Record Store Tales

Part 179: The Phantom of the Opera, and Paul Stanley’s Autograph

PHANTOM 3

RECORD STORE TALES Part 179: 

The Phantom of the Opera, and Paul Stanley’s Autograph

I seem to have lost my ticket, so I don’t know the exact date.  I do know however that I saw Phantom of the Opera at Pantages around October of 1999.  As you probably know, that was a big deal to us Kiss fans.  Paul Stanley was playing the titular Phantom.

My memories of the performance are good.  I recall there being a lot of longhairs and leather jackets in the crowd.  I remember that Paul couldn’t keep that edgy scream out of his voice, but he still did a remarkable job with the material.   I also remember he did a total rock star bow at the end of the show.

PAUL CREDITS

Having Paul play the Phantom was a stroke of genius.  It pulled in thousands of people, like me, who otherwise would not have gone to Toronto to see the show.  And it was a quality show.  Paul had the vocal range to do it, just not that classic training, and he was a bit rough around the edges.  But who cares?  He was so popular they had to add several more weeks of performances to his stay.  In fact I missed the chance to see him initially, it was only when they added the additional weeks that I got a ticket.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “OK, so what about that autograph?  Did you meet Paul?”

No.  But DJ Donnie D did.

I worked with this guy, DJ Donnie D.  (Yeah, don’t ask.)  Donnie went to see Phantom a few weeks after me, with his girlfriend (now wife).   While in Toronto, walking down the street, he spotted a familiar figure.

“I know who that is.  That’s Paul Stanley,” he told his girlfriend.  “I have to ask for his autograph.”

He approached Paul who was kind, and signed their stuff.  But Donnie went one step above and beyond the call of duty.  He got me an autograph too.

He came into work on his next shift, and surprised me with it.  “I had to get it for you,” he said.

I was blown away, I was jumping up and down I was so excited.  How cool is that?  I’m telling you right now, in my 12 years at the record store, I worked with some of the best people I’ve ever run across.  Donnie was one of them.  Thanks Donnie!

PAUL AUTOGRAPH

Next time on Record Store Tales…

Part 180:  Google Rules

Part 178: The Kooky Movie People and the Unfortunate Emails
Not an actual still from the movie. But close!

Not an actual still from the movie. But close!

RECORD STORE TALES Part 178:

The Kooky Movie People and the Unfortunate Emails

In early 2004, a guy I knew from my University days came into the store.  He was making an indy movie with some locals, and he asked me if I’d be willing to donate a gift certificate to help raise funds for the movie.  The store would get their name in the credits.

Knowing my bosses would never go for it, but wanting to help the guy out, I bought a $10 gift certificate myself and donated it to the movie.  He was very grateful and psyched.  He loaned me a DVD of a movie they had made the previous year, a very very low budget fantasy thing.  It was, in a word, awful.  Lord of the Rings, this was not!

Next thing I knew, he had put my email address on a mailing list for these movie people.  I started receiving drafts of what generously might be called a “script” for some kind of spy drama.

I quietly read the emails as they arrived, somewhat amused by the sheer lack of any sort of story, but more interested by the internal strife.  It seems the cast and crew had no faith in their writer/director, and didn’t understand the plot of his movie, at all.  The highlight of this exchange was recorded in my journal.  This is the email, word for word, that I received on May 5 2004.

Date: 2004/05/05
08:24

THERE ARE NO HOLES IN THE SCRIPT!!!!!!!!!!

It is the result of months of rewrites. I am not responsible for your lack of comprehension.

If you do not get the subtext of Dimitri’s quest for redemption, if you do not see how many times MacPherson throws misinformation Rick’s way, if you do not see the fact that Dimitri is NOT LIKED by any of the western cops, if you do not see that Marie is a surrogate sister for dimitri on his quest, if you do not see that Simon is only a catalyst, if you do not see that the whole waterseed subplot is just that and the resolution is NOT part of the storyline, too damned bad.

At this point, I actually started feeling guilty about my voyeuristic enjoyment of these emails.  I asked them to remove me from their mailing list.  The next day, I recorded this in my journal:

Date: 2004/05/06
06:27

When I asked to be removed from their mailing list, they sent me a bunch of emails saying, “No wait! Don’t go! The script is good!” And I had to reply, “I’m not even INVOLVED with your movies. I just donated $10 in gift certificates and suddenly I’m on these mailing lists.”   Though, admittedly, I will miss their ridiculous emails.

The guy from my University days came in to collect the DVD he had loaned me, and never came into the store again.   I don’t know if the film was ever made, and I don’t know if our store ever got its name in the credits.

In fact, I don’t think it would have been a good thing if the store did get its name in the credits.

 

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES:

Part 179:  Paul Stanley’s autograph…

Part 177 / REVIEW: Helix – Live! In Buffalo

Another double feature for y’all boys and girls.  First the Record Store Tale, then the review…

Brent live October 3 2007

RECORD STORE TALES Part 177:  Hot On the Heels of Love

The record store had begun selling Brent Doerner’s Decibel, the first solo album by the ex-Helix guitarist on consignment.  My buddy Chuck hooked me up with a copy.  I opened it up, and lo and behold — another buddy of mine, and one of my best customers, was playing guitar in Brent’s band!  I have talked about Shane Schedler in the past, he was a great guy and I was glad he had hooked up with Brent.

I met Brent at a Helix gig at Molly Bloom’s, told him about how I knew Shane from my store, and this led to our first interview, which I published a while ago on this site.  I did numerous other writing jobs for Brent over the years as well.

Anyway, we shot the shit for a couple hours, just talking about music.  He was very passionate about songwriting, particularly lyrics.  Sometimes he would come up with a catchy song title or interesting phrase, and try to write lyrics around it.  He was heavily influenced by the lyrics of Burton Cummings, from The Guess Who.

“I like the fact that Burton Cummings kind of sang in riddles,” said Brent.  “You could listen to the song 100 times and try to pick the meaning out of the sentences.  And therefore, it doesn’t have a high burnout factor.  When I’m writing, that’s the big challenge.  I don’t want it to have a burnout factor.”

“I worked really hard at getting unique titles…I want unique titles so I can have unique songs,” he told me.

Chatting away, Brent told me of some future song ideas.  “I really want to write a song called ‘Hot on the Heels of Love’,” he said.  At first, I was quiet, and kind of confused.  Brent seemed to be waiting for my reaction.

“Brent,” I said, “You already have a song called that.”

“No I don’t,” he answered, and then paused.  “Really?”

“Yeah you do.  It’s on one of the Helix live albums,” I told him, trying to not embarrass him!

“Really?  Which one?” he asked me.

We were in his basement, sitting at this beautiful bar.  He had a small CD tower down there in the basement, with a complete selection of every Helix album he’d ever appeared on.  I studied the tower and spotted the album I was looking for:  Live! In Buffalo, which was recorded in 1983 but not released until 2001.

“Right there…Live! In Buffalo,” I said, “you have a song on there called ‘Hot On the Heels of Love’, that you sang, but as far as I know Helix never recorded a studio version of it.”

Brent grabbed the CD and looked it over.  Sure enough, there it was.  “Hot On the Heels of Love” is track #9.

I guess this shows that a good song title is a good song title no matter what.  But it was also the first time that LeBrain schooled a member of Helix!  (It was not the last time!)

Onto the review!

HELIX LIVE FRONT

HELIX – Live! In Buffalo (2001 Dirty Dog Records, recorded September 29, 1983)

Right from Vollmer’s first “Let’s rock!” at the beginning of this CD, Live! In Buffalo kicks you in the face and doesn’t stop until the end. Only one ballad (and barely a ballad at that, when performed at this volume), this concert sounds like it was a real sweaty affair. Helix were at the top of their game in ’83, hot on the heels of No Rest For The Wicked and “Heavy Metal Love”. This album is loud, there are no overdubs, this is a pure rock concert with no frills. The music is broken up with the occasional (breathless) intros by Vollmer, but then it’s right back into the high-octane rock.  Incredible to think this album was recorded in the middle of the day!

Sometimes I’ve felt that a good bootleg is much better than a well-recorded live album. There’s no fakery on a bootleg, and there is no fakery here. This was recorded for a radio broadcast, and miraculously the tapes were in good enough shape to release as a CD.

Helix opened with the title track from their current album.  “No Rest For the Wicked” is pounding, Fritz Hinz on the skins, pummeling them into submission, Brent on backing vocals while Vollmer seemingly shreds his own vocal cords.  This version is faster and heavier than the album version, as is every song on Live! In Buffalo.  Even a melodic rocker like “Let’s All Do It Tonite” has more bite.

Brian’s on stage raps are from the Paul Stanley school of thought.  For example, “White Lace & Black Leather”.

“This next song is about those ladies that you meet that got lots of class.  Lots of class…elegance.  When it comes to etiquette they’re at the top of their class…you’ll never find them with the fork on the wrong side of their plate.    You dare never tell a dirty joke to this lady because she’ll get up and leave the table.  But you get that same lady home, that very same night, get her back to your place, get her behind closed doors…she’ll turn out to be a moaner every time!  This is called ‘White Lace & Black Leather’!”

Elsewhere, a grizzled “Ain’t No High Like Rock and Roll” combines catchy licks with a driving melody.  A lot of these early Helix songs are among the best tunes they ever wrote.  Yet unfortunately, they are seldom if ever played anymore.  Thankfully, this album exists to remind us how great Helix can be.

Historically, this is also cool for a couple reasons. One, some of these songs had yet to be recorded on a studio album, such as “6 Strings 9 Lives” and “You Keep Me Rockin'”, which would turn up on the next album.  As mentioned in the above Record Store Tale Part 177, one tune was never released on a studio album at all. That is Brent Doerner’s “Hot On The Heels Of Love”, sung by Brent (don’t forget he also sang “Billy Oxygen”, one of Helix’ first hits from the debut album). It is a gritty fast rocker, with a memorably galvanic riff.

There are some other live offerings out there by Helix, such as Half-Alive and the promo-only Live At The Marquee, but this one blows them all away even though it was just for a radio broadcast. One of my favourite live albums, and one of my favourite Helix CDs.

5/5 R’s!

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES:

Part 178:  Some really kooky movie makers…

Part 176: Trevor the Security Guard

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 176:  Trevor the Security Guard

Without a doubt, the laziest man I ever met in my Record Store Travels was Trevor, the security guard.

Our very first store was in a mall.  Malls have numerous indigenous life forms:  Mall rats, Crazy dudes that talk to themselves, hot girls that work at the clothing stores, and security guards.  Security guards liked to patrol two places in particular:  The clothing stores where the hot girls worked, and record stores.

I went to highschool with Trevor.  He was one year behind me.  He was an ancillary member of our group, the nerd kids that ate lunch in the chess club room.  As such, Trevor found his way into our highschool comic book, “Brett-Lore”.  These are the only surviving pictures of Trevor’s comic book alter ego, the book itself left in my care after graduation.

Trevor was most certainly a lazy man.  He would be known to kill an hour at a time in our store.  Not buying anything, just talking, and being a security guard.  While I am sure he purchased more than one CD in his years as a security guard, I can only recall one.  Ironically, it was “One”, by Metallica, the live version digipack.  It was a rarity and a good purchase on his part.  I believe he paid $8.99 for it.

Metallica One live

Trevor spent so much time in our store wasting our time, that I caught shit for it.  Sort of.

My boss came to me and said, “Mike, I have to ask you a question.  Do you have a friend with dreads?”

I searched my memory, but I couldn’t think of anyone with dreads.  (I had a friend, Aaron L, who had four braids on his head, but that was a few years later.)

“No.  Why?” I answered.

“Well, a strange thing happened.  A customer of ours was in here on Friday, and said you were so busy talking to someone with dreads, that she got fed up and bought her CD at Zellers instead.  You don’t know anyone with dreads?”

Immediately, I realized there was a miscommunication.  I didn’t have any friends with dreads at that time.  I did, however, have a friend with red hair — red, not dreads — and it was Trevor the security guard!

“Nope, I don’t know anyone with dreads.  Sorry,” I covered for myself.

“OK.  It must have been a misunderstanding.  Well, just remember how important it is to pay attention to every customer.”

Whew! Got away with it!  Only now, 18 years later, can the truth be told!  Yes, it was Trevor the security guard who was chatting me up that day.  Trevor the security guard, the laziest man in my esteemed group of highschool friends.

Whew.  Off my chest.  That feels good!

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES:

A double Helix feature!

Part 175: Flyers

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 175:  Flyers

No, not the Philadelphia Flyers.  I’ve never been the biggest Scott Hartnell fan despite the Sideshow Bob haircut.

Back in ’96, we decided to promote one of our new stores the old fashioned way:  by running around parking lots sticking flyers on cars.  Now, me personally, I don’t know anyone who enjoys finding those things on their windshield.  I thought it was a waste of money, personally, but since they were going to pay me to do it, I volunteered.  It was summer and it seemed a great way to spend a nice sunny Saturday.

T-Rev volunteered too.  I packed a cooler full of pop, and we decided to hit up three of the local malls.  We started first thing in the nice, cool morning but before too long it got really hot.  Good thing we wore hats.

After only an hour, we discovered that we had to flyer the cars strategically.  T-Rev was the first one to get yelled at.

“Hey!  Get away from my car!”

T-Rev just handed him the flyer instead.  The dude was not impressed.  We came up with a set of rules.  We wouldn’t flyer any cars that had obvious alarms.  We wouldn’t flyer any nice expensive cars.  And if we saw someone approaching, we wouldn’t flyer any cars in the area they seemed to be walking to.

“Mike, that’s a ‘Vette!  Don’t put a flyer on that one!”  That kind of thing.

It wasn’t a total loss.  A couple people said they would come in to the store.  Unfortunately by the end of it, dozens of flyers littered the parking lot, as people ripped them from their windshields.  T-Rev and I still made a day’s wage working outside.   Not a bad way to earn a day’s pay!

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES:

Part 176:  The story of the laziest man at the mall…

Part 174: Muscle of Love

RECORD STORE TALES Part 174:  Muscle of Love

I had forgotten completely about this.  It turns out that even before LeBrain was LeBrain, my old record store customers were calling me to pick my (le)brain about everything rock.  I found this in my journal:

Date: 2004/08/03 15:34

A dude just called me specifically to hear a “60 second review” of Alice Cooper’s Muscle Of Love record.  This is so awesome… I did a damn good 60 second review, too!

I wish I had recorded what I said for my 60 second review, but it probably would have went something like this:  “Great album, not as great as the previous four with the original band, but still pretty awesome.  Lots of lesser known classics on there, like ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ and ‘Teenage Lament’.  A little more basic rock, a little less elaborate than Billion Dollar Babies or School’s Out, because this is the one that Ezrin didn’t produce.”  

Working at the record store was a near-intolerable daily grind, but something like this would have made it all worthwhile.  I’m glad I recorded it!

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES:

Part 175:  Muscle cars and flyers…

Part 173: Gene Simmons’ Asylum Demos

RECORD STORE TALES Part 173:  Gene Simmons’ Asylum Demos

Back in 1994-95, when I was working at our original store, I would always proudly fly the Kiss flag.  This was before the mega reunion, and on the heels of the Revenge album, which I was really into.

I had a small online presence back then, I had created our very first online ads in 1994.  I was talking about music on every single BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the area, and on one board, called Wanderer’s Rest, I had a forum for my reviews.  I was going by the online name “Geddy” (hah!) back then, and I was extremely prolific.  Very little has changed since!

One guy, name long forgotten, messaged me.  “Hey, I’m a customer at your store.  I have some rare Kiss demos.  Do you want to do a tape swap?”  Of course I did.  For him, I made a copy of the March 25 1974 show in Washington at the Bayou club.  It was a cool show because they played an unreleased song called “You’re Much Too Young”.

For me, he made a tape of Gene’s Asylum demos, on one of our Maxell UR60’s that we sold in our store.  Gene is a very prolific songwriter.  Not everything he comes up with is gold (clearly!) but he usually submitted a dozen tunes or more for consideration on each album.  Judging by this cassette, Asylum was no exception, even though he was very distracted by Hollywood at that time.

The tape, which unfortunately did not survive the years very well at all, contains 13 of Gene’s demos, 3 being instrumental ideas, and a bonus track.  A couple songs made the final album.  I tried to listen to the tape, to see if I recognized any ideas.  Unfortunately, this tape now sounds terrible and is unlistenable.  I ripped only one song, which was “Russian Roulette”, to see if it resembled the version that later ended up on 2009’s Sonic Boom album.  From what I can tell, only the title survived to Sonic Boom.

Musically however, the song was recycled on the Monster album, as “Eat Your Heart Out”!  It’s the same riff.  Although you can’t make out the lyrics on the demo version at all, you can tell they are completely different.

See the pictures below for the tape made for me by the Mystery Kiss Fan back in ’94-95.   If you know any of these Gene songs, please comment below!  We can hope that good quality versions will come out on Gene’s “Monster” box set, if it ever comes out!

Part 172: The Goo Goo Dolls

RECORD STORE TALES Part 172:  The Goo Goo Dolls

Back in 1995, when the Goo Goo Dolls finally made the big time with “Name”, I sold an assload of those albums in my store.  People couldn’t get enough of them back then.  I personally had never even listened to it.  I mean, there were so many alt-rock bands in 1995 and ’96!  Better Than Ezra, Presidents of the United States of America, Matchbox 20…and I wasn’t interested in any of them.  I was a metal head.

As it turns out, (this is complicated, so bear with me) my uncle worked with the mother of the fiance of bassist Robby Takac.  So my aunt started asking me all these questions about this band, Goo Goo Dolls.  Do you know them?  Do you sell them in your store?  Etc.

I told my aunt, yes I know Goo Goo Dolls, and yes, I sell a ton of them in our store.  They were definitely one of our top sellers, for pretty much a year straight.  I mean they were huge at the time.

My aunt and uncle ended up being invited to the wedding, and Goo Goo Dolls played at the reception.  They had a great time, very much enjoyed herself, and met the band.  Not knowing that I had never listened to a Goo Goo Dolls song in my life, my aunt told Robby and the band that I was a big supporter and sold a whole bunch of their discs in my store for them.

To their credit, they were very thankful (if a tad misled), and FedEx’d my aunt a signed glossy in gratitude!

“Hi Michael,” it says, “Thanks a lot for your help!”  It was signed by Robby, lead singer Johnny Rzeznik, and new drummer Mike Malinin.

A tad bemused, I thought it might be a good idea to actually do them the service of listening to their music.  So I began to do that, in store, and found that I actually enjoyed the band quite a bit.  I like A Boy Named Goo, the album that I supposedly helped them out with, but I think Superstar Car Wash (the album previous) and Dizzy Up The Girl (the album that followed) are both superior.  I still like them today, leaning towards the early punk material, with a preference to their excellent deep cuts compilation, What I Learned About Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce.  

So there you go.  If it wasn’t for a slight misunderstanding, I might never have discovered the band!

Part 171: VIDEO – Record Store Gallery

RECORD STORE TALES Part 171:  Record Store Gallery

Douchebag

Part 170: Jonathan

RECORD STORE TALES Part 170:  Jonathan

I’ve worked with a lot of accountants over the years.  I like accountants.  I seem to get along with accountants, don’t know why.  The coolest accountant I ever worked with was Jonathan.  I like to describe Jonathan’s appearance as being a dead ringer for the actor Romany Malco:

Jonathan always made me laugh.  Check out this journal entry:

Date: 2004/06/17
14:09

It was really amusing walking into the office today, and seeing Jonathan singing “Lick It Up” by Kiss.

Very un-accountant like behaviour!

Jonathan was good people.  He took a pay cut to work with us, because he wanted to do something he was passionate about.  He taught all us knuckle-draggers on the store floors about cash flow vs. profit.  He helped us out a lot on the financial side, and he was smart.  Plus he loved music.

One time when my mom came into the store to visit, I introduced her to Jon.  He said to my mom, “You brought up a good son, Mrs. Ladano.”

I used to drive Jonathan home from work once or twice a week, and it was always good to talk to him.  He used to give me advice every time.  He encouraged me to better myself.  He used to call me “Lifer”.  He said, “You’re never going to get out of here.  You’re going to work here forever.”  But he did it to rile me up, to get me looking for work elsewhere, because he knew the CD store was a dead end for me.  He had respect for me, when he called me “Lifer” he meant it to motivate me.

I’d talk to him about girls I liked.  There was this girl that worked at the Money Mart next door, but I was too shy to walk in and talk to her.  So Jonathan did it for me!  Witness these journal entries:

Date: 2004/05/21,  10:08

The one girl at the Money Mart next door is really cute, and I see her out there all the time having a smoke. When Jonathan goes out to have a smoke, he talks to her, give her a light, whatever.  I mentioned to Jonathan that I thought the one girl was real cute yesterday.  Then today, I TOTALLY got busted staring at her through the window!  THEN Jonathan went out to chat it up with her, right after I got busted, to tell her all about me, ask her if she wants to go out on a date with me…Jesus Christ!

Date: 2004/05/22,  09:52

  • Cheap Trick – Authorized Greatest Hits
  • Alice In Chains – Jar of Flies
  • KISS tribute – Kiss My Ass
  • The Goo Goo Dolls – Gutterflower
  • Rush – Vapor Trails

Nice thing about working the day alone with no bosses around is that you can listen to whatever the hell you want!

I don’t think Money Mart Girl, who I learned from Jonathan is named Jessica, is working today. So I couldn’t say hi to her even if I worked up the guts!

In the end, Jonathan had to split.  He had three kids and being an accountant for a CD store wasn’t going to cut it anymore.  He took an offer he could not refuse, and bid us farewell.

I’ll always remember good times working with Jonathan, a true character, and the guy who got me thinking about my future.