{"id":2205,"date":"2017-12-07T15:55:14","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T15:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=2205"},"modified":"2017-12-07T21:11:40","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T21:11:40","slug":"the-king-of-queen-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=2205","title":{"rendered":"The king of queen street"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”flexslider_slide” interval=”0″ images=”2196,2197,2198,2199,2200,2202,2204″ img_size=”1500×994″ onclick=”img_link_large” css_animation=”fadeIn” title=”Steve’s Music”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Some places will always remain as music to people\u2019s ears.<\/p>\n

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For 40 years, 415 Queen St. W has been the home of such a location: Steve\u2019s Music. Whether it\u2019s a professional musician expanding their repertoire, or a beginner just embarking on their instrumental journey, Steve\u2019s has been a go-to destination in Toronto\u2019s music scene.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBack then, this whole area was pretty much punk rock. It was a punk rocker, jobber kind of a rundown, decrepit part of Toronto back in the day,\u201d said Kevin Parker, store manager.<\/p>\n

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Steve\u2019s Music began in Montreal in 1965, when late founder Steven Kirman decided to open up a music store at the age of 18. He expanded to Toronto in 1977, before Parker joined the Queen Street store in 1980.<\/p>\n

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While Kirman thought the Toronto market was an exciting one to be a part of, some more difficult, historical conditions also lead him to expand away from Quebec, according to Parker.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe reason this store is here is because of the FLQ\u2026because when that was going down in Montreal and there was martial law, Steve thought \u2018oh, maybe I need an exit plan here\u2019\u201d said Parker.<\/p>\n

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Since then, Parker has seen it all when it comes to the evolution of Steve\u2019s and the whole street they reside on. Toronto\u2019s music landscape was thriving and dense when Parker came along.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWithin a kilometre of here, back then, there was probably 100 [music] studios, easily,\u201d said Parker.<\/p>\n

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Eventually, changes came about. While music remained popular in Toronto, the retail space on queen street began to move away from greasy spoons.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAll the bars are gone except for the [Horse]shoe,\u201d said Rick Welbanks, assistant manager.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLet\u2019s be honest here, queen street is starting to turn into a strip mall. It\u2019s all big money, huge stores, international conglomerates and brand names,\u201d said Welbanks.<\/p>\n

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Steve\u2019s Music has always remained true to its original form and atmosphere even in the face of those large changes. There\u2019s a couple of reasons for that.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t hire salesmen, we hire musicians,\u201d said Welbanks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Parker agrees that\u2019s a signature trait of Steve\u2019s Music, so his employees know what they\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAll the guys here are players, almost everyone here is in a band. They\u2019re out there playing every night, they\u2019re using the gear, they\u2019re doing sound systems. That\u2019s a huge thing because they have real world experience with the products,\u201d said Parker.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Welbanks took a moment to use himself as a reflection of Steve\u2019s workplace culture.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLook at me man, I\u2019m assistant manager of this place. I\u2019m 42 years old and I have a six gauge septum ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Other than a unique work space, their success comes down mostly to how they handle customer interactions against other purchasing options.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere was a huge online shopping boom, but you had the drawbacks of shopping online: zero customer service, no product knowledge imparted, no service of the [products] as well,\u201d said Welbanks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Their focus on community engagement continues to grow. This year, Steve\u2019s Music introduced a new open mic area in the store, and it has seen positive results.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s becoming very successful, growing very organically. It\u2019s probably gonna have to expand to more nights now just because there\u2019s so much demand,\u201d said Parker.<\/p>\n

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Part of the open mic\u2019s warm reception has come down to the fact that it\u2019s simply held at Steve\u2019s, as opposed to anywhere else.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat we found is a lot of people don\u2019t want to go to a bar, they don\u2019t want to deal with the alcohol and stuff like that so that\u2019s kind of a good thing here\u2026it\u2019s also helping with the live music scene in Toronto,\u201d said Parker.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Steve\u2019s Music wants to continue putting out more ideas and keep growing for the customers, but what exactly the future holds is a bit of a secret.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI have many ideas here and in the next couple of years they are going to come to fruition, but I\u2019m not gonna say what they are,\u201d said Parker.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to keep doing things that set us apart from any other musical retail store\u2026and if you pay attention, you\u2019ll see everybody else start to do what we\u2019re doing.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image source=”external_link” onclick=”custom_link” title=”The impact of Steve’s Music” custom_src=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zFAmcRHt2YI” link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zFAmcRHt2YI”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”flexslider_slide” interval=”0″ images=”2196,2197,2198,2199,2200,2202,2204″ img_size=”1500×994″ onclick=”img_link_large” css_animation=”fadeIn” title=”Steve’s Music”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Some places will always remain as music to people\u2019s ears.   For 40 years, 415 Queen St. W has been the home of such a location: Steve\u2019s Music. Whether it\u2019s a professional musician expanding their repertoire, or a beginner just embarking on their instrumental journey, Steve\u2019s has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":2195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[263],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}