Robert Charles-Dunne has sourced and marketed the coolest, the latest and the most prized vinyl to plenty of Ontario music lovers for the very last 23 a long time.
Now, the proprietor of the Village Idiot in London, Ont., states it really is time to dangle up the 45s and retire. The hassle is, Charles-Dunne wants to locate a successor who loves the business and the new music as considerably as he does.
“When someone will come up with a report in their arms and they are variety of trembling a little bit and saying, ‘Do you know how lengthy I have been looking for this?’ There is almost nothing sweeter,” Charles-Dunne said.
His retail outlet just isn’t huge. In actuality, it’s squeezed into a corner developing at the rear of a restaurant and a massage therapy clinic in the south-finish of the metropolis.
But it’s a fixture and simply because of one more, fictional record retail store, it earned a reputation with Canadians who listened the CBC’s Vinyl Cafe.
In 2004, Charles-Dunne wrote host Stuart McLean his initially letter about daily life in the retail store and the similarities he sees among it and the radio program’s main character Dave, who also runs a neighbourhood file shop.
10 several years later, Charles-Dunne penned a next letter, found in this article in the Vinyl Cafe archives, about the loss of a wife or husband, sudden responsibilities and a new philosophy towards new music.
“There are two varieties of persons who get music at our keep, and I presume at all the other report stores too: those people to whom audio gives wonderful joy, and these to whom it gives refuge from ache that could possibly normally be frustrating,” he wrote in 2014.
Pay attention | Robert Charles-Dunne describes existence at the Village Idiot:
London Morning10:54The Village Fool record keep is looking for its upcoming owner
Robert Charles-Dunne has owned and operated The Village Idiot report store in Wortley village for 20-a few several years and now he’s looking for a successor to get the quant but awesome neighbourhood history store.
His letter resonated with Canadians, some of whom Charles-Dunne reported manufactured exclusive excursions to the Village Fool to see the place and to fulfill him. Each individual working day although, he clarifies how persons of all ages come by the doorway in lookup of a sound.
“This tiny, dinky very little retailer in London has bought extra copies of some Canadian bands than any other shop in the place. Which is just from actively playing a superior piece of function and possessing people today occur in and go, ‘damn, I want to know who that is,'” mentioned Charles-Dunne.
It really is one particular of the factors he has hope that the ideal man or woman will stroll in and obtain the area. He needs to retire following far more than two a long time and believes his successor is out there.
“The slide back posture is to truck almost everything to Toronto wherever the rate tags are considerably bigger in any case, but that’s a drop again. That is my certainly final recourse, and I will not do it willingly.”