Crumbling Tower

We drove by the Tower Records location in Sherman Oaks on Saturday, and sure enough the chain's liquidation had already begun. Sign holders promoted the sell-off, which so far is at 30% off everything in the store. I'm sure that will increase as the days go on -- and yes, I'll have to stop by soon and take advantage of the chain's sad demise.

And it is quite a depressing ending to the store that for years was the end-all, be-all for me. In Hawaii, I used to frequent both the Keeaumoku location (near Ala Moana)... but even more frequently, spent many a late evening at the Pearl Kai Shopping Center spot (across from Pearlridge) in Pearl City -- which was next to Jelly's. I lost track of the number of tapes and cassette singles -- and finally, CDs I bought at Tower in high school (I didn't transfer to CDs until circa 1990).

Here in Los Angeles, I once shopped next to Shaq at the famed Sunset Boulevard location. Sadly, that Sunset location now joins Aron's, Rhino and other L.A. record store institutions that have disappeared just in the past few years. Tower's Sunset store sits on some valuable land; we'll see what happens next.