Thanks to Amazon, this arrived today. Only a week late, but for free shipping I won’t complain too much. When a parcel comes packaged inside not one but two boxes, you know it’s big. And this sucker is heavy. 5 discs, with two huge books inside. I can’t wait to dig in.
T-Rev, Wes, Doug and I had a great time at the Toronto Musical Collectibles Record & CD Sale 2014. Trevor came home with some kind of Asian import of Foo Fighters’ In Your Honor with at least a dozen bonus tracks. He also scored a cool silver Grand Funk LP with a round cover. Wes stocked up on Tom Petty vinyl.
My treasures are below. Let’s start with the Japanese imports! Yes, the same vendor was there. I probably cleared out his best stuff last year, but he still had some good ones left for me.
Japanese imports purchased:
Other CDs purchased:
“Holy Grails” seen but not purchased:
“Holy Grails” bought:
One funny story: At record shows, you always find vendors who “know it all”. T-Rev found a CD copy of Kim Mitchell’s self-titled solo EP for $5, but it was burned. Trevor asked, “Do you have the original CD of this? Because if you do, I will buy it.” The vendor swore up and down that no such CD exists. Trevor said, “Yes it does, my buddy has it.” He’s right, because I am that buddy. Here are pictures of my copy of that EP; Amazon are asking over $100 for it, since it went out of print. Photographic proof that it exists below (Wounded Bird CD edition):
Here’s a list of the next bunch of shows. Attendance is pending funds:
All four of us had a blast. In the car, Wes commented, “I don’t think I’ve ever had musical conversations like this before!” Then, I found something out. Last year, Wes gave me a copy of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” He did this on condition that I rip and email him the tracks. I did that as soon as I got home, only I sent them via Trevor, since I didn’t have Wes’ email.
Wes said he never got them. “I emailed the tracks like a year ago,” I replied. I explained that Trevor instructed to just send them to him, and he’d forward them along. That never happened. Wes said, “All this time I thought it was Ladano’s fault, turns out it’s my friend right here!” and points at Trevor.
This is turning into an annual event. We might make it semi-annual by checking out the October show. I’ll be sure to be you posted!
RECORD STORE TALES Part 280: Record Store Gallery III – Furry Friends
I’m a sucker for furry friends. Who isn’t? Maybe you’re a cat person, maybe you’re a dog person, or something else! I mentioned a few weeks ago that Kitchener has a high population of Miniature Schnauzers, and the Ladano clan have owned quite a few of those.
This first picture is kind of a sad one. The year is 2000, and that’s me and my first puppy, Crystal aka Gozer. (That’s what happens when you let my dad name animals.) Crystal was a great little friend but very sick. She went blind in ’94 and had all kinds of health issues. This picture of us is the last photo taken of her. I remember the day we had to put her down, I had to work an afternoon shift at T-Rev’s store. T-Rev was out of town building a new store, and I was filling in for him as I occasionally did. It was not the happiest shift to work.
However life goes on and a year later we got Ani! Ani can be a bad little puppy sometimes, but she’s been my best furry friend for a long time now. Unfortunately Ani suffers from a lot of the same health issues that Crystal did. However she’s been a resilient little Schnauzer and has outlived her life expectancy by numerous years already. And seemingly happily too. Which is the main thing.
I brought Ani into the store one afternoon when I was off. She was so good, a little scared though. But she stayed quiet and didn’t try to escape, which she often does! Customers would occasionally bring their dogs into the store, and I never had a problem with it. Nobody pooped or peed on the floor when I was there.
Finally, I bought my own place and got this guy to go with it. This is Zoboomafoo, a leaping lemur from a hit Canadian kid’s TV show. It was on every morning before work and I started getting obsessed with it. One of our store managers, a girl who worked in Cambridge, spotted a Zoboomafoo puppet at the Cinema One store there. They only had one, and both of us wanted it! It was a race to see who could get it first. Needless to say, I won!
RECORD STORE TALES Part 279: Record Store Gallery Deux
I found another whack of old photos going back to the record store days. Allow me to take you on a guided tour!
Gallery #1: This would have been 2002. The tragus was the most painful piercing I experienced. It was the only time that somebody said, “he’s turning white, get him some juice to drink.” The piercer was my friend Lois who works at Stigmata in Guelph. She was apprenticing, with me as a test subject. She even gave me the labret stud that they pierced it with, so the experience was free! Note that Marillion shirt, and my then-sveldt shape!
Gallery #2: A variety of sushi and fancy dinners with our Niagara Falls store owner Lemon Kurri Klopek, Guinness’ Book alumnus Sweet Pepper Klopek, the British piercer Sarge, and the mysterious man known only as Mr. Lebowski.
I look like a goth Leprechaun.
Gallery #3: New arrivals! My birthday 2004! The Paul Stanley interview picture disc was from a friend in York, England named Kim. The Marillion singles were a birthday gift from a guy in France named Charly. And the Marillion Marbles deluxe edition was a gift for me, from me, that happened to arrive at the right time!
Last Words: I love that this photo gallery contains three completely different facial hair styles: A simple goatee, my Ian Paice mutton chops, and finally a full beard. Cool!
BON JOVI – New Jersey (1988 Mercury)
Slippery When Wet sold 28 million copies and went to #1 in over half a dozen countries, including Canada. The easy way to follow that might have been creating a carbon copy album, a sequel to follow it. Bravely, Bon Jovi chose not to do that. Their ambition was running high. The next album (tentatively titled Sons of Beaches after a line in the song “99 In the Shade”), was intended to be a double. The record company ixnay’d that due to the cost, but Bon Jovi had written and recorded plenty of good songs. The proof of this is that some of the best, including the B-side “Love Is War”, didn’t make the final single disc album.
New Jersey is not a carbon copy of Slippery nor any other Bon Jovi record. It’s more raw, more rock and roll, with bluesy elements added. There are dueling solos, long song structures, live jams and even a song in mono! Bon Jovi’s three main musicians (Richie Sambora, David Bryan, Tico Torres) performed and recorded some of their best playing on this album. Indeed, if New Jersey had come out under a different band name I don’t think many people would have recognized it as Bon Jovi. I think it remains one of their highest achievements, if not the very highest. Clocking in at almost an hour, it was a long varied album even if it wasn’t a double.
Slippery began with a long, ominous opening and New Jersey maintained that. “Lay Your Hands On Me” begins with drums and chants, but soon morphs into a top-ten (US) soul-rock single. The guitar is muscular and song is about as heavy as Bon Jovi get. “Bad Medicine” follows; the first single and one of the more pop-rock oriented songs. On the last album, Jon claimed he had a “Social Disease”, this time he needs a shot of “Bad Medicine”. I don’t think “Bad Medicine” is one of their best songs (I felt it was “just another Bon Jovi song” back then) but it sure had legs. It’s still a concert highlight today. I do prefer the album version to the single version with its playful, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m not done!” false ending.
“Born To Be My Baby” was written acoustically and intended to be “the hit”. I think it’s just fine electrically, which is how it was recorded. I got this one as a single in a cardboard sleeve with post cards (see below), and I prefer it to “Bad Medicine” by a fair deal. The “na na na, na na na” vocal part is catchy as hell and the song rocks hard enough for the dudes. The ballad and single “Living In Sin” follows. It too was a huge hit, helped by a black & white video with some blonde-haired male model that looked like Mike Tramp, for the ladies.
Side one’s closer was the heartfelt epic “Blood On Blood”, which was not a single, but still gets played live today. Once again, Jon has managed to capture the essence of his young adulthood, growing up in Sayreville, New Jersey. Jon, “Danny” and “Bobby” are three friends who went through everything together. But with the years and miles between them, Jon lets them know that if he got that call, he’d be right by their sides. Lyrically, it’s this kind of thing that was Jon’s bread and butter, and it also resulted in a great song musically. “Blood On Blood” is one of the band’s proudest achievements.
If “Blood On Blood” was not enough musicality for ya, then “Homebound Train” is Bon Jovi at their most impressive. A 5-minute blues-rock workout, “Homebound Train” is one of those tracks that laymen just won’t believe is Bon Jovi. The band laid down some harmonica and guitar solos backed by some serious groove, something not often associated with Bon Jovi. “Homebound Train” would have to be among the band’s best tracks, and it serves to open a killer side of vinyl.
“Wild Is the Wind” might be considered a ballad, I think it’s more an anthem. If you can’t stop singing along to it, congratulations, you have a pulse! The chorus is brain-explodingly good. “Ride Cowboy Ride” follows, which is a brief instrumental in mono. Although it’s intentionally just an intro to the next song, on its own it’s an enjoyable listen – in fact it made my own mix tapes on its own a few times. “Ride Cowboy Ride” serves to introduce another cowboy anthem, “Stick To Your Guns”. The title reflects the positive affirmations of the lyrics, but this is just another standout song. Any one of these songs could have been singles.
A massive single, “I’ll Be There For You”, slows the side down a bit by being so soft. I’m sure there are those out there who don’t hate this song. Musically it’s fine, but the lyrics…I just can’t handle the lyrics. “When you breathe, I wanna be the air for you.” What does that even mean?
“99 In the Shade” contains the lyric that almost named the album: “I see those Sons of Beaches out there living it up, in the surf and the sand, yeah that life ain’t so tough.” This would be the weakest song on the album. It’s a standard Bon Jovi boogie, nothing wrong with it, but it pales compared to the rest of the songs on the record. Having said that if it were on Bon Jovi’s latest, it would be one of the best songs…
A personal favourite is last: “Love For Sale”, recorded live “during one hell of a party”. This drunken jam is among the most magical musical moments on any Bon Jovi album. Consider that it was the 1980’s, and the band just came off the ultra-sleek Slippery When Wet. They threw down a drunken, smoking acoustic blues jam to close the album? Yeah, man – cool! I’m down. It’s hilarious and fun, not to mention Richie just smokes on that six-string. Tico’s on the brushes and Jon sounds blasted.
And that’s New Jersey, an album the band had to be proud of. It went #1 all over the place, and multi-platinum in the US. It’s a curious mix of rootsy hard rock quality, and pop melody. It’s certainly among the best examples of such a mixture.
4.5/5 stars
BONUS GALLERY! “Born To Be My Baby” 45 rpm single!
I believe this baby was about $2.99 at Zellers in 1988. It came with postcards which I obviously kept.
RECORD STORE TALES Part 273:
Purp Ate My Balls Redux: Special Edition
I am thrilled to have discovered all the missing pictures of the infamous “Purp Ate My Balls” gallery. This isn’t everyone who owned the shirt, just the ones who took pictures.
What’s the “Purp Ate My Balls” shirt? Well, to quote the original story, Part 227:
10 years ago my online handle was “Purpendicular.” (Gee, where did I get that name from?) ”Purp” made a good short-form nickname. For whatever reason…and believe me I wish I could remember…Sarge decided to make and give out 40 or 50 “Purp Ate My Balls” shirts! He gave them to all his shop employees (Metal Fatigue in Bournemouth) and I’m pretty sure all the Klopeks ended up with them too.
Here’s a whole lotta pictures of English people wearing me on their shirts!
I also found the original photo that started it all!
Music, movies, and books! I’ve been very occupied these last couple days.
I get the Guiness’ Book of World Records, and the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not books every year. I imagine my surprise when I discovered a friend of ours in both books! Apparently, Sweet Pepper Klopek holds the world record for “Most Baking Sheets Buckled Over the Head for One Minute.” This is a guy who has been on my living room couch! Lemon Kurri says:
“He’s in there a couple times. Most mouse traps sprung on a tongue in 1 min too.”
The “A” is for Aaron! Thanks man! This parcel wasn’t a total surprise but the contents inside sure were! I’m really excited about many of these items. (The Olivia Munn film looks great…) I’m so overwhelmed I don’t even know where to begin.
Ahh hell. Yes I do. Let’s start with Pearl Jam!
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