Bud’s Records Spins to Life in Cornwall
March 4, 2019Cornwall Ontario – Music lovers from near and far have a new place to get their fix.
Bud’s Records recently opened its doors at 375 Eleventh Street East in the Leduc Shopping Centre, providing music lovers and collectors with a new venue to discover new and used records, CDs, equipment and other cool items.
The new record shop represents the next step in a long love affair with music for owner Bud O’Byrne. The Cornwall resident has been collecting seriously for about six years and selling online. Fellow collectors had even started to visit his home to check out his collection and make the odd purchase.
“My wife said ‘I want my living room back’,” Mr. O’Byrne joked.
Between his own growing collection and other collections he purchased along the way, Mr. O’Byrne decided the time was right to make the full dive into entrepreneurship and open his own store.
The result is a trendy little shop featuring a collection of roughly 3,500 records – spanning punk, rock, metal, indie, jazz, hip hop, blues and many more genres – along with a collection of CDs, record players and other music and pop culture collectables.
“There’s pretty much something for every (musical) taste,” he adds.
The shop buys and sells music in virtually every format, from vinyl to MP3.
“So long as it’s music,” Mr. O’Byrne said with a smile.
The shop, with its throwback logo and record-lined walls, offers a special experience of stepping back in time to an era before the arrival of digital music and streaming services. It’s not just about the music, but rather the joy of discovering a new artist or album and sharing it with others.
“There are a lot of people around with amazing (record) collections and they have so much pride in it,” Mr. O’Byrne said. “It’s this great back and forth. It’s a cultural sharing thing.”
For Mr. O’Byrne, music has been a part of his makeup ever since he can remember. One of his earliest music memories is of his parents giving him a quarter to change over the record whenever it ended.
“To this day, when I hear a Meatloaf song on the radio or somewhere, I can automatically hear the next song (that comes on the record),” he recalls with a laugh.
The opportunity to share this passion with others through the shop is an exciting one for Mr. O’Byrne, and the early returns are quite promising. The shop was jammed with customers on Saturday for its opening day.
“It was pretty much a steady stream of people throughout the day,” he said. “It made my day.”
The specialty shop provides another great reason to visit Cornwall, especially for music collectors seeking new road-trip worthy record shops to check out. There have already been some visitors from Ottawa, Montreal and beyond.
Like flipping a record, the shop represents the next turn in Mr. O’Byrne’s journey of sharing the joy of music with the masses. And he’s turning it up and enjoying it.
“It’s like opportunity meets preparation,” he said.
Bud’s Records is open Tuesday to Thursday from 10 am to 6 pm, Friday and Saturday from 10 am to 8 pm and Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm (closed on Mondays).
You can find out more about Bud’s Records on Facebook.