Review of Show Me (2004) by Jerome W — 12 Oct 2006

[size=3]Not the best of times these days. I'm bummed because Tower Records is finally giving up the ghost. As usual, I ran into one message board where the resident weenys were complaining that the stores' prices were too high for CDs and DVDs but you could at least buy porn cheap. Attitudes like that are what killed this company. In a world where people seem to be getting more and more narrow-minded and get hostile at being exposed to anything new, Tower was still naive enough to carry everything under the sun, not just a great selection of rock, but blues, classical, soundtracks, jazz, African, reggae and any other genre you could think of. [/size].

[size=3] I've bought many an album and CD at that store, usually something I couldn't find anywhere else. Just this week alone as the "going out of business" signs went up, I could still find rare stuff: Ayetet Rose Gottlieb, Robin Holcomb, Orchestre Nationale de Jazz, Harry Partch, Vince Martin, The Ides Of March, Carla Bozulich. And there are plenty of wonderful things still there, some of which will probably gather dust until I come back over the next few weeks, Stone The Crows, The Beautiful South, Big Mama Thornton, The DIVA Jazz Orchestra, Nina Simone, Alan Skidmore, Mickey Katz, Morton Feldman, John Martyn, Boris, Anthony Coleman, Serge Gainsbourg, yards of John Cage and Elliott Carter, Red Foley, Candye Kane, Gong, even a mix CD featuring Double Dee & Steinski. Damn!...universes of sound only a few music fanatics like me are intersted in hearing. There's one wonderful store left in DC that still carries exotic music, Melody Records but considering the entire chain...the world just got a little bit colder.[/size].