The Record Store Years 14) The Big Guns of Record Retail Come to Seattle

A memoir of 25 years (1975-2000) spent working in the world of records & music in Seattle, with occasional side trips into writings on Led Zeppelin and other adventures from my musical life.

From the very first day I started at Cellophane Square I heard people talking in hushed, reverent tones about a record store in California called Tower Records. Employees and customers alike would relate tales of a vast, comprehensive paradise for music freaks where every single in-print title was kept in stock and huge sections of imports, cut-outs and singles beckoned. Coming from the east coast, I had never heard of Tower Records. At the time it was still a fairly small company with stores only in California, but they began expanding in the late ‘70s and much to everyone’s excitement opened a Seattle store in 1977 near the Seattle Center on Mercer Street.

Their location seemed remote from the record-store hub of the U-District, but Tower’s was a destination-based business model and the enormous space they moved into next to the Seattle Center – home to several concert venues and cultural attractions - had a large parking lot and was an immediate success. When they first opened, the Seattle store pretty much lived up to the hype. They did indeed have in stock complete catalogs of LPs by pretty much any and every artist one could think of – flipping through the racks it was easy to imagine that every single in-print album could be found, though I suspect in reality that was more hyperbole than fact. The import section was enormous, and in general the effect was overwhelming – very few people in Seattle had seen anything like this, unless they’d visited a Tower store in California.

Even though I rarely bought new records thanks to the steady supply of promos, used and collectible product that came my way at Cellophane, I was pretty impressed by Tower and even found some cool imports to buy on my first few visits there. The store required a large staff and thus provided employment opportunities that were quickly seized by local musicians and collectors. My good friend Jeff got hired there shortly after they opened, and many other friends and acquaintances of mine worked for Tower at their Mercer store or in the U-District location they opened in the early ‘80s.

Following the successful blueprint of Tower, Peaches Records & Tapes started in 1975 with a huge store in Atlanta, Georgia, and they too launched into expansion in the late '70’s that included opening a store in Seattle. Tower beat Peaches to the punch on the Seattle market, but there was obviously a growth market to tap into and when Peaches opened not long after Tower’s arrival, they too were very successful.

Peaches chose a location much closer to the Ave, about a half mile away on NE 45^th street at I-5. The store had similarities to Tower in size and scope, but it had a folksier and less corporate atmosphere. Like Tower, the store was quickly staffed with local musicians and music freaks including several people well known to the Cellophane crew. I don’t recall the specifics of first meeting my friend Brian Fox, but I believe he came in to Cellophane as a customer shortly before the Seattle Peaches opened, and we connected immediately.

Brian had been working at a Peaches store on the east coast and was being transferred to the new Seattle location by the company, with moving & incidental expenses all paid for. He was (and remains) one of the most avid, hardcore collectors I’ve ever known, with extremely broad music tastes and collecting interests that ranged from obscure heavy rock bands like Sir Lord Baltimore and Cactus to extreme ‘noise’ jazz and more conventional bands like Cheap Trick and The Beatles, over whom we quickly bonded.

Brian already had an enormous record collection which was being shipped via truck from the east coast to his new home in Seattle. On his early visits to Cellophane he spoke several times about the delay in getting his records and how impatient he was, when one day he came in with devastating news – there had been an accident and his entire collection – and many of his other possessions - had been burned up in a fire.

He was a bit shell-shocked for a while, but there was insurance money and in short order he got down to the business of re-building his life and most important, his record collection. This was good news for Cellophane Square – in addition to re-buying most of his favorites and keeping up with new releases, Brian decided to focus on collecting his then-current musical obsession The Sex Pistols, and I don’t believe I’ve ever known a more motivated or avid collector. Over the next few years he built up an impressive completist-oriented collection of Pistols vinyl & memorabilia, and he also went on to become an integral part of Seattle’s music & record collecting scene. In addition to fronting his own bands including Chubby Children, Drug Czar and others, Brian helped finance the earliest release by the Fastbacks and the first album by The Moberlys, for which he created the short-lived “Safety First!” record label, and he also spent a stretch of time in the early ‘80s working for Cellophane Square at the U-District store.

NEXT: Side Trip: The Glanz & The Monastery

Below: Brian’s Sex Pistols collection on display in the window at 1315 NE 42nd around 1979-80, and below that the majority of the “Safety First” label’s catalog.