So another sad day here in Edmonton as we lose yet another independent record store. This time it's Sound Connection, a record shop that has been around Edmonton in several different locations and several owners, but has been around for 38 years.
Sound Connection is the first record shop that I started to frequent when I was a young teenager. My music collection pretty much started with this store, first with vinyl, then cassettes and eventually CD's and then back to vinyl.
My brother and I use to go to Sound Connection when it was downtown on 101st. every Saturday morning, taking the bus downtown and then walking the ten blocks or so to the store instead of waiting for another bus. This was always good bonding time, talking about what we were hoping to find at the store, and then racing home to listen to our new purchases.
By the time I was in high school, it was the perfect place to go hang out in the afternoon when I should have been in class. I would go to the store and go through everything, all the vinyl, cassettes, European music magazines (Kerrang) and the t-shirts just to kill time. It was also the first place you could pick up UK 12 inch singles, bootlegs and picture discs.
I sure am going to miss Sound Connection, although I didn't frequent the shop as much as I used to, I still managed to drop in at least once every couple of weeks. So we say good-bye to another local record shop, just months after losing Permanent Records. This leaves Edmonton with only three good record independent shops. It was less then 8 years ago that there used to be 5 record shops just in the Whyte Avenue area (so within 6 blocks).
If only I had the money to own my own record shop, c'mon lottery!! This city could use another good record shop, and I do believe it can still make money in this city.
Don't let this happen to your local record shops. Get out and buy music from your local record shop. It's a great way to meet good people and find and get turned onto new music. Support people support.
Good-bye Sound Connection you were good to me over the years. Going to miss ya!
I got the sense that The Sound Connection was on the way out when I walked into their store one day, and all that seemed to be there were rap and hip hop cd's. Very little vinyl, and not a single Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin album to save your soul. They must have done a format change. But it was the beginning of the end for them. This was just before they moved to the south side. When they were still on 101 and 107.
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