Dimple Records Mural ~ 16th & Broadway

The Dimple Records building at 16th & Broadway was one of the original locations for Tower Records. Tower opened there in the mid-1960’s and stayed open for nearly 40 years (1). After Tower folded in 2006, Russ Solomon (the original founder of Tower) opened R5, an independent record store, and moved into the site.

In 2008, this mural of 13 iconic musicians was created for the R5 store by Shaun Turner, and Daniel Osterhoff painted the mural on the other side of the building (photos below) (2). Recently, Solomon retired, R5 closed, and Dimple moved in (3). Dimple re-painted the outside of the building but kept the murals mostly intact (4).

Tower is so much a part of Sacramento history that it is fitting to include some of that story here:

Tower was founded in 1960 by Russ Solomon in Sacramento, California. The store was named after his father’s drugstore, which shared a building and name with the Tower Theater, where Solomon first started selling records. The first Tower Records store was opened in 1960 on Watt Avenue in Sacramento. By 1976, Solomon had opened Tower Books, Posters, and Plants at 1600 Broadway, next door to Tower Records (5).

… the chain spread to San Francisco and Los Angeles before expanding across the US and internationally. It opened its first store in the UK in the early 1990s, and closed its last shop there a decade later. By the mid-1990s there were more than 200 Tower stores around the world generating $1bn a year in sales. Its megastores boasted well-informed staff, extensive stock and long hours (6).

In 2004, when the group first filed for bankruptcy, the Solomon family gave up 85% of its holding. In the last fiscal year, sales dropped 10% to $430m, although only 13 of Tower’s 89 American stores were thought to be losing money. Retail music sales as a whole fell 17% in the US from 2000-2005 (7).

I found another Turner and Osterhoff mural; created for Osterhoff’s father’s sandwich shop (called Dad’s Sandwich Shop) and you can see a photo of the artists with the unfinished mural on Russ Andris’ amazing gallery of public Sacramento murals.

Turner is part of a group called, Trust Your Struggle, which “is a collective of visual artists, educators, and cultural workers dedicated to social justice and community activism through the medium of art.” (8). You can read more about them at these sites: http://tys.mvmt.com/, http://www.erinyoshi.com/, http://trustyourhustle.blogspot.com/.

Our collective strives through art and visual mediums to back and support anyone who is pushing to make the changes we all are looking to see in the world.We want you to believe that whatever you are going threw in the name of your peoples is valid and worth having faith in so we bring it to the frontline to remind folks that when it comes to the people’s struggle, well in the words of T La Rock “it’s yours!!” so trust it, believe in it, love it, give it your all, but don’t ever let nobody take it from you (9).

Here is a video of Turner painting the outside wall of Sol Collective, a community based arts education center in Sacramento. Amazing to see how quickly and skillfully he works (although I was bummed the Frida image was covered).

You can see Turner’s entire mural in one photomerged image by Russ Andris.

A mural by Osterhoff covers the west side of the building. It is made up of mostly words for different musical styles (Rock n’ Roll, Reggae, Country, Metal, etc) in vibrant, expressive fonts. On the far end is a fabulous image of Billie Holiday.

Osterhoff is also a DJ. He is described as a “designer, artist, musician, all-around Midtown neo-Renaissance party man… surprisingly focused, even serious, for a guy who joneses to dance and deejays under the alias “DJ Whores.” (10). His website is http://www.myspace.com/djwhores916

You can see Osterhoff’s entire west-side mural in this photo by Russ Andris.

(Thanks to Joe H. and Daniel Osterhoff for helping me identify all of the musicians)

Title: (unknown)
Artist: Shaun Turner and Daniel Osterhoff
Date: 2008
Media: Spray Paint
Location: Dimple Records, 16th & Broadway

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(1) http://www.valcomnews.com/?p=199
(2) http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=644130
(3) http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1458378
(4) http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1458378
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Records
(6) http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/oct/09/retail.usnews
(7) http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/oct/09/retail.usnews
(8) http://tys.mvmt.com/about/
(9) http://www.myspace.com/trustyourstruggle#ixzz0yfs7EgHe
(10) http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1352985