In the Field: Photo Blog by Richard Wong

Photography field reports by Richard Wong. Richard’s work has been published in magazines, books, advertising, and offers fine art prints of his work. Images may be licensed as rights-managed stock photos by contacting Richard directly at Richard@rwongphoto.com or (626) 422-6151. California stock photography, fine art prints, photo blog: www.rwongphoto.com

Tower Records

Posted on | July 29, 2009 | 4 Comments

Tower Records Out of Business, Costa Mesa, California

Tower Records Out of Business, Costa Mesa, California

For anyone that grew up a fan of music and actually bought their records / tapes / cds then it’s hard to not feel a bit of sadness to see Tower Records go out of business three years ago. My dad was telling me the other day that he used to go to the Sunset Strip Tower Records frequently to look for vinyl records when he was younger. My parents took me there a few times as a kid also where I think we bought some Carpenters records. The Sunset Tower Records was an LA landmark as much as the Golden Gate Bridge is to San Francisco and it’s crazy to think it’s no longer around.

Hollywood was a bit too far so I used to go to the Tower Records at West Covina Plaza frequently when I was younger. Browsing the racks at Tower Records for music and to look at cool album art was much more fun than downloading songs from iTunes or wherever else people are getting their music from these days. As a high school student, I couldn’t afford to buy $16 CDs so I ended up buying tapes of all the Metallica albums from Kill ‘Em All to the Black Album, Smashing Pumpkins, etc… and to this day still remember how exciting it was to “discover” music like that for the first time. Even when I was in grad school it was still fun to step into a record store like Virgin Megastore in San Francisco’s Union Square but sometime after that point buying music just didn’t seem as exciting anymore once the digital revolution took hold and changed the way that music is distributed.

RIP Tower Records.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Tower Records”

  1. Mark
    July 30th, 2009 @ 11:01 am

    I never had a Tower Records near me, but knew of the big name. Here it was Harmony House as the big name, as well as a lot of small indie stores that were sometimes great for finding something new.

    But I also remember how difficult it seemed to get turned on to something new because you couldn’t always listen to everything in the store. I don’t know how many cassettes or LPs I have where I wished I could only buy the song I liked because the rest of it sucked.

    I do miss the liner notes and artwork though. It is taking awhile to get used to looking at their PDF replacements.

    I think I have discovered more new work with the digital age however. Between listening to Pandora, or even just randomly jumping around in iTunes, visiting music websites, I have stumbled upon some pretty nice stuff.

    It also seems to be turning in favor of the artists now. Without having to rely on these stores for distribution and the labels for promotion, perhaps they are getting a bigger slice of the pie that they deserve.

  2. Richard Wong
    July 30th, 2009 @ 1:46 pm

    Good points Mark. I would agree that most albums suck except for one or two songs. Nowadays I’ll buy cd’s only if I like the artist or most of the music on there.

    I got turned onto Patty Griffin by hearing her music online and have bought her cd’s ever since. I’ve only bought like 2 or 3 entire albums off iTunes and never looked at the liner notes via PDF but I’m sure it is much more interesting to have something tangible in your hands to flip through rather than a computer monitor. The thing I find about being able to hear online first is that I am less excited about buying it after I’ve already heard it for free even if I like the music.

  3. bernie kasper
    August 1st, 2009 @ 4:25 pm

    My how music has changed and the way it is distributed, for me it was a trip to our local bowling alley that also served as a record store, and it was the big vinyl albums we used to buy.

    My older brother still has I believe almost every Beatles Album sold on vinyl !!!

  4. Richard Wong
    August 2nd, 2009 @ 3:51 pm

    Thanks for sharing the story, Bernie. It’s things like that that kids nowadays won’t be able to tell their kids.

    “When I was a kid, I logged on my computer and got my music off iTunes then hit the play button.”

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