Ice Storm Hits Music Biz Hard Montreal Retailers Among Businesses Affected

There's no clear evaluation yet of the the losses resulting from the weather catastrophe in Montreal, but the ice storm, which resulted in the closure of the city's downtown Jan. 9, virtually shut down Quebec's music industry.
'It was horrific. I've never seen anything like (it) in the 50 years I've been alive here,' says Donald Tarleton, president of Donald K. Donald Productions. 'It was dangerous to drive and walk. Then trees, telephone poles, and (hydroelectric) pylons started to tumble, blowing out electricity. We lost power, phones, and computers for most of the week.'
'I've never seen a week like that,' agrees Rosaire Archambault, president of Archambault Music Group, which operates the eight-store Archambault retail chain in the province. 'The government closed downtown because of the ice on the buildings falling off.'
The three main bridges into Montreal were closed, Archambault adds, noting, 'The army was here.'
Rob Braide, VP/GM of talk radio CJAD and top 40 CJFM Montreal, recalls the desolation of walking along Montreal's main thoroughfare, Ste.-Catherine Street, Jan. 9 in sleet and freezing rain. 'It was like something you'd imagine out of a nuclear holocaust,' he says. 'The entire city was black. There wasn't a light to be seen.'
Bill Rotari, Quebec regional director for Sony Music Entertainment (Canada), says, 'It was like a war zone in some places. You still can't park anywhere downtown because of ice banks and ice falling off of the buildings.'
According to SoundScan Canada figures for the week ending Jan. 11, recorded-music sales in Quebec plummeted 31% and are down 20.8% in Ontario from the same period in 1997.
Even when power is fully restored throughout the Montreal region by the end of the January, consumers won't be concerned with purchasing music, industry figures believe.
'It's going to take months before people have the disposable income to be able to go back into the (music retail) stores,' says Ken Dion, Quebec branch manager of Warner Music Canada. 'Any disposable income people had was spent on (buying) water, candles, batteries, generators, and camping equipment to get through the crisis. Then there's food they've had to throw away.'
'It's going to affect 15% of our (overall) business this month,' predicts Stan Kulin, president of Warner Music Canada. 'There will likely be a 10% (drop) through February (as) people in Montreal won't be thinking of buying music when they get back into their houses. Ottawa was shut down for four days, and that's a good retail market. Then there's (Ontario cities) Kingston, Cornwall, and Brockville, which were also affected.'
In some areas, however, it was business as usual. 'There has been some business taking place in Quebec because Quebec City, Chicoutimi, and Sherbrooke weren't as affected,' notes Kulin.
Adds Val D'Amico, eastern regional manager of EMI Music Canada, 'We kept shipping to our customers. Quebec City, Laval, the north shore of Montreal, (and most of Ottawa)--it was business as usual. The hardest hit was downtown Montreal and the south shore, which is still out (of power). As you get into (the south shore towns of) Granby, Brossard, Longueuil, St. Lambert, and Ch‰teauguay, there's a lot of mom-and-pop stores and a couple of Music Worlds and mass merchants which are still closed.'
Most downtown Montreal businesses, including the flagship stores of Sam the Record Man, HMV, Music World, and Archambault along Ste.-Catherine Street, closed early Jan. 9, when power was shut down in the city's core. Even with many of these outlets reopened by Jan. 15, Hydro-Quebec asked businesses to stay open only from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The city lifted this restriction Jan. 20.
'Our downtown (Ste.-Catherine) store tried to open (Jan. 9), but it was impossible,' says Jason Sniderman, VP of Roblan Distributors, which operates the 72-store Sam the Record Man national chain. 'Nobody's been buying records (in Montreal) anyway. They were buying wood and coal (to keep warm).'
'It's been unbelievable,' says Lesya McQueen, VP of operations and systems at HMV Canada, which operates 11 stores in the Montreal region. 'Our Ste.-Catherine's megastore was, of course, the worst hit. Our Ste.-Bruno-de-Montarville store on the south shore was closed for five days. (The storm has) been tough for our employees. They didn't know if they were coming to work or not, and they have their own personal issues to deal with.'
Several industry figures noted that where retail outlets were open, business was the norm. 'Our (five) stores that stayed open (in Montreal) did better than my expectations,' says McQueen. 'The fact that anybody (in that period) was in the stores was surprising.'
Despite closures of varying time lengths at 15 of 22 Music World retail outlets in the Montreal region, sales were higher than expected, according to Robert Smith, executive VP of Pindoff Record Sales. 'We're only off by 10%.'
When Archambault's flagship store on Ste.-Catherine Street reopened Jan. 13, its pop buyer, Marc Melanson, was surprised by the early brisk business. 'I guess some people want to get back to normal,' he says. 'There's been browsing and a certain hustle-bustle.'
Bill MacEwen, co-GM of Sam the Record Man on Ste.-Catherine, reports that business has returned to normal. 'January and February are down months anyway for the business. People are coming back into the store. They want to get re-established with a normal pattern.'
Also coping in the storm period were branch offices of multinationals based in Montreal, indie labels, and music distributors. Many closed because of power cuts, had problems with staff getting to work, or operated unaffected by the storm.
'We lost a full 10 business days of momentum,' says Ian Walker, president of FAB Distribution, located in St. Lambert on the south shore. 'We're now going flat-out for the next week (to catch up).'
'We didn't ship for a couple of days, but the business stayed open,' says Jim West, president of Fusion Distribution in Montreal. 'A lot of my staff missed days, but the office never lost electricity, and our telephone lines weren't down. We didn't have a major problem (with shipments). Trucks would come and take them. Except for two days or so, we were fine.'
On Jan. 9, talk radio CJAD and government-operated Radio Canada were briefly knocked off the air by the storm. CJAD's six 675-foot towers on the south shore buckled with the weight of the ice.
Shows by the Backstreet Boys (Jan. 5-6) and Megadeth (Jan. 14) went on as planned, but there were many concert and club cancellations in Montreal, including Johnny Lang (Jan. 8), the Devlins (Jan. 9), Our Lady Peace (Jan. 12), Helmut Lotti (Jan. 10 and 12), the Rolling Stones (Jan. 11), and Oasis (Jan. 14).
'I've had more cancellations so far this year than shows played,' quips Montreal promoter Rubin Fogel of Fogel-Sabourin Productions, who, with Belgian singer Lotti, saw a falling hydroelectric pylon Jan. 6 while driving to Quebec City. 'I saw the wires falling and the first pylon to the right of the road crumbling, almost in slow motion like in a movie,' he says. 'We stopped less than a 100 feet from the wires, which were flailing from ground level to 35 or 40 feet up in the air.'
When ice tore its roof, Olympic Stadium officials canceled the Stones' show. 'It would have been a public danger to have an event like the Rolling Stones when huge chunks of ice were falling from the buildings downtown, crushing cars,' says Lucinda Chodan, entertainment editor of The Montreal Gazette.
Tarleton says the Megadeth show at Montreal club the Metropolis, which was approved by police, was a respite from recent events. 'People let loose from 10 days of cabin fever,' he says. 'We collected 10 gigantic boxes of goods, which we distributed to the shelters, and raised (about $2,000 for storm-shelter relief).'
Quebec acts Beau Dommage, Mitsou, Kevin Paren, Renƒ Simard, and Luc De Larocheilliƒre and Wide Mouth Mason from Saskatchewan also held fund-raisers.

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