Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Tower Records R.I.P.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Gary McGath — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 10:03:08 -0000

There's a Tower Records just a couple of blocks from where I work. I have no recollection of what I bought there, but much of my classical collection comes from the Tower stores in Boston (already gone), Cambridge, and Burlington. This means that the major remaining alternative for buying classical records in a physical store is Borders, which I won't patronize (because of its business practices, not its bigness).

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Jim Harper — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:27:51 -0000

This whole post was a trap I laid for Adam - to get him to confess his pathetic taste in music. And formats!

Naw, just kidding. KISS was my first concert. At the Cow Palace in S.F. Ace played so hard that his guitar caught on fire! It was totally awesome!

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Doug Lay — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:18:24 -0000

"Racer-X" EP by Big Black. bought it at the Tower on Boradway in NYC, on my way home from school, Xmas break 1985.

Don't remember when my LAST Tower purchase was - probably late '02 or ealy '03 at the store in Foggy Bottom, DC. I stopped buying new CDs out of disgust with the record industry when they sued the kids at Princeton and RPI for running DirectConnect. I've since resumed my habit a bit, but almost exclusively online.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Patrick — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 15:49:41 -0000

Having read Adam's entry I'm less embarrassed by my first Tower purchase -- I believe it was a single of Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." I did own "Pieces of Eight," and I did own it on 8-track, although my "Paradise Theater" was on LP. Tower was great for import albums, I bought a couple of U2 albums from Ireland there in the mid '80s.

My fondest Tower memory is Christmas 1983 or 1984, on vacation in LA, taking my gift certificate to the Tower Records on the Sunset Strip, and buying a cassette of Yes' 90215.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Adam Thierer — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:05:15 -0000

Well, I'm embarrased to admit that I'm so old that my first Tower purchase was Kiss "Love Gun" and Styx "Pieces of Eight." But wait, it gets worse... I bought them both on 8-track tape! Talk about awful music and an awful media format.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Lewis Baumstark — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 07:26:51 -0000

I've only been in a Tower Records one time (during a trip to Chicago). I bought soundtracks to Transformers: The Movie and The Last Temptation of Christ. :)

It was a nice store with lots of selection, but there was never one near where I lived (except when I lived in Atlanta, but that one was in the most traffic-congested part of town, so I avoided it).

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

eee_eff — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:30:16 -0000

Well, I remember the Tower Records in NYC, rather close to Cooper Union. Purchase was: three cd's one by Francis Cabral and one by Peter Gabriel (Security) and a compilation of Virgin Records, various artists (2 cd's).

I also recall my first purchase from a St. Louis Record store, Streetside Records. Right now it is barely holding on, with just one store left, where I had purchased English Beat's album: Special Beat Service, and this was also my first credit card purchase.

Interestingly enough, Vintage Vinyl, a used record store that at that time was just a very small store, (a single storefront) barely existed. (I remember a purchase of of a Burning Spear album there (whom I saw later in NYC at S.O.B.'s, otherwise I wouldn't remeber that purchase), and an album This Mortal Coil) has now greatly expanded, into what had been a movie theater.

So while the mainstream record store may be struggling, perhaps the marginal ones are slightly less marginal?

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

eric — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:30:41 -0000

If memory serves, Tower took on a crushing debt load during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, and it never paid off. The most popular CD releases can be purchased for less at other bricks-and-mortar outlets, I believe. And the "long tail" items, especially out-of-print albums, are easily obtained at other online retailers.

The only item I can recall buying from Tower Records was an online purchase of a rather obscure audiophile bluegrass record, After Midnight by the McNeely-Levin-Skinner Band, recorded live in the studio direct to two-track tape. I bought it with a promotional coupon, and didn't like their website, so I never gave them any more business.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Jim Lippard — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 20:48:46 -0000

My first cassette tape purchase--Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon--was from a Tower Records (but was years after it came out). Also AC/DC's Back in Black, which was relatively new, so that must have been 1980.

I did pick up an uncensored Dead Kennedys Frankenchrist (with poster) at Tower on LP, and later a censored CD.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Noel Le — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 18:32:08 -0000

Hehe So why did Tower go down again. Because of online music services that rely on DRM? Ah, yes, creative destruction.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

PLN — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 17:49:08 -0000

My first two CD purchases were at Tower. C+C Music Factory and Deee-Lite. Yes, really.

There may have been a Michael Jackson ("Bad") tape purcahse prior to that. Also at Tower.

Re: Tower Records R.I.P.

Tim Lee — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 17:14:11 -0000

I don't think I've ever seen a Tower Records. I guess that's what happens when you grow up in flyover country.