Mid-Week Mugging is a series of features by BayToday. Each Wednesday, we will run a profile on a local business or organization that will be "mugged" with BayToday coffee cups. The subjects will then "mug" for our camera and we will tell a little bit about their story.
Todd Gledhill has seen thousands upon thousands of vinyl records since he got his hands on his first as a kid—a small batch of them from his parents including the ever-popular Thriller, by Michael Jackson. But that’ doesn’t stop him from exploring thousands more in stores around the world, or from traders and vendors in the community.
“I love being able to go into a store and not knowing what’s behind the next record,” he said. “So, finding things that I didn’t know that I wanted, interesting or unique. Every record you find is a gem in some way or another.”
And it’s that experience he’s been bringing to North Bay through Waxman Records for nearly four years now since occupying his current location downtown the night of a Christmas Walk. Before that, he had been selling mostly online—on the side—and setting up pop-up booths in places like Music City once a month.
“For the Christmas walk I just couldn’t get into Music City, so for this location here, I contacted the landlord and asked if I could set up for one night,” Gledhill explained. “It needed a bit of work, so my brother in law came in and painted. We had to fold out tables and whatever cases I had, and we came in for a night and have been here ever since, adding and letting it grow.”
But he didn’t always work in music, despite it being a big part of his life since an early age. Born and raised in North Bay, Gledhill left for Ottawa after high school and fell into a much different industry.
Cooking.
“It was kind of an industry I fell into,” he said. “When I moved to Ottawa, I had a friend who was working at the Keg and he got me a job washing dishes and it was just something I kind of stuck with. It made more sense than working retail, and funny enough, my store is the only retail job I’ve ever worked.”
He eventually became a chef—having gone to cooking school and getting his red seal, going the occasional DJ gig and record sale on the side.
Having had music in his life for so long, his personal collection of vinyl records had expanded to such a size, it came time to make room for more.
“The record thing happened through inheriting or receiving records from people. My first box would have been from my parents whatever they had leftover from when vinyl kind of went out of style. So, I had that, then I’d get a box from my mom’s friend, and my aunt, and here and there. By my early twenties, I had four or five crates of records I’d bring from apartment to apartment.”
“As a DJ, I always enjoyed spinning. That was kind of my lead coming into this business, I’d go to Toronto, stocking up on vinyl and coming back to North Bay and just accumulated so much, I started pulling bits and pieces out of my record shelf to make room for new stuff and just had a knack for selling online.”
With an ever-changed collection, he’s currently sitting in about a thousand pieces and growing, but he also considers the records at his store to be his collection, in addition to the thousand, but it’s nowhere near some of the numbers he’s heard from other collectors.
“I’ve heard of collectors with 25,000 records and I feel like I wouldn’t be able to have that large,” he said. “I’ve got some stuff that may not be of value to anybody else but me. The sentimental value of it, I wouldn’t get rid of the ones I got as a child from my parents.”
Over the years, Gledhill has enjoyed the resurgence and growth of vinyl records around the world, especially since each store and vendor has something unique.
“People search out record stores. When I’m in a new city, I’m on Google looking for record stores near me, and I’m sure that’s what people searching are doing because every place has different things,” he said. “You can’t underestimate a small shop in Northern Ontario compared to a crazy store in LA. It’s all subjective to the collector.”
Gledhill didn’t know how things would go nearly four years ago, but it’s been growing steadily in the community, whether it be the young seeking the culture of the aesthetic, or the old seeking the nostalgia, all people have been contributing to the return of vinyl.
“When I opened the store I started the North Bay Record Show and I feel like it’s really grown the community here. People come out and visit a lot of these vendors from around the region and find all sorts of hidden treasures.”
For those looking to share in the mystery of perusing an innumerable amount of records from all times and places, the next local record show in on Saturday, September 16, 2017, at the Trinity United Church from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.. For more information, you can check out Waxman Records.
