Stuart McLean
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Longtime listener, ever since the uproarious what-can-you-buy-for-a-dollar segment on Morningside way back when.
And yes, he was very much a friend of music, Canadian music especially. He should get an Arthur award just for that.
I liked him for the same reason I always loved Fred Rogers and Garrison Keillor (who IS still alive, if retired from Prairie Home Companion). All of them celebrated human foibles with a sense of "we're all in this together". Audiences for the live shows could always anticipate what foolish thing Dave was going to do, because it was probably something like what they would do or have done in past. McLean would chide them with "Don't get ahead of me now", and later declare "Here's where I catch up to you". It was the kind of humour that brought people together by recognizing and celebrating what we share in common. The Vinyl Cafe was the sort of imaginary store that any of us would have operated if money were no object. Dave had been a road manager for all these bands, and his memories were threaded through with tales of his road days. Superficially, the Dave character sold 2nd hand records, but really he sold beautiful memories, inextricably bound up with music. Somewhere, underneath, McLean was a rocker. Sentimental, but a rocker.
I guess he's off making the turkey right now. RIP. We'll miss ya.
And yes, he was very much a friend of music, Canadian music especially. He should get an Arthur award just for that.
I liked him for the same reason I always loved Fred Rogers and Garrison Keillor (who IS still alive, if retired from Prairie Home Companion). All of them celebrated human foibles with a sense of "we're all in this together". Audiences for the live shows could always anticipate what foolish thing Dave was going to do, because it was probably something like what they would do or have done in past. McLean would chide them with "Don't get ahead of me now", and later declare "Here's where I catch up to you". It was the kind of humour that brought people together by recognizing and celebrating what we share in common. The Vinyl Cafe was the sort of imaginary store that any of us would have operated if money were no object. Dave had been a road manager for all these bands, and his memories were threaded through with tales of his road days. Superficially, the Dave character sold 2nd hand records, but really he sold beautiful memories, inextricably bound up with music. Somewhere, underneath, McLean was a rocker. Sentimental, but a rocker.
I guess he's off making the turkey right now. RIP. We'll miss ya.
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366 Posts
Vinyl cafe has been a family tradition in our house since the kids were small. Sad that the stories are ending now. I wondered when he said he wasn't likely coming back a while ago if his health was more serious than he let on.
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The gang on The Irrelevant Show would often poke gentle fun at his verbal stylings, by imagining him doing various things in the voice we had come to know from the stories. Like they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Stuart McLean movies
Stuart McLean movies
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2,103 Posts
Such sad news...but I treasure the tears his stories have brought to my eyes and the release of stress through laughter. Oh man, like Dave's home renovation attempts and the apparent love between men and their hammers. I'm off to do some reading or listening. Many thanks...
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1,155 Posts
He's irreplaceable and will be missed.
One of the things that he and the show regularly did was showcase what is special about small places. Much like the imaginary record store that was "not big, but we're small", the smaller locales visited were also not the big cities where so many live, but the smaller places that worked hard to proudly preserve their character, history, and traditions.
I always wondered whether Dave's record store was partly modelled after Dave's Record Cave (initially called Dutchy's, I think) in downtown Montreal, McLean's hometown. Initially on St. Catherine St. near Crescent, a few blocks from both McGill and Concordia, facing a small supermarket for the big spenders that live downtown and the former site of Classics Books, Dave's Record Cave was a small densely packed place. To enter, you walked downstairs from street level. The store had one side facing a parking lot (now built over), where John and Yoko had placed one of their "War is over, if you want it" billboards against the outside wall of the store. Dave, the owner, was a bit of a character, somewhat irascible, but also agreeable. Before other big stores eventually opened in the city (e.g., Phantasmagoria), the Record Cave was where you went to get the exotic stuff. Dave carried a lot of DJ freebies with the hole punched in the corner and a label that said "Not for Resale". I still have some I bought there. He eventually moved around the corner onto Crescent St., and this time it was a short trot UP the stairs. Same approach, same inventory, same Dave.
That Dave passed away in 2005, and you can get a sense of maybe how similar Stuart McLean's Dave, and the Record Cave's Dave were by looking through the comments and recollections here: David Silver Guest Book on The Gazette
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