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Tower Records is CLOSING


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Didn't Axl Rose use to work at one of the Tower Records in LA?

 

yes he did.

tower was a good place. it was the only chain with tatooed and pierced kids. catalog was important to them to maintain. mall stores concentrated on new releases and not every city had the gift of a good independent store.

 

i'm most sad about tower sunset. i worked for the la region and planned many instores at tower sunset. that store opened in 1970 and was the most rock n' roll store in the world. i met clapton, jeff beck, rod stewart, steve earle, joe strummer, etc etc etc. that store was the cornerstone of the sunset strip.

supposedly the plan for that lot is condos. :no

 

very very sad. end of an era.

 

~ jenna

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I feel like it's the end of an era. When I was in high school and college I could spend hours there. It was the greatest place. My friends and I have some great shoplifting stories from when we were young and stupid. But the people that used to work there actually seemed to really love music and for the most part seemed to enjoy working there, making it a pleasent enviornment to shop in.

 

In the last couple of years though, it just seemed like a toy store with music only being a small part of their business.

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there is like one good indie store here out in the burbs, but it's a small joint that'll usually have to order stuff...not good for instant gratification.

That's my problem, too. I get a lot of rolled eyes at our local record shop when I ask about stuff (apparently My Morning Jacket is too obscure for a record store owner to even know about), and the nearest Best Buy is 25 minutes away. As a result, the vast majority of my CDs are purchased online, usually from Amazon or Amazon Marketplace.

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Aren't cds obsolete?

Not for those of us who still like having that plastic artifact with cover art, etc. At least, they aren't obsolete quite yet.

 

Having said that, I do download a lot of music via eMusic, and occasionally iTunes. But for the albums that mean the most to me, I still prefer to have the actual CD in my collection.

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Having said that, I do download a lot of music via eMusic, and occasionally iTunes. But for the albums that mean the most to me, I still prefer to have the actual CD in my collection.

 

I just signed up for eMusic, mainly for economic reasons. I love American and Canadian indie, but I simply can't afford to pay the import prices for Broken Social Scene's first album at one of the few remaining indie record stores around here-

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I must admit I tend to value the music more if i have the tangible artefact along with it. It's easy for an album to become lost on a hard drive, but if it's sitting in front of you on a shelf, you're more likely to give it a chance.

I know what you mean--it may not be fair, but having the actual artifact somehow carries some kind of extra weight in my psyche.

 

I am a fan of eMusic, though, and often purchase those booster packs. And hey, my downloads just reset today! :music

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yes he did.

tower was a good place. it was the only chain with tatooed and pierced kids. catalog was important to them to maintain. mall stores concentrated on new releases and not every city had the gift of a good independent store.

 

i'm most sad about tower sunset. i worked for the la region and planned many instores at tower sunset. that store opened in 1970 and was the most rock n' roll store in the world. i met clapton, jeff beck, rod stewart, steve earle, joe strummer, etc etc etc. that store was the cornerstone of the sunset strip.

supposedly the plan for that lot is condos. :no

 

very very sad. end of an era.

 

~ jenna

 

Wow, I didn't realize they'd closed that one. I grew up in LA, and as a kid every so often my uncle would take me to the Tower Records on Sunset (followed by chili dogs at Carney's), and that was always such a treat. Found 12" remixes on vinyl that I would never see in the mall Wherehouses. I remember seeing Social D do an instore there when I was in high school. Always held that place in high regard, before Tower became too chain-y. Sad to see it go, even though I haven't been there in a gazillion years.

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I will miss Tower :upset

 

i am kinda saddened by this news too. i spent many many hours at the tower in chicago during my college years. nice place to listen to music. i did see smashing pumpkins play acoustic there, sometime before siamese dream was released.

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The one-floor Tower in San Diego was pretty cool.

The Virgin here in Boston is closing before Tower in Cambridge is. I finally went yesterday and got Too Close For Comfort Season One for my sister's birthday. But I wanna open it. 50% off $39.99. Good times. Picked up 21 Jump Street Season Two for B. I bought myself the Prince Sign O The Times 33 1/3 book. The only others left were Harvest, that Joy Division album, one I almost bought: Doolittle, one of the Paul's Boutiques which I may go back an pick up as a gift. The music there was all Ahh, I'd sure like this, but it's still only 50% off of the usual $18.99. Closest I got to a music purchase was The Sone Roses first album, which woulda been half of $12.99. I pictured myself in a used shop looking at that with a $5.99 sticker - I'd put it back. Hopefully Tower will go 50% while they still have a good selection.

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There's a good story in the SF Chronicle today about the history of the chain, and specifically the store here, at Columbus and Bay on the edge of North Beach. When I was in junior high and high school, a trip in to the city to Tower Records was a big deal, a full-day adventure. And the open-til-midnight-every-day policy was fabulous; I remember more than once seeing stories on the 11:00pm news on christmas eve with live shots of people buying last-minute gifts at Tower. :lol

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It's right there and it's a cool place. Although you could easily drink your way up and down Columbus for a year and never hit every cool spot.

 

Irish place? I think I may have gone in there to have beer before meeting some folks for dinner. This was the same trip where we went to some club, ended up being the only non-asian patrons in the joint and then somebody ended up getting stabbed on the dance floor while we were up at the bar getting drinks. I also remember being pissed I couldn't smoke, but there were dudes doing lines right off the sink in the bathroom. Good times, I actually love SF a bunch...great city.

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