Record Stores in Toronto

This is probably Penguin Music on McCaul just north of Queen.

There are loads of music stores on Queen. Another very well-known store is Record Peddler on Queen west of Bathurst. If you're looking for vinyl, try Play de Record (Yonge north of Dundas, a few storefronts north of the bigass Sam's and HMV) or Kops (Queen west of University, very close to Penguin Music). PdR has a great selection of club music, particularly house. Kops used to have a more general selection, but lately they've focused more on hip-hop.

http://www.rotate.com/about.php

rotate this is awful.

Rotate has vinyl and the 'scapes doesn't though.

there's tonnes of used shops in that area, also a few great vinyl shops east of rotate this you should check out -- one called Cosmo's specializes in rare brazilian funk, rare groove, 70's & 80's r&b. i really know nothing about this stuff, but there's always something great playing in there that makes me wish i did.

There ain't a single decent indie store in Toronto.

Just got in and I can already tell you that it's FREEZING here!

there's a great new vinyl only shop on markham, in a basement across from honest ed's. just popped in for a minute last weekend and didn't have time to scour but it seemed like a real gem... Young Marble Giants, Rezillos, Poppy Family & Bill Withers on he walls. Also across the street from The Beguiling comics and Suspect video, and next door to a couple of decent bookstores. nerd's delight.

Near there is Sonic Boom over by the Bloor Cinema on Bloor east of Bathurst. it's not considered as hip as rotate this or as fabulous as soundscapes, but they have a constant supply of very cheap used cd's and dvd's courtesy of U of T students going broke & all the critics in town sneakily selling off their freebies - plus a nice varied selection of new stuff. They will also buy anything that's not damaged with only minimal record store guy snarkiness, if you're ever looking to unload. It's huge and I have a soft spot for it because I grew up nearby and until the late 80's it used to be a Woolworth's with a photo booth & a lunch counter in the back with hot turkey sandwiches & the whole 9 yards.

Discoveries, a few blocks east of Cowan on Queen used to have some good stuff on vinyl, lots of old r&b and rock. very strong on old soul 45's at one point, but I haven't been in years. Open City, also in the east end is also worth digging through. They used to have a massive basement where everything was a buck where you could occasionally find something interesting.

I love the people at Around Again on Baldwin. Great varied selection of vinyl, and always immaculate condition. Lovely folks too.

around again is charming.

vortex i used to go to several times a week during high school. i think if i went in there again it would really freak me out.

Penguin's - on Queen St. - very tight but well tended supply of mostly indie rock CDs with a small electronic section, prices average about $18-20 Canadian, but they do a 1 day 25% off sale on Boxing Day each year, which means I walked out of there with two of the pricey Slowdive re-issues for $35 US. Really nice staff, too. Maybe about the size of the Aquarius store in SF, but not quite the diversity.

Rotate This - also on Queen St. - slightly larger than Penguin's, but still a relatively small selection of indie, hip-hop, electronic, punk, and reggae. Additional vinyl section with a decent supply of indie and electronic records. Prices same as Penguin's. Quiet hipster staff that maybe smells a little cooler-than-you, but they were perfectly polite. 15% off all this week, too!

SoundScapes - College St. - the Other Music of Toronto. Wide ranging selecion of diverse music CDs filed in their proper esoteric categories. Not deep in stock, but they had quite a few CDs by bands you'd have a hard time finding anywhere. Staff is very to-the-point, but fine. Their Psych section is manicured like a bonsai tree and is totally gorgeous.

HMV - Yonge St., right where the recent shootings took place - funny, I was walking with my mom through this area, near the Eaton Center mall, just before the shootings. I actually commented to her on the change in the youth culture around there. In the early 80s, the local kids were mostly punks who wandered from Queen to beg change off tourists, metal kids hitting the head shops, and new wavers posing. Now it's all rap kids- almost every youth in sight was decked out in official wanna-be-gangbanger gear, and this was fronted by blacks, whites, Asians, you name it. Crawling all over Yonge St. So I mention this and a half hour later a group of them open fire into a crowd of shoopers and kill one person and injure six others. Over 30 rounds fired. Really lame.

When Canadians start getting into rap, you know know it's over. It's the apocalypse. Tomorrow, all of Compton and Queensbridge are going to swear alliance to professional hockey, and some trumpet will blair somewhere....

sorry aboot that

(oh- and if you haven't visited Toronto, you should- great city)

i don't think Toronto's exactly unique in this change from 25 years ago.

and fuck you very much you ignorant prick.

...and my comment on the apocalypse was a joke, but if you really want to get into it, back up your shit, if you've got anything to support your claim of my being ignorant

I've been listening to hip-hop since '83, and I'm comfortable enough in my social comments not to be deterred by some lame sensitivity issues relative to children with a stick up their ass about how people who dare to say anything critical w/r/t hip-hop as being a sign of ignorance

calling someone ignorant based on a few words they wrote on a music thread is, um, pretty ignorant

but go ahead and insult me all you want, just don't shoot me for it....

I took offence to your implication that hip hop was somehow a new thing in 2005 to a city with a population of 8 million. It would be just as stupid to act as if it's a shocker that hip hop has hit Mexico or Japan. It was a dumb statement. If you're kidding, sorry if I over-reacted, but I grew up here as a hip hop fan and it felt like an insult.

But how crazy was that shooting? Yikes! Even gangbangers in LA don't go to the tourist-y city malls and open fire! I hope things calm down....

Everything at Rotate This was 25% off when I was there (the 26th), so it sounds like they downgraded their sale since then! Big vinyl markdowns too. I had just finished with a family get-together that afternoon and decided to make it my first (and only) stop of the day. If I hadn't gone there then I would have gone to Yonge & Dundas instead, and arrived around the time the shooting took place. Yet another reason to love Rotate This, I guess.

rotate is like my neighborhood corner store. i practically grew up there and they've always been super nice and helpful.

....but that area was SO PACKED on the 26th, it amplifies the severity of the shooting. Any shot fired anywhere near that area was going to hit someone. Wall to wall people up and down the street on both sides.

Wait- is Play De mostly vinyl, categorized bt various dance genres? I may remember it now....

on a lighter note i had a nice time at soundscapes today. the staff were having a hilariously indie-record-store conversation about sonic youth and acetates.

How long are you in T.O.?

(And yes, there's been hiphop in Toronto for a lonnnng, lonnnnng time.)

penguin is closing soon - shame, it's a nice little spot.

i'm really liking babel on ossington these days.

has anyone checked out Hits & Misses on Bloor (near Ossington, I think) yet? I've heard good things... mostly punk rock if I'm not mistaken.

aw penguin :(

Wow, Penguin closing? That’s just not right. I bought Butter 08’s Butter of 69 there!

yeah, it's really too bad. there was a little thing in one of the local papers where the owner (kim?) said sales are actually on the upswing but rent got jacked up

It's very very, and I mean very sad news. I hope he works things out, I've been a really loyal customer there for many years, bought hundreds of CD's there, and it's going to be so sad if it just ceases to be, I can't image it really.

Hooray! Penguin lives on, it's moving a block west and I believe is sharing the space with black market (ugh, not looking forward to having to be in Black Market, but who cares) so, uh, go there and buy lots of stuff.

Penguin def. got me through high school! I'm glad it's not closing forever. Hits and Misses is a rad store, they (well, he) carry tons of new and old vinyl, lots of good older finds, current 7"s etc, I hope it does well.

Thanks guys in town from boston digging old soul and funk breaks across the country to colorado. Looks like I can figure some of this out in the 2 days I'm here. At least I have a place to start from. If anyone reads this in the next 2 days I am looking for Collector records $$$$$, old soul, funk, jazz, disco, electro, hiphop 12' og print NO BULL reprints. Basically a huge store with lots of crates to try to get over in... dirty fingers and dusty sleaves. Thanks for the info www.myspace.com/puffah

SEAR KD (KINGS DYSTROY. NYC)

By the way hiphop is not just music. There are meny elements. GRAFF, B BOY/ GIRL, CRATE DIGGING, MC's SCRATCHING. It is not gangs. I never saw that in the elements list ?????? Theres nothing like how to roll a fool, or marksmanship of a gat there. Yes they both exist in the world and their worlds cross over into each other but they are diffrent things. YES they both have additude and have the same clothes and talk but are diffrent. Please don't group the actions of little kids trying to find themself in the world through guns, drugs and paper to what I love. Its something kids figure out or they don't. The one's who don't end up in jail or dead. SEEN it to meny times. I am sorry to the world that this is what the mass media has turned hiphop into in the eyes of the public. Fuck clear channel and the deregulation of media for the finacial gains of media monopolies in the US. We are loosing the rights of free speach by loosing the channels to market more then one product being produced by one company. Over the last 10 years almost all pre recorded music is now locked from the public domaine by sample laws. How is the future of music to progress when the past is locked away. There is no future with no past. This is why modern music has really lost its back bone in the last 10 years. Thank god there are other countrys and millions of records out there to look back in time into. Thank the turtles they started all this bullshit. DE LA SOUL I'm sorry you had to go through that. This stops the creation of new music and expairimentation being built off of the works of previous artist. EXAMPLE beastie boys pauls boutique, the last record to be made before major sample law changes. FIRE that record could never be made ever in todays world. With lables hording there librarys and not putting any money out to produce quality projects there is limited quality music being made. This affected the making of full albums to just single or albums with tons of junk. That with the invention of the MP3 distroyed the music industry. Record companys money making moved. Plus why do they just keep rasing the price of music and and cds and making it easier to copy and rip it off. Lower the prices and kids will buy their own copys. 18 bucks a cd with 2 good songs on it I would be pissed if I where them. Kids are not rich and it cost 10 cents to manufacture. Music had heart. Now its being stabbed by a corprate pen. Support you local record stores they are a dying breed because of sarado and MP3's. People keep selling your collections I love picking them up for cheap!!!! idiots. Oh and here is a old one to SCREW tipper gore and the PMRC I hate those dam parental advisor stickers on my shit. Sorry for my rant this stuff gets under my skin. Pick on my spelling I'm dislexic thats why I buy records LOL natohhh !!!!!

ok

I don't know of any huge places with tons of crates to dig through, those days are over around here.

Cosmos & Cosmos West on Queen near Bathurst (2 locations) are high-priced crate-digger stores. It's basically for money-making DJ's who don't mind paying Tokyo prices, but it's all orig. pressings of funk, soul, brazilian shit, etc. I don't even bother to go there anymore unless I'm broke and want to sell them some shit, but maybe it'll suit your needs.

I would also go by Play De Record on Yonge Street (or call them) and find out what happened to the left-overs from their vintage annex that closed up last christmas. They had tons of cool shit.

Also check out Kops on Queen West near University for vintage 45's, mostly soul + funk. Again, you'll be paying 6 or 7 bucks a 7-inch here.

You might also put up a craigslist posting saying you're looking to buy vinyl - a friend of mine does this regularly and has scored a couple of huge old reggae collections from old Jamaican dudes in the suburbs. Make sure you taslk to them of course, or you'll end up treking out to the middle of nowhere to look at a box of Lawrence Welk and Streistandt.

Good luck.

I posted this on the RIP thread, but it has to go here, too:

http://www.thestar.com/news/obituary/article/1261272--sam-the-record-man-founder-sam-sniderman-dies-at-92

I've written about Sam's here and there over the years--it popped up regularly when I wrote an online inventory of my record collection a few years ago. I started going there around '75, I'd guess. (When Sam opened his first store on College St. in the '40s, my grandfather ran a restaurant not too far west on College; my dad knew a woman named Rose who was his buyer or something.) I'm having trouble remembering specific records I bought there, but it and A&A's were the only Toronto stores I really knew as a teenager, so I bet Sam's accounted for at least half of my first 100 albums (the rest were from my hometown's local store). Positive I bought Dark Side of the Moon and (yikes) Tales of Mystery and Imagination there at one of their infamous Boxing Day sales, where people would line up around the block for $1.99 albums. Pretty sure I got both my two weird Velvet Underground imports there (#1 and #4). Also albums from their 99-cent annex, but I sure would like another shot at that--bet I passed over lots of good stuff. (The Lemon Pipers' Green Tamborine, John Fred's Agnes English, and a few Kingsmen LPs were among those that I did buy.) Once I lived in the city, and especially when I worked across the road for a competitor, I took the store for granted, and didn't frequent it as often as Records on Wheels or the Peddler or Cheapies. I remember that in the late '80s, maybe even into the '90s, you'd still see Sam out on the floor.

<3 <3 RIP Sam. You worked at Sunrise? I'm sorry. Sam's was amazing to me, there was no other store like it, in the late 90s they'd have stacks of Every Bowie Album! Every Clash Album! Everything! And it'd be $10! There was a year stretch where I'd buy a $10 CD after work without fail

Yes, Sunrise and (upstairs) Backtrax in '86 and '87. I'm actually amazed that Sunrise managed to outlast Sam's, A&A's, Tower, Records on Wheels...all of them. At the time, we were just an afterthought to Sam's and A&A's. I've been trying to remember when they sectioned off the north side of the store into Sam the Video Man--can't remember if that had already been done when I worked across the street. The last year or two they were open, after the video section had been shut down and everything else was rearranged, I couldn't figure out where anything was the few times I was in there. The last thing I bought may have been a couple of $5 Wailers CDs the month they closed.

Last store standing--not for long, though:

http://www.blogto.com/music/2014/09/sunrise_records_closing_its_downtown_toronto_stores/

As mentioned above, I worked there for a couple of years in the mid-'80s (along with former ILXer swoods). I was a couple of years out of university, and had just quit a lousy job in a commericial-residential rental office after getting turned down for York's graduate film program. I was quite miserable.

The job paid nothing, of course--minimum wage then was around five or six dollars an hour--but I was surprisingly happy during my two-year stay. That was the heyday of Yonge St. record stores (or at least the tail end of it), and when the store was packed on a Saturday afternoon, or during the Christmas holidays, and we had True Blue or Licensed to Ill or "Rumors" blaring on the sound system, it was a pretty great time. (Often it was Huey Lewis or Genesis or U2 blaring on the sound system; I won't pretend it was paradise.) I was 25--don't even want to think about that. Once I helped SCTV's Andrea Martin find an aerobics tape.

Sad to hear that Vortex in YYZ is also closing...first time I went there was in '89 and I discovered my all-time favourite LP in the dollar bin. My presumable last visit was on Sunday (dunno when they close but I only get downtown 3-4 times a year); bought a few discounted jazz CDs. (Currently enjoying Andrew Hill's "Compulsion!!"

("in YYZ" redundant to thread I guess)

Glad you posted about this. I started going to the Dundas Store maybe '81 or '82? Not sure exactly when it opened. I only went there for the next few years, and didn't follow them in any of their moves. But it's always remained my template for a great used record store. Everything was priced to sell, not according to some perceived idea of rarity, or based on a record guide. And everything was in great shape. I bought copies of The Who Sell Out and Dusty in Memphis for probably $7 off the wall, when both were hard to find. This is Bert Myers (Bert Vortex), the owner.

http://mytowncrier.ca/wp-content/uploads/attachments/month_1405/1405061934965667727ce4e72c.jpg

Friend and I both independently referred to Bert as "Rick Moranis" back in the day. p cool guy, though I never spoke more than a few times w/him.

Record I alluded to was MX-80 Sound's "Hard Attack" btw...I saw it in the bin and recognized the bandname from Xhuck's writing (and Rich Stim's name from his SPIN reviews).

Toronto still has more record stores than any other English-speaking city in the world tho

(xpost) He did look like Rick Moranis way back when! There's a photo in an old Nerve that I'll scan and post over the weekend.

When I left the city in 2019, I'd basically stopped going to record stores, and my recollection is that there weren't that many left...not even close.

https://i.postimg.cc/ydx0M2kT/store.jpg

(sic was right!)

A very cool and smart initiative by Cindy Oshieng in terms of making this poster/map.

(I work in the music and video dept. of #6 on the list, FWIW [and manage the vinyl section there]--I still enjoy going to other record stores on my days off [esp Rotate This and Sonic Boom], and try my best to maintain a decent $.99 and $1.99 section in the store I work at, since it must be a bit disheartening to be young and want to start a record collection these days; just noticed a generic-sleeved classical comp w/ Varese's "Poeme Electronique" on it in the dollar bin during my shift earlier today, in fact, so I hope somebody's psyched to nab that at some point)

The BMV on Bloor? Excellent...I've bought on a ton of books from your store over the years, but only a handful of LPs. I'll be in the city on Boxing Day, and that was one of my planned stops.

Right on. I have Boxing Day off, but I hope for your sake it isn't too picked over at the moment, ha...

my office is literally right across from Neurotica Records, I should check it out sometime (you think I would have already but lol)

Lol I used to work in BMV Bloor too (a long time ago, not that long after it opened). Good shop, that part of the annex would be a desert without it now

Surprised that there was no mention herein of Peter Dunn's Vinyl Museum, variously on Yonge, Bloor and Lakeshore Boulevard.

A store that I took for granted at the time was Driftwood on Queen St. W. It didn't seem to have any pretensions and didn't appear to be focussed on any particular share of the market, but I probably bought as many reasonably-priced records there as I did anywhere else.

Is that a historical map? I assumed it was just current stores, but I didn't really look closely...Driftwood was great. The guy from Shadowy Men managed it, I believe. Got a bunch of Joni Mitchell albums cheap and in great shape just before they closed.

I think 10% of my collection is in Peter Dunn "Jesus Loves You" inner sleeves.

I wish I was old enough to have been able to shop at Driftwood--many of my favourite local T.O. record store lifers did a bit of time there as clerks, and it seems like one would have been able to build a mind-blowing collection there in the late '80s if you went in regularly.

(Or was it early '90s? I suspect it might have been out of business by then, but am not sure--since I'm born in '78, I remember as a nascent alt-nation keener 14-yr-old in '92 that Record Peddler was definitely around then but my timeline is far foggier re: Driftwood)

Pretty sure it lasted into the early '90s...Was glad to go back to the beginning of this thread and see Around Again mentioned a few times. I can't remember if I ever posted this on ILX: some photos I took circa 2006 of the locations of all my favorite Toronto store--only two or three were left.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/records-stores.html

Geez, Sam's was still open at the time.

Cool concept! I like that the pic was taken regardless of whether or not the place was still in business.

Never went into Incredible Records & Books, but the Living Well bar above it was a cool spot that a friend took me to many times--I remember a resident DJ there named James who is prob now in his mid-50s who had/has a spot-on golden-era CFNY taste in UK-centric music in the best way.

i don't really buy records anymore but i love browsing at invisible city whenever i'm in the neighbourhood. on the pricey end but they always have wonderful stuff