Your one-stop hippie shop

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/06/2013 (4589 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Unquestionably one of the hippest shops in Winnipeg in the 1970s was Autumn Stone. Named for a Small Faces album and located at 304 Kennedy Street, north of Portage Avenue, the Autumn Stone was your all-purpose one-stop hippie shopping experience. “We were one of the first places in the city to sell used records along with new records,” notes co-owner Andy Mellen. “Plus we weren’t just a record store. We had all the head-shop stuff, hip comics and a leather shop. All these things added to the attraction. You could come down and get your smoking needs, hear some great music, check out the comics and get a leather vest made.”

What made the shop so cool? “The people who ran it,” Andy insists. “We were a good reflection of the times. And the store didn’t look like your typical record store; the funky atmosphere, the tapestries, the old wood.”

Just listen to the tributes:

 

“I loved going to the Stone. I always discovered something new and interesting. It was the coolest record shop I’ve ever been in. I bought my first Thin Lizzy album Jailbreak because it was playing in the store. Opus 69 [located down the street at 294 Kennedy] felt like a library to me. The Stone felt like Heaven.”

— Rick Carpick

 

“I loved the vibe and I loved the cool music they played. It was a musical education for me.”

— Craig Hobson

 

“Autumn Stone was the coolest record store I’d ever been to. I was mesmerized by all the promotional photos on the wall and the four-foot-tall speaker cabinets. Worlds away from Eaton’s record department.”

— Gary Gurniak

 

“I bought all my Fabulous Freak Brothers comics there.”

— Dave Perich

 

Initially opened on Graham Avenue in 1971, partners James Speiss, Eric Green and Bill Kelly modelled the shop on Minneapolis’s hip Electric Fetus. By the time it moved to Kennedy Street the following year Winnipeg Free Press music columnist Andy Mellen had come onboard. For most regulars, Andy would become the face of Autumn Stone. As John Tataryn recalls, “My friend Craig and I would spend hours there absorbing musical knowledge from Andy. It was a real education. It’s because of Andy that I came to know and love Rory Gallagher, Robin Trower, and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis.” Adds Darren Duke, “Andy Mellen was the bottom line attraction for me. He picked the music and turned us all on to it. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Budgie, old Pink Floyd… I could list a hundred albums I bought from Autumn Stone.”

“I never tried to steer people toward music I didn’t believe in and they trusted us,” confirms Andy. “Plus we had a killer stereo system with these giant Tannoy speakers because not only did we want to listen to good music all day but we also wanted people who came in to hear it too. I’d put a Groundhogs album on and people would be asking, ‘Who is this?!'”

The shop’s ability to stock its shelves to suit its tastes was a further bonus. “We were too small for the individual record labels to bother with,” Andy explains. “Instead we got stock from local rack-jobber MCTR. I would go there with a list of what we wanted and bring it back that day.”

There are plenty of stories of hijinx and celebrity spottings. Members of Cheap Trick, Nazareth, even Lenny Breau dropped by as did Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators. “Burke Shelley from Budgie came in to do an interview with me and ended up bagging records for customers,” Andy recalls. The police would also drop by. “I got really good at spotting the narcs in their fake hippie clothes,” he chuckles.

“There was always a hint of pot smoke as staff and visitors often slipped out a side door to a hidden smoking spot between buildings,” says Mike Furnish. “Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick snuck out there with the boys while [guitarist] Rick Nielsen searched through the used records.”

Eric Green managed Harlequin from a second-floor office while the basement served as a leather shop where a lovely woman known only as Juicer, along with Frank McNichol and Stuart Munn, crafted beautiful leather products. I still have an ornate guitar strap made for me by them. A character known to all as Fly ran the head shop department. For a time Winnipeg rock guru Howard Mandshein worked the front counter of the record shop.

“I was a huge Howard fan from the CJUM afternoon shift,” recalls Kevin Ducheminsky, “and I used to hang out at Autumn Stone just to get an ‘H’ sighting.” Local punk-rock pioneer Mitch Funk also worked the counter as did Wendy Perry among others.

By the latter ’70s, the Stone’s allure was fading. “Times changed, we didn’t,” states Andy. Disco came in, the world was changing, and cassettes started outselling vinyl. The shop closed its doors in January 1980.

“If it could be said that a business had a personality, then Autumn Stone had a personality,” Andy surmises. “It was a friendly place with a funky atmosphere. We were guys who were honest and upfront about music and wanted to sell you good music. It wasn’t about the profits. It was a great time in my life and a great time in music. I miss those times dearly.”

 

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