Goodbye Tower Records

I found out early this week that Tower Records is closing its locations in the Bay Area. I can’t help but think about all time I spent at the Tower Records by my house. I guess thinking about my Tower Records memories I also remember some of the other friends that came through, stayed, and left my life.

Growing up in San Francisco, I think I was surrounded by Asians (mainly Chinese) most of my childhood. I went to a preschool and grammar school in Chinatown, then I transferred to another grammar school in the outer Sunset, then I went to the neighborhood middle school, followed by high school. My grammar school years are blurry in my mind. What I remember the most is spending a lot of time on SF public transportation: the cable car, the 30 Stockton, the 1 California, the 29 Sunset, walking to the bus stop, waiting for buses, street cars, bus stops, the smell of the buses and street cars, and most of all, falling asleep on public transportation.

During the day time, I went to public school, then when school let out, I went directly to Chinese school. I joke about this time of my life because I technically failed Chinese school at second grade not because my grades were so bad, but because I couldn’t stay awake in class. I sat in the back of the classroom so I got away with falling asleep most of the time. I think I was exhausted from going to public school during the day and taking public transportation back and forth in between.

It was at this time I went to Tower Records for the first time. In fact, I remember my uncle brought me along with him to the Tower Records in North Beach. I remember that visit because they had the music on really loud. I think they were playing Bob Marley, but I don’t remember which song. I only remember the raspy voice of Bob Marley. I spent a lot of time with my aunts and uncles because my parents were typical immigrant parents; they worked all the time and relied on family to watch after me. So I spent a lot of time with this one uncle and whatever he listened to, I listened to as well. I first heard performers like Depeche Mode, Donna Summer, The Police, George Winton, The Untouchables, and Elvis Costello while with this uncle.

After my mom found out that I had basically failed second grade Chinese school she went down to see the teacher and proceeded to yell at her for being a bad teach. I remember her saying that she had a responsibility to teach me and it was her fault that I got such poor scores. The teacher kept on saying, how can I teach your daughter when she can’t stay awake in class? My mom sold her sewing factory in Chinatown around that time as well and in fourth grade transferred me to another elementary school. That would be the last time I visited Tower Records in North Beach.

It was also at this time I discovered the radio and found pop radio stations like KFRC. I loved the radio and learned to listen to sing a long to my favorite songs. I remember one of my closest friends in middle school was a Mexican girl whose backyard was opposition mine. We were great friends. I would go to her house and she would come to mine every once in awhile. We taped music off the radio and traded tapes with each other because we didn’t know about buying singles yet. We both dreamed of being gymnastics stars. Then there were other close friends in middle school, a black girl who enjoyed playing kickball as much as I did. We were on the kickball all-star team together in the eighth grade. She left school several weeks before graduation without any notice and I never saw her again. In high school I found out that she was pregnant and they thought it would be inappropriate for her to participate.

There were the other Latino girls on the softball team that were very friendly and used to tease me because I was a power hitter but couldn’t field worth anything. They teased me even more when the coach moved me from right field to catcher. We would play games against other neighborhood teams and I got to hear some of the music they were listening to at that time. Freestyle just started appearing on radio stations at that time and I loved the energetic beats. As much as I loved playing softball, I hated playing against some of the rougher schools because of the big Samoan girls that would always get hits off of our pitcher and eventually come around third base, running full speed toward me. Fortunately I was good at protecting the plate, with no help from the uniforms and protective equipment from the 1970s.

In 7th grade, I hung out with 8th graders. In 8th grade, I hung out with 7th graders, I never seemed to want to be with students in my grade level. This would continue to be the pattern even through college. I remember in 8th grade, one of my closest friends, this Vietnamese girl, had the best collection of records and tapes. She had some older brothers in high school who spent a lot of their money on music. Her mix tapes were true mixtapes put together by various DJ crews such as Style Beyond Compare. The year after I graduated, I went back to her graduation and lost touch with her shortly after that.

The San Francisco public school system is segmented into grammar school (we called it elementary school) which is K-5, middle (we called it junior high) which is 6-8, and high school which is 9-12. The move from middle school to high school was incredibly stressful. I didn’t want to go to the high school my parents wanted me to go to because there was a lot of pressure to get good grades. In middle school, I stopped getting straight-As and worried all the time about school work. I didn’t want to spend another 4 years in high school worrying about grades. I wanted to take interesting classes, be with friends, and just enjoy my adolescence.

So I went to the college-prep, magnate high school my parents wanted me to go to. In high school I wasn’t popular and enjoyed it. I hung out with friends from many different groups on campus, from the popular student government people, to the cheerleaders, to band and orchestra people, to the first floor hallway group that hung out behind the principal’s office, to the second floor hallway group that hung out outside of Mr. Carmack’s class, to the third floor group that hung out outside of the computer programming class. With each of these groups, I got to hear different music, everything Canto-pop to “modern rock” to hip hop to sappy sweet radio ballads.

I think I spent the most time in JROTC though. In order to avoid gym class, I started taking “RO” classes, not realizing what a wonderful experience it would be. My closest friends in RO were all Filipino. I learned how to be self-confident (I learned that I liked leading groups), I learned how to take responsibility and pride in my school (we had weekly clean-up responsibilities), I learned to enjoy competition (monthly competitions, and annual city-wide competitions), I learned that practice and hard work were important (training and preparations for competitions), most of all, I learned to respect those around me (success depended on everyone’s hard work and collaboration).

Most people fall out of their chairs when I tell them that I had something to do with the military when I was in high school. I think people see how liberal and activist I can be right now and they don’t ever think I could have had a past that had anything to do with the military. My experiences with RO in high school helps me understand things a little bit from the perspective of military personnel. Many of my friends went into the military after high school because the military helped pay for their college costs. For them, this was the only way they could afford college. After college, I even contemplated joining the reserves. It is because of these experiences that I empathize for men and women who serve and what makes it difficult to take when people criticize people who go into the military.

In high school I rediscovered Tower Records again. The location at the Stonestown mall was within walking distance to school so during the days I cut class, more often than not, my friends and I spent the afternoon at Tower Records. I remember the first record I bought: “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock. I remember the second record I bought: “Turn This Mutha Out” by MC Hammer. I remember the third record: Expose’s self-titled debut. Everyone bought 99 cent singles from Tower Records. The one with extended mixes were the best one. The maxi-singles that were more expensive, sometimes costing as much as $4.99, were also sometimes worth it if you were putting a mix tape together. People exchanged mix tapes all the time. Most often, boyfriends and girlfriends gave mix tapes to each other, hoping to convey their feelings for each other with songs such as Atlantic Starr’s “Always” or New Edition’s “Can You Stand the Rain?”

In college, I was lucky that there was another Tower Records downtown Davis. I also spent some time at the Tower Records in Sacramento. CDs by that time had replaced tapes and taped singles. For every guy I dated at this time, I associate a song with specific memories: having sex to “Set U Free” by Planet Soul, goofing around with my roommates to Erasure’s I Say I Say I Say release, dancing at a fraternity party to “Mack of the Year” by Mac Dre, having my first smoke after listening to Anne Lenox’s “Why,” modeling at a fashion show to PM Dawn’s “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss,” learning how to DJ to “Make Room” by the Alkaholiks, sitting blindfolded in the backseat a car going out to a pledge event while “Give Me a Reason” by Buffy was on repeat, singing drunken karaoke to “Unbreak My Heart” by Toni Braxton, hanging out behind the turntables while the DJ I was dating played “Higher State of Consciousness” by Josh Wink which caused the speakers to blow out…

Most recently in grad school, I was only able to find the videos that I needed to write my Master’s Thesis at the Tower Records by NYU. Not too many Blockbusters carried the Foxy Brown blaxploitation films that were critical pieces to completing my thesis.

I’ll end this long post with one of my most enduring memories from my college days. It was the day my boyfriend rang my doorbell, waking me up from a nap on the couch, to drop off a copy of Everything But the Girl’s “Acoustic” album. It was a warm spring day and a slight breeze came through the cracked open window. I somehow had lost my copy and mentioned it to him on the first date we had just gone on. He had scoured all the music stores in Davis to find me a copy and if I remember correctly, he found a copy of it at Tower Records. We found out that we both loved EBTG on our first date and honestly, that was one of the reasons why I decided to go on a second date. Long story short, this guy is now my husband.

For the past some odd 30 years of my life, I have memories of various Tower Records locations and the music I was listening at that time. My musical memories are interwoven with memories of growing up, people who came through my life, some of who are still close friends. It is difficult for me to recall most memories without specific songs and mix tapes coming to mind.

Thank you Tower Records for all the memories.