Feb. 8, 2006

Final track

By Ryan Cureatz
rcureatz@uwo.ca

For Dave Young, it's been a "gold mine" for more than 20 years.

Dr. Disc is where he found hundreds of the LPs and forty-fives in his collection of music from the 1950s and 1960s.

Photo by Ryan Cureatz

Dr. Disc's co-owner and general manager Christopher Guard is closing the store in February.

But after the Clarence Street store shuts its doors for good later this month, searching for rare records in the city won't be the same, Young, 62, said.

"We sort of lost an icon of the music industry," he said.

Fewer than 100,000 records are left at Dr. Disc, after it began discounting its massive collection of 300,000 albums two months ago, said co-owner and general manager Christopher Guard.

"We're at the bottom end," said Guard, 44, adding that only four of the 10 staff he once employed remain.

Yet despite its closing, Dr. Disc's 25-year presence in London — almost all of it at its current location — won't be forgotten, Guard said. "We'll be remembered for decades."

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the store did up to $12,000 in daily business, he said. "Our inventory would change by thousands of pieces every day."

But that pattern began to falter with the growing popularity of music downloading through the Internet, he said. "Some people would actually call us up to see who did a certain song so they could download it."

Yet Dr. Disc embraced the Internet as a sales tool years ago and Guard claims it was the first retail music outlet in Canada to have a full-service website. The site (http://www.drdisc.com) offers users a way to search the store's inventory. But it doesn't provide the secure online shopping cart feature many other sites do.

A declining downtown business environment is another reason for the store's looming closure."It's been a struggle for a lot of years," Guard said.

Photo by Ryan Cureatz

Grooves, an independent music retailer, set up next to Dr. Disc in June 2004.

Dr. Disc's used and new items are now selling for up to 70 per cent off. Vinyl records, CDs, cassettes and DJ equipment are among its merchandise.

"It's going to be missed as a London landmark," said David Clarke, co-owner of Grooves, a music retailer next door to Dr. Disc.

The closure may boost his store's sales, but the ultimate impact of not having two record stores beside each other to draw customer traffic remains uncertain, Clarke said.

"It's always sad to lose an independent. It's less choice," he said.

Guard, who first joined Dr. Disc as an employee in 1994, said he's not sure what he'll do after the store closes. "Maybe I'll become mayor of St. Thomas or something," he quipped.
Sydney Atlin began Dr. Disc in 1981 and his son Andrew ran the business after he died.

Guard and Dell Atlin, Sydney Atlin's widow, eventually took control of it in 2001.
"When we're exhaling our last breath, we'll still be the coolest store in London," Guard said.