Bought For A Song: The Final Days Of Deals Under Tower Records’ Deathbed

Tower Records’ long death march is entering its last week, but that hasn’t stopped readers from sending their favorite deals–along with price info and MP3s–to tips@idolator.com. Today, we have a pair of tipsters letting us know about finds at Tower’s Portland outpost, which is set to shut its doors tomorrow:

Went shopping yesterday at the Portland, Oregon branch of Tower, which is way way out in strip-mall hell at the outskirts of Portland, and is the only music chain store in the city, really. (We have a lot of amazing mom ‘n’ pop stores, though.) Heavily picked over, but the import section still had a lot of great stuff in it. They claim they’re closing Tuesday.

The best deal in my 9-CD, 1-book, $53.58 pile: probably the “Rigour, Discipline & Disgust” compilation, of which they had a bunch left. $3.90 for a collection of singles from the early British post-punk label Fast Records, including the Mekons’ “Never Been in a Riot” and “Where Were You?,” the Fire Engines’ “Discord,” Gang of Four’s “Damaged Goods,” Scars’ “Adult/Ery,” the Human League’s “Being Boiled”… wow.

Very good CDs they had a ton of: the Buzzcocks’ “Singles Going Steady,” Sonic Youth’s “Rather Ripped,” Al Green’s “The Belle Album,” Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville.”

Yesterday I braved the Portland suburbs for the next to last day of Tower’s existence. Despite everyone telling me they had been there and it was entirely picked over, here’s what I managed to walk away with: Herbert-Scale ($5.70) Slowdive-Souvlaki Reissue ($3.90) Coachwhips-Double Death ($4.80) Boris-Pink ($4.00) Hot Chip-The Warning ($5.40) ESG-Keep on Moving ($1.50!) Arthur Russell-World Of ($7.80) Japanther-Yer Living Grave ($3.90) Larry Levan-Journey Into Paradise ($6.60)

Hot Chip, Slowdive, and a solid postpunk compilation? With 24 hours to go? Wow. This is all starting to sound to us like a rock-geek episode of Supermarket Sweep.

Gang of Four – Damaged Goods [MP3, link expired] Slowdive – When The Sun Hits [MP3, link expired] Earlier: Bought For A Song archives