2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records Bob Zimmerman

“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. 


When she came to work at Tower’s corporate office Renee didn’t know what Tower Records was about. Like many before her Renee started in Sales Audit. She eventually moved to billing in the Advertising Department. It was working in the Record Division with George and all the women (Sunita, Karen, Wendy) that the Tower world opened up for Renee. 


In this week’s episode, Renee tells us about working for a mover and shaker like George Scarlett, her musical evolution, fun times at Tower’s Annual Conference, large cardboard cutouts of Canadian men, leaving her position working for George, and a whole lot more. 

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 starting up PULSE! Magazine and Terri Ball heading to New York City, Jim Swindel set up an interview between Nikkel and Hopson and Steve became a Tower-lifer. 


Join us this week as we walk through Steve Nikkel’s Tower career, his appearance in the Tower Documentary “All Things Must Pass”, his attending some truly historic concerts, and the task of managing the Tower Advertising Department. 

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 car, taking them to visit mid-west indie accounts. In true 90’s fashion, Joy ended the day by taking Weezer to see “Pulp Fiction” shortly after it opened. 


From 1996-2001, Joy was a Sales Rep in Philadelphia calling on Tower Records, The Wall, HMV and National Record Mart in Pittsburgh. After finishing her career with Universal calling on Circuit City in Richmond VA and as Vice President of Sales in Los Angeles, Joy headed for a quiet part of the country in the great state of Vermont. There she found herself back at WEQX radio, where she had spent some time previously. 


Joy currently has the mid-day slot at WEQX and enjoys turning her audience on to new music, as well as hosting the Retro Lunch, spinning “alternative oldies” each weekday between 12noon - 12:30pm. 


Spend an hour with a woman who lives and breathes music. 

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 Duffy. Years later Matt moved into the city and worked at Tower Lincoln Center eventually working up to the position of Head of Receiving, but his heart was always in the Jazz Department. 


Eventually, Matt was both the Jazz Buyer and Floor Manager of the largest Tower Records location in the US. Working with a cast of characters to rival modern-day comedy, Matt had his work cut out for him. Throw in a declining CD customer, filing for bankruptcy and the changing music retail landscape and Matt had to be resourceful. He put together a weekly live Jazz series in his jazz room, drawing customers into the store. 


These days Matt lives in the 6th borough (Philadelphia) and is an active musician with his project The 12 Houses. 


Join us for a conversation about Matt LaVelle’s time at Tower Records.

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, Tower K Street, Tower Stockton, Tower Chico, and Tower Fresno as well as calling on Tower International and working with the team at Corporate. 


Fuzzy eventually moved over to CEMA, later EMD holding the position of Regional Director where he came into contact with many more Tower stores nationally. Not bad for a guy who started his retail career in North Carolina in 1970, working for several indie record stores, focusing as a singles buyer, and managing the rock and roll band Frog Level. 


On this week’s episode, Fuzzy walks us through all of this and more. We talk about his visits to Tower Annual Conferences, the annual Halloween parties CEMA threw at the top of the Space Needle in Seattle, Fuzzy’s interactions with Russ Solomon and his famous nephew Adam Lambert of American Idol and Queen fame. And as we mentioned at the top, though Fuzzy never worked at Tower, he ended up marrying Tower...he'll explain it all to you in this episode. 

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.