Remember when

Me, too. 4th and Broadway.
Lots of my records still have the Tower Records price stickers on them. I always kept the cellophane on the LPs and 12" singles.

I may have a yellow bag somewhere..

 

You were lucky I was forced to attend catholic school until 6th grade when the nuns told my parents I was not welcome there anymore.

 

I remember a similar device that mounted under your dash, but it added FM to an AM car radio...

My buddy had one of the adapter thingies for 8-tracks. I recall his working well. We used in in the house to copy cassettes before someone invented the double-cassette deck and starting pissing off the record industry. His home stereo had an 8-track player and a cassette recorder, so you you play your cassette in the 8-track with the adapter and copy it.

 

Tower Records wasn't a "cool" record store but still better than nothing!

 

That’s all I knew. We didn’t have many other options. I grew up 15 minutes from the original one in Sacramento. It was a staple in our community

 

I will admit that towards the end, the cool factor was gone. The shine started to rub off when the CD replaced the LP, and vinyl singles were essentially discontinued. And once you could buy music via the internet, it was all downhill from there. Big box stores didn't help them, either. Napster was the death blow. But they had EVERYTHING.

But I will tell you, browsing through 4 floors of records at the East Village store was an experience, and something I deeply miss. I don't miss waiting outside this Tower all night for Pink Floyd tickets in a snow storm, but I digress...

Watching "All Things Must Pass" and seeing that store again brought back good memories.

If you didn't shop there before 1990, you may not understand.

 

Believe it or not, I was just looking up Peaches. We had several locations here near the University of New Orleans, back around 1970 or so until who knows. There is still a location uptown somewhere but I doubt it's really the same... prolly no incense burning, no patchouli in the air, no heavy music playing . . .

We had Warehouse Records here too, I shopped there a lot for albums. And The Mushroom, by Tulane University..

 

You really got me... That sign had to be from a Philly area store.

I can only imagine how long ago that photo was taken if Van Halen was going to appear in a record store - and announced at that!

 

When I was buying records in high school we didn’t have a record shop in our town. The only place we could buy records was at the pharmacy.

Every now and then you get cheap ones that had been discounted for some reason and they would have a little hole punched in the corner of the cardboard jacket.

I remember buying a LP of Quicksilver Messenger Service and I thought the music was so bad it took me a while to figure out that the record was actually skipping and playing the same stuff over.

That’s the only record that I ever returned to a store for a refund. I ended up trading it for different LP.

When we lived in Duluth we were on the Air Force Base and I could buy records at the post exchange. The PX which later became the base exchange or BX.

That’s where you bought uniforms in the military but also civilian clothes, and a variety of other things. I remember buying pocket knives and harmonicas.

Here’s the weird thing. If you were stationed at some funky small town out in the middle of nowhere where fashions we’re about 10 years behind the times, the PX would have the latest civilian fashions.

I showed up to school in clothes nobody else had or had seen. Yes there was a fistfight or two.…

 

Those are called cutouts.
They are essentially sealed records that shops / wholesalers will not take back for credit.

If a sealed LP sat on a shelf in a store for an extended period of time, the retailer could return the LP for credit against new stock. The store couldn't return cutouts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-out_(recording_industry)

During the early 90's, there were a few record shops in Manhattan that would be full of nothing but cutouts... Got some nice new old-stock LPs in mint condition (sans the hole punch / cutout).
I picked up a vinyl copy of Vital Idol, and it still contained the Chrysalis Customer Survey Card inside... Was debating on completing the form and sending it in, but was sure (by that time) that the PO Box was closed / long gone by then...

 

First record I ever bought (well, convinced my aunt to buy for me) was a 45 of Rag Doll by the Four Seasons. For some reason I was at the A&P food store with her, and they had a small rack of 45's. I convinced her that she would like too, but I dunno if she did.
My wife retired from active duty USAF in 2004 after 28 years. We always talked about the "BX or the PX", depending on which base we were going to.

 

I mounted an FM receiver under the dash of my '66 Mustang that tapped into the car's AM radio. With it, I could sit at the airport fence and pick-up the tower/aircraft comms. I had to tune it way off the display scale (on the FM rvcr), but it came in very clear.

 

Mmmm fresh garden hose water. I can taste it

 

I still have a couple of 78 rpm records from my grandparents

 

Still a connoisseur of hose water when I do yard work.

 

Just had some last weekend.
Worked up a sweat giving the dog a bath.

 

I helped my uncle to check for cracks who sold large double yoke eggs at his storefront (sold dressed chickens too) when Greenburgh, NY was still rural somewhat but rat race was acoming.