With my mom and sister visiting Japan in August, my dad didn’t want to spend his weekends at the cottage. By that stroke of luck, Jen and I had the cottage for three weekends in a row. I can’t remember the last time I was at the cottage for three weekends in a row. I was probably a teenager.
I spoke to my mom after she got back from Japan, jet-lagged by about 12 hours. My sister managed to catch a case of Covid, but my mom was luckier. Even so, she was too worn out to use the cottage on the weekend of August 9. At the last minute, they decided to stay home that weekend. Therefore, Jen and I could go if we wanted to.
It’s a shame to let the cottage stay empty on a summer weekend. We had planned on staying home and working on organizing the music collection, but at the last minute, we got out of town and hit the road.
I went with Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind on the way up, followed by War Within Me by Blaze Bayley. I had been immersed in an Iron Maiden writing project and decided to keep the vibe going on the road. It was fascinating to hear how recording and production had changed between the two albums. Piece of Mind was an organic sounding listen, with natural drums and lots of room sound. War Within Me was modern, clean and technical. While I prefer the analog, organic sounds, I realize that it is of the past. A good double bill for the road.
Upon arrival on Friday night, I got the drone out, which is a good thing, because the theme for the rest of the weekend would be “No Drone Movies”!
Editing to the music of “80 Days” by Marillion, it was incredibly hard to fly at sunset with the sun in my eyes. I could not see my drone from the ground. I was flying by camera the whole time. It was a good flight, with great visuals, but it was to be the only flight of the weekend, for within an hour, the gale-force winds rose! The winds would last all weekend, and would not let up at all. The drone was boxed for all Saturday and Sunday.
And this is when things got weird for me.
With the air cool, the wind high, and the skies dark, my seasonal affective disorder kicked in. Big time. It felt exactly like fall at the cottage. Even though it was early August, and the previous week had a beach packed with kids and tourists, this was a cold deserted weekend. All the feelings came rushing back, from years of “back to school” ads and activities. The memories came back too: listening to White Lion on a cold wet day on my Walkman by the river, wondering what the next school year would bring. All back like a Polaroid picture.
My counselor told me specifically it’s too early to worry about fall, but here I am. Unable to get it off my mind.
I am glad we went to the lake this weekend. It’s wasteful to leave it empty on an August weekend. My mental health is better there, than home. But I can’t shake this foreboding feeling of fall.
RECORD STORE TALES #1147: Dream On (At The Cottage)
“Aww, crap!” I explained upon arrival at the lake on Friday night. “I forgot my drone!”
I should have known. When we packed the car, I said “I’m surprised everything fit so easily. I thought we had more stuff.” Because we did have more stuff! Sitting in a box in the living room…
Drone photography has been the highlight of the summer this year. Now we’d have to rough it! Back to regular earthbound cameras for us.
As it stands, without the drone we didn’t do much photography this time. Last week’s video was so epic, there really wasn’t a need for it this time. There were plenty of other activities on hand. For the most part, we focused on music.
Twisted Sister, Kiss and Alice Cooper…all were interrupted by the news that Aerosmith had called it a day for touring. Cutting short their 50th anniversary farewell tour, the Bad Boys from Boston have been forced to end it due to Steven Tyler’s insurmountable vocal issues. It’s over – the man can no long sing live. It felt right to put on the debut Aerosmith album and listen to the beginning again. It was a bittersweet, but important album to listen to that night. I’m sure everyone did their own tributes to Tyler that day, but mine was the only one with lake breezes and sunsets.
Come dinner time, and with a fresh tank of propane, I put on the best burgers of my life. If you bought these burgers in an upscale restaurant, you’d be paying $20 each. My secret ingredients included thick cut bacon, chopped and added to the mix, as well as minced mushroom, minced onion, and roasted (not raw) garlic. I don’t think these burgers can be topped.
We also bought a beautiful T-Bone and Porterhouse steak for Sunday night, but Saturday night’s dinner had gone bad. Some wretched pork chops from Farm Boy (in Kitchener) had spoiled, so what do we eat? Unprepared for this moment, we ordered in Domino’s Pizza, and they delivered right to the front door. Also delivered right to the porch was a cool set of Lego Speed Champions, which kept me busy in the absence of a drone show. Ah, the modern conveniences of life.
It’s funny how few people seem to understand how cool it is getting deliveries to the front door. “I prefer to buy it myself at the store, it is close by.” Well, for 50 years, there was no such nearby convenience here as “record stores” or “toys stores” or “pizza delivery”. This is all new to us.
We hope that Steven Tyler is able to enjoy a relaxing retirement, just as pleasant as our weekend at the lake.
My Uncle Don Don was the youngest of three kids. He was quite a bit younger than his two older sisters, who liked The Beatles. My uncle was from a younger generation, raised on Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple.
I had more in common musically with my uncle than my mother. So, when my uncle approached me early in the summer of 1989 to swap tapes to record, I knew he’d have something interesting to tape. I grabbed a Maxell 90 minute cassette, and chose an album of his to record on one side.
Hear the album and the story in the 2 minute video below.
RECORD STORE TALES #1144: “In The Summertime” (2020 Hindsight)
Remember the summer of 2020? It seems so far away now. It was the “summer that wasn’t” for a lot of people who were quarantined at home during the first major pandemic in 100 years. I knew I would have a lot more perspective on it eventually. Hindsight is, as they say…20/20.
After that harsh winter (got severely sick twice, and don’t know if it was Covid at any time because tests didn’t exist yet), I needed a break. Then Premiere Doug Ford closed the beaches.
It wasn’t just the big city Toronto beaches that closed, but even our little private beach. It made little sense to us. Weren’t we safer outside? Even travel to the cottage was prohibited in 2020. Only “essential travel” was permitted. The idea was not to stress out-of-the-way hospitals, and prevent the spread of the disease. We all know how well that worked! At least I didn’t get Covid for three years (that I know of). This was the reason beaches were closed: to discourage travel.
Since we own property in cottage country, my parents used that as a reason to travel. Property must be inspected and cared for, especially after a winter like that. I used mental health as my reason. My wife and I needed the cottage or we’d have snapped here in our tiny little apartment. By the end of May, we finally made our first trip back up to Lake Huron. Nobody reported us, nobody judged.
We own a piece of property that is beachfront. There was no way we weren’t going down there. It was a cold May. There was nobody around.
We cherished every second we had at that cottage, even though we were alone and social distancing from any neighbour we ran into. That actually suited me fine. As a classic introvert, I really thrived during social distancing. Not shaking hands, not seeing people in person…sometimes, it felt like my own personal utopia!
Beaches started to open up in the spring, and with this came the onslaught of “Sooners“.
People weren’t going on holidays. Most of them were stuck at home. Instead of going away on a holiday, they instead made day trips to beaches like ours. My dad called them “Sooners”. Sooner: “a person settling on land in the early West before its official opening to settlement in order to gain the prior claim allowed by law to the first settler after official opening.” That’s what my dad dubbed the annoying beach-goers that crowded our little area in 2020 and 2021. There was “Man-Bun” and his two girlfriends, and a family of umpteen kids whose mom let them run around naked. Those were the memorable ones.
I’m going to take you on a slight detour here. Another thing that happened in 2020 was the temporary halting of many of our favourite TV shows and movies. YouTube began to seriously thrive. This is when my friend Uncle Meat introduced me to many new channels I had never heard of before. I began consuming the work of Todd in the Shadows by binge. One of his main features is a series called “One Hit Wonderland”. One of the tracks he covered in that series was “In The Summertime” by Mungo Jerry. It was a deep dive on what made the song a hit, and why Mungo Jerry never followed it with anything as iconic. I became obsessed with the song that summer.
My dad believes in asserting your territory, especially where Sooners are concerned. For him that meant sitting down on our beach chairs, ensuring nobody used them. For me, that meant singing out loud like we owned the place. There was more to it than just that though. I was genuinely just happy to have a beach to go to, and my childhood beach at that! So I sang, and I felt every single note in my heart as I reached up to touch the sun.
In the summertime, when the weather is high, You can stretch right up and touch the sky!
Jen joined in.
When the weather’s fine, You got women, you got women on your mind, Have a drink, have a drive, Go out and see what you can find.
Wait a minute…did he just sing “have a drink, have a drive?” 1970 was a different time for sure. Still, it sang well as we raised our voices in song. Nobody turned to stare. Everyone (and there were a lot of people!) stuck to their own groups.
Ahh, social distancing. Gotta love it.
The one and only flaw with our perfect afternoons of singing? I only had one verse of “In the Summertime” memorized. It got repeated over and over. Nobody noticed.
Now that things have returned to something resembling normal, the Sooners have gone. Social distancing is no longer necessary. I don’t mind. I still sing “In The Summertime” when I hit that water. I still stretch right up so I can touch the sky. I still think Mungo Jerry wrote a great song. Its corniness is its charm, but unless you’ve sung that song at the top of your lungs while enjoying a brief respite during a global pandemic, you haven’t experienced “In The Summertime”.
“Water, water, everywhere!” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
RECORD STORE TALES #1143: Setbacks
Just when I had my music room coming back together again after the shelf disaster in June, another calamity has struck. Things were going well. I had all the CDs organized into the C section and was about to start working on D. I had everything planned, and I knew I had enough storage to handle all my CDs and then some. I came home from work one day to find the floor absolutely soaked.
There had been a torrential rainfall in the prior days, so I crossed my fingers and hoped it was an isolated incident. My office at work flooded, so it didn’t seem impossible. I got out the towels and fans and soaked it up. The water refused to dry out. Looking outside, there was no standing water in the area and nothing that could seemingly get into the house.
Process of elimination insinuated that the water was coming in from the air conditioner unit. The unit is within the wall directly behind me when you see me hosting Grab A Stack of Rock. Behind the black curtain is my AC unit. In front of the access panel…are shelves and cabinets full of CDs. (Yes, I know that’s not the best storage system, but I’m out of space.)
And so, I ripped apart my music room once again, called a technician in, and paid him overtime to fix the leak.
The good news is, he seemed to have fixed the problem. Fans are running non-stop and it seems the floor is starting to dry out, finally.
Now I have to put the room back together again, a tedious, laborious, and frustrating task.
On an interesting side not from the files of “it could have been worse”, a pipe underneath my work broke and flooded a hallway. They had to drill two giant holes in the floor to fix it. Repairs are ongoing.
I hate water!
Tonight we are back to the cottage for some much needed R&R – rest & relaxation, and rock & roll. We need it.
After you hit the big 50, it seems birthdays are less important and a little hum-drum. My 52nd birthday fell on a Friday, so I decided to take advantage of that and have a little long weekend for myself. My week ended on Thursday, which coincided with one of the boss’ birthdays at work. He was turning 65, so we had a bit of an upscale lunch to celebrate both birthdays. My coworkers and I enjoyed an afternoon at Milestones in Cambridge. I had a delectable penne pasta with shrimp, mushrooms, bacon and a creamy truffle sauce. The sauce was aromatic, and quite deliciously pungent. It was almost more an experience of smell rather than taste, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. A wonderful start to the birthday weekend.
Thursday night was an evening to chill. I bought a Lego set, the Atreides Ornithopter set which will give me my first Jason Momoa, Oscar Isaac and Josh Brolin minifigs for my collection. This difficult set kept my hands occupied while I enjoyed a traditional movie treat. I went with 1984’s The Last Starfighter, a movie that I watched with Bob Schipper the summer it came out 40 years ago. “Better than Star Wars!” I told my parents when I got home. Watching it again today, it’s definitely derivative of Star Wars though able to deliver new things in a grounded Earthly setting. I smiled the whole way through.
I couldn’t sleep that night. We had water coming into the home office, and after the shelf disaster of three weeks ago, it kept me up at night. I also slept on my arm in a way that pinched my nerves and left me with two numb fingers on my left hand. Ah, 52. But I had morning plans.
I wanted to head down to the Grand River at 6:00 am when nobody is around, and take the drone up. With Jen at my side on second camera, we had a quick flight over the fog at sunrise and got some remarkable footage. First birthday goal accomplished!
I wanted to do something special for my birthday meal, and so I chose a lunch instead of a dinner. Why? Because as you get older, bed time gets earlier. I also wanted to do something different that we don’t usually do. And so, Jen sucked up a Benadryl for me, and we hit up Ye’s Sushi. There was plenty of stuff that Jen could eat, but an allergic reaction is impossible to avoid, so precautions were taken. I really appreciated this sacrifice on her part. Her favourite was the edamame, while mine was the beef short ribs. For me, generally, beef won the show. Dessert was deep fried banana with chocolate dip sauce.
Jen had to crash for a couple hours after the allergy meds kicked in, but she enjoyed her first sushi outing and I really appreciate her doing it. Next year we’ll do something different, but this was a first for us and it was really special.
At that point, it was time to get ready for Grab A Stack of Rock at 3:30. I warmed up my coffee and jumped in front of the camera. I had originally thought of taking my birthday off from the show, but as the week wore on, I felt like I wanted to celebrate a bit with my friends. So, I scheduled a show and Jex Russell, Tim Durling and John Clauser joined me for gifts and memories. And much more.
All Jen’s gifts came from Encore Records in Kitchener. They were:
Ratt – Rarities (2024)
A good compilation of demos and live stuff. There’s a 1989 demo called “Love on the Rocks”, which is a Pearcy/Crosby composition that never made it onto an album. Good song, and a CD that is hard to find.
Black Country Communion – V (2024)
I hear good things! I am missing a few BCC releases, but there has never been a better time to jump back into the band. I’m spinning it now and enjoying that bluesy rock groove with just a hint of Zeppelin that I love so much.
Prince and the Revolution – Live(2022)
From the Purple Rain tour, I figured this release would make a great accompaniment to my Purple Rain deluxe edition. It will go well in the car on a future cottage trip. Contents: two CDs and a blu-ray, including favourites of mine like “Computer Blue” and “I Would Die 4 U” . Closing the set is nearly 20 minutes of “Purple Rain”. This will be epic!
The gifts were just a precursor to the main event, which caught me by surprise and knocked me out of my chair. With the help with Tim Durling, Jex arranged special surprise birthday messages in a video that we ran live on the show. I was blown away by the words and sentiments from so many people!
Jex Russell
John Clauser, performing an acoustic version of “Grab A Stack of Rock”
Rob Daniels from Visions in Sound, with some kind words that hit me in the heart
Aaron Stewart of the KMA
Harrison Kopp with Lego art
Uncle Meat with some comments that left me head over heels…
Martin Popoff with some more kind words that left my jaw on the floor
Dr. Kathryn Ladano (with Molli, Daisi, Winston and Bruce)
Grant Arthur from the Rock Warehaus with good advice
Metal Roger with metal vocals
Todd Evans of the Contrarians to grab a stack of cake
Tom Brislin, keyboard player from Kansas
Jen Ladano right from the bowling alley
D’Arcy Briggs from darcyska on YouTube!
Marco D’Auria with a funny name mix-up and more kind words that I don’t think I deserve
Brent “the Doctor” Doerner of Helix to grab a stack of beer
Steve Deluxe and some wise words about B-sides
Tim Durling, who helped connect some of these people with Jex
Peter Kerr of Rock Daydream Nation with a pretty excellent vocal performance
Chris Preston of MyRockandRollHeaven on Twitter
My Aunt Lynda and cousin Geoff with embarrassing stories
Matt Phillips of GoNorth Design, with a custom Lego Stratocaster
My mom and dad
By the end of it, I was emotionally exhausted…so much love and encouragement from people I really look up to. The one common recurring thread was a message I really need to hear: keep doing what you do.
What better birthday gift could anyone want?
The rest of the weekend will be spent enjoying music, and reflecting upon the blessings I have in my life.
I cannot thank you, my friends, enough for this very special birthday. No matter how hard I try to search for the words, they remain out of my reach. My words cannot sum up the feeling of a full heart.
RECORD STORE TALES #1141: 100 Years Old and Counting! Weekend Report – Parties Complete, CD Re-organizing Continues
It’s official! Grandma turned 100, and she had not one but two parties. Seems appropriate given the circumstances! It was a whirlwind of a weekend and difficult to sum up.
Friday afternoon began with a reunion of cousins! I have not seen Cousin Geoff in over 10 years and I swear he is still growing. I gave him a big hug, and the chitter chatter did not cease for the entire time. It was like no time had passed, even though we had so much to catch up on. He’s now a dad with two kids.
That day, we had a birthday party at the home for Grandma. She was fashionably late, as is her right. She received some nice gifts and plants, but was not impressed with her letter from King Charles. The plants she got from people she knew meant a lot more than the King. I am sure that Charles is now weeping at this rejection. He certainly tried!
Funny thing about 100th birthdays. They are very difficult to find cards for. In fact, Grandma received three identical cards due to lack of selection!
We had a barbecue for family that night, and resumed the 100th birthday party the following day. This party was for family only, which didn’t stop a couple people from the old folks’ home from trying to gatecrash! I can’t say I blame them. The food and cake were incredible. The cake was probably the best I ever had, while I also stuffed myself with six sandwiches. By the end of the celebrations, I think I was as exhausted as Grandma. But that wasn’t the end of the weekend for me.
Who knew that a 100th birthday party would be so exhausting? I’ve never even met a centenarian before, let alone partied with one. I can tell you that centenarians like cake.
As for me, I had CDs to file. I bought a third shelf, assembled it, and began filing. I am done A and B, moving onto C.
It feels good to have all of A and B on shelves again. I keep finding the odd A and B within the rest, but we’re getting closer every week. I’m going to buy a couple more shelves in the near future, but here’s what the situation looks like this week.
I have also repaired my Metallica Live Sh*t box set lid.
It’s not perfect, and you can see the glue from the inside easily, but it’s solid again.
Things are finding themselves in order again, though it will likely take the rest of the summer to get everything organized again. Which is good, because when Grab A Stack of Rock returns for its 3rd season in the fall, I’ll be really ready to grab stacks of rock once again – in alphabetical order!
Next party: mine! Join us Friday at 3:30 PM EST. Let’s keep it rolling.
RECORD STORE TALES #1140: Happy 100th Birthday to my Grandma
100 years ago, Doris Ann Drumm was born. With a name like “Drumm”, I suppose it’s no wonder that my sister and I grew up to be so musical! In fact, my grandmother can trace her family line to Alsace-Lorraine, and musicians on her side of the family. As for her, even though she likes singers such as Michael Buble, she had no problem buying me Ozzy Osbourne and Van Halen tapes when I was a teen. Later on, she’d just write me a cheque for my birthday. “Buy one of your CD records,” went the inscription inside one birthday card.
The pandemic was hard on my grandma. In the first three months, we lost my Uncle Don Don. That was difficult for everyone, but especially her. She still lived in her own home at age 96, and losing Uncle Don Don left her lonely. Due to pandemic rules, we couldn’t hug her when we went to visit on her back porch. At age 96, you simply don’t want to take any chances. Though she survived two rounds with Covid, she got depressed and we nearly lost her three times. The last time she came so close, I took half the day off work and wrote her obituary. That’s how bad she was, February 23 2023. Fortunately now she’s now in a good senior’s home where she doesn’t miss meals or medication.
Today, she’s happy living in her new home, and making new friends. She still misses her old house, and her old cottage, but she recognizes that it wasn’t sustainable.
She likes to sit with us out in the courtyard of her building, in the shade, enjoying the weather. She enjoys watching the Blue Jays on TV, even when they’re not doing so well. She loves to talk! All she needs is an ear to listen. I enjoy bringing over my cottage videos, and watching them with her. She hasn’t been to the cottage in a decade.
I’m so happy we made it to this incredible milestone. It seemed like it was not going to happen. But it did and here we are! She’ll be receiving a letter of congratulations from the King, and family is flying in from Alberta to celebrate.
People always told us that grandma looked like the Queen. To us, she is the queen! Leave a happy birthday wish for my grandmother, and celebrate with us on this special day!
RECORD STORE TALES #1139: Bonfire at Lake Water Stones
More people, less wildlife. That’s a rule-of-thumb at Lake Water Stones.
Why “Lake Water Stones“? That was a childhood nickname that I had for Lorne Beach, on Lake Huron. Now in my 52nd summer at the lake, I realize more than ever why it had that name. As before, I took the drone up to the cottage and filmed lots of video. I also took the drone far lower over the water, and through the crystal clear ripples, you can see countless stones…rocks upon rocks upon rocks…as far as the eye can see. There are very few sandy patches at Lake Water Stones this year. It changes from year to year. The winter always brings in a new landscape, and seascape.
Back to the wildlife. On our last trip to the lake, we witnessed our friend the fox, four wild turkeys, and a skunk. There was hardly anybody there that weekend, and it was very quiet. This time, there were many neighbours. The animals made themselves scarce. There was no danger of tripping over a skunk this time. Even our friend the chipmunk was barely to be seen.
On the flipside of this, we had the chance to meet the folks next door, a newlywed couple we’d never run into before. Having a drone is a good conversation starter! Neighbour Danny was treated to the best air show I could offer. I swooped it down closer to the surface, and buzzed him from a safe distance as he swam. Later on, I pulled the same stunt while Jen was swimming, and I came within an inch of crashing into a rock. It was a close, close call and I will not be flying that fast, that close to the water again! It’s all on video.
Danny invited Jen and I to a big bonfire that night with his wife. I’m not usually the social type, and as of my friends who have not even seen me yet this year can testify to. In the interest of doing new things and trying to be social, I decided to go. Of course, I brought my drone to film it from the air. It was an impressive fire. And truthfully, it was nice to be social for a change instead of a hermit.
That was the one new thing we did this weekend, in a summer of trying new things.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the music we played in the car, and on the porch. On the way to the lake, I wanted to try one of the new albums I bought when Aaron and I went to Toronto. I chose Don Dokken’s Solitary, which as I surprised, was an acoustic album. I enjoyed it, but Jen did not like his cover of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” one bit. I’m undecided. I don’t have to decide until I review it. After that, we needed a palette cleanser so I put on Back for the Attack by Dokken. Not one bad song.
On the porch, I asked Jen to pick bands, and then I would pick a song. She started throwing me curveballs by naming bands like Judas Priest. I would then shake it up by playing an atypical song. In Priest’s case, it was “Before the Dawn”. When she picked Guns N’ Roses, I went for “Better”. This fun game kept us entertained for an hour or so.
Saturday morning was spent listening to the best of Kansas, in preparation for the afternoon interview with Tim Durling. Jex Russell and I had the time of our lives talking to Tim about all things Kansas, and he should know! A great show, though Amazon failed to deliver my copy of Point of Know Return as planned. It just flat-out never showed up and they refunded my money. All I had to show off for the interview with Tim was my copy on 8-track, that he gifted me last summer!
Another triumphant weekend at Lake Water Stones. It’s wonderful to be able to keep these memories on video. I hope you enjoy it.
mikeladano.com 