DJ Ruthless – Hip Hop Mega Mix 1994

Hip Hop Mega Mix 1994 by Rox One

Turntable & Mixer illustration by Deeohz (1994)

MixCrate  | SoundCloud  |  roxone.com

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No Music, No Life : Tower Records Project

We used to go there after school to grab issues of URB when it was free and printed on large format newsprint. We used to go there to read magazines after playing video games at Yellow Brick Road. We used to go there and hang out on the weekends after a movie…

I used to head there in the morning pretending to go to a.m. classes I’d dropped.

It’s publication selection was vast, and I bought the bulk of my graff zines there. On particularly lonely days, I’d spend hours at the La Jolla location listening to baroque classical compilations in the back room and reading up on design. I even applied to work there as the display artist (didn’t get hired because I couldn’t cut a circle out of foamcore).

Then, in 2006, it closed down (in the US, anyway).

On occassion, I’ll bring it up and say, “Let’s go to Tower…” And, the response is usually along the lines of, “Man. I loved that place.”  

For me; and I think for a lot of people; Tower Records was a retreat, a hangout, a place to lose yourself in music, books, magazines, or whatever. It was just a cool place to go. So (in its absence), I occasionally do searches for it on the web and on Instagram (#TowerRecords), looking for any current posts or news about it.

One morning a few weeks ago, I came across an Instagram account under the name, tower_records. I checked out their timeline; immediately liked all their photos; followed them; and visited their website.

This is what I found:

RBST First Class : OH, WORD…!?

My friend, Mai, teaches a class to foreign students down in La Jolla. Occasionally, she’ll take them out for dinner and karaoke. And, occasionally, I’ll meet up and chat with them; usually telling them that I’d like to teach a session…

DE ORO

Golden… for other reasons…

The Shore…

La Jolla, CA