Remember Tower Records?

[pderousse]

Does anyone remember Tower Records?

A recent post about how we can get the younger generation into hifi gear got me got me to thinking about this wonderful-bygone institution. My local Tower Records was in Mountain View, CA growing up in the 1970s-90s and it was an institution. I remember riding my bike there at age 8 in in 1979 to buy my first record: Gary Numan’s Pleasure Principle. The whole experience was formative. I had to pass by Pacific Stereo, where my elder brothers frequented to get their integrated amps and speakers, and where I later bought my gear. Tower had some speakers, some phono cartridges and yea the biggest recorded audio selection you shake stick at (south of the San Francisco mother-ship), but this was their real attraction: they had the culture. If you did not have a date on Friday, you hung out at Tower. If you had a date, you met up at Tower. If you wanted pot or needed a place to get away from your folks: Tower. You bought concert tickets there, you browsed the racks, listened, flirted and just took it all in. The Dead caravans rallied there evey summer before going out to Shoreline Ampitheater. They offered tremendous freedom and creative opportunity to the people who worked their stores (most were in bands themselves) and consequentially the coolest kids drew in and kept the customers coming back, as everyone listened, watched and just grooved on life. Moreover, if you traveled to another town, you went to that Tower. I literally spent months of my life and a small fortune there until the Napster catastrophe in the early 2000s. I truly miss this social dimension to recorded music, and nothing, not even the small mom-and-pops I frequent here in Chicago have quite taken its place. I’ve never seen a kind of business quite like it.

 

[rank]

Thanks for your message, I bought a lot from Tower when I lived in Boston with my girlfriend at the time. It was a good store, well stocked and inexpensive, very friendly staff.

 

[ahofer]

I do indeed. As well as their McRecords counterpart, Disc-o-mat.

 

[escape2]

I used to shop at their Broadway/NYC location quite a bit during mid 90s. Loved going to that place just to hang out and listen to some music. Didn't buy a whole lot as I was on a poor college student budget at the time.

 

[pderousse]

I used to shop at their Broadway/NYC location quite a bit during mid 90s. Loved going to that place just to hang out and listen to some music. Didn't buy a whole lot as I was on a poor college student budget at the time.

I think what made them smart was that even if you were not going to buy something, they still let you hang out (I’m sure there was a lot of shoplifting), but all the cost of doing business, it seems.

 

[FrantzM]

I used to shop at their Broadway/NYC location quite a bit during mid 90s. Loved going to that place just to hang out and listen to some music. Didn't buy a whole lot as I was on a poor college student budget at the time.

Same here, but in the mid 80's to early 90's ... I would religiously go buy my issues of The Absolute Sound there ...
I believe that Stereo Exchange and a few other High End Audio Stores were in the neighborhood.
Sweet memories...

Peace.

 

[Multicore]

Thanks for your message, I bought a lot from Tower when I lived in Boston with my girlfriend at the time. It was a good store, well stocked and inexpensive, very friendly staff.

Me too. The classical music section was large and isolated from the noise of the rest of the shop. Close to NEC, Symphony Hall and Berklee. I remember one time counting all the different CDs of Quartet for the End of Time and it was far too many, around 10 iirc, and not knowing which to buy.

Its book shop was good too. Lots of curious periodicals. That's where I would buy The Baffler, back when it was a Thomas Frank thing.

 

[Multicore]

Have you watched the movie? The trailer is quite good fun but the first 10 minutes of the movie is talking heads reminiscing and slow zooms on old photos. Nobody said what you wouldn't expect so I gave up.

 

[DSJR]

I had a now sadly deceased pal who all but lived in Tower Records' (central London branch) Jazz department practically every Saturday morning. He could afford to buy several CDs at a time and did so pretty much. Not sure if they all got played, or whether it was the collecting and taking his home over. You could get most recorded music genres there, where competitors HMV and Virgin, used to have admittedly good stocks of a very much more limited range of titles.

Them were the days...

Said pal's widow, sold the huge 'museum' of now nearly vintage audio gear, stashes of other things he'd collected and, I suspect, his disc collection as well, including a cylinder player and a box of cylinders... The living room was unrecognisable from the time when he was alive, according to pics she sent me (we're hundreds of miles apart now).

 

[BlackTalon]

When they opened a Tower in my area (mid '80s) it put most of the record shops that had been around for ages out of business, including the two businesses where I bought most of my records and CDs. After a while they were the only place left until a big bookstore that also sold music came to town (might have been Borders, I don't remember for sure).

 

[mhardy6647]

Yes, fondly -- first in the Bay Area when we lived there (89-91) and subsequently in the Boston Metro area. There was one near the Burlington Mall when I was working in nearby Bedford, MA (95-96), as well as an HMV. I spent more than occasional lunch hours at one or both.
PS It was a terrible job, inarguably my biggest professional mistake.

 

[ahofer]

Same here, but in the mid 80's to early 90's ... I would religiously go buy my issues of The Absolute Sound there ...
I believe that Stereo Exchange and a few other High End Audio Stores were in the neighborhood.
Sweet memories...

Peace.

Yup

 

[Timcognito]

Used it in San Francisco in High School late '60s early '70s, in Berkeley while at Cal, later in Sacramento living 5 blocks away at my first job after college '78-79 and Berkeley, SF and Mt. View again in the '80s. When it went down as well Record Warehouse a clearance center (hole in the wall) popped up in Redwood City? and I probably bought 40+ CDs and collections at 30% of list price..

 

[mhardy6647]

I remember a chain in the Bay Area (perhaps country-wide, or just "out West"?) called Wherehouse when we were living there in the late '80s, too (FWIW).

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I lived in the East Bay. I had been buying most of my records in Berkeley for about 15 years when they opened their Berkeley store. I was more worried that they'd put Leopold's, the indy store I'd been going to for years, out of business. Eventually it happened. I gradually accepted Tower as the largest available source. Because my interests didn't include much in the way of popular music Tower was the closest place to me that had a decent inventory of the stuff I liked. In 2000 we moved to a town on the other side of a range of hills from the bay front towns. There was a Tower there and it was the only choice. Every now and then I'd make the half hour drive to Rasputin's, a small indy chain that carried a lot of the stuff I liked and had a big used department. l was sad to see Tower go. It was like losing Sears for tools. They were a big chain but they were willing to cater to people with interests out of the mainstream.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I remember a chain in the Bay Area (perhaps country-wide, or just "out West"?) called Wherehouse when we were living there in the late '80s, too (FWIW).

They had smaller stores than Tower. They also sold used records and CDs. I bought a few things there.

 

[nerdstrike]

I had a fab time in Tower Records when I was in London. They helped me find recordings of really awkward clarinet repertoire.

 

[pderousse]

Have you watched the movie? The trailer is quite good fun but the first 10 minutes of the movie is talking heads reminiscing and slow zooms on old photos. Nobody said what you wouldn't expect so I gave up.

The early story is pretty slow. The ‘wild stuff’ comes later..

 

[pderousse]

They had smaller stores than Tower. They also sold used records and CDs. I bought a few things there.

That’s right! Wherehouse was around then too, but at least my local Tower had the culture. Interestingly, it was corporate and uncool in Chicago around that time because WaxTrax had the culture.

 

[pderousse]

Used it in San Francisco in High School late '60s early '70s, in Berkeley while at Cal, later in Sacramento living 5 blocks away at my first job after college '78-79 and Berkeley, SF and Mt. View again in the '80s. When it went down as well Record Warehouse a clearance center (hole in the wall) popped up in Redwood City? and I probably bought 40+ CDs and collections at 30% of list price..

Sf. was definitely the mothership. Berkeley was Amoeba land, still is.