Long & McQuade was my music-store mecca, the site of many trips into the big city when I was a teenager. Back in the day, my friend Dave Doyle and I would don our suburban Don Mills Collegiate uniform — jean jacket, Greb work boots and t-shirt, with combed long hair parted in the middle — and meet up on a Saturday morning to catch the Lawrence or Leslie bus to Eglinton station. Then we’d take the subway downtown to Long & McQuade on Bloor Street near Brunswick Ave.

We’d arrive at the main entrance and peer at the guitars in the window. Inevitably, there was a kid playing the chords to Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” in the guitar section. We ran the gauntlet of guitars towards the entrance to the drum shop downstairs.

For musicians of all stripes looking for PA gear, guitars, keyboards, drums, saxophones, brass instruments, sheet music and more, the Toronto music shop is a top destination, then and now.

Today: Forty-plus years later, on a humid August 2020 afternoon, the parking lot at its flagship Bloor Street store — now near Ossington — was packed.

I found a spot for my minivan on a side street nearby and walked down. I forgot my mask so had to run back and get it.

I was in the hunt for a drum throne that would complete the vintage Rogers kit I had purchased on a whim off mini-van dude via FB marketplace. Sitting on my daughter’s bed while playing drums was not good for my street cred.  I needed that throne.

I masked up and nodded to the doorman, an older guy with a muscular build and a black cloth mask accessorizing his dress pants and shoes. When I say “older guy,” I mean that he was my age, late 50s. He asked where I was headed. When I told him “drums,” he pulled out a walkie-talkie to see if the coast was clear.

“We don’t have capacity right now,” the drum staffer answered. “Ask him to wait at the top of the stairs.” The doorman pointed to a bottle of hand sanitizer. It was dispensed — appropriately for a music locale — by pressing the pedal of a Mapex hi-hat stand.

I waited at the entrance until a young woman came up the stairs and left. The doorman nodded and I descended the steps.

Then: Dave and I both had drum kits in high school. Dave had a set of Ludwigs that had once appeared on the cover of a Canadian record album. He bought the kit from the son of one of his paper route customers. It had seen action in the Toronto rock band “Everyday People.” In an act of patriotism, the band’s drummer had painted Canadian flags, with their red maple leaves, on the drum shells. The drums looked a bit hokey but sounded great.

Dave would play drums and sing along to Steve Miller’s album in his parent’s basement: “I’m a joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker, I sure don’t want to hurt no-one…”   We would trade up playing on his kit, and his sweet Mom would always have a nice word for us afterwards despite the racket.

At home, I practiced on my beat-up but trusty Sonor kit with wobbly snare and a cracked Zildjian cymbal serving initially as both my ride and crash.

We were drum keeners. Our pilgrimage to Long & McQuade was a chance to check out new technology, upgrade our kits, talk shop with the staff, and come back with a new pair of drumsticks in our back pockets — whether we needed them or not.

We’d wander about checking out the kits and drooling over U.S.-made classics such as Ludwig, Rogers and Slingerland. We got bug-eyed over percussion instruments ranging from congas to xylophones. There was a separate, sound-insulated cymbal room where you could kick the tires on gorgeous Turkish cymbals to your heart’s content.

The shop manager would greet us from behind the counter. He was an old-style drummer with both military and jazz credentials, Lou Williamson, a friendly guy with grey-black hair combed across and back. Besides Lou, there was also a tall, gangly hippy-type staffer. He was the guy who set up the weekly payment plan for the Ludwig drum kit that I bought around the end of high school. I felt so grown up until he asked to call my Mom to guarantee the loan.

Now: Two young eager gents — also smartly dressed like the doorman — helmed the drum desk behind plexiglass, peering at their late-middle-aged masked customer, me. They were part of a company started humbly in the 1950s by a trumpet player (Long) and a drummer (McQuade) that had become Canada’s largest musical instrument retailer, with 80-plus stores.

One of the drum-desk gents pointed to a second hi-hat sanitizer dispenser and I obliged.

I told him I was looking for a comfortable mid-priced drum throne. He checked the computer then showed me a floor model with a generous seat and swivel height adjustment. It seemed solid. Like most drum accessories these days, it was made in Taiwan and marketed with an Anglo name: Gibraltar. Sold!

I was distracted by the wall of drumsticks and grabbed a pair of wooden-tips models made in Canada.  Hopefully they would take the edge off the “ping” effect of my Zildjian ride cymbal.  My friend Ward had recommended a classic snare drum method book, “Stick Control.” I knew I had mine somewhere in a box from my drum studies in the 1970s, but I decide to pick up a fresh copy.

I was mesmerized by a modern Sonor kit made in a vintage style with turquoise wraps.  It was a shiny new version of the beat-up, green-sparkle Sonor kit I bought at Long & McQuade in the 1970s. Back then I paid $175. Today’s retro version will set you back $4,000.

Then: With our new drum sticks in our back pockets and renewed inspiration from our musical pilgrimage, Dave and I would head next door to grab a greasy burger, fries and coke and gab at the lunch counter.

Then back on the subway, and the Lawrence or Leslie bus back home to suburban Don Mills. Mission accomplished. Back to school on Monday.

Now: After battling traffic in my minivan, I got home, set up my new-fangled drummer’s throne, and added it to my kit. I was sitting up higher and straighter now. Stronger. I played around a bit on the kit from my new vantage point. Was it a throne fit for a king?

But the journey had tired me out. I was no longer the skinny kid in the jean jacket who dreamed of drums and had energy to burn. My drummer’s throne could wait. I needed a nap.