Welcome to a new chapter on this blog outpost. The posts going forward will be small installments of his story, history from my addled point of view. If the legend is a better read than the fact I'll print it, but truth always prevails eventually. I hope you'll enjoy the ride from my time machine which will focus on my ride through the pop culture landscape these 60 some odd years. Here is numero uno, a recent glimpse.
Seems like such a long time waiting to see the results of Colin Hanks' vision of the Tower Records history and legacy. I think the original genesis of this project was hatched back in 2008 if my memory still functions, but a little more than a month ago with my lady friend along for the event I sat watching a big part of what I lived unfold again for about 90 minutes as All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records sprang to life on the big screen at the Tower Theater here in Sacramento, CA. So fitting to find myself soaked in anticipation mixed with trepidation among so many friends and comrades from days gone by at the corner of 16th and Broadway where Russ Solomon began the Tower adventure in his dad's drugstore so many years ago.
The title of the documentary comes from a small sign one of Paul Brown's employees at the Watt Avenue store (#113) put up on the outside reader-board when the sale and liquidation of all company assets was announced in 2006. There is a sad, and yet whimsical truth Paul delivers in the movie noting how this message of love and resignation went down, but after viewing this work I believe another George Harrison song, Photograph, which he wrote for Ringo on the only Beatle solo album where all four mop-tops perform (though never together on one song) serves as a better tune to mark where we all are today.
Whimsy mixed with attitude and bravado defined a lot of what Russ and Tower Records were all about for so long, and Colin Hanks captures that spirit expertly in this documentary. The film is not a Ken Burns treatment with details culled from varied players and historians looking at all sides of important dates and events. It is not a Michael Moore treatise of humor and pathos looking at a world and culture which has lost its ability to care for its citizens. Hanks and his team deliver a thoughtful and well constructed overview stamped with their own signature. The documentary covers many salient points marking the years with clips and comments from key figures concerning the changes and the end of Tower Records.
I expected more commentators from the Tower side, but the ones that were chosen were exceptional throughout with analysis, great humor and tears. Russ shines brightly with wit and insight over the entire film. How could he not? He was/is the star. David Geffen and Elton John are particularly eloquent with their comments, and it was a treat to see Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and Chris Cornell all give their takes on the Tower Records experience. But, the Tower peeps steal the show with some expressed commentary which still blows me away from the force of the brutal familial honesty mixed with love and pain.
It has taken weeks now for the experience of the documentary to settle and relax in my mind. My initial thoughts were a mad rush of exhilaration mixed with equal amounts of depression that nearly overwhelmed me at various moments, but time blended with vodka-cranberry along with chats among friends have helped soothe that brief turmoil to give me a little better perspective and peace.
The corporate end of the line for such a magnificent and important cultural force, which Tower Records certainly was, still keeps its grip on so many of us who either toiled as employees or as partners from the various supply sides. People can quickly and easily forget many things in life, but I encourage any of you who stumble on this blog post to take a good look at people today in various aspects of business life and check out the wide variety of tattoos, piercings and studs proudly worn by American employees in every sector across this land, and note that none of this self expression in the work place came about until Tower Records broke the barriers with a staff of fashion anarchists who shone on a highly visible and global stage for the world to see and then adopt over time. Yes, the business side of Tower Records met its demise almost a decade ago, but the energy of Tower Records is alive and well in the diverse and full catalog world we inhabit today.
Tower Records was fashion, philosophy and art nestled in entertainment retail. The unique Tower formula of partnering with its suppliers to levels that never existed before, or since, where sales and marketing armies of labels, studios and publishers worked the various store floors as virtual retail staffs alongside the Tower labor force to assist customers all those many years allowed the company to prosper. When merger mania gripped the world by the late 1990s that business model weakened, and finally broke altogether by the new millennium.
When I think of the end of Tower Records, which this fine documentary forces me to do, I think of the movie, The Perfect Storm. Wolfgang Petersen directed the film which was based on a best selling nonfiction book written by Sebastian Junger. Yes, the company expanded into Argentina in 1997 just one year prior to that country's disastrous economic collapse with a depression that lasted four years and wiped out the venture. Other markets had cooled in England, Canada and Mexico. Napster was on the scene and singles could not be had from the major vendor partners. Credit was becoming tight and record sales were flat or just beginning to decline in a $14 billion dollar industry at year end 2000. At the midway point in 2001 all these factors were still considered manageable by everyone in the company as Tower cleared a billion dollars in sales for fiscal year 2000. We all could have been wrong, and certainly as the film correctly highlights mistakes had been made. But for all that, it was when September 11, 2001 arrived and Tower Records became the retailer cast as the Andrea Gail where the company was pounded by the wave it could not have foreseen and could not withstand. That was the end. Deprived of the two best markets and many of the highest volume stores for the fall and holiday season of 2001 every bill came due in 2002 and saw the management decks all cleared.
Just sad, really. I still vividly recall sitting with my friend, Stan, in his office on that September morning. With nearly all the corporate office folks gone home, or gone elsewhere to witness this tragedy with family and friends, we watched some of the coverage for a time and realized the year was now financial toast, and that the company had sustained a mortal blow. When you become numb reality takes on a much sharper focus. Life, we both knew, would never be the same.
Thank you, Colin Hanks for making this movie. Thank you, Russ, Stan, Randi, Jennifer, Bob, Bud, Tony, and everyone else at Tower and in the Biz where I worked with for 23 years for giving me the time of my life. This a high quality project brought to completion by many many small contributors from the Kickstarter community. It was quite moving to hear Colin Hanks acknowledge the Kickstarter family contributions as the key to getting his film funded. Truly, a marvelous magic lantern moving photograph "of all the places we used to go."
Thanks for the visiting.
