Record Store Tales

Part 125: Syphon Remix (It’s T-Rev Appreciation Day…Again!)

RECORD STORE TALES PART 125:  Syphon Remix

(It’s T-Rev Appreciation Day…Again!)

Trevor’s in the habit of texting me whenever he sees something that I may want.  Which is more often than I can afford, as it happens, so I have to pick and choose!  I just received another box of goodies from T-Rev last week.  Inside I found the contents below:

     

     

Gotta love picture discs eh?  I’ll never play that Ozzy EP (all songs are also on his Prince of Darkness box set) but it sure looks cool.  (Look at Jake E. Lee!  Oh, Jake.)  Didn’t even know it existed.  That Grim Reaper one, I’d never seen the album cover before.  Never even knew what it looked like!  Sure love that title track though.  And I’m well on record for loving the Rage For Order LP by Queensryche!

Also in the box was a rare 12″ single by Kim Mitchell.  You know, the guy who teased your brains with Max Webster, and then your taste buds with “Go For Soda”.

Trev and I are both Kim and Max fans, but undoubtedly he’s the bigger fan than I am.  So it was with utmost gratitude that I accept this record:  “Go For Soda (Syphon Remix)” / “Love Ties”.  This was from his own personal collection.  As far as I know, neither of us have seen another copy.   I spoke to my buddy, that guy Craig Fee who works at that radio station Dave FM, and he’d never heard of it, let alone encountered it in his vast travels.

Anyway, Trev found this one, back in the record store days!  I don’t know when or where but maybe he’ll pop in with his remembrances!  But this is the kind of thing we lived for.  Finding something rare, cool, and previously unknown.

There’s no credit for who did the remix, essentially an extended version.  The song has a different intro and is beefed up from 3:26 to 4:59.  It’s a UK import, from Bronze records.  Mitchell’s stuff is released by Anthem over here in North America.  Bronze released Motorhead and Girlschool records in the 1970’s, I wonder if they commissioned this remix themselves.

So thanks Trev for another treasure.   This is the kind of thing that Trev was prone to finding.  I recall he had an etched Megadeth picture disc, and he also somehow scored me a double Bon Jovi 12″ single with 3 rare live tracks.

Must be the keen eye of a skilled Record Store Guy!  I salute you sir.

Part 124: Design

RECORD STORE TALES PART 124:  Design

I was so excited when I got my own store to manage.  It was bigger, loads of room for stock, with 6 CD players for customers to preview discs before they bought.  In addition, for the first time I had a small back room to put stuff in.

Yet, the design of the store left something to be desired.  One complaint I got was that our shelves were hard to get at.  They went right from the floor straight up to eye level.  If you walk into a Sunrise or HMV today, you’d see all their shelves are pretty much at waist level, easy to see and easy to pick through.

So, you would get customers having to go right down to the floor to look at the lowest CDs.  Sometimes they would sit on the floor. (I never would have wanted to sit on those carpets!)  Sometimes they would just bend over, giving me the worst show of plumber butt you can imagine.  I’m talking half-moons, crack and all.  I’ve seen a lot of bums in my decade-plus as a Record Store Guy.

On the flipside, some people had a hard time reaching the highest items, and we would have to get them down.  Weirdly though, once established, this design pretty much carried on to future stores.  They replaced the wood shelving with modular plastic shelving, which wasn’t nearly as good nor sturdy, but it was much cheaper.

The other thing that was extremely poorly designed was our counter.  I wish I could estimate how long it was in total, but it was way too long.  And the cash register was dead center.  So, if somebody asked you to help them, you basically had to walk from the register to the end of the store to get out from behind the counter.  It really discouraged interaction with customers.  A little exercise never hurt anyone, but it was just plain annoying.  My first thought upon working there was, “Couldn’t they have put a gap in the counter maybe 5 feet to my left?”  I actually had it more than once, when a customer would ask me for help, and I would start to make my way around.  He would say, “Where are you going?”  I’m going way the hell over here just so I could get out!

Sometimes when in an empty store alone, I would just jump it!  I hated that counter.

The last thing I hated about our store design was that we had a little glass vestibule at the entrance.  I guess in theory, it was probably there for energy efficiency.  So you’re not letting out all the hot air in the winter, and cool air conditioning in the summer.  But all it did was get dirty, very very dirty.

One thing I learned:  People touch glass.  They don’t need a reason to touch it, they just do.  That vestibule was dirty day after day after day and you could not keep it clean.  If I cleaned it in the morning, it was filthy in the afternoon.  People would smear greasy hands all over all glass surfaces, and kids would stick their faces to it.

In the winter, it was worse.  Mud would be splattered all over the glass, as people stomped the snow off their boots.  The mat in the vestibule would get soaked in just one day, and never dry out because the vestibule was so cold in the winter.

And then, you’d get these surprise store inspections.  You would see comments on them like, “Glass in front vestibule was disgusting.”

Well, no kidding!  It’s always filthy!  Even Mr. Clean couldn’t fix that vestibule!  If we hired a kid part time to clean it every 30 minutes, I would never have had a poor score on any store inspections!

Part 123 / NON-REVIEW: Iron Maiden – Missing Maidens! (Live!! +one and more)

Not really part of my series of Iron Maiden reviews.

There are a few Iron Maiden musical items that I’ll probably never own.  I know I won’t own all the singles, but that’s OK — The First Ten Years set, and the first 10 albums with bonus discs takes care of those songs.  There are rarer things to be discussed.  As I pause between Live After Death and Somewhere In Time in my review series, this is a good time to talk about a couple items.

IRON MAIDEN – Live!! +one (EP, 1980 Japan, 1984 Greece reissue)

This four song EP was released in Japan shortly after the “Women In Uniform” single came out.  It contains two songs from that single:  the title track, and the live version of “Phantom of the Opera” from the Marquee.

It also contains two live songs not available anywhere else:  “Sanctuary” and “Drifter” from the same Marquee show.  They’re awesome of course, if you’ve heard the early live Di’Anno stuff that I talked about in my Maiden reviews, then you can imagine these are just as good.  Di’Anno does his “yo, yo yo yo” thing on “Drifter”.

I have seen them go for around $100 on eBay.   This is definitely on my current “Holy Grail” list.

4/5 stars

IRON MAIDEN – Best of the Beast (1996 four-LP box set)

For this, I’m going to take a moment and slide into a Record Store Tale because this is one of those moments that I wish I could change!

RECORD STORE TALES PART 123:  Missing Maidens!

Trevor and I frequented record shows several times a year.  On one such excursion, we were in a Dr. Disc store.  It was in Hamilton, Ontario.  That same visit, the same Dr. Disc store even had Chikara, a rare Japanese Kiss compilation, on CD.  But I passed on that, and I passed on the vinyl edition of Best of the Beast, too….

You know those high shelves where they put the expensive items?  And you have to ask someone to get it down for you?  And they’d go to the back room and get a step ladder?  That’s where Best of the Beast was.

Back then, information about such sets wasn’t readily available.  I didn’t know it existed until I saw it.  If I did, I would have known that the vinyl version had an exclusive live cut of “Revelations”… not the live version from Live After Death!  This wasn’t immediately obvious from the back cover.  It is only today that I know this!

 

The vinyl version had plenty more music as well, including album cuts such as “Where Eagles Dare” and “The Prisoner”.  It also had the only official re-release of The Soundhouse Tapes ever, since the original 5000.   I had that bootleg copy of The Soundhouse Tapes and More so I deemed this to be a less essential purchase.  Especially for the $200 that Dr. Disc was asking.  But it was sealed, mint, brand new.

I recently saw one in questionable shape on eBay for $240.  Some joker on Amazon is asking $900 for sealed copies right now.

So, right now, odds do not seem to be in my favour of lightning striking twice.  I don’t know if I will ever have another chance to own this at a decent price in good condition.  Alas.  I wish I could turn back time!

Part 122: Death of an Icon

RECORD STORE TALES PART 122:  Death of an Icon

Because our internet access was blocked from the most useful sites, while at work you often had no idea what was happening in the outside world.  Sometimes your only clue was what customers were requesting.

For example, here’s a typical day of phone calls, when something really big has happened.

PHONE CALL #1:
“Do you have any George Harrison?”

PHONE CALL #2: 
“Do you guys have any Beatles or George Harrison solo?”

PHONE CALL #3: 
“Hi, I was wondering, do you have anything in stock by George Harrison?”

Us being primarily a used CD store, we would usually be cleaned out of that artist by the fourth call or so.

PHONE CALL #4:
“Hey, do you have George Harrison?”

At this point my curiousity would be peaked.

“Actually I just sold out about 10 minutes ago.  I’ve had so many requests for George and the Beatles today.  Has something happened?” I queried.

“Yeah, he died.  They just announced it on TV today.”

“Oh no!” I responded.  “The cancer got him?”

“Yeah,” came the answer.

That was a grim, depressing day.  The world had not lost a Beatle in over 20 years.  But November 29, 2001, we lost my favourite Beatle, George.  Unfortunately that’s how I found out about most music deaths, by an abnormal amount of requests for that artist.  Those were rarely fun days.  We dutifully hung some George posters in our back room, and mourned the death of an icon.

Mrs. Lebrain’s favourite George song

Part 121: Movies

RECORD STORE TALES PART 121:  MOVIES

 As a movie buff I was glad when one of our stores decided to carry VHS tapes!  My movie collection grew massively at the time.  I had access to lots of cool items, in widescreen format.  I bought virtually everything that we saw come in, if it was in widescreen format.  The staff, T-Rev in particular, knew to keep an eye out for widescreen movies for me.  This opened up a whole new retail world for us, for now we had customers that were not interested in music at all, just movies.  Of course movie knowledge now came into play, especially when customers would ask a question like, “Do you have that John Wayne movie where he’s after the outlaw guys?”

In 1998 or 1999, I bought my first DVD player.  We started carrying DVDs at that time as well.  That was exciting too.   A lot of people had been asking about them.

When they were still big, you could expect to pay $8.99 to $11.99 for a used VHS tape.  $5.99 if it was a cheapie bin special.  For DVDs, you might expect to pay $16.99 to $19.99 for a used one.  That was in the beginning, prices dropped quickly and within five years, DVDs were almost as cheap as CDs!  We even had laserdiscs, on the rare occasion that they came in.  They were giant.  If you don’t remember what I’m talking about, here’s a size comparison to a CD.

We learned right away though that handling DVDs was not the same as handling CDs!  Maybe the plastic they were made of was softer, because they scratched so much more easily than a CD, and the scratches were so much harder to remove.  This trouble was doubled with the 2-sided DVD discs.

Fixing a scratched double sided DVD was very, very difficult.  You could spend 5 minutes buffing the scratches out of one side, only to find that handling the disc put more scratches in the other side.  They were very tricky, and a lot of the DVD discs that we sold in the early days looked terrible, for that reason.  They would work fine on most players (most), but looked cloudy and streaky.  And a lot of our DVD customers were really, really picky.

Eventually the 2-sided discs became a lot less common.  In the meantime, we had to set up display spaces for DVDs, figured out how to store the discs themselves behind the counter without damaging them, and so on.  Even slight handling or dust could create problems.  Dusting the DVDs could often make them look worse, as the wiping left slight but visible scratches.

At first the selection was pretty poor.  Sony were giving away a number of titles for free with their players, so we had a lot of copies of Sphere, and The Negotiator.  Trade-ins started after a few months.  We started seeing box sets, before they were really common, Criterion Editions, all kinds of stuff.  It happened quick, our stock grew and grew….

…And so did my own personal collection!  Ain’t it the way?

Continued in Part 284:  The Impact of Movies

Part 120: T-Rev Appreciation Day!

I was sitting here, trying to think of some new content to write.  Then it hit me:  T-Rev Appreciation Day!  

RECORD STORE TALES PART 120:  T-Rev Appreciation Day!

T-Rev, a past contributor here at LeBrain’s Blog, is a man whom I owe a lot.  Not only is he one of the best buds I’ve ever had (sniff) but he’s also responsible for getting me so damn many of my treasures.  Directly responsible.  Like, I’m not talking about stuff like, “Mike, you really need to buy some Oasis, Max Webster, and Steve Earle.  Oh, and while you’re at it, the second Four Horsemen album is awesome!” 

He did, in fact, turn me onto all four of those things.  But I’m talking more about the kind of situation where a combination of his eagle eyes, musical knowledge, and friendship scored me some discs!

Here’s two:

QUEENSRYCHE – Road To Promised Land aka ARRIVED!

This 1995  promo CD is a neat little greatest hits, going chronologically from the first EP to the Promised Land album!  The only exclusive track is a radio edit of “Damaged” but Trevor saw this one and gave me a call.  He knew I loved Queensryche, especially since I was going to see them with Tom that summer.

DIAMOND HEAD – Lightning To The Nations (original mix!)

T-Rev and I were both Metallica fans, and were both aware that they had covered numerous Diamond Head songs.  This, like the Queensryche disc, came into Trevor’s store.  While I wouldn’t fault him for snagging this one for himself, he deemed it slightly out of the scope of his core collection.  I’m glad he did, because this disc rocks!  And this is the original “Lars Ulrich approved” mix of the album, ripped straight from the LP.  Most CD editions were remixed, and the master tapes are now lost.  So this is a real treat and hopefully I’ll get around to reviewing it.   15 tracks, from the album itself plus B-sides and so on. 

I raise a glass to Trevor, surely one of the finest Record Store Dudes to ever grace a cash register!  My memories, and my collection, would be poorer without you.

   

Part 119: Judas Is Rising In Hamilton, Ontario

RECORD STORE TALES PART 119: Judas Is Rising In Hamilton, Ontario

Feburary, 2005.  The week before Judas Priest’s new Angel of Retribution comeback album was about to drop.
 
I was on the road again, this time working in Hamilton Ontario.  I don’t remember the circumstances anymore.  Store after store, they all blended together.  I’m sure it was another staffing crisis, again.  I dutifully hit the road to Hamilton and helped put out whatever fire was happening.  I do remember that in the chaos I had forgotten to do something at my home store, where I was also pulling double duty.  I remember catching shit for whatever it was, while unwrapping those shiny new awesome Priest discs.

The burden of sin echoes the prophecy
Ascending from Hell, forever despising
Judas is rising

 
I remember that the store was really bad shape, really badly organized.  Albums were everywhere, just filed carelessly, and a lot had gotten lost somewhere in the netherworld of obscure genres.  Cases had gone missing, but so had ther actual CD’s behind the counter.  So to keep me busy, there was a list of missing discs and sections to organize. 

There was plenty of time to do this.  I don’t know how that store stayed in business, because the days that I spent there were really slow.  I remember playing almost an entire CD of the Mr. Bergis prank phone calls while I organized sections, because over an hour had passed before the last soul walked through my doors!  Not including me, as I went out to my car to get the CD.

Lunch time wasn’t too bad, as a lot of surprisingly polite highschool kids frequented the store at lunch.  They didn’t buy a lot, but they were pleasant enough and it was better than picking my nose.  That was refreshing, most highschool kids at my home store were pricks.

 
White bolts of lightning
Came out of nowhere
Blinded the darkness
Created the storm

It was pretty much just the kids that were tolerable.  The adults, not so much!  I remember opening up one morning and the first people in were selling a large box of discs.  They were a pain in the ass.  Everything I did was, “Oh, the regular person does it another way,” or “The regular person pays more for that one,” or “The regular person doesn’t ask me for ID.” 

It sucked being an irregular person!
 
There was also this one fellow looking for a Christmas song by the Eagles.  I knew this was on their recent box set, which I verified on Allmusic and told him.  I didn’t have a copy of the box set, since we were a used CD store and nobody had traded one in, which I explained to him.
 
“No problem, I don’t want to buy it.  I just want to hear it.  Can you play it?”
 
Unfortunately in 2005 that wasn’t possible, not with the computers we had, and any websites that would have allowed me to play music were blocked anyway.  Upper management was more worried about staff sitting there mucking around on the internet, than being able to play a song sample for customers.
 
“You can’t play it for me?  Seriously?  That’s useless!” said the nice man, as he walked out.

Forged out of flame from chaos to destiny
Bringer of pain, forever undying
Judas is rising

All told, Hamilton was another “fun” and “exciting” road trip for me.  The only good thing that happened was the chance to play the new Priest in store.  Not only was there no upper management to tell me to turn it off, but it wasn’t even out yet.  Sneak preview for my ears only, in an empty store, private audience of one!  Judas is rising indeed!

Part 118: Famous Persons

RECORD STORE TALES PART 118:  Famous Persons

People sometimes ask me, “LeBrain, did you ever meet anybody famous through your store?”  I wish that happened more often.  As it stands my list is pretty meager.  I met Dave McDonald, the local weather man.  He wanted in the store early one day.

My meager list:

1. London, Ontario’s “Snake the Tattoo Man”, whose biggest claim to fame was appearing on Phil Donahue, and in a Helix video (“Running Wild in the 21st Century”).  He thought he deserved a discount on CD’s because, as per his words:  “I’m the Tattoo Man”.

2. Country singer Beverley Mahood, a little bit after the initial fame.  She’d worked with David Foster in the past.  She was a regular.  One time she came in and held up her CD.  “That’s me!” she said.  I felt like saying, “Yup…and that’s you in the bargain bin at $4.99, too!”

3. Grammy Award winning Polka King Walter Ostenek, who I’m told is a bit of a pompous ass.  I talked about him in a previous installment.

4. Former Helix and Saga drummer Brian Doerner, who was a super nice guy that didn’t buy anything on that visit.  However I got some drum sticks and autographs out of him later on!

5. The dad of ex-Helix and Brighton Rock guitarist Greg “Shredder” Fraser.  Nice, chatty guy.  Very proud of his son.

6. Blue Rodeo slide guitarist Bob Egan, who never said much of anything.  Just looked around.  I wasn’t sure it was him until I heard that he lived in town, and sure enough, it was Bob Egan.  I believe today he occassionally collaborates with one of our store managers.

That’s about it.  This isn’t exactly a booming metropolis, and we attracted the bare minimum of people with any sort of fame.  During my 20’s, I used to fantasize that singer songwriter Dayna Manning who lived in Stratford would pop in, and we’d meet.  That never happened.

Instead, I had Snake the Tattoo Man coming in.  Good ol’ T-Rev ran into him first.  He said to Snake, “If you wanna talk to a huge Helix fan, talk to Mike.”  So he made a trip specifically to talk to me.  What Trevor failed to get through Snake’s head is that I was a huge Helix fan, not a huge Snake the Tattoo Man fan.  So Snake walked in trying to sell me Snake merch!  I disappointed him by not buying one of his autographed glossy photos.

“Do you want to buy a picture of me with Phil Donahue?  I signed it for you.  $10.  Me and Donahue.  I also have me and Helix.  I’ll give you a deal if you buy five.”

Thanks Trev.  That was such a wonderful experience!

Part 117: Promos (FIRST EVER VIDEO BLOG!)

RECORD STORE TALES Part 117:  Promos

First ever video blog from us, circa 2012!

Join Mike as he describes promo CDs in the 90s and early 2000s.
Worthless to him…what about you?

Part 116: IRON MAIDEN’s Gonna Get Ya…No Matter How Far! (The first 10, in 2 CD picture discs!)

Alright folks, strap yourselves in and get ready for the ride.  After the positive feedback from my series of Kiss reviews, I’ve decided to go with popular demand and do all the Iron Maiden next.  We’re going to talk about every studio album, every live album, every compilation, and every rarity that I have access to.  But why not start off with a Record Store Tale?  Here’s how I acquired rare editions of the crucial first 10 albums….

 RECORD STORE TALES PART 116:

IRON MAIDEN’s Gonna Get Ya…No Matter How Far!

My love of Maiden is well documented.  The very first blog here at LeBrain’s Record Store Tales, Part 1, was called “Run To The Hills”. It describes the first time I ever heard the band.  I don’t need to explain to you why I love Iron Maiden.  If you’re reading this, chances are that you already understand.  Iron Maiden are more than just a band.  They are a passion.  With a band like Maiden, the fans strive to own everything.

The setting:  Early 1996, when we still carried new CD stock.  One of our suppliers dropped off a brand new catalogue.  Inside, was a new listing.  An exciting new listing!

Iron Maiden were reissuing their first 10 albums in 2 CD editions, with a bonus disc of B-sides!  Picture discs!  Iron Maiden, Killers, The Number of the Beast, Peace of Mind, Powerslave, Live After Death, Somewhere In Time, Seventh Son, No Prayer, and Fear of the Dark!  Knowing that Maiden usually released a minimum of two singles per album, with a minimum of 2 B-sides per single, this was a MUST for me.  I didn’t have all the Maiden singles.  Not even close.  Some of these songs, like “Burning Ambition” and “Invasion”, I’d never even heard before!  Now I was going to have the chance to own them on CD.

The discs were expensive, even with my staff discount.  But there was absolutely no way I was missing these.  As an added incentive, I didn’t even own all the Maiden albums on CD yet.  Most of these albums I still only owned on cassette or vinyl!  So really, it was a win-win situation.  Not only was I getting the B-sides, but I was also getting all the Maiden albums on CD with a minimum of overlap with my existing collection.  Plus, these were picture discs with Derek Riggs’ singles artwork.  Picture discs were something of a novelty at the time.  Today, most CDs are picture discs and nobody cares if they are.


My boss warned me:  “If you order these, you better make sure you buy them all.”  There was absolutely no question of that, I’m surprised he even mentioned it, knowing what a collector I am.  It’s too bad we didn’t order more, for stock.  The rarity of these discs has shown that we could have sold them quickly, or better yet, hung onto them for a couple years and jacked up the price once they were out of print.

The supplier we were ordering from, the name of which escapes me, was a small-time supplier, and usually couldn’t get everything we ordered.  They had about a 50% success rate.  Yet he listed all these European imports that our main supplier usually shied away from.  The Maiden reissues were all from Europe.  I crossed my fingers.  I wanted all 10.  Not “some”, but all!  “Some” would not do it!

A week later, the first five Maidens arrived!  The following week, another chunk of Maiden shipped!  They only failed to get me one disc: Fear of the Dark.  Resolving to get it somehow, it turns out I didn’t need to worry about it.  Two weeks later, even that one arrived.  Total expenditure:  About $300 with taxes!  I had all 10.  My Maiden B-side collection:  almost complete!  [Note:  When I go through the Maiden reviews, we’ll cover all the B-sides, including songs that are not on these deluxe editions.]

I settled in for some long, long nights of listening.  I made a compilation tape of all the B-sides that I had (including up to the current album, The X Factor), and it ended up being 3 tapes, 100 minute cassettes, which I still have.  To knock so many songs off my wishlist in one fell swoop like this was the kind of thing I lived for.  This was the perk of working in a record store.  What a score!  Today, I don’t know anybody else who has the full set of 10.

Be sure to check back in the coming days and weeks for all the reviews, starting with The Soundhouse Tapes, to the present day…