I still have my badge and tee-shirt! :)

Another icon of my childhood gone.... sigh....

Back when I was a teen in the mid 70's, we use to hang out there. It was about the only place open late (other than Denny's). It closed at midnight.

Lots of great memmories, and like GD said, a sad end to an era....

Tower was one of the only record chains I never worked for in my youth (and, heheh, Licorice Pizza was my first ... hence why I have long ago eaten my lifetime quota of licorice and you won't see me ordering any at the multiplex snackbar ... but I digress)

This is a sad end of an era for me ... Tower was always the place that had the generally biggest selection. Amoeba eclipsed them, but they have only one So.Cal store, and Tower had many ... including my local one in Marina del Rey. Having to head to Hollywood just to buy music will be the coffin nail in my CD-purchasing habit.

Pfft, with Tower gone .. and before them Wherehouse and Music Plus and Licorice Pizza ... and every mom&pop operation ... all that's left is Borders. If you think Tower prices were high, check out what CDs sell for at Borders for the height of chutzpa.


Sad though it is, I'll probably wait a week or so for the discounting to get really steep before I go on my carrion-run to the local falling Tower.

I used to work for Wherehouse. Even with the employee discount, the CDs were still expensive... :D

Internet dude, internet. F' borders. I hate that joint anyway. It is sad that all the smaller joints are gone. The place I bought my discs at growing up used to sell CD's for around $11 when tower wanted $18. They deserve what they got. The people have spoken.

Now...was there really a joint called Licorice Pizza? Did they sell Pizza too, or just music?

Other than independent stores (which I still frequent the few that are lefr) I was a die-hard Tower fan. I worked at Licorice Pizza and then at a small independent in HB called Map Platter. But, Tower always had the best selection and I could always find those hard to get CDs at Tower. Virgin NEVER held a candle to them and Wherehouse was a joke to me.

I'm really sad, but I knew it was going to happen.

The only Tower Records I ever frequented was the one at Kahala Mall in Hawaii. And then only to play video games while waiting for a movie to start at the multiplex next door.

There was a stor on NPR the other day blaming the demise on a combination of peer-to-peer and the death of the single. Apparently singles were the primary driver of getting kids in the store on a regular basis since they could afford those. When the labels mostly stopped selling singles the kids stopped coming.

Tower is indeed the class act, and certainly the saddest to see go. It was a long-time coming, but I'm more than usually sad for their employees ... and I feel much more end-of-an-era than I have for any other failed commercial entity that I can recall.

That's just it ... with the entire brick&mortar music monopoly in the hands of price-gougeing Borders, I will likely never purchase a piece of music in the real world again. My 93% music internet purchases (or other means of acquisition) will climb to roughly 99% - - and an entire way of life will be gone forever.


:snap: :snap: :snap: :snap: :snap: Tower Records

Hey, there's a Wherehouse by me! They have great deals on used cd & dvd's.

I remember Tower on Sunset Blvd. so well. It's almost a landmark. So sad.