2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records

While Chris Hopson was putting together Tower Records’ in-house advertising agency, in a parallel universe, or at least somewhere else in California, Steve Nikkel was doing the same for a small independent chain of record stores called Eucalyptus Records, based out of Fairfield, California. 

When an opening became available,  due to Mike Farrace starting up PULSE! Magazine and Terri Ball heading to New York City, Jim Swindel se...

Joy Slusarek Proft spent 15 years working for Universal Music Distribution. Like many before her, she started as an FMR (Field Marketing Rep), and like few, she ended up as the Vice President of Sales located in Los Angeles. 

While calling on stores in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska, Joy found herself with a new band called Weezer in her car, taking them to visit mid-west indie accounts. In true 90’s fashion, Joy ended...

Matt Lavelle used to listen to music with his grandfather. No talking. No commentary. At a very young age, Matt simply observed how the music moved his grandfather and it had quite an impression on him. 

As he got older, after making regular visits to the Jazz Department at Tower 4th & Broadway, Matt took a job in Nanuet under Store Manager Bill Duffy. Years later Matt moved into the city and worked at Tower Lincoln Center ...

Fuzzy Swing never worked for Tower Records, but he worked at Tower Records in San Francisco as an inventory rep and sales associate on behalf of RCA. In addition to Tower, he had several mom & pop independent stores in the Bay Area. In later years Fuzzy was promoted to sales covering the Sacramento area stores Tower Broadway, Tower Citrus Heights, Tower K Street, Tower Stockton, Tower Chico, and Tower Fresno as well as calling ...

Long before she became the face and voice of NPR Music, Ann Powers was just a Catholic school girl and new wave music fan who in 1979 was guided on a musical journey by Chris, an influential Tower Mercer Street clerk. Chris regularly assisted and turned Ann on to some great groups and albums at Tower  Seattle's  landmark location.

On today’s episode Ann tells us about her roots in writing about music and culture, the ...

“I remember thinking, if the light turns red, I’m turning in the parking lot and I’m going to do a bagcheck. If it’s green I’m going to sail on through and I’m going home. And sure as heck, it was red and I turned in [to the lot] and I’m going to do the bag check”

It’s in moments like these that you make your mark. Only five days earlier, Carl was sitting in Bud Martin’s office listening to him go on about the financial bleedin...

MTS

Not the company, the man. 

Michael T Solomon sits down with “2500 DelMonte Street” to discuss it all;  his time with Russ & Doris, Tower Records, Bud Martin, Sunday school with Stan Goman, chauffeuring The Rolling Stones around town before their show in Sacramento, starting out at the Tower Drug Store, working at Watt Ave, Columbus & Bay and Berkeley, working as Tower legal counsel, presentations at the Tower An...

Darrin Roberts grew up in Southern California with a “Kevin Arnold-Wonder Years” type upbringing. After a neighbor suggested his mother take her 3 year old to a recently released “war movie”, he became obsessed with all things cinema. 

After getting his degree at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts he began working on a series of music film projects as both a camera operator and a film editor. 

In May of 2014 an Oscar winni...

“I knew quite a bit about [Tower]. I knew Sunset was the mecca. So I just popped in one day and that’s how it all started” says this week’s guest Marty Bender Sobolweski. From his earliest memory of his grandmother pulling out a record player to his mother coming home from her temp job at Capitol Records in Cleveland with a box of free records, Marty has been a life long music fanatic. 

An early record store job at Ohio’s Audio...

Our guest this week, Cathi Ronnenburg, remembers being on the phone with the Manager of a neighboring location when men in black suits swarmed her store. No, it wasn’t a Tower Records she was running at the time, but being busted by the FBI for the bootleg albums she and her company were selling is a pretty exciting start to record retail and Cathi’s professional story in general. 

Cathi followed that up working for Strawberrie...

Not many people are “One Degree of Separation” from Kevin Bacon, but this week’s guest, Jason Sumney is. Growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, the son of a rabid record collector, Jason started his retail music career while in HIgh School at National Record Mart, a locally based, national chain that at its peak had 175 stores in 30 states. Knowing all of the latest releases and the camaraderie he felt with his fellow employees made working...

Rob Chapman likes The Rolling Stones. Wait…check that. Rob Chapman loooooves The Rolling Stones. Not only that, but he regularly corresponds with a couple of the guys in the band. Several years ago Rob wrote a book about a very interesting period in the band’s history, Ron Wood and Keith Richards’ side project The New Barbarians. Rob went deep on this project and the result is the book “New Barbarians: Outlaws, Gunslingers and Guit...

Bob worked for Tower Records 18.5 years. Washington DC, Seattle, Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia and Lincoln Center NYC. He loved working for Tower so much, he made a podcast about it. After multiple requests, he’s being interviewed for his story today. 

Our guest host/interviewer needs no introduction; that’s why we’re not going to tell you who it is unless you listen. 

In keeping with previous, lengthy Thanksgiving week epi...

“The goal was to work at a record store and then everybody eventually wanted to work for a label. I envied the label guys and then I went and married one.” If the name Betsy Altomare sounds a bit familiar, there’s a reason for that. Back on episode number 33 we interviewed her husband Keith Altomare, who told us how he and Betsy met while she was the Night Manager at Tower Records Sunset in Los Angeles. Today we get to hear Betsy’s...

Mike Pompei grew up in a big Italian family just outside of Buffalo NY. His family was very musical and it seemed to rub off on Mike, who currently plays wineries and breweries throughout Sacramento. At the age of 12, just as his generation of pop music was becoming a priority, the Pompei family moved to the sunny enviorns of Sacramento, California. Following in his older brother’s footsteps, Mike eventually went on to work at Towe...

Christina Sharpe grew up in New York City, mostly on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Growing up in a household where music was always being played and appreciated, Christina took her love of jazz and soul music and added twists of Duran Duran, Level 42 and early 80’s East Coast Hip Hop to her repertoire.

Christina started her Tower career at the 85th & 3rd Avenue location with General Manager Mike Tannen. From there she worked...

When The Beatles hit America, it came at about the perfect time for Joe Medwick. Just months earlier, when he was 7 years old, his father had passed away, a crushing moment in young Joe’s life. But it wasn’t as though The Beatles were his introduction to music. Joe had older brothers and sisters with album collections he borrowed and pored over. Joe says he felt like music being a central part of his life was preordained. 

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In the middle of a very long shift, working to get the brand new Dallas, TX store open, Rob Tolleson had no idea why Kevin Cassidy wanted to go out for coffee with him. “I thought I was in trouble” was his first thought. When Cassidy asked if Rob had ever considered working in management, Tolleson told him that he had not for the simple fact that he hadn’t been on the sales floor in years. Cassidy responded that he had seen that Ro...