Sonic Boom in Toronto

 

I wasn't sure whether I would ever place a Sites article on the blog ever again since I covered most of the places that I frequented in the Tokyo area. The last place that I did write about for that particular Label was in July 2016 for the late, great Recomints in Nakano Broadway, and the last Sites article proper was done by Noelle Tham in 2018 when she visited Haruo Minami's（三波春夫）hometown in Fukushima Prefecture.

However earlier today, I went to downtown Toronto's Chinatown because I had read about the record store Sonic Boom on Spadina Avenue in what I believe is called the Robertson Building that you can see above. My niece had recently gotten her first LP for her birthday (a Taylor Swift) and with a new record player, I was kinda thinking maybe she could do with another record by the superstar. As well, considering that I'd only known the smaller used record shops in Toronto since my return here over a decade ago, I was curious about visiting a bona fide new record store because I had thought that such places were as dead as dinosaurs. HMV closed up shop a few years ago and the final major store selling actual records, Sam The Record Man, had gone out of business years before HMV.

I couldn't take any photos inside of Sonic Boom but I did find a video on YouTube from a few years back featuring the band Greta Van Fleet doing some browsing about in the shop so at least you can get a look at the place inside. 

Not only was I able to get my Swifty niece the album "Lover" for Christmas but I could get an album of remixes by Ms. Ciccone above because my brother was a big fan of Madge back in the 1980s.

From Discogs

I'd taken a look at the website for Sonic Boom before going down to the actual place today and found the interior quite inviting with all of that warm and folksy wood, and sure enough, it was nice and reassuring to browse around the place for several minutes. It did feel like the old days again when I was first searching around for records at my local branches of The Bay and Sam's as a high schooler and then when I was going through the bins at places like Recomints in Tokyo.

Now just for a stab in the dark, I checked whether there were any Japanese records selling somewhere in Sonic Boom before making my purchases of global superstars past and present. Well, once I got my bearings in the place, I did find a small but interesting collection of LPs from my old stomping grounds including a number of City Pop platters including Makoto Matsushita's（松下誠）"First Light" with the original and better cover of that LA intersection. I also saw an Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）, a Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）and even a Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）among others, so if there are any City Pop fans locally who are willing to shuck out the dozens of loonies and twonies for vinyl versions, there they are.

For me, the visit to Sonic Boom was a wonderful look back and perhaps a hope for a rosier future for the good ol' record. And I no longer have to look with envy when I see videos of rabid City Pop fans get their LPs at shops in New York and Los Angeles.