Yeah, 8th Avenue was a great place to search for music. There was another cool shop east of 1st Street, around where the Winners is now. There was also another dirt arcade on that block, a little further east where Original Joe's and/or Kismet is now. It was easy to spend an afternoon down there, drifting from arcade to arcade, grabbing a bite to eat, flipping through record bins looking for that certain record. Fond memories.
Yes, I do remember that music store east of 1st Ave. I don't remember the name of that store but it was another one I used to frequent. Does anybody remember the record store that was on the ground level of Stratford Towers on 17th Ave. SW in the mid-80s? I wish I could remember the names of these stores.
Twas Wizards Castle (the Arcade). The dude who worked their with the pompadour was epic. I remember when his band King Rat had a video on muchmusic and I was like "whoa, that guy gives me my quarters!".
Found this post from 2012 when I was trying to fact check my post about King Rat.
Oh my god, I'm that old man. Repeating stories to no one in particular...
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Illusions was on 8th ave across the street from Three Ring Circus. Where the McDonald's is now.
8th Ave Mall was a lot cooler when it was full of arcades, head shops, and other places appealing to wayward teens. Three Ring Circus. Catch the Winds. Funky Punkers. Illusions. Charisma. Boodlum. The comic store at the West end of the mall.
Siege Perilous! The owner shut it down after a flood.
We saw him working as an usher at the Esso Plaza theatres a few months later.
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Mikes Billiards and Arcade. Near McKnight and Edmonton Trail. The Arcade across from the Palace. The Palace theater itself, saw so many movies there like Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and the Wrath of Khan. The Corral 4 and the Sunset Drive-In's. Bullwinkles, Chuck E Cheese, Pondarosa where the A&W is now on McKnight and 4th. Pisces when it was a tiny shop. (you can now guess what area I lived in back in the 80's) The GUN shop that was changed to a UNG Video. Power Players on Center Street...so many memories...
Mike's still exists, it just moved. It now at 2020 32 Ave NE, just east of McCall Lake golf course headed east on 32nd.
Mike's was the only place I felt "safe" in when I was younger when my buddy and I played pool. We went to a few other places with pool there were super sketchy, but Mike's was always solid. We still meet up at the new location from time to time. Great place.
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Anyone else miss Cart Gardens? I was never old enough to ride the "fast" go carts but man we had some good times there.
Also, bullsh*t corner was pretty fun in highschool.
Yeah that was fun, but those electric karts in the NE by the airport are way better now. Love the electric karts...way more torque and you don't stink like exhaust after you're done. If you haven't tried them you should check it out.
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Anyone else miss Cart Gardens? I was never old enough to ride the "fast" go carts but man we had some good times there.
Also, pretty fun in highschool.
The strip along 7th and 8th ave was a great place to take your cars to cruise on a friday or saturday night. Bullsh*t corner on the west end and hookers corner on the east.
I used to love going to The Attic on 8th Ave., back when it was across from The Bay. This was way before A&B Sound set up shop in the old Bank of Montreal building so I'm talking mid- to late-80s. I didn't have much money back then but I would scrape whatever money I had from my paper route or my job as a busboy and would buy something there (a cassette tape or a 12" or a t-shirt) at least a couple times a month. Now one can find whatever one wants online but back then, hunting for cool music or music paraphernalia (for a reasonable price) was so much fun.
There was also a Music World at the corner of 8th Ave. and 1st Street SW that had a really great collection of 12" and laser discs.
There was also a really cool record store on MacLeod Trail in the late-80s. It was located in the building where Blind Beggar Pub is located now. I only went there a few times as it was quite the trek for me from Castleridge on public transit but it had a wonderful selection of punk and indie (or college radio, as indie was called back then) music. I keep thinking it was called A&M Records but that can't be right and it must be my foggy memory conflating the name of the store with the record label but somehow, that's the only name I can come up with for that store.
I used to go to the Attic in the late 90s and early oughts. They sold bootlegs from Europe for $200 that you could get on Napster for free. But it was a pretty cool store. That whole area was pretty awesome back then. There were all these cheap clothing stores where you could find vintage slightly obscure band T shirts for $5. They had probably been on the racks since the 80s.
I think the band was King Rat. I remember they had a video on MuchMusic and when I saw it I was like "Whoa, that dude gives me quarters!"
I think I remember of at least hearing of this band, but there is no evidence of them online. Not even at the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society, and they know an awful lot from the old days.
This thread is 4th in google search results for "King Rat Calgary" or whatever I put in.
