2000-05-05
Damn Tower Records!, posted at 02:12:47
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Well, a few hours ago I just took my last final of the semester. Because I have to take summer classes before I officially graduate, I haven't been hit with the finality of graduation yet. But today I was hit pretty hard. And you know what did it? A trip to my favorite music store here in Lansing.Wherehouse Records is going out of business. While I didn't buy much there, it was my favorite browsing store. Yes, it occasionally was pricey, but it also supported the local music scene with a fervency that I admire. Greatly. I always wanted to work there, in fact. I admired the "Staff Picks" board -- these people knew music well, and weren't afraid to share it with the world. We were cut from the same cloth.
The more I think about it, the more I regret having taken the store for granted. The weekly ads in the State News that you knew someone worked really hard on. The clever Wally Pleasant commercials on late night cable. Seeing They Might Be Giants and The Verve Pipe for free amongst crowds of only a hundred or so. This was a store that really kicked ass. I'll miss it.
You know what store manager Mary Cusack (no relation to Joan or John) did for the Common Grounds? Every semester, she would go onto the web (unbeknowst to me) and print out our full schedule and post it around the store. Try finding that kind of commitment to local music at Tower Records.
It was the first music store that I latched onto my freshmen year, and it will be dead by the time I walk across the stage Friday on graduation. Twenty-four years of serving the East Lansing area gone.
On a positive note, I did get great deals on a couple of CD's today. But I'd rather have Wherehouse Records back.