RECORD STORE TALES #1022: Langer the F@ckin’ Wanger
In grades seven and eight of grade school, I was just trying to survive. It was a waiting game now, a trial of perseverance. At the end of grade eight, I would be out of there. My sister Kathryn called it the “Hell Hole”, which is pretty messed up when you think about it, at the ages we were. Just kids. But I only had to survive two more grades and I was done. I’d start fresh at Grand River Collegiate Institute and leave the Hell Hole behind me, forever. Those kids would mostly all be going to a different school, and I’d be with Bob Schipper, whose massive frame intimidated every bully around.
I tended to cautiously keep to myself and a handful of people that I thought I could trust a little bit. Recess was usually pretty bad. Killing 15 minutes in the cold, while trying to stay out of the attention of other kids. It was a lonely existence but survivable.
One afternoon I was out minding my own business by the baseball diamond when the school’s wildest bully, Langer, grabbed me by the throat and threw me down onto the benches.
“I heard what you called me!” he yelled in my face. He had a sidekick, a face I can’t remember, the Grover Gill to his Scut Farkus, except very real and not at all funny. I remember his Grover standing behind him smiling as he choked me.
“I called you Langer,” I recalled as I tried to speak.
“No you didn’t,” he menaced. “You called me Langer the fuckin’ wanger!”
“I did?” I said puzzled. His friend laughed behind him.
“Yeah you did! Say you’re sorry,” he threatened.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
He let me fall to the ground. Nobody came to help, no teachers saw and no students cared.
“I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here,” I thought to myself as I counted the months in my head.
In eighth grade I saw him attack a much smaller kid, a sixth or seventh grader with a lisp. Rock Hudson had just died of AIDS, and AIDS jokes were all the rage with the bullies that year. The funny thing is, we had sex ed that year and the teacher asked the class if we knew what AIDS was. Nobody knew exactly. “It makes you old,” was the closest guess any of them had. But sure, go ahead bullies, make AIDS jokes. They just equated AIDS with gay, as bullies often do.
Langer grabbed this smaller kid and demanded, “Say you’re Rock Hudson!” The kid didn’t know what that meant and said so.
“SAY YOU’RE ROCK HUDSON!” repeated Langer.
“Hudsthon” said the kid, enough to satisfy Langer to release him.
Langer was actually one of the few bullies who did follow me to highschool. However, his selection of classes were physically separated from most of mine, plus Bob was there, and Langer kept his distance when Bob was around. One day he did have a try, but I found him easy to dodge.
“Hey Ladano!” he said I entered the computers lab. “Did you masturbate this weekend?”
“No,” I answered quickly, “But you did.” I had never come up with a one-liner so fast before. I was proud of myself.
I felt his hand grab the back of my shirt as he pulled me out of the classroom and back into hall.
“You’re dead! Today after school!” he threatened.
“Fine!” I said in defiance.
“We meet where you parked your bike, after class!”
“Sure!” I answered.
I walked to school that day; I didn’t ride my bike and didn’t need to go to the bike racks to get home. I just exited through a different door and walked home as normal. Langer never followed up and that was my last encounter with Langer the fuckin’ wanger. The last of the schoolyard bullies, faded away forever.
RECORD STORE TALES #1021: Closing Time! Last Cottage Video of 2022
Jen and I were Highway Stars! Rocking to Deep Purple, live in Copenhagen 1972, we reveled in the joys of jamming, intense improvisation, and hard rock and roll. The perfect accompaniment to our last cottage road trip of 2022. Before we knew it we had arrived at our destination. It may look a little different in the fall, but there is still no place I’d rather spend my weekend.
There was a different kind of beauty this time. Fewer leaves, fewer animals. You could see through the trees, a feeling I was not used to, especially when partaking in the O.D.P. (Out Door Piss). When we were kids, we never made it to the lake in November nor did we want to. It was always far too cold and the snow would have started. Not anymore.
It was unseasonably warm, and within minutes I was in short sleeves and short pants again, just as I was all summer. This is November? I set up on the front porch with more Deep Purple, Ozzy, Dio, and Black Sabbath. It was an utterly brilliant day of rocking the shores of Lake Huron. Then on the Friday night, we went live with the Mad Metal Man and the second episode of Grab A Stack of Rock. A brilliant way to end the season.
Our weekend was quiet and fun, including lots of outdoor rock and roll with board games, a dinner at Boston Pizza (since the barbecue is packed up for the winter) and even a step into Lake Huron. A first for the month of November! We drove home to the music of Black Sabbath (Dehumanizer and Cross Purposes) to put the final nail in the coffin of 2022’s cottage season. For me personally, since this season stretched from late April to early November, it was one of the longest seasons, if not the longest ever. And it couldn’t have gone any better! 2022 was a triumphant season in virtually every way, and we sure did enjoy it.
My dad found the end of this video a tad too emotional! We all miss the place and hate leaving!
I was talking to a friend of mine on Friday about wieners and balls. She receives a lot of unsolicited pictures of wieners on social media and I thought to myself, “Who does that?” A lot of people, it seems. I vowed to never be one of those people.
Saturday morning at the cottage was beautiful. Still dark at 5 am, but unseasonably warm. The trees make really creepy creeking sounds in the morning silence. It was awesome! I decided to make a video for my friend. Walking around outside in my Crocs and undies at 5 in the morning in November seemed like a good subject for a video. I made a video, walked down to the beach in my Crocs, stepped into the water (never done that before in November!) and headed back up to the cottage.
Just as I was about to hit “send” I thought to myself, “You know, I better make sure nothing popped out of my undies in this video…”
Needless to say, I never hit send! Yes, something popped out of my shorts and there was no need for anyone to see that! Saved myself from sending unsolicited dick pics though!
Early 2006. Jen and I had been dating a few months, and I was placed at a brand new job at United Rentals in Cambridge. Things were looking up! I escaped the hell hole that was the Record Store, the office Bully had lost all her power over me, and I had met the girl that I knew I was going to stick with. Life was coming together! It was during this glowing golden time that I briefly met and fell in love with Lil’ Buddy.
We were out walking one cold Sunday in the neighbourhood when a little stray puppy with no tags strolled up to us wagging his little tail. We greeted him and looked around for his human. There was no-one around. The little guy kept following us. We didn’t know what else to do. We brought him home and gave him some water and warmth. I just fell for the little guy immediately. He was so friendly, affectionate and quiet. I named him Lil’ Buddy. We spent a few hours with him before doing what had to be done.
It was the hardest thing to do, but the only right thing to do. We bundled him up into the car and took him to the humane society. It was very emotional for me, and I asked them, please please call me if he is not claimed. He would have a loving home with us. I didn’t know how I was going to handle a dog in my little apartment but I didn’t care. I’d figure it out. The little guy had won my heart.
I waited a couple days, and then called the humane society on my lunch break. It was bittersweet to find out that Lil’ Buddy had been claimed. I was glad that he found his human, but I was really hoping he could have stayed. Apparently Lil’ Buddy belonged to an elderly woman, so she certainly needed his company more than I did. I’m sure she loved him very much. How could she not?
We only spent a few hours with him, but I’ll never forget Lil’ Buddy. We had a very special Sunday afternoon together. We could have been friends. He was very special.
RECORD STORE TALES #1018: Surfing the October Colours (Cottage Video)
The last cottage weekend before closing was totally maxed out! And I don’t mean Max the Axe!
Life is too short. It must be lived to the fullest. When you and I first met here at mikeladano.com, I was 10 years younger. Spending four hours on a Saturday pounding words into a keyboard was nothing back then. Today I’d rather be experiencing life. So that’s what we did. From music to food to photography, we enjoyed our last weekend at the cottage before closing, to the max!
The music for the road was top notch. Ghost’s new album Impera received another spin. It’s as good as the day it was released. Then while hanging out in the “G” folder, we rocked out George Lynch’s debut solo album, Sacred Grooves. Better than any of the Lynch Mob albums. It also enabled me to teach Jen a little bit about the mighty Glenn Hughes. His struggles and triumphs. On the road home, we rocked David Lee Roth’s Eat ‘Em and Smile and Your Filthy Little Mouth. A pretty solid selection of guitar rock.
The fall colours were spectacular. Orange, yellow, deep maroon. As you are all well aware, I am not usually a “fall guy”. This year has been a little different. I have a friend in California who finds all this Canadian weather beautiful and fascinating. For her, I enjoyed documenting the weekend with video tours and personal messages. It totally made this fall weekend a different experience for me. It was like seeing the place through new eyes. And this is now going to be part of my wellness plan for winter. She wants me to continue sending her fun videos and pictures of the Canadian landscape during the snowy months. I checked my phone — do you know how many pictures of snow I had from past winters? Two. TWO. I have photos on my phone going back to 2014, and I only have two with snow in them. With her enthusiasm and encouragement, I’m going to have fun documenting the winter of 2022-2023! I’ve never had this before — a friend in a sunny climate who has requested Canadian snow videos! On the condition that I stay safe and don’t crash my car or break my neck! This gives me a whole new project to do this winter, that I never had before. I feel very positive about going into the cold, dark winter months.
I’m recovering well from my dental surgery and ate two steaks this weekend! They were awesome! As were all the fish and mushrooms I cooked up. No A5 wagyu in stock at the butcher’s shop though. That will have to wait until next year, I suppose.
We did something else different that we haven’t done in recent years. We went into town! I took some video of the big waves, a daring surfer, and some quaint streets. Something new for this video.
Please enjoy this last cottage video before we close — all to the music of Tee Bone Erickson and Max the Axe!
It certainly seems appropriate that my first album post-surgery is Lick It Up!
Tom Petty would have worked as well, since “The Waiting Is the Hardest Part”. That was certainly true. I woke up at 3 AM this morning and I was raring to go. I got a couple more hours’ sleep after that, but was up again well before 6 AM just wanting to get on with the day. Get it over with!
Extraction was scheduled for 8 AM. Dr. McCann’s office in Kitchener Waterloo — nothing but praise. Fantastic people. Wonderful nurses, terrific doctor. I said “I’m probably in the top ten chickens you’ve ever had.” No problem.
I sat down in the chair. They attached all the monitors and accoutrements. I asked if I looked cool.
The IV going in was the hardest part. They said there were a few stages to the drugs, and first they would take the edge off the anxiety. I asked the nurse to just keep talking to me. We talked about my work, she kept asking me interested questions. And that’s the last thing I remember.
I don’t even really remember waking up. I remember being light on my feet with a face stuffed full of gauze. I remember feeling confident to stand, and then to slowly walk. By the time I was in the car, I was talking slowly but back to my old self.
I’ve been sitting here chillaxing at my parents’ house today, tired but not sleepy. My dad made me a nice lunch of orzos. Tonight my mom is making home made mac n’ cheese. We watched Spiderman: No Way Home together. My dad thought the idea of three Spidermen was kind of goofy; he only likes Tobey. My mom seemed to understand most of it. I had fun.
It has been about six hours since I left the dentist and I’m still really frozen.
I have this awesome Optimus Prime set to build. I’ll save it for when I’m back in my own home. I’m a little swollen. I was hoping for more actually!
I really don’t give a shit what people say. “Oh it’s no big deal, I had a tooth out last week.” Well to me it’s a big deal. I’ve had teeth out before too, but never so seriously that they are advising five days of complete rest afterwards. Five days seems serious, right?
I was advised to treat myself to something nice to look forward to after the surgery, so after a lacklustre trip to Toys R Us (which apparently Rob Daniels didn’t know could be shortened to TRU!) I placed an Amazon order. And I ordered this sexy beast of a set.
It’s the first ever fully transformable Lego set, and it’s Optimus Prime himself. This toy has been getting (mostly) rave reviews so I decided this should be my get-well present to keep myself occupied. It has been about 15 years since I last purchased a Lego set. It will be fun to see how much the system has changed since I was into it.
So that was Sunday. Monday was a bit of a shit-show. Jen had three seizures, two of them in bed. I barely slept last night, but I made it through work today and now I’m off until next week. Poor girl really suffered yesterday. I worry about taking care of her during recovery. My parents will be pitching in to help since I won’t be able to do it all by myself.
I’ve been lucky to have plenty of support from friends. They know who they are!
Tomorrow’s the day. I’m scheduled for 8 AM. If I can, I will update you as soon as possible. I would like to record funny videos of swollen cheeks and muffled speech but I guess we shall see what I’m in for.
As a kid, I had heard of Coney Hatch but never particularly paid attention. MuchMusic rarely included their tunes on the Pepsi Power Hour for unknown reasons. I probably heard “Hey Operator” but nothing else by the band. Timing was not in their favour with me. I wasn’t even into heavy rock yet when their first two albums came out. No wonder they passed me by. By the time I dove head-first into rock music on December 26 1984, I had already missed most of their career. Ironically though, Coney Hatch did have a song on the metal album that I heard that day, which was Masters of Metal II and “Hey Operator”.
Fast forward to summer 1990, and a hot “new” singer was making waves on MuchMusic. I didn’t really know who this Andy Curran guy was, but my best friend Bob loved his song “No Tattoos”. Bob was pretty anti-tattoo and felt that the coolest way was to have clean skin. He really identified with Andy’s lyrics. “No tattoos, gotta stay cool, my mama never raised no fool.”
Personally speaking I loved Motley Crue and their tattoo sleeves. I didn’t identify with “No Tattoos” the way Bob did. “I didn’t listen…I was scarred for life. And I couldn’t just stop at one!” That whole “scarred for life” line was one Bob really liked. It was a good song and I liked it, but it didn’t resonate with me like it did with Bob. So again, this Andy Curran guy slipped out of my mind when the single was over.
Suddenly, the Hatch had a new live album up for pre-order. Their first release in ages and ages. I decided it was time to finally take the plunge with Coney Hatch, and I’m glad I did. Live at the El Mocambo is one of my favourite live albums now! And I got in on the ground floor with it, limited signed copy: 19 of 300.
And then we landed an interview with Andy Curran! At this point I had to cram so I bought all the Rock Candy reissues of the Coney Hatch albums, and the self-titled Andy Curran. The “No Tattoos” record, as he calls it. Interview prep is serious business, and I did the best I could in the given amount of time. But I didn’t want to fake it. When I found myself vis-a-vis with Andy Curran, I fessed up. I was new. I was a Coney Hatch rookie who had done his best crash course in a band that I was growing to love.
And Andy was so cool about it. In fact he came back two more times to complete our chat and answer every question we had.
Better late than never — check out Andy and some Coney hatch today.
Although I keep complaining about views being down, therefore ad revenues also being down, I have turned down an advertising opportunity for this site. Normally this would not be anything to write an article about, but something about it didn’t feel right from the start. Sharing my experience with readers might offer some interesting insight.
I have done paid “advertorials” in the past. Most notably, I received an offer from someone representing Guns N’ Roses to post a “review roundup” by a guest author. No problem. We agreed on a price and I was sent a well-written article with links. I posted it and the client was happy. I posted it as a guest editorial, since I didn’t write it. No issue from the Guns camp. Everyone was happy. (I had another advertorial offer from Kiss but I was on hiatus at that time.)
I frequently get offers to run ads for online casinos and other things that have nothing to do with music. I have always turned them down. This site is supposed to be about music, but it’s so schizophrenic topic-wise that I don’t want to make it worse by running articles about online gambling. Easy to say no to those, regardless of the money involved.
This week I received another offer from a search engine optimization company based out of India. The email was from a “Digital Marketing Executive”.
“I just landed on your blog fanpage ‘MikeLeBrain’ and was wondering if you’re accepting guest posts on your blog,” he asked.
I’m not sure what “blog fanpage” he was asking about, but I responded yes, I am accepting music-related guest posts. I let him know my rate in US dollars and he responded in the positive. He said the article will be well written, and according to my “blog theme”. But there were some conditions that we didn’t have with the Kiss or Guns N’ Roses offer. Some that bothered me included:
2) Links should be Dofollow – 1 Client link, 1 internal link, and 2 High authority links.
I don’t know what those terms mean and I didn’t get any clarification.
3) The post must be on the homepage for some time and it should be accessible from the home page (via a relevant category).
As readers know, I post daily. Not every article I post is going to be accessible from the home page forever. Generally people use the search function to find a relevant review. This condition made me uncomfortable.
Now here’s the kicker.
4) Article should not be marked as a sponsored post, paid post, guest post, etc.
That was a dealbreaker. Guns N’ Roses was clearly a guest post. They had no issues with that. If I didn’t write it, it’s automatically a guest post. That’s what guest post means.
I then responded that I had to decline their offer. The guest post issue was the problem. I explained that I had to mark a guest post as such. I’m not going to have someone else write words and then claim that they’re mine. No way. Absolutely no way.
I believe I made the right decision. The executive ignored my declining email, and continued on.
“We will send you all the details before sending the articles like topic, anchor text and client link for approval. After the article is written we will send to you for review. We do not want our post to be marked with any kind of disclosure. You can publish the article under your writer name, or our writer name.”
For the second time, I declined. It did not feel right.
“As I said before, I have passed on this. Not the right fit. Sorry,” I responded.
Here’s what really sticks in my craw: “You can publish the article under your writer name.”
No way. Absolutely no way. I’m not putting your words down as if they were mine. No. Way.
Sure, he added “or our writer name” but to not post it as a guest post? Just strange. Nothing about this felt right regardless of the money. I know I made the right decision, even if I’m losing out on money. My integrity is worth more than that.
RECORD STORE TALES #1013: “Joey” – The Joey Tempest Conspiracy, 7 Years Later
I think with the distance of seven years, we can finally put the Joey Tempest Conspiracy Theory to bed. “What conspiracy,” you ask? It all started in March of 2015 when a writer friend of mine, Tommy Morais, contributed an excellent review of the Europe album, War of Kings. He rated it 4/5 stars, and said “I praise Europe for giving us a true great hard rock record in 2015”. You’d think there was nothing controversial about Tommy’s review, but on June 13 of that year…everything changed.
A reader going by the name “Carrieanne” dropped a massive, monolithic comment one morning, explaining that Joey Tempest was no longer in fact Joey Tempest. He had been replaced by a doppleganger. A satanic one at that. According to Carrieanne, “since the middle of 1989, the real Joey Tempest is not in this band, and Joey was truly the only one who has made this group huge with his talents, awesomeness and uniqueness!! And since 26 years, there’s such a horrible imposter and liar in this ‘group’, that’s not the real Joey Tempest!!”
“The real Joey Tempest had to leave the group because of this horrible liar!! It’s so obvious and so clear to see that it’s just someone different (unless you’re blind and deaf, like bunch of ignorants [sic]).” On and on it goes, a massive diatribe praising Joey, attacking the fans who enabled the replacement’s acceptance, and of course, religious weirdness. “You are worshipping the devil!!!” said Carrieanne. But all is not lost. The real Joey, one day, will come back. There’s a really messianic angle to this whole comment. Carrieanne ties the lyrics to “Danger on the Track” and “The Final Countdown” to a prophecy of this great replacement, like biblical verse.
“Are you on drugs?” asked Jompa Wilmenius, of E-Tainment News. Reader Derek commented, “I can see you made the mistake of spilling meth into your coffee this morning champ.”
You can’t help but see similarities to conspiracy theories today. I’m reminded of Romana Didulo, a woman who claims to be the “Queen of Canada”. Canada already has a monarch and his name is Charles III, but I digress. Tens of thousands of followers legitimately believe Didulo to be the legitimate Queen of Canada, as she tours the country in a beat up RV and feeds her followers tins of sardines. And just like with Queen Romana, acolytes of the weird soon emerged to talk about Joey Tempest. Things got even weirder.
Admittedly, this next part is kind of my fault. With co-writer 1537, we cooked up a parody review of War of Kings, playing up the whole replacement angle. For example, we wrote: “Just look at the songs here! ‘Children of the Night’. The real Joey would never have written a song about ‘children of the night’, ‘California 405’ is the highway that O.J. Simpson was chased down – a definite clue that there was something more going on here than meets the eye! Why would Europe specifically reference that notorious highway unless they were implying some sort of wrongdoing behind the scenes?”
We guffawed and high-fived and hoped Carrieanne would drop another bizarre comment. That is not exactly what happened.
We laughed some more, as one person clearly did not get the joke. We thought it was pretty obvious. With lines such as “Joey would NEVER let his hair go flat like that, wake up people,” I really did think it was an obvious joke post.
We mocked Doreen a bit, but then shortly after, a new player entered the field. Miranda, claiming to be Joey’s wife, also did not get the joke. “Must post fast since I’m sure the guys in white coats [are] coming for ya,” she said. Miranda claimed to have Joey Tempest’s birth certificate, marriage certificate, childrens’ birth certificates, and a DNA report. (I’m not sure what good a DNA report will do us.)
I followed Miranda to her YouTube channel, where she goes by the name “TheMirandaTempest”. On this page, she has poorly dubbed her vocals onto classic Europe ballads, to create fake “duets” with her “husband” Joey. Joey’s wife, incidentally, was also publicly known to be Lisa Worthington, not somebody named Miranda. So now, we had two different delusions. We had Carrieanne who said Joey Tempest was replaced by a satanic doppleganger in some bizarre conspiracy. Now we also had Miranda, who was posing as Joey’s wife online. And things would get even weirder still.
We know now that there was at least one Facebook page posing as Joey Tempest at that time. Imposters, of the online variety, were of actual concern. You can see why as we go on.
As Miranda’s comment was thoroughly mocked by readers, others came to her defence. Doreen claimed again she knew the real Joey Tempest, but I think the person she knew was probably that fake Joey on Facebook. Once she realized that several commenters were trying to explain the joke to her, she became angry. She did not find it funny. Neither did Joey Tempest, or his wife, she claimed.
Ironically, I had heard from Jompa Wilmenius that the real John Levén of Europe did find it funny.
Soon, Doreen’s partner Billy Low entered the fray.
“Joakim Larsson [Joey’s real name] and his wife are personal friends of mine. They are also personal friends of my partner. We ask him to do cover versions of songs for us, which he does. We also met him recently. A fake? Plastic surgery? Don’t make me laugh! Are you one of those who is going to write a book about this, hoping to make money? If so, forget that idea. Anyone with even a shred of common sense would know that what you are claiming is pure fabrication. If l wasn’t so furious about this, l can assure you that l would laugh my head off!”
They met him recently. They. Met. Him. Recently. Whooboy. His wife Miranda…”You read what Joey’s wife has said on here,” said Billy Low. The person claiming to be his wife, who is not his wife, because his wife was Lisa Worthington, you mean.
It’s really easy to understand how the Queen of Canada has followers when you see stuff like this. She’s told her followers not to pay their bills, as Canada is illegitimate. She is the Queen, and she says don’t pay your bills. So these Canadians — homeowners! — are having their electricity turned off. This is happening as we speak. And they believe in their Queen even harder.
The very active comments section rolled on, with one comparing the situation to Matthew Trippe who claimed to be Nikki Sixx at one point.
From the comments’ IP addresses, I learned the following. Billy and Doreen didn’t even live on the same continent as Miranda, so I’m not sure how they are close personal friends. Carrieann was in Poland, and had the same IP address as another commenter “Someone X”. It was all so very strange.
Strange, yet in the context of what we see in the world today, pretty tame stuff. Nobody’s losing their house because they think Joey was replaced by a satanic lookalike, or because they pose as Joey’s wife online. As least, we hope they don’t.
Billy Low accused me of making the story up to write a book and make money. While that was certainly untrue, I admittedly did milk the posts for hits as much as I could. They were very popular! One or more of the Joey Tempest posts tended to stay in the top 10 for hits, for a long time. I won’t apologize for that. Entertaining the masses can be a thankless job. I probably earned enough in advertizing dollars from the Joey posts to buy a few coffees. Sue me, Billy!
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