I saw All Things Must Pass, Tower Records movie

Worked at the Tower Berkeley store 1984-1986. This was during the initial roll-out of CDs. My first job there was in the rapidly shrinking Classical Cassette section, still a good 12' long by 5' high of product to sort and shelve. Half-way through the Classical department moved down the street. LPs were being cut-out right and left. I was handed over to accessories, including massive qualities of TDK SA C-90s. Amoeba was just opening up down Telegraph, Leopold's was in full swing next door, leading the charge for Hip-Hop to us on Durant with the Mint Platter downstairs selling used vinyl. Soon after my stint, Leopold's dropped out and Tower rented out the space, moving the classical section to the top floor. Now Tower's old residence is still an empty space. So many changes is such a short time.

I'm sure I'll see the documentary soon enough.

 

CD is still king in Japan. Tower Records in Japan is great but your vinyl choices are still limited there, I can get a better selection at home at Rotate This or Sonic Boom.

 

Most of my record collection in High School was from Tower Records in Fresno, CA. I occasionally would go to San Francisco and get some rarities I couldn't get in Fresno. Specifically, I got my first Iggy and the Stooges album, Raw Power, from the S.F. location in 1975 (along with Kiss' Hotter Than Hell).

 

I was living in Berkeley at that same time! probably bought an LP or 2 from you! I bought "Press To Play" there among many others.

 

I'm sure this footage will be in the doco somewhere - The L.A. Tower in 1971.

 

'84...So you missed the era of Tower Posters, which was half a block down, at the corner of Telegraph and Durant. They closed around 1982?

Leopold's...Yes, great store, with the Mint Platter (part of Leopold's) used downstairs--cramped but with good product and prices and run by some decent guys. (Way better to deal with that Rasputin's, that's for sure). Then Leopolds got bought out The Record Factory around 1984, Record Factory went bankrupt around 1986 and was bought out by Wherehouse Records, and Wherehouse ran Leopolds for another 10 years, until they finally closed Leopolds (Wherehouse in sheep's clothing) suddenly, without notice, in Feb of 1996. But the truth is that Leopolds was never as good after they were sold to the Record Factory.

Tower would hang on for another decade, of course. But now it's all gone.

 

When I lived in LA from 78 to 83, 90% of the time I went to Arons on Melrose. Only a few times to Sunset Tower. Arons was great.

 

It’s true, there isn’t a lot of room for comparison between a Tower store and an Apple store. But I think that goes for comparing the businesses in general. I never got the sense either company had an altruistic ideal about changing the world. Any company that is a manufacturer rather than a retailer is going to be far more likely to change people’s lives on a daily basis, whether one likes any of these companies or not.

I’m sure there’s a lot of rose-colored nostalgia and whatnot going on with Tower. Tower is really the only non-indie store, though, that I got any sort of warm-and-fuzzies from, either back in the day or present-day looking back. I lament the demise of Tower more because of the implications of the loss of physical media, physical store locations, and all of that stuff that goes along with that. But I don’t fondly remember, say, a “Musicland” or “Sam Goody” or even a “Wherehouse” location particularly. I do miss “Suncoast”; that place was the only mall-based store that was fun to visit.

Tower is really more of a well-known figurehead for the dying record store industry/culture. Few would flock to a “Sad Demise of The Wherehouse” documentary most likely. I haven’t seen the Tower documentary, so I don’t know how much the film focuses on the chain specifically versus lamenting the dying B&M store in general.

I’m seriously interested to see if someone does a similar sort of documentary on Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video. I know there have been a few “VHS Revival Culture” docs, but a documentary focuses on the implications of losing B&M movie rental stores (and why Redbox and Netflix *aren’t* the same) would be interesting.

 

I always thought the Village Tower had much more of a "hip" vibe than the Lincoln Center location (but if you wanted to browse through every classical CD ever made you had to go uptown).

 

Can't wait to see this.

Darryl

 

This absolutely killed me - classic.

Fond memories of the San Jose/Campbell Tower across from the Pruneyard that is now, if memory serves, a somehwat depressing Rasputin's. Can't say I have any love for the two or three old Wherehouse locations I used to visit... they were just kind of... there.

There was a Record Factory right by my dad's house for many years (where San Jose Art is now). I was not allowed to go there.

 

I'll always remember my first visit to Tower Records in Philadelphia (on South Street, not the later, smaller store found in NE Philly). An odd example sure, but I was a teenager at the height of my Monty Python appreciation, so I wanted to grab any Python records I could find. Having only been able to get two of them at the local stores, I hoped I'd find more at Tower and indeed I did. Every one of them that was in print at the time was right there in front of me. And this was for a COMEDY artist, fer cryin' out loud.

Big, corporate, claustrophobic, cold... you can call it what you want. But for me, all of that stuff doesn't matter if I can walk into a record store and find everything I want. That aspect totally blew my mind.

I probably would have had even more exciting examples to share if my impatient brother didn't want to spend no more than 30 minutes in the store...

 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/i-saw-all-things-must-pass-tower-records-movie.439519/

 

Vancouver never heard a Tower.

 

Columbus and Bay was better than Sunset for awhile IMHO too. SF later built a separate classical store which made the main store been better with the Jazz Room. But Sunset had that rock n roll Hollywood star vibe.

 

Thinking about some of the people I saw come in to the SF store - David Crosby, Curtis Mayfield, June Pointer, Brian May, Patty Smith, David Ruffin, Dolly Parton, Bev Bevan, Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills, Charlie Daniels etc.

 

Really? They had to special order the Dylan CD box in late '85? I seem to remember this set being pretty easily available at the time - both as Vinyl and CD - at Tower and elsewhere. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me...

 

My recollection was that the Dylan box, along with Brothers In Arms, was one of the releases credited with kicking off the whole CD revolution, and moving it into mass acceptance.

 

I had a girlfriend who lived in San Jose and we spent many nights visiting Tower Records and then going across the street to eat at El Burro. (Often at at La Posada, their sister location, in the Old Mill Shopping Center in Mountain View, which was torn down years ago even though it wasn't very old).

 

Yep, my bad, was thinking of the Virgin Megastore they had downtown.

- Buck

 

That's what it was.

 

I would say the Beatles CD's in 1987 were the killer "app" for CDs. But that doesn't mean that they hadn't gained some market penetration by the Xmas season of 1985.

 

I preordered it the week before the release date. As always, I had read up on what was coming out and wanted to make sure they had one for me to put through its paces on my new Magnavox!
As it turned out, on the big day, they didn't have any on display and got mine from "the back." Lots of vinyl boxes out, though.
I guess they had no idea what demand might be like for those new silver discs.
As Bob would later say, things have changed!
Clapton box was the other game-changer for me.

 

A friend of mine lived in Atlanta and worked at a nearby Tower back in the 90s. Every Tuesday morning Elton John would have them open up the story early so he could buy all the new releases.

 

Mark Evanier has a great story about walking into Tower Records on the Sunset Strip with Richard Pryor, and bumping into Elton John and having a 10-minute conversation with him...

http://www.newsfromme.com/2014/04/27/another-tale-early-career-3/

One of the greatest Tower Records "celebrity" stories ever.