The Tower Records Project in Sacramento

  “It was more than music.” This is the slogan of the campaign launched by Hot Italian, a modern Italian-American joint venture Pizzeria in Sacramento, in collaboration with the Tower Records Project.

 

The project was established to fund the preservation of Tower-related history donated to the Center for Sacramento History by Tower founder and Sacramento native, Russ Solomon. A new photographic exhibit was opened during Midtown’s Second Saturday Art Walk last weekend, April 13, which featured photographs from Tower Records history.

 

Hot Italian Midtown in Sacramento, located at 1627 16th Street, (also on 16th Street like the original Tower store), created limited edition t-shirts designed by former Tower Records employee Stephanie Azam emblazoned with “No Pizza. No Life,” a nod to Tower’s famous “No Music. No Life.” slogan and are on sale now with 100% of the net proceeds benefiting the fundraising effort.  The show will move to Public Market location (Emeryville), following the Midtown run June 2nd.

 

With that statement, Tower Records declared itself more than just a music store. From its founding in 1960 until its closure in 2006, Tower was a gathering place, a library, a barometer of cultural trends and one-time icon of the U.S. retail market.

 

 

In 2009, founder Russ Solomon donated over 200 boxes of Tower-related history—artwork, photographs, memorabilia, awards, business records and correspondence, office furnishings and even the neon signs from the first stand-alone store—to the Center for Sacramento History. That was when Tower Records Project, a campaign to fund the preservation of Russ’s gift and make it publicly available, has kicked off.

 

The Center for Sacramento History (founded in 1953), is the historical research and education center for the Sacramento region. The Center’s collections are held in the public trust and reflect the many aspects of the social, economic, political, geographic and cultural history of the region.

The Tower Records Project at the Center for Sacramento History (CSH) entails three overlapping phases over the next two years to capture the spirit and history of the “largest music store in the known universe.”

 

The Phase One ( June 2012 – ongoing), created kick-off event to announce the project, website, and fundraising efforts, building an online community where former employees and fans can share their personal stories, experiences, photographs and mementos about the world’s first music superstore.

 

While the Phase Two (September 2012 – September 2014) is intended to process and catalog over 200 linear feet of archival records and hundreds of artifacts in the Tower Records Collection and the Russ Solomon Papers. Also is offered the possibility to perform preservation work and rehouse collection for storage at the Center’s climate controlled facility, migrate film/video and audio material from “dead media” to an accessible format, open collection for research, viewing, and listening to interested scholars, fans, and the public.

 

The last Third Phase (January 2013 – December 2015), aims to conceptualize and plan a nationwide traveling exhibit on Tower Records, debuting in Sacramento in 2015 and traveling to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York and other cities, creating partnerships with allied institutions to implement exhibit plan and select host sites.

For information on the Tower Records Project, visit www.towerrecordsproject.org.