grand opening sale at tower records piccadilly

-
Vintage Ad #93 - Tower Records Comes to London
One anniversary I missed last month - the 20th for British rock magazine Q.

Amy and I started to pick it up around '93 and were regular readers for the rest of the decade, before price increases forced us to the back issue market. We'd howl at its humourous edge, especially the "Who the Hell" interviews and the side comments used for photos. English words drawn from article headlines slowly crept into our vocabulary. It was much fresher than the North American press - did we really need to know everything about a tired 70s act's latest project, as Rolling Stone often featured?

Cover stories on the premiere issue were Paul McCartney, Big Audio Dynamite, Lenny Henry and cocaine. Among the pieces inside:

* How digital audio tape threatens to sink the then-still-new compact disc
* The collapse of Stiff Records
* The new face of British horror fiction (featuring Alan Moore, Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker)
* Reviews of albums by Elvis Costello (Blood & Chocolate, 3 of 5 stars), Human League (Crash, 4 stars), Huey Lewis & The News (Fore, 3 stars), R.E.M. (Life's Rich Pageant, 4 stars), Lionel Richie (Dancing On The Ceiling, 4 stars), Paul Simon (Graceland, 5 stars) and Talking Heads (True Stories, 4 stars). Stinking up the joint? One star each for The Bolshoi, Love & Rockets and The Lover Speaks.
* New movies in the UK that month: About Last Night..., Day Of The Dead, Highlander and Mona Lisa

As for Tower Piccadilly, I often browsed there while living in London. Problem was UK CD prices were out of my range, about double what the going rate was in North America (they certainly didn't slide down to the record/tape prices shown in the ad). Tower sold the Piccadilly store to Virgin in 2001, who still run it as one of their Megastores.

Source: Q #1, October 1986 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

past pieces of toronto: knob hill farms

-
Image
From November 2011 through July 2012 I wrote the "Past Pieces of Toronto" column for OpenFile , which explored elements of the city which no longer exist. I've republished all but two of those pieces on this website.  Here's the first of the final pair, both of which provided good lessons for future writing. Prepare yourself for a lengthy preamble.
Read more

big v: once upon a time, it was an amazing part of your life

-
Image
While dodging back alley drunks in downtown Kitchener a month ago, I noticed that the back door to a Shoppers Drug Mart bore the mark of its previous identity as part of the Big V pharmacy chain. Years of hearing their slogan "an amazing part of your life" have burned it into my brain, along with images of their comical crusading knight mascot, 25 cent cans of Coca-Cola and the free lunch cooler bags sometimes offered up with the latter. Big V was started in the mid-1960s by a group of Windsor pharmacists who joined together to pool their purchasing and marketing. Most locations were pharmacist-operated, with names reflecting the owners (DeRe, Pond's , Cornett), the neighbourhood (Seminole in Windsor) or town. The chain grew to 135 stores by the time it was purchased by Shoppers in 1995. Amherstburg's store was originally Haslehurst's Big V, then switched to the more generic "Amherstburg" by the time I started shopping there with my parents. Loc
Read more

past pieces of toronto: albert britnell book shop

-
Image
From November 2011 through July 2012 I wrote the "Past Pieces of Toronto" column for OpenFile, which explored elements of the city which no longer exist. The following was originally posted on December 2, 2011. The Starbucks at 675 Yonge Street isn’t your typical branch of the corporate coffee giant. The walls are lined with sturdy old wooden bookshelves while the floor is a checkerboard of black and white. Why this location is not like the others is hinted at on the façade. Look up to the second floor and you’ll notice a legendary name in Toronto bookselling: Albert Britnell. The quality of the literature on the shelves inside doesn’t always match the standards the Britnell family maintained for over a century of book retailing, but it’s a nod to the building’s past that comes in handy while waiting for a friend or first date. English native Albert Britnell entered the book trade by working in his brother John’s bookstore in London. Both brothers moved to C
Read more