Tower Records founder, Russ Solomon to open R5 Records

I have my share of fond memories of the Tower store in Greenwich Village, NY as many of my hard-to-find imported CD's were bought there - before the internet made its appearance.

 

Me either, I enjoy both vinyl and CD's (and can be an 8-track junkie if I have enough dimes in my change jar) but thought it had that turntable feel to it.

 

Freudian slip or intended slam?

 

I agree - there are no deep inventory stores here at all...

 

I visit R5 Records about once a week. The outside of the store looks much different now compared to the photo of the logo earlier in the thread. There's a huge mural of various musicians, records and I think CD's, and the most recent mural addition is the word "Vinyl" along with several records. I think their prices are lower than Tower's, and they also have "cheep" sections for several music genres (Rock, R&B, Jazz, Country, etc) where the CD's range from $3-$9. They sell new vinyl, with okay selection and average prices.

When Tower was still around, they took up three buildings, one each for music, books, and videos. R5 is in the building that was Tower Records, an independent bookstore is now where Tower Books was, and a used record store that used to be downtown is now where Tower Video once was.

 

My "f" letter didn't work-it got stuck! It supposed to read "Flame",not Lame-Sorry 'Bout that! Michael Boyce

 

Interesting:

R5 DVD Bootlegs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R5_(bootleg)


R5 also division of IBM , deals with SAP

 

The new murals are very cool and they are starting to build up a nice selection of new vinyl too. Last week I saw four, count 'em, four Nico lps!
Of course they are reissues but when's the last time you saw ANY Nico lps in a store? They are carrying some of the Classic Records reissues too so it's slowly getting better. I heard that the Christmas period was a make or break sign for R5 and it's still standing. I hope that's good news.

 

I wonder if R5 will expand into the NYC area again. It took a while for Tower Records to set up shops in NYC. I did not even know about Tower Records until the early 80's when a good friend who was then going to graduate school at Stanford told me about it.

 

I used to live about half a mile from that location. What is the name of the "used record store that used to be in downtown" that's now at the Tower Video store? You're not talking about The Beat are you?

BTW, is there still a Tower Liquor store across the street? When I was a struggling college student, a disproportionate share of my meager income was spent at Tower Records and Tower Liquor.

 

I hope he does not repeat what happened here. "Sam The Record Man" had a huge chain of stores in Canada in the 80's. That dwindled down over the years to a precious few and Sam's closed down totally several years ago. The owners then re-opened their famous Yonge & Dundas store in Toronto - after a few years they closed again for good.

 

Looks like Tower.com is now partnering with buy.com, see link below. But why it takes them 2-4 weeks to ship this item is beyond me ...


http://www.buy.com/prod/murray-perahia-plays-bach-limited-edition/q/loc/109/60582494.html

 

Hmmm. I noticed something screwy about tower.com last time I ordered something. I had to re-input all my info even though my login worked. I cancelled the order right after that. I'm probably done with tower.com now.

 

I am still nostalgic about having been a Tower customer back in the late 80's to early 90's when I found many hard-to-find CD's at the Greenwich Village store. The long hours I used to spend at that store, etc. This new internet operation does look a bit questionable to me ...

 

Tower.com has an advertising link on buy.com, but I wouldn't call it much of a partnership. I've gotten items from Tower.com in a timely manner.

 

Down On The Corner

I'm hoping for Mill and University in Tempe. I must admit, I miss Tower. Since their demise my buying habits have changed dramatically and the amount that I purchase online versus at brick and mortar stores has done a total flip flop.

 

I miss Tower and the Virgin Megastore that was only a few blocks away (when I worked
in San Francisco), but I have saved money too. I used to impulse buy a lot on my lunch
breaks, some nice c.d.s I have from those days. Now I have to order on-line for most of
what I want. I really enjoy finding nice condition used records when I find time to go to
over to Joe's Record Paradise.

 

I loved that place!

 

Great news, indeed!

 

It is similar to MarketPlace on Amazon. I have no doubt buy.com receives some kickback.

 

A couple of weeks ago R5 celebrated their one year anniversary. They had some free live music and some give aways and everything in the store was 10% off. They also had several current hot selling cds for only $5.00. Two of the titles were the Krause/Plant cd and the latest by Al Green. I don't remember the other ones but that was pretty surprising. Russ was there sitting in the parking lot where the bands were playing including Sal Valentino enjoying the music.
The store has started carrying new vinyl too. They probably have less than 1,000 records in inventory and only one or two of each title, but they're carrying some Classic Records titles, Sundaze, 4 Menwithbeards, and a few other "new" labels, so it's looking up. The fact that they made it a year in this economy is amazing in itself not to mention that one would have to be insane to open a new record store these days. It's nice going in the old Tower Broadway store that became the home of R5. They've painted some cool murials on the outside of the building with Hendrix and other music icons represented on the brick walls. It was interesting watching Russ sitting there in the parking lot, literally a stone's throw from where he got started at his uncle's pharmacy.

I don't know if it will last but Russ is giving it a good try.

 

That's pretty cool.

 

No, The Beat is still on J street. The record store I'm talking about is just called "Records" (R. Crumb designed the logo!), which used to be on K street near Downtown Plaza.

And yes, Tower Liquor is still across the street.