Megan Jasper grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts an industrial town, just an hour outside of Boston. Megan remembers it as a tough place to grow up. As a young girl, her family would travel to Boston and she and her sister would hit Newbury Comics when there was only one store. As a teen, she traveled to Boston for punk rock shows.

Attending UMass, she was friends with J Mascis, a fellow student. When Dinosaur Jr toured Massachusetts in the early days Megan served as a roadie for the band. During a 1989 tour, they stopped in Seattle and that’s when she decided she wanted to make it her home.

After landing in Seattle, she made her way to the Sub Pop offices. Megan started as a receptionist there, when the label was a tiny operation, constantly teetering on the brink of financial disaster. She took a job with Caroline Distribution and called all the Tower Records stores in the Pacific Northwest.

When Nirvana led the music explosion of the early 90’s, the New York Times came calling to do a feature on the music culture of Seattle. Interviewing Jonathan Poneman, he referred the Times to Megan, now working for Caroline Records. The Times was looking for slang expressions Seattle kids used around the city. Megan made up a series of “grunge terms” she didn’t think the Times would believe were real. They did, they didn’t fact check and they ran it as a “Lexicon of Grunge”.

After a time working for ADA Distribution, Megan went back to Sub Pop in a variety of roles (Marketing & Distribution) and worked her way up to the role of CEO where she resides today.

Bright, quick, smart, and funny, you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sub Pop’s Megan Jasper.

“He [George Scarlett] said that someone had suggested me for the position [Administrative Assistant] because I looked so intense when I worked. I don’t know what that really means. I guess it’s a good thing”

And thus, another Tower career was born. Renee Tyler spent 12 years working as George Scarlett’s Administrative Assistant in Record Division.

When she came to work at Tower’s corporate office Renee didn’t know what Tower Records was about. Like many before her Renee started in Sales Audit. She eventually moved to billing in the Advertising Department. It was working in the Record Division with George and all the women (Sunita, Karen, Wendy) that the Tower world opened up for Renee.

In this week’s episode, Renee tells us about working for a mover and shaker like George Scarlett, her musical evolution, fun times at Tower’s Annual Conference, large cardboard cutouts of Canadian men, leaving her position working for George, and a whole lot more.

While Chris Hopson was putting together Tower Records’ in-house advertising agency, in a parallel universe, or at least somewhere else in California, Steve Nikkel was doing the same for a small independent chain of record stores called Eucalyptus Records, based out of Fairfield, California.

When an opening became available, due to Mike Farrace starting up PULSE! Magazine and Terri Ball heading to New York City, Jim Swindel set up an interview between Nikkel and Hopson and Steve became a Tower-lifer.

Join us this week as we walk through Steve Nikkel’s Tower career, his appearance in the Tower Documentary “All Things Must Pass”, his attending some truly historic concerts, and the task of managing the Tower Advertising Department.