Editor’s note: It is with heavy hearts that we announce that Russell Solomon, founder of Tower Records, passed away last night (Mar. 4, 2018) at his home in Sacramento. The following interview with Russ took place in early 2015 and originally ran in issue #185 (April 13 – 27, 2015). RIP Russ! You will be missed!

No Music, No Life: Part 2

Russell Solomon, what a guy. As the founder of Tower Records, he’s been called the godfather of music retail, a visionary, a living legend. Even at nearly 90 years old, Solomon is still razor sharp, and he absolutely loves to talk about all things music, especially Tower, as evidenced by Submerge’s hour-and-a-half-long interview conducted recently in his Sacramento home, an excerpt of which can be read here. With a drink in hand (“It’s almost 5 p.m.!” he exclaimed as we sat down), a very humble and down-to-earth Solomon spoke with us about the new documentary All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records, how the company was like one big family, how he feels about Tower still going strong in Japan and a little bit about his life-long passion for photography.

When you were first starting a record shop, did you ever in a million years think that someone would want to make a documentary about you?
No, that’s the last thing I thought about, believe me. I thought about making a living, that was what I thought about. I thought they [filmmakers Colin Hanks and Sean Stuart] were nuts in the first place. It took them seven years and they got it together and figured out that they wanted to make a story out of it, and they managed to do it, I thought. From my viewpoint, you’re trying to cram literally 60-something years of experiences into 90 minutes. A lot gets left out, right?

So much great stuff probably hit the cutting room floor, as they say. At the end of the day, they are making a movie. It’s got to have a beginning, a middle and an end.
That’s right. More of a movie than a documentary, too, if you think about it. One of the things they didn’t have, which I didn’t really think about it until after it was all over, was they didn’t have a narrator. You know how most documentaries have a voice over?

Yup. But even without narration, this film gets moving! It’s got a heartbeat to it and it really gets pounding!
That’s a tribute to their editing.

It’s not your run-of-the-mill, slow-paced documentary about WWII or something, it really moves.
You know one of the things they told me, not sure if they told you or not, was they wanted to use the title “All Things Must Pass,” so they sent it to George Harrison’s wife, and she actually looked at it twice, they told me, and she loved it! She then gave permission to use it, although they didn’t really need permission to use the title.

More of a “can we have your blessing to use this” sort of thing?
She blessed it, yeah.

I’m curious, did watching the film for the first time make you emotional at all?
Patti [Russ’ wife] gets emotional. I just say, “Ah, I’ve been there.”

There is some pretty deep, personal stuff in some of those interviews, and the whole camaraderie of the Tower family comes through even though it’s a story of the rise and fall of the company.
That was the truth, that’s the way it was. As a consequence, they captured that. I told them up front, “Look, this company wasn’t me. This company was made up of all the people that worked for us.” It wasn’t even just that little group that was in the film. There were, and I didn’t know about this until late, in the American company from the time we started counting, which was probably in the late ‘70s, we had over 100,000 people that worked for the company!

I love that the film shows how Tower employees went from clerks, to buyers, to assistant managers, to managers, to general managers, to vice presidents, etc. That family-type growth was important at Tower, wasn’t it?
Absolutely, yeah. All the managers came from clerk status.

In the movie Dave Grohl says something like, “Tower was the only place that would hire me with my fucking haircut.” He was this long-haired grungy looking kid but got a job at one of your stores. You guys attracted a lot of interesting characters to work for Tower, didn’t you?
It was true. The one thing we didn’t have was any kind of dress code. The only thing we insisted upon was that they wear shoes, but in Hawaii they didn’t wear shoes. What are you gonna do, you know?

The late and great Bud Martin wasn’t necessarily the face of the company as much as you were; he was more the money guy. Does it feel nice to be able to show how important he was to the company in this film?
Yeah. If I’d have just listened to him. The problem at the end with Bud was that the company got so big. Bud was a public accountant, as opposed to a CPA, and the company was handling so much damned money that we needed a CPA. It didn’t turn out to be the best thing to do, but, nonetheless it had to be done. Bud actually hired the CPA, which is the guy that ultimately replaced him. But he was getting sick, and, you know… He was a good guy. I miss him.

In creating Tower Records, you created more than a music store—they were hangout spots; people would link up at Tower.
It’s true, people liked to come to us. The clerks were like they were. If you looked at the other big stores, the Musiclands and Wherehouses and whathaveyou, they were pretty snobby. Why? I don’t know. I have a theory, now that I sit here and think about it. I have this idea, which is something you can’t tell bankers by the way, but the people in say a Musicland store or a Wherehouse store or whatever, they didn’t have any control over what was happening in that store, all the decisions were being made in their main office or whatever. But in our case it was just the opposite. We wanted the people in the store to run the store, it was their store. They could do what they wanted.

It’s kind of a good thing that the film took so long to make, because it’s really incredible that some of the interviews were done inside the Watt Avenue store after it had shut down. How did that work out?
That was at the beginning of filming the movie. The Watt store sort of stayed empty for a while after the liquidators emptied it of the merchandise, and all those racks were in there, and the sign was still there. When Sean and Colin first started the thing, they talked the landlord into letting us in and lighting it and so on. So we were able to do that in there.

Post-Tower, you opened up R5 Records in Sacramento in 2008, which was probably the worst year ever to open a store.
That was not my finest hour.

Do you think something like R5 would work now?
No, I don’t think so, except maybe in a market like New York. Obviously it works in Japan. Here’s the difference, the physical market is a combination of used and a little new in CDs and LPs, vinyl as they call it. So, what Tower was and what R5 was, was a new store. We didn’t carry used. We carried vinyl at the end at R5, and we carried a little vinyl in Tower at the end. The whole vinyl thing was just kind of starting back up, that’s back in 2004, 2005, it was just beginning to regenerate itself. But to replicate Tower and its “all new” kind of thing, which is what we were, that’s what R5 tried to do. As a result of that, it kind of failed. That and the economy falling apart. We had a perfect storm there. So your answer is no.

In this area we’ve got Dimple Records, Phono Select, Esoteric, Armadillo and others. There’s even a new little shop opening on R Street soon. Why do you think people are still running and opening these smaller record stores even today?
They have fun doing it! The trouble is that LPs are not going to grow to the strength they had before. One of the reasons is they can’t manufacture enough… There’s no production facilities to speak of, so it’s limited as to what they can put out. In the old days with LPs and for CDs, if they had a new release of a hot artist, they’d press a million copies and throw it out on the marketplace. If we didn’t sell it we’d send it back. Well that’s not the case today. So that limits the growth for LPs in retail for that reason. But I think there are always going to be collectors! That was the whole idea behind it was the collector, that was a big portion of the business.

Right, from your everyday average Joe collector, all the way on up to Elton John, who used to obsessively peruse your stores for records.
Just think of yourself as a young guy or a young girl who had a box full of their favorite songs on 45s. They were collectors, even though they only maybe had 30, 40, 50 records.

They were seeking out what they want, getting it, owning it, having it in their possession.
Exactly, and then sharing it with all of their friends and all that stuff.

And it happens so differently now…
If you want to read a story about collectors going to a point of absurdity, there’s a book called Do Not Sell At Any Price. It’s the background story of the freak 78 [rpm records] collectors, who collected old blues and original records that go back to the 1920s. These guys are digging around in garbage dumpsters. They’re obsessed, they know a lot about it, and they pay ridiculous prices for some of this stuff, ‘cause, you know, there’s only one copy left of Uncle George’s Jug Band or some damn thing [laughs].

People go to extraordinary lengths to collect. They are out there. Do you think that will essentially help these small little mom-and-pop record shops maintain?
Oh absolutely, that’s the fun part of it. The only thing that’s changed really is that there’s so much fewer people that are buying that stuff than there was in the past. I mean, the heyday of selling thousands of units or millions of units or something like that is gone in the physical world, because it’s changed so dramatically to streaming.

I think the release of this film will be a very big thing for Sacramento.
Yeah, I didn’t realize how much Tower meant to so many people. This isn’t in Sacramento, but Patti and I were in Palm Springs visiting some friends recently and we were sitting in a bar. The friends we were visiting, he always does this, which I would never do, he goes, “He’s the founder of Tower Records!” and points at me. And here’s these two old people sitting at the bar having a drink, they go, “Oh my God, Tower Records?” and then they carried on about how wonderful it was. I had no idea, really. Maybe I wasn’t thinking about it, how somehow or another we seemed to touch a lot of people through the years. You’ve got a lot of years involved, 1960 to 2006. Time to time I would actually run into people who would say, “I used to shop and listen to records in the booths at the drugstore.” I say, “Jesus, you have to be really old.”

In Japan there are over 80 Tower Records locations still to this day. How does it feel to see the Tower model working over there?
Very proud. Of course the thing that keeps it alive I think is the fact that they don’t have any financial problems, they’re owned by the telephone company essentially… So they don’t have to worry about debt or any of those mundane kind of problems, and they just keep it going. The nature of the Japanese market is that it’s the only market in the world that’s about 80 percent physical, compared to America which is 20 percent physical. So for some reason the physical world over there, physical records, are still going strong. I couldn’t be prouder. They are doing what we set up and they just kept it going, and like the Japanese always do, they improve on things.

Now that you’ve seen All Things Must Pass, do you think Colin, Sean and the whole team behind the film did you and your fellow Tower employees proud?
I would say so, yeah. I’m certainly proud of Colin and Sean, and their people that worked on it. I’m really pleased about the whole thing and I’m pleased with the way that they did it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s totally honest, and that’s what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to make plain the idea that this was a community project, it wasn’t just one guy.

To wrap things up, I noticed in the film there are a couple old photos of you with a camera around your neck. How long have you been into photography?
Since I was about 15.

Were you mostly taking photos for business purposes, you know, research? Or was it more of an artsy approach?
It was more for fun. No matter where I went, I always had a camera to take pictures of the stores.

[Because he was being so humble, Patti interjected: “Did you know he had a gallery show? But didn’t you start in High School, Russ? Didn’t you do the pictures for the yearbook, but you never graduated, so you weren’t in it?”]

Russ Solomon: [laughs] It was really a dirty trick. I was the principal photographer for the McClatchy yearbook and because they kicked me out of school, they wouldn’t give me any credit. But the photographs were terrible, believe me, they were terrible. High school pictures, are you kidding me?

To keep up to date on what’s going on with the film, go to Towerrecordsmovie.com

Also, click here to check out our interview with Colin Hanks and Sean Stuart regarding All Things Must Pass.

**This interview first appeared in print in issue #185 (April 13 – 27, 2015)**

With a name like White Knuckle Riot and influences such as Pantera and Metallica, you might think the local heavy rock/metal band is made up of a bunch of middle-fingers-up-don’t-give-a-fuck hard-asses. To be fair, they are pretty hard-edged, but they’ve also got big hearts, as evidenced by the band’s current Easter Basket Drive to benefit kids at the St. John’s Shelter for Women & Children. Through the end of March, you are encouraged to drop off a new, pre-packaged and sealed Easter basket to a number of spots throughout the region, including any of the seven Dimple Records locations, On the Y (670 Fulton Avenue), Blue Lamp (1400 Alhambra Boulevard), and Mardi Gras Lanes (4800 Madison Avenue). “We know there are kids out there who do not always have the fortune of having parents who can provide for them, or in the case of the shelter, the ones who have been mistreated or misplaced by their parents not having the ability to celebrate events like Easter,” the band’s manager, Rob Snyder, recently told Submerge. “We hope these baskets will show these kids that there is always hope. That there are people out there who care, even when they think there isn’t.”

The group will be hosting meet and greets and will be taking donations personally at the Dimple location in Roseville on March 21, and again at the Dimple on Arden Way on March 29 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. If you make your donation at Blue Lamp, they’ll offer up a free brewski and if you drop off at Mardi Gras Lanes, you’ll get a little free bowling! Visit Facebook.com/whiteknuckleriot for more information on the band’s Easter Basket Drive and to keep an eye out for future area performances.

I know we might write about Kevin Seconds a lot here in Submerge, but you won’t find us apologizing for it any time soon, the dude is a freakin’ legend who just keeps on churning out inspiring music! Speaking of, Seconds’ newest solo album Off Stockton is releasing on Feb. 18, 2014 via Oregon-based indie powerhouse Rise Records. That same day, Seconds will do a free in-store performance and an album signing at the Dimple Records location on Arden starting at 7 p.m. While there you can grab the new CD for $9.99 or get it on vinyl (which also includes a CD) for just $11.99. In addition to the Dimple event, Seconds will host his official album release show on Friday, Feb. 21, 2014 at Fox & Goose. Doors open at 9 p.m. and admission is $5. Off Stockton is simply a man and his guitar; 11 tracks of some of the best storytelling you’ll ever hear. Get your hands on a copy and you’ll never let go.

Photo by Ed Martin

Davis’ student-run freeform radio station KDVS told The California Aggie last week that they are looking to expand and host all-ages shows at the former Dimple Records location downtown (212 F Street, Davis), which closed in July 2012 and has since remained empty, save for it housing a Halloween store during fall months. KDVS’ general manager Renner Burkle told The Aggie, “We can actually start booking shows there. We’d like to start booking shows within a month or two.”

Programming director Christine Hong was also quoted in the article, stating, “We can expect to see more all-ages shows. I think it’s important that every city has an all-ages venue.”

No word on whether or not KDVS has signed a lease on the space yet making this news unofficial, but our fingers are crossed that they do before some mega-corporate store like Banana Republic or Forever 21 swoops in on the prime retail location. Keep your eyes and ears open for more information on this new all-ages venue development in the coming weeks.

The Fifth Annual Submerge Holiday Gift Guide

By Submerge Staff

If you’re reading this, you’ve survived the madness that is Black Friday. Great job. The good news is we don’t have to hear the words “Cyber Monday” (which is sort of a creepy term, no?) for another year, the bad news is you probably still have lots of shopping to do for friends and family. That’s where we come in. Check out some of these cool gift ideas that we scoured Sacramento (and the interwebs) to find. We’ve got stuff for the home, stuff for the car, stuff you can shove in your mouth and stuff you can wear. Read on and be inspired, and happy holidays from your friends at Submerge!

All that eggnog isn’t playing tricks on you. These Areaware Paul Loebach Distortion Candlesticks, available for $24 each at Lumens, have an improbable design created by taking a traditional candlestick form and distorting it through a 3D rendering program. It’s then cast in resin and marble, making the malleable-looking figure exceedingly durable. Colors available: black, white, grey and rust.

This Pave Link Bracelet by Sacramento jewelry designer Gigglosophy is the perfect blend of cute and stylish, with just enough (but not too much) bling factor. Any fashion forward ladies on your list will love it! $50, available at Etsy.com/shop/gigglosophy.

Sacramento’s cocktail scene is exploding right now. You’ll look like you knew it all along with these Prepara Ice Ball 2-inch Molds. Pack them with mint leaves, basil, fruits and more. Fill them with juice, lemon or lime segments. Use them in pitchers, cocktails, punch bowls and tumblers. Larger ice cubes keep drinks cooler longer and they dilute less too, because who really wants a watered down drink around the holidays? Not us! $9.99 for a four-pack, $19.99 for a 10-pack, available at Prepara.com.

Sacramento history buffs will go crazy over local author Willam Burg’s new book Sacramento’s K Street: Where Our City Was Born, available for $19.99 at Time Tested Books. Join Burg as he chronicles the legacy of Sacramento’s K Street, once a boulevard of aspirations and bustling commerce and now home to a spirit of renewal.

It’s cold, it’s raining and the last thing you want to do is go outside to warm up the car. With this Code Alarm Remote Start and Keyless Entry System you can start up that bad boy from the comfort of your home. Get two keychain controllers for just $129.99, available at Audio Express. ****CLICK HERE FOR SUBMERGE DISCOUNT COUPON****

Do you abuse the snooze button? Well here’s an interesting solution for those of us that do. The Nanda Home Clocky Alarm Clock, available for $39 at Lumens, gives you one chance to get up, but if you snooze, Clocky will jump off your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide, beeping all the while, forcing you to get out of bed to silence it.

Our friends at Bows and Arrows never disappoint when it comes to unique fashionable finds, and these one-of-a-kind handmade rings are no exception. Prices range from around $16 to $40. Stop into their store in person or shop online at Etsy.com/shop/bowsandarrowsvintage.

If you’ve got an iPad or iPhone and are jonesing for physical keys, hit up Brookstone at either Arden Fair or the Downtown Plaza and snag one of these Bluetooth Silicone Keyboards for just $59.99. It’s super slim, flexible enough to roll up and water resistant. Perfect for travel, business meetings or mornings spent at your local coffee shop.

Whether you need something soft for your baby, a new keychain addition or a new dog toy for Fido, Uglydolls are perfect for all of the above and then some! Submerge’s shop dog, a 3-year-old Boston terrier named Panda, has cuddled with her Uglydoll “Ice-Bat” every night since she was 8 weeks old, and she has another one, “Brip,” as a play toy. They’re durable, colorful, adorable and have silly names. Available in Midtown at Ladybug Ladybug. Large ones are $21, medium ones are between $10.50 and $11 and the little guys are either $6.50 or $7 and have clips attached to them for jeans, backpacks, keychains, etc.

When you’re a kid, getting a pair of socks as a gift is the worst. When you’re an adult, getting (or giving) socks is cool! Especially ones with skulls ($8.95) or your favorite dog breed on them ($8.50). Hit up Sock City in Old Sacramento for these and tons of other sock options.

Liven up any party or social gathering when you throw on the recently released Dance Central 3 videogame for Xbox 360’s Kinect. In this No. 1 rated dance game you’ll master favorite dance crazes from the past as well as today’s hottest moves. Heat up the competition in the new Crew Throwdown mode or cut your teeth in the Beginner mode.No matter what you’ll have a blast and burn some calories. Pick up your copy at any Dimple Records location for $49.99.

This Original Penguin V-neck Sweater, available for $85 in a plethora of colors at the newly opened men’s boutique Established Apparel, is a great addition to any guy’s wardrobe. Dress it up with a collared shirt underneath, or keep it casual with a solid T-shirt. Either way, you’ll look and feel great in one of these 100 percent lamb’s wool V-necks.

Anyone on your list who loves to cook, or anyone who loves to eat for that matter, will flip for olive oils, vinegars and balsamics from The Chefs’ Olive Mix in Old Sacramento. Stop in and try one of their many suggested pairings, like Fig Balsamic with Mushroom and Sage Olive Oil, or Honey Ginger White Balsamic with Persian Lime EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), or one of the most popular combos, Traditional Balsamic with Tuscan Herb EVOO. Prices vary, but most are $11.95 for 200ml, $16.95 for 375ml or $24.95 for 750ml.

Got someone artsy on your shopping list? Surprise them with a pair of The Converse Chuck Taylor All Star 12oz. Blank Canvas Sneaker and let them express themselves! Choose either high-top or low-top for $49.99, available at Utrecht Art Supplies. You’ll also want the Stained Markers by Sharpie, which are perfect for fabrics. Those are just $16.59 for a set of eight colors, also available at Utrecht.

Protect your investment and look badass doing it with these iPhone and iPod cases designed by local artist Jose di Gregorio. $35 for a hard case, $15 for skins, available online at Society6.com.

We all do it, be it at a stop sign or on I-5, maybe cruising down J Street. Whenever we see a car that has a screen playing a movie for kids in the back seat, we instinctually peek in and try and see what it is. Well why don’t you splurge and get yourself Pioneer’s AVIC-X940BT from Audio Express? Sure it’s $699.99, but this thing has a 6.1-inch touch screen, plays DVDs and CDs, has Bluetooth connectivity, built-in navigation for all 50 states (plus Canada) and a ton of other amazing features. You’ll never leave your vehicle again! ****CLICK HERE FOR SUBMERGE DISCOUNT COUPON****

Every man should have a nice wallet that he is proud to pull out of his pocket, regardless of how much cash it holds. We approve entirely of this stylish piece by Scotch and Soda Amsterdam Couture. Get one for just $38 at Established Apparel.

If you have friends with gauged ears, you absolutely have to turn them onto Plug Club, a Sacramento-based Web company that ships super rad custom plugs directly to customers. They’ve got classic designs like skulls and anchors and whatnot, but they’ve also got really wacky and downright hilarious designs like “Cat Attack,” which features a cat shooting laser beams out of its eyes. There are many to choose from, and prices vary from $13 to $18. They also have “fake plugs” for those weary of stretching their ears, as well as taper kits for those looking to stretch properly. ****USE PLUG CLUB CODE “SUBMERGE” TO GET 20% OFF****

Some say the best gifts are the kind you can eat, and you won’t find us disagreeing with that notion. Take care of any sweet tooth with delectable French Macarons from Estelle’s Patisserie Bakery and Espresso Bar, available in a variety of flavors like chocolate, pistachio, strawberry cream, blueberry cream, green tea and seasonal flavors. Just $1.75 each.

More sad news for Davis: Dimple Records has officially closed their location at 212 F Street. “It’s true, June 17, 2012 was the last business day,” owner Dilyn Radakovitz told Submerge, and as of press time they were “still sweeping it out.” There were multiple factors that Radakovitz pointed to: high rent, slowing business trends, bad parking and even though the college is close, students are broke. “Who knows, we tried,” she said. The store opened in 2007 and was the regional chain’s sixth store. Like the other locations, it offered CDs, vinyl, DVDs, video games and more.

Dimple’s focus has shifted away from the Davis location closing to a new bookstore scheduled to open soon just two doors down from their Arden Way location.

“We’re always looking for what kinds of merchandise to sell that is something our customers are into and that might make sense,” Radakovitz said of the new book venture. Submerge got a peek at the new store and it is huge–roughly 8,000 square-feet, she estimated. It will be mostly filled with the hundreds of thousands of books they’ve acquired since they started advertising buy-backs and trade-ins with their customers in October, but there will also be a large section dedicated to vinyl.

“My idea was, ‘We’ll see what we get,’” Radakovitz said of the decision to start acquiring books. “In January, Kyle [Newton, operations manager] said, ‘We gotta get another warehouse!’”

Dimple’s books will be priced competitively with Amazon, a site that they regularly sell product through. There will also be frequent meet and greets with authors, both local and national. Radakovitz said to look for a soft opening in July (possibly as soon as the 11th), with a grand opening to follow sometime in August.

Vinyl heads, comic book collectors, movie and music aficionados and gamers alike will not want to miss Dimple Records’ giant swap meet at their Arden location (2433 Arden Way) this Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Get your grubby little paws on tons of records, movies, comics, video games, CD’s and DVD’s, collectibles and all sorts of other cool memorabilia. Browse other people’s stuff or set up your own table. For more information and details call (916) 925-2600, stop in and ask a clerk or email recordswap@dimple.com. Get your swap on!

If you’re looking for something to do on Friday, Aug. 12, 2011, think about dusting off your dancing shoes and heading to The Radisson Hotel for the Bump City Dance Party with headliners Tower of Power and local openers Mick Martin and the Blues Rockers. Profits from the concert are being donated to Francis House, a Sacramento counseling and resource center for poor individuals and families, so your money is going toward a good cause. Francis House’s longtime executive director Greg Bunker suffered from a fatal heart attack last December. At the concert on Aug. 12, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and the City Council will recognize Bunker and Francis House with a formal commendation for his 20-plus years of service to the community. Tickets for the event are available at Dimple Records stores and online at Ticketmaster.com or by phone at (800) 745-3000.