Ep. 100 Greg Wallis (Tacoma, Hawaii, Boston, Chicago)

2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records

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When Greg Wallis was hired at Tower Tacoma by Dave Coker, Greg had never heard of Tower Records. It was simply the big, new record store to move into his town. When Coker left to open and run the Seattle U District store, Rob Bruce came up from Anaheim CA to be General Manager. By this time, Greg was the buyer for all sections of music except for Classical Music. Soon after, Assistant Manger Bob Akin went to Sacramento to join the Advertising Department and Greg was promoted to Assistant Manager.

Stints in Hawaii, the opening of the Boston store, working countless A-Teams until Clark Street Chicago opened and his promotion to Midwest/Southeast Regional Manager were all a part of Greg’s Tower experiences.

Greg touches on the excitement of the Blues scene in Chicago as well as the challenges of running a record store off the mainland where timely deliveries are essential to success.

But something about his time in Boston made for some memorable stories. On this episode, Greg recounts the tales of Morris Levy, whom he and his crew dealt with around the opening and first year of operations in Boston. Also, if you’ve never heard the story of Greg’s instore with Robyn Hitchcock and Hitchcock’s ridiculous behavior beforehand, Greg recounts it from his perspective. The fact that Hitchcock continues to write about it on his Facebook page, decades later, proves Greg acted appropriately at such childish shenanigans.

And….this is our 100th episode. Following our conversation with Greg Wallis, we take a moment to celebrate this occasion!