DJTees Blog

This is where I indulge in my passions - VINYL & ROCK 'n' ROLL

A Short History Of Tower Records

A Short History Of Tower Records

Authored By John Nicholson

In 1960, Russell Solomon opened the first Tower Records store on Broadway, in Sacramento, California. He named it for his father's drugstore, which shared a building and name with the Tower Theatre, where Solomon first started selling records.  The first stand-alone Tower Records store was located at 2514 Watt Ave in Arden Arcade, a suburb of Sacramento, California. By 1976, Solomon had opened Tower Books, Posters, and Plants at 1600 Broadway, next door to another Sacramento Tower Records location. Seven years after its founding, Tower Records expanded to San Francisco, opening a store in what was originally a grocery store...

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Cincinnati Pop Festival March 1970

Cincinnati Pop Festival March 1970

Authored By John Nicholson

A significant festival not so much in itself but for the fact that its success inspired a bigger and more famous show in the summer which was broadcast on TV. Held on Thursday Mar 26, 1970 at Cincinnati Gardens, Cincinnati Ohio, it was organised by Mike Quatro (brother of Suzi and Patti and quite the mover and shaker in the Ohio/Michigan rock promotion scene at the time) and a chap called Russ Gibb. He’s an interesting dude. He was from Dearborn, Michigan, best known for his role in the "Paul is dead" phenomenon, a story he broke as a disc...

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Whatever It Is Festival, San Francisco State College 1966

Whatever It Is Festival, San Francisco State College 1966

Authored By John Nicholson

Held between Fri Sep 30, 1966 and Sun Oct 02 this was a three-day event which featured the last legal Acid Test (shortly before LSD was criminalized) with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Grateful Dead, Mimi Farina, The Only Alternative, The Committee, Wildflower, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and many others. The handbill was designed by Stewart Brand (of the legendary Whole Earth Catalog fame) and features his handwriting.  It was organised by something called ‘the Experimental College’ which sounds like a far out sort of college to go to, man. A local TV station sent out a...

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Winter Festival for Peace, Madison Square Garden, New York, 1970

Winter Festival for Peace, Madison Square Garden, New York, 1970

Authored By John Nicholson

A fundraising gig for a specific cause is commonplace today but it was not always so, especially in the rock and roll world. But 18 months before The Concert For Bangladesh came the Winter Festival For Peace held on Wednesday Jan 28, 1970 at Madison Madison Square Garden This was one of the first times major acts came together and donated their performances to aid a specific social/political agenda. Organised by Sid Bernstein and Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary fame) everyone played for free and all proceeds of the event would go to the Vietnam Moratorium effort. Sid...

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Ancestral Spirits Festival, California Hall, San Francisco 1967

Ancestral Spirits Festival, California Hall, San Francisco 1967

Authored By John Nicholson

The idea, so commonplace now, of putting on gigs to raise money for local causes really got going in the late 60s. This one held in San Francisco at California Hall on Polk Street (long a gathering place for people who didn’t fit the mainstream) was a benefit for Haight-Ashbury Karmic Ball Fund and the Church of ONE. Far out man. Who doesn’t love a Karmic Ball? The Haight-Ashbury Karmic Bail Fund provided financial bail assistance primarily for those arrested under the marijuana and LSD possession laws. How cool. They’d send someone with a fistful of green to spring you...

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The Atomic Sunrise Festival. The Roundhouse, London, 1970

The Atomic Sunrise Festival. The Roundhouse, London, 1970

Authored By John Nicholson

This was a week-long festival that took place in March 1970 at the Roundhouse in London which was a regular gig for counterculture bands, and as the 70s went on, would be host to thousands of gigs by pretty much every touring band that ever trod the boards. It was billed as “Seven Nights of Celebration” and as you can see, it was a wild affair! People stood around and smoked and everything. It was a collaboration between regular performers at what were called the Sunday Implosion gigs and The Living Theatre, a radical experimental theatre company, indeed the oldest radical...

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Buxton Festival, Derbyshire, UK 1973

Buxton Festival, Derbyshire, UK 1973

Authored By John Nicholson

For some reason, the early 70s saw festivals in the UK played out on bleak hillsides and rain-lashed moorlands. It was as if the upstanding straight folk had banished the patchouli-drenched hoards to the most punishing extremes of society, as some sort of penance merely for liking the Groundhogs. The Buxton Festivals of 1973 and 1974 have gone down in British rock history as legendary in this respect. People like this turned up and had themselves a real good time, despite the environment resembling a post-nuclear apocalypse. The bill was Canned Heat, Chuck Berry, Nazareth, Edgar Broughton Band, The Groundhogs,...

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Abilene Rock Festival, Texas 1971

Abilene Rock Festival, Texas 1971

Authored By John Nicholson

Abilene lies 180 miles west of Dallas out on the I20, out in the hot heart of the Lone Star State. It was where Mason ‘Classical Gas’ Williams was born and on Sunday May 2nd, 1971 it held its first rock festival. Well, I say festival but in reality it was a one-day outdoor gig. The line-up was a handful of local rock bands plus CSNY were due to play as headliners.  Photos show that this was no more than a small wooden platform erected as a stage and placed in a field. To say the least, they kept things...

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BAR-B-QUE '67 Spalding, Lincolnshire

BAR-B-QUE '67 Spalding, Lincolnshire

Authored By John Nicholson

Whilst almost totally unknown, this is an important UK show in the history of rock because this was pretty much the first one-day rock fest in this country. And what a stellar line-up it was too.  Cream, Geno Washington, Pink Floyd, Sounds Force Five, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Move, Zoot Money Held on bank holiday Monday May 29, 1967 at the Tulip Bulb Auction Hall, Spalding, Lincolnshire which is basically a massive metal shed. Towards the end of 1966, Grantham promoter, former footballer Brian Thompson, set about booking Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band and The Move. Their...

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Muhammad Ali Festival, Hunters Point, San Francisco, 1967

Muhammad Ali Festival, Hunters Point, San Francisco, 1967

Authored By John Nicholson

This is a mysterious festival. Due to be held Sat Jun 10 - Sun Jun 11, 1967, did it actually take place? No-one is quite sure. The only evidence that it was scheduled to happen is the lovely poster made for the event by Joe Gomez. There are no reports of it happening and no reports of it being cancelled.  This was at the time Ali was becoming a counter culture hero for resisting the draft as a conscientious objector. It was due to be held at Hunters Point in SF at a time when most such benefit gigs were held...

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The Joy of Single Sleeves

The Joy of Single Sleeves

Authored By Johnny Blogger
Record collecting isn't all about the actual records for me, I've had a lifelong fascination with the record company sleeves for 7" singles. Don't laugh, it's true. & I know this is supreme nerding, but they always fascinated me from an early age when my parents would bring home the new Beatles single. I loved [...]
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1969 - The Year Of The Festival

1969 - The Year Of The Festival

Authored By Johnny Blogger
1969 was The Year. More rock festivals were staged in 1969 than in any other. From humble alternative community beginnings, 1969 saw the emerging Rock Biz decide to pour it's collective money, energy and belief into Big Events. The trouble was, it was a new industry and so the people who wanted to be promoters [...]
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Monterey Pop Festival June 1967

Monterey Pop Festival June 1967

Authored By Johnny Blogger
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. Crowd estimates for the festival ranged from 50,000-90,000 people, who congregated in and around the festival grounds. The fairgrounds' performance arena, where the music took place, normally had a [...]
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Bickershaw Festival 1972

Bickershaw Festival 1972

Authored By Johnny Blogger
Bickershaw Festival - He will be forever emblazoned on the British public consciousness for the inane Beadle's About (for our US international readers, this was an Eighties TV show where the host played "hilarious" hidden camera jokes on members of the public), but Britain actually owes the late Jeremy Beadle a debt. For Jeremy was [...]
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Collecting the Polydor Flashback Series

Collecting the Polydor Flashback Series

Authored By Johnny Blogger
I love a list. Lists help make sense of what is essentially a chaotic world. To those of us whose minds are troubled by this and constantly fear an entire collapse of our sanity, a list brings shape and sense to life. So when it comes to record collecting, any series of albums that can [...]
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