L'Oblique

Luc Berard loved music from the very beginning. “When I was in secondary school, I was the guy who knew music before the others did,” he says. Even in the pre-Internet days, Luc had a nose for sniffing out new music and sharing it with others. So it seemed fitting that in 1987, he opened L'Oblique to share his love of music with the world.

For over 25 years at the store, Luc has watched Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood evolve. In 1987, it was a mostly francophone neighbourhood on the periphery of the city's cultural circuit. Now the Plateau is a diverse hub of students, artists and musicians at the centre of Montreal's fledgling independent music scene. “There's a lot of creativity in Montreal. It's very fun to watch that scene develop.”