Author: mikeladano

Metal, hard rock, rock and roll! Record Store Tales & Reviews! Grab A Stack of Rock and more. Poking the bear since 2010.

#632: Early Attempts at Songwriting

GETTING MORE TALE #632: Early Attempts at Songwriting

Because nothing we did in highschool lasts forever, I chose to keep as much stuff as possible.  I have an entire binder full of our highschool comic book “Brett-Lore”.  Everybody knew that it needed to be kept safe and sound, and so I was the one to do it.  27 years after graduation, I still have Brett-Lore safe and sound.  I would never get rid of it.  Too many great memories.

I also kept some early attempts at songwriting.  Specifically:  lyrics.  Some of these songs had music written or recorded for them, but it is now lost.  Not that it matters, since the lyrics are so hot.

On a page of lyrics “by Mike + Dan”, I found this potential smash hit song.

“Fuck, Hell is Hot”

Fuck it’s hot in this pit,

So damn hot I feel like shit,

I wake up in the morning,

From the torment of my bed,

I had spikes for my pillow,

That went straight through my head.

Guitar solo – end

This was a thrash metal song, which was all the rage in 1990.  Obviously a novelty song, it was based off other joke thrash songs I’d heard.  A local band called F.U.H.Q. had a song called “Jimi Hendrix Falling Off a Roof”.  It was basically just them screaming “AHHHHHH!” and then “I’m dead!”

The next song down is scribbled next to a half-assed Van Halen logo.  It’s another novelty song:

“Snake in my Pants”

I  got a snake in my pants,

And it loves to dance,

Sometimes it spits venom,

Sometimes it bites victims,

But all the time my snake’s alive.

I remember that one.  Definitely my work, not Dan’s.  You can tell by the subtle use of metaphor.

Dan and I were really into Led Zeppelin at this time, because they had just released their first box set.  We both found Robert Plant’s lyrics a little comical, so over-the-top they were with symbolism.  We attempted to write our own version of a Led Zeppelin song.  We called it “Abbis’ Stomp”.  Abbis was a nickname for a guy in class who was actually named Andrew.  I don’t know why they called him Abbis, but he too loved Zeppelin and we named it after him.

“Abbis’ Stomp” was recorded and I still have it on cassette.  I sang it and a guy named Dave played guitar.  There was a 20 minute instrumental section if I remember correctly.

“Abbis’ Stomp”

The forest is alive and vibrant green,

And here she comes: the reigning Queen,

The moon is bright and over the lake,

And the Queen is on the make.

Oh, oh, ah!

The beat, it pounds in my heart,

The Stallion takes off like a dart,

The streets are deadly in these times,

But killing dwarves is a crime.

Oh, oh, ah!

Great Christmas Tree,

Someday you’ll come back to me,

Beautiful Christmas Tree….

I open the Book of Life and see,

The pages staring back at me,

The dragon breathes its acrid breath,

And fries the Christmas Tree to death.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, ahh!

Reading back, and singing the melody in my head, I understand now why Robert Plant never contacted us for songwriting help.  And I see bits of lines that were directly ripped off from Iron Maiden.  See if you can spot them.

There was better stuff on other pages.  “Unleashed in the Middle East” was a topical song about the Gulf War, written by Dan, myself and a third guy named Andy.  It was a more innocent time and this song reflects it.  It’s all about driving out evil Saddam.  “From this chaos rose a man, a tyrant for all to see…”  Then there is “Night of the Serpent”, a lyric Dan wrote solo.  It has religious overtones and it’s by far the best thing in the binder.  He was a talented writer.

I should contact the guys.  We should complete these songs and make an album!  I know the binder alone contains more than enough material for one record.  We always talked about sitting down and properly recording some originals and covers.  We never did because we weren’t good enough.  But in the glowing light of nostalgia, anything can have value.

R.I.P. “Fast” Eddie Clarke (1950-2018)

And then there were none.  “Fast” Eddie Clarke, the last original member of Motorhead, has passed to the great beyond at age 67, of pneumonia.

Our correspondent Uncle Meat is quoted as follows:  “Whatever people are calling heaven these days just got louder than everyone else.  RIP Fast Eddie…and hello to the reunion of the band that used to be here to kick your ass.”

The original Motorhead was decimated in recent years, with “Philthy Animal” Taylor and Lemmy both passing in late 2015.  Now the three are reunited, jamming again whilst Michael Jackson and George Michael plug their ears in agony.  Motorhead is dead — long live Motorhead!

“Fast” Eddie should be recognised almost as much for his notable band Fastway (with Pete Way of UFO).  Post-Motorhead, Fastway are often remembered as the band who did the soundtrack to Trick Or Treat in 1986.  1983’s Fastway and 1984’s All Fired Up were also notable entries in the genre.

It should be stated for the record, that “Fast” Eddie was far from “Heavy Metal Bullshit”. You will be reading more about “Heavy Metal Bullshit” in the months to come. “Fast” Eddie was old fashioned and greasy, able to groove with the baddest bass player on Earth. Listen to his playing on “Bomber”. It’s all meat and gravy, no fat.

Rest in peace “Fast” Eddie!

#631: The Locker Door

GETTING MORE TALE #631: The Locker Door

Before the first day of highschool even began, I had selected the posters I was going to hang up inside.  For my first locker ever, at the beginning of grade nine, I chose Gene Simmons.  It was a weird picture of him from the Asylum era, no makeup, and his tongue pinned to the neck of his bass by the strings.  I was truly disappointed that girls found the picture repulsive and didn’t want to talk to me.  I’m still proud that I was flying the Kiss flag right from day one.  For some reason, I also had a picture of Mr. Mini Wheats, from a box of the same-named cereal.

Meanwhile, my best buddy Bob had something cooler.  It was a poster of Bruce Dickinson, circa 1986, standing next to the giant stage Eddie from Somewhere in Time.  Everybody seemed to agree that the new Blade Runner Eddie was the coolest one yet, and that poster was the envy of the hallway.  When he was done with it, Bob passed the locker poster down to me.  I was thrilled — so much that I used it again the next year.

Bob moved on to Samantha Fox.  She took over from where Eddie and Bruce once were.  “Hey, that one’s topless,” remarked the English teacher Mr. Payette as he strolled past.  She was covering her modesty with her arms, but she was indeed missing her top.

In grade 10, Bob and I did something sneaky.  On the first day of school, he advised me to bring an extra lock, and see if I could snag an extra, unoccupied locker.  I did — right next to my own, in fact.  So that year, Bob and I had this spare locker that we shared right next to mine.  He had this little Nerf basketball set.  You could hang a net from the locker door.  We also had gotten into remote control cars.  We stashed them in the spare locker and played with them during the lunch hour.  We got caught by the stern science teacher, Mr. Branday.  “Take this to the gym!” he shouted at us.

Branday was a weird guy.  Every year, he began his science class with the same line.  “Science is a tool of the mind.  With it, one can open more doors than with the bare hands alone!”

Bob and I had such a good time, that year of the two lockers.  A fresh succession of posters went up, although I hung onto Bruce and Eddie until it was literally falling apart.  One I liked a lot was a cardboard cut out of ZZ Top’s Eliminator car, from a Monogram model kit I built.  I always wanted to rig up a Walkman with a speaker in the door of that locker, but we figured if the racing cars got us in shit, music would even more.

Locker posters usually came from magazines such as Hit Parader, but it had to be a vertical poster.  A horizontal one would only be good for home.  A kid down the hall, Michael Wright, had a picture of a computer in his locker one year.  I tended to stick to rock stars.  Def Leppard went in there, and so did a rare picture of Vinnie Vincent in his Kiss makeup.

Some of the posters that survived

I tried to take care of my posters so I could use them again.  They seemed like a big part of my identity.  I brought my posters to school on the first day every year, so my locker would never be bare.  Nobody but Bob seemed to get that.  I always enjoyed carefully packing them up on the last day of school before summer holidays.  Except for the last year of highschool, when I knew it was the very last time.  There would be no more lockers.  The very last locker posters were coming down, for good.  I hated the feeling, the finality of it.  Knowing life was about to change and almost all my old friends would be gone doing their own things.  It was a…lonely feeling.  The lockers were always a communal place.  You’d chat with friends before or between classes.  Life really felt different afterwards.

Somewhere in this house in an old video tape, of my grade 13 year circa 1990.  Bob and I rented a camera one weekend, went into the unlocked school and did a tour.  On that video is a detailed look at my locker posters of 1990-1991.  One day I’m going to have to get a USB VCR and take a look.

#630: Mind Games – Cancer Chronicles 3

We’re less than a week away from surgery.  Jen’s scared.  While this is a routine surgery, it’s life changing for her.  Neither of us have ever experienced anything like this before.  Afterwards, she’s looking at a significant recovery time.  She’s going to have very limited mobility for a while.  This is very stressful.  It’s also stressful to imagine the challenges that we don’t know about yet, so we try and shut those thoughts down.

My brain is sometimes my worst enemy.

I know that we have a great surgeon.  We are confident that he is going to do a great job.  He also has great bedside manner.  He is reassuring.  Fear is natural and there’s nothing he can do about that.  When Jen is up scared at night, and I’m there to comfort her, it takes its toll on me, too.  I’m not oblivious to her fears.  And when the lights go out I can’t control where my brain goes.

So I’ll wake up, usually between 2:00 and 3:00 am, with the vague memory of negative unconscious thoughts in my head.  I’ll try to meditate, think on something else, but at 2:00 am you can only do so much.  Before long I’m in the bathroom vomiting up whatever I had in my stomach.

The day after a puke night, I never feel right.  Sleep is interrupted.  I’m sluggish, I have headaches and back aches.  It’s sometimes hard to put food back in me.  I can’t always eat a breakfast or a lunch after a night like that.  I’m losing weight but not in a good way.

I’m not sure how to turn this around, with less than a week to go.  The stress is only going to increase as we prepare for surgery.  We are being as proactive as we think we can be.  I am trying to take care of my body and my mind.  I’m only human and I have my own strengths and weaknesses.  I often consider my brain to be my greatest strength but right now, it’s getting the better of me.

REVIEW: Queen – Flash Gordon (with 1991 and 2011 bonus tracks)

Flash Gordon – Original Soundtrack Music by QUEEN (Originally 1980, 1991 and 2011 Hollywood CDs)

When mom and dad rented the movie Flash Gordon, we sat and watched it as a family.  “It’s terrible,” a family friend told us.  There were only so many movies available to rent at the local store (Steve’s TV), just one small wall of VHS and Betamax.  Flash Gordon came home with us one weekend, and because we tried to make the most of our movie rentals (including the VCR, also a rental) we watched it twice.

I have not seen Flash Gordon since that childhood weekend.  It really was awful.  Maybe we hoped for more because Max Von Sydow was in it.  Neither Sydow, nor Brian Blessed, nor a young Timothy Dalton could save Flash Gordon.

Flash Gordon, New York Jets

Queen also could not save the movie, though their soundtrack is certainly one of the best things to come of it.  (Another is the movie Ted, basically a love letter to the original Flash Gordon).   All four Queen members wrote music for the film, and recorded it as a band.  Brian May wrote the lion’s share of material, though Freddie Mercury was responsible for “Vultan’s Theme”, later ripped off for an Atari video game called Vanguard.  I wonder if Freddie ever saw a dime from that?  I knew Freddie’s song from the video game by heart, long before I ever heard the album by Queen!

The soundtrack gave us one Queen hit single, “Flash’s Theme” written by May.  The 2011 double CD has a single version, and a live cut from Montreal in ’81 (also on Queen Rock Montreal), as bonuses to the album track.  “Flash’s Theme” is sparse but catchy, featuring movie dialogue that makes it seem like the film should be much better.  Queen’s bombast was ideal for this.  When Roger Taylor sings the highest notes in the chorus, it’s sheer musical delight.

The album plays like a soundtrack, with lots of atmospheric keyboard instrumentals and movie dialogue.  Because of its ambient nature, you might not at first recognise some tracks as Queen.  Some is similar to the ambient work that closed their last album, Made in Heaven.  The music is far more grand than its onscreen imagery.

One of the most memorable instrumentals is “Football Fight”, a Mercury synth workout.  Perhaps sometimes we forget what a great keyboardist Mercury was, simply because he was such an amazing vocalist.  “Football Fight” is super fun, and you can also get it in a piano-based demo version on the 2011 CD.  Check out a Queen-tastic version of Wagner’s famous “Wedding March” performed by May on guitar.  Finally there is the rock track “The Hero”, a riffy song with full vocals by Freddie.  It reprises some prior themes from the soundtrack, such as “Vultan’s”.  Queen is augmented by an orchestra on “The Hero”, which is as grand as you would expect.  Like “Flash”, you can also get “The Hero” on disc two in live form, in Montreal 1981.

A long forgotten bonus track for this album was released on the 1991 Hollywood Records CD.  A remix by somebody called “Mista Lawnge” starts off well enough, with a grinding beat synched to May’s guitar.  It goes downhill when somebody starts rapping, “Flash, one time!  Flash, two times!”  Note to all remixers:  Never, ever add random rappers to rock songs.  Don’t.

Rest assured, no matter which version of Flash Gordon you pick up, there are some definite musts on the album.  Much of it will only appeal to fans of soundtracks.  If that sounds like you, take a ride with Flash to planet Mongo and get down with some Queen.  Skip the movie!

4/5 stars

Sunday Chuckle: Downtown Train

It’s the first Sunday Chuckle of 2018!

Jen and I were picking up her mom at the downtown train station. I spotted this guy with a box strapped to his backpack. Pretty smart, I thought! An original and unique solution to travel.

#629 / REVIEW: Oasis – The Red and The Blue

GETTING MORE TALE #629:  The Red and The Blue

It was the second of April, 1973. EMI released two Beatles compilations simultaneously, the “greatest hits” to end all greatest hits. They were double albums, split up by era. Hence the titles 1962-1966, and 1967-1970.  Nobody refers to them as such.  Due to their packaging, fans simply call them the Red and the Blue albums.

This story is not about those albums.

Of course, some cheeky bootlegger used a similar gimmick when compiling up all of Oasis’ B-sides and non-album tracks back in the late 1990s.  The earliest rarities were lumped together on The Red Album 93-94.  Everything beyond was on The Blue Album 94-96.  The CDs had matching artwork and back covers that boasted “A complete and global anthology of non-album tracks”.  And for the period, that seems to be generally true!

When I first got into Oasis, they already had plenty of singles and B-sides out there.  Collecting them all was an intimidating prospect.  Oasis singles were always chock loaded with quality unreleased songs.  Unlike most artists, Oasis’ Noel Gallagher insisted that their B-sides were as good as album tracks.  And they were — often better.   My Record Store cohort T-Rev had a complete collection of singles, but was still missing a few other rare songs.  While at a record show, we found the Oasis Red and Blue CDs.  At $30 a pop they were still cheaper than trying to collect all the Oasis singles, with the added bonus of the songs T-Rev was missing!  They were recorded for him immediately of course.

T-Rev preferred the Creation Records singles, which were the UK printings.  My bootlegs were interesting to him, but not something he would spend money on.  When I moved into his apartment for a few months in ’98, he could listen to my bootlegs whenever he wanted to anyway.  He knew I was fussy about the handling of my music, and he was as well, so we could easily trust each other with our collections.  It was a very easy situation because we both had total respect for each other’s music.

The two songs he didn’t have (yet) were only available in two official capacities.  “Sad Song” was exclusive to the vinyl and Japanese versions of Definitely Maybe.  Similarly, “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday” was exclusive to the same formats of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory.  Neither of us had heard these songs before.  What a joy to find that they were as extraordinary as the rest of Oasis’ B-sides.

Several other rarities couldn’t  have been found just by collecting the regular Oasis CD singles.  A demo of “Cigarettes and Alcohol” came from somewhere else, likely a compilation.  The second version of “Fade Away” on the Blue Album with Noel singing was from a Warchild charity CD.  A demo of “Some Might Say”, and the Beatles cover “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” (lead vocals by Noel) were only on Japanese CD singles.  These songs have since been reissued on official Oasis releases, but at the time, the value they added to these bootlegs was immense.

Still, a bootleg is never as good as an original.  Sound is a problem on a couple tracks.  “Up in the Sky”, “Sad Song” and “Whatever” have volume issues.  There are also cute track-listing errors.  “Round Are Way” is amusingly “corrected” to “Round Our Way”.

Oasis have done a commendable job of deluxe edition album reissues.  Their first three albums have all been given triple disc deluxe CD upgrades.  That renders the Red and the Blue bootlegs largely obsolete.  There is only one song on the Blue Album that can’t be found on one of the deluxe Oasis reissues, and that is “Fade Away”, the Warchild version.  It can, however, be found on the B-side to Oasis’ 1998 single “Don’t Go Away”.

There is some truly remarkable music on these CDs that make their occasional listening a recurring pleasure.  Even some of the primitive early material like “Alive” and “I Will Believe” have true spark.  By the time you get to the more polished side of Oasis, like “Whatever”, you’ve already been treated to a number of early Oasis classics.  Live and alternate versions of “Columbia”, “Bring it On Down”, “Up in the Sky”, and “Supersonic” represent the best of Oasis’ early material.  There is also the love-it-or-hate-it extended live workout of “I Am the Walrus”, all 8:20 of it.

The Blue Album is a consistently brilliant listen.  So many incredible single-quality originals:  “Acquiesce”, “Round Are Way”, “Step Out”, and “The Masterplan”.  Any of these could have stormed the charts as an A-side.  “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday” is decent too, though it sounds a bit of drunken fun.  There are also the terrific covers of “Cum on Feel the Noize” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”.

At the time, circa 1997, it was easy to justify paying a combined $60 for these two albums.  T-Rev’s friend Paul “Geeza” thought they were pretty neat.  Geeza was from England, and he visited Canada in the summers.  T-Rev befriended him via the store.  When he was back in Canada, he came over to the apartment and looked over our awesome CD collections.  He was all over my Red and Blue albums.  I made sure Geeza knew how I liked to take care of my stuff.  He was respectful but teasing.

I had to go out.  When I got back, Geeza and T-Rev were gone, but a note was left behind.

It was from Geeza.  He teased that he took my Oasis CDs!

We lived in such a small place, they weren’t hard to find.  I think the Red Album was under my pillow.  The other CD took longer.  It was just in good fun.  I was probably pissed off for a minute or five, but who cares now?  I get the joke now.  Living with me must have been a little like living with Sheldon Cooper.

If a guy like Geeza, who was an absolutely madman for Oasis, was interested in the Red and Blue albums, maybe you should keep an eye open for them too.  Don’t pay $30 each, but consider adding these eye-catchers to your collection.

OASIS – The Red Album 93-94
OASIS – The Blue Album 94-96

They’d have been 5/5 stars in 1997.  In 2017…

3/5 stars

#628: Cancer Chronicles 2

 

GETTING MORE TALE #622: Cancer Chronicles 2

Welcome back to Cancer Chronicles – the completely non-musical and self-indulgent series of updates on my wife’s cancer battle.

In our last chapter, I had to battle with hospitals to correct an appointment date for an MRI. They screwed up the date and booked it for February. I won that battle, and because I did, Jen was able to get a biopsy performed on schedule in December.

The surgeon promised he’d update us as soon as possible and he was true to his word.

We will be meeting with him on Tuesday January 9. This is in preparation for a surgery on January 15. I can’t believe how fast this is happening! Imagine if we didn’t get that MRI date fixed? We’d still be in limbo.

Jen will be in hospital for at least several days after surgery. I will most likely be out of contact that week. We are very much looking forward to putting this behind us and getting on with life! She’s scared, naturally. It’s happening fast but that also means it’ll be over before we know it.

I’m not scared, just nervous. When I feel stress, it manifests itself in a few ways but the worst is in my stomach. I’m a stress-puker. Sometimes I can’t eat for days. My own challenge is going to be providing support while trying to take care of myself. So wish us both luck. We’re going to kick cancer’s ass — together.

#627: Pete and Repeat

GETTING MORE TALE #627: Pete and Repeat

 

When I get sick, I go all-in.  No half-measures.  Whatever the illness may be, I go deep.  The Great Flu 2017/2018 is no exception.  I may be back at work but I’m still a mess.

Ever since I was a kid, I used to get annoying songs repeating in my head when I was sick.  It still happens today, and I cannot do anything to get the annoying songs out of my head.  It prevents me from sleeping.  It drives out any other songs I may try to use to change the soundtrack in my brain.  I’ve tried everything.  Nothing haunts me worse than a bad song in the head when I’m sick.  Laying there in bed for sleepless hours, with one verse and one chorus on repeat, as my head pounds in agony.

This time, there was a slight twist on the “sick repeating song” experience.  I didn’t realize it in the fever of non-sleep, but my one repeating song was actually two songs this time.  Two annoying songs by the same band:  The Wild!

The Wild! are another one of those AC/DC-like party rock bands.  They have funny names like “Dylan Villain”, “Boozus”, “The Kid” and “Reese Lightning”.  Their song “Livin’ Free” has been on regular radio rotation and even several days after unplugging, it was still stuck in my head.  On repeat.  But there’s more.

Turns out there, my brain actually had two songs stuck in it, joined together into one.  My sleepy sick self couldn’t tell.  Only after hitting Youtube, trying to banish this melody from my brain, did I realize there were two songs in there.  The other song, also by The Wild!, was the soundalike track “Ready to Roll”.  So similar are they that they both got jammed together into one endless loop.

The Wild! might be right up your alley.  They’re AC/DC and ZZ Top and they call themselves the “God Damn Wild Boys”.  I have no real objections to the band, except that they’re trodding a path that has already been well explored over the last 45 years.  Maybe that’s your kind of thing.  Unfortunately I can’t be objective on The Wild! because I associate them with several days in bed suffering from the plague.

Surely I cannot be the only one who experiences annoying song repeats when sick in bed.  Am I?

 

REVIEW: Max Webster – A Million Vacations (1979)

MAX WEBSTER – A Million Vacations (originally 1979, 2017 Anthem remaster)

Why are Max Webster still held in such high esteem by their devoted fanbase?  Possibly because they concocted an ideal mixture of humour and incredible playing and composition.  Much like Frank Zappa, Max Webster felt that humour does indeed belong in music.  It’s “smart kid rock” but never taking itself too seriously.  From playful musical sections to the words of lyricist Pye Dubois, Max could also be counted on to poke you in the ribs.

A Million Vacations is certainly one of their best albums, if not their absolute magnum opus, but that’s all a matter of opinion.  At this stage of the game, Max was really cooking.  The 10 songs within represent some peak level songwriting, and several are still on the radio today.  Through the airwaves, “Paradise Skies”, “Let Go the Line”, “A Million Vacations” and “Night Flights” might be speeding over Canada somewhere as you read this.

“Paradise Skies” indeed!  One of Max’s most immediate tracks is the party opener.  Total mainstream Max: catchy hooks, insane playing, and a chorus that’s ready to blast off.  Terry Watkinson’s “Charmonium” is more complex but no less catchy.  The keyboardist wrote the song and does the lead vocals as well.  Dig into those flurries of notes making up some tasty solo sections.  Losing no momentum, “Night Flights” keeps a jaunty pace.  Pye Dubois’ poem about the love of touring reminds us how important Pye was to the band.  How many bands have a touring lyricist?

Breaking the fun-loving character for just a moment, a day-dreamy “Sun Voices” has connections to the next songs, “Moon Voices” and “A Million Vacations”.  “In my chair, chaise lounge…” and how many songs can you think of with a chaise lounge in the words??  “Sun Voices” is a meditative poolside view.  Perhaps then the side-closing instrumental “Moon Voices” is the loud party, after the sun goes down?

“A Million Vacations” (written by drummer Gary McCracken and Pye Dubois) on side two is a party-ready Canadian summer anthem.  Part of being Canadian is hibernating for our cold, dark winters.  Once we have endured the freeze, and life returns with the spring thaw, it is like a celebration.  “A Million Vacations” has that feeling.  “Throwin’ out all kinds of fishing line, Friday Friday is a good time to shine.”  Yes indeed, hitting the outdoors is a Canadian weekend tradition in the summer time.

“Look Out” is an often forgotten buried gem.  The chorus is written around a catchy keyboard riff, which suddenly gives way to a conga jam.  It’s Max as only Max can do, daring but never fearing.  But side two’s centerpiece is undoubtedly the magnificent ballad “Let Go the Line”, with Watkinson back on lead vocals.  Kim Mitchell orchestrates a guitar chorus for the main instrument hook and it’s instant love.  For sheer smart pop songwriting, “Let Go the Line” is Max’s finest.  The new 2017 remaster from the recommended box set The Party really reveals a lot of nuance in the back that were hard or impossible to hear on previous CD editions.

Kim gets a little goofy with “Rascal Houdi”, an undeniable party rocker.  “I’m switching out, I’m out to lunch,” and it’s a teenage blast.  But the party finale, “Research (At Beach Resorts)” takes it to the max (pun intended).  “Line up crowds at the pavilion, Max is playing ‘Vacations'”.  It’s a beach party, and Max is “in Newport for research, to get abreast of things…”  What about Wasaga Beach on Georgian Bay?  Already taken care of, friends.  “We’ve just researched Wasaga Beach, bonfire pits at midnight.”  But what the heck are they “researching”?

“What is it that we stare at?
Is it the passports and campsite stars?
Or the monogrammed bikinis and cars?
Or maybe we just need some perspiration ’cause we’re frostbitten Canadian boys!”

There are few bands better than Max Webster, folks, and Max’s A Million Vacation is an easy album to love, so flip it over and play it again like I’m about to.

5/5 stars