A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
Tower Records was a symbol of the rise and very visible fall of the music industry. The record store was the first of its kind when it opened in Sacramento in 1960. It quickly expanded across the country and the globe, eventually becoming the most successful record store chain up.
But then digital music and Napster came along and had a hand in the closure of the company in 2006. It's a complicated story, and one that actor/director Colin Hanks, has turned into a documentary called "All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records."
This is Hanks' directorial debut and while it may seem like a random passion project, Hanks is deeply obsessed with music. Hanks told The Frame's John Horn that he brings a portable speaker on TV and film sets and acts as a DJ during the down time:
I find it's a nice little way to lighten the mood a little bit. So I don't just play what I wanna hear, I take requests. I try to find different music that fit for different moods — all genres — and, yeah, I try and be the DJ for anyone I'm working with. Luckily, I give all of my cast members the out. I say, "If ever you want me to turn this music off, all you have to do is tell me. You will not hurt my feelings." But so far no one has taken me up on that offer.
Hanks, 37, grew up in Sacramento and would often hang out at Tower Records with his friends. (He lived with his mother, who divorced Tom Hanks when Colin was about 10 years old.) But it wasn't until he was making the film that he realized his connection to the record store is much more personal.
My godmother worked at Tower Records. I remember hearing stories about her working at the store over at Bay Street and Columbus Avenue in San Francisco, and I had remembered hearing a story: She had got into a horrible car accident when she was working at Tower and she was bedridden in the hospital. Her medical bills were just astronomical, just through the roof. Tower, at that time, had medical insurance for their employees, but they needed to still be at work in order for that medical insurance to kick in.
So, I don't know if it was [company founder] Russ Solomon. I don't know if it was the store manager at the time. I don't know who it was, but the people at Tower said, "Okay, well, if Marnie can't leave her bed, why don't we give her the little white dividers and a big, black pen and she could write out all the bands' names. That way, she could still be working for Tower Records." And that story, which I had completely forgotten about when we started this whole process — I just [thought], What a special place to work. What an incredibly unique place to have your coworkers or your boss think in those regards. That really tells you something about the kind of people that not only work there, but the kind of people that Tower Records really was.
The film took seven years to make and, during that time, Hanks became more knowledgeable about the company and also formed his own opinions on how the collapse of Tower Records could have been avoided:
When Russ Solomon got into the record business, he sold used 78s out of his father's drug store. If Tower Records sold used CDs, that might ... have helped give them a little bit more time. And maybe with that paring down they could have weathered the rough part of the storm, but [Solomon] refused. He believed that there would always be someone that wanted to buy new records.
After spending several years making the film, Hanks was asked by The Frame's John Horn if there's anything public radio could learn from Tower Records' missteps:
Colin Hanks: I will be quite honest: Once I started making this documentary, I became much more in tune to these kinds of things. Here's what I will say: public radio has been very, very, very good at adjusting to the new technologies and finding out the different ways that people can listen to music. So you guys are pretty good. You're not stubborn, saying, You can only listen to this on radio. So I think you guys are doing okay. Now, can the pledge drives maybe be a little bit shorter? I mean, yeah.
John Horn: If you write a check we can end it right now.
Hanks: Oh, listen. You're talking to the wrong member of the family unfortunately.
The documentary, "All Things Must Pass," is in theaters on Oct. 16. The Tower Records building on the Sunset Strip will be back to its heyday form for one night only on Oct. 15 to celebrate the release of the film.