Vinyl Hunting In Montreal! Part 1……

 

DATELINE/ Thursday October 26th 2017/ Montreal Quebec.

F.Y.I- This is a 3 parter….Today Part 1!

As many of you folk’s know I recently had a huge Birthday! My best pal of the past 4 decades TBone along with his cool wife Christine decided to take moi to Montreal for 4 full days of whatever we wanted to do. The only thing that was scheduled was to take in a NHL game between the New York Rangers(My team) and the Montreal Canadians (Tbone’s Homeboys) Saturday night at the Bell Centre.

Christine sat this trip out as she knew that myself and T have not done a dude road trip in about 15 years! The last one was back in November 2002 to go and see Rush  down in Minneapolis….

It’s been awhile….

It was only a few weeks ago I found out about this getaway so one of the first dudes I contacted was fellow Blogger Aaron from the KMA Blog as I knew Aaron had mentioned in some blogs that he lived in Montreal for a few years so I knew Aaron would be the go to for the cool record shops.

By Golly Mr Books did not disappoint!

In a matter of minutes Aaron replied to my email which he basically told me about 3 cool Record Shops and sent Google map info on where they were located in town. I quickly forwarded Aaron’s email to Tbone…..

Montreal here comes Tbone and Deke’s!

So once settled in our hotel it was time to plot our course so after a great Burger and Beer(at the Burger Bar) it was off on foot to our first Record Store stop and that was Cheap Thrills which is located in what looks like an old house and after you enter the porch you head up what seems like a set of crooked stairs  into Cheap Thrills.

Upon entering you walk right into a bunch of vinyl. Sealed section is kept separate whereas  all the used vinyl and books(tons of books) are spread throughout there own section. This place has a chill vibe amongst its employees to say the least.(ha) I wanted to score  on this trip  some CULT and Hanoi Rocks vinyl but came up short which by the end of our time in Montreal was no big deal!

Tbone dug in and started looking for me but to no avail so I moved on as I did not have a set plan to buy anything  but I give Cheap Thrills credit they had a decent supply of The Tragically Hip sealed albums and the one that caught my eye was Road Apples* which is one of my all time fav’s….

I wasn’t ready to commit on that first day in Montreal  as I wanted to see what the other stores had before I took the plunge. Moving forward if were keeping score I did return to Cheap Thrills 3 days later and purchased Road Apples (sealed) and Billy Joel’s Glass Houses** (used). They even had Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz used for about $14 but I dunno why, I just passed on it.

Definitely a cool place to check out. Total chill pill like environment as you could spend hours in there and the sales staff would not care as long as you brought Rolling Papers or a Bong!

Funny thing was while I was browsing away from the sales counter in the used bins T was by the sales counter and overheard the sales dude say “that fella over there has the copy of Road Apples” so I guess there were seeing if the Hip stuff was going to move out of their bins.

Well it did!

Coming up ….

Deke and T meet Spike!

*- It was cool to score Road Apples on vinyl as I had mentioned to Tbone that the Hip came out at a time(1989) right in the midst of the CD Generation as apart from the EP and Up To Here which I owned on cassette tape all the other HIP albums I owned  were all on CD’s!

**- What can you say about Glass Houses? The only Joel album I have ever owned  and probably ever will at this point as its so good from the opening You May Be Right. Billy is a partied out mess on this album which are the kind of tales/songs I tend to lap up as a listener!

Check Back On Wednesday For Part 2!