It's where I asked the guy in front of me in line if he'd heard that new Lou Reed that he was buying, and he told me no, but he'd taught him some magic tricks for the video. Teller told me that. Cool day.
I used to love heading to the SF Tower after doing four hours of work on a Saturday morning and just hanging, until I'd spent all the money that I'd earned that day.
It's where I asked the guy in front of me in line if he'd heard that new Lou Reed that he was buying, and he told me no, but he'd taught him some magic tricks for the video. Teller told me that. Cool day.
Cool post, Kurt. There are a few Tower theaters in California, I wonder if they were a chain back then.
I do remember getting a few Personics tapes at the Tower in Berkeley. That company failed but sort of foreshadowed the end of the Album as the primary avenue for music sales.
Cool post, Kurt. There are a few Tower theaters in California, I wonder if they were a chain back then.
I do remember getting a few Personics tapes at the Tower in Berkeley. That company failed but sort of foreshadowed the end of the Album as the primary avenue for music sales.
RIP Russ Solomon founder of Tower Records. Just saw a great documentary on Tower a couple of months ago.
Yep. Another trip down memory lane. The Tower Theatre in Sacramento was where it was born. I don't know if the iconic theatre is still there, but you couldn't miss it after you crossed the drawbridge on US 50 coming into town from the Bay Area. It was on the right as you drove by and next to it was the baseball field for the Sacramento Solons minor league BB team. It was always the first major landmark that told us we were close to my grandparent's house on visits in the 50's and 60's. It was just one of those things. I always linked the theatre to Tower Records but never gave it any thought cuz it was just part of my basic knowledge knowing that is where the record store started and got its name. My grandparent's house was right next to McClatchy Highschool, literally and it is where I flied my kites for hours when I was visiting. My Mom went to McClatchy, too. They were probably classmates as she turns 91 in a couple of days.
A nice article that came with the picture I went looking for to relink these old memories and make sure that my memory was somewhat solid on all of this. They really took off after we moved east so I was never really a customer, but there was a store in Costa Mesa before we moved and we went to and it had the listening booths an all of that. I still have my first LP I ever really bought and it was from there. Iron Butterfly ~ Heavy.
I'll look that up. When I lived out in California, Tower was never the cool place. They usually had what you wanted, but you had to wade thru all the crap. Better than the shopping mall places but the independents were great. The Tower on Columbus in San Francisco was good tho, and the one on Sunset in Hollywood was cool because Hollywood. But so anyway I got a bad taste from Tower going into places and smothering independent sellers like a vinyl Walmart. Time may have softened my opinion some, tho, so I'll check out the doc and see what he was all about.
Well worth the watch even if you didn't frequent the store; I actually never did. Can't remember if the franchise ever made it around my way or not. The documentary is just fantastic, but I love all documentaries though especially music ones. lol
Buying music put a time stamp on a lot of my memories.
Yep. My Tower Record story might not be as good as OV but I scored a CD of
at the London Piccadilly Circus Tower Records. Now this of course was in the days between being able to google obscure music and finding it in the cut-out bins. And the cut out bin is where my best friend had scored a copy, which he lorded over me. He had an uncanny ability for sniffing out obscure British music - pretty much the only music he listened to. I mean he had one of only about 40 copies of Giles, Giles and Fripp sold in the country.
Some of it isn't too bad. It was so cool when CDs came out and record companies said, "These are so effin cheap to make, we might as well press some of everything and see what happens."
Hear! Hear!
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