Tower Records on Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance is seen in this 2006 Daily Breeze file photo, taken shortly before the store closed. (Steve McCrank / Staff Photographer)
Local history isn’t always old and musty. Some recent landmarks have vanished from the view so quickly and completely, it’s as if they were never there.
Take record stores. Chains and independents once dotted the South Bay landscape, but the rise of download services, streaming and other innovations in the early 2000s have killed off most of the bricks-and-mortar stores.
But, not so long ago, Torrance could boast of having two major chain record stores right across the street from each other.
The Wherehouse, whose parent company was headquartered at first in Gardena and later in Harbor Gateway, established its large store at 3832 Sepulveda Boulevard in the shopping center on the southwest corner of Hawthorne and Sepulveda boulevards as its flagship store.
The Wherehouse flagship store on Sepulveda Boulevard in Torrance in 2003. Daily Breeze file photo. (Robert Casillas / Staff Photographer)
The chain opened its first six stores, including the Sepulveda store in Torrance, in 1970. The Torrance store would expand to 12,200 square feet in 1985. It stocked a large selection of new vinyl and CDs, as well as videos in its later years, and, near the end of its run, used music and video titles.
It didn’t take long for another competitor to move into the shopping center.
Licorice Pizza logo.
Licorice Pizza took its name from an old Bud & Travis folk album. James Greenwood liked the phrase and named his record store after it, opening the first Licorice Pizza in Long Beach in 1969.
The chain was a major player in record retailing during the 1970s, opening dozens of stores, including a large location on Sunset and La Cienega boulevards, kitty-corner from the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood, not far from Tower Records’ Sunset Strip megastore.
Its Torrance location did business from the early 1970s until 1986.
Licorice Pizza was sold in 1986 to the company that owned Record Bar, another retail record store chain with a location in the Carson Mall (now South Bay Pavilion). Its Torrance location near the Wherehouse flagship later became a Music Plus.
Russ Solomon founded Tower Records in 1960, opening his first store in Sacramento and rapidly expanding during the 1970s.
A man looks at CD titles at a Tower Records in Torrance in Sept. 2001. In the foreground, music cassettes are available for 99 cents each. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Tower moved into Torrance in September 1986, opening its 10,000-square-foot full-service store – they even had a Ticketmaster on site for concert ticket sales – on the northwest corner of Hawthorne and Sepulveda, at 22135 Hawthorne.
For the next several years, the two stores did battle across the street from each other, but competition from digital online sources eventually drove both out of business.
Tower closed its Torrance location in December 2006. It became an f.y.e. shortly thereafter, selling mostly used CDs and video. The f.y.e. store closed on Jan. 23, 2016.
The Wherehouse on Sepulveda Boulevard in Torrance. (2003 Daily Breeze staff file photo)
The site now houses a jewelry store, Signet Jewelers.
As for The Wherehouse, its parent company, Wherehouse Entertainment, began having financial troubles in the mid-1990s, going so far as to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 1995.
The far-flung chain would declare bankruptcy again in January 2003, and begin closing its remaining stores. The main Torrance location closed a couple of years later.
The Wherehouse Music store near the South Bay Galleria at 17542 Hawthorne Boulevard was the last Torrance store in the chain to shut its doors, on April 25, 2014.
Indie stores also proliferated during this era, including a whole raft of smaller ones in the beach cities: Scooter’s, Round Sounds, The Music Stop, and several others.
Recycled Records in Hermosa Beach at 1200 Pacific Coast Highway, was one of the larger and longer-lived used record stores in the area, even though, for a time, it was located right next door to a Music Plus outlet.
Go Boy Records in Redondo Beach. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Go Boy Records, which specialized in surf music, punk and indie, was another South Bay indie record store institution. Its South Redondo location at 1310 S. Pacific Coast Highway gave it a strong beach vibe.
Go Boy opened in the mid-1980s and was managed for many years by Alan Ostroff, who sold it in 2004 to Scott Dallavo. Dallavo was the victim of circumstances, coming in just as the bottom dropped out of the CD retail market. He was forced to close Go Boy on Dec. 26, 2006.
Off/Beat Music in Redondo Beach. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Rob Wilton began his South Bay record store career as the manager of the Torrance branch of the small Moby Disc chain, which he turned into an adventurous outlet for indie music in addition to mainstream sounds.
In January 1996, Wilton and partner Clark Benson opened their own store, Off/Beat Music, at 553 N. Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach, and it quickly became one of the best indie stores in the South Bay. Wilton carried a broad selection of rock, from non-mainstream metal to punk-rock and ska revival bands, in addition to mainstream artists.
Wilton bought out Benson and became sole owner in 2001. Unfortunately, the downturn in bricks and mortar retail music sales claimed Off/Beat as a victim also, and Wilton had to close the store in December 2006.
Erving Johnson, owner of P.M. Sounds, a music store in Downtown Torrance specializing in vinyl records. 2013 file photo. (Brad Graverson / Staff Photographer)
Three indie stores do remain in the South Bay. Erving Johnson’s P.M. Sounds at 1115 Sartori Avenue in Old Torrance has been specializing in jazz, r&b and rock vinyl records since 1997, and the resurgence of interest in vinyl has made his store a popular stop for collectors.
The vinyl revival also has been good to Record Recycler, owned by Roy Kaiser, at 17312 Crenshaw Boulevard in Torrance, which specializes in vintage vinyl.
Soundsations at 8701 La Tijera Boulevard in Westchester is the largest of the three, and stocks new releases as well as used vinyl and CDs, Blu-Ray and DVDs.
Other than those choices, bricks and mortar record store fans can seek out Fingerprints in Long Beach, and Amoeba in Hollywood. The Valley has more than its share of indie record stores, including CD Trader in Reseda, Freakbeat in Sherman Oaks, and Atomic Records in Burbank, and Silver Lake specializes in smaller curated used vinyl stores such as Vacation Vinyl, Mono and Origami, and has the larger collector-oriented Rockaway Records.
As for the South Bay, though, if you can’t find what you’re looking for at the few retailers that still carry music, such as Best Buy or Barnes & Noble or the few remaining indie stores, you’re either going to have to go online or take a road trip.
The independent record store Soundsations in Westchester remains open after 26 years in business. (2012 Daily Breeze staff file photo)
Sources:
Daily Breeze files.
Los Angeles Times files.
