Groceteria.com

A classic chain, forced to close. I will miss them very much.

Just noticed today that the location here in Davis is closing, and there were people on the streets holding signs pointing to the liquidation sale...

All 89 stores are closing. A liquidator bought them out over the owners of FYE, Sam Goody, etc..

Sad... Tower was the coolest 'record' store back in the late 70's and early 80's when I was young. Oh well, the world moves on and you have to move with it or lbe left behind.

they've been in decline since the late 90s. The internet, Amazon, & chains like Border's that have gotten some of the genre business have all hurt them. They also made some bad decisions---too many of the smaller stores, poor management of overseas expansion, and some weak site selection in their domestic business.

Here's a nice feature in today's Bee about the closures, specifically focusing on the first two locations: Broadway in Sacramento around the Tower District (from which the record chain got its name), and Watt Avenue in Arden-Arcade (where the chain's first freestanding store was built).

http://www.sacbee.com/245/story/92875.html

rich wrote:poor management of overseas expansion

What's interesting from reading that article is that the overseas Tower stores will retain the name, however...

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As for the Davis location, that one just closed about a week and a half ago.

It's interesting that they turned to franchises for the international operations. They made some significant mistakes, like having their two largest Bangkok stores a few blocks from each other and trying to operate very small stores in other locations. They somehow screwed up in Singapore where they had multiple outlets filled with cutomers and now only have one.

I went to college in Redlands and would drive to the nearest Tower in West Covina to go music shopping. Once I started working in Westwood I then shopped at the stores on Westwood Blvd (regular and classical were separate). They consolidated those stores into one and then it closed in 2002. Now Westwood is a college town without a single CD store after Penny Lane closed in 2005, which was where I bought all my used CDs. There's a story about it in the Daily Bruin at http://dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?ID=34756

About a month ago I went to a movie at the Sherman Oaks Galleria and stopped in Tower to see what they still had. Everything was 40% off but they had replaced all of the Tower price tags with the liquidator's price tag which made the regular price of all of the CDs $20, so you were still paying $12 for a CD you could probably buy on iTunes for $9.99. I ended up getting only 1 CD, a live import Cure CD that I had forgotten even existed. They did seem to have plenty of Prarie Home Companion movie sountracks though.

And the original two Sacramento area locations (the Tower district location at 15th and Broadway, and Watt Avenue) have been shuttered - with their future more uncertain than ever, after a planned FYE takeover of those sites fell through.

http://www.sacbee.com/245/story/95988.html

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Speaking of the Davis location, I have photos of it up on my site:

http://dtcwrt.earlracing.com/stores/davis.htm

Stockton, California's Tower Records closed its doors on December 19 at 10:PM. However while most will be converted to "Walgreens" or "Dollar Tree", Stockton's Tower is being replaced by another Music/Video Store but more Eclectic. Bay Area Based (Berkeley) "Rasputin's Music And Movies" will be replacing both the Stockton and Fresno Tower Records stores in early 2007. Check out their website! http://www.rasputins.com While I loved Tower (I was there when they first opened in 1974), Getting Rasputin's as the replacement is like trading in your old Dodge for a Brand New Porsche!

Monterey Park already has a Dollar Tree in a former Market down the street from the former Tower. I can see it becoming a Walgreens, since we dont have one in our city and there is a Rite Aid and CVS on the next block.

I dont think our Tower in Henderson could become a Dollar Tree or a Walgreens since both are right down the street and Walgreens doesn't go into a shopping center here in Las Vegas. The Tower in Las Vegas was part of a WOW so now the owners of the building are trying to find leasors or sellers since The Good Guys part of the building is also empty.

I think the Tower in Henderson has become a Tweeter, but I'm not sure, havent been over to see it lately, but according to some maps it seems plausible.

FYE/Transworld tried to acquire Tower Records (after a successful merger with Sam Goody/Musicland Group) but failed.

Hi all.

If we could keep this focused on Tower's history rather than on the current competition or on the disposition of individual locations, that would be great.

Thanks,
David