We went back to mine to watch Captain Kirk and listen to obscure 60s albums and bemoan our love lives." I met a woman in the Soul section who was doing the same. I was a bit lonely after being dumped and bought a load of Star Trek VHS. He said: "The main attraction for me is that it was open late. Gadsby Gadsby remembers it helped him find solace for a broken heart with a little help from Star Trek. Sir Cliff Richard at Tower Records in London's Piccadilly Circus, where he celebrated the 300,000th ticket sale of his stage musical 'Heathcliff', July 1996 I would frequently awake on a Saturday morning surrounded by records or CDs I had no memory of buying." He told us: "It opened till midnight, one hour after the pubs shut. Nigel Kendall tended to go there after a night out at the pub. Matt Parker said: "I remember the Piccadilly Circus Tower Records, and going in there and buying half of the Status Quo discography on Cassette!" We asked Londoners about their memories of the iconic shop from over the years, and as expected, we were blown away by the response. Those moments of discovery really gave you a buzz. I can remember trawling the shelves and being dumbstruck when I uncovered an obscure cassette from a Scottish band's back catalogue which I literally could not get anywhere else. It’s catnip for music lovers who want to wax nostalgic on the way things were.An early 20th Century scene of London's Piccadilly Circus where it opens into Regent Street, with the Swan & Edgar store on the left which later became Tower Recordsĭepending on your taste in music this place meant the world to many people for different reasons. “We had a helluva good time!”Īll Things Must Pass reached its Kickstarter funding back in 2011, has been on the festival circuit all year long (alongside a thoroughly gracious Hanks), and sees its theatrical release October 16. “This was Tower’s first venture into the East Coast, and opened many exciting new opportunities for us,” Solomon tells Vulture. As throughout All Things Must Pass, former Tower and label execs praise Solomon for his willingness to take big risks - an approach that led to Tower’s we’re-practically-printing-money success during the record industry’s boom, and its subsequent downfall just a handful of post-Napster years later. In this new clip from All Things Must Pass, Colin Hanks’s long-in-the-works (and quite compelling) documentary about the rise and fall of Tower Records, founder Russ Solomon defies critics by making this store a reality - and truly a dream for New York music fans, whose other record-store offerings were a fraction of the size. Today it’s teeming with restaurants, stores aimed at the copious amounts of loitering youths, and a Duane Reade every other block in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, welcome to New York. When Tower opened, the kids - likely those from nearby NYU - flocked to the store, helping the area boom. But when Tower gave the space an expensive overhaul ahead of the store’s 1983 opening, people thought they were nuts! Like many stretches of today’s premium downtown real estate, Broadway just above Houston was a bit desolate at the time. Located at East 4th Street and Broadway, Tower’s first Manhattan store broke hearts when it closed in 2006, and is now the site of something called MLB Fan Cave and an open-air market where tourists can buy some of Noho’s cheapest souvenirs. Tower Records undoubtedly changed the record-store game, but the California-born chain also had an impact on New York City’s lower stretch of Broadway in the mid-’80s. Photo: Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures/All Things Must Pass Tower Records founder Russ Solomon at the opening of Tower’s flagship NYC store in 1983.
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