55 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

All indications are that Future Shop has enough cash reserves to see it through 2009, with an expected 15% drop in revenue.

marketplace.ca is a good source for retail info.

That link is whacked....

[mat]

That link is whacked....

LOL - you are so correct...losing my ability to multi task. It's marketnews.ca

[AnonAnnie2]

Anyone know what's going in the old A&B Sound building? I can see the roof from my desk, and it's always crawling with workmen. They're gutting the inside completely, too.

Canada's largest sporting goods retailer is opening an outdoors store in the former A&B Sound location in downtown Victoria.
The Forzani Group confirmed it will open a Coast Mountain Sports outlet on the main floor of the heritage building on Yates Street in June and hire at least 30 staff.

[Caramia]

Susan Jones I don't know if anyone has welcomed you to VV yet, but Welcome! I followed your blog link and I love the photos. Great contributions so far to VV too!

[AnonAnnie2]

Susan Jones I don't know if anyone has welcomed you to VV yet, but Welcome! I followed your blog link and I love the photos. Great contributions so far to VV too!

*poof* you are the Official VV Greeter Caramia!
Thank you for the welcome and for visiting my blog...and moreso for your kind comments about my photos. I adore hiking around Victoria and finding little nuggets to capture. I post new photo's weekly and doubt I will ever run out of unique objects to photograph. We truly do live in the most beautiful city in the world.

I'm enjoying the site, thanks to the web/host guru's!

[Holden West]

You probably thought they were all long gone, but the Globe has a story on the very last retail Sam The Record Man:

 

You can spot the sign from the food court. In a corner of Belleville, Ont.’s Quinte Mall, past the chain stores that populate what must be every mall in Southern Ontario – a Peoples Jewellers here, a Claire’s there, a Winners down the hall – are three chunky red capital letters that mark the very last outpost of a Canadian retail-music empire: SAM. A good two hours’ drive east on Highway 401 from the corner of downtown Yonge Street that a chorus of spinning neon discs once lit up, in a city with a population of 49,454, is what’s left of Sam the Record Man.

 

 

By the time Sam Sniderman died in 2012, the Quinte Mall Sam’s was it.

“Even though we could probably exist by calling it something else, we would lose all the cachet that is involved in the Sam the Record Man name. Now, that cachet is quickly disappearing,” Mr. Destun says. “So it’s very, very important that we work at keeping this name alive.”

 

 

 

http://www.theglobea...rticle18059423/

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but is it true that Victoria had two Sam's--Hillside Mall and 4th floor of Eaton Centre downtown?

Edited by Holden West, 18 April 2014 - 12:53 PM.

[Jill]

^I'm pretty sure you're right.

[VicHockeyFan]

You probably thought they were all long gone, but the Globe has a story on the very last retail Sam The Record Man:

 

 

 

 

http://www.theglobea...rticle18059423/

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but is it true that Victoria had two Sam's--Hillside Mall and 4th floor of Eaton Centre downtown?

 

 

Hmmm, I don't remember the downtown one.  I do remember looking through the record racks at Sam's, and at the department stores and shaking my head, wondering why, oh why would anyone pay the prices they charged there.  I guess they just had national pricing, but indeed they were 20-35% higher than A&B, Young's(?) and Kelly's.  Am I getting Young's right now, now I'm doubting myself.

 

http://youtu.be/cTfvC8z8wa8

 

I wonder when Lyle's opened.  I remember in the early days it did not have very much new stock, 95% used.

[Holden West]

Hmmm, I don't remember the downtown one.  

 

Fourth floor of Eaton Centre. Imagine the fourth floor is a clock and the food court occupies the 11 to 1 o'clock position, Sam's was around the 2 o'clock position. I think it was one of the only retail stores on that wing of the mall between the food court and Eatons. There was another record store on the opposite wing on the fourth floor. Another national chain (A&A records?) that sold records well above what A&B's sold for and where only suckers shopped.

[VicHockeyFan]

Miller's, not Young's, just came to me.  Suckers is right.  Or parents that bought a "cool" album for their kid and had no idea.  You know, like how your parents would buy you the 6-year-old Boston album, as they had no idea how to determine what the new one was.

 

 

That reminds me, I got this as a Christmas present once, from an adult that just thought we liked Star Wars, so we must like this album.

 

 

Fail.

 

I'm impressed it has its own wiki entry though:  http://en.wikipedia....r_Galactic_Funk

 

It did spawn this single though...

 

http://youtu.be/CD69CXsmSJg

 

"Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" is a disco single recorded by Meco, taken from the album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 1, 1977, holding on to the spot for two weeks.^{[citation needed]} To date it is the biggest-selling instrumental single in the history of recorded music, having sold two million units, being the only one ever to be certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.^[1]

 

[Nparker]

OMG I thought I had the only copy of the Star Wars disco album.

[Holden West]

 

That reminds me, I got this as a Christmas present once, from an adult that just thought we liked Star Wars, so we must like this album.

 

 

That was my experience too, word for word. Mine was on cassette. 

 

your parents would buy you the 6-year-old Boston album, as they had no idea how to determine what the new one was.

 

 

Journey and ELO also had that problem. "The new album--you know--the one with the spaceship on the front".

[VicHockeyFan]

^ Spaceship, ha ha, exactly.

 

See, if your adult relative went to A&B Sound to buy your gift, they could ask the young, hip clerk, "what's the latest ELO album?", and they'd get the right one.  But nope, they were buying at K-Mart or Eatons, and there was no designated clerk, and the adult did not know the trick of finding the year in some copyright blurb in very fine print somewhere on the back.  And here's a tip, adult, if it's March 1978 when you are buying, the album that is copyright 1977 is likely the right one.

[Mike K.]

Pfff, some adults are such squares. My mom was hip. She'd go to A&B Sound and buy me the latest Wu-Tang cd's. She also insisted I listen to Bob Seger, Santana, Leonard Cohen ...and Boney M (nobody's perfect I guess).

[Langford Rat]

I think Kelly's was originally called Kelly DeYong's...that's probably why that "Youngs" synapse was firing when you reached way back for record shop names. Columbia House probably still has a wanted poster of me in their office for not fulfilling my committment after recieving all those albums for a penny and then cashing in again and again when I signed up all my friends (who probably never finished buying their over-priced selections of the month, either)

[cakeman]

Booo, I miss my 20's and A&B Sound, hah.. Worked there and elsewhere in that building for years.. was fun.  Oh how the music industry and consumer electronics have changed in the last 20 years..

 

cakes..