Tower Records To Be Liquidated starting 10/7

Originally posted by anarchist:
i am almost certain everything is 50 cents on the last day or at some point into the last day. it might get cheaper if you stay until the end. but at that point there is nothing worth buying.

Not true! I got a lot of goos stuff from Fairfax just now. Sadly though, The Lemonheads cds are all gone :)

Not true! I got a lot of goos stuff from Fairfax just now. Sadly though, The Lemonheads cds are all gone

wait 'til the s… is 50 cents. then there will not selection. and when you factor in time and gas, is it really worth it? record convergence has a great selection for 25% of tower's inflated prices.

Originally posted by anarchist:
Not true! I got a lot of goos stuff from Fairfax just now. Sadly though, The Lemonheads cds are all gone

wait 'til the s… is 50 cents. then there will not selection. and when you factor in time and gas, is it really worth it? record convergence has a great selection for 25% of tower's inflated prices.

Where is this Record Convergence you speak of??
There used to be one in Fairfax,but it closed years ago.Very cool store…..

I haven't been keeping up with this at all, I didn't even know they were getting ready to close up for good. But my mother and I happened to make a trip down to Rockville yesterday to do some Christmas shopping, and we happened into the shopping center where Tower is. Of course, we had to pop in and see what was left. The last time I was in a Tower was over in Philly, back when CDs were 30% off, and like I said, I had no idea things were getting down to the wire. They've got "Last 2 Days" signs up, and everything is 90% off (supposedly).

You're all right about the employees not really caring anymore, and everything being completely disorganized and out of control at this point. Good lord was it ever worth it. I'm not sure what may be left today, but Rockville still had some decent stuff left yesterday, let me tell you.

I paid $19.74 for all of this.

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• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Polmo Polpo - Like Hearts Swelling&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Jim Noir - Tower of Love (imported UK version)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Shearwater - Thieves&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Crooked Fingers - Crooked Fingers&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Danielson - Ships&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;The Twilight Singers - Powder Burns&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Robert Pollard - Fiction Man&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Frog Eyes - The Bloody Hand&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Wilderness - Vessel States&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Mercury Rev - The Secret Migration&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Forget Cassettes - Salt&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Sound Team - "Movie Monster"&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Mayday - Old Blood&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;The Dears - Lost in the Plot (single)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Willy Mason - So Long (single)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Velvet Acid Christ - Decypher (single/remix)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Thursday - A City by the Light Divided (Eh, what the hell?)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Something for Rockets - Something for Rockets&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Taylor Hawkins &amp; The Coattail Riders - Taylor Hawkins &amp; The Coattail Riders&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Some By Sea - On Fire! (Igloo)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Benjy Ferree - Leaving the Nest&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
• &lt;font size="2" face="Arial, Veranda"&gt;Transition Video Magazine Issue 001 (DVD, has footage of Blonde Redhead, Against Me!, PMFS, Mountain Goats, and Blood Brothers, amongst others)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/li&gt;

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The guy only rang up four items on my receit. I can't really make heads or tails of what exactly he did, but he certainly winged it somehow. My mother checked out before me, with 26 albums, and he told her that he was feeling lazy and how did $10 for the lot sound? She had some of the same ones as me (like Taylor Hawkins and Something for Rockets), along with a few others on my recommendation that I already own (Two Gallants, Michael Leviton, Willy Mason, Ashley Matte). She also just starting grabbing up albums that looked remotely interesting. And then there were the two Raising the Fawn albums she managed to find before I could get to them. :( 26 albums for ten bucks. Insane.

Originally posted by Dr. Anton Phibes:

Originally posted by anarchist:
Not true! I got a lot of goos stuff from Fairfax just now. Sadly though, The Lemonheads cds are all gone

wait 'til the s… is 50 cents. then there will not selection. and when you factor in time and gas, is it really worth it? record convergence has a great selection for 25% of tower's inflated prices.

Where is this Record Convergence you speak of??
There used to be one in Fairfax,but it closed years ago.Very cool store…..

They did close years ago. The originial Falls Church store was my first music buying mecca back in the mid 80's. The owner, a great guy and fantastic guitar player, now owns a music school in Falls Church city if anyone want to learn an instrument!

What time does Fairfax close? I drove by Tyson's yesterday, hoping they would have one last "open until midnight" closing hour, but no such luck.

Reod Dai-very cool about your mom's bargain!

5 pm

Where is this Record Convergence you speak of??
my bad cd cellar

the fairfax store is now closed. i was about to check out around 4pm and the guy gets on the overhead and tells everyone that all cds and dvds were 50 cents…found a few good cds (murder by death, twilight singers, andrew wk)

Is the Record Convegence guy named Ted? I hadn't thought about that place or guy in years, and I thought about Ted this week when I heard a Bevis Frond song. He was a great guy, and I spent many hours in high school shopping at that place. Good memory of the time when a group of friends would actually leave the house to look for good music. Downloading is convenient for the obvious reasons, but I miss afternoons discovering new music at the record store. Wow. Official sounding old…

Well you should have hung around with the rest of us, when it went to 25 cents at 4:25. I got 36 cd's and 1 single for $9.48.

Originally posted by bizou311:
the fairfax store is now closed. i was about to check out around 4pm and the guy gets on the overhead and tells everyone that all cds and dvds were 50 cents…found a few good cds (murder by death, twilight singers, andrew wk)

while at the rockville store the discount went from 95% per CD to 10 CDs for $5 to 15 CDs for $5. I walked out with 45 albums and 15 singles, total 20 bucks. Or rather I bought one The Features and got 14 free :) Granted I ended up with a couple copies of several CDs to trade on lala. Anyone want to buy a Departure CD for a buck?

I was impressed at how well picked over the store was. Several titles I thought might still be around at the bitter were gone like The Sails, Malcolm Middleton, even the Girls Aloud CDs were gone. You had to search through all the bins to find stuff, which is why I found The Heavy Blinkers and Peter Walker.

My 25 cent buys at Fairfax:

Jolie Holland (2)
Keren Ann
Cordero (2)
Mark Mallman
Radar Bros.
Oranger
Kelley Stoltz (2)
Richmond Fontaine (2)
Court and Spark
Jesse Dayton
The Duke Spirit
Ladyfuzz
Archie Bronson Quartet
Forget Cassettes
Twilight Singers
Chatham County Line
Real Tuesday Weld
Danielson
Joan as Policewoman
Frog Eyes
Micah P. Hinson
Ash
Amy Winehouse
We Are Wolves
Several compilations

Last goodbuy @ Rockville: 2 giftcard tins, 1 shopping basket, 19 CDs – $2.42.

Highlights:
Do Me Bad Things "Yes!" (Kosmo, get back to me in, say, 2011; I gots lotsa listenin')
Matmos "Rat Relocation Program"
The Suspicious Cheese Lords "Mæstro di Capella"
Sexsmith & Kerr "Destination Unknown"
v/a "Japanese Homegrown v.2"
Arthur Russell "Another Thought"
v/a "Dissolve: A Work In Progress Compilation" (noise/rock, e.g. Merzbow, Lee Renaldo, etc.)

14 of the 19 purchased were leftovers from Foggy Bottom (look on the price tag for "Tower Records: 0130" instead of 0154 if you're curious about your own). Good thing I went back for the bitter end.

Mary J.Bilge

are they all closed now?

Some funny little stories from the Fairfax closing:

1. It's 3 PM, the store closes for good at 5 pm, everything is 50 cents. I hear someone ask a worker, "Where would I find Whitney Houston?" The worker replies, "Everything is out of order, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have any Whitney Houston at this point."

2. I see two fiftysomething women pushng around baskets with their feet, because they are too full to be carried by hand. One says to the other, in a deep Southern drawl, "So if it's punk and emo, will it say it on the label?"

3. Earlier this year, we had the misfortune of seeing some guy called Gran Bel Fisher open a show at the Birchmere. I can't begin to describe how bad this guy was…it was painful. Allmusic lists James Blunt and Daniel Powter as simliar artists, and says this: :The songwriters have a knack for creating mini-suites that seem ready-made for post-teen females looking for a sensitive guy to hold their hands and guide the way. There's nothing wrong with that, and Fisher seems more than willing to comply with an impressive â?? if not terribly unique â?? set of material. With the correct marketing, his handsome face is ready to adorn sorority bedroom walls."

Anyway, a 40something woman approaches me and asks "What kind of music do you like?" So I'm thinking she sees my hipster doofus glasses and my full basket of cd's and has decided to ask someone who looks like a music geek for some recommendations…"Oh, I like a variety of music," I reply. She responds, handing me a cd (guess which one), Try this, it's dynamite." Oh, I've seen him play before, and it was horrible" I respond, thus quickly ending the conversation.

4. The prices have gone from 95% to 50 cents, I know if I wait long enough, they'll go to 25 cents. But which will win out? My thriftiness, or my weak bladder. Just as I'm about to pee my pants , I spot board member Dr. Anton Phibes, and he is kind enough to hold my basket while I go next door and pee. Thanks again Dr. Anton.

Colin Hanks is raising money at Kickstarter to finish a documentary about Tower Records: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280611212/all-things-must-pass-the-rise-and-fall-of-tower-re?ref=spotlight

I miss the hell out of the Rockville store.

Look forward to seeing this.

Yeah,
Younger (and by that I mean anyone younger than 25) people that I talk talk to have no concept of what it was like to get lost for hours in a Tower Records… I miss attempting to get people to hear whatever band I was in at any given time by inundating the bulletin board area with CDs. I miss just having a "cool" bulletin board to leave CDs at… and I miss getting Arthur mags and listening to whatever was on the CD…
It's a crying shame that the Rockville store is, I think, some mattress outlet…