RECORD STORE TALES #1134:  Vinyl, CDs, DVDs, and cassettes! Mike and Aaron (and Aaron’s Dad) Return to Toronto 2024!

For the first time since 2018, we returned to Toronto.

Aaron and his dad picked me up in Kitchener around 10:00 AM.  Of course, I made them pose for a drone photo before we left!  BMV in Toronto opened at noon, so we had plenty of time, and conversation was good.  The weather was cool, breezy and sunny.  It was the perfect day.  In fact it may have been the most perfect weather we ever had for a Toronto excursion.

I gifted Aaron a copy of Tim Durling’s Y&T book, Down For the Count, and Aaron gifted me two T-shirts, two CDs, and one Hot Wheels.  You will see these in the video that I spent the day filming.

“I’ve never seen somebody so excited for video editing!” remarked Aaron.  Of course!  When you had a day like we had, you can’t help but be eager to show it to the world!  I spent 2.5 editing it on Monday night.  The video tells the whole story.  We strolled the streets of Kensington Market, and we sifted through the aisles and aisles of CDs.  We only planned on hitting two stores:  our regulars, BMV and Sonic Boom.  We had a bonus stop at Paradisc Bound (first visit since 2012).  We scored at every single store!

“We’re going to do best at BMV,” predicted Aaron, who was correct, but we didn’t do poorly anywhere.  BMV won for prices and used CD selection.  Sonic Boom, unfortunately, has started pricing certain discs according to Discogs highs.  An old copy of Iron Maiden’s No Prayer for the Dying was jacked up because the cover art changed on the remastered editions.  An out of print Helix Get Up! EP was going for a ridiculous $40 on CD, even though all the songs are duplicated on the Power of Rock and Roll album.  Used cassettes, the kind that people used to dump in Thunder Bay landfills, were sometimes $10 each — same as they sold for when they were brand new.  A Razor album was $200 on used CD.  These are things they never jacked up back in 2018 when I was last there.  Something has changed, and it wasn’t cool.  Ultimately I did pay a lot of money for two used CDs at Sonic Boom.  Ultimately I decided I wanted them, even though I was paying way too much.

BMV was just awesome.  I scored eleven CDs and four records there, for a total of $107.  Some were things I was trying for the first time, others were albums I needed to help complete some collections of certain bands.  (One record was a gift that shall not be appearing here, for obvious reasons.)  We lost track of time easily.  I have no idea how long we were in BMV, but long enough to find what we wanted and then some.  Of note:  Their old 3-for$10 bin has changed.  It is now simple $2.99 each.  Perfect!

Aaron’s dad was exploring Toronto on his own, but was waiting for us when we met up for lunch at Pauper’s Pub.  There are so many great places to eat in our little area of Toronto, but we hit the Pauper’s Pub every single year.  That’s an endorsement.  Service was great and so was the food.  I had some blackened salmon, and unlike many places, it wasn’t dry and tasteless.  It was tender and loaded with flavourful roasted veggies.

We made our way through the sights and smells of Kensington on our way to Sonic Boom.  There, a giant Arkells display took up the front window.  The band played there two weeks prior, selling copies of their new 7″ single “Big Feelings”, which was sold out in one day and not in stock.  In fact they only had one Arkells left in stock, period.

We did well enough at Sonic Boom, though the store is becoming more…corporate?  “Like a bigger Sunrise Records,” said Aaron.  Lots of Reaction figures, Funko Pops, socks, and other assorted accessories.  We were not there for those things.  Reaction figures are $30 a pop now and prohibitively expensive, even though they had Phil Lynott, Cliff Burton, Lemmy, the Beastie Boys and more.  When we come to Toronto, we focus on the real deal:  the music.  I bought two “holy grail” items albeit overpriced, that I was hoping to find in Toronto but didn’t expect to.

I grabbed a Mango Pepsi to wet the whistle as we walked back to the car, meeting up with Aaron’s dad along the way.  He was a little bit behind so we had to kill 15 minutes.  Paradisc Bound was right there, and they had a record that I had been wanting since I first started in music retail back in 1994.  It was right there in front of me.  It was meant to be!  For $15, I added one final score to my tally.  The funny thing was, I had just been talking about this record with Jex Russell last week…and there it was.  Elvis truly is everywhere.  (That’s a clue, though you will see the record in the video.)

The drive home was a little stoppy-starty, as Toronto traffic is.  It took us one hour to get back up to Highway 401, and another hour back to Kitchener.  Aaron and his dad drove two more hours back to Owen Sound…and they wouldn’t let me pay for lunch!  Nice guys, those two.  Aaron had to work Monday morning, too!

If you want to see every single thing we scored, check out the video.  Can’t wait to return!