I used to work with this guy, Joe. People who know where I worked, they know Joe. And they know Joe is a very, shall we say, unique person. Funny as hell, but there is nobody like Joe. Straight from my journal, here’s the proof. I call this one the Open Door Piss.
Date: 2005/11/26 23:52
So I’m with Joe at work, talking about work or something. The conversation is as follows:
Me – (babbles on about work or something) Joe – Hey, keep talking, follow me though. Me – Where are we going? Joe – Just follow me. Me – OK, ummm, into the bathroom? Joe – No, just stand outside, keep talking though. (I hear him upzip his pants) Me – Are you peeing? Joe – Yeah man! It’s the open door piss! So what was I saying before? Oh yeah…(continues conversation).
Joe’s a pretty interesting guy.
A couple years later, I was having a Rock Band party at my house, during which Uncle Meat also did the Open Door Piss. Must be a Record Store Guy thing?
RECORD STORE TALES Part 168: The Constipated Ritchie Blackmore
The date: Before Christmas 2005 (my final Christmas at the store)
The place: My store
The characters: Myself, and “Box Set Man”
I had this one great customer, and dammit, I cannot remember his name. We called him “Box Set Man” because he bought and sold a lot of box sets. In fact, I have a Japanese Deep Purple Purple Chronicle 25th anniversary box set from his collection, complete with obi strip.
Box Set Man also collected rock photographs, original photographs from private collections, unpublished anywhere. He bought them at record shows, by networking (he was once a concert promoter) and from eBay. He would trade photos in his collection for more desirable ones as well.
Just before Christmas 2005, Box Set Man came in with a gift for me. He handed me a plain yellow envelope. Inscribed on the envelope was this:
Merry Xmas Mike
This photo is from a private collection from Germany “Blackmore”.
Inside the envelope was an original Ritchie Blackmore photo.
Ritchie is obviously digging deep into a guitar solo in this photo. Stratocaster raised, eyes closed, Ritchie is givin’ it all he’s got. But the overall effect is one of Ritchie looking like he has to go to the bathroom.
Christmas 2005 was my final Christmas at the store, but Box Set Man didn’t know that. I don’t remember why, but head office had asked me to keep my departure under wraps. The announcement wasn’t made until my final day at the store (Jan 4, 2006) and as it turns out, that was the day I told Box Set Man as well.
So, without further delay, I present to you this original photograph that I have dubbed “The Constipated Ritchie Blackmore”!
NOTE: After posting this, my former co-worker Pat reminded me that Box Set Man’s name was Dan!
RECORD STORE TALES Part 166: Anthrax – “Cowboy Song”
Stuff like this didn’t happen often, but it did happen. Sometimes one of my customers would just give me a CD that they thought I would want. Unfortunately my journal didn’t record who gave these discs to me!
Date: 2005/11/26 13:14
WICKED! Someone today gave me a free copy of the “Cowboy Song” single by Anthrax, a rare Thin Lizzy cover. Also got Doin’ The Nasty by Slik Toxik for free. SCORE.
Statham did on occasion give me free discs. I recall once he gave me a Black Crowes single. Another one of my customers (name long forgotten) gave me a Jimi Hendrix hardcover book. But this was not a frequent occurrence. Unfortunately, most people treated the guy behind the counter at the record store like shit. I guess that’s part and parcel of working in a buy-and-sell environment. Stuff like this helped make the job tolerable.
This single was a Sam the Record Man exclusive. It came free with copies of Sound of White Noise purchased there, but for a limited time only. I don’t know how rare it is today, but it certainly is a collectible, being a store exclusive.
I wish I could remember who gave me this cool Anthrax single. It could have been somebody I knew that worked at Sam’s (that narrows it down to 3 or 4 people) or somebody I knew that worked for Warner (narrows it down to 2). Either way, I thank you.
Onto the review!
ANTHRAX – “Cowboy Song” (1993 Warner Music Canada promo)
This promo single comes with no case or cover, but does have some liner notes printed on the CD itself. It was produced by Dave Jerden and Anthrax, and all guitars were performed by Scott Ian. Presumably, that means Dan Spitz doesn’t appear on the song.
This was recorded as a bonus track for the Japanese edition of Sound of White Noise, and can be currently found on the remastered edition of the same album. This is an awesome cover, very authentic to the live version that Thin Lizzy used to do, made famous on the Live and Dangerous album. The lead vocals are, of course, by John Bush. John Bush doesn’t attempt to do a Phil Lynott impression (thankfully, that wouldn’t be wise) but does deliver the vocal with his trademark grit.
Scott Ian nails all the guitar parts perfectly. You’d swear there were two guys playing. It comes as no surprise that Charlie Benate’s drum parts are also perfect. I think Brian Downey was and is one of the most underrated drummers in rock, and Benate does him justice.
I love this cover. Anthrax are well known for choosing and performing great covers. Add this one to the list.
Remember tape cases? Some looked like briefcases. You could store anywhere from 24 to 60 tapes in one case, which snapped shut with a clasp. Others were double sided, made of nylon, zipped shut, and could hold 120 cassette tapes. At my peak, I owned about 10 cases altogether, different sizes, to hold my cassette collection.
We had phased out tapes completely by 1996. It was a dead format. CD had taken over completely, and our stores were some of the first in the area to go 100% CD. You could still buy tapes downtown at Encore Records, and I occasionally still did. I remember buying Fireball, by Deep Purple, on tape there in 1996, because finding a CD in town was impossible.
One afternoon in ’97, when I was working alone, a big dude walked into the store. Outside of a Tarantino movie, I’d never heard so many “F-bombs” dropped in one conversation. Luckily I was journaling back then and recorded the conversation for posterity.
Big guy: “Hey, where are your cassette boxes?”
Me: “You mean like tape cases, for carrying your tapes around with you?”
Big guy: “Yeah, them fuckin’ things.”
Me: “Uhh…we don’t carry those anymore. We phased out tapes a while ago.”
Big guy: “Fuck. You fuckin’ sure you got nothin’?”
Me: “Yeah, pretty sure. We don’t carry tapes, so we don’t carry tape accessories either.”
Big guy: “Why the fuck don’t you carry tapes? What are people supposed to do who listen to fuckin’ tapes?”
Me: “Well, you could try the mall. I think some of those stores carry tapes. They probably have cases too.”
Big guy: “Think so?”
Me: “It’s worth a try?”
Big guy: “Fuck. I’ll just make one.”
Me: “OK.”
Big guy: “Yeah. Fuck. I’ll just buy some fuckin’ wood. Cut ‘er up nice and build a fuckin’ box for my tapes. Just get some fuckin’ wood, fuckin’ slap ‘er together, and make a fuckin’ tape box of my own. Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.”
Me: “…That sounds like a good idea.”
Big guy: “Fuck, it’ll be easy, I’ll just buy some fuckin’ wood.”
RECORD STORE TALES Part 164: “You scratch my back…”
In the past, (Part 120, in fact) I talked about how T-Rev would keep his eyes peeled for discs that he knew I wanted. It worked out to be a mutually advantageous arrangement; a large chunk of my collection came to me simply because T-Rev knew I wanted something. I’m sure the reverse was also true. But this referred just to discs that showed up in our respective stores.
I had a different arrangement with “QUO”, who worked with me at my own store. In this case, we’d actually buy each other stuff while we were out on our own record shopping excursions. I found the following entries in my journal, illustrating exactly the kind of “you scratch my back…” arrangements that we had. It was pretty awesome.
Date: 2005/10/25 16:26
Today I picked up a Bright Eyes 45, an Arcade Fire 45 for QUO, and the new Motley DVD since I didn’t see the tour. I hope the documentary footage kicks ass! The last Motley DVD (given to me by an ex) really sucked. Maybe Vince actually sings on this one instead of letting the fans do it all!
I actually picked up the Bright Eyes 7″ for QUO as well, but he already had it, so I just kept it for myself. I don’t know which Arcade Fire I bought for him (it was probably “Rebellion”), but the Bright Eyes was “Gold Mine Gutted”. (The Motley DVD I am referring to was Carnival of Sins.)
This was in return of a favour QUO did for me, one week prior!
Date: 2005/10/18 10:00
QUO picked up three CDs for me in Toronto last night:
1. Bon Jovi “Have A Nice Day” single (has two live tracks first released on the box set, but in studio versions). 2. Bruce Dickinson Tyranny Of Souls Japanese import with bonus track. 3. Iron Maiden “The Trooper” CD single.
I remember giving QUO a wishlist. This was back when HMV Toronto still carried Japanese imports (which they no longer do, see rant here). I remember putting Avril Lavigne CD singles on that wishlist too!
This is what obsessive Record Store Guys do. We help each other out. It’s in our blood, the blood of the collector!
Hockey season has begun! Enjoy this Record Store Tale….
RECORD STORE TALES Part 163: Hockey
The date: May 14, 2004
The location: My store
The characters: Store employee Matt, and a really dumb kid who claimed to be 20 years old, selling used discs.
The NHL playoffs were in full swing. Oftentimes, when you’re selling used CDs, it takes time to go through them all and assign values to them. Customers like to make small talk during this time. In Canada, small talk often amounts to hockey talk. According to my journal, the conversation unfolded as below.
Dumb Kid Who Says He’s 20: “Who are you cheering for in hockey?”
Matt: “Calgary.”
DKWSH20: “Calgary? What for, why aren’t you cheering for someone Canadian?”
Matt: “Calgary IS in Canada.”
DKWSH20: “It is?”
Matt: “Yes.”
DKWSH20: “Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at a map.”
RECORD STORE TALES Part 162: “Is it out in Toronto?”
I guess this is one of those weird urban myths. Growing up in Kitchener in the 1980’s, some people used to think we got new releases later than big urban areas like Toronto. I can distinctly remember childhood friends of mine having this discussion with me. Just swap out the names of the bands depending on the person.
Me: “I saw the new Judas Priest video today. It was awesome. I can’t wait for the album.”
Friend: “It’s not out yet?”
Me: “No, I asked at A&A Records and it’s out in about a month.”
Friend: “Yeah, but that’s here. I bet it’s already out in Toronto. Toronto gets everything first.”
I thought maybe that was just an isolated myth, relegated to our group of friends in the Stanley Park part of town. We didn’t have much in the way of record stores within walking distance. There was a Zellers (no longer there, now a Walmart), and later on the aforementioned A&A Records and Tapes. When all we had was Zellers, you could imagine they might not order the new Judas Priest on the day of release. It wasn’t their thing.
When I was working at the record store many years later, I discovered this urban myth did indeed perpetuate among different groups all over town! I had heard more than once, “It’s gotta be out in Toronto, right?”
For example, in May 1996, I did have this exact conversation:
Customer: “Do you have the new Tragically Hip?”
Me: “No, it comes out on Tuesday though. Do you want me to reserve you a copy?”
Customer: “Tuesday? That’s just here though, right? Toronto would already have it, right? I’m going to try in Toronto on Saturday.”
No! Why would Toronto already have it? This wasn’t the 1800’s, delivering parcels on horseback! I don’t get where that idea started, but it did exist, and let this article be a remembrance of an earlier age of CD ignorance!
RECORD STORE TALES Part 161: The Woman Who Got Her Bike Stoled
The date: July 15, 2005
The location: My store
Straight from my journal, here’s the tale.
One weird thing happened today. This strange woman came in to sell CDs, but left her bike outside unlocked, and it had been stolen. Now, instead of blaming it on the lack of a lock on her bike, she decided to blame the lack of surveillance cameras outside. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know any CD store that has cameras OUTSIDE. But apparently that’s “dumb”.
She came back later in the day, telling me that she ran into two guys drinking beers in the woods. She had a beer with them. She came back into the store saying “Now I have a ‘cheap’ buzz on.”
Now I’m wondering, does she mean “cheap” as in “free”? Or did these two mysterious woodsmen charge her for the beer? The mind reels.
My journal does not say if the woman ever found the bicycle or not. Typical day on the shady side of town!
I’m going to try and cover more rarities from my collection in 2013. Here’s a very rare one indeed! First, the story of how I acquired it, then the review.
RECORD STORE TALES Part 160: Harem Scarem Acoustic Sessions
Everybody at the store knew I was a big Harem Scarem fan. A bunch of Japanese imports found their way into the store, and I bought them all. I also played their music frequently in-store, as it was melodic and radio-friendly. Their stuff ranged from early Jovi-goodness to mid-period progressive pop rock sounds, to later pop punk. I liked pretty much everything they did, until they changed their name to Rubber and drifted too far into the pop direction for my tastes.
At one point in the early 2000’s, we had a large warehouse in the back of one of our stores. The idea was, we’d warehouse stock for opening future stores. There was a warehouse manager, and he would inventory everything in there. We’d send him anything decent that we had too many copies of. He’d also have stock from liquidations, or estate sales.
A lot of the time, the stuff from liquidations would include promo CD singles. I have dozens of promo discs from him, that we couldn’t sell in store. Usually these promo discs would have edit versions of album tracks. I have stuff from him including promos from Metallica, David Lee Roth, Motley Crue, and King’s X. Some of them, like the King’s X (which we’ll talk about in the future), had rare non-album tracks too.
He also ran our eBay store, and eBay have strict rules about selling promo discs. So basically, anything that was obviously promo sat in boxes gathering dust in our warehouse. On occasion, when it was a band like Harem Scarem that he knew I liked, he’d let me have it. Otherwise it would have sat there for years, probably just to be thrown in the garbage at some point.
One of the discs that he sent my way was a Harem Scarem EP called Acoustic Sessions. Subtitltled Limited Edition, there were only 500 copies made (see footnote for confirmation of this number.)
Most commercial retail releases have barcodes, and this one does not, indicating it probably was not a commercial release. Yet it also doesn’t say, “Not For Sale: Property of Warner Music Canada Ltd.” like a promo should, so who knows? It doesn’t even have a year printed on the case, only the CD itself (1991). The spine of the CD doesn’t even have a serial number. Maybe it was given to fanclub members or contest winners?
Either way: Never seen it before, never seen it since. I don’t truthfully know how it ended up in our possession, whether it was a liquidation, or just something we purchased off a regular customer somewhere. The details are now lost to the sands of time, but either way it ended up in our warehouse and consequently my collection. I also don’t recall what I paid for the disc. Probably $3. That would have been typical, with my staff discount, for something like this. With hindsight, we probably could have sold it for much more than that, but the folks in charge always underestimated the selling power of bands like Harem Scarem.
If it’s true that there’s only 500 copies out there, then I’m thrilled.
Oh, who am I kidding? It’s a rarity no matter what! I’m still thrilled!
HAREM SCAREM – Acoustic Sessions Limited Edition (1991 Warner Music)
The EP starts with a 3:16 edit version of their single “Something To Say”, the fifth single from Harem Scarem’s self-titled debut album. It’s a ballad, pleasant enough, acoustic. It has a really nice acoustic guitar solo courtesy of virtuoso player Pete Lesperance. Otherwise I’ve never considered it a standout. If you like “To Be With You” by Mr. Big or “More Than Words” by Extreme, this is another ballad for your collection. This same version was later released on another EP called Live & Acoustic.
Onto the exclusive acoustic tracks. These three songs were only available here, or the 1994 Japanese import version of the debut album. Good luck finding that today at a decent price!
The debut single “Slowly Slipping Away” (co-written by songsmith Marc Ribler) is rendered in acoustic form first. These acoustic sessions were recorded at Cabin Fever studios and self-produced by Lesperance and singer Harry Hess. As great a song as “Slowly Slipping Away” surely is, I think it does miss something in its acoustic form. That really nice electric guitar hook that precedes the verses, I miss it! I also miss that throbbing bassline. Yet the band’s incredible harmony vocals are just as powerful as ever.
“How Long” is next, a great album track in acoustic form. The chorus is just as big and dramatic as the album version, thanks to the band’s trademark harmonies. In my opinion, the band’s strength here was the original drummer, Darren Smith. What a voice. (The quartet were rounded out by original bassist Mike Gionet who stayed for three studio albums and a couple live releases.)
“Hard To Love” was not a single, but it works really well acoustically and maybe should have been a single after all. Once again the harmonies soar, with Smith in particularly standing out. I’ve always felt that the band really lost something when he left in the early 2000’s. This is a great track, radio ready and full of hooks.
The fifth and final track is just the regular album version of “Something To Say”, at 4:41, with the full (intricate) acoustic intro.
For a five song EP, this one is a winner. Just wish I knew more about its history!
4/5 stars
ADDED NOTE: Reader Danny has emailed the haremscarem.net site, and heard back from somebody regarding there being only 500 copies of this CD:
yes it’s true. Very rare now, because it was released in this very limited quantity. Take care, Dan
mikeladano.com 