(Autumn Stone, 1977)

Record Store Memories

When I was a teenager in the '70s, the ultimate of "cool" was to be seen walking down the north side of Portage Avenue on Saturday afternoon, preferably wearing a jean jacket, and preferably carrying a record bag from one of the great record stores on the north side of Portage Ave. It was acceptable to be carrying a bag from the south side Mother's Records, as well.

Among those stores were Autumn Stone and The Wherehouse, two stores with a great rec-room feel to them. These had the flavor of great stereotypical underground 1970s record stores. Thin bar room carpeting filled with singes from cigarette butts; huge rock posters soaring up to the ceiling; not much for windows that created a dark, counterculture atmosphere; album libraries that centered around rock (which was saying something back then); at The Wherehouse, rock magazines and posters; and at Autumn Stone, their infamous used record section in the back, complete with 46 used copies of Grand Funk's "Phoenix" album. (Not to mention Autumn Stone's, shall we say, mind-altering-friendly merchandise.) The Wherehouse was on north Portage between Carlton and Edmonton. Autumn Stone was on north Kennedy Street. (That store had/has nothing to do with a similarly named store that exists today on south Osborne Street.)

Kelly's Stereo Mart served as Portage Avenue's biggest record store; atmosphere was a question mark as they changed locations often, always with a resulting change in atmosphere. The old Winnipeg library location on Portage, Kelly's last, was bare-bones for decor but nobody cared as their selection was excellent. Music City had two north Portage locations at one time and was considered an acceptable alternative should the album you wanted to buy is sold out elsewhere. Opus 69, a shorter walk up Kennedy before you reached Autumn Stone, was more into audio (and had the closest atmosphere to today's big-box audio stores that sell CDs, only darker - on a summer afternoon, you had to get used to the darkness once you walked inside), but had a decent selection of albums and good, regular sales. Music Explosion was more the early '70s; didn't they close up early in the decade? Did the building become a jeans store? Someone needs to help me on that one. I just remember going in there once. They had a section for albums by rock bands called "Groups" and a very healthy soul and funk section, I recall.

My biggest Mother's Records memory is riding the bus there with several friends in 1977 to buy Kiss' "Alive II" on sale on a Saturday shortly after it was released. The promo for the album was near the cash register by the racks that contained the album. It was hanging from the so-high ceiling. It stayed there for years. Maybe the stores' management couldn't figure how to get it down. They must have just snipped it with scissors, as eras later, I'd go into that store years after it became an arcade and look up to the sky and still see that Kiss promo hanging from the ceiling. I also remembering special-ordering Angel's double-live album "Live Without A Net" from Mother's when it wasn't released in Canada.

And who could forget those full-page ads in the Free Press advertising record sales at sale prices like $4.99 or $3.99? The first new (not used) album I bought was April Wine's "Electric Jewels" at Kelly's in 1975 for an amazing $3.29.

I had mixed feelings when all the north Portage stores were torn down for Portage Place, long after the record stores migrated to suburban malls and arcades flourished in their place.
Nevertheless, I suppose change and progress are inevitable. (Deep sigh.) These retail buildings and stores our generation thought were there and would be there forever when we shopped there became another tenuous memory of days gone by. At least there's still an A & W in Portage Place on roughly the same piece of land the former A & W stood on, near The Wherehouse, before Portage Place was built.

BigBadBeau:

Winnipeg Rant.com  

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Those were the days. I grew up in Winnipeg, leaving in 1979. My first job in the record business was at Opus 69 on Kennedy St., starting pretty soon after it opened. Great selection and ownership was always bringing in European imports which was very cool. Only weird thing was that we had to wear ties and pants that had a crease! We all had hair down past our shoulders so owners figured that a dress code was the only way for, shall we say, "straight" customers, to tell staff apart from the longhairs shopping there. Got turned on (literally and figuratively daily) to great stuff like Rory Gallagher, Audience, Family, Captain Beyond, Mott the Hoople just to name a few. Always had open copies of whatever anyone wanted to hear. Remember the listening rooms? We had 4 turntables at the front where a customer could have a record put on and they'd get a pair of headphones and plug them into an outlet in an area with chairs and listen. Lots of laughs when someone who'd puffed a bit too much would start singing along, forgetting that with the phones on , everyone in the store only heard them wailing away!~ Autumn Stone was just a few doors up the street and we'd hang there on lunch hours talking to Andy Mellen, Tim, James and the boys. Great place for a new pipe or to get your jeans patched. Definitely Winnipeg's legit head shop. Music Explosion another cool spot for albums and clothes and whatever. I feel bad for later generations because they don't have these unbelievable environments in which to immerse themselves in music. Very sad to see the demise of almost all the great independents and the good chain stores and see them replaced by crappy places like HMV. Those musical havens still are a strong memory to me and when I think about them, I can still see exactly how they looked and feel how it felt to be in them, flipping through the albums and discovering magic in the grooves. Good times.

Expegger: 

Winnipeg Rant.com