2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records

Send us Fan Mail

Geoff Mayfield has had a long and illustrious career in the music business. Starting as an Editor for a Columbus, OH music magazine called “Focus”, it wasn’t long before Geoff found himself behind the microphone at WBBY jazz radio. 

Geoff’s background in both music journalism and radio stood out to an executive at Camelot Music, the mall-based music retailer based out of Canton, OH, and soon he found himself working at Camelot’s corporate offices. It was at Camelot that Geoff first became aware of Tower Records as executives talked about Tower Records going into Manhattan. Also, reading a profile of Russ Solomon in Rolling Stone magazine sparked Geoff’s interest in the West Coast-based company. 

A speech about Tipper Gore’s PMRC record labeling, written for Camelot’s CEO led to both an “Atta Boy” from Russ Solomon and indirectly led to Geoff’s being hired by Billboard Magazine as their Music & Video Retail Editor. During Geoff’s time with Billboard, both as Retail Editor and then as Director of Charts, he was able to build relationships with many at Tower. Even after Tower’s demise, Geoff kept in close contact with many and played a significant role in both their life and in some cases, the celebration of lives well lived. 

Geoff still stays active as he’s been teaching at the Los Angeles College of Music for the last 7 years as well as still contributing to both Variety and Billboard. 

Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about how music used to be purchased and beyond. 

Send us Fan Mail

With a father who was primarily a jazz drummer, but would play all kinds of local pickup gigs (and still plays today at 87 years young) music came naturally to a blooming Mike Redmond. So it’s no surprise an early career in music retail came naturally to young Mike. Starting in Sherman Oaks under the tutelage of Dave Montes, Redmond found himself early on working for Craig Martin in Marina Del Rey. Working in a Supervisor role, then Video Sales Manager, and ultimately Record Sales Manager Mike was promoted to the position of General Manager at the Dublin, CA Tower Records. 

As expansion continued into the late 90’s Mike found himself heading up the store in Stamford CT, best known as a suburban hub for all the CEOs of record labels and media companies, similar to Paramus NJ. It was in Stamford that young Redmond would pepper the GM of the new store on Ave of the Arts Philadelphia regarding sales and other metrics. 

Duty called and Redmond took over the Washington DC store for close to four years. He finished his time with Tower in Rockville, MD where he worked until the company was sold at auction to the Great American Liquidators. On his way out the door, he threw the (former) GM of that Philadelphia store a lifeline. 

Join us for a conversation about the joys of working for the world’s greatest record store chain. 

Send us Fan Mail

“My interactions with the ‘higher ups’ after I moved to Annapolis largely consisted of [them saying] ‘When are you going to stop doing this?’ and me saying ‘You hired me to do the job, either fire me or shut the hell up ’ ” 

Scott Edward Phelps had an interesting journey at Tower Records. Moving to Nashville with his bandmates to strike out for a career in music, Scott concentrated on songwriting when half the band left Nashville when fame and fortune didn’t materialize. Though Scott had songs recorded and released, he always had a day gig somewhere. 

Scott was hired at the Nashville store by Tom Rule to work nights initially. Several years older than the average Tower Records employee, Scott worked his way up as a Supervisor and then became the Record Sales Manager. In Nashville, every day seemed like an adventure based on who was going to stop in the store. Later, Scott applied for and got the position of General Manager of Tower Records Annapolis. 

On this episode of “2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records” join us as we speak with songwriter, podcaster, radio personality, and former Tower employee Scott Edward Phelps. 

Send us Fan Mail

If you worked in a Tower Records store or at the corporate offices in Sacramento and had issues with a computer, chances are you probably talked to our guest this week, John Correa. Leaving his life as a member of a local Break Dance crew, John started working for Tower at the TVID warehouse in 1988. John’s first professional endeavor working a tech job was when he started doing data entry at TVID in 1990. 

From there, John’s landlord told him about a new department starting up to help stores with Registers and main office personnel with computer issues. This was the beginning of Support Services and John Correa was among the inaugural  5-6 employees of the department. 

John wasn’t just answering phones and asking if everything was plugged in correctly. In the early 1990s, as Tower rolled out its ISP program and new registers, John was traveling, installing, and teaching how to use the programs and registers, often to a roomful of people who had no interest in upgrading to a tech-based inventory system. 

Join us as John recalls his time in Store Services, some of his favorite work trips across the county, and ending his career at Tower’s 24/7 on-site presence at the fabled inception of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.

Send us Fan Mail

This week’s episode takes us away from the coasts and back into the heartland. Jen Gies is originally from Chicago and it was at Tower Records on Clark Street where she began her career with the company, hired in as a Holiday temp employee. As luck would have it, her first day working at Tower happened to be the same her favorite band was doing an in-store launch for their second album. Starting in the classical department, she moved into the Jazz Department when a spot opened.

It was in the Jazz department that Jen discovered Bela Fleck & The Flecktones which became a musical obsession for her. This led to Jen’s education into bluegrass music and when the Country, Folk & Bluegrass buyer position opened up, it went to Jen. One of the more fascinating stories involved Jen’s search for a little-known album that turned out to be miscoded in the New Age section. Jen began to buy box lots, feature it on listening stations, and talk it up to her customers. Jen sent sales reports of this little-known recording to the President of the record label and what followed next tells you everything you need to know about the music business in the 90’s. 

Deciding to move to Nashville, it took a year before a position at the West End Tower store opened up. It was there that Jen got to experience the Nashville scene and all its glory. Jen talks about the many drop-ins from the Nashville recording elite, many before they became famous, and some country royalty that came in to shop with her assistance.

Join us for an exciting look into the Tower career of Jen Gies and the goings-on at two of Tower’s best-known stores.

Send us Fan Mail

Don Erwin started with Tower in 1972 and was a Manager for Tower Posters from 1973-1978. He worked for Dick Harris whose MTS Inc’s employee number was 1. Dick, Don and MTS eventually got smart and spun off Tower Posters' success by becoming California Posters, later CP Rock, one of the country’s premier distributors of counterculture posters. At one point California Posters sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of poster merchandise to most of Tower’s competition.

And the paraphernalia business was like printing cash. Being flown to NYC and attending parties by High Times magazine sounds like a scene out of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. But nothing can be that easy, can it? The rise of paraphernalia laws in California led to Sacramento law enforcement targeting Tower Poster stores. Don Erwin tells us about the comically tragic trial that Tower won, only to be told by law enforcement that they wouldn’t back off from coming after Tower Poster stores.

Don Erwin’s job titles at California Posters were Grand Pubah and Grand Wazoo which translated to National Sales Manager. When Don was told in 1985 that Tower was shutting down California Posters/CP Rock and he was being let go, Don took the generous severance package. He ventured into the poster business. Shortly thereafter Don was sued by MTS Inc.

But this story had a happy ending; many years later Don Erwin ran into Russ Solomon at a trade show and thanked Russ for launching his licensed merchandise career.

Join us for an informative look behind the operations of the company very few people know about; Tower Posters.

Send us Fan Mail

Travis Michael Anderson grew up in Yakima, WA more than 2 hours from Seattle. A classical brass player, Travis moved to the Bellevue WA area and applied to Tower Records Bellevue. He was turned down because he didn’t have enough retail experience. For the same reason he was turned down at Barnes & Noble and ended up working for Wherehouse Records. After dealing with Wherehouse's bankruptcy horrors and now having experience under his belt, he was hired at Barnes & Noble in Bellevue to work in their music department.

A move to Austin TX with his partner who was going to graduate school led to Travis applying to Tower Records. He washired almost immediately. Travis was a Night Supervisor and eventually the Classical Buyer among several other sections. Moving back to Seattle, a transfer was worked out and Travis spent the next several years at both Tower locations in Queen Anne.

During our conversation Travis touches on the work cultures of Tower, Wherehouse and Barnes & Noble, the differences between the Austin and Seattle stores and music scenes, building the first Tower Records pop up store at Seattle’s fabled Bumbershoot Festival and working with a group of Tower All Stars at the inaugural Bonnaroo Music festival.

Send us Fan Mail

When Tim Wessman started working at Tower, it was never previously on his radar. Tim was immediately impressed by the level of devotion his co-workers had for music. He felt an immediate fit when he started working for Tower.  With no portfolio he interviewed for the Artist position at the Berkley Video store and he was hired by Sue Peterson on the strength of his interview. 

At the end of 1990, Tim took a weekend trip to NYC and loved it so much that two months later he transferred to the NYC Village store #125. Working with a slew of artists at the Tower Art Loft at 4th & Lafayette, Tim was pulled aside by the Art Director and told to slow down as he was making the other artists look bad. 

Tim tells us about eventually taking over the role of Art Director and the highs and lows of working art and displays at the number one store in the US. Dealing with foam core full of bullet holes, artists who showed up to work to nap, the infamous Green Day in store where the Village store was torn to shreds, in stores with Lenny Kravitz, The Ramones, The Go Go’s and Kate Bush’s rare in store signing and being let down by the Prince in store and a whole lot more. 

The day after a Eurythmics Madison Square Garden reunion show, Tim flew back to the West Coast and started working at the Tower store in the Castro District, which was a completely different experience than what he had become used to. Tim finished his career with Tower as the Singles buyer. 

Send us Fan Mail

“College Boy” Greg Harrington started working at Tower Records Burlington MA and did so well on his first day of register, they threw him back in receiving to do pricing. Not the usual path to working in the receiving department, but our guest this week didn’t have a conventional career at Tower Records.

Burlington MA, the big store on Boston’s Newbury Street and the Cambridge store were all part of Greg Harrington’s Tower journey. But in between all of that were stints at The Boston Phoenix, the Virgin Megastore and when Tower shut down, a considerable stint at FYE.

Through it all Greg Harrington handled his Tower gigs with a positive outlook, a keen sense of humor and a pair of Oakley sunglasses wrapped around his head.

On this week’s episode of “2500 DelMonte Street” Greg Harrington, a Star Wars nerd, recalls ringing up Natalie Portman in Cambridge, an incident of a never solved, inside job robbery at the Newbury St. store, visits from New York Yankee coach Willie Randolph, regular visits to all three locations from Boston legend Peter Wolf, once with Van Morrison in tow and a whole lot more.

Join us for a hilarious conversation with Greg Harrington on this week’s episode of “2500 DelMonte Street: the Oral History of Tower Records”. 

Send us Fan Mail

Pam Hopson first began working for Tower Records/MTS Inc. in 1976. But unlike many, Pam had to pay to get the job. One of the employment agencies Russ Solomon used back in the early days charged the employee and not just a little bit. Pam paid $400 in 1976 ($2,137 in 2023 dollars) to get a job doing what she did best at the time; running business machines, particularly a 10-key. Starting in the office with just 24 other employees Pam started in Sales Audit and then transferred to the Payroll Department.

As Payroll Manager, Pam oversaw 3,000 employees paid weekly (a $14 million dollar annual payroll). Pam lobbied to have payroll moved to a bi-weekly system but Russ and Bud were concerned that the company's employees would struggle with the adjustment and that idea was shot down.

At the time, the Payroll Department was taking on an increasing amount of insurance claims as well as calls from store employees who had grievances about things occurring in their stores, as well as the need to get that payroll out each week. Pam Hopson and Shauna Pompei lobbied for a separate Personnel Department formed. Bud Martin finally agreed and Personnel, later Human Resources was born at Tower Records.

Pam also talks about meeting her future husband Chris Hopson. She also talks about his subsequent need to personally deliver the Advertising Department’s payroll to Pam personally.

This is part one of a conversation with Pam Hopson regarding her Tower Records experience. Later in the summer Pam and her family will pay tribute to the late Chris Hopson. They will tell us more about her husband and their father and his place in the Tower Records story.