Serge Bielanko was one of the leading forces behind the Philadelphia-based rock & roll band Marah. Part Replacements, part Van Morrison, part Phil Spector, part Rod Stewart & The Faces, part Philly & Motown soul, for years they were poised for success as the “next big rock & roll band”. Marah was a critic’s darling and counted some famous folks (Ja…

Growing up in a small town 50 miles outside of Los Angeles, Denise McDonald has a very clear memory of getting her first library card at the age of five. For most of her life, Denise has been a dedicated bibliophile. In this week’s episode, Denise tells us all about working book product at Tower. From friends at Sacramento State helping her to secu…

“I remember standing on the sidewalk, talking to Rick [Briare] and telling him I was interested in going [to the new San Diego store] and he basically said ‘Well we don’t hire girls’. “ Thus began Jennifer Birner’s journey, leaving the Watt Avenue Bookstore to help open a new Tower Records location in San Diego where, for a time, she would be the o…

“ ‘There’s a place called Tower Records’ and the way that he described it, it was a supermarket of music! It’s got two stories. I was like, wow…I’ve gotta go there!” Not only did Pete Pataro *go* there, he had a 15-year career - starting in that Washington DC store, assistant managing in the brand new Annapolis store, and eventually running Cherry …

Kevin Winnick was working in Washington DC for a small chain of pop culture/entertainment-themed stores called Another Universe when he got a call from a headhunter saying a large company was looking to hire someone who could identify trends and had experience as a buyer. Though content where he was, Kevin took the interview and before long found h…

Megan Jasper grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts an industrial town, just an hour outside of Boston. Megan remembers it as a tough place to grow up. As a young girl, her family would travel to Boston and she and her sister would hit Newbury Comics when there was only one store. As a teen, she traveled to Boston for punk rock shows. Attending UMass,…

“He [George Scarlett] said that someone had suggested me for the position [Administrative Assistant] because I looked so intense when I worked. I don’t know what that really means. I guess it’s a good thing” And thus, another Tower career was born. Renee Tyler spent 12 years working as George Scarlett’s Administrative Assistant in Record Division. …

While Chris Hopson was putting together Tower Records’ in-house advertising agency, in a parallel universe, or at least somewhere else in California, Steve Nikkel was doing the same for a small independent chain of record stores called Eucalyptus Records, based out of Fairfield, California. When an opening became available, due to Mike Farrace star…

Joy Slusarek Proft spent 15 years working for Universal Music Distribution. Like many before her, she started as an FMR (Field Marketing Rep), and like few, she ended up as the Vice President of Sales located in Los Angeles. While calling on stores in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska, Joy found herself with a new band called Weezer in her ca…

Matt Lavelle used to listen to music with his grandfather. No talking. No commentary. At a very young age, Matt simply observed how the music moved his grandfather and it had quite an impression on him. As he got older, after making regular visits to the Jazz Department at Tower 4th & Broadway, Matt took a job in Nanuet under Store Manager Bill Duf…

Fuzzy Swing never worked for Tower Records, but he worked at Tower Records in San Francisco as an inventory rep and sales associate on behalf of RCA. In addition to Tower, he had several mom & pop independent stores in the Bay Area. In later years Fuzzy was promoted to sales covering the Sacramento area stores Tower Broadway, Tower Citrus Heights, …

On Friday February 16th, Kevin Cassidy passed away. We are rerunning our episode from September of 2022 featuring Kevin, along with a short introduction. Once we receive information about a Memorial Service for Kevin, we will post it on the "2500 DelMonte Street" Instagram and Facebook pages.Von Bob Zimmerman

Long before she became the face and voice of NPR Music, Ann Powers was just a Catholic school girl and new wave music fan who in 1979 was guided on a musical journey by Chris, an influential Tower Mercer Street clerk. Chris regularly assisted and turned Ann on to some great groups and albums at Tower Seattle's landmark location. On today’s episode …

“I remember thinking, if the light turns red, I’m turning in the parking lot and I’m going to do a bagcheck. If it’s green I’m going to sail on through and I’m going home. And sure as heck, it was red and I turned in [to the lot] and I’m going to do the bag check” It’s in moments like these that you make your mark. Only five days earlier, Carl was …

MTS Not the company, the man. Michael T Solomon sits down with “2500 DelMonte Street” to discuss it all; his time with Russ & Doris, Tower Records, Bud Martin, Sunday school with Stan Goman, chauffeuring The Rolling Stones around town before their show in Sacramento, starting out at the Tower Drug Store, working at Watt Ave, Columbus & Bay and Berk…

Darrin Roberts grew up in Southern California with a “Kevin Arnold-Wonder Years” type upbringing. After a neighbor suggested his mother take her 3 year old to a recently released “war movie”, he became obsessed with all things cinema. After getting his degree at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts he began working on a series of music film projects as b…

“I knew quite a bit about [Tower]. I knew Sunset was the mecca. So I just popped in one day and that’s how it all started” says this week’s guest Marty Bender Sobolweski. From his earliest memory of his grandmother pulling out a record player to his mother coming home from her temp job at Capitol Records in Cleveland with a box of free records, Mar…

Our guest this week, Cathi Ronnenburg, remembers being on the phone with the Manager of a neighboring location when men in black suits swarmed her store. No, it wasn’t a Tower Records she was running at the time, but being busted by the FBI for the bootleg albums she and her company were selling is a pretty exciting start to record retail and Cathi…

Not many people are “One Degree of Separation” from Kevin Bacon, but this week’s guest, Jason Sumney is. Growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, the son of a rabid record collector, Jason started his retail music career while in HIgh School at National Record Mart, a locally based, national chain that at its peak had 175 stores in 30 states. Knowing all of t…

Rob Chapman likes The Rolling Stones. Wait…check that. Rob Chapman loooooves The Rolling Stones. Not only that, but he regularly corresponds with a couple of the guys in the band. Several years ago Rob wrote a book about a very interesting period in the band’s history, Ron Wood and Keith Richards’ side project The New Barbarians. Rob went deep on t…

Bob worked for Tower Records 18.5 years. Washington DC, Seattle, Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia and Lincoln Center NYC. He loved working for Tower so much, he made a podcast about it. After multiple requests, he’s being interviewed for his story today. Our guest host/interviewer needs no introduction; that’s why we’re not going to tell you who it is…

“The goal was to work at a record store and then everybody eventually wanted to work for a label. I envied the label guys and then I went and married one.” If the name Betsy Altomare sounds a bit familiar, there’s a reason for that. Back on episode number 33 we interviewed her husband Keith Altomare, who told us how he and Betsy met while she was t…

Mike Pompei grew up in a big Italian family just outside of Buffalo NY. His family was very musical and it seemed to rub off on Mike, who currently plays wineries and breweries throughout Sacramento. At the age of 12, just as his generation of pop music was becoming a priority, the Pompei family moved to the sunny enviorns of Sacramento, California…

Christina Sharpe grew up in New York City, mostly on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Growing up in a household where music was always being played and appreciated, Christina took her love of jazz and soul music and added twists of Duran Duran, Level 42 and early 80’s East Coast Hip Hop to her repertoire. Christina started her Tower career at the …

When The Beatles hit America, it came at about the perfect time for Joe Medwick. Just months earlier, when he was 7 years old, his father had passed away, a crushing moment in young Joe’s life. But it wasn’t as though The Beatles were his introduction to music. Joe had older brothers and sisters with album collections he borrowed and pored over. Jo…

In the middle of a very long shift, working to get the brand new Dallas, TX store open, Rob Tolleson had no idea why Kevin Cassidy wanted to go out for coffee with him. “I thought I was in trouble” was his first thought. When Cassidy asked if Rob had ever considered working in management, Tolleson told him that he had not for the simple fact that h…

Charles R. Cross isn’t our typical guest on 2500 DelMonte Street. He never ran a Tower store…never worked in a Tower store. But he had a lot of business and personal relationships with Tower Records, as well as being a steady customer. In the parking lot of the Tower Records at 5th & Mercer in Seattle, weeks before the release date, Charley first h…

Jim Barber had a 19-year career with Tower Records. Starting in 1987, Jim worked in the Classical Department in Washington DC with Rob Bruce as the store’s General Manager. After only a year on the job, Tower decided to open a location in Tyson’s Corner VA and Jim was one of three employees to transfer to help get the new suburban location and its …

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and a fan of female pop vocalists, Miguel Ortuno made his way to the then-new Tower Records store in Bloomingdale, IL to purchase his very first CD, “The Bodyguard” soundtrack featuring his favorite female singer, Whitney Houston. It wasn’t long after that Miguel applied for a job, was hired, and worked at the B…

Geoff Mayfield has had a long and illustrious career in the music business. Starting as an Editor for a Columbus, OH music magazine called “Focus”, it wasn’t long before Geoff found himself behind the microphone at WBBY jazz radio. Geoff’s background in both music journalism and radio stood out to an executive at Camelot Music, the mall-based music…

With a father who was primarily a jazz drummer, but would play all kinds of local pickup gigs (and still plays today at 87 years young) music came naturally to a blooming Mike Redmond. So it’s no surprise an early career in music retail came naturally to young Mike. Starting in Sherman Oaks under the tutelage of Dave Montes, Redmond found himself e…

“My interactions with the ‘higher ups’ after I moved to Annapolis largely consisted of [them saying] ‘When are you going to stop doing this?’ and me saying ‘You hired me to do the job, either fire me or shut the hell up ’ ” Scott Edward Phelps had an interesting journey at Tower Records. Moving to Nashville with his bandmates to strike out for a ca…

If you worked in a Tower Records store or at the corporate offices in Sacramento and had issues with a computer, chances are you probably talked to our guest this week, John Correa. Leaving his life as a member of a local Break Dance crew, John started working for Tower at the TVID warehouse in 1988. John’s first professional endeavor working a tec…

This week’s episode takes us away from the coasts and back into the heartland. Jen Gies is originally from Chicago and it was at Tower Records on Clark Street where she began her career with the company, hired in as a Holiday temp employee. As luck would have it, her first day working at Tower happened to be the same her favorite band was doing an …

Don Erwin started with Tower in 1972 and was a Manager for Tower Posters from 1973-1978. He worked for Dick Harris whose MTS Inc’s employee number was 1. Dick, Don and MTS eventually got smart and spun off Tower Posters' success by becoming California Posters, later CP Rock, one of the country’s premier distributors of counterculture posters. At on…

Travis Michael Anderson grew up in Yakima, WA more than 2 hours from Seattle. A classical brass player, Travis moved to the Bellevue WA area and applied to Tower Records Bellevue. He was turned down because he didn’t have enough retail experience. For the same reason he was turned down at Barnes & Noble and ended up working for Wherehouse Records. …

When Tim Wessman started working at Tower, it was never previously on his radar. Tim was immediately impressed by the level of devotion his co-workers had for music. He felt an immediate fit when he started working for Tower. With no portfolio he interviewed for the Artist position at the Berkley Video store and he was hired by Sue Peterson on the …

“College Boy” Greg Harrington started working at Tower Records Burlington MA and did so well on his first day of register, they threw him back in receiving to do pricing. Not the usual path to working in the receiving department, but our guest this week didn’t have a conventional career at Tower Records. Burlington MA, the big store on Boston’s New…

Pam Hopson first began working for Tower Records/MTS Inc. in 1976. But unlike many, Pam had to pay to get the job. One of the employment agencies Russ Solomon used back in the early days charged the employee and not just a little bit. Pam paid $400 in 1976 ($2,137 in 2023 dollars) to get a job doing what she did best at the time; running business m…

Von Bob Zimmerman

Von Bob Zimmerman

As a 13 year old from Southern California Russ Eisenman listened to KROQ, stole quarters from his step-father’s nightstand and went to Tower Records in Campbell to buy cassettes recommended to him by one of the store’s clerks. This opened up Russ’ depth and knowledge of popular music. Many years later Russ Eisenman started with Tower Records workin…

Bill Duffy was from a particular generation of Tower Store Managers; started in the mid 80’s to early 90’s, spent 15-20 years with the company and was still looked upon as a “newbie”. But Bill broke that mold big time to both the joy and concern of the seasoned and hardened Tower Managers and Regionals. Bill was a General Manager for only 6 years b…

It’s our one year Anniversary and we’ve got former Tower Records COO Stan Goman back to answer listener submitted questions! It's a lively episode and Stan tells us his favorite episode of “2500 DelMonte Street”, Stan’s Desert Island Discs, Tower’s funniest in store, Stan’s going away party from the Sunset store, his time as a Country Music Associa…

Imagine working in the largest, most prestigious record store in Manhattan in the 1980’s. Now imagine doing that twice. Today’s guest, Billy DePasquale started his record retail career at the largest record store in Manhattan, Sam Goody in Rockefeller Center, in September of 1980. Tower Records wouldn’t land in Manhattan for another 3 years. One ev…

Was Arthur Moorhead the greatest jazz buyer that ever worked at Tower Records? Stan Goman believes that is the case. Growing up in Arizona, Arthur became a proficient trombone player and obsessed with jazz, movie soundtracks and orchestral music. By his own admission he was almost completely ignorant of pop music, except The Beatles. As a young tee…

Jay Gilbert started his Tower career working at Tower Portland with legends like Rick Briare and Tim Cressinger. Prior to Tower, Jay worked at Rising Sun Records in Salem Oregon. That record store experience laid the foundation for a career in the music business that anyone could be jealous of. After working for Tower Records, Jay worked with both …

Howard Cespedes worked at seven Tower Records locations during his 19-year career. He's best known for his three stints at the Mountain View CA store and his five year tenure at the 4th & Broadway location in Manhattan. Born on Guam and growing up in Northern California, Howard was a life-long jazz fan, starting with his father’s Duke Ellington rec…

Dan Navarro has had a long & fruitful career in the recording industry. He released 13 albums as part of the duo Lowen & Navarro and was frequently featured on Adult Alternative radio. He recently released his solo album “Horizon Line” featuring a who’s who of LA studio talent. As a bilingual singer and voice actor he’s sang in Oscar winners “Encan…

The last time Kevin Ertell saw Russ Solomon, at the premiere of “All Things Must Pass”, Russ walked up to him and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Kevin! Can you believe what those fuckers have done to our website!?” During his time as SVP of Tower.com, Kevin spent many an afternoon in Russ Solomon’s office while Russ peppered him with questi…