Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. As a media consumer I've strangely got a foot in two worlds. My walls are lined with my DVD, Blu-Ray, book and (now) vinyl collections, but I also welcomed the digital age with open arms. I personally prefer physical media, but that doesn't mean I haven't filled up a Kindle or two in my day or that I don't constantly buy digital music off of Amazon.
I look back at the days of the big book, record and DVD stores with nostalgia, but I also don't fetishize cassette tapes or VHS. I'm in a weird nether realm of the obsessive collector. I'm both an early adopter and a grumpy old man who doesn't want to jump headfirst into a wholly digital collection.
When it comes to big box stores I'm also somewhere in the middle between nostalgia and convenience. When most movie geeks I knew hung their heads when Blockbuster went under I danced a jig. The point being, I didn't know how I was going to respond to Colin Hanks' documentary on the rise and fall of Tower Records.
I liked the concept (and Colin) enough to donate to the Kickstarter when they launched it, but didn't have any particular connection to Tower myself other than visiting the San Francisco location in the mid aughts and Austin's own location on the UT campus. I'm ashamed to say that both visits to Tower were during their liquidation sales.
I remember digging the vibe of the place, the Austin location in particular being a reflection of the quasi-hippie nature around campus, but at that age I didn't have much spending money, so price dictated where I went more than an appreciation of a style of shop.
Naturally that meant I felt a little guilty when All Things Must Pass gets to the part about how a decades old, hugely successful store collapsed under the weight of a changing world. Here's this unique, long-standing store built on top of nothing but passion and a loving environment and when I had the chance to support it with the very few dollars I had to spend I opted for Best Buy or Amazon because I'm a cheapskate.
The best part of the doc (and the one that made me feel the most guilty) was seeing the rogue band of misfits that started the store in the late '60s, led by Russ Solomon. This wasn't a bunch of execs consulting marketing firms or polling to see what the kids were in to, it was a bunch of loons just doing whatever they felt was right. They were the first kids on the block and kept things feeling independent even as they grew to become a behemoth corporation. They were champions of music and musicians in turn were their biggest fan.
It was about the time we saw some amazing vintage footage of '70s era Elton John and his record-holding manservant flipping through vinyl that I started drawing personal parallels between Tower Records and AICN. I know this comparison will only really be drawn by me and maybe a few other old school AICNers, but it's one of the reasons I was able to relate to this doc so fully, so bear with me.
I couldn't help but see a lot of Harry in Russ Solomon. He had a great idea and through a combination of sheer instinct, timing, luck and passion was able to cement an institution that spoke to the hardcore fans both within and outside the industry. Also like Solomon, Harry surrounded himself with non-professionals based almost totally on their passion (like yours truly), allowed them to develop their own voices and let those voices help shape the site into something greater than just the guy who started it.
That kind of personal connection I forged with the movie made me much more invested in the story than I would have been otherwise and I can't guarantee that everybody will have a similar gateway to empathy, but no matter who you are you'll relate to these guys in some way. You just can't help but like them, warts and all. To the person they're funny, charming and have a gleam in their eyes when talking about their time at Tower that betrays a real passion for their co-workers and the institution itself.
Hanks does a great job keeping the story moving and dug up some amazing footage of the early years of Tower. It's an easy to watch doc that just flies by, which isn't often the case with these multi-decades spanning stories.
I don't know what the distribution looks like on this one, but it'll for sure get out there. I hope you guys get a chance to see it in a theater, though. As great as it'll play at home on Netflix there's nothing like hearing the laughs roll through an audience as these characters throw out zingers and lovingly jab at their friends.
I greatly enjoyed this one, so I guess my measly $25 Kickstarter investment paid off! You're welcome, documentary fanatics.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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