Ep. 22 Tom Rule (Sac, Bay Area, Nashville, Ann Arbor, Chicago)
2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records
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“It was better than going to college. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything,” is how this week’s guest, Tom Rule, describes his 20-year tenure with Tower Records.
Tom started his career at a small indie record store in California called Condor Records. As it happened, his first day on the job was the day Elvis Presley died and for a while he didn’t understand why everyone was calling the store with questions about Elvis Presley records.
Twenty years with Tower included stints in El Toro, Watt Avenue, Mountain View and TRIP part time covering the Bay Area. He transferred to Broadway in Sacramento, a two year stint full time at TRIP, back to Mountain View where he became that store’s first CD Buyer and eventually the store’s Assistant Manger. Off to Nashville for 3.5 as Assistant Manager for 3.5 years, opened and was General Manager for the Ann Arbor MI store then to Chicago to help Schaumberg and finished in 1999 at the Bloomingdale, IL store.
WOW!
During our conversation Tom recalls a standard record industry lunch with CBS Records where he peppered Jerry Pitti repeatedly with questions as to why they wouldn’t allow Tower to carry what were deemed “parallel imports” and a hilarious back and forth with Stan Goman when he was called out for a promotion he had done for years. Tom also recalls working at the Nashville store and his involvement with Fan Fest, planning out his partying at Tower’s Annual Conference so that he could get more from the daily meetings and his impressions of Tower Records founder Russ Solomon.
Tom’s story has come full circle and has a happy, on-going ending in that he has his own indie record store, Moldy Toe’s Records (https://www.facebook.com/moldytoesrecords)) in San Clemente, CA where he tells us about the current state of music retail and the demographics of customers currently buying music in his shop.
Join us for this fun conversation with the always interesting, irrepressible Tom Rule.