Live from Austin!

Tower Records holds a special place in my heart. The store in Piccadilly Circus was one of the places I would try to visit every time I traveled to London. Back in the early 80s the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street was the place for obscure music, but by 1990 they had jacked up the prices and cleared out the unpopular stuff. Tower kept the prices reasonable and had an unrivaled selection of imports and obscurities. It was there that I discovered DEVO, and later completed my collection. It was there that I found Holger Hiller.

When I visited the US, Tower in Boston was second only to Newbury Comics. But another ten years went by, and Tower started to go downhill. Prices rose to HMV-like levels, and some idiot decided it was a good idea to file every disc by genre, a decision made worse by splitting electronica into ambient, house, techno, acid, dub, trance, and so on. Quick, where’s the Aphex Twin? Err…

So I wasn’t surprised when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2004. And I’m not surprised that they’re filing for bankruptcy again now, this time for good. A quick browse reveals only 2 Tangerine Dream albums, both priced at $38 (yeah right). There are practically no CDs priced below $18. Thom Yorke’s solo album isn’t listed (who he?), and if I didn’t already have Hail to the Thief I wouldn’t buy it from Tower for $34.

So it goes. Music sales is an unforgiving business. Stores seem to go through a golden age of awesomeness, but at some point the prices get too high or the selection gets too poor and they slide into irrelevance. Newbury Comics was heading that way when we left Massachusetts, sad to say.

So where do I get CDs now? Mostly from half.com and Amazon marketplace; stores typically break the $12 limit.

This is the Hancock Tower in Boston’s back bay. It’s easily my favorite building in the city. It was designed by I.M.Pei’s firm of architects—but not, I believe, by I.M. Pei himself. Most long-time Boston residents remember that when it was first constructed, the large sheets of glass in the windows began to rain down on the streets below. Sheets of plywood were used to replace the missing windows, and there was a long and expensive lawsuit. Unfortunately, that’s where a lot of people’s knowledge ends. They shake their heads at the impracticality of architects’ designs, and mentally file it as another example of ego over substance.

The truth is somewhat different. It turned out that the construction company had not followed the structural engineers’ designs to the letter. Under pressure to cut costs, they had used thinner and cheaper glass for the windows. As a result, when winds blew past the building and caused a partial vacuum, the windows would bend outwards until they broke free of their frames. Once all the glass was replaced with the kind specified in the design, the problem went away.

Today the tower stands at peace. It almost resembles the monolith from “2001″—sleek, dark and its inner workings mysterious. You can’t see in the picture, but the western side has a darker colored stripe or slot near the top, which reminds me of a Cylon warrior’s eye slit or KITT’s light strip in “Knight Rider”. It almost seems as if the monolith is sitting watching the city beneath it, aloof and mysterious.

On summer evenings, the side of the building is perfectly angled to catch the sunset and reflect it back at you as you walk along the back bay. The front is carefully angled to reflect the Trinity Church in Copley Place. It’s a masterful piece of design—stark minimalism that fits perfectly in context.