There’s a local record store coming to Bathurst. On March 29th, Black Pug Records will open its doors at 125 Main Street, Unit 3, (TD Building entrance on Cunard St.)

Owner of Black Pug Records, Pierre Doucet, was inspired to open this store after looking for vinyl locally and realizing just how difficult it was.

“I wanted to buy my niece a Taylor Swift album and realized that if I didn’t want to buy from Amazon, I’d have to go down to Moncton, and that’s not right,” says Pierre. “Bathurst is a smaller city, but it isn’t that small.”

The process of stockpiling a sizable record collection came relatively easily, and although the location wasn’t quite as effortless, there weren’t any major headaches.

The shop carries between 15,000 and 20,000 records of all genres. They’ll also have CDs, cassettes, some 8-tracks, DVDs, Blu-ray, and VHS tapes. At the far end of the shop, Black Pug will also be hosting live music nights, trivia nights, and other assortments of community activities, which people of all ages will enjoy.

Something that Pierre has noticed during the process of opening this shop is an interest from the younger generations who are collecting vinyl. Which he says is great to see. 

“The Swifties are huge Taylor Swift fans,” says Pierre. “They don’t just want to listen to the single or stream songs; they want to sit down with the vinyl and read the lyrics,” because, as he says, it’s an experience that streaming services simply do not provide.

While he understands that, in recent years, vinyl has become more expensive, he promises that all of his pricing will be fair.

“I’m not Amazon; I’m just a small business owner, but I promise my pricing will be close to the prices offered on Amazon.”

Black Pug Records will also be one of the few Maritime participants in Record Store Day, where Pierre Doucet says you can expect as many of the Record Store Day releases as he can get. There will be no preorders, but he will take recommendations, and it’s first come, first served once the records hit the shelves.

Record Store Day is an extremely important day for record collectors, as it highlights the importance of independent record stores by offering exclusive releases not available anywhere else. You can learn more about Record Store Day here.

We’re less than two weeks away from the grand opening of Black Pug Records. Opening day will feature live music from Mitch Rayner and Fireship, as well as some prizes to be won.

To keep up with all of the exciting updates, you can follow Black Pug Records here.

We want to thank Pierre Doucet for being a guest on The Northern Heat Report and taking a chance to open up a shop that many people in the area have wanted for quite some time.

That’s another edition of The Northern Heat Report—the place you come to listen to the stories that have not yet been discovered.