I went to the Tower Records on Broadway for the store’s final, going-out-of-business, everything-must-go sale on Thursday and the scene was pretty much what you would expect: A bunch of middle-aged guys like me poring over the CDs and walking around the aisles carrying their payloads in a protective crouch, like pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers carrying their pods.
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And I don’t mean iPods.
I wrote about my early love affair with Tower and don’t mean to wax nostalgic anymore for the days of wax and jimmy shands. Technology moved on, like it or not, and the downloading phenomenon (legal or extralegal) separated the men from the boys (and I didn’t see many women or girls in Tower Thursday) years ago. Even Bob Dylan, whose albums were among the first I bought at (yes) Tower in Sacramento, recently gave his jaded blessing to the free download phenomenon. In a conversation with Jonathan Lethem that appeared in Rolling Stone last month, the sage of Hibbing weighed in on the controversy in his own unique way. “I remember when that Napster guy came up across,” Bob told the novelist, “it was like, ‘Everybody’s gettin’ music for free.’ I was like, ‘Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothin’ anyway.'”
That’s easier to say when you’ve moved tens of millions of units yourself and your brand is now so ubiquitous that you can get away with doing Victoria’s Secret ads and Twyla Tharp shows without anyone saying boo. But the man, as usual, has a point: I probably could have got most of my haul (eight CDs and one LP, a birthday gift for my friend Jeremy, the name of which I cannot reveal at this time) online for nothin’ — but would I have thought to get the History of Township Music if I hadn’t seen it on display? Or the double album package of Jerry Lee Lewis’s first country records, Another Place, Another Time and She Still Comes Around (To See What’s Left of Me)? Without record stores how will we find the random music we never knew or forgot we wanted?
I know, the Limewired will say you can scroll for your favorites there and there are professional precogs working at the download sites who can tell you what you want before you want it — but what are the chances you will stumble on the Killer in that purple velour nehru jacket? For some action you’ve still got to leave home, providing you can find a record store that hasn’t become a Starbucks.
That’s where I bought the new Dylan.
I, too, used to shop at Tower Records in Sacramento, usually on my way home from the orthodontist. In the years since I’ve been in dozens of dark dusty scuffed-wooden-floored record stores in tiny towns all over the west. There was almost always some treasure I didn’t know I needed, or wanted. When my husband and I first moved to this small central Washington city there was a record store called Bob Godfrey’s. Bob was an unexpected expert on jazz, someone difficult to escape from because we never wanted to.
Records aren’t the only item on the extinct merchandise list. Yesterday, anticipating the freedom of a week alone and feeling nostalgic for another adolescent activity, sewing my own clothes, I went to the fabric store in search of brown wool. Shopping for fabric used to be a sensual experience. There was the color, the texture and even the faint scent of mothballs and starch. Now the odor of cheap candles from the crafts half of the store gives me an instant headache, and the texture is mostly limited to polyester fleece from China. Color is still there; possibly appealing if you’re three. No brown wool to be had. No wool at all. The clerk suggested I look on-line. I left the store with feelings of social and sensory deprivation. Where were those sumptuous tweeds and Pendleton plaids? Where was that old lady with a pencil in her bun and a tape measure around her neck? I hope she’s in heaven wtih Bob Godfrey pinning the hem of someone else’s brown wool skirt and listening to slightly scratchy jazz.
and what small central washington city is that?
the Bob Godfreys of the world are still out there, in dwindling numbers. I was trying to do a story about a similar guy in Ashland, formerly of Petaluma, who runs a place called the Music Coop. a sort of last-of-a-dying-breed piece. Couldn’t find any takers…
Yeah, I illegally downloaded that Township comp myself a couple of days ago. Some killer sweetness on there.
You’ll be happy to know I paid full boat to Sonny Rollins for his new CD, “Sonny Please,” at least in part because it’s HIS record company so I know he’ll see the money.
-j