Record Store Tales

#980.5: The Adventures of an Anxious Walmart Shopper on Easter Saturday

“Hey Jen, if you’re up early enough, let’s go to Walmart tomorrow morning.  I want to look for that new Coke,” I said stupidly, not thinking about what weekend it was.

“Sure,” she agreed, and that’s how it ended up that we left for Walmart at 9:45 on Easter Saturday morning.

The “new Coke” I was referring to is “Coca Cola with Coffee”, available in three different brews:  Caramel, Dark, and Vanilla.  I want to try all three.  I was a big fan of Coca Cola Blaq about 15 years ago, their first attempt to mass market a coffee/Coke hybrid.  Coke Blaq was delicious, like regular Coke but with the extra note of coffee bean.  I’m eager to try these new ones.  Coke Blaq came in a small black bottle in these come in cans, which makes me wonder if they are similar to those creamy coffee beverages, with a Coke taste?  Or something more like Coca Cola Blaq?  Inquiring minds wanted to do, and I had heard that these were showing up in Walmart stores.

Walmart was already pretty busy and then I smacked myself and realized, “Of it is.”  Ah well.

I wore an N95 mask this time; my first time.  Easy breathing but hard on the ears.  If I’m wearing one long term I’ll have to do something about the ears.  About 75% of Walmart shoppers were masked, and 100% of the staff.  This is good since virtually everybody I know has Covid, or has had a recent close brush.  I can’t believe this is my third Covid Easter.

First I made my way to the entertainment section where I picked up the newest Blue Rodeo album, Many A Mile.  On slide guitar, The Sheepdogs’ own Jimmy Bowskill, once a child prodigy discovered by Jeff Healey at age 11.  Blue Rodeo are one of those bands where I just want to own all the albums, and stay current, even if the last five or six albums have been good but not memorable.  There’s never anything wrong with ’em.  Many A Mile is as good as any.  In some regards, it’s a throwback to the classic first three Blue Rodeo albums.  Lots of awesome guitar work and hooks.  Just gets hard to remember the songs, record after record after record.

Also found in the music department were the new albums by Slash and Greta Van Fleet, but I found myself staring indifferently at them.  I didn’t even know Greta had a new album out.  Have they already dropped off the radar that badly?

Come on, where are you Spiderman: No Way Home?  Not in stock – sold out!  They had a three-fer with all three MCU Spidey films in one, but I wanted something with the bonus features that I crave.  Ah well, next time, I’ll get you Spiderman!

Finally a trip to the toy section.  No Marvel Legends figures at all, and only a couple Star Wars Black Series.  They were well stocked in Transformers and I noticed they had some reissue Beast Wars toys.  Hard to believe Beast Wars was 25 years ago.  I never bought an original Beast Wars toy, and wanted to give one of these reissues a shot.  They only had Optimus Primal and Megatron, so obviously I chose the dinosaur.  Beast Wars has always been an enigma to me.  When it was new, the toys seemed to barely transform.  The cartoon was very primitive in terms of computer animation.  But Beast Wars appealed to kids worldwide and it saved the Transformers franchise.  Curiosity got the better of me and now I am the happy owner of a reissue purple dino Megatron.

Finally, the Coke. I scoured the racks but they did not have the coffee beverages that I require.  I shall have to try convenience stores and gas stations next.  I love Coke.  I try every variety that I can get my hands on.  I have no problem with Pepsi, but it’s Coke that I want to catch ’em all.

Walmart did have two sweet looking consolation Cokes:  Quebec Maple, and British Columbia Raspberry.  Only having enough hands for one case, I chose Quebec Maple.  Upon paying, I realized that someone swapped out one bottle of Maple and replaced it with a Raspberry.  Win!  I get to try both.

I only had one panic attack while waiting to pay, and I managed to breathe my way out of it.

Walmart had run out of plastic bags and only had the more expensive cloth ones.  I could feel the tension as word spread among the customers.  I hate standing in line at grocery stores and Walmarts.  Everybody does, but I get tense.  It passed; my glasses fell off because of the way the N95 pulls on my ears, but I paid for my stuff and got out.  Didn’t need a bag.  Didn’t have the energy to look at Sunrise Records or Toys R Us.  Just came home.

Put the Coke in the fridge, pulled up a chair and started listening to the Blue Rodeo.  They’re usually pretty good for reducing the anxiety. I feel a lot better already!  Happy Easter everyone, and stay away from places like Walmart if you can!

#980: Uh! All Night

RECORD STORE TALES #980: Uh! All Night

My final year of grade school, 1985-86 was momentous.  I’ve written an entire 1986 saga about those times.  I had mono which kept me home sick for much of the end of Grade 8.  This meant plenty of music listening time while I recovered.  Music and comic books.  Discovering so many new songs and bands made it a uniquely special time.  Being sick wasn’t so bad.  It kept me away from the bullies while learning about Van Halen songs such as “Unchained” and “So This Is Love”.  I sat in the basement and watched a lot of Pepsi Power Hours, during (arguably) the peak era of the show.

Additionally, it was the year I decided my favourite band was Kiss.

Kiss were hot on the TV with “Tears Are Falling”, the first single from their newest album Asylum.  Kiss were one of those bands that just made me want to collect them all.  Although I had acquired some used Kiss records in a trade, Asylum was my first brand-new Kiss purchase from a store.  That’s a special thing, because it felt like a rite of passage.  A year earlier I would have been walking up to the counter with an action figure in hand.  In autumn of 1985 I approached the cash register with what was once forbidden fruit.  Kiss used to seem dangerous, even disgusting when I was a kid.  Here I was buying the new Kiss album, for the first of many times.

I like to think that I have a knack for picking the singles for albums today.  It all started with Asylum and their little ditty called “Uh! All Night”.  While “Tears Are Falling” was a really obvious choice for single #1, it seemed to me that album closer “Uh! All Night” should be second.  A lot of albums I owned back then seemed to have a handful of good songs, and a lot of filler.  Asylum has filler (mostly the Gene songs) but “Uh! All Night” was catchy from first listen.  It was also far more upbeat than “Who Wants To Be Lonely”.

If Kiss were out to corrupt young minds, then they would have been happy to know that my sister and I jumped around the basement singing, “When you work all day you gotta UH! all night!”

I wasn’t 100% certain what “uh!” meant in this case.  The Pepsi Power Hour was little help.

With VCR at the ready, I watched attentively as VJ Christopher Ward introduced the video on the Power Hour for the first time.

“What does it mean, ‘Uh! All Night’?” teased Ward.  “Do your homework all night?  I think it means do your homework all night.”

I figured “uh” had to be something naughty.  Partying?

The video came on, and Paul Stanley descended a dark staircase wearing a white captain’s hat.  He removed his overcoat revealing more sequins, reflectors and hair than I could take in.  Dated looking by today’s standards.   The epitome of cool for 1985.  All of them looked cool, except for Gene who really struggled to find the right image, until the Revenge era.  The stage set was cool, like a construction zone at night adorned with lights and speakers.

Kiss danced, and posed, and lipsynched up a storm.  Kiss were designed for pubescent boys like me, who were giving up on action heroes and discovering rock and roll.  And girls.  The “Uh! All Night” video was criticised for, of course, objectifying scantily clad women.

Funny enough, this is where Kiss missed the mark with me.  I liked girls, but not…not the ones in “Uh! All Night”.

I liked David Lee Roth’s “California Girls”.  I ogled the ones in the video for “Blondes In Black Cars” by Autograph.  I didn’t like the platinum blonde Dolly Parton lookalikes in “Uh! All Night”.  Not at all.  Their striptease with the white nylons did nothing for me.  After Bruce Kulick whips out a wicked solo with tapping and guitar faces, the Partons beds turn into bed/car hybrids with headlights and grills.  But the Partons couldn’t drive the car-beds; they had to push them.  Dozens of Partons pushing the car-beds wearing fuzzy high heels and lingerie.  It was ludicrous and completely un-hot.

At least Kiss looked cool, so I watched the video over and over, doing my best to ignore the Dolly Partons in their white beds.

David Mallet directed “Uh! All Night” and the other two singles from Asylum as well.  They all share a similar look, but “Uh! All Night” stands out among them, and not for any good reasons.  Considering the good stuff that Mallet did direct (Maiden, Bowie, Leppard, Queen, AC/DC and many more) it’s best if “Uh! All Night” just goes forgotten on a dusty shelf somewhere in the Kiss archives.

#979: Island Boys

RECORD STORE TALES #979: Island Boys

Rarely in our travels have we come across a group that sucks as hard as the so-called Island Boys.

Devoid of talent, Franky and Alex Venegas are fraternal Florida twins with hair that looks like corn dogs sprouting from the scalp.  Going by the names “Kodiyakredd” and “Flyysoulja”, the pair’s vacuous talents emerged in a track called “Island Boy” which essentially has only one part.  Of course, today’s times being what they are, they became viral on TikTok, spawning parodies and comedic lookalikes.  It’s not hard — just rip off your shirt, draw some ratty tats on your chest and face, stick some corn dogs in your hair and you’re an Island Boy.

Though endorsed by Steve-O, the Island Boys saw themselves booed off the stage in Florida when performing their semi-written song, which still needs some bridges, choruses and a middle 8.  Instead of working on their craft, the guys keep making videos of them showing off cash, diamond grills, cars and swimming pools all while singing the same damn lines.

“I’m just an island boy,
And I’m trying to make it.
I’m just an island boy,
And I’m trying to make it.”

Then they rhyme “I’m gonna keep that gun” with “keep staring at the sun”. That’s about all there is to the song. Wash rinse repeat.

If you were trying to “make it” as the Island Boys are, you might start by finishing the damn song.  Putting music to it.  Finishing the words.  Coming up with a damn ending.  But nah.

Instead the Island Boys have multiplied and “signed” two new Island Boys!  They call them 3rd Island Boy and 4th Island Boy.  They have even less talent than the first two.  3rd Island Boy can barely speak, punctuating his slurs with “brrrrt” sound effects.  He is otherwise unintelligible.  The 4th Island Boy is almost worse, grinning and smiling when asked to rap, but not actually rapping.

You’d think, given the cash that they like to flash in their videos, that they could have hired a couple actual rappers or musicians.  It seems the Island Boys hired their new members based on looks alone.  Good news:  the 4th Island Boy is planning on dying his hair to fit in better!  Glad these guys have their eyes on the prize.  Lotsa luck.

#978: Mötley Imposter

RECORD STORE TALES #978: Mötley Imposter

Has any band merrily skipped through drama like Motley Crue?  Very few.  From near death (Nikki Sixx) to actual death (Vince’s car crash), to all the women and parties, there are no bands like Motley Crue.  The drama overshadowed the music on many occasions, especially during the “Pam and Tommy” years.  One of the most bizarre Crue stories involved an imposter posing as Nikki Sixx.

The year was 1988 and his name was Matthew Trippe (reported in some articles as Matthew Von Trippe, getting his middle name John wrong).  We briefly discussed the Trippe-y story back in Record Store Tales #656:  The One They Call Dr. Feelgood.  Matthew’s claim was that the real Sixx had a dibilitating car accident in 1982, and so a lookalike (Trippe) was hired to play bass and write music with the band, with no one in the audience being any the wiser. Trippe had tattoos similar to Nikki and dyed his hair black.  The real Nikki Sixx was having his own issues, but being replaced in the Crue was not one of them.  Kerrang broke the story in March of ’88, with lawsuits a-flyin’.  Trippe wanted compensation for what he claimed were two or three years in Motley Crue.

You can hear all about the Trippe story tonight on Scotch on the Rocks, from the real expert – writer Brent Jensen.  Long story short – the lawsuits went nowhere because there was only ever one real Nikki Sixx.  Brent and I will have the whole story for you tonight, while presently I’ll take you on a somewhat different detour.

When this story hit all the rock mags, my regular publication Hit Parader ran with it as well.  The idea of a fake Nikki Sixx wasn’t all that unbelievable.  I had heard many stories about who really played on Kiss albums over the years.  Was it Ace, was it Vinnie, or someone else?  In the 80s these details were hard to come by and rumours flew.  If Motley had a fake Nikki, it didn’t seem unbelievable.  Kerrang ran the Trippe/Sixx story as if it were truth.  Visual differences from early Nikki to present Nikki added fuel to the fire.  But it was Vince Neil who was the subject of the imposter rumours in our neighborhood.

After reading the magazine, I approached my next door neighbour George to ask if he had heard the story.

“A Nikki Sixx imposter?  No, I never heard that before.  I thought you were going to say Vince Neil,” he said matter-of-factly.

I was surprised.  “No, the magazine said Nikki Sixx.  What’s up with Vince Neil?”

George got serious.  His eyes sometimes fluttered when he talked serious.

There was a girl he liked.  I don’t think she was ever his girlfriend, but he talked about her as if she was.  She was a rocker girl and she loved Motley Crue, especially Vince Neil.

“Well,” he began, “Angie knows Motley Crue.  There’s nobody in town who knows Motley Crue better than she does.  And she swears that Vince Neil is not the real Vince Neil.”

Really?  That’s a bombshell.

George continued.  “She’s studied pictures of Vince, and there are some where she has said flat-out, ‘that is not Vince Neil’.  And she would know.”

“This article says it was Nikki Sixx, not Vince,” I countered.

“Angie would know,” said George.  “She loves Vince Neil and she insists that the Vince Neil today is not the same guy that was in Motley Crue before.  If anyone has been replaced by an imposter, it’s Vince Neil,” he insisted.

“I guess we’ll see what happens next,” I concluded.

Of course the truth isn’t that confusing.  Vince Neil has had a few plastic surgeries over the years.  If George’s girl thought Vince looked different, that would be why.

As for Trippe, who died in 2014, he never came clean about his ruse.  He did go down in history as the subject of a Motley Crue song called “Say Yeah”, which is better than he probably deserved!

“Get out, out of my face, get the fuck out of my face!”

#977: “Love Is Hell”

RECORD STORE TALES #977: “Love Is Hell”

In my 20s and early 30s, I used to think I would love nothing more than I love music.

It’s an easy conclusion when people let you down, but a good song never would.

When love hits you for real, everything changes.  You have to redefine everything.  What once seemed crucially important now seems trivial.  What used to have your undivided attention now competes with something nearer and dearer to the heart.  It happens.  There’s nothing wrong with that; in fact it’s a good thing to have in your life.  I don’t think Paul Stanley will mind that there’s something more important to me now than a collection of songs.

Love is heaven, and love is hell.

Love is hell when the one you care for is sick and it kills you inside every time to see them hurt.

Love is hell when their suffering stabs you in the heart and leaves you in agony.

Love is hell when there’s nothing you can do about it.

Epilepsy is hell.

It’s hell for the person who has it and it’s hell for the people who care.

Epilepsy is hell when you see someone in a seizure and can do nothing until it has run its course.

Epilepsy is hell when someone falls and you’re too late to stop it.

Epilepsy leaves marks.  Sometimes, you don’t even know where they came from.  “You must have fallen,” I said to Jen.  But when?  How could she not know?  Purple bruises decorate her chest, her arms, even her face.  People see bruises and they judge.  They assume.  They look at you funny.

I would have done anything to catch her fall.  But how can I when I can’t be everywhere all the time?

The facial bruise stares back at me, and it makes me turn my head.  I can’t look at it.  It’s horrible.  It makes me want to break down and cry.  How could this have happened?  But there’s nothing I could have done.  I wasn’t there and she has no memory of it.  We can only guess and sometimes that leads the imagination to come up with far worse, far scarier scenarios.

Even when the seizure is over, the afterburn can go on for hours.  Sometimes it’s like sleepwalking.  She’s completely unaware of what’s going on, but she’s able to unlock a door and leave the house.  It’s happened before, at least three times.  Once I found her wandering the hallway, bumping into a wall.  Once she left the house in the middle of the night and I only realized she was gone when the phone rang.  She was trying to buzz herself back into the building, terrified.  She had no idea how she got out there.  The third time, I noticed the house had gone quiet and she was nowhere to be found.  I discovered her walking in a daze up King St., in the cold, with no shoes on.

I’m usually able to stop her.  No mean feat; she’s strong.

Yesterday was awful.

I was working on a project.  I heard her coughing, and I ran out into the living room.  She was fine, just something went down the wrong pipe.  I admonished myself for panicking.  But then, 10 minutes later, there was more noise, like mumbling.  I ran back into the living room to find her in a full-blown seizure.  Her lips were blue and she was making unintelligible sounds.  It passed quickly and she laid down on the couch to rest, completely zonked.  Then the worst came.  The next sound I heard was the door opening.  Sure enough, she was on her way out again, unaware of her situation.

I don’t know how, but I somehow managed to race out there and position myself between her and the already open doorway.  It is like a blur to me now and I have no idea how I did that.  It was teleportation, or a miracle. I slammed and locked the door and kept myself jammed against it.  Even in her dazed state, she kept unlocking the door and reaching for the knob.  She kept repeating, “Sweety, I have to go,” but could not respond to questions.  She had no idea she had no shoes on.  I stood there in front of that door for a solid 10 to 15 minutes, as she tried to move me out of her way.  I resisted, but she is strong, and I was terrified that if she pulled at me and I didn’t budge, that she would fall backwards and hurt herself worse.

The neurologist wants me to try and get video of these kinds of episodes.  How??

I struggled, wrestling with her, trying to keep her hands away from the door knob.  She cried in pain when her wrist twisted in my hands.  It was the worst feeling in the world — for me.

After what seemed like millennia, she grew weary or perhaps forgot what it was she was doing.  She went back to the bed, to sleep it off.  It took almost three hours of sleep for her to return fully to normal.  Or at least, whatever passes for “normal” when this is the life you have.

My “normal” now is a constant state of alert.  I am always listening.  I have to be.  It’s a constant state of anxiety that rarely subsides.  It is the life I live now.  It’s like when the Starship Enterprise is at yellow alert.  I’m at yellow alert almost all the time.  I go to red alert when she’s in danger.  Red alert happens every few weeks.  It seems like I’m rarely in condition green.  We have a system where she’s supposed to text me every 30 minutes when she’s out alone, which helps keep me calm.  It’s not perfect but what else can I do?  You could say “just don’t worry about things you can’t control”, but after 10 years of conditioning, my nerves are shot.  It’s hard to make a plan for your night, let alone your life, when this happens.

But here’s the thing.

Love is hell, but the truth is, it is also heaven.  The good always outweighs the bad.  I would not trade my place with anyone.  I am where I want to be.  With the person I love.  Through good and bad.  Sickness and health.  That’s what we swore to, and that’s the way it is.  If this is my life, so be it.  I just have to learn to live with it, and I’m trying every day to get a little better at that.

#976: Thank You! Happy 10 Years, Record Store Tales!

RECORD STORE TALES #976: Thank You! Happy 10 Years, Record Store Tales!

I don’t want to rehash the story again.  I just want to say thanks!

Thanks to my buddy Aaron, who I first met in 1996 at the Record Store I managed.  When I first started writing Record Store Tales, I sent him the earliest chapters to proof-read.  (This is back when I was calling the whole story “Rock, Rock, ‘Til You Drop” and I was going by the pen-name of…dear God…I was going by the pen-name of “Johnny Cock”.)  Aaron encouraged me to keep going.

Then my sister, Dr. Kathryn, twisted my arm to start posting the stories instead of just talking about it.

Finally former radio dude Craig Fee, wherever he is today, gave me the last push I needed to get going on WordPress.  He sent me a link and an email saying, more or less, “just do it”.  So I clicked the link, and began posting.  It’s really that simple.  I clicked a link, cut and pasted the first chapter, and hit “publish”.

On March 9, 2012, the newly re-dubbed Record Store Tales Part 1:  Run to the Hills quietly premiered right here on WordPress.

I had almost no audience except Craig and Aaron.  Not even HMO, our Heavy Metal Overlord, was reading yet.  That is, until May 7 2012.  Everything changed at that point and suddenly, the hits went crazy!  If not for May 7, I probably would have lost interest years ago.  If there’s one way to commit me to a project…it’s to tell me to quit.

So:  Thank you to all of the above, and to all of you, new or old!  I hope you enjoy what we’ve done here and where we’re going in the future.  If not…too bad!

Rock, Rock, ‘Til You Drop indeed!

This Friday, we will be celebrating 10 years of Record Store Tales, and mikeladano.com, on the LeBrain Train.  Please join me!  If you would like to appear as a special guest, let me know in the comments.

#975: The Artwork of Sarge

RECORD STORE TALES #975: The Artwork of Sarge

As I’ve learned more about my friend Sarge since his passing, I’ve discovered something that comes up over and over again.  Sarge just wanted people to be happy.  He didn’t have to agree with them.  Whatever made them happy, made him happy.  He encouraged people to be individuals and find joy in their own skin.  I guess that’s one reason why he was such a great body piercer.  He was also an artist, as some of these pictures I’ve rediscovered prove.

During the period I knew him, I had a couple different online handles.  One was “Purpendicular” or just “Purp”, and I don’t need to explain to you where that came from.  After a brief hiatus I used Dewey Finn, a reference to Jack Black’s character in School of Rock, before reverting back to Purp.  Sarge made all sorts of art in that period for me, without me asking at all.  There were the infamous “Purp Ate My Balls” shirts.  There was also the artwork he made below.

My face on a Wheaties box, and why not?  The other day someone asked me if I’d ever wanted my face on a Wheaties box, and I said with a wink, “Already been there, man!”

And below, my face on a British tabloid.  And again why not?

With Sarge gone I’m so happy to be able to resurrect these bits of art that he did just for a laugh.  His laughs, and mine too.

Rest in peace my friend.

#974: I Was a Bit of a Jackass

RECORD STORE TALES #974: I Was a Bit of a Jackass

Part of my process, after breaking up with Radio Station Girl in 2003, was simply to explore new things.  Music, piercings, and movies.  Moving on, adapting, becoming a new me, and resurrecting parts of my old self as well.  The immature inner child that persists.  As kids, we weren’t bad boys, but we did get into mischief and play pranks.  I always felt that if we had access to a video camera back then, we could have been Tom Green before there was a Tom Green.  But we didn’t, and Tom Green was the real pioneer in that regard.  And he took things way further than we did.  Still, Green reminded me of me when I was younger.

It’s not a controversial statement to say that Jackass, particularly Bam Margera, owe a debt to Tom Green.  Green was pranking his parents before Margera was on MTV doing the same.  Where Green did it with a coy faux innocence, Margera’s version of the same was with manic violence.  Jackass turned everything up several notches.  As soon as a copy of Jackass: The Movie entered the store where I worked on used DVD, I grabbed one.  I was curious.

Soon I was hooked!

I could remember taking shopping carts for a ride when I was teenager.  Early teenager.  When Bob started working at the grocery store, he told me “Do you know how much those carts cost?  $1000 each.  So from now on we return them.”  Before that though…yes, we sure did give them a spin in parking lots.  Parking lots were empty on Sundays and you could do just about anything.  We never took serious tumbles like Johnny Knoxville and crew, but we did race them around a bit.  I could live vicariously through Bam, Steve-O, Knoxville, Ryan, Ehren, Dave, Pontius, Preston and Wee Man.  They could do the things I thought were funny but would never do myself!  I killed myself laughing when Johnny rented and destroyed the car at the smash-up derby, then refused to pay for the damage.  Just the absurdity of it all.  You know that everybody signed waivers and got MTV reimbursements after the fact, so all’s even-steven in the end.  In other words it’s OK to laugh.

Another reason I dove hard into Jackass:  girls that I thought were pretty cute seemed to really like them (especially Bam).  So if I was into Jackass, that was something I had in common with the cute punk and goth girls I liked.  I also took style pointers from the guys.  I had piercings and a couple tattoos, and I had one photo with curly blond hair that I thought looked just enough like Ryan Dunn.  I bought wristbands and shirts at Hot Topic and skate shops.  I dyed my hair frequently.  I looked the part.

Visiting my parents regularly was something I really enjoyed doing after moving out and getting my own place.  I liked to watch movies with them.  Rather, I enjoyed making them watch things of my choosing.  And so it happens that I tricked them into watching Jackass: The Movie with me.

They liked documentaries, so I told them that “Jackass is a documentary about stuntmen.”

I just re-watched the movie recently to refresh my memory for this story.  Calling it a documentary was a bit of a stretch, but calling it a documentary about stuntmen was really pushing it.  There are stunts, yes, but there was also poo, pee, puke, and bottle rockets firing out of Steve-O’s anus.

My mother was not impressed.  “I hated it!  I don’t like crude things,” she insists.

Jackass was indeed crude, with the climax being a prank involving Dunn sticking a toy car up his ass and then getting a hilarious reaction from an X-ray doctor.

“That kind of humour to me is not very intelligent,” says my mom, correctly.  It’s fact it’s quite anti-intelligent.  But that can also be escapism.  My mom didn’t see it that way.

I asked her which sketch she thought was the worst.  “The only one I can remember is the guy pooping in the toilet.”

Ah yes!  Dave England walked into a hardware store with a newspaper in hand, sat on one of the display toilets, and took a dump right there.  This is funny?  My mom didn’t think so.  But as kids, when we were dragged out into hardware stores by parents for (seemingly) hours on end, did we not sit on those toilets making farting sounds?  I bet we did.

That’s the side of me that Jackass appealed to.  The inner child, the immature side that still laughs when someone farts in a movie.  That’s OK.  What makes you laugh could be very different and that’s OK too!  I needed to get back to that a little bit, and rediscover my childish side after having my heart crushed by a Radio Station Girl.

Just don’t share this side with your parents.  Trust me, they won’t get it!

#973: “Let’s Get Rocked” – The Wait for Adrenalize

Part Twelve of the Def Leppard Review Series

RECORD STORE TALES #973: “Let’s Get Rocked” – The Wait for Adrenalize

Before the internet, the best way to access your rock news in Canada was to buy magazines and watch the Pepsi Power Hour.  We had all the US magazines plus M.E.A.T and some of the best rock coverage with MuchMusic.  You’d be negligent in your rock and roll duties if you didn’t buy some magazines.

I remember buying one at the end of the 80s, the turn of the decade.  It might have been Metal Edge or something of a lower tier.  (You bought what was on the shelf when pickings were slim.)  But they had a column by a psychic who was making rock and roll predictions for the coming decade.  Stuff like “Will Jon and Richie break up?”  What interested me the most was what she predicted for Joe Elliott of Def Leppard.  The biggest rock band in the world, she claimed, would get only get bigger.  Joe’s next album would outsell Hysteria, and he would get involved with some important causes.

Was she confusing Joe for Bono?  Cool if true, but outselling Hysteria?  Hard to imagine.

A few things were known about the next album at the start of the new decade.  They’d be trying to produce it without “Mutt” Lange for one.  “Mutt will be involved,” said Joe, but in a different capacity.  The goal was to make a “quick” album — one year instead of several.  They had one song earmarked from a B-side called “Tear It Down”.  They also had some unfinished ideas left over from Hysteria such as the ballad “Tonight”.  As kids, we imagined an album less produced than Hysteria, but hopefully just as good.  I had actual dreams of anticipation at night, imagining the new album cover sitting there on the shelves.  Continuing with the “-ia” naming convention, the next album was said to be titled Dementia.  A title they dropped in favour of something less negative, when once again things went down the toilet.

Rick Allen’s car accident was extremely unfortunate, but what happened this time was tragic.  Steve Clark, always the band’s riff-master and shape-throwing classic rocker, was gone.

The guitarist had been suffering from his addictions, and this time a deadly mixture of prescription pills and alcohol was enough to end his life.  January 8 1991, “Steamin'” Steve Clark was no more.

The band didn’t know what to do but carry on.  Record the the album as a four-piece.  Dedicate it to Steve.  Don’t even think about replacements until it’s necessary.

And so the fans mourned, and waited.  As the band toiled away, now producing with Mike Shipley, we anxiously awaited news.  Any news.  A few song titled leaked out:  “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”, “Stand Up”, “Tonight”, “Tear It Down”.

And then, over a year after Clark’s death, listening to the radio one snowy afternoon:  Q107 out of Toronto, announced:  new Def Leppard.  Coming right up.

My sister and I huddled around the radio.  We may have popped in a tape to record it; I can’t remember.  We didn’t need to since it was about to carpet-bomb the nation with radio and video play.  “Let’s Get Rocked” was here!

And it was…

OK.

It was OK.  It sounded like Def Leppard.  It didn’t push the boundaries in any fashion.  It was safe, straightforward, and simple.

“Well, that classical section with the violins was different,” I said trying to see the bright side.

“Yeah, but that was just one short part,” answered my more realistic sister.

Through the years of anticipating a new Def Leppard album, we imagined some growth.  Maybe not as drastic a transition as they made from Pyromania to Hysteria, but something at least.  The one-time biggest band in the world shouldn’t just spin their tires musically.

“You know what, I’m gonna let it go,” I said.  “They’ve had to deal with so much, and when Steve died, they just needed to get an album out.  They can grow on the next album.”  (And boy did they!)

With that attitude, I counted the days until I would trek to the mall and finally get the new Def Leppard in my hands.  Now with the title Adrenalize, and with “Let’s Get Rocked” climbing up the charts, it was time for Leppard’s return.  A long time coming, if not the way it was planned!

 

Previous:  

  1. The Early Years Disc One – On Through the Night 
  2. The Early Years Disc Two – High N’ Dry
  3. The Early Years Disc Three – When The Walls Came Tumbling Down: Live at the New Theater Oxford – 1980
  4. The Early Years Disc Four – Too Many Jitterbugs – EP, singles & unreleased
  5. The Early Years Disc 5 – Raw – Early BBC Recordings 
  6. The Early Years 79-81 (Summary)
  7. Pyromania
  8. Pyromania Live – L.A. Forum, 11 September 1983
  9. Hysteria
  10. Soundtrack From the Video Historia – Record Store Tales
  11. In The Round In Your Face DVD

Next:

13:  Adrenalize

#972: Snowfort Hippies

RECORD STORE TALES #972: Snowfort Hippies

2022:  the winter that snow came back in a big way! The sheer size of the snowbanks brings me back to the winter of ’85, in my old neighbourhood.  The snowbanks on the corner rival the ones we had in my youth, something I have not seen in many years.  And I remembered the snowfort that George Balasz built on that corner; a regal thing indeed.  The most palacious snowfort I have ever occupied!  And even this story works its way back around to music.

1985 was the year I got seriously into hard rock.  The Pepsi Power Hour was my favourite show and I was just absorbing all this new music through my neighbours.  George had an excellent LP collection and he’d always let me tape whatever I wanted.

He had a house on the corner, and in the winter the snowbanks built up as high as I could stand.  That was the year he built the ultimate fort.  As I remember it, the fort had plywood roof supports, and four rooms inside, lined up in a row.  You could squeeze four or five kids in there.  My dad was always afraid we’d get taken out by a wayward errant car, but it never happened.  He didn’t like us hanging out with George (thought he was a pervert) but he really didn’t like us hanging out in that snowfort.

George ran an extension cord out to the fort so we could listen to tapes on his ghetto blaster.  We had a conversation about Judas Priest.  Defenders of the Faith was their latest record and I was well familiar with the music video for “Freewheel Burning”.  But I was just learning the basics and I had a lot of questions.

“What’s a hippie?” I asked George.

He didn’t really know, but acted like he did.  His authoritative answer was “Hippies have long hair.”

“Well then what is Ian Johnson at school talking about?” I asked him.  “He said he didn’t like Judas Priest because they’re a bunch of hippies.  But Rob Halford doesn’t even have long hair.”

“You’re right,” said George.  I was happy to know a few things like the names of some of the members.  George or Bob Schipper gave me my first Priest poster, with the five of them standing in a row in the Defenders-era costume.  I thought Dave Holland looked the coolest because of that moustache.  I taped a copy of the album, but Priest songs like “Eat Me Alive” were still a bit on the heavy side for me.

I wonder what Ian was on about, with that hippie comment.  He probably had no idea what the word meant either.  Priest might have been considered hippies in the early 1970s, when they were wearing kaftans and denim floods.  They abandoned that look a long time ago and were really known for their leather and studs.   Meanwhile, Ian Johnson ditched the metal for new wave, by his own admission, in order to find a girl.  His opinions and stories changed regularly.

Though my dad worried, and this irritated me, we had good times in that snowfort.  George was a bit of a local punching bag, a strange guy slightly older who shoplifted and read porn.  He seemed desperately lonely some times, and maybe he had to be if he was hanging out with all these younger kids.  He was the oldest teenager in the neighbourhood and it didn’t seem like he had a lot of friends at school.  I could identify with the latter.

As the snowfort hippies bantered about Priest, one teaching and one learning, the boombox would be moaning out our favourite songs.  We talked about how cool it would be to put in a TV in the fort, but a warm spell eventually caved in the roofs.  Although George undertook a mighty rebuilding effort one afternoon, the fort was all but done for the year.

But not done in my memory.  As I drive around the corner, I smile remembering my dad’s warnings about safety.   I play some Defenders of the Faith and raise my coffee to George, now long gone himself.

To the good times, my snowfort hippie friend.