gone by 2005. There was one very tall, very pretty girl with glasses who worked there in 2001 or so that I used to talk about Wilson Philips with. Classic Penguin memory - it always smelled of pizza!

But I really miss Sam the Record Man. I still have dreams of it. I miss the shelves designed for LPs, the cushy chairs, the walls of $2-$7 import cutouts, the unplugged electric piano in the jazz section.

 

There was a Tower Records at Yonge & Queen. Also Sunrise still has a store almost directly across from the old Sams.

 

Tower was awful. Way over priced.

 

I second that emotion. I browded a lot but don't think I bought much there. There was such a buzz about the US stores, that when it came to town, I thought it would be a big deal - not!

 

One thing they did that I liked was put the same artist's DVD's and books right along the CD's...