LAist: Another One Bites the Dust... so long Tower Records

gary

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 21:35:23 -0800

I was part of the crew that opened Tower Records Sherman Oak when it was on Ventura and Cedros. Brett, Dennis, Cynthia..........are you out there?.I have never had so much fun working in my life. I still can't go by messy CD rack with out straightening it up! I thought I knew everything about Rock, Jazz and blues when I got there; by the time I left I did. I applied for the job there because someone at the Law Firm that I was working at was harassing a friend of mine and I couldn't take it any longer. Thank you Russ Soloman for taking me in when I needed some room to breathe. Without that year and a half off I think I might have had a meltdown. I have never needed a CD of Russian Folk music, a Patsy Cline Tape or Coleman Hawkins at midnight, but it always felt good to that if I needed it Tower was there. I'm going to miss you crazy...........Gary.

RJP3

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 13:11:42 -0800

poor customer service or high prices had nothing to do with the demise ... stolen music on the internet maybe ... actually the orginal owner had sold off a few years ago (owning just a small 15% silent interest) ... and the corporation over expanding internationally ... which drained the business and killed off an American Classic. Something BEYOND Business 101 ...

rjp3

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 13:09:03 -0800

Very very bad uncool thing ... a corporate kill for the buyers and the lawyers. Tower Records in Cambridge Ma (Harvard Sq) rocks even today ... a great music store ... that will be missed ... no more adult videos ... no more HUGE classical music store within a store ... no more music store period in Cambridge ... (Strawberries went out last year) ... well we have FYE in a couple locations in neighboring towns)... AHHHH ! Nothing like trolling the racks browsing ... learning .... buying ...

C

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 18:01:02 -0800

The article is wrong - it's not SOME locations - it's ALL locations are closing. Great America has begun liquidating every store across the nation. Bad experiences aside - this is a bad bad thing to happen to music.

marie

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 15:30:57 -0800

Hey folks: Did anyone think that poor customer service, and high prices would keep this CHAIN in competition. Simple BUSINESS 101! You don't keep up, then you get eaten up!

Zach

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 14:24:06 -0800

If the one at the Sherman Oaks Galleria goes away, the famous Valley location will be changed again. Maybe Best Buy should have waited and moved there instead.

m

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 03:44:04 -0800

Current Tower Records employee and pretty depressed. Tower is such a fun place to work at. I never hop out of bed and feel stressed out about the job I go to. My co-workers feel like family. I kind of felt like Tower's days were numbered, but I really didn't expect this to happen so quickly. I feel awful.

ex-tower

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 03:08:08 -0800

People constantly under-estemate what the music going community wants. I assure you that nine times out of ten, despite what billboard magazine reports, it is not Nickleback or Creed or Black Eyed Peas that people ask for...I work(ed) at Tower and I can not begin to tell you how many times that I have turned people away because we did not have what they wanted. I am not refering to the out of print titles either. People as a whole want more than they are given credit for. This is why Tower failed and, Amazon, Amoeba, and the like, prevailed...it's adaptation and unbelievable selection that keep the good ones in business. I would venture to say that 4/5ths of the time, we did not have what people asked for. Equity based lending? maybe they should have gotten two-hundred different titles for selection sake, instead of one-hundred-and-something copies of "The Procussions(wtf?)" and 60 copies of the "Who's that Girl" soundtrack...but maybe it's just me.

Ex-Tower Employee

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 16:53:08 -0800

Please, anyone who worked there knows that there were too many Chiefs and not nough Indians. They thought they knew it all and obviously didn't, and so Tower crumbled from the inside out, making it too weak to compete with WalMarts and the like. They ran it into the ground, and took thier money and ran. It was the typical greedy bastards who did it. They are why Tower as a company did not adapt to the changing market fast enough. And though it was a big reason why, it is not soley the "Big Box" stores and Digital downloads. This should be clear. You people know who you are and I hope you choke.

SactoGuy01

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 15:25:18 -0800

Let's face it folks. Tower Records died from the combined effect of big box stores like Best Buy, Costco and Wal-Mart being able to buy CD's and DVD's in huge bulk discounts, competition from online retailers like Amazon, and the rise of legal downloads using the iTunes Music Store. Tower couldn't adapt to this new retail environment and finally failed.

tony

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 13:03:12 -0800

if anything Amoeba has been successful in spite of all the things that have crushed the indie record store. instead of having lots of little amoebas they only have a few huge ones. they provide community, the hire cool people, they dont make them wear stupid vests, they let them personalize parts of the store, they have bands playing all the time, they cherish their customers. Amoeba is competing against some very difficult foes like iTunes and Limewire and BestBuy and apathy. Tower could have survived if it had wanted to but it was run by fools who couldnt adapt to the changing times. I will miss Tower but I will miss Tower Sunset the most.

Ex-Tower Employee

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 12:51:12 -0800

Amoeba DID NOT DO THIS! I say this being one of the 2700 people who lost a job Friday. Gross mismanagement and porr judgement and a total lack of vision and foresight is what dug the hole. The digital downloads and WalMart just pushed it in the grave. The comment i hate to see THE MOST is "I haven't shopped at TOWER for years, but I will miss it" Well, not shopping there is part of the problem. Support Brick and Morter record stores like Amoeba, or soon we'll be a bunch of hermits who never leave our homes for anything! Americans are way too complacent these days. Any one who grew up going to Tower knows how special it was and what a crucial part of the Music Industry it was as well as our culture. This sad in more ways than you can imagine. . . . . . . Can we please take back our country and culture NOW????

hollywood

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 11:47:06 -0800

Amoeba did NOT do this. (Amoeba could be next.) iPods and MP3s and downloads and Best Buy and Target did this. And the music industry charging too much for CDs.

Short Attention Sp

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:01:18 -0800

So insanely sad. They were the last vestige of record stores that use to be open incredibly late so that you could go buy the record the DJ just played on your way home / to the club. Not sure about there being absolutely no record stores on Melrose; at one point in the past there were as many as a dozen.

tomdog

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 21:46:50 -0800

depressing - I used to work at Tower Records and Tower Video in Mountain View CA when I was a teenager. The Tower in SF used to be kick ass and it was always fun to see what better records they had up there, such a shame

LA Scumbag

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 18:46:52 -0800

Ahhh. Fucking amoeba does it again. Have you noticed there's not ONE record store on melrose anymore. RIP Tower Records.