Mark Bult Design: San Francisco, CA, Established 1988

Tower Records RIP

Posted on hitsdailydouble.com by Mike "Little Mountain" Tausig:

"So, many of you know that I am the Director of Retail Operations for Tower Records in northern California. Some of you may know that Tower has been for sale for some time, and weathered some pretty monumental challenges with bigbox and the internet.

As of today, Tower was purchased by a liquidator and will be closing its doors forever, over the next several weeks. I've spent the last 14 years of my life with this company, and while it has certainly lost some of the greatness that was there in the 70's and 80's, it is still one of the best out there..."

Total bummer as far as I'm concerned. The San Jose store on Bascom and the Mountain View location with the bookstore have been my mainstays since I was a kid. I bought my first records (yes, vinyl) and cassettes at the Bascom store. Probably my first CDs there too. I bought my first first-day-new-release Ozzy album there. I bought my first concert tickets there. I bought my first Japanese import vinyl and first 'zine at the Mountain View store — my dad used to take me there after church on Sundays and I'd spend an hour or more going through the awesome selection of obscure magazines from all around the world.

I'm so bummed, especially that Mountain View and surrounding environs will be deprived of any sort of record/CD shop worth going to. Not to mention that it was still the best place to get magazines on the lower Peninsula.

Long live Tower Records. An international force for decades. Started right here in Northern California. RIP.

More coverage:
» Blogcritics.org: Tower Records, RIP
» NY Times: Tower Records Will Auction Its Assets

Labels: misc. personal, music, Ozzy

Posted by espd at 1:04 PM | 
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