Tower Records, RIP

Tower Records has gone bankrupt, been sold, and will be liquidated.

I could write a bunch of stuff about what this indicates about recent shifts in the music business, how Tower’s “deep stocking” policy no longer makes sense in an era where musicphiles can get pretty much anything they want with a few mouseclicks, and worry about what this means for brick-and-mortar music stores in general.

But my initial response is a personal one.

Moving from southern Illinois to New York in 1983, I had, quite literally, never seen anything like Tower Records on Broadway and 4th St. A record store that took up an entire city block? Three stories of it? Unbelievable. Records I had only dreamed of owning were on sale here every day from 9am to midnight, 365 days a year. That’s right, Christmas and New Year’s included. If, on Christmas morning, I suddenly felt the need to own The Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime (maybe because I didn’t get it for Christmas) I could saunter right over and purchase it.

From the moment I saw that store, I vowed that this was the locus solus of the New York experience. My first home was in a far-flung corner of Park Slope, but each year I moved closer to my goal, until finally, in 1999, I was able to afford a loft on Broadway, a half-block away from Tower. An evening’s meditative walk for me would start at Tower Records, move on to Tower Video (and Tower Books, upstairs) when it was across the street on Lafayette, with perhaps a side-trip to Other Music if I was in the market for an Other Music kind of record, then on to St. Mark’s place where I would check to see if any of the new releases I was interested in could be found for used prices. If I was feeling expansive, up to Virgin on Union Square and then, if it wasn’t too late, the Strand. Then, often, I would end up circling back to Tower before heading home.

When I became interested in “downtown” music in the late 80s, your John Zorns and Elliott Sharps, before the Knitting Factory had their fancy digs and their own label, Tower was often the only place those records were available. And they were open late enough that you could see a band at a club (or a Philip Glass concert at BAM), dash right over and buy their record before the place closed (and the urge to purchase wore off).

When I began working in Los Angeles, I found myself overwhelmed, as many are, by the sprawling, anonymous quality of much of this kudzu-like metropolis. I would center myself and get my bearings by visiting the Sunset Blvd store. I used to say that if I ever became a fugitive from justice, the authorities would always be able to find me by staking out Tower Records on a Tuesday afternoon.

I have too many memories of joyous discoveries and artistic connections made in the aisles of Tower to list here, but here’s one that comes to mind as emblematic.  On the morning of 9/11, like everyone else in New York, I stood transfixed in my living room watching the horrifying images unfolding on TV (even though they were happening a mere 1.5 miles away).  The only thing that interrupted my morning was going downstairs to Tower — hey, it was new releases day, with not only the new Bob Dylan (“Love and Theft”) but also the new Leonard Cohen (Ten New Songs).  It was 9:30 or so and neither building had collapsed yet.  The aisles were filled with sobbing, wailing office workers, unable to watch the images being broadcast on the monitors lining the first floor, and unable to look away.  The street outside was filled with a tide of humanity walking uptown, all the subways being shut down and no cabs available.  In the coming days, when Manhattan was shut down south of 14th St, lower Broadway became an eerie, empty pedestrian mall, but Tower remained open.

So long, Tower.