If you were thinking of going record shopping, oh, this weekend, you might wanna stop by Tower Records. Everything's on sale--as in, everything's gotta go because Tower's going, going...gone. Today, a federal bankruptcy judge approved the sale of the California-based company for $134.3 million to Great American Group, a Los Angeles liquidation firm that is selling off the chain beginning tomorrow, word is. At least, that's what it says here: "Peter Gurfein, an attorney representing the 46-year-old chain, said it will be sold for a total of $150 million, including the sale of various leases and properties. Gurfein said Great America plans to begin the liquidation process and going-out-of-business sales Saturday."
A few months ago there was a rumor circulating that Tower's Lemmon Avenue location was going to be taken over by Dean & Deluca, which both parties denied. Tower's local and corporate execs said the company wasn't going anywhere, despite its being declared bankrupt on several locations, and D&D's boss said that while the venerable NYC fine-foodery was looking for a Dallas location, the Tower spot wasn't it. Maybe that changes now, as Tower's gonna be outta Dallas in the time it takes the joint to offload its stock, which was pretty stout during my visit there only last week.
Regardless, with the shuttering of Virgin's Megastore in Mockingbird Station and the closing of Tower, this is excellent news for the homegrown mom-n-poppers such as Good Records and CD World, which no longer have to fend off the chains who claim they were killed by downloaders and discounters such as Wal-Mart and Target.
Tower, incidentally, owes its creditors about $200 million. Which means they're gonna want to sell you a lot of stuff: In Seattle, it says in the loal paper, "all music will be marked down 10 percent, all books 20 percent and all magazines 30 percent." If you don't get deals as good as that here, if not better, well, what are ya gonna do? Not shop there anymore? --Robert Wilonsky
