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We Were All Yellow: Watch the trailer for Tower Records documentary ‘All Things Must Pass’


The Tower Records in Massapequa, Long Island, changed my life. Back in the mid-’90s, there was an employee there named Alex and she’d special order any and all Britpop imports that weren’t either already on the shelves or in my personal CD library, and each week I’d drop $60 or so on a palmful of albums, those $9.99 CD singles (just to get that one crap b-side or that live version of the single you’ve already heard a billion times) and a short stack of magazines like Select, Melody Maker, and the NME. The trips would have been more expensive if Alex didn’t hook up her employee discount.

Surely, I’m not alone in this experience.

While Tower Records has come and gone, it still holds an emotional place in the hearts of many. Now, a new documentary, All Things Must Pass, takes a look at the iconic record shop and the fall from grace we all lived through (without really giving a shit).

A teaser trailer was just released this week, featuring interviews with Dave Grohl (a prerequisite for anything music-related in 2015), Tower founder Russ Solomon, and others.

“Established in 1960, Tower Records was once a retail powerhouse with two hundred stores, in thirty countries, on five continents,” reads the doc’s description. “From humble beginnings in a small-town drugstore, Tower Records eventually became the heart and soul of the music world, and a powerful force in the music industry. In 1999, Tower Records made $1 billion. In 2006, the company filed for bankruptcy. What went wrong? Everyone thinks they know what killed Tower Records: The Internet. But that’s not the story. All Things Must Pass is a feature documentary film examining this iconic company’s explosive trajectory, tragic demise, and legacy forged by its rebellious founder, Russ Solomon.”

The Colin Hanks-directed documentary is set to hit theaters on October 15.