RECORD STORE TALES #1133: Mike and Aaron Return to Toronto – Today!
It has been a long, strange last few years, hasn’t it?
Aaron and I went record hunting in Toronto almost annually, for years, ever since 2012. The goal was to buy music. Lots, and lots of music. Records, CDs, whatever. We always did very well, and I began documenting everything for YouTube. The video series has proven to be very popular. But Aaron and I haven’t been to Toronto since 2018. Why?
2018 was our annus horibilis. Jen was sick. Cancer. She survived. Her mother did not. The only reason I went to Toronto with Aaron that summer was because “Mum” insisted. “Go with your friend,” she told me. Within six months of Jen beating cancer, we lost “Mum”. I loved her mom. I don’t say that lightly. We were very close. Because Jen is the kind of person who can sleep in until noon given the chance, her mom and I would patiently sit together, drinking coffee and watching old movies. Our favourite topic to discuss was, of course, Jen! Jen didn’t like this too much. She hated when we talked about her! God, I miss her mom.
2019 was the summer we spoiled ourselves, and I elected not to go to Toronto that year. Jen and I celebrated our 11th anniversary, since we missed our 10th in a hospital waiting room. In 2019 I got fat, grew my hair long, and spent as much time at the cottage as I could. Since 2018 was the year without a summer, I vowed to take advantage of every minute from that moment on.
We all know was happened in 2020, which dragged on into 2021…
I became something of a hermit during this time. Most of my friends would tell you they don’t see me often. The one I’ve seen the most is Rob Daniels. (Watch this space for a video!) I haven’t seen Meat in over two years…Scott Peddle I saw last year…same with Max the Axe. What friends have I seen? Not many. I’m an introvert by nature, and if the pandemic did any damage to me, it was to give me an excuse to burrow into my little hole and not come out. And so I haven’t gone to Toronto with Aaron since then. I did have lunch with him in Port Elgin last summer, but our record shopping excursions remained on hold.
It takes a lot of mental energy for me to force myself out the door and to be social, but Aaron really makes this easy. He does all the driving. He’s pleasant company. So is his dad, Wayne, who also comes with us to Toronto.
So, today, Aaron and I return to Toronto with Wayne. We’ll be hitting up BMV first in the morning. Then Pauper’s Pub in the afternoon, followed by the finale at Sonic Boom. I am not bringing a list. I’m winging it. I am waiting to be surprised and ready to be spontaneous.
Wish us luck. Mike and Aaron are returning to Toronto!
I love admitting to my past musical sins. Perhaps others will learn from my mistakes.
I was in grade 11, a mere 16 years old, when the music video for “Youth Gone Wild” hit the airwaves. Skid Row were the latest thing, a band promoted by Jon Bon Jovi himself, from his home state of New Jersey. We didn’t know yet that the lead singer, Sebastian Bach, identified as a Canadian. He grew up in Peterborough Ontario, just on the other side of Toronto. In fact, I didn’t know that I already had something of Bach in my music video collection. I had a brief clip of him, with teased up hair, in a prior band called Madame X. This band was led by Maxine Petrucci, sister of Roxy Petrucci from Vixen. They featured a young Sebastian Bach and Mark “Bam Bam” McConnell whom Bach would play with in VO5. I wasn’t into any of those bands. I was pretty hard-headed about what I liked and disliked.
In Spring 1989, I first encountered “Youth Gone Wild” on the Pepsi Power Hour. It could have been Michael Williams hosting, but whoever it was, they hyped up this new band called Skid Row. I liked getting in on new bands from the ground floor. Made them easier to collect when you started at the start. At that point, I wasn’t even sure how many albums Judas Priest actually had. I was intrigued enough to hit “record” on my VCR as the music video began. I caught the opening “Ba-boom!” of drums, and sat back to watch.
While I wasn’t blown away, I kept recording. The key was the singer. If the singer sucked, I’d usually hit “stop” and rewind back to where I was. The singer passed the test: he didn’t suck. I kept recording.
After about a minute, I pressed the “stop” button, and lamented that this new band wasn’t for me. What happened? What did Skid Row do to turn me off so quickly?
I can admit this. I’ve always been open about the fact that I was very image-driven as a teenager. We all were! With the exception of maybe George Balazs, all the neighborhood kids were into image to some degree or another. I was probably driven by image more than the average kid, consuming magazines and music videos by the metric tonne. So, what exactly was wrong with Skid Row?
I’ll tell ya, folks. It was serious.
The bass player had a chain going from his nose to his ear.
I just could not. I couldn’t put a poster on my wall with some band that had a bass player with a chain that went from his nose to his ear! No way, no f’n way.
I pressed rewind, and prepared to record the next video over Skid Row.
That summer, the glorious, legendary summer of ’89, I went with Warrant. I bought their debut album sight-unseen, based on a blurb in the Columbia House catalogue. Warrant were the selection of the month. “What the hell,” I thought, and checked the box to order it immediately.
Meanwhile, Bob Schipper and the girl I liked, named Tammy, were really into Skid Row. They knew all about my issues with the nose chain. They got under my skin about it a bit, but I wouldn’t bend on Skid Row.
“18 and Life” was the next single, a dark power ballad that was easy for me to ignore. “I Remember You” was harder to pass on. It was the perfect acoustic ballad for 1989. You had the nostalgic lyrics, which Bob and I both connected with. Somehow, we knew that 1989 was the absolute pinnacle. We knew this would be the summer to beat! Bon Jovi and Def Leppard were still on the charts. Aerosmith and Motley Crue had new singles out with albums incoming. We walked around singing “Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams, except we changed the words to “Summer of ’89”. We just knew. “Got my first real six string…” we sang. And we both had our own fairly new guitars that we could barely play.
“I Remember You” was a massive hit, and still I resisted.
“Because of the nose chain?” Bob Schipper questioned me.
Absolutely because of the nose chain!
I stood firm for two years. Bob Schipper went to college, and Tammy was long distance and not meant to last. I felt a bit like an island by the time 1991 rolled around. I felt alone. My best friend was gone, I had no girlfriend, and most of my school friends went their own ways. I was a loner like I’d never been in my life before. Music was my companion, and my beloved rock magazines were my library.
That’s how Skid Row eventually got me. Sebastian Bach had a good friend in Drew Masters, who published the excellent M.E.A.T Magazine out of Toronto. Drew’s praise for the forthcoming second Skid Row album, Slave to the Grind, was unrelenting. He caught my ear. I was looking for heavier music in my life, not satisfied with Priest’s Painkiller as one of the heaviest albums I owned. I wanted more rock, and I wanted it heavy.
The other thing that got me was the collector’s itch. When I found out that Slave to the Grind was released in two versions with different exclusive songs, I was triggered. I had to have both.
“I’ll make a tape, and put both songs on my version!” It was a pretty cool idea.
Costco had Slave to the Grind in stock. They had the full-on version with “Get the Fuck Out”, the song that was excluded from the more store-friendly version. Columbia House stocked the tame version, which had a completely different song called “Beggars Day”. I bought the CD from Costco, the vinyl from Columbia House, and suddenly I was the only guy in town who had the full set. I made my cassette with joy, recreating the Skid Row logo on the spine, and writing the song titles in with red ink.
“Get the Fuck Out” was track 6, side one. “Beggars Day” was track 7, side one. I still have them in that order in my mp3 files today.
Sure, there was an audible change in sound when the tape source went from CD to vinyl, but I couldn’t afford two CD copies. Little did I know how cool it would be later on to have an original vinyl copy of Slave to the Grind.
I loved the album. I loved all three of the ballads. The production was sharp. There were excellent deep cuts: “The Threat”, “Livin’ on a Chain Gang”, and “Riot Act” were all as great as any of the singles. Furthermore, the singer had taken it to new heights of intensity and excellence.
I let Skid Row into my heart that day. It was a good decision. Skid Row accompanied me through times good and bad, lonely and angry. They were my companion through it all, and they’re still pretty good. It was meant to be!
RECORD STORE TALES #1131: Foxes & Fireworks Five New Things This Weekend at the Lake
After 52 years, it’s not always easy coming up with new experiences to have at the lake. Sometimes it’s a fortuitous mixture of planning and luck. I am always conscious that every second at the lake counts. Unfortunately, my energy isn’t what it was. I don’t remember having so many naps back in those days. I just remember going, and going, and going! Gosh, when Peter Cavan used to come up to the cottage for a weekend, we’d go from one activity to another without taking a break. We’d go from badminton to throwing around a football, to playing a video game to making a stir fry for dinner. Then we’d be in the car to buy some fireworks. We like it easier these days.
New thing #1: Road tunes
Our weekend began on Thursday evening for the first spin of Arkells’ new album Disco Loadout Volume One on the road. It was a singalong success from start to finish, but it only took us as far as Listowel. For the rest of the trip, we played the Moody Blues Long Distance Voyager. Another success. It is always a pleasure to try new tunes for the road. I am happy to report that both albums did very well, and voices were raised.
We settled in quickly for a quiet weekend. Well, quiet for the moment. I inaugurated the weekend with some Deep Purple on the porch. This was done to celebrate Rock Daydream Nation’s excellent Deep Purple Stormbringer episode, which I was a part of. The episode was well received and I had a blast doing it. Of course, Friday night was Grab A Stack of Rock which I always love doing from the lake. There’s only one issue with doing anything on the porch involving a computer.
As another hallmark of my increasing age, my back hurts plenty after a day of rocking out and a night of live streaming from the porch. Writing? Extremely difficult. The deck chairs are very comfortable there, but only for leaning back. For working with a keyboard and a screen, they are not so practical. Not to mention, we just have these small glass deck tables to put my laptop on. I’ve used a number of laptop stands, but none offered the height, position and stability that I needed to easy my aching back. There must be a solution. Enter: Amazon.
New thing #2: Amazon calling
I heard through the grapevine that Amazon were now delivering to the cottage, though sometimes they have problems finding the addresses. Some of these places are not on GPS. However, let’s give it a shot. I picked a new desk that I thought would work on my front porch, and had it delivered straight to the cottage.
Much to my surprise, it worked! The delivery truck backed into the driveway at 3:00 in the afternoon, and I went outside to find a cardboard box on the deck, waiting for me!
The game has changed. With Amazon now offering next-day delivery to the cottage, imagine what things I will waste my money on when I’m bored! When we were kids staving off boredom, we were limited to whatever toys and cassette tapes the local stores had to offer. Not anymore!
Now, time to set up the desk!
New thing #3: I have a desk on the front deck now
The desk was easy enough to assemble, though the included tools were no match for my dad’s ratcheting screwdriver. It would have taken me an hour or more if I used the wimpy little screwdriver that came in the box. Soon, I had my desk set up, and adjusted for maximum comfort. The game has been changed.
I could spent all day typing now. It was like I had my own little porch nook, surrounded by coffee, lego, potato chips and CDs.
With this new desk, I should be able to do more writing and more video editing than ever before. If I want to! That’s the key to remember. The cottage is for relaxing. I must remember to do what feels right, instead of pressuring myself to “produce”. That said, it was great broadcasting Grab A Stack of Rock with such comfort.
I did want to produce a video short this weekend, and that was semi-successful.
New thing #4: Slow-motion fireworks
My mom and dad left us some Roman candles from the May 24 long weekend. Though not as practical as fountains, they would do for my attempt to get some slow motion video of fireworks.
The first one didn’t give me any footage. The problem is the firework is mostly pauses between bursts of colour. It’s hard to hit record at the exact right time to capture anything, and even at super slow-mo, it’s hard to get more than five seconds of footage. Next time we’ll try a fountain, but for this experiment, I was able to get two videos up on Youtube.
I love it when a plan comes together!
The last new thing that happened was complete serendipity.
On the Saturday night, Jen and I went down to the beach after finishing our delicious ribeye steak dinner. It was after sunset, but the glow of the sun lingers for hours, and you don’t need a flashlight at the beach during twilight. I got up to have a pee in the bushes, and after doing my business, I sang a little song and turned around. That’s what I saw him.
The fox was heading straight towards me. He had a gait unlike a dog. He was unmistakable. With absolutely no fear of humans, he walked with intent right past both of us, and on down the beach.
New thing #5: I finally captured the fox on camera
I’ve been trying for four years now, and I finally got him. The pictures don’t do him justice, but you’re never expecting the fox until he’s right there in front of you. I named this one Eric Caravello.
We didn’t even get into the Lego, the steaks, the fish fry! That will eventually make it into the cottage video.
A wonderful weekend of firsts. Maybe the next weekend will just be old favourites!
RECORD STORE TALES #1130: If I Had A Million Dollars? A Top Five List
If I had a million dollars Well, I’d buy you a fur coat But not a real fur coat, that’s cruel And if I had a million dollars If I had a million dollars Well, I’d buy you an exotic pet Yep, like a llama or an emu
Fur coats? Exotic pets? No thank you! If I had a million dollars, I’ll tell ya exactly what I’d buy!
1. AV Designhaus Derenville VPM 2010-1
There goes half my money in one shot ($650,000)! What do I get for my money? A belt-driven turntable on a Corian chassis, that rests on four feet that are supported and balanced through an air suspension system. Has an ethernet connection, and a HD-TV camera that monitors the diamond stylus. Why? To watch it on a high resolution monitor and make necessary adjustments. It would probably take two engineers to set up and test; I certainly couldn’t do it myself! I doubt there is much you could do to improve the sound of a vinyl record that this turntable doesn’t already have packed in.
2. Vintage 1982 Nakamichi Dragon 3 Head Autoreverse Cassette Recorder
This one will cost me another $10,000 Canadian, but some consider it the Rolls Royce of tape decks. If you ever wanted to make a tape sound almost as good as a CD, this is the way to do it. It requires tuning, maintenance, and knowledge. But money is no object in this exercise, so why not? Dare I say why not? It’s a sleek, beautiful looking beast of 80s esthetics. Just look at all those buttons and LEDs! Might be more work than it’s worth, but the sound you can get from a high-quality blank tape and this machine are better than what my ears can discern anyway.
3. PS Audio FR30 speakers
$40,000 for the pair. Then I’d need the amplifiers and Paul McGowan himself to set it all up. I’d also need to move into a bigger house. They require a large, neutral listening space. Which I’d like to have anyway! By all accounts, these speakers (when set up correctly) provide a very real sounding experience, as if you’re in the room with the musicians. The low end is supposedly amazing, aided by eight passive radiators. Plus, don’t they just look gorgeous?
4. Iron Maiden – Best of the Beast vinyl(1996)
Needed for just a handful of tracks! A live version of “Revelations”, and technically the Soundhouse Tapes EP. In the condition I want it, it’ll cost me upwards of $1000. Wish I bought it for $300 new when I had the chance back in 1997. It’ll sound as good as CD, over my new AV Designhaus Derenville VPM turntable and PS Audio speakers!
5. Marantz SA-10
May as well grab a new CD transport while I’m at it! This Super Audio player boasts a high-end DAC, and will play files from FLAC to MP3 via a USB stick. It won’t connect easily with your iPhone, which means nothing to me anyway. I’ve always wanted a Super Audio player, so why not go with the best? This will set me back about a grand, and I’ll probably never use most of its features. But that’s what dreaming is all about!
There you go. 500 words on what I could do with a spare million bucks just kicking around. What would you buy? Keep it fun – this is a fantasy exercise, so no need for serious answers. Drop your comment below!
Last summer was different. I felt like I had something to prove. I lost the co-host that was responsible for the lion’s share of my views, and I wanted to pivot back to music. Grab A Stack of Rock was envisioned as an “easy” show, where I didn’t have to do any prep or homework. I was ready to work hard again and I think we did that. We brought back lists and deep dives and the show was so much better for it.
This year is a little different in another way, which is my old co-hosts are occupied. Harrison is busy focusing on his health. Other co-hosts have their own shows now. Others still are focusing on family. I can’t blame them for that. In a way, my show has been a bit like the Alice Cooper backing band. Just as he launched the careers of Kip Winger and many more, my show has launched others into the Youtube-sphere. That show out of Thunder Bay Ontario wouldn’t exist without my rocket boosters. With that in mind, I think this summer will be something of a slowdown.
This week we’re back at the cottage with John Clauser and Metal Roger. It’ll be their first cottage show.
What will the summer bring? Fewer shows perhaps, but Grab A Stack of Rock will still continue, perhaps with a few different faces that we didn’t have last summer. Some familiar ones as well. Grant from the Rock Warehaus wants to hang out on the front porch again this summer. I’m also thinking of doing a midnight outdoors show. We’ll see what the summer has in store, but one thing I don’t need to do is prove anything to anyone. We did that last year and we’re better off for it.
RECORD STORE TALES #1127: Walter – An Uncle Paul story
My Uncle Paul loved his “spot”. It was a comfy armchair at the cottage, right next to the patio screen door, and right in front of the TV. The phone was on an end table right next to it, and fridge was never far, with a fresh supply of cold beer. It was cool, shaded, comfortable, and perfect. On many days he’d prefer to sit there than come down to the beach, or playing cards. Who could blame him? Though we were often elsewhere while Uncle Paul did his thing, he was never alone.
He had Walter.
In reality, there was probably more than one Walter. Chipmunks typically only live two to three years, yet Walter, in one form or another, returned to his screen door year after year, looking for peanuts. There was also a second chipmunk that he named Fang. Doctor Kathryn recalls, “the other chipmunk he fed, he named Fang. Fang had part of his ear missing, and looked really banged up!” He probably ran afoul of a cat or Schnauzer.
We always had loads of chipmunks at the cottage. They’re not a pest, but they’re timid and not very brave by nature. If you left peanuts out (always shelled, unsalted), then you could gradually condition them to come closer and closer. Still, many would cower afar, especially since there were Schnauzers about, and Schnauzers and chipmunks are natural sworn enemies. This rivalry has been documented through history, most notably in the German children’s fable “The Chipmunk that Stole the Schnauzer’s Hat” (“Der Streifenhörnchen, der den Hut des Schnauzers Gestohlen“).
Through patience and time, Uncle Paul had trained little Walter the Chipmunk to come to his screen door and be rewarded with a peanut. The little brown, black and white creature would approach tentatively with caution, grasp a peanut his two front paws, stuff it in his cheeks, and dart off! He scampered across the deck, down to the ground and off into the unknown trees. But he’d be back, minutes later, ready to stuff another peanut in his cheeks. Uncle would always have an ample stash of nuts ready to serve.
This year, Jen and I have been visited by a new chipmunk friend on the front porch. It’s our first summer there since Uncle Paul passed in November. I’ve decided to name him Walter 2, in honour my uncle’s original friend.
It has been a hell of a week. There’s an untold story here; one that I have elected not to tell. Let’s just say I’m out a lot of money, and other setbacks have caused me to take a step back from social media for a few days. Just too much going on for me to deal with in a calm and cool manner. Better to retreat into the shadows a bit.
As always, the Show Must Go On, and so I was determined to do my best on Friday May 17’s Arkells special on Grab A Stack of Rock. It was the first show I’d done without a co-host (just a special guest) in a long while. I felt unprepared despite a whole week of listening. Things came together at the last minute, and all I needed was the new Arkells album, Disco Loadout Volume One, for the show to go right. I planned to spend the afternoon listening to the CD and hoped to open up the autographed clear splatter vinyl live on the show.
The thing about going live is that it’s a double-edged sword. The plus is you get the rush of live viewer feedback, and that sparks the show to be so much more exciting. The negative is that when things go wrong, there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s live for you.
My record was supposed to arrive on May 15. It didn’t. May 16 came and went. Surely, it would be in my mailbox by May 17, the release date. It had to be.
I arrived home from work early on Friday. I raced with my heart pounding to the mailbox. “It’ll be in there,” I reasoned to myself. “Why wouldn’t it be? It has to be.”
It wasn’t.
Furious, I went right to my computer and called up the tracking.
“Good news!” said Canada Post. “Your parcel was delivered to your locked condo mailbox on May 16!”
Umm, no it wasn’t! I picked up the phone. I searched for a phone number. Do you know how hard it is to call Canada Post on the phone and get a human being on the phone? I was completely unsuccessful.
I went ’round and ’round on phone menus for half an hour. I called my local post office, only to go to voicemail after an agonisingly long wait. I swore up and down, and let out a primal yell that would have frightened the upstairs neighbour, had he been home.
I called Encore Records, and fortunately they had CD copies of the album in stock. I ran downtown, grabbed the album from them (and a few other discs as well). I was greeted there by old pal Chris, and I want to thank Encore for saving the day. Once home, I immediately played the album once-and-a-half times, and began my show prep. (I also picked up three other discs – a 4 CD Faster Pussycast set, the new Beatles single “Now and Then“, and the new Ace Frehley 10,000 Volts.)
I wouldn’t be able to open the signed splatter vinyl live on the show, but I filed a report with Canada Post. It was all I could do. There were no other options available. Showing a CD copy wouldn’t be as exciting, but at least I had it in hand and could read the credits while listening.
The show went incredibly well; far better than I expected. This was due to special guest Nurse Kat and her enthusiasm, and to some excellent notes from D’Arcy Briggs. I’m really happy and proud of the show we did together. I’d never attempted to do a show on a new album, on the day of release before. We were treading new ground in multiple ways, and while it almost didn’t work, it ended up being one of the best shows to date. The passion for the music came through.
Two days later, there was a knock on the door. A tall gentleman from down the hall had a parcel for me. It had been delivered to his unit.
How this happened, I’ll never understand but someone at Canada Post wrote the number “103” on the parcel. Even though my correct unit number was written clearly on the parcel where the address was, this scribbled “103” put my parcel in the tall man’s mailbox. Fortunately he is one of the good ones, and not all of them are. Just this week, an upstairs neighbour had an expensive Amazon parcel opened and stolen. It’s not a good feeling to have mail thieves in our building, but I have been victim twice before. I’m glad this wasn’t the third time.
Even though I didn’t get to unbox it live, Peter Kerr from Rock Daydream Nation was kind enough to join me for a quick look at a beautiful record. It looks as great as it sounds.
And so the week of stress comes to a happy ending. The other bit of good news is that the social media hiatus was a good idea. I went on a writing bender like never before. Expect loads of reviews this spring and summer.
Thank you to the guy down the hall, to Peter Kerr, to D’Arcy Briggs, and to Nurse Kat for turning this potential disaster story into one of triumph!
“I want to do something new this weekend,” goes the eternal complaint. Even with Lake Huron in front of us, and a lush green paradise all around, sometimes I still moan about doing the same things every weekend.
There is so much you can do, but only a couple days to do it all. It’s easy to fall into comfortable habits and just…relax. However, the cottage is too special to just relax. Surely, I’ve had some of the best sleeps of my life there, but you don’t want to sleep your day away, as easy as it can be.
As always, we started the trip on the front porch. We always like to listen to music on our night of arrival, as the sun sets. This time, we chose Prince’s Purple Rain, which I didn’t own last year. This music was new to the cottage, and it was an absolutely incredible experience. I danced around the porch to “Computer Blue”, but the sun was setting just as Prince began singing about the “Purple Rain”. It was a surreal experience hearing Prince sing “Ooo, ooo, ooo,” as the orange and pink clouds slowly let the sun sink beneath the horizon. It felt like Prince was there in the forest somewhere, just out of sight.
New thing #1 achieved: “Purple Rain” at sunset.
We always like to experiment with food. Believe it or not, we have not made homemade burgers at the lake in decades. Why? My dad used to hate cooking them, as they’d fall to pieces on the grill. Not anymore. Thanks to a tip from my good buddy Thuss, we now are making our own homemade burgers. The secret: Freeze them. Once frozen, those patties stay together and do no break apart. For our first batch, this was our successful blend:
Lean beef (Jen wanted extra lean but I said no)
Ground thick cut bacon
1 egg
Bread Crumbs
Parmesan flakes
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Chili flakes
Minced fresh garlic
Minced fresh onion
Ketchup
Mustard
Olive oil
I don’t know how much of that we could actually taste, but it was fun and the result was juicy and perfect. And then next batch is already in the freezer waiting to be cooked up, with a new set of ingredients including local beef.
New thing #2 achieved: Perfect homemade burgers on the grill.
But wait, there’s more! Thanks to a new, deep cast iron frying pan, we also fried our own french fries. No more oven baked fries, or air fries! Only the real deal. They were crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and perfect all around.
New thing #3 achieved: Golden brown french fries.
To quote ZZ Top: I AM your burger man.
“My charcoal’s getting red hot, Put your order in my hand, Won’t you let me show you what I got, Sizzling in the pan.”
I woke up on the Saturday morning as I often do, bright and early. It was damp and cold with not a single human to be seen, myself excluded. It’s a good time to spot wildlife. There have been bears in the area, but I did not see one. Instead, I saw a red canid coming up the path from the beach. A fox? I had not seen our local fox up there in at least a year. This animal had the gait of a fox, but not the bushy red and white tail. This animal had a thin, bony tail, and its frame was larger than a fox.
It was a coyote. My first coyote sighting, ever. I’ve heard them at night, but never seen one in the fur before.
New thing #4 achieved: Coyote sighting!
I knew there was no way I’d be able to grab my phone in time. I simply watched the confident, unafraid animal stroll down our little dirt road as if he was the only one in the world.
Of course, all of this would pale in comparison to the Aurora Borealis. I’d never seen the Northern Lights before. I did my best to describe the experience, but words and pictures do not capture the awe. It felts as if we were all under a huge electric dome. It is something I’ll never forget even if I never see it again. It began suddenly and dimly, before the lights were all you could see anywhere, in every direction. The lights reflected off the waters, and created beautiful patterns in the ripples.
New thing #5 achieved: Aurora Borealis
New experiences are not always possible at the lake, nor are they always necessary. Sometimes it’s enough to just sit on the porch and watch the days go by. After 52 years of coming to the exact same location, to have so many new sights, sounds and flavours in one weekend was unexpected.
The cottage is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get!
52 years of coming to the cottage, since my very birth, and there are still new things to see.
I used to think I was too far south to ever see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis). Certainly it has never happened before. However, we are heading into a Solar Maximum, which means a high point in the sun’s 11 year cycle of activity. The sun’s magnetic field is a twisty turny-thing, and every 11 years, it gets twisted up into an increasingly excited state, and the sun ejects massive eruptions of particles into the surrounding space. When our Earth eventually collides with the charged particles, they create brilliant shows of light in the sky. There are both northern and southern borealis, and in northern Canada, people can see the lights easily. Where I live in the southern tip, we never see the lights!
May 10, around 10:15 PM, the lights came to visit the shores of Lake Huron.
Jen and I headed down to the beach, as the Boston Bruins were getting mauled by the Florida Panthers. I kept my eyes north, assuming that was where I would see the lights. Disappointed, I shouted back at Jen, “There’s nothing yet.”
I noticed something as I looked back at her. The sky was “hazy”,
“Is that it?” I asked Jen as I looked straight up. There was a cloudy streak across the sky.
Then I looked south and saw the horizon glowing green. The northern lights were not coming from the north! They were all around us, in every direction, like a glowing curtain! It was not at all what I expected to see.
The light show peaked for about 15 minutes, on a very cold night. The lights shifted and changed, ever so slowly, so that you barely noticed. You could stare at a band of green until it faded and was suddenly replaced by swirls of red. The moon was a sharp crescent and it cut a hole through a band of green, as did a handful of bright stars.
Photographs and videos, of course, only tell part of the story, and only insofar as technology can capture. The real colours and the subtle wispy cloudy bands we saw are lost in photos.
Directly overhead appeared to be the center of it all. Radiating out from a central point were bands of cloudy white, like a celestial starfish. Jen and I pondered this and wondered if the solar particles were hitting at that point.
I wish I had been listening to “Purple Rain” at that moment. It did almost look like purple rain at times.
Jen and I had a moment on the previous night, listening to “Purple Rain” during sunset. It was an uplifting, somewhat surreal moment to hear Prince soloing and singing over the sight of the glowing sky. Imagine if we had it playing during the borealis!
The bone-chilling cold of the Kincardine night cut our visit short, but I can now say I’ve seen the Northern Lights.
I never say this, but this time it’s true: Our first weekend at the cottage was absolutely perfect. Without a hitch. Exactly as planned, right down to the last detail. And loaded with new music!
The road trip began at 5:15 on Thursday night, April 25. Traffic was heavy, but not as heavy as the music! (We may need to look for another route out of town next time, as it took us almost half an hour just to escape Kitchener.) I had decided early in the week that the first road album of 2024 had to be Invincible Shield by Judas Priest! I had no doubt it would be one of the best road albums of the year. So confident was I, that I packed up my copy for Friday night’s Grab A Stack of Rock – Top 11 Albums to Play with the Windows Down. And I was right. “Crown of Horns” was the singalong track, though there were no duds. The album comes to a natural close on “Giants in the Sky” which has a classic Priest ending, but it’s not over yet! The bonus tracks give you a little extra road play, with a second ending in “The Lodger”. Brilliant album that kept us energized for the drive.
Priest couldn’t take us the whole way. When the Invincible Shield had ended, we moved onto Bruce Dickinson’s Mandrake Project. I haven’t had the time to absorb it yet, but Jen really enjoyed the album as we pulled down our little dirt road and into the driveway.
Everything was exactly as I left it back in October.
Taking my speakers out of storage, and making myself comfortable on the cool front deck, I chose the first porch album of the season. I didn’t want something as heavy rocking. Nor did I want something mellow and acoustic. This calls for the Arkells!
“We got gas in the tank to go all night,” sang Max Kerman from my porch. I danced away to this perfect evening. Rally Cry is the album I connected with the least last summer, being more political and less personal. This time it hit all the right spots, scratched all the itches, and began the season on the right note.
Jen noticed that I was joking around and more giddy than usual.
“Because I’m happy,” I said. “I feel alive again. This is what I had been waiting for.”
Friday was forecast as a summery, sunny day. We started early by picking up the first steaks of the season at the Beefway. We chose one porterhouse and one ribeye. This is our place to buy meat. There’s nobody better around. We stocked up on fish, pies, bacon and cooking oil. I had duck for lunch, and hot dogs and hamburgers in the evening.
For now, it was time for the main event: the first Grab A Stack of Rock from the cottage! It was a 3 PM afternoon show, and Jex was on board with his Top 11 Road Songs, in contrast to my album picks. Once again, everything went really well! Though Jex was late with work (the only unscripted thing about it), it will go down as one of my favourite shows ever. The roaring fire in the background was something new. I love playing with my visual setting, on Grab A Stack of Rock, at the cottage. Thank you Jex for an amazing start to the year. I hope we can do more, but even if we can’t, I got to do the fireside show that I had hoped for. Scratch that off the list.
The rain began Saturday, but it only got warmer. Another day on the front porch was in order, but first we went into town to see what was new.
We hit up a thrift store. I keep seeing all these guys on Facebook buying everything they can at thrift stores. I don’t know what they do with the CDs afterwards. Do their play their new Trisha Yearwood albums? Do they try and flip them? I found nothing in the gospel and country that they had, except for one signed CD by an unknown artist. The Facebook people would have bought them all; I chose none. I don’t buy for investment and I don’t really need a lot of music “on spec” when I barely have time to enjoy what I own.
Saturday was a weird day. It’s hard to explain exactly what happened, but as the day went on the feeling got more intense. I was having Deja Vu feelings every few minutes. It wasn’t specific memories, just…overall feelings. They were usually centered around people from my childhood, but I don’t know why. I would be cooking steaks in the back yard, and having Deja Vu feelings from grade school, but I was unable to nail down any specific memories. It was just a weird feeling like, “I have done this before,” but unable to identify a specific memory. I just felt like it was childhood. It intensified at dinner time. Perhaps the aromas of the cooking brought me back to Saturday dinners at the table, with steak and corn. Our steaks were perfect.
I mentioned earlier that everything went down without a hitch. That is not entirely true….
The Toronto Maple Leafs shit the bed. We shall not discuss this. It is not a good subject.
Otherwise, everything went perfect. I was starting to feel sad on Sunday morning, as I did the dishes and packed my bags up. Deciding what to bring back home and what to leave behind, I felt sad.
“Not this time,” I said, and I fought it back.
We played Kiss on the way home. Unmasked, Rock and Roll Over, and Asylum. These albums of childhood happiness drove the sadness away, and I woke up Monday morning feeling good.
This year’s first weekend at the cottage was a diametric contrast to 2023, which ended prematurely when I decided to go home early.
2023’s first weekend began with anxiety, as my former co-host was focused only on her solo show, and did not seem to care at all what I was doing. That weekend was not just supposed to be my return to the lake, but also hers. This is where we met (online) and bonded. I could not wait to return and do it again. She couldn’t seem more disinterested. She began stripping online that weekend, and I knew the friendship was all but over. I knew that was a road I could not follow, and I knew she wanted me to, even though she refused to come right out and say it. The writing was on the wall, that cold and rainy weekend. Within seven days, the friendship had ended, as I knew it would. She would never join me at the cottage again, even though we had spent six months planning it.
Not this time.
2024 is off to the right start. Even if Jex can’t do as many summer shows with me this year, we accomplished what we set out to do. An amazing weekend was had. The music we road tested passed the gauntlet, and we are ready to get on with the summer.
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