Tower Records

[Jimprindle]

Today I was searching out an item that we need at our house, doesn’t matter what it is. But I realized that all the places I went to used to have a Tower Record store. I went to three or four places that used to have a Tower Records in my area. I can’t even imagine what that would be nationwide.

When I was in the Sixth Army band in San Francisco at the Presidio (1970s) we used to always go down to the Tower Record store in Fishermans Wharf and paw through the bins looking at records. Because I was the librarian for the band I bought like 100- 200 records at that place.

Later when I moved to San Diego, a trombone player friend of mine worked at the local Tower Records. As an employee he could take records home with him to preview. He lent them to me and quite illegally I put them on cassettes. Later someone broke into my car and stole all those cassettes of the complete Bruckner symphonies, Mahler symphonies all of Christian Lindbergh and multiple brass recordings. I have no idea what that looked like at the swap meet the thief took them to.

But to go back to the topic I started, how many of us miss going to Tower Records filing through the very carefully categorized bins. It was easy to find trombone recordings. Now I have to do that online and not with any physical interaction or looking at and touching the various recordings that were made. Just saying I miss that

[harrisonreed]

Japan has what you need. Record/CD stores everywhere. And somehow...a market for it... New CDs are like $50, and sometimes closer to $100 of it comes with the live concert DVD. Even better are BookOff and music stores. BookOff has just about every CD ever made for $4, used. Music stores have a decent record selection used. I'm sure in Tokyo there is a mega store that physically carries every recording ever made, but I haven't found it yet.

I always get a kick out of the video/book/CD rental stores, not only because they exist and are busy, but they proudly display every type of blank media for sale at the register next to a sign that tells you not to copy your rental material.

Doing a dive through the JPop in BookOff is always worthwhile. Some really great groups!

Radwimps:



Bump of Chicken:



Yuki:



Def Tech:

[Posaunus]

I miss my local Tower Records, long gone. Charlie manned the rather extensive classical department, and - since he listened to most of what came in - could give me his critique of just about everything I was interested in.

[robcat2075]

We had a Tower here in Dallas but it was not of the scope of the famous Tower stores like you might find in L.A.

I did get to the gi-normous Virgin Records store in Times Square n NYC in the 90s. After a lifetime of only knowing the small music stores in malls it was astonishing to see not just one huge floor of product but three!

And you could get Virgin Cola in the vending machines.

[Kbiggs]

My family bought a lot of records at a couple of Tower Records in the Bay Area. One of my first jazz records was Frank Rosolino’s Italian recording “Jazz à confronto” where he recorded his pieces Waltz for Roma and Skylab.

Once my wife and I moved to Portland, we found Music Millennium and the next-door store Classical Millennium. I bought A LOT of CDs there. I miss brick-and-mortar browsing.