uh oh, I wonder if you're going to get an earful for that one!

He's actually a really nice guy--the only reason I would get an earful is if I were to be endangering his daughter's life... ;-)

Aww, Im sure he'll forgive you Pooter! You must have had a good sleep though?

I kind of chilled out today, all my friends were working so I had go solo and find things to do. I went to FYE for the first time just to see what this music store looked liked inside. Nothing but way overpriced CD's, but they also sold used ones as well. But I found out that before this store was built, it was once a Tower records. I then asked myself why would anybody want to try and open another music store when you have overpriced music, no customers, and end up just like the money-losing Tower records. I miss the Warehouse, Sam Goody, and other stores, but I also look forward to saying goodbye to video stores as well. It's just that everybody is doing the Netflix or the Itunes stuff now because its more convenient getting your stuff on the net then going out to a store and buying it. Anyway, I took home some used CD's for cheap,but they looked pretty clean with no scratches.

'Verve Remixed Vol 1', It's like a mash-up of classic Jazz artists with today's electronica artists (Vol 2 and 3 are great too!)

'Hard Sell' by DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist! Again using 45's for a mix unlike any other (a must for Dj's who already own the last 2 albums by them. the vid below tells you what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.c...t-930-club-124/

I know what you mean. There used to be 2 record stores and 5 cd stores in my town. They all closed down except for 2 cd stores (and they are the big HMV types that only have the hits). The good times are passing by.

I used to work for Tower Records off and on for a number of years. My store had a good selection, the best for miles - it kicked stores like Sam Goody and Warehouse's collective butts when it came to selection. There was a time when Tower was cheaper than the other chains and some indie record stores but that was in the 80's... But, My last stint ended over 2 years ago. There were some very poor coked up business decisions made internally over a decade ago and what started the downward spiral wasn't necessarily the high prices (which was driven by selection, debts to lenders, advertising and feature deals with labels all of which you paid for at the register) - it was the corporate decision to give the finger to each store's local demographic, take away each store's autonomy and corporate's refusal to acknowledge music downloading as something more than a passing trend. There were a million other factors that led to the closing of the doors. It was all very sad, actually, at the end. The minute the sales signs went up, people came in droves and circled like vultures. Proof positive that if the price is right or there's the promise of a good deal to be had, people will still invest in their tangibles.

Interesting insight into the downfall of Tower...

Thanks Whirls.

I'd like to refer anyone with other questions about the state of the music industry to the section of Bill Hicks' comedy where he refers to corporate rock groups as "suckers of Satan's cock."

Thanks for the insight Whirly! sounds like a mini-series on HBO.

'Tower Records: The Rise And the Fall'

and starts off with 'In a world....' :)

lol, indeed.

I'm going for another 13 hour day today at work. The fuck did I do to myself in making the decision to become a paralegal... fuck.

Got a 6-pack of Monster in the car or do you need more!

Nothing's better then having a job that's physically sucking the life out of you. I pretty much get around 10-11 hrs (I did 9 today) but while I'm driving home, I get really sleepy, and that sucks. I need 8 hrs of sleep so I can recharge for the next day, plus I try to drink lots of water and stay off the sodas or energy drinks! But I assume your much younger than this rapidly-aging hipster to endure this mental anguish as a paralegal. Besides, I'm quite surprised you still have the strength to put up some posts up in here after so many hours. But fear not, Olympia is just around the corner!

'Isn't that worth fighting for'

'Isn't that worth dying for'

-Morpheus

Ha! Thanks man. I did enjoy your Matrix reference; and fittingly yes, it is worth fighting for, and probably dying for. ;-)

Tragically, one of my best friend's ex-girlfriend just killed herself today. I hung out with her a few times in college, and although I didn't know her well, it hurts to know that my friend is going through pain and probably a bit of confusion. It also hurts to know that this girl, who actually was very dorky (in the best way, of course) and cool was so depressed she couldn't see another way out for herself.

I do hope she finds some peace. Depending on your belief, this could mean any number of things in terms of conceptually where her "soul" goes, if she has a soul, or if she even existed in the first place. It sounds rather strange to write it in such a way, but when it comes to spiritual beliefs which religion may or may not fully explain, there's a whole lot that sounds rather strange.

Not to get too much into spirituality, but I'm under the impression that I've been here a few times, and this time, for some reason, I'm getting further than I have, possibly ever. I have felt more spiritual awakening and growth for myself in the past three to four years than in the previous 23 to 24, and I have further still to go. And who knows, maybe this time I'll even get it completely right... whatever that may be, or mean.

"in a world..."

Pooter, I'm so sorry to read about your friend's ex. It makes you wonder what was going on physically, mentally, spiritually and all of that stuff that would make a person feel no hope for the future, that the future isn't worth hanging around for.

As for spirituality, and spiritual growth - I think that just come with life and the personal experiences you gain. You get older, wiser, and you figure out your own truths and what works for you on a spiritual level. Spirituality is a personal thing, for me at least. Still haven't really found this deep meaning I once was looking for (I dabbled in a couple of things but they were short lived). I'm open to the possibility of deep meaning finding me, but I'm not holding my breath because I don't want life to pass me by. Perhaps one day all will be revealed - I suspect that when the day comes when all is revealed, I won't be around to tell anyone about it. And if that's the way it is, then I'm OK with that.

Energy flows in some really fascinating ways... That's about all I'm sure of at this point.

I'm sorry to hear what happened bro. I'm sure everybody here, including myself, extend their condolences to her family, friends, and loved ones.

Felt like I haven't posted enough recently. First Pooter, that sucks to hear, one of my co-worker's brother commit suicide about 2 weeks ago and I cannot imagine anything more depressing. I've experienced more than enough losses in my life, but never have I imagined the difficulty of them being chosen by the individual.

Whirly, you're definitely right about Tower, the store had miles of sections that were never touched, I mean why would we have a whole room devoted to a genre (Classical) that only 3 customers visited. I kid you not, there were a few times I went into the classical room and there was only one person there and they were reading one of the porno mags, no interest in Phillip Glass at all! I was talking to my best-friend's dad the other day and he was starting a company around the premise that he saw the exact moment where his previous employer failed to evolve with the times and shot themselves in the foot like Tower did. Great insight Whirly, I'm glad I moved on when I did, Tower sucked the life out of me at some points. And we had no Star Guitar poster to remind me of why I was there (to special order chem bros CDs whenever possible !!)

Right now, my life is going very good in some areas and very rough in others. Luckily, it is those good things that are really making sure life doesn't seem bad. First, I was talking with Pooter last week and told him I wont make it to Olympia, basically my company has been keeping me at 30 hours a week, which is only enough to pay rent and eat Ramen. They are training me for a promotion, which will pay about 80% more, so my job right now is essentially see how much shit they can dish to someone before they stop saying "thank you sir, may I have another?" Anyways, proof of how well you can live with 30 hours a week is in the Studio Tech Talk section, where I mentioned I have to ebay off one of my of my favorite synths.

The good things going for me aside from the promotion is that I've been dating this person who I have been particularly fond of for way too long before I found out she felt the same way. I think I mentioned this before, but life is never too bad when you can share a low-budget meal with someone special.

Anyway, between working and dating, I'll try to post more than I have in the past few weeks. As usual, I got in the habit of coming here a lot and never posting... But I can change, I swear!

Congrats on the promo Biff! It's good to see fans in the forum get ahead in life. And I always hear of people working under or averaging 30 hrs of work because the companies don't want to give them full time. But it fells good to stand out from among your peers and get a promotion. I guess the 'Tower' topic doesn't get old! I used to pick up the Chems CD singles at those stores cause they were only stores that had most of them. I think the stores closed around late 2006, but all of their liquidated Cd's are at other music stores in my parts of town. They were just covered with new price stickers and ended up in the used section, which reminds me of my lastest music shop I did yesterday. I guess more crates of used Cd's came in (I usually go on a regular basis) because I go to the 'electronica' section where I normally go and lo and behold, a treasure chest of almost every Chem CD single was put out. I didn't know that the imported single of 'The Boxer' had 'Swiper' on it! Got it for 1.99! I picked up more imported CD's, some from Japan, and some from Holland! but its weird how some countries get certain B-sides on a single then others countries. The same can be said for albums. The Japanese version of 'Brotherhood' gets Music: Response for a bonus track.

'A low-budget meal with someone special!'

Me and my girlfriend ate at Mcdonalds when we first hooked up! I'm not that trendy of a person but having the finer things in life is great but not a true source of happiness. And I hate happiness when it come with a price tag, but then agian, seeing the Chems live is priceless!

yeah, even though tower had too much stuff for the wrong audience, at least they kept up with the chems singles. especially good cause I worked there around the time of PTB...

Am I the only classy one around here? My most recent first date was at a rather classy place called the Olema Inn. :-p

http://www.theolemainn.com/

But yes, Biff, it's really awesome when you are able to be with someone just for the sake of being with them. Their company provides the ambiance. Teeheehee... so cheesy.

I'm definitely bummed that you can't go, man! Fuck--it seems like nearly everyone who I want to go can't go now... :-( But best of luck getting the promotion. And hey--at least you don't have to work more than 50 hours per week. :)

mmmm... the joys of working at Tower when there was a new Chems release! *sigh* I got a real nice Dutch promo of Push The Button and a couple of other tasty Chems goodies during my time there.

As much as I loved working there, it had changed so much over my time working for the company that my original job duties as store artist were eventually eradicated and replaced with "visual merchandiser" - which was more or less glorified poster pushing since all store signage moved to corpoate and taken out of in-house. Since the job as visual merchandiser wasn't really a full time gig, I was put on the register which I absolutely hated. Not because I think I'm above working a register, but because I felt like I was moving backwards. Even worse than that was the endless toil of pricing and re-pricing music on a constant basis because of all these ridiculous money wasting sales, promotions and corporate/major label repricing.

It's funny you mention the ghost town that was the Classical room in your store Biff. In my store, the Classical section was quite the opposite. This goes back to the whole demographic thing I mentioned earlier. My store was close to a large retirement community - and those folks had a lot time to drop a lot of money on their preferred music of choice which was classical. Also, we had a lot of older folks who'd come browse the record store just to pass the time, and the Classical room was their retreat. These people would get together a couple of times a week at a certain time, and all spend an hour or 2 discussing classical music, comparing new releases, etc. and at the end they always walked away with new music in their bags. Our guy who head up the department had worked there for 27 years when Tower closed its doors. This guy Charlie, who was this amazing font of Classical music knowledge, had customers who'd been coming to him since he first started all those years ago. Over time the classical music room was cut into 1/3 to make room for growing departments, namely Latin music which was truly a waste of space, time and money. Not because we didn't sell Latin music, but because we didn't sell a substantial amount of Latin music that warranted such a massive portion of our store. Another poor corporate decision of taking away autonomy, giving the bird to the demographic, all while trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Ugh. So anyway. What's done is done and my old job is slowly becoming another distant memory.

I'm bummed that you can't make it to Olympia, Biff. I thought that was an ace in the hole but I suppose you can join the rest of us in the same boat who'll probably be having a pit party. Because misery loves company, haha. Just kiddin!

As for eating ramen with the one you love, there is a certain charm to a meal on the cheap, then just kickin back afterward and enjoying the simplicity of taking the time to get to know each other better. stash and I have had our fair share of ramen, and the occasional free meal (and use of washer and dryer) at the in-law's. I guess it all just makes you appreciate the finer things that will come later on.

I feel like shit that we all dropped out on you Poots. I'm gonna do my best to make it up and try to be in Cali on Halloween.

Biff, good to hear you relationship with your new lady friend is going strong. Good luck with the promotion! As for the Olympia, like I said in the E-mail, shame on us.

Haha Inchemwetrust, me and you are the same. However mine started at Taco Bell ....that relationship ended quite fast...