There may be more options for sourcing music - legally and illegally - than there were in those days, but scouring the bins for buried treasures was, to me, one of the great things about being a music fan back then.
Toronto had some great record stores back in the day. Enormous places like Sam The Record Man and A&A's, right in the middle of all the action on Yonge St., and other places like the Record Peddler which carried records you'd never find anywhere else. All gone now.
I'd plan monthly excursions downtown. I could get current stuff at any of the three record stores in the local mall but downtown I was in search of deep catalogue stuff, imports or out-of-print titles that might be hanging around the delete bins. For bootlegs, used stuff and promo releases there was always the Vinyl Museum or the Incredible Record Store.
I'd pore over those massive binders with the yellow and blue pages indicating what was available (anybody else remember those?) looking for stuff to search for. The guy who ran the local Sam's was awesome and would order anything I wanted (and occasionally let me borrow store copies of new releases he thought I'd be interested in) but to me the search was half the fun.
The staff was great too, people who really knew their product in the blues and jazz categories, areas I was getting in to when I was in high school. Now, more often than not, I find out about new artists from this place (my boy PC put me on to The Gaslight Anthem).
Toronto had some great record stores back in the day. Enormous places like Sam The Record Man and A&A's, right in the middle of all the action on Yonge St., and other places like the Record Peddler which carried records you'd never find anywhere else. All gone now.
I'd plan monthly excursions downtown. I could get current stuff at any of the three record stores in the local mall but downtown I was in search of deep catalogue stuff, imports or out-of-print titles that might be hanging around the delete bins. For bootlegs, used stuff and promo releases there was always the Vinyl Museum or the Incredible Record Store.
I'd pore over those massive binders with the yellow and blue pages indicating what was available (anybody else remember those?) looking for stuff to search for. The guy who ran the local Sam's was awesome and would order anything I wanted (and occasionally let me borrow store copies of new releases he thought I'd be interested in) but to me the search was half the fun.
The staff was great too, people who really knew their product in the blues and jazz categories, areas I was getting in to when I was in high school. Now, more often than not, I find out about new artists from this place (my boy PC put me on to The Gaslight Anthem).
