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The contempo repainting of the memorable chicken and red Tower Annal assurance on the Sunset Strip has larboard abounding of us activity cornball about the canicule of browsing the aisles of the once-legendary and massive music shop.
["400px"]While we're attractive avant-garde to the accessible documentary about the above music retail empire, All Things Must Pass, it's adamantine not to ambition that you could still pop in to the iconic area to boutique for some agreeable gems. Whether analytic for a record, 8-track, cassette band or CD, the Tower Annal that sat at Sunset Boulevard and Horn Avenue was a above destination and music hub for the association for decades. It was additionally a abode for music lovers and musicians akin to adhere out, see bands accomplish and for admirers to get autographs from their idols. While the squat, ellipsoidal architecture may sit abandoned now, memories of the abundance assuredly abide active for many.
The Tower Annal in West Hollywood that opened up boutique at in 1971 was the aboriginal Southern California area of the Sacramento-based chain, and apparently safe to say, the best famous. Afore Tower was built, the bend had been home to a drive-in restaurant in the '40s, a booth in the '50s, and in 1964, it was area Earl "Madman" Muntz awash car stereo systems.
The 8,660-square-foot architecture anon became Tower's flagship abundance for the West Coast—located in the affection of the growing L.A. music industry. The abundance was alike listed in 1974 as the “largest almanac abundance in the world" by the Guinness Book Of World Records, according to WEHOville.
Right from the start, the store's diffuse aisles with rows and rows of music were awash with those analytic for the abutting abundant find. Tower Annal additionally backward accessible until midnight—and 1 a.m. on the weekends—so you could boutique late. And not abandoned could you acquisition new releases, but Tower additionally offered an all-encompassing account of earlier and hard-to-find and abstruse albums. Domenic Priore, historian and columnist of Riot On The Sunset Strip—who additionally fought to bottle the almanac shop—told L.A. Magazine:
["400px"]For those who were into avant-garde searches of records, who capital to acquisition added music, we were award it there. The Tower Annal on Sunset gave us admission to bankrupt copies of recordings that weren't accessible anymore [in stores].
Here's what it looked like to browse the aisles of Tower in 1971, complete with a Sly & The Family Stone and Janis Joplin soundtrack:
The advisers at Tower—many of whom were musicians themselves—were additionally a big allotment of the agreeableness of the Sunset Tower Records. While they may not all accept been agreeableness academy grads, they about had a abysmal ability of music and could point you in the appropriate direction. The abundance additionally abundantly had no dress code, which helped advance the bounded almanac store-vibe alike for a accumulated chain. Dave Grohl was alike an agent there for two accomplished months in 1990—one of the abandoned places that would appoint him with his crew he says—just afore abutting Nirvana.
Located aloof bottomward the alley from the Strip's admirable music venues like the Whisky A Go-Go and the Rainbow Bar and Grill, Tower was not abandoned a abode for admirers to aces up an anthology afore a show, it was additionally area the big name musicians went to shop. Alison Martino, who runs Vintage Los Angeles, explains in L.A. Magazine: "It wasn’t aberrant to bang into Robert Plant, Stevie Wonder, Robert Stigwood, Ella Fitzgerald, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, Elvis Costello, Robert Evans, Smokey Robinson or alike George Burns in the aisles."
["400px"]Here's a tipsy-sounding John Lennon in 1973 active the store—along with his latest album, Mind Games:
Pop bedrock accompanist Andy Kim alike attempt a awe-inspiring music video central the store:
And Elton John—who was accepted for stocking up at the abundance back he was in town—can be apparent actuality arcade about 1975:
The highly-visible area on the Sunset Strip additionally fabricated for an ideal atom for announcement musicians. Over the decades, endless musicians—from Rod Stewart to Prince—performed central the abundance to barrage new albums. Or in some cases, they performed alfresco in the parking lot as Duran Duran did in 1993 for a alliance recording. And again there was, um, Pete Yorn:
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Even added musicians drew crowds of admirers to assurance autographs, including Aerosmith, James Brown, Dolly Parton, Mariah Carey, KISS and more. The architecture was additionally acclimated for busy stunts like David Lee Roth rappelling bottomward the ancillary of a affected abundance on the roof to advance his 1988 anthology Matterhorn, according to L.A. Magazine.
The alfresco walls of the architecture were additionally always bashed with reproductions of anthology covers to advance annal like Pink Floyd, Madonna, Guns N' Roses and The Smashing Pumpkins. The huge displays were a accepted afterimage over the years active bottomward the Sunset Strip. (We appealing abiding we weren't abandoned in our bashful acclamation back the abundance afresh fabricated a adornment in Straight Outta Compton, area we saw Dr. Dre's The Chronic anthology awning beyond the storefront.) And, of course, Michael Jackson was up there appealing regularly:
For decades, Tower Annal connected to angle as a alarm for music on Sunset, the chicken assurance and red book allegorical music admirers of all stripes. But that all came to a affecting coda back Tower Annal went broke in 2006 and the Sunset Boulevard area was closed. In 2008, a developer planned to annihilate the architecture to body an appointment architecture with retail food and a bloom club. At the time preservationists attempted to accept the armpit declared a celebrated ability and about-face it into a music museum, but neither the annihilation or the actual cachet were achieved. Another accomplishment in 2013 to authorize the architecture as a bounded cultural ability didn't accomplish either.
In the year afterward Tower's closure, the architecture of the above was acclimated for a array of promotional purposes, including back The White Stripes bashed the exoteric to advance an anthology and alike performed central the old abundance for a baddest accumulation of fans.
["400px"]Last year, the guitar and gear-maker Gibson active a 15-year charter for the building. In accession to affairs their products, they've said they intend to advance the already "crazy vibe" of Tower Annal and action a amplitude area musicians can accumulate and advance their music. We haven't apparent abundant advance on that front. In the meantime, we'll accept to await on our memories, photos and videos—as able-bodied as Colin Hanks' documentary about the music outlet—to accumulate the anamnesis of Tower Annal alive.
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