There is something magical about walking into a neighborhood record store. The aisles are stacked with hard-to-find independent albums, the employees know music so well that they can identify that song you heard on the radio by your horrible humming, and instead of major record labels paying millions to get their artist featured on the end caps like at the big chains, the record store lets its employees put their personal recommendations on the display.
But now, music lovers will have to look even harder with Tower Records getting ready to close its doors after 46 years.
Its 89 locations in 20 states will be liquidated and closed. This includes the location in the Marina on Pacific Coast Highway, which is a popular student hangout. At any hour of the day, a visitor could see students getting lost wandering the stacks, sampling new music on the listening stations and even working the musical heaven.
When I visited the store last night, my heart sank to see the huge yellow “Going Out Of Business” signs covering the outside of the store. Everything is 40 percent to 60 percent off, and with each visit the racks get emptier and emptier.
My favorite Tower experience was in mid-2004 when a struggling Taking Back Sunday was trying to make a return to the music scene. They did a signing and an in-store acoustic performance on the day their CD was released.
They cut the line about 10 people before I got to the front. Sad and disappointed, I started to make my way back to the car. The associate caught up with me and pulled me aside. As the line diminished, he pulled a wristband out of his pocket, gave it to me and told me to enjoy the show.
Taking Back Sunday is now selling out arenas all over the world, but I will never forget watching them sing those three acoustic songs on a small platform in the middle of the CD racks.
I will also never forget that act of compassion the associate showed me. That compassion is what’s missing from the big retail chains.
Try humming a song to a Wal-Mart associate in the CD section, and see the response you get. They will probably just laugh in your face. They don’t know anything about music. They were probably working the jewelry counter the day before.
Music is rapidly changing from a sacred art form, to a heartless commercial industry. I’m not saying don’t download music, I’m not telling you not to buy from iTunes, I’m not even telling you not to buy from Best Buy or Wal-Mart.
Just support music. Support the artist. Go to shows. Buy a T-shirt. Give that sampler that some acne-faced kid handed you outside a show a listen.
I get packages from major record labels every week with handfuls of new releases for me to listen to, but few of them have been as good as the album that I was handed by unsigned Long Beach band, No One Goes Home, after a show.
Technology is killing the art of music, and this will continue until people take notice. What am I scared to answer is the question when my son or daughter asks, “Daddy, what was a record store?”
Matthew Wilkinson is a senior journalism major and the assistant diversions editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
