Born in Bakersfield, CA and attending college in Berkley, John Thrasher got the bug to work in College Radio with a regular show on KPFA. Older than the average Tower employee when he started, John’s first day on the job was the week John Lennon was killed.
He remembers that his first weeks on the job the store was getting rid of 8 Track tapes and wouldn’t buy records from MCA as there was a dispute between MCA and Tower at the time. Hired by Randi Morton (later and currently Randi Swindel) and trained by Barbara Williamson, John Thrasher was up and running as a Tower employee.
It was a long journey, one that John tells us about in today’s episode, from an entry level clerk to the Vice President of Video. John tells us about his management interview with Stan Goman where Stan asked a series of provocative questions, working at Mountain View and Columbus & Bay, why a blowout on the sales floor with his GM led to him considering leaving the company, the infamous Ticketmaster scandal at Mountainview and Tom Rule’s quote heard throughout the Bay Area, a unique Sly Stone concert with audience members recruited to be the band, dealing with a difficult, upset Herbie Hancock, a description of just about every format that ever came out on video, a history of the legal side of the video rental business which resulted in the formation of VSDA (Video Software Dealers of America), John’s mentors in learning the Tower Video business and a whole lot more.
Our interview with John Thrasher is jam packed with information you may have known, but forgotten about. Rest assured, John has forgotten nothing. Join us this week for an insight into a key part of Tower’s overall success.