Record Store Tales

#905: Growing Up With Video

“Live videos > fake live videos any day of the week.” – Harrison the Mad Metal Man

RECORD STORE TALES #905:  Growing Up With Video

Music videos of the 80s could, in theory, be broken down into three major categories:

  1. Conceptual videos.  Sometimes with a storyline intercut.  Occasionally the musicians got to act.  Other examples have no musicians at all.  (Iron Maiden’s “Can I Play With Madness”.)  Conceptual were majority of music videos — usually combining the conceptual part with the band performing on some kind of stage.  Not to be confused with…
  2. Stage videos.  Or, as Harrison calls then, “fake live videos”. Lipsynching the hits, on a stage, sometimes in front of a crowd, with no conceptual content.  Sometimes these were simply live concert videos dubbed over with the album tracks.  “Thrills in the Night” by Kiss, for example.
  3. True live videos.  Many Van Halen videos we grew up with, from “Unchained” to “Best of Both Worlds”, were live in concert — audio and video both.  In some cases you could not buy these live tracks on any kind of release.

Of course there are more categories and sub-categories, just less significant.  Some videos are entirely animated, which is more common today.  We also have something new — the lyric video.

I can remember the sixth grade.  Mrs. Peterson’s class.  Van Halen’s 1984 was out and Quiet Riot were burning up the charts.  These were pretty much the only bands I heard of.  I hadn’t seen the music videos and I didn’t even know what Quiet Riot looked like.  The only pictures I had ever seen of Quiet Riot were the buttons that the masked guy is wearing on his vest on the front cover of the cassette version of Metal Health.  I squinted hard, but the Kevin DuBrow I imagined on that button looked nothing like the real deal.

The teacher was getting us started on simple surveys.  To make it fun, she took a survey of all the most popular music in the class.  Each kid got to name one favourite artist.  I named Quiet Riot, and Kevin Kirby named Van Halen.  Michael Jackson and Duran Duran were the top two.

As the discussion proceeded, many of the kids mentioned that they liked the music videos.  Michael Jackson was at his peak, and he was the pioneer of the modern music video.  Other artists like Culture Club made an impact with their image, which came across best on video.  The teacher was curious about all this, so the class explained what a music video was.  Something dawned on the teacher, and she exclaimed, “So to be a music star today, you not only have to be able to sing, but you also have to be able to act!”

No, and yes.  You didn’t have to “act” per se, but you did have to be able to present yourself and play to a camera.  David Lee Roth was not an according-to-Hoyle actor.  Some would say he’s also not a singer, but he is a master at playing for the camera.  Staring deep into the lens, gazing with the come-hither look, just so.  Doing easily what other rock stars couldn’t, or didn’t want to.

So yes Mrs. Peterson, in a sense, to be a star in 1984, you had to be able to “act”.  Video didn’t kill the radio star but it sure took a bite out of them.

Kids used to catch the videos on various cable shows.  There was one called The Great Record Album Collection on WUTV that I sometimes caught before dinner.  The Canadian movie channels (Superchannel, First Choice) would run music videos in the dead minutes after the credits rolled, to the top off the hour.  Until MuchMusic came along, we Canadian kids didn’t have a one-stop-shop to watch all our music videos.  Fortunately, having MuchMusic coincided with getting our first VCR.

Once we became seasoned in the way of the music video, we developed clear favourites.  12 and 13 year olds didn’t have a lot of money.  We also had never attended a concert.  Therefore, live videos with music that wasn’t what we were getting on the album were rarely favourites.  We preferred the “fake live”, as Harrison the Mad Metal Man calls them.  Then our immature ears could hear the songs clearly, and that would help us decide if were going to spend our nickles on a new tape.

Best of all though were the conceptual videos.  Some were not good (just ask Billy Squier), but some really captured our imaginations.  In Record Store Tales Part 206:  Rock Video Night, we discussed some of my favourite clips to show to younger folks who weren’t there in the 80s.  They were all conceptual clips.  Many of them involved a band on a mission of some kind.  There were so many of that kind.  Thor had “Knock ‘Em Down”, Queensryche had “Queen of the Reich”, and Armored Saint had “Can U Deliver”.  These videos featured, at least partially, a band on a quest.  They also featured scantily clad women, and lots of “fake live” footage.

But the “fake live” footage often featured cool angles and close-ups.  That meant we could examine the finer details of the outfits and guitars.  You couldn’t just look up pictures of your favourite stars on the internet back in 1986.  “I want hair like that!” Bob said about Eric Brittingham from Cinderalla.  “That would look cool in red!”  Meanwhile, I wanted Rob Halford’s leather jacket from the “Turbo” video.  Of all these videos, we liked the Iron Maiden clip for “Wasted Years” best, which we watched in slow motion, pausing to identify every single Eddie.  There were many we had never seen before.

We just weren’t as interested in purely live videos back then.  For example, MuchMusic had two versions of Judas Priest’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin'”:  the original and the live one from Priest! Live.  After the live video came out, that’s the one they primarily played.  It was disappointing because if I was going to only hear Priest on TV once that week, I preferred the original.  Frankly, we didn’t buy a lot of live albums as kids.  When we collected bands, we would try to get all the albums including the live ones.  But when we wanted to buy one tape from a band, we didn’t go for live ones.  Some live albums we heard scared us off from the format.  The Song Remains the Same wasn’t the kind of thing we had patience for.

That all changed for me in highschool.  I wanted to buy a Triumph album.  It would be my first.  On recommendation from a kid in my history class, I picked Stages.  And it was like a lightbulb went off in my head.  Virtually every song was awesome!  In fact the only track that wasn’t was a studio track!  And then I had the joy of making those live versions my first Triumph loves.  When I got the studio renditions, they seems thinner and colder by comparison.  I never had that experience before.

I wonder if any of this will be interesting to anyone at all.  Videos are irrelevant today as far as heavy metal goes.  Today, we are not interested in the same things we were in our youths.  We don’t care what the singer is wearing or what the drummer did to his hair.  We care more about how the band is sounding, and how the crowd is responding.  A new music video by a metal band is not as interesting as pro-shot live footage from Wacken.  We want to listen carefully for backing tapes, we want to see the band gel on stage, and we want to cheer along when it’s good.

It is incredibly fortunate to have grown up in the 80s, when videos were in their prime, and still be rocking today when all that stuff is available at our fingertips any time we need a blast of nostalgia.  Younger readers will never know the tense excitement of hitting “record-pause” on a VCR and waiting for the premier of the newest video by Maiden, Priest, or Def Leppard.  Seeing the carefully edited stage moves paired with salon-fresh hair.  It was a glorious time even if was completely ridiculous.

#904: 2000 Dates

A sequel to #616:  None of My Exes Live in Texas (But One Lives in Thunder Bay)
and #903: Online Dating in the Brave New World

 

RECORD STORE TALES #904: 2000 Dates

When I think back on the year 2000, I realize, holy shit:  I went on a lot of dates that year.  Most of them were first dates; things generally weren’t working out for me.  When I look back,  I can’t believe how many there were.  I’ve already talked about “Hamilton #1”, “Toronto”, “Hamilton #2” (in detail!) and briefly “Kingston”.  But there were more.  Many more.  Some names are forgotten; the rest are redacted.  The cities and places are clear in my memory.

“Kingston” was cute and I fell for her hard over the telephone.  I remember finding it cool that she wore mismatched socks on purpose.  Some people teased me for that.  But she was quirky and had great taste in music.  She was a musician; a really good one too.  She came up to visit me one weekend.  We met in the parking lot of the Cambridge Record Store as it was right off the highway.  We drove from there to the cottage where we spent the night.  She brought her acoustic guitar and played some of her original tunes for me.  She also brought her copy of Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  The next day we came back to Waterloo for a Record Store party.  You can see why I liked her.

I was supposed to visit her in Kingston next.  The day of departure, there was a massive accident on highway 401.  I was stuck in it for hours and ultimately had to turn back home.  Things fizzled out from there.  She was planning on going to school in Thunder Bay, and while I said “no problem, I can do long distance relationships,” it was not meant to be.  Kingston is four hours away by car.  Thunder Bay takes a whole day, unless you fly.  It wasn’t going to work and I reluctantly had to let her go.  She already knew there was no future to it; I was the holdout.

I wasn’t over her yet, but immediately I jumped into dating once more.  It was a new girl every two weeks.  I was on the rebound.

“Guelph 1” was nice.  She was a student, who had long black synthetic dreadlocks.  The most memorable thing about her was that she was legally blind.  Maybe that was one reason why she went out with me!  She could see, she could get around, but her vision was impaired enough that she was classified as blind.   This meant that she actually got in to movies for free.  She had to sit in the very front row to see anything, but that was OK by me.

We went to see The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Vince Vaughn.  It was shit, but good enough for a date movie.   We actually went out a second time, after she had relocated to Hamilton.  But she wasn’t into me and there wasn’t much chemistry aside from a couple pleasant dates.

That’s not be confused with “Hamilton #3”.  I distinctly remember going to have coffee in Hamilton with a girl I never saw again.  I can’t recall any other details about her.  She had short black hair?  I think she brought a friend with her?  I got somewhat lost on my way back home (as I usually did when visiting Hamilton) but managed to turn myself around this time without having to call for directions.

“Toronto #2” was more memorable.  I felt a little weird that I was meeting her in the same parking lot as “Kingston”, but she didn’t need to know that.   We wanted to get a bite to eat, so we headed over to East Side Mario’s in the mall next door.

“Make sure we get a smoking table,” she said.

To her surprise, I answered “No such thing here!”

“Whaaaat?” she exclaimed.

Unbeknownst to her, the region had implemented an indoor smoking ban on January 1 2000.  They don’t pay attention to Kitchener news in Toronto, so she had no idea.  Not happy!  That was our only date.  The indoor smoking ban was a trial run, and it was soon enforced everywhere else.  There was a lot of complaining then, and a temporary dip in revenues at bingo halls.  Just like with Covid lockdowns today, many establishments fought the ban and were served up hefty fines.  Things bounced back eventually.

Not me though.  I was still rebounding.  Around the same time as  “Toronto #2” came “London”.  That was my first drive-in movie in 15 years.  The setting was more memorable than the movie, which was the Kevin Bacon turd called Hollow Man.  All I can really remember is the windows fogging up – and we weren’t even doing anything.

Then came “Mississauga”.  This is the one I felt worst about.  Most of the other dates were just dates.  We went out, we hung out, we went home.  “Mississauga” met me at the local Chapters store and we went book shopping.  Then, I believe, we went to see a movie.  I can’t remember exactly because the night ended with us making out in the back seat of my car.  Although I felt cool as hell at the time for having finally made out with a girl in the back seat of a car, afterwards I felt shitty.  She went home, and we never saw each other again.  I didn’t like that.  I was really confused, working my way through all these feelings.  But it was a mutual thing.  She didn’t call me, and I didn’t call her.

“Guelph #2” was the second last date of the year 2000.  Also a student.  Nice enough girl; we went out a couple times.  I think the moment I bailed was when she messaged me one weekend telling about this other guy she was hanging out with.  I had no problem with her seeing another guy.  We had just gone on a couple dates, we weren’t exclusive or anything like that.  It was the nature of this one specific message that scared me away.

“I’m here with a guy and his penis is stuck in a bottle!” she said.

All the best of luck to ya!  I didn’t have any follow-up questions.

At the same time, I had just met “Kitchener #1”.  The year was coming to an end.  I was 28.  I was tired.  I had done all the rebounding a man could do.  I was ready, but the first date didn’t work out as well as I hoped.  We went to the Boathouse and had lunch.  Afterwards she sent me an email titled “Let’s Hang”.  She just wanted to be friends.  I was OK with that because I did like her, and I thought, “Being friends is OK.  Nothing wrong with that.  I would like more friends.”

Right around the time some dude in Guelph was struggling to remove his penis from a bottle, “Kitchener” was having second thoughts.  We got along really well, and had continued to hang out as she wanted to.  A few weeks after that first date at the Boathouse, she had a change of heart.  She asked if I was still interested and I was.

And so, as the year 2000 ended (and with it the millennium), so did my misadventures in dating!  “Kitchener” and I stuck together for two years which was the longest relationship I ever had at that point.  We had good times.  She became like a member of the family.  In fact she still has Christmases with our family today, even though we split in 2003.  When I finally met my true soulmate Jennifer, my ex attended my wedding.  I liked that we were able to do that.  And now, my dating days are truly over!

 

 

 

#903: Online Dating in the Brave New World (2000)

Attention:  Mike’s mom.  You don’t need to read this one.  Skip it please.

RECORD STORE TALES #903: Online Dating in the Brave New World (2000)

It was the year 2000 and the world seemed new to me again.  Iron Maiden had a fresh reunion album on the horizon, ushering in a long-awaited rebirth of classic heavy metal.  The snow was melting, and spring was in the air.  Things were going really, really well.  Especially at the Record Store.  My store had a “head office” (actually a broom closet) in its back room.  That’s why the upper management was always breathing down my neck.  But I had heard through the grapevine (actually Tom) that head office was moving to a new location across town.  They never told me, but Tom did.  I was elated.  Things were looking way up.

I also had what at the time I called “the best first date I’d ever been on”.  I even washed my car before driving to Hamilton to see her.  That’s how my parents knew something was up!  Her name was Terra and she fancied herself a photographer.  Strangely her apartment was filled with photos of herself.  That should have served as a warning.  T-Rev also dated a girl who was obsessed with photos of herself, and that didn’t work.  His story was told in a song by local band The Candidates called “Who’s Your Daddy Now?”  “Sold your soul for a photograph, I tore it up and had the last laugh.  Who’s your daddy now? He ain’t got nothin’ on me!”

But I had to take my chances.  The first date went so well that I called up T-Rev on my cell phone and told him I thought I met “the one”.

I did confide in T-Rev one thing that was unusual about Terra.  She didn’t drink or do any drugs, which I liked.  I rarely drank and had never touched a drug.  What was unusual was that Terra was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.  In my mind, trying to ease my concerns, I said “that means neither of us drink or do drugs – so that’s a good thing.”  I wouldn’t be heading out to bars with her, or anything like that.  I had to give her a chance for date #2.

She thought it would be fun to catch a sunrise together.  She lived in Hamilton so it would take me an hour to get there before the sun came.  I had never watched the sunrise with a girl before, so I was on board.  The people at the Record Store thought I had a screw loose.

“You’re going to drive to Hamilton at 5:00 in the morning, to watch a sunrise?” asked one of the supervisors.  They didn’t get why I thought it was such a cool idea.  It sounded romantic to me and I’d never done anything like that before.

I called Terra up the night before our sunrise date and she had suddenly changed her tune.  “That’s reeeaally early,” she complained about her own idea.

So that idea was off.  Instead I came down in the afternoon.  We hung out and watched MuchMusic.  Britney Spears had just come out with “Oops! I Did It Again” and I can remember watching that video in her apartment.  “I want a PVC bodysuit!” said Terra.  I just wanted to do anything but sit around watching MuchMusic.  After a few hours of watching Static X, Disturbed and other staples of the era, I headed home.

Date #3 was the weird one.  She had an AA meeting that night and didn’t want to miss it.  I offered to drop her off on my way home, and that turned into her inviting me to the meeting.  Going to it was one of the most regrettable decisions I’ve ever made in my life.

I didn’t know what I was doing.  I did not realize it was a “closed meeting” or what that meant.  I don’t know why she thought bringing me along was a good idea.  I was curious, and I liked Terra.  I trusted her that this was OK.

The AA meeting was in the basement of a nice church.  We all sat in a circle.  “When it comes your turn to talk, just pass,” said Terra.  So I did.  Instead I listened to stories that, quite frankly, I never should have heard.  Me being there was an invasion of the group’s privacy and I felt uncomfortable immediately.  I wanted out that door.  I waited for an appropriate break.

When the group leader broke the meeting into smaller groups, I said to Terra, “I have to go, I’m not comfortable, I’m really sorry.”  She said it was OK and that we would leave together.  We briefly spoke to the group leader.  His name was Mike too.  “We have groups for beginners too, if you feel you’d like to come back and talk about whatever is going on.”  This made me feel even worse.  I was masquerading as someone I was not, for the sake of sitting next to a girl in this room.  I thanked him and we left together.

I decided that would be our last date.

Which is why I am still surprised I went on date #4.  Mother’s Day weekend 2000.

The phone rang on the Friday night.  “What are you doing this weekend?  Do you want to come and hang out at my mom’s place in Huntsville?”

I silenced the alarm bells going off in my head.  The suddenness of the invite was strange but if she was introducing me to her mom, that sounded alright.  I packed a small bag and headed to Hamilton to pick her up.  A few hours later we were in Huntsville.  We went to a bar where her friends were.  There was a covers band playing.  I found a spot to watch.  They played “War Pigs”.  I was happy.  But where was Terra?  She left me there watching this band while she hung out with her friends.  Outside, one of them passed her a joint and she had a haul.  On the way back to her mom’s place, she said “I really shouldn’t have smoked that joint,” and I was shaking my head wondering what the hell I was thinking.

Her mom was really nice and made me feel very welcome.  They had a beautiful place up in Huntsville.  Huge, with a guest house in the back where I slept.  But by the end of the weekend, her mom was giving her shit for hanging out with her friends instead of the guy who brought her to Huntsville.  I felt the same way.  The whole weekend was her hanging out with friends, and me tagging along.  We never did anything just the two of us.  I felt good that her mom at least recognized there was something fucked up about it.  They had a big argument in the kitchen while I sat in the living room with one of her friends, not speaking, just staring at the newspaper.

I raced back to Kitchener barely in time for Mother’s Day dinner.  This time I really did mean it:  that was the last date.  That was the end of it.  No more.  I never saw her again.  I could tell when I’ve been hosed.  She promised me $50 in gas money that I knew I was never going to see.  I shot off an email mentioning the $50 debt, and that was our last communication.

Iron Maiden came out with a brand new single called “The Wicker Man” which served as my cheer-up.  I bought the CDs and the vinyl and immersed myself in new music.  I always turned back to music when stuff went sour with a girl.  In this case, one of my favourite bands were triumphantly returning with their strongest lineup.  Three lead guitars.  I couldn’t wait to hear it.  Terra was the past, but the “Wicker Man” was the future!  I felt that jolt of energy again.  The life-giving electricity of rock and roll.

Valuable lessons learned here.  Not many of my friends can say that they’ve been to an AA meeting.  I’ve been there and I know it’s not a place for outsiders.  A learning experience and not one I’ll repeat.

 

To be continued….

 

#902.5: Spoogecakes 2 – Electric Boogaloo

Today’s chapter of Record Store Tales is a direct sequel to Part 35.5:  Spoogecakes!

 

RECORD STORE TALES #902.5: Spoogecakes 2 – Electric Boogaloo

LeBrain HQ has eyes and ears everywhere!   We are like Hydra:  cut off one head and two shall takes its place.

If you recall, when I launched this site in 2012, I had one anonymous hater.  Really nasty, too.  You can read the comments yourself.  This came right out of the blue.  The identity of the hater was confirmed by one of her co-workers at the Record Store:  an employee there at a location I once managed.  I had barely begun publishing my stories.  “Grow up or shut up,” went one of the kinder comments.  This only inspired me to keep writing, with more energy and frequency.  Obviously I had struck a nerve!  I actually owe this hater a huge thanks.  The drama she created catapulted me into another level, and the hits have only increased in the years since.  She provided the launchpad, so I do owe her my gratitude.  Craig Fee dubbed her with the nickname “Spoogecakes”, and I ran with that name for the Record Store Tales that followed.  I turned her hatemail into a chapter of the story.  Lemons into lemonade.

Hey, you wanna troll Record Store Tales?  Then Record Store Tales will troll you right back.  Some of my former co-workers there thought it was incredibly nasty of me exploit her vitriolic comments for views the way I did.  (What they thought of her actions — my so-called friends who were groomsmen at my wedding — they didn’t share that with me.)   I hadn’t planned on writing about her at all.  She was a non-entity and completely unimportant to my story.  She wrote herself in, as far as I was concerned.

Fast forward to the present:  she’s still at the Record Store, and just as endearing as ever.  A few months ago, I was just sitting here boppin’ through my day, when I got an email from a source bearing a tidbit of inside gossip.  My source revealed that Spoogey has been promoted to a manager of some kind, and isn’t the kind you’d want to work for.  I have obscured certain text to protect the identity of the informant, but the bones of their message are below.

“[Spoogecakes] is training someone, and that person has to leave home at 4 AM to get to the store, to suit [Spoogey’s] needs.”

Good luck with training someone after they’ve spent five hours on a bus.  Hope that worked out for ya.  Stuff like that never happened when I was training.  I drove people to and from training if I had to.  (Ask Shane.)

The training in question involves a box of used CDs that we would use to practice buying techniques.  How to check the discs for quality, how to check inventory, and how to price them.   The process of this training was previously detailed in Part 94:  Staffing.  (You can also watch a demonstration of me doing this in a live stream from last year.)  In all my time at the store, I never made anyone get up at 4 AM for this.  The story continues:

“In retaliation, the trainee wanted to leave a surprise for [Spoogey] in the box of used discs.  I got the impression it was a used sex toy.  The plan was for her to find it in the box with the other used items.”

My source said that the gist of the conversation was that “no one likes [Spoogey]. The manager of the store was in disbelief of her antics.”  The source also suggested that the conversation would have been a lot worse and more graphic if there were not customers in the store.

Some things never change!

#902: The Adventures of “B” Man

A pretty messed up prequel to #631: The Locker Door

 

RECORD STORE TALES #902: The Print Shop The Adventures of “B” Man

In the mid 1980s through to the 90s, my dad had an old client named Skully.  He was a computer guy.  Every so often, he would gave my dad a list of games and programs he could copy for us.  If we sent him a pack of floppy discs with a checked-off list, in a few weeks he’d come back to us with all the games we wanted.  Classic Concentration, Alleycat, King’s Quest, Into the Eagle’s Nest, Digger, and so many more games with names long forgotten.  All on 5 1⁄4” floppy discs — double sided, double density.

One of the programs we checked off from Skully’s list was a program called The Print Shop.  And strangely enough, it was Print Shop that had a personal impact bigger than any of the games.  In fact it was one of the most widely pirated Commodore 64 programs of 1985, although we had the IBM PC version.

We mostly used it to make birthday and Christmas cards.  It was great for that, all pre-formatted and everything.  You could use pictures from its own library.  Stuff like birthday cakes, turkeys, Easter bunnies, and so on.  Or, you could painstakingly make your own graphics, block by block.  In fact we used Print Shop all through the mid to late 80s.  It had a poster feature and a banner printer.  We used that to print a “DEMOLITION” banner when we went to see WWF wrestling at the Aud.

My sister, Bob Schipper and myself learned how to use The Print Shop to make blocky pictures.  The first experiments involved modifying pre-existing graphics. That was a good way to learn. The Easter bunny fell first to our mischievous ways. Bob changed his smile to a scowl, and we changed his happy wave to a middle finger! Of course we did. I was 12 and he was 14.

The next thing I obviously had to do was figure out the  logo.

With some trial and error, I drew a pretty good recreation of the legendary Kiss double lightning bolt.  I proudly printed it out in poster mode. But what else should be on the poster? I was fascinated with the Kiss discography and had memorized every album and year. So I painstakingly typed out each line of text to go beneath the logo. KISS (1974) HOTTER THAN HELL (1974) DRESSED TO KILL (1975)… all the way to ASYLUM (1985).

I taped that “poster” to my wall. I was so proud of it!

Wanna know something funny? In 1987, I updated it. CRAZY NIGHTS (1987) had to be added! It took some work trying to make everything fit. I knew if Kiss continued to release new albums, I wouldn’t be able to make space forever! SMASHES, THRASHES & HITS (1988) was the last album I could squeeze onto to my humble Kiss poster before I gave up. I didn’t have a lot of things to put up on my walls, and I didn’t like to cut up my rock magazines. A printout from The Print Shop just had to do!

When the time came to start highschool in the fall of ’86, Bob helped me prepare some locker artwork. I had a Gene Simmons poster — the one of Gene from the Asylum era with his tongue stuck in the bass strings. We also thought the Easter bunny giving the finger would be a cool addition to the locker, as long as the teachers didn’t make me take it down! But what should it say? Bob and I discussed numerous sayings, shooting them down one after the other. Somehow, he came up with “The End Of Rock Is The End Of Life!” and I went with it.  “OK!”  Up it went in my very first locker. That way the girls will know I’m serious about the music. I’m in it for the music; it says so right on the poster with the Easter bunny giving the finger!

I know what you’re thinking at this point.

“What a loser!” you say. “But what the hell is ‘B Man’ and what are his adventures?”

 

This is really embarrassing. But what the hell.

That autumn (’86) I remember one of us somehow caught a bee, and pulled off its head. OK, I said it. I don’t know who it was. But we thought it was pretty cool, and Bob had an idea. He drew a little muscle-y body, and we taped the bee’s head to the paper right over it. “I AM ‘B’ MAN!” wrote Bob in a word bubble.

And once again, I thought it was a good idea to tape it in my locker. Now, I cannot remember if Bob was onside with me on this. He didn’t need “‘B’ Man” in his locker. He already had awesome posters. But I thought, hey. It’s all about getting the attention of the girls, and they’ll love that I removed the head from a bee and taped it to a poster with a drawing of a little muscle body on it. They’ll think A) that I’m good at drawing and B) I’ll protect them from bees. I showed the bees who the boss really was. Me! I was the bee boss.

It comes as no shock that none of my posters did anything to attract girls. A pair of them gave my “The End Of Rock Is The End Of Life!” the old side-eye. I think “‘B’ Man” was too small for them to be disgusted by him. My cluelessness was rivalled only by my awkwardness. I had completely misjudged the female gender. My colossally bad assumption, that because I thought something was cool they would too, was profoundly and predictably incorrect.

And so that’s the irony of the title. There were no adventures of “‘B’ Man”. He wasn’t even shot down in flames. He was a total dud and came down with no fanfare.

Now, to anyone who’s sitting there going “what a psycho! Eww!” We were kids. It was 1986. Virtually every neighbourhood had a group of kids participating in a good ol’ bug burning. It happened. It was for science n’ stuff. We all turned out pretty good.

And so, a seemingly innocent story that began with kids nerding out with primitive printing software, ends with insect mutilation. Bees, no less, the guardians of plant life on this Earth. I guess metal really does pervert the hearts of the young.

#901: 5150 Time Again?

Distilling some stories from the 5150 live stream.

RECORD STORE TALES #901: 5150 Time Again?

Van Halen’s 5150 was their first #1.  It was their first with Sammy Hagar and their first truly divisive album.  As a young kid on a weekly allowance, I had to pick and choose what to buy.  Van Halen’s marketing campaign involved making no new music videos for 5150, only releasing live clips.  Since music videos were 99% of my new music exposure, 5150 didn’t make it high on my priority lists.  Van Halen didn’t want to compete with David Lee Roth, seen as the master of the music video.  Unfortunately this meant kids like me only had live versions to preview.

In particular, the live video for “Why Can’t This Be Love” turned off many of the kids in the neighbourhood.  Scott Peddle remembers not buying the album specifically because of that video.  It was a combination of Sammy’s new haircut and the off-key scatting.  This is all we had to judge the new album by!  I didn’t have any friends who owned 5150.

I ended up getting a second hand cassette off a kid in school named Todd Burnside.  I was sorely disappointed that after paying him five bucks; the front cover to the tape was all ripped.  I had to put it back together with Scotch tape.  I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t bother taking care of his tape.  Then again, Burnside’s nickname in school was “Burnout”.  At least it played well.

Maybe two years after 5150 came out, there were rumblings about Van Halen working on new music.  In the 80s, there was no internet but there was a rumour mill.  You’d read something in a magazine, or hear it on the TV.  For example, there were almost always rumours that Van Halen were on the verge of splitting.  This happened in 1987 when Sammy Hagar released his self-titled solo album (even though said solo album was made with Edward Van Halen himself).  At the same time, there were rumours that they were also working on a brand new Van Halen album.

It wasn’t inconceivable, with our naive little insular world view, that the forthcoming new Van Halen album could leak, and someone could get a hand on a tape.  It seemed possible.  Kids in my neighbourhood had all kinds of rare music on tape that we couldn’t trace back to a source.  Live tracks by Iron Maiden, or even the legendary “Rodeo Song”.   It was taped from one kid to another to another until you didn’t know what generation you had.  This story is about the time I thought the girl I liked got her pretty little hands on the new Van Halen.

The story goes like this.  Her boyfriend taped her a Van Halen cassette, with no titles written down.  Huge pet peave, right?  Such bad habits lead to misunderstandings like this story.  I was friends with her younger brother, and one day I was talking to her on the phone and she mentioned her favourite song by Van Halen.  “I love ‘Contact’,” she said.  “It’s on this tape my boyfriend made.”

“Contact”?  I never heard of that song.  I knew my Van Halen song titles and “Contact” was not one of them.  Not realizing that she had to be making up the title herself because no songs were written down, I concluded she might have her hands on a pirated tape of the new Van Halen.  I wanted to hear it next time I came over.

I told my friends about this possible lead into the next Van Halen album and promised to report back.

I went to visit one afternoon.  They had a pool.  But I wanted to get down to business first.  I brought a blank 60 minute tape with me in case I needed to dub what I was about to hear.  Let’s see this Van Halen tape!

She brought out the tape and I noticed there was nothing written on the cover, so there was absolutely no information available about any of the songs.  But I didn’t need information as soon as she hit “play”.

The familiar cascading keyboard melody echoed from the tinny speakers of her ghetto blaster.  What the hell?!  This song wasn’t called “Contact”!  It was called “Love Walks In”!  How could she not know that?

My disappointment was only assuaged by a dip in the pool, with extra splashing.  I came home empty handed.  No Van Halen, and worse than that…the girl I liked didn’t even know the proper name of “Love Walks In”!  How the hell?

My crush on her dissipated shortly thereafter and I moved on to other interests.  She wasn’t a real Van Halen fan after all.

 

#900: Integrity Mix Again

[Integrity Mix] was an idea that came from Kevin.  For a while there, he was making a new mix CD every month, made up of the best stuff he was listening to in the last 30 days or so.  The idea was, you’d have a neat chronicle of your most impactful listening experiences.  And a good mix CD in general.  —  From Record Store Tales Part 46:  Integrity Mix

 

RECORD STORE TALES #900: Integrity Mix Again

In the years before beginning to publish my writings, I poured my musical creative energy into making mix CDs.  I spent hours on them.  I tested them in the car before giving them them “OK”.  I called them “Integrity Mix”, after one of Tom’s favourite words.  Integrity.  Music with integrity, people with integrity…that was Tom’s word.  The concept of the CD originated with Kevin, one of the guys I worked with at the very end of the Record Store.  Kevin and I had a falling out over the way I portrayed the store, but he deserves credit for many things, including these mix CDs.

The idea was simple.  Make a new mix CD every month (or so), made up on songs you were into during that period.

It was a great concept and one which I latched onto with gusto.  I made many, and some months ended up getting double CDs because there was just too much music that needed to be remembered.  Each one had a cover, though some were just simple track listings, some were more elaborate.

It’s fun to put things away and not look at them for a long time.  That’s what happened with these discs.  When I switched gears to writing on a daily basis, I wanted to listen to full albums.  Mix CDs started to collect dust.  I hadn’t looked at my Integrity Mixes for about five years, but noticed them in a corner and thought it might be fun to have a look.

What I discovered was, without even having to play a single track, I could see by much of the artwork just what I was into at that given time.  Here are all the covers I made with some kind of art:

February 2008:  Arrested Development

September-October 2008:  “Bird is the Word” via Family Guy

December 2008-January 2009:  Kenny Vs. Spenny

February-March 2009:  Battlestar Galactica

January 2010:  UFOs

February 2010:  Dedicated to my buddy Chris Thuss who had just left work

June 2011:  Super Troopers

May 2008:  Transformers

The music often reflected the shows I was into.  “All Along the Watchtower” is a key track on the Battlestar Galactica disc.  You can find tracks from movie soundtracks.

Kevin was right about doing that.  Looking back at these discs, the tracklists, and dates, I can clearly remember events from my life.  I don’t have to guess when it was — the discs are all dated.  Brilliant idea Kevin.  I feel bad that we fell out, and I’m sorry that I ever hurt him.  I hope he would have enjoyed that his idea had legs and I kept going with it long after we worked together.  Credit where credit is due!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#899: Gathering

RECORD STORE TALES #899:  Gathering

It was a beautiful day today.  In the afternoon I got the ol’ laptop dusted off, and brought it out onto the patio to listen to some tunes and watch some YouTube.  The laptop is at least a decade old, probably older, and has served me well as my travelling machine.  Today, it could barely do two things at once.  Obviously it will not serve me well for live streaming this summer at the lake.  It did a stand-up job last year, with Streamyard and video editing.  This year it simply will not cut the tomatoes so I pulled the trigger on a new HP.  I didn’t want to go down in screen size so I ordered a 17.3″.  I always get nervous when buying a new computer, and I’ve never bought HP before.  I’m excited though.  Whatever happens, it cannot be worse than a decade-old Acer.  It could be here as early as Tuesday.  Wish me luck — this summer’s future LeBrain Train episodes will depend on this laptop!  Meanwhile the old one will be brought to Sausagefest — if there will be such a thing this summer.

The laptop is delivering by Purolator, which is totally safe.  Amazon unfortunately is not.  Their couriers leave the parcel at the door and that’s that.  Because there is so much theft of Amazon parcels in these parts, for the last six months or so, I have been having everything sent to my mom and dad’s address.  I am still working from the office and they are home all the time.  Jen has appointments that usually has her out of the house when Amazon come knocking.  As a result, I have to pick up my parcels from them about once a week.  And, according to Ontario’s current regulations, having an outdoor socially distanced visit with them is currently illegal.

“Hey, would you guys like to come out back for an illegal visit?” asked my mom.

“Sure,” I shrugged.

We’ve all been vaccinated with the first shot and are at 50% immunity.  We distanced.  Well, my dad got a little close as he sometimes does.  But it was nice.  Something almost normal.  I would like to go down into the basement and look for some of my old sketches from when I was a kid, but we aren’t taking any chances.  We stayed out.  Doug Ford can suck it.

Ironically, one of the things I was picking up was a cheap pair of computer speakers.  Every time Doug Ford goes live on TV to open his big mouth, I can’t hear him.  It’s too quiet.  Annoying.  So I ordered some cheap Amazon branded speakers so I can actually listen next time he opens his big yap.  And they’re my speakers, so if I want to use them for my new laptop, I’m good there too.

Some music also arrived.  We will be interviewing Paul Laine soon on the LeBrain Train, so I grabbed his Zokusho album by the Defiants.  Looking forward to that.  In a previous order, I received Long Distance Voyager by the Moody Blues.  Uncle Meat told us that it was his dad’s favourite album, and he would love if we listened to it or even reviewed it.  So I listened to it, loved it, and ordered a CD so I can listen properly for review.  I’m happy to do that for him.

I have also completed my set of Whitesnakes Red, White & Blue trilogy.  In hand are the recent compilation CDs The Rock Album, The Love Album, and The Blues Album.  All tracks have been remixed and updated, while unreleased songs are also included.  John Snow over at 2loud2oldmusic did a fantastic job of reviewing them all.  The Blues Album came from Encore while the other two are Amazons.

We talked current events, we talked family matters, we had a few laughs.  All is well, more or less.  This is the first pandemic for everyone present.  In the five stages of grieving, I think my mom is at the anger stage.  Last week on the phone, when I told her that us visiting would be against the rules, she said “I don’t give a damn about the rules!”  I don’t know the last time I heard her that angry!  Let’s face it, we the people of Ontario have been getting jerked around.  She has a lot to be mad about.  I love my mom.

My dad, on the other hand, decided to watch a documentary about Ozzy Osbourne on A&E.  Excitedly, he told me all about his history with Black Sabbath and as a solo artist.  “He had a lot of success on his own, when no one thought he would!” he explained to me.  But it wasn’t easy for the Ozzman either.  My dad told me all about Ozzy’s son Jack, and the role that Sharon played in his success.  It was one of those moments you cherish.  I love my dad.

My mom also loved The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which concluded on Friday.  We talked about Sam and the new Captain America.  To my dad, there is only one Captain America and it’s not Sam Wilson or Steve Rogers.  It’s someone I’ve never heard of — Grant Gardner, district attorney and the 1944 version of Cap that he grew up with.  He has no interest in the new Cap, while my mom was really drawn into the storyline.  Hopefully next time we visit illegally, my mom will have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier which I told her to watch next.

I realize I have incriminated myself and my family with this story, and to that I say:  oh well.  We were safe and respectful of common sense.   When this pandemic eventually ends — and history has shown that eventually it will — I will have these chapters as a document of the weirdest times of our lives.  And that has more value than a fine.

 

#898: Vanguard 2

RECORD STORE TALES #898: Vanguard 2

Released to arcades in 1981, Vanguard didn’t catch my attention until it hit the Atari 2600 the following year.  While I have never played the arcade game, the Atari version was in my hands as soon as I could afford it.  Notably, the Atari game borrowed some of its music from Queen.  Vanguard was a scrolling space game, but where it differed from other games was that it changed orientation from side-to-side to up-and-down at points during the adventure.   There were a variety of adversaries, and power-ups to take advantage of.  There was even a “boss” to take out at the end, and then it all repeated over again at a higher difficulty.  We kids were in love with it, even the simplified Atari version.

Incidentally, Atari artwork and instruction manuals were excellent.  They often began with a short story — this one of the “Vanguard Expedition” into the “tunnels of Aterria” looking for a semi-mythical “City of Mystery”.  Enough to capture a kid’s imagination, especially when combined with the cool box art.

My best friend Bob and I, being the creative types, thought we could design a sequel.  We painstakingly drew every screen in pencil, one after the other.  There were 19 screens in total.  We taped them together in order with Scotch tape, so that you could lay the whole thing out on the floor if you so desired.  Each screen led into the next with attention to detail.

Bob and I had “designed” a dozen games already, drawing them on paper, but they were one or two screens at best.  Our Vanguard 2 was 19 levels!  Many heavily ripped off from Star Wars.  It was only 1983 or 1984 at the latest.  Although ours is completely unrelated to the actual Vanguard II that came out in 1984, out friends kept on telling us “You should send your ideas in to Atari”.  We were big dreamers but we had a lot of fun pouring hours of creativity into these projects.  I’m glad I still have some of them, including Vanguard 2.

I thought it would be fun to scan each screen and post the whole thing with commentary.  I tinted the old pages to give them some variety visually.  Check out the complete Vanguard 2 game!

Title page.  Our “hero ship” basically ripped off from the Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica.  Enemy ships show heavy Star Wars influence.

Screen 1.  Scrolling to the right.  Imagine continuous scrolling, as if all the pages were laid out on the ground.  Entering mountain!  Just like the first Vanguard, you must navigate a tunnel in your space ship.   Enemy craft, mines and drones ahead!

Screen 2.  A barrier to break through, and a choice of upper or lower tunnels to take.

Screen 3.  Upper tunnel was a trap!  Although you could possibly shoot your way through a weak spot in the cave wall.

Screen 4:  Switching out your ship for a submarine.

Screen 5:  More enemy resistance ahead, and a difficult choice of three tunnels to take.

Screen 6:  Bottom tunnel would have been the best choice.  Giant jelly fish and a 5 second force field power up ahead!

Screen 7:  Now it’s giant Octopii!  Your sub is running low on fuel, and there is a tempting fuel depot in the lower cave.

Screen 8:  The only way through these narrow caverns is to miniaturize your sub.  Then you must choose upper or lower tunnels, with the upper appearing easier.

Screen 9:  The upper tunnel has heavier resistance at a poor attack angle, plus a classic Atari-style bouncing barrier block, that you must time just right.  Success means deminiaturization and a new spaceship.

Screen 10:  Whether you take the upper or lower tunnels, you have plenty of opposition and the opportunity for a 5 second shield.  Either way — the Sarlacc pit awaits at the end of the screen.  (We would have called it something else.)

Screen 11:  Made it through the first mountain.  Passing through the energy barrier automatically “beams” you to the next screen.  (We called the mountains “Screen 1” and “Screen 2” since we envisioned it as a continuous side scroller, with only this one break in between.  Here I am calling the individual drawings “screens” as it makes more sense when you look at them individually.)

Screen 12:  Still scrolling to the right — entering volcano!  A choice of two tunnels ahead.

Screen 13:  Either way, both tunnels will lead you to a new ship, plenty of opposition, and a 7 second force field.

Screen 14:  Your new ship has dual lasers and can stand the heat of the lava lake you are about to enter!

Screen 15:  You’re heating up so don’t be long.  Upper tunnel offers some squidly opposition while the lower has plenty of enemy subs.

Screen 16:  You’re low on fuel, and a giant lizard is sitting right there by the fuel depot!

Screen 17:  Boss Level!  As in the first game, the Great Gond awaits you at the end.  He is protected by enemy ships and cruise missiles.  Once you beat Gond, we change orientation:  now the game scrolls up!  Make your escape through the cone of the volcano.

Screen 18:  Scrolling up as you try to outrace the flames of the erupting volcano beneath you, while being harassed by enemy ships and missiles!

Screen 19:  If you beat the flames, you win the game!

We could have had a hit video game on our hands!  We loved to draw and a lot of this was drawn outdoors.  I’m pleased the thing held together long enough for me to scan it.  Imagine that Queen theme playing as you win!

#897: Spam

RECORD STORE TALES #897: Spam

Making a long-ish story short(er):  before launching this site in 2012, I was an active reviewer on Amazon.  On a good day I could finish two or three.  Those reviews became the bulk of content when I launched my own site.  I must have written so many that I ended up on the Amazon Canada “Hall of Fame”.

From my Amazon profile, you can get to this site. I figured, “Hey, if somebody liked my reviews enough to click my name, then maybe they’ll like the ones I have on my site even better”.

It took me a little while to put two and two together, but a year or so ago, I started getting bombarded with emails asking me to do Amazon reviews.  The emails would come through the contact page here.  The requests would be for USB cables, lights, HDMI cables, you name it.  Anything but music.

The first few requests were vague.  “Would you like to write some Amazon reviews and get the product for free?”  I would respond, “Sure, I am looking to review the new Metallica album,” and that would be it.  I wouldn’t hear back.  They clearly didn’t check to see what kinds of products I was reviewing, which were almost exclusively CDs and DVDs.  They just saw “Hall of Fame” and jumped.

Some of the requests were more detailed — like a form letter.  I would have to buy the selected product myself, but after posting the review, they would refund the money and I keep the product.  Some of the emails specified a “positive” review.

I don’t need extra clutter, and am generally uncomfortable writing reviews on request like that.  I know a lot of those products and I would be writing a negative review on some of the USB cables and lights.  The whole thing seemed kind of shaky to me.

The requests kept rolling in, so I put a disclaimer up on the contact form on this site:  “no Amazon review requests”.  And the request emails immediately stopped…

…Only to continue on my Instagram and Facebook pages.  I have to admit the first one to come in on Instagram surprised me.  (Nothing on Facebook surprises me.)  An Instagram one really bugged me by calling me “dear” repeatedly.  I blocked that one, and then suddenly mysteriously was contacted on Facebook by a  seller who called me “dear”.  Persistence like that only earns the Instablock.

The last request was for an electric toothbrush review.  Eventually I figured out that I needed to put the disclaimer directly on my Amazon profile — “no review requests please”.  That was a couple months ago and I haven’t had a single request since!

This message came in at 1:57 AM!

 

One small victory against spam.  Then again, maybe I really blew it.  Maybe I could have had the best USB cables and lights.  My teeth could have been whiter and shinier than ever!  I don’t know anyone who’s gone for one of those review deals, so if you have any insight or feedback, let me know.

Just don’t ask me to review your damned electric toothbrush!