The ever-decomposing Sam the Record Man store in downtown Toronto still has some interesting pieces around the rear perimeter. Soon, all will be lost as Ryerson University creeps onto Yonge Street.
And much like the Pavlovian canine referred to in the song which contains this post's title, when I heard that they were turning Sam The Record Man's spinning neon records back on one last time for Nuit Blanche, I was there.
Oh well, I guess I'll always have Belleville.
Video and first four photos taken early in the morning of October 5th, 2008 at Yonge and Gould Streets, Toronto, Ontario. Last photo taken on Saturday, August 2, 2008 at the Quinte Mall, Belleville, Ontario.
OK OK....one more post on the end of Sam's. This one's a tribute to the signage...
Photos taken outside 347 Yonge Street, where yes, the bus still stops, on Saturday, June 30th, 2007.
Yesterday's Hits
Today's Divider Cards
Whilst en route to see Sloan in Port Colborne back in August 2003, we drove through downtown Hamilton to take a look around and see just how things were looking in an everybody-now-shops-at-Lime Ridge world. The results were rather depressing.
For me, one of the major reasons for my depression was the hollow shell of what used to be the Tivoli Theatre and the Sam's outlet which had relocated a few years prior from their more logical King Street location. The relocation was an attempt to bring new life to a stretch of James Street which had been slowly declining for years. As with most attempts like this, and the opening of the kitty-cornered Hamilton Eaton Centre, people stayed away in droves, leaving behind a bad idea with a pretty cool sign.
The Hamilton Sam's was an ambitious kid-brother to the Toronto flagship store. It had a second floor devoted to Jazz and Classical music (although they really needed air conditioning up there), as well as an entire room dedicated to Country/Folk/Traditional music, nodding to the 820 CHAM crowd. The design of the store resembled a faux-50s-diner, which suited the brand and the store just fine, since Sam's itself is rather anachronistic icon of Canadian music retail. Why NOT embrace a 'heritage' style?
Slowly, the store began to shrink. On my last visit, the second floor was closed and most of the non-pop music was crammed in the main part of the store, while the pop stacks were in the former Country section. The selection was much thinner than it was at its opening, and the sale racks seemed to be full of deleted titles, rather than deals on recent releases.
Photos taken Saturday, August 2, 2003 in Hamilton, Ontario.
In late 2004, the collapse of the theatre's lobby expedited the demolition of both the theatre and the former store, leaving yet another hole in downtown Hamilton. A sidebar story which doesn't mention Sam's in particular, but which chronicles the 'devolution' of downtown Hamilton is here:
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Render&c=Page&cid=1021025161885
Photo taken Monday, June 19, 2006 in Hamilton, Ontario.
I'm a big Sam The Record Man fan. I've done the Boxing Day line-up thing every year since 1982, even doing it en route to a funeral. I have a fine collection of Rain Cheques to prove it. I would pop in every Saturday night after a Leafs game, in-between classes at Ryerson, and basically just meander through the stacks whenever I was downtown.
Perhaps my most memorable moment was on my wedding day when I managed to get our photographer to shoot a roll of pictures outside the store. I wanted to go inside but my freshly-betrothed missus wasn't having any of that. Oh like the floors were THAT dirty!
I was saddened to see chain dry up one-store-at-a-time. The uniqueness of the store at Eglinton Square, with their empty cassette cases and the neighbourly store at Bloor and Jane had their own special charm. Even the bad ideas like the relocated store beside the Tivoli Theatre in Hamilton and the store they tried to run at Yonge and Eglinton made for interesting perusing.
To me, it's not just 'the songs', although I have downloaded a tune or twelve off the net, it's about the purchasing of the piece of plastic. New or used, it doesn't matter. The first record I remember buying at Sam's (at least after I started buying records in earnest) was the 45 of "Athena" by The Who. The last one was the CD reissue of Warren Zevon's "Stand In The Fire".
Now, with the end in sight, I guess it's time to raid the joint like it's 2001 all over again.
Photos taken by Neil Prime-Coote on July 22, 2000 outside 347 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario.
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