From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
I had the pleasure of visiting Neptoon Records on Main Street for the first time last week. The place was packed with browsers, most of them young. The second thing I noticed was the sheer number of records—thousands of them everywhere you look. They are filed neatly in the store, stacked down the stairs, and they fill the basement. Owner and founder Rob Frith, tells me that he had to stop renting one of the upstairs rooms so he could use it for storage.
You can pick up a used album for as little as $1 or pay up to $1,500 for a 1960s sealed copy from a Canadian band called the Haunted. Most things will set you back between $5 and $25.
Rob bought the building around 2000 and moved his stock from the Fraser Street store that he started in 1981. At that time, he was in construction, the economy crashed, and when he was casting around for things to do, he knew he didn’t want to work for anyone, and he liked collecting vinyl. “One day I thought maybe I should open a record store.”
“People who collect are obsessive,” says Rob. He knows because he’s a collector—records, posters, menus, old contracts, buttons, photographs and concert ticket stubs.
His store is now the oldest independent record store in Vancouver. It’s survived CDs, and iTunes and Spotify.
“We hung on long enough that there was a resurgence almost 20 years ago,” says Rob. “It’s gone leaps and bounds since then.”
It started when kids wanted to be deejays and increased when they found mum and dad’s turntable and old records in the basement. Now music labels are releasing new pressings and reissues on vinyl and that’s created a whole new market.
The building also comes with a great history. Rob, it turns out, isn’t the only owner who liked collecting.
The storefront first pops up in the city directories in 1951 owned by Harold and Barbara Morgan. The Morgans lived upstairs and ran a spray paint rental business downstairs. Every year since the ‘40s the couple travelled to a different place—New Guinea, Borneo, Africa, Guatemala—and brought back souvenirs. When they retired in 1989, they turned the store into the (free) Museum of Exotic World packed it full of collectables—a stuffed alligator, butterflies, a shrunken head and hundreds of photographs—and opened it for a few hours each day.
There’s a suite upstairs that’s straight out of the 1950s with brand new appliances from that decade including a clothes dryer and a stove that was never used—it still had the instructions inside. Rob has rented the suite out to a TV show.
When the Morgans died they bequeathed their vast collection and their ashes to Alexander Lamb’s antique store at 3271 Main Street. Which as you might expect, will be the subject of a future blog.
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6 comments on “How the Museum of Exotic World became Main Street’s Neptoon Records”
Some years back a friend of mine from Alberta wanted to buy rolls to use in his played piano. We discovered Main St. Great antique shops, junk shops and specialty shops. There was a wool store that had a full factory in the basement. The woman running the shop was the grand daughter of the builder.
Back in the 60s my dad worked at a company that had an office above some stores on Main St. Scottys Roofing and Chimney Sweeping.
I cant remember the record store but I will definitely look for it the next time were browsing that great area of Vancouver
So I’m curious Doug. Did you find the rolls for the player piano, and if so where? Rob Frith tells me that his grandfather also had a store on Main Street in 1910. Wow.
Yes he did find rolls. I cant remember exactly where but ive emailed him ,maybe he can recall. I think he bought quite a few.
Love the kitschy red-and-white record player beside Rob Frith in his inner sanctum of vinyl LPs. Never yet met the man. Ashamed to say I never visited his store before leaving the Lower Mainland in 1990. Although a freelance music journalist in the ‘70s, I moved on to hard news and features, losing touch with the rich rock music of yore.
Rob has a terrific Facebook page on which he loads reproductions of old concert and movie posters, entertainment ads, photos of singers, groups, actors etc. with heavy emphasis on Vancouver personalities and events. About every fifth post triggers some memory synapse in my wizened noggin.
Over the years, Rob’s also reinvested profits in issuing retrospective albums, including The Nocturnals, Northwest Company and Tom Northcott. Then there’s the Neptoon History Of Vancouver Rock And Roll compilations. Reference sites indicate there have been three such compilations: Volumes 1, 3 and 4. Not sure if a Volume 2 exists. Or if its absence is an inside joke.
At any rate, sooner or later, I’ll visit Vancouver long enough to drop into Neptoon for a leisurely browse. And hopefully an encounter with quite possibly the most knowledgeable record store proprietor in Western Canada.
yeah it’s nice place to visit been there while ago to the vinyl record i was surprised how big the collection was really awesome
yeah it’s the nice place to visit been there while ago to the record I was surprised how big the collection was really awesome.