Video shot at Tower Video 1993(?) with staff showing recent Laserdisc, Video Game & VHS releases.

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by paulisdead, Jul 28, 2015.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    I only get to visit the Hollywood branch maybe once a year when I'm in town visiting family. Could you elaborate?
     
  2. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    Virgin as well.

    As others have pointed out, the main thing these stores had going for them was their deep catalog selection and occasional imports. Aside from that you were usually better off shopping somewhere else.
     
    GuildX700 and quicksrt like this.
  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Eh. Not the same.
     
  4. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    No sorry can't. I've already gone into some depth on the subject. Over the course of 15 visits I came to a conclusion.
     
  5. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I still have a few shrink-wrapped videos in my collection with Tower price tags on them. I hesitate to open them up.
     
    chilinvilin likes this.
  6. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I have some as well. One video I had still sealed I listed on eBay with the $19,99 price sticker still on it. eBay pulled it down claiming it was a bootleg!
     
  7. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    Better, IMO, since Amoeba sells used stuff as well as new.

    Pretty sure Amoeba is bigger than any Tower I ever visited, too.
     
  8. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    No doubt. But occasionally they would have good sales, especially for newer artists/titles. And once in a great while they'd run a sale on box sets. It's easy to forget that in the pre-internet days, sometimes the only time you could see/find a particular release was via Tower.
     
    jsayers likes this.
  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Tower Sunset was bigger, particularly when you roll in Tower Classical and Tower Video. The Sacramento head offices of Tower downtown were enormous -- roughly a block and a half square.
     
  10. Jerry Horne

    Jerry Horne WYWH (1975-2025)

    Location:
    NW
    Both owned by Musicland. The unholy trio.
     
    GuildX700 likes this.
  11. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Vinyl:

    The best places in the Milwaukee Wisconsin area back in the day were private owned, no chains. We never had Tower.

    Radio Doctors was THE legendary mecca. A religious experience. I believe it was one of the 10 best places for vinyl in the tri state region back in the 1960's -70's.
    [​IMG]



    But:
    The little known gem Rush-Mor, a head shop only 15 minutes away from Radio Doctors in Bay View Wisconsin carried the most obscure/heavy stuff and he could find/order virtually anything on your wishlist, and if you had even a vague clue to an LP or song, he'd nail finding the band/release.

    I just checked, WOW....Rush Mor is still there, I've not lived in the area for years, so I can't vouch for them, but their web site seems to reflect what I remember. I'm going to have to take the drive down there now that I know they are still open.

    http://www.rushmor.com/

    [​IMG]




    There was also a little place in Cudahy Wisconsin about 15 minutes from Milwaukee, sadly the name escapes me but the owner could source you virtually anything you could name and his small store had an immense variety packed into the size of a living room basically.

    Peaches, on the outskirts of Milwaukee located in a huge building that was a mall at one time had a VAST selection of cutouts, but that was nearing the end of vinyl's heyday.



    But back to video. My local small private owned video rental place was run by a guy and his son who really knew their movies, Video Country. He had that big 2 foot thick video catalog and he kept it updated, you could order anything you wanted, and his rental section made Blockbuster look dumb. He got me a VHS Kino copy of the WC Fields movie It's A Gift a few years before it became available to the public. My wife and I used to love going there to rent VHS, between him and his son you could chat about movies for ever. And he had a movie theater style popcorn machine that made amazing popcorn. I miss that place. When VHS died out he went to DVD but it just did not jel.
     
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2015
    moogt3, DeeThomaz and DreadPikathulhu like this.
  12. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    But in the last five years of Tower Sunset it just was not the same for me. The employees (which they were known for) because less helpful, the music got rattier and louder. And what they did one night for me 15 minutes before closing - a loudmouth idiot got on the PA system and told folks that they better get up to the front now or they won't get to make their purchases
    because that register is off at whatever time that they were closing. He said it in a way that to me said that the purchases were a privilege for the shopper, and that Tower did not need your business. It was that nasty. The music had been loud and awful.

    I'd felt the chain deserved to die. It's soul was long gone. It's all the "other" stores that are now gone as well that is the saddest part for me.
     
    Vidiot likes this.
  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    That is sad if true. I was at Tower Sunset many times right before closing, and their usual deal was to suddenly play really horrible obnoxious bad music to drive people out of the store, which I thought was hilarious. We're talking "Lou Reed Metal Machine Music" bad.
     
    chilinvilin and jsayers like this.
  14. dougotte

    dougotte Petty, Annoying Dilettante

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    There was a lot more to it than prices, as others have written here.

    I used to visit primarily the DC location near GW University. I have fond memories of it, but do also remember the last year or two, when their selection and staff went downhill.

    I used to also enjoy their magazine. I know it was primarily a promotional tool, but I thought of it as a well-done entertainment magazine approaching the level of Rolling Stone, Creem, et al.
     
    jsayers likes this.
  15. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    The local Tower got more and more into toys and other "collectibles" towards the end. I think they were doing what they could to remain relevant and in business, since around 2005 was near the peak time for illegal downloading.
     
  16. captainsolo

    captainsolo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Murfreesboro, TN
    Man that really takes me back...I even remember the short lived Tower books store. We have indeed lost something that isn't quite replicated by record shops simply selling other things. Seeing that big wall of lasers would make me probably break down nowadays and is probably one of the reasons I fell so hard into collecting them all these years later.
    And it reminded me that I still need that 20,000 Leagues set. Because I'm still nuts.
     
    Vidiot and jsayers like this.
  17. jsayers

    jsayers Just Drifting....

    Location:
    Horse Shoe, NC
    I've said it many times before in threads like this but I could KICK MYSELF for not taking toms of photos <video was out of the question back then for me> of all the record shops I used to love - the outside, the inside, the staff, the stock, etc. I don't even have any photos of the entire time I worked at then managed The Record Exchange in Charlotte, NC from 1983 to 1991, fantastic years for the music business, imho. NONE!!!! : (
     
  18. moogt3

    moogt3 Member

    Location:
    ?
    but are you doing it now?
    thats the thing, we rarely give importance to the present time in terms of archive.
    its not their intention but the kids with their cellphones today recording even the stupidest thing will be the "preservers" for future generations, at the end of the day the mundane things are the ones that "make" a generation.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine