Worked at Tower Berkeley 1984-1986. Also worked at Wherehouse, 1974-1977. The Tower gig started out by placing me in charge of the Classical cassette department - yes, that used to be a thing. Melvin Jahn, who ran the Classical department, wasn't at all happy with having a hippy in Guatemalan threads in his territory, so when he moved the classical store down a few blocks on Telegraph, I wound up in charge of the accessories department at the Durant store. Lots of blank cassettes were sold in that department in the mid-eighties. The claim that Tower was some kind of scene unto itself didn't really apply at the Berkeley store as the scene was all around us. Back in 1984, there was quite the scene in Berkeley, but Tower just happened to be there, that's all. The real scene was on Telegraph, near People's Park. However, The Berkeley store was a big store by the standards of Tower stores, with the department devoted to sign making for all the Northern California stores upstairs. Those who shopped at Tower back then might recall the huge displays that were scaled-up copies of the advertising materials seen in magazines and, back then, even on billboards. Tower didn't put Leopold's out of business, but Leopold's was the place to go if you wanted 12' singles. Definitely the place to go for R & B in the 1980s. When Amoeba opened up and Rasputin's expanded, Leopold's went down. The introduction of CDs might have had a bit to do with that as well. But sales of vinyl peaked in 1977 anyway and were going down fast by 1988. In 1988 got a job at The Musical Offering on Bancroft, a Classical Music specialty store that was doing rather well with CDs of "Early Music".
The Wherehouse appeared to have connections to organized crime. I say this because they had an inordinately large selection of cutouts, records being discounted to half-price, usually because they were reissued at a lower price anyway. Some were still in print, like stacks of "Let It Be" with a visible moire pattern on the cover, some were never printed in large quantities in the first place, like the Vee-Jay Beatles album - obvious bootlegs - a lot were generic imports that must have fallen off a truck. Read "Hit Men" by Fredrich Dannen for more details. The Wherehouse was a pretty large chain during its heyday but flamed out for reasons unknown. I remember a customer demanding a discount because they claimed to be personal friends with Leon (Lee) Hartstone, CEO of The Wherehouse. It took us twenty minutes to reach him. Mr. Hartstone said that he had no personal friends.
