Tower Records Stores - R.I.P.
 

That's right....the classic retail music store TOWER RECORDS is going down in flames - READ ALL ABOUT IT
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Yeah one closed here in St. Petersburg a few months ago.

music stores are going to be extinct soon

they were tlaking about it tonight on Tom Leykis Radio Show - all remaining 83 stores are going down.

what do you expect, who pays for music anymore?

Man, I used to love that place. I even worked as a shift manager there while going to college. I loved to put on the weirdest shit I could find (Captain Beefheart, Perry Como, etc) right before closing time.

All the stoners would be twitching and stuff, and some would even be asking what was playing - good times! :stoned

I embrace much of the new technology, but I can't help but feel a certain nostalgia seeing another part of my past disappear.

RIP Tower Records...

ADG Webmaster

Not to mention movies, softwars etc. as well.

i grew up with record stores all my life met a lotta cute females in there too!! oh well life goes on and memories get more memorable:thumbsup

I feel the nostalgia dying as well. We didn't have Tower in my area, but we did have "Cats". It went belly up a couple of years ago.

its a shame, but they were very overpriced. walmart & amazon kill their prices big time.

Next on the chopping block : HMV

that reminds me that i need the DVD of High Fidelity

http://www.follow-me-now.de/assets/i...Fidelity-1.jpg

i grew up in a record store family - my aunt and uncle owned a chain and i'd work there off and on as a teenager - i saw their's crumble too over the last 15 years, they were already dying before the Internet got popular because of the huge combination video/music stores like Towers and Virgin cut margins to next to nothing - i can still smell the original store - weed, incense and that smell that albums used to have. they did make a fortune during the heydays - i remember the first store cost 15,000 dollars back somewhere in the mid 70's that relatives loaned them.

well thats fucked up :(

true...true

First of all most people still do. Most people aren't theives.

Second, record stores downfall has had a lot more to do with Wal-Mart than the net. The net just help expedite it. Eventually the Wal-Marts of the world will stop selling music except for downloads. That why they are getting into that.

I grew up in the California desert, where good music was hard to come by. Starting at 14, I'd hitch a ride with my 16 year old friend to Hollywood every weekend to go music shopping. We'd always hit Aron's, Vinyl Fetish, a few others, and always Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard.

I went to the same high school as Frank Zappa, but had to drive 60 miles to find his catalog in a music store. I'd hear Bob Mould on a fuzzy connection on KLOS 95.5FM, but it took a trip to Tower to get cassettes. I still have a few autographed momentos from the in-store appearances and record release parties.

They were expensive, but it didn't matter. It was the thrill of the hunt. My friends and I would scour the rack for an hour trying to one-up each other with the gems, rarieties, bootlegs, and obscure side projects (this CD has a track that Tom Morello played guitar on when he was 7...).

Tower records was where I learned to be a music snob.

R.I.P.

They are overpriced for one.
And because of filesharing, napster, itunes etc...outdated.

I do :(

It's hard to make really good music. least I can do for those artists who gives me the kind of music I want to listen to is to support them.

Damn, I grew up going to Tower Records every weekend downtown on Broadway in NYC. The Tower Records in Tokyo is awesome. Or was,,,

I still have over 2,000 wax LPs, including bootlegs, limited editions, autographed copies (mostly from in-store signings at Tower) etc., so I can relate.

The night John Lennon was killed, I went to Tower Records with my wife, where a number of other Lennon fans had gathered, and we shared memories.

And I remember when we had an in-store contest amongst the staff to see who could type fastest to download Ticketmaster tickets. The shit hit the fan when someone from Ticketmaster noticed that practically the entire first row of a Springsteen concert was occupied by Tower Records employees and their friends. They broke that up, but it was sure fun while it lasted.

As a musician, I love many forms of music, although it saddens me a bit that currently musicianship is being marginalized in favor of looks, dancing skills and pre-recorded/DJ spinning, in much of the popular music.

I suspect that the musicians will revolt, and fans will continue to seek out and support musicians, singers and songwriters that actually play, sing and write songs.

Thanks for starting this thread...

Long live rock and roll!!!

ADG Webmaster

thats a shame one of my favorite stores

DVD's and CD's are 2 things i pay for, i'd rather have the whole thing, and the art on the cd, then some silver cd with ugly hand writting on it saying "the doors greatest hits, burned"

My friend went to work on Friday and was told that everyone has lost their jobs and they are not giving any severance packages. I feel so bad that's got to totally suck ass. So all I can say to Tower Records is :321GFY !!!!!!!

Nothing stays forever in this world... It's quite sad for us to hear that news though.

Didn't Aron's close last year? Amoeba is still kicking ass I think - great store if you havent been there - almost like the old school stores.

The Bay Area still has Amoeba and Rasputins (lots of indie stuff) - Tower was still open when I drove by this evening too.

ADG Webmaster

Rasputins :thumbsup spend almost 100 bucks every visit . great store

R.i.p . :(

I have to admit, I definitely drop a paycheck and a half at Ameoba everytime I go in (and stopped going to Tower a while ago). First one I saw was in the Bay Area, in SF. Had no idea something like that existed. I remember walking in the front door and telling my friends to cancel the rest of the day's schedule :1orglaugh

They do a pretty good job of featuring live shows from some decent artists in the KCRW vein. "Songwriters" to quote ADGWD. Their selection is unreal.

A good music store is the one thing missing from Thailand..... :disgust

tower records here in manila sucks. they only have a few selection of good music especially a few of vinyl records i would still pay for records though. its different than mp3s.. you know the smell if you really into it..

tower records had its chance

back in the 80s and early 90s they were pretty good, but that time is long gone

I pay $14.95/month for it:thumbsup

Tower Records on Decatur Street used to be the only place I could find most of the artists I was interested in. By the time I hit my "anti-music" period in the mid-90s they weren't as good with the obscure stuff I wanted but had a huge video and software selection on the 2nd floor so when I would go with friends (who were less demanding musically) they would have a blast going through music downstairs and I would have a blast finding treasures upstairs.

Couldn't tell you the last time I bought a CD. I order DVDs online all the time, stuff I'd never find locally. Until a few months ago my car radio stayed on an AM talk station and my music listening was occassional and at home online; launch.com, live365.com, shoutcast, the winamp stations, etc. I tried the Urge 2 week trial shortly after it launched and was so blown away I signed up for a year and bought an 8 gig Zen player so I can take tunes with me. I am enjoying music again with a selection that no brick and mortar store could ever match, not even Tower.

The big one in London became a Virgin Megastore a few years back.

Damn!
I was actually looking forward to get a job there. I used to hang-out at Tower Records for 2 hours at most just to listen to records at their headset counters

Damn kids and their mp3's crushing tower records :( lol

tower records was cool back in the day. Still love the underground mom and pop shops that are active in my area. Though there are not as many anymore.

It's a shame. The one store you could go to on Christmas. That signature building in Los Angeles. Used to be the only place to shop for records. Of course, that was before the Internet. Don't see how brick and morter speciaty stores can compete against the likes of Amazon online and Walmart on the ground.

seems like this has been in the news for a while

:(! I love buying records...