Many of Toronto’s music shops had sales and special offerings on Record Store Day, which took place on Saturday. The annual event is intended to highlight the fact that plenty of people, young and old, still buy their music somewhere other than iTunes. (For Record Store Day preview coverage on Torontoist, check out our profile [...]

The War on Drugs, w/ Andre Ethier, Arc in Round The Horseshoe Tavern (370 Queen Street West) Friday December 9, 9 p.m. doors $13.50 in advance at Soundscapes, Rotate This, The Horseshoe Tavern Philadelphia-based rock band The War on Drugs received some pretty strong endorsements from Toronto-based arbiters of cool music this past year: Pitchfork [...]

ACTIVISM: With the Occupy Wall Street protests inspiring similar class protests in other cities in the U.S. (and gaining celebrity supporters like Keith Olbermann, Jeff Mangum, and Yoko Ono), anti-poverty activists are looking to start similar action on Bay Street this weekend with an Occupy Toronto Market Exchange (doesn’t quite roll off the tongue the [...]

It's probably kitschy (not to mention dated) to use a quotation from Almost Famous here, right? But the classic line from its central muse, glorified groupie Penny Lane, will always ring warm, and true: "If you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit your friends." Whether or not it's your meeting place, or just a place you choose to spend your money, record stores still have that romanticism.

Photo of Sonic Boom’s lower level, from their website. Once upon a time, people shopped for music in these things called “record stores.” Some of these relics still exist, and although Toronto’s motley crew of music retailers is still licking its collective wound after not being deemed good enough to be considered Canada’s best—or even [...]

Nominations are in for CBC Radio 3′s #1 Independent Record Store in Canada. Of the 47 stores repping St. John’s to Victoria, Toronto holds a tidy seven spots. Best city odds of the competition. Drumroll: Penguin Music, Criminal Records, Monster Records, Slinky Music, Rotate This, Sonic Boom, and Soundscapes. Sounds about right. First round voting [...]

Torontonians are, to say the least, an opinionated bunch. So instead of a simple “Best Of” list to cap 2006 off, the Torontoist staffers have racked their brains about everything (books, songs, restaurants, people, places, stores, newspapers, politicians, musicians, and a lot more) to bring you their choices for the very best and the very [...]