All the old places are gone like me or I remember when dinosaurs walked the earth...

Tower Records officially closed on December 22, well the stores anyway. They are now an online service only. I heard from someone at work, that Coliseum Bookstore is also closing now. Another fucking crying shame. It's kinda sad when you see stores that you have been going to all your life closing. You always wonder why. Well the reasons are usually really obvious, but you just wonder why because you can't understand, you went there, they got your business, wasn't that enough. Apparently enough. Tower Records is closing because, officially, online music downloading has cut into there music sales. That is completely true. They fail to accept that they are also closing because they have been in bankruptcy court for the last ten years because they thought they were so popular they could compete with all the other huge entertainment stores and open stores nationwide. Too many stores, not enough demand. But most importantly, they failed to accept that they didn't need to discount their stock like every other store. Only in the last few years did they start to discount new releases, still not as much as Best Buy, Circuit City, etc., but at least they started to. Not enough, no one would buy unless they happened to be there a new release for full price when you can go to a Best Buy and get it for 8 bucks cheaper. The truly best thing about Tower was that it was the place you could find almost everything you were looking for, and that is the feature of the store I will miss more than anything else.

I didn't even think about it until I read it in an article a few days ago, but the first Tower didn't open until the around the late 70's or early 80's in the village. Greenwich Village to you non-New Yorkers. A lot of the smaller record stores downtown threw a shit fit, and rightly so. Tower downtown, although small and very homey, looked like a shiny conglomerate run type store. They had the Wal-mart fear before the Wal-mart fear became a nationwide phenomenon. You know, big store comes in and all the small ma and pa stores get shutdown, not being able to compete with the steep discounts the big store can offer. Tower did it, they didn't exactly offer discounts but neither did anyone else back then. But again, they did what became my most favorite feature of the store, have virtually everything I was looking for. When I was kid, long, long time ago, I used to buy 45's and albums at the Woolworth's. (How many of you even know what the hell I am talking about?) When I was a little older and because of circumstances beyond my control, began to spend my massively misspent youth hanging out downtown, I got into a lot of kinds of music, rock, punk, metal, reggae, jazz, blues, international, etc..., all at clubs like CBGBs, The Bottom Line, Continental (Divide), The Bitter End, etc. (All gone now too, except TheBitter End) I think I was 15 when I saw The Police play CBGBs, loved them ever since, fell in love with Blondie there, heard Jimmy Cliff on reggae night at The Bottom Line. I wish I saw a lot more, but I saw a few big bands start there and make it big, so many, many more not. I was always scrambling around looking for a 45 or an album if I liked the band. Then cam Tower. After that, if they put out a 45 or an album, I didn't have to search around whatever store to find it, Tower had it all. (One of the features of the downtown store that all the other stores didn't have was they would carry the music of local bands.) Over the years, whatever music suddenly caught my interest, I knew I would be able to go to Tower and find an extensive collection of the artist, so if I wanted to start with the first album or the newest, chances are they would have it. I will be the first to admit, lately when there has been a new release, I just go to Best Buy, or even FYE. You get the CDs far cheaper there. But I would go to Tower at least once every month or month and half, and spend nearly $200 dollars there. I love all types of music and I read about music online all the time, see the links on the side, a bunch of them are too music sites that help you here good stuff playing today. But I also love music that is not exactly popular, so finding those CDs in your local Best Buy are pretty much a dream. Not at Tower, biggest collection of Blues CDs you will ever see in your life. Full collections of Buddy Guy, the greatest blues guitarist ever, solo and with Junior Wells. Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Albert King, Debbie Davis, Jon Bonnamasso, Paul Butterfield and the Paul Butterield band in all it's incarnations, everything you could dream of. Every punk band I could barely remember from the haze that was my youth, from The Ramones to Cyanide to Vulcan Death Touch.

The same can be said of Coliseum Books. It is a local bookstore like no bookstore I ever saw. I remember it being near me forever, it was the biggest, shiniest book store, that literally had everything. Classics, recent bestsellers, children's books, text books, adult, everything. And they weren't some big chain, they were only local. Which I guess allowed them to buy 1 every book ever published. They closed about 3 years ago, a victim of high rents. They actually re-opened in another location, unfortunately smaller, so they weren't as comprehensive. But I still went to them. They too announced they were closing, right after Christmas, I believe. Barnes and Nobles ain't bad at all, but this place was special for me.

I ramble, my point being that, two places where you could find anything are/will be gone and I am sad. I don't mind buying music online, but I like buying music that I can hold. I lamented the loss of the big 12" album, with it's glorious cover art and extensive liner notes, shrunk down to the size of a large coaster and a booklet that looks like it is telling me how to operate my blender. I got over it, and now I have to start getting over holding a CD in my hands. And I like the fact that Coliseum was different than Barnes & Nobles, like Scribbners, B. Dalton were different, but better. I would never leave without at least 2 books.

Anyways, there is no lesson here other than, go to the places you like as much as you can, because, they may go away without warning. Like a bad cold or my dignity.

Here's some pictures of some of these places. Bye Bye stores, I loved you the most Scarecrow.


I loved this place, full of different music every night. Taught you how to not be a snob when it came to musical taste.


This the new store, couldn't find any pics of the old store, it was impressive though.


i really don't have to write about this, but one day, I will try and remember all the young acts that became famous there and tell you about them.


nuff said true believer.