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Thread: All Things Must Pass-The Rise and Fall of Tower Records

  1. #51
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    I got my copy of Pendragon's The World at a Crazy Eddie or something like that. Shocked!
    I got that beat. I got this for $7 at a Sam Goody's that was going out of biz!

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  2. #52
    I suppose I’m spoiled, growing up in the Bay Area. My college years were all spent in indie places like Berkeley’s Rasputin’s and the Mint Platter, as well as A&L in (of all places) San Pablo. I was a total record-store snob who refused to set foot in Tower (which struck me as overpriced, anyway), and I was pissed when Tower took over the old Leopold’s Records building on Durant. And now that building houses a hipster poutine joint. Times change!

    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    I got my copy of Pendragon's The World at a Crazy Eddie or something like that. Shocked!
    I found a Halloween CD (I think it was Part One, for $8) at a Musicland at the mall once. Not as cool, though, as finding an original Dawn Records pressing of Fruupp’s Modern Masquerades (for 99¢!) at a Salvation Army thrift store!
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  3. #53
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dropforge View Post
    I got that beat. I got this for $7 at a Sam Goody's that was going out of biz!

    https://www.amazon.com/Game-Death-Jo...=game+of+death
    Oh, it was a Sam Goody I got it at - but not for $7! Forgot the name!

  4. #54
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    Excellent show, didn't try to cover the mistakes or deny the parties. There was always constant trips to Tower, but during the Christmas season, I got a lot of shopping done in the Massapequa store. You know, one gift for them and one gift for me. And I had to get a lot of gifts

  5. #55
    Member Rajaz's Avatar
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    Oh yes, the Record Mega stores of the 70's. Great documentary, highly recommended for those of us who walked in those stores and bought lots of our old prized collection. I just recently went to a Dimple records store in Sacramento and when I looked at my surroundings, I was standing across the street from where it all started at the actual Tower pharmacy in Sacramento! What an amazing sight mainly because I had just watched the film a week before. I was a customer at Tower on Sunset and man was that an experience, just by looking at these piles of records and hard to find stuff specially prog. At the same time there was "Licorice Pizza" who were also all over L.A. and in Canada there was A&A, HMV and of course, Sam the record man...all gone now. I remember the Virgin mega stores not too long ago in Dallas (Grapevine) and in Denver, there was a fantastic Virgin store on multilevel in the middle of Times Square, I bought at all of them.
    Now in California, there still is Amoeba in the heights and LA, Rasputin in the Bay area that are quite big and keep a huge stock of CDs, DVDs, Blue Ray, T-shirts and Vinyl. A far cry but I'm glad to see the millennials that still value that instead of downloading and stealing, but what can you do? It's the way now, sadly all Things Must pass indeed (except in Japan).
    I may be older but, I saw live: Led Zeppelin, Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Fish, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Marillion, IQ, UK, Saga, Rush, Supertramp, Pink Floyd, Genesis with Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Triumph, Magma, Goblin, Porcupine Tree, The Musical Box, Uriah Heep, Dio, David Bowie, Iron Maiden, Queen with Freddie Mercury, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood, Steely Dan, Dream theater, Joe Satriani, you get the idea..

  6. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by strawberrybrick View Post
    No trip to NYC was complete without a trip to the Tower Records in the Village. We had a nice one here in Chicago too, on Clark St.
    Yeah, I loved the "special smell" of Clark St. everytime I got there.







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  7. #57
    In the first few years when CDs became available, the cost of a CD could be anywhere between 2.00 to 10.00 above the cost of the vinyl album. I remember the first "CDs only" store was typically charging 15.99 to 19.99 per CD. Two CD sets were about 39.99. In about two years, all the major retailers started selling CDs and the prices dropped below 10.00. When stores started selling used CDs, the price of new CDs went down even further.
    I sincerely believe that a lot of music lovers took up other hobbies during that initial 2 year period where the record industry was telling the public to bend over and take it up the @$$.
    I know I waited about 2 years before I finally got A CD player after winning a few CDs from radio stations.

  8. #58
    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    I remember walking into a record store once around 1990 or 91 and asking the employee where all the records were. It was all CDs. I walked out in disgust.....

    Today I'm seeing more vinyl than ever. I'll be damned if I'm starting a whole new record collection.

  9. #59
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jubal View Post
    In the first few years when CDs became available, the cost of a CD could be anywhere between 2.00 to 10.00 above the cost of the vinyl album. I remember the first "CDs only" store was typically charging 15.99 to 19.99 per CD. Two CD sets were about 39.99. In about two years, all the major retailers started selling CDs and the prices dropped below 10.00. When stores started selling used CDs, the price of new CDs went down even further.
    I sincerely believe that a lot of music lovers took up other hobbies during that initial 2 year period where the record industry was telling the public to bend over and take it up the @$$.
    I know I waited about 2 years before I finally got A CD player after winning a few CDs from radio stations.
    It took me a few years to get a player, too. I did own a few CDs and had taped 'em at a friend's. But yeah, CDs were priced outrageously in the mid-80s. Of course, there was always the "rich kid" who'd get $100-200 from his mommy and go pick up 5-10 brand new CDs and have a ball.

  10. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Jubal View Post
    In the first few years when CDs became available, the cost of a CD could be anywhere between 2.00 to 10.00 above the cost of the vinyl album. I remember the first "CDs only" store was typically charging 15.99 to 19.99 per CD. Two CD sets were about 39.99. In about two years, all the major retailers started selling CDs and the prices dropped below 10.00. When stores started selling used CDs, the price of new CDs went down even further.
    I got my first CD player (used, my dad got it from a pawn shop on his mail route) for Xmas 1987. At the time, as I recall, catalog CD's were mostly $9.00, I think, unless it was something "iconic" or new. As I recall, something like the old Psychedelic Furs, Triumph, or Church albums were $9.00. Pink Floyd's A Saucerful Of Secrets and Piper At The Gates Of Dawn were $12 each, I think. I can't remember what the cost of the initial wave of Frank Zappa CD's, the original Ryko releases from the late 80's, but I wanna say it was probably $12, owing to Frank's "icon" status. And new titles, I think were around $12.

    Double CD's I think were generally around $20. This is why I didn't get Uncle Meat or Ummagumma on CD for so long, because I was too much of a spendaholic to save up my allowance for 2-3 weeks, when there were so many other things I wanted.

    And my memory has it that the mall stores, like Camelot or Coconuts, were generally a buck or two more expensive.

    Obviously, I'm not talking imports here. The record store I usually dealt with, Wax Stax, didn't really deal in imports. The ones around here that did, like Record Exchange or Record Revolution (both down on Conventry Road) that did carry imports, I seem to recall they were generally double what the domestic titles were.



    After Wax Stax went out of business (and both Record Exchange and Record Revolution stopped carrying anything worth owning), I started shopping at the local Best Buy, which initially had a really cool CD selection, at rock bottom prices (even selling stuff like Hawkwind, the BBC recordings that came out on Windsong Records, I even remember seeing Negativland CD's there). I think this is talked about in the documentary, about how places like Best Buy and Circuit City started underselling everyone else. I recall when the Rush remasters, circa 1996 or whenever it was, came out, all of them were $9.99 at Best Buy, except for the live albums, 2112, and Moving Pictures, which each went for $12.99. I gather the live albums were more expensive because they were double length, and 2112 and Moving Pictures were/are every so more "iconic" than say, Permanent Waves or Fly By Night.

    Then eventually, Best Buy started withdraw the cool stuff, so I started buying stuff at Circuit City. I recall buying the Live In France Soft Machine double CD release on One Way Records, for I think $9.99. But then Circuit City started to suck (then they subsequently went out of business).

    I eventually ended up going to Borders (we eventually had two to choose from here). The prices were a couple buck smore than either of the alliteratively named stores I had been going to before that, but they had the selection I was after, including very impressive jazz and classical sections. This when I started getting into contemporary classical music.

    But then, toward the end of the 90's, the prices started going up again. Suddenly, the CD's that used to be $12.99 were suddenly $16.99. I don't why that was, but I think that's one of the things that helped set up the file sharing revolution, prices going up, when it was more or less common knowledge it only cost a couple bucks to make each individual CD (yeah, I know, you have to pay the henchmen in A&R, the secretaries who answer the phones, the truck drivers and air freight places who deliver the CD's, etc, etc, etc)

    Finally, around 2002, I finally got a credit card (actually, I got first one of those pre-paid cash cards, but about a year or two later, I somehow managed to get approved for a "student" Visa card), and I started buying everything online, either through Amazon (which was cheaper than buying stuff at any of the stores anyway) or specialty places like Wayside (who I occasionally bought from during the 90's, but my tendency toward procrastination caused me to fill out a lot of order forms, then never make it up to the store to buy a money order so I could follow through and buy something).

  11. #61
    I bought a CD player c.1988 after winning a boxed set of Michael Nyman/Peter Greenaway soundtracks. But in the UK CDs were f*&%$# expensive! If you Americans were paying $10 for a CD, chances are we were paying £10. I signed up to a subscription CD by post service, that enticed you in with three CDs for £1, and then rogered you senseless once a month. Some time around the mid 90s prices started to drop and there was a small chain of shops in Scotland, Coda Records, that had racks and racks full of CDs, three for £20, although occasionally I would come out with six! Tower Records opened a branch in Glasgow, huge store but it always seemed expensive. But it opened until midnight, so I would sometimes pop in after visiting my parents and buy myself something new to listen to on the way back to Edinburgh.

  12. #62
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Halmyre View Post
    I bought a CD player c.1988 after winning a boxed set of Michael Nyman/Peter Greenaway soundtracks. But in the UK CDs were f*&%$# expensive! If you Americans were paying $10 for a CD, chances are we were paying £10. I signed up to a subscription CD by post service, that enticed you in with three CDs for £1, and then rogered you senseless once a month. Some time around the mid 90s prices started to drop and there was a small chain of shops in Scotland, Coda Records, that had racks and racks full of CDs, three for £20, although occasionally I would come out with six! Tower Records opened a branch in Glasgow, huge store but it always seemed expensive. But it opened until midnight, so I would sometimes pop in after visiting my parents and buy myself something new to listen to on the way back to Edinburgh.
    No CDs here cost $10 circa 1988. They usually started around $17-18 for single discs. The $10 CDs started happening around the mid-90s.

  13. #63
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    I had a college roommate who bought the first CD player I ever used. It was pretty hilarious -- he FREAKED if anyone accidentally left it on because he didn't want the laser to wear down or burn out or something. And he taped all kinds of things to the top of it to keep our other roommate's cat from jumping on it.

  14. #64
    I saw a 1983 Sony CD player at one of the local thrift stores about a month ago. Speaking of old CDs, anyone still have any CD longboxes?
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  15. #65
    Jazzbo manqué Mister Triscuits's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Progbear View Post
    Speaking of old CDs, anyone still have any CD longboxes?
    Back in the day, I saved all of mine. I eventually threw most of them out, but I think I still have a few tucked away in the back of a cupboard. I actually got money for my Beatles ones.
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  16. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by Progbear View Post
    I saw a 1983 Sony CD player at one of the local thrift stores about a month ago. Speaking of old CDs, anyone still have any CD longboxes?
    I remember the argument the "industry" used for the longboxes (when it was being said by environmentalists that they were wasteful and such) was that it was the last bastion for artwork, but as I recall, most of them didn't have any artwork on them. THey were either blank, or they had a record company logo, or something similar. Some of them had the CD cover artwork on them, but it was just a reproduction of the CD, no larger and no different, typically.

    When the digi-pak was first introduced, it was as a replacement for the longbox, so that it could serve as a longbox at the store, but once you got it home and took off the shrink wrap, you could fold it down so it was the same size as a regular jewelcase. I remember the early 90's Grateful Dead releases used them (though I noticed at some point, I started seeing at least some of those titles in regular jewelboxes, I think once the industry abandoned longboxes or any surrogate altogether).

    And remember those plastic cases that a lot of discs came in. Those used to drive my crazy! You'd have the jewelcase with the CD in one half, and the book/insert in the other half! The only way to get those damn things open was to use either really shar scissors or gardening shears or something like that, and you had to be careful you didn't damage the booklet. I was so glad when those went away.

    There was a point where I remember some stores having the long boxes on display, but when you found something you wanted to buy, you went to the clerk and he/she got the actual item you wanted to buy (sans longbox) from a stockroom or whatever. I remember that distinctly happenign when I bought my copy of Weasels Ripped My Flesh, not long after it was first reissued, so we're talking sometime in the early 90's. I thought maybe that would be "the way forward" on this whole long box thing, but that also proved to be short lived.

  17. #67
    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Enid View Post
    I used to make frequent trips to Tower Records in Cherry Hill, N.J. In the summer of 2006 it was announced that they would be closing for good. It was right around the time that Syd Barrett died. It left a void in my life . It was fun shopping in Tower discovering rare import cd's. I also spent a fortune purchasing from Tower Mail order. It was a breeze ordering from customer service by phone. Many cd releases that were about to go out of print ...were sometimes in stock at a Tower Records warehouse. A customer service employee would check the stock situation of several Tower Records warehouses in the U.S. and England. They might say..."Well the Florida warehouse appears to not have any , but the Piccadilly Circus store in England has one copy left" "Hold on sar and I will contact them and have it shipped to you" That's great service clocking in a little over 5 minutes of phone time and getting results. I remember sales people calling ME back and informing me that there was a copy left in a certain warehouse. Maybe they didn't have that info when I called...but 10 minutes later the phone would ring and sure enough they had found a listing of one or two copies left in a Tower store or warehouse. It was excellent service.
    That's pretty cool. I am disgusted with the level of "service" of my local shop. Seems like they want to go out of business.
    <sig out of order>

  18. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Plasmatopia View Post
    That's pretty cool. I am disgusted with the level of "service" of my local shop. Seems like they want to go out of business.
    Local shop?! I wish I had a local shop near me I could go to. Well, there is a couple, but they're not very good. All the good record stores in "my area" are an hour or more bus ride away.

    That's one of the reasons I started shopping through Amazon, once I had the means to do so. And this all reminds me, I need to put an order into Wayside in the very near future, too.

  19. #69
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    Couple of days ago, I got the hankering to look for a couple of LPs that have never been reissued on CD and drove down to the U.District to see if my favorite record shops were still in business. They were: Golden Oldies seemingly hasn't changed in thirty years, and they had two of the three LPs I was looking for. I don't know how they stay in business. I'm always the only customer in the store, and I only go once every couple of years.

    The other store, Neptune Records, was also still there -- but they're usually pretty busy. They didn't have the 3rd LP but they had the Criterion edition of La Strada so I had to get that.

    But the rest of the U.District? Almost unrecognizable. Half-Price Books? Gone. Performance Bicycle? Gone. Twice Sold Tales? Gone. Construction everywhere (Rapid Transit station takes up two blocks, new condos everywhere, lots of new high-end shops that students probably can't afford).

  20. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Local shop?! I wish I had a local shop near me I could go to. Well, there is a couple, but they're not very good. All the good record stores in "my area" are an hour or more bus ride away.

    That's one of the reasons I started shopping through Amazon, once I had the means to do so. And this all reminds me, I need to put an order into Wayside in the very near future, too.
    It's not all that local. It's about a 30-minute drive from my house, but very close to where I work. Every time I walk in the CD section has been reduced to about 1/2 of what it was the last time I visited. I only go when their newsletter mentions a new release I'm interested in. And half the time they don't actually have any left, even if I'm there on the day of release. And in some cases they say "oh, we didn't get any of those" because apparently someone determined none would sell at this particular store.
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  21. #71
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    I'm trying to remember what was downstairs at Tower on West 4th st. A room with World Music? What else? It was sort of hellish down there.

  22. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    I'm trying to remember what was downstairs at Tower on West 4th st. A room with World Music? What else? It was sort of hellish down there.
    Memory fades,but i seem to recall cassettes being displayed downstairs.
    "please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide

  23. #73
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by walt View Post
    Memory fades,but i seem to recall cassettes being displayed downstairs.
    Yeah, I was thinking that too. The room with World Music I'm remembering might actually be from the Lincoln Center store. You're right I think that it was cassettes downstairs. No wonder I rarely went down there.

  24. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Triscuits View Post
    Back in the day, I saved all of mine. I eventually threw most of them out, but I think I still have a few tucked away in the back of a cupboard. I actually got money for my Beatles ones.
    I had this ratty looking bulletin board in my room when my sister moved out, so I cut the artwork off of the long boxes and glued them to it. All of it got thrown out and are currently home to decorative Asian masks and a Maori weapon...
    "Alienated-so alien I go!"

  25. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    And remember those plastic cases that a lot of discs came in. Those used to drive my crazy! You'd have the jewelcase with the CD in one half, and the book/insert in the other half! The only way to get those damn things open was to use either really shar scissors or gardening shears or something like that, and you had to be careful you didn't damage the booklet. I was so glad when those went away.
    That one Happy the Man compilation of their Arista material (the only way you could get any of that music on CD for many years) came packaged like this.

    Quote Originally Posted by Plasmatopia View Post
    That's pretty cool. I am disgusted with the level of "service" of my local shop. Seems like they want to go out of business.
    I am shocked to see that Recycled Records on Haight St. is still in business somehow. This one clerk who apparently still works there (and may be the current owner) regularly treats his customers like complete crap. I just don’t get it. Is it like a French restaurant, where the rude headwaiter is part of the whole experience?
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