"All Things Must Pass"-Tower Records Documentary

at various times i lived or worked near the sf, chicago and broadway towers and they really were the epicenter of my existence. as a retailer, i always had my qualms--they were pricey and sorta big-box impersonal--but they had a fantastic selection and the in-stores were great. somehow i think they could have survived if they had been more customer-friendly and adaptable to the changing retail landscape--barnes and noble and best buy, for example, have hung in there by changing their model. in any case, tower's demise has left a big void--looking for musci on amazon or ebay just isn't the same visceral, tactile thrill.

I used to visit the store at Broadway and 66th street during my New York days and the Atlanta stores regularly after that. The video comments about the local buying of indie band records was interesting to me. I sought out the local indie records at Tower. In New York I got turned on to Winter Hours which turned into a favorite. In Atlanta, I was introduced to the Josh Joplin band and Soul Miner's Daughter (now Jennifer Nettles/Sugarland). Like the rest of you, I miss the serendipity of discovering something new that might have been playing when I walked in or talking to the people who worked there about new music. While "similar" artist software on amazon, Pandora, and such is fun, it doesn't replace the enthusiasm of talking to real people. If you want a laugh about music recommendations, check out www.drinkify.org. The Tower doc looks great by the way.

According to IMDB the documentary comes out tomorrow (10/16/2015).

I plan on seeing it, if it is being shown where I live.

It's really cool to read about all the adventures you guys have had at Tower Records.

I grew up in a small town in Wyoming and we didn't have anything like that. Wish we did. Sounds like a fascinating journey!

Oregonpapa---There was no Topanga Canyon store. You're probably thinking of the Sherman Oaks store, located at the corner of Van Nuys and Ventura Boulevards (Ventura Blvd. immortalized in Tom Petty's song "Free Falling"). The reason the Sherman Oaks store was not as good as the Sunset/Hollywood store (absolutely true) was that I had a much smaller buying budget than the two buyers at Sunset. The Tower budget system is too complicated to go into here, but the abbreviated explanation is that how many pieces of product a given store sells a month, and how many total pieces are in stock at the end of every month, determines how many pieces that store can buy the following month. The more pieces the store sells one month, the more it can buy the following one. The Sunset store sold about twice as many pieces a month as did the Sherman Oaks store, so it's buying budget was twice as large as mine. I would have to pass on product that the Sunset store could buy, as I was out of budget for the month. So they could sell those titles which they were able to buy but which I wasn't, leading to more total monthly sales, which in turn lead to a bigger budget for the following month! I had been a customer at the Sherman Oaks store (living not far away), and often would not find the indi titles I was looking to buy, but would find them at the Sunset store. My priority when I started buying for Sherman Oaks was to increase the number of individual titles the store had in stock. It took a while, but little by little the store's number improved, until we were second only to the Sunset store in all of Southern California.

You're also right about Amoeba. Within a year of the opening of their Sunset Blvd. store, the Sunset Tower's monthly sales dropped off by about 50%! Amoeba's priority is having as many titles in stock as possible, for hard-core music lovers and buyers. Tower's management was starting to be a little too concerned with the aesthetics of the stores fixtures, etc. Who cares about that?! When Tower's bank took ever management and instigated central buying, it was just a matter of time until Tower would fail. I was actually surprised it took as long as it did.

I enjoyed shopping at Tower. Who's to blame-the internet, youtube, craigslist? It's hard to say. Unfortunately, I expect to see sentimental documentaries on the demise of Rasputin's and Amoeba sometime in the future. If that bothers you (it bothers me), then drop in to one of the stores and buy something. I have no affiliation with any of these stores but I would like to see them stick around. Just my opinion.