Record Store Tales

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…

Part 115: The Rockmobile!

RECORD STORE TALES PART 115: The Rockmobile!

In the early 2000’s, somebody thought it would be a good idea to spend money on some company cars. Now, I’m no accountant. I’m no expert on finances. But I would have thought it would make more sense to pay mileage cheques on time than to buy a mini-fleet of cars!

They were Azteks. They were painted in our store colours and had G-I-A-N-T store logos plastered all over them. It was like driving a giant logo board. They were hideous. I only rode in one, once. They tried to get me to lease one though.

“Hey Mike. How would you like to drive one of these babies?”

Wha? Why would I want to when I had my own car that I bought, that wasn’t a big ugly moving billboard? Let me tell you something people. They weren’t just ugly, they were fugly!

I guess the idea here was advertizing; mobile advertizing. I’m not too sure if that worked. I don’t know how many people driving down the street would see a car like that and go, “Quick honey, write down that phone number — I need some CDs!”

Coincidentally, GM slashed the price of the Aztek right around the time we got ours…

I think two or three people drove the Azteks. I heard they weren’t that great.

One afternoon working in the head office, I overheard a phone call. A customer was calling in to complain about somebody driving one of our Azteks. I knew it was Meredith, one of the favourites. She must have pissed someone off in traffic, like “Hey, that idiot in the CD Car cut me off! I’m phoning their boss.” I’d hate to own one of those and somebody see it in my driveway. “Hey, that’s the guy who only gave me $1 for my Mellencamp! Let’s go egg his house!”

So, I happily drove my own car instead of one of those ugly ~~Rock~~Suckmobiles. They were phased out a couple years later. The great experiment had presumably failed, because the Azteks were no more. Never to be seen again. Thank God.

Part 114: Albums That Don’t Exist

RECORD STORE TALES Part 114: Albums That Don’t Exist

I had plenty of requests for albums that didn’t exist. Or at least, I don’t think they exist. Am I right or wrong? Leave a comment.

Who. Not The Who. Not The Guess Who. Just…Who. I was told that albums by this band exist. I can’t imagine how a band could be called just “Who”, but the customer swore up and down that’s the band, not to be confused by the other two.

Jewel’s first album, before Pieces Of You. Maybe she released an indi album? Regardless, the thought of any showing up in a used CD store in southern Ontario, all the way from Alaska, wasn’t too likely if they existed at all!

Blue Rodeo’s Greatest Hits…but years before they actually released one. In the mid to late 1990’s A lot of people were baffled by a band that had 7 or 8 studio albums, but no hits collection. Yet it was insisted to me by a customer that not only did they have a greatest hits CD, but that they’d seen it for sale elsewhere.

Five solo albums, by all five Backstreet Boys, released simultaneously. A feat to make Kiss jealous, unfortunately such albums do not exist. Which makes me wonder what the lady was smoking when she mocked me for not knowing about them, since “Walmart has them!” Don’t know how they got something that doesn’t exist. But that’s what she said. I guess that makes me the dumbass.

Black Sabbath 1991, an album that supposedly came between Tyr and Dehumanizer. The guy kept calling for this album that never existed. My best guess is that he was looking for Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991?

Comment below! Do any of these albums exist?

Part 113: Destiny (“It’s Like It Was Meant to Be”)

RECORD STORE TALES PART 113: Destiny (“It’s Like It Was Meant To Be”)

Sometimes, like destiny, something cool arrived on my counter at random. Something I’d been hunting for. Something special, that hit the spot at exactly the right time. That was the beauty of used CD’s. Even more than a box of chocolate, you truly never knew what you were going to get!

For example:

IAN GILLAN – The Best Of

I had pretty much cleaned up on Deep Purple, and I was ready to start exploring the solo projects of people like Gillan, Glover and Lord. Like it was meant to be, suddenly The Best Of Ian Gillan showed up! This compilation covered his two most recent solo releases, Tool Box and Naked Thunder. Both albums are hard to get, and I still don’t have them! This compilation hit the spot.

I remember Statham coming into the store while I was playing the opening track, “Hung Me Out to Dry”. He chuckled at the opening screams! “What is this?” he laughed. But he respected my choice instead of mocking it which is more than I can say for some of the coworkers! You never see this stuff used in these parts, but once in a blue moon. I truly felt like I’d hit a home run!

Another example:

DEEP PURPLE – “Haunted” (CD single)

I’d been planning on ordering this one online. I found it on the German Amazon site, but only there so far. All the single had was a bonus remix of “Haunted”, but as a Deep Purple completist, this is the kind of rarity that I seek. CD singles tended to be a European thing and hard to get here. I was prepared to have to pay up to $15 for this single….

When suddenly a guy brought in not one but TWO promotional copies with the bonus track! Unmarked promotional copies, as in only the case was marked, which you can replace. SCORE! I saved myself some cash on that lucky happenstance, and the other copy sold off the shelf in short order.

A third great example:

JOURNEY – Trial By Fire (Japanese import)

I had been collecting Journey rarities, especially the Steve Perry years. I saw a Japanese import of the final album they did with him, Trial By Fire, at HMV 333 Yonge in Toronto. It was $40 or $45. The bonus track was “I Can See It In Your Eyes”. It just wasn’t in the budget that day. I had several Japanese imports in my hands that day, and something had to be sacrificed. Journey didn’t make the cut.

And then a couple weeks later, one of my regulars, Conrad, sold me a mint condition copy, bonus track intact. Instead of paying $45, I paid $15! Score!

REVIEW: The Black Crowes – Before The Frost…Until The Freeze (2009 CD, vinyl)

THE BLACK CROWES – Before The Frost…Until The Freeze (2009 Silver Arrow)

I didn’t know what to expect when I cracked the seal on my brand new vinyl LP of Before The Frost…Until The Freeze. The Crowes do something different every time. Reemember how different By Your Side was from Three Snakes? And how Lions was from both of those? Not to mention Southern Harmony compared to Money Maker…

The Crowes have done it again, with an album different from their others, and they did it right. Not that Warhorse was a bad album at all, although it’s one that remains tucked away on my shelves most of the time. This time, the Crowes are digging way, way back to their roots. The album is evocative of many eras of American music, from the 1920’s to the 1970’s, with an emphasis on the blues. There’s also some bluegrass on this album, plenty of acoustics, and a little bit of funk.

And interestingly,a lot of it seems to be recorded live in front of a studio audience. Amazing atmosphere on Before The Frost…Until The Freeze!

I will say that this album should really be owned on vinyl. I own both the vinyl and CD formats, and vinyl is the most enjoyable listen. The vinyl comes with all 20 tracks in a more logical order. The CD comes with 10 songs, and a download code to the get the rest. It’s nice that you can get all 20 songs via download, but I’m too old-school for that. I want to own these songs on some form of plastic. Some form of physical product. I want to hear these songs breathe on vinyl, because the Crowes are meant for vinyl.

Here’s your track list for both LPs. The first record is more mellow, rootsy and acoustic. The second, more electric and blues-driven.

Record one — Green vinyl!

“Aimless Peacock” – 6:40
“Good Morning Captain” – 3:24
“Been a Long Time (Waiting on Love)” – 7:47
“Greenhorn” – 7:12
“Appaloosa” – 3:35
“The Shady Grove” – 4:42
“The Garden Gate” – 4:21
“Shine Along” – 4:47
“Roll Old Jeremiah”- 4:40
“Houston Don’t Dream About Me” – 5:05

Record two — White vinyl!

“I Ain’t Hiding” – 5:57
“Kept My Soul” – 5:23
“Lady of Ave. A” – 5:20
“Make Glad” – 4:18
“And the Band Played On…” – 4:12
“What Is Home?” – 5:13
“So Many Times” – 4:53
“A Train Still Makes a Lonely Sound” – 4:23
“Fork in the River” – 4:11
“The Last Place That Love Lives” – 4:57

To give you an example of why you need to hear this on vinyl, the first track, “Aimless Peacock”, is a nice acoustic instrumental. It segues pretty seamlessly into “Good Morning Captain”, a beautiful song. Well, if you buy the CD, “Good Morning Captain” is track 1, and “Aimless Peacock” is track 1 of the free downloads. So you miss that transition.

The best songs for me:

“The Garden Gate” — pure bluegrass. Could have been on the O Brother soundtrack. Beautiful song, amazing song. And this one isn’t even on the CD version, just the vinyl/download.

“I Ain’t Hiding” — wow. You go from the very bluegrass first LP, to this opening track on record two, which is pure 70’s disco funk. That’s why you need to hear this on two LPs! This is track 5 on the CD, which makes its appearance more jarring.

Other standouts include “Appaloosa”, “Roll Old Jeremiah”, Rich’s “What Is Home?”, and “Good Morning Captain”, but really this is a great album, all 20 songs. It’s a great one to just chill and relax to. I think it’s becoming my favourite Crowes album. I’m a big fan of Amorica, but when I can find the time to devote to it, I think I prefer Before The Frost…Until The Freeze.

5/5 stars

CD tracklist for the curious:

“Good Morning Captain” – 3:24
“Been a Long Time (Waiting on Love)” – 7:47
“Appaloosa” – 3:35
“A Train Still Makes a Lonely Sound” – 4:23
“I Ain’t Hiding” – 5:57
“Kept My Soul” – 5:23
“What Is Home?” – 5:13
“Houston Don’t Dream About Me” – 5:05
“Make Glad” – 4:18
“And the Band Played On…” – 4:12
“The Last Place That Love Lives” – 4:57

Part 112: Klassic Kwotes IX!

RECORD STORE TALES PART 112: Klassic Kwotes IX!

1. “I just have this image of Josh shaking his ‘thing'”. Not actually spoken in-store, this was found on the ground on a piece of pink notepaper, after a gaggle of school girls had left the store. Odd.

2. “I’ll tell you something, somebody’s getting fat off that Gumbo thing!” said the surly old man when I showed him the price of the Forrest Gump soundtrack. Too rich for him!

3. “So how is the new N’Sync CD, is it decent?” Why would you even ask this question of a guy wearing a Kiss shirt?

4. “I hear good things about it.” My response. This was a standardized response for if you hadn’t heard the album in question, or had heard it but hated it. For example, “How’s the new Nickelback?” The correct answer would have been, “I hear good things about it.”

5. Another standardized answer for questions like that: “If you liked their last album, you’ll like this one.”

6. “Can I try these out?” said the guy holding about dozen discs, 10 minutes before closing time. (Luckily, we had a policy of shutting down the CD players 15 minutes before close to avoid these situations.)

7. “Sorry man. These things are on timers. I can’t even turn it on.” This is what you said if a simple, “No, sorry man, we’re closing,” wasn’t good enough. And people believed it! There was a neat trick. The headphones were hooked up to these little amps. But if I shut down the amp, there was a good 20-30 second delay before the music died. So I covertly could flip a switch to kill the amp, walk across the store, and be doing something else before the customer’s music stops. Then when they’d say, “Hey, the music stopped, I don’t know what happened,” I would respond: “Sorry man. Those things are on timers. We’re closing and they automatically shut down at this time.” This was reserved for the jerks who abused the players.

8. “Sorry man, this CD is too scratched for me to take,” said I, to the customer selling the disc. His classic response? “Fuck! That’s what you said when I brought it in last time! But this time I fuckin’ buffed it in Turtle Wax!”

9. When we first opened, we had a big huge sign that said “WE PAY CSAH FOR USED CDS“.

10. The man from the sign company came in to fix the sign. He said to me, and I swear to God I’m not making this up — he said to me, “That’s Bill. He spells ‘cash’ wrong on every sign.”

BONUS 11! “Hey man. You spelled ‘cash’ wrong on your sign you know.” No kidding? And Bill fuckin’ spelled it wrong, not me!

Part 111: The Girl In the Sam Roberts Shirt

RECORD STORE TALES PART 111: The Girl In the Sam Roberts Shirt

Saturday, Sept. 17, 2005. I had a rare Saturday off, and I wasn’t wasting it.

I was single, and interested in a couple different girls. First there was Mel. She was a nice but just always in a hurry. She drove like a maniac and for her it was all rush-rush-rush. We had a “date” that Saturday morning. We were heading to St. Jacobs to go to the market.

Well, this wasn’t the kind of market excursion I was used to. She was rushing from vendor to vendor, getting what she needed, with no time to look around! I had a couple things I wanted to buy and she paced and tapped her toes waiting as I looked. It wasn’t comfortable. I ended up buying some T-shirts (Bob Marley and Slash) and a Lego set. The Lego set, the Ultimate Collector’s Series Y-Wing fighter, was $200. She wanted to pay for it. That creeped me out a bit, considering I barely knew this girl. I said no. And that was basically it. She drove me home, and that was all. No sparks, just the creeps.

Before I went on my date with Mel, I was up all night talking to Jen. Jen was from Brampton. She was a hockey loving Christian who also liked Johnny Cash and Nirvana. I didn’t even sleep that night, we were on the phone until daylight. I said to Jen, “I have this date with this Mel girl in a few hours. But I don’t even really want to go.” In a way I was relieved that the “date” didn’t go well. I wasn’t into it, and even though she was a hockey-loving Christian, and I hadn’t been to church in almost 20 years, I had a much better connection with Jen.

I spent Saturday putting together my Lego set. It actually took me all week to finish. It was massive.

Sunday the 18th I had to work. I grew to hate working Sundays. I don’t remember anything about that work day at all — maybe I’ve blocked it out? Jen recalls a little bit. She remembers me telling her that I was having a shitty day at the store. Sundays were usually pretty busy right from the get-go, and Sundays we were usually inundated with jerk knobs and dipsticks. It wasn’t a great part of town to work in. We attracted a high ratio of customers that did not carry any kind of currency, but needed to kill time listening to music at a CD store.

“Hey!” she said. “Are you doing anything tonight?”

“Well, nothing I can’t cancel,” I said. “Why?”

“Do you want to come down to Brampton and hang out?”

Sure! I was down for that. She gave me the directions, and I hopped in my green Dodge Neon and hit the highway.

I pulled into the driveway, and a blonde girl wearing a Sam Roberts T-shirt, with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen was waiting for me. She smiled a smile that lit up the whole day. I was wearing the Marley shirt that I bought the day before. The night flew by. We went to a park and played on the swings. We went to Sonny’s, and had some of their legendary poutine, and probably the best cheeseburger I’ve ever had in my life. The night flew by.

I had to work Monday morning, as usual. I left Brampton around 9 so I could get home and get to bed at a decent hour. As I drove down Dixie Road towards Highway 401, I said to myself, “That girl is special. Whatever you do, you have to make sure she doesn’t get hurt. She’s different than the others you’ve met.”

And she was. And 3 years later, Jen became Mrs. LeBrain.

Part 110: FAQ

For those of you just joining us, I felt now was as good a time as any to answer some FAQ’s about working in a record store in general, and my experience specifically!

RECORD STORE TALES PART 110: FAQ

FAQ 1: So, it’s just like Empire Records, right?

NO! Not even close. We never had a couch. I hate that movie.

FAQ 2: I thought working in a record store was supposed to be fun? Why is your blog so bitchy?

This is something I am trying to be especially conscious of – a good balance. Yes, working in a record store is fun. The treasures that float your way, the characters you run into, and the situations can be quite funny/cool/exciting. But my experience was both sides of the coin. Being a manager, reporting to a corporate structure, during the beginning of the downloading era had plenty of sucky moments too. It is easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and say, “We did this wrong, we missed the boat here, and we messed this up.” My bottom line has always been to make you laugh and hopefully that happens from time to time!

FAQ 3: So you got a discount, right?

Yes! New employees didn’t get one until they were done probation, due to past abuses. Once it kicked in, it was pretty sweet. The only thing that we couldn’t get discounts on were rarities. Anything rare, like let’s say the first Tea Party CD, we were not allowed discounts on. But that discount allowed my collection to grow 20-fold!

FAQ 4: How do I get a job in a music store?

In my experience, there are two ways. One is to know somebody that works there to get you in. Keep shopping there and chatting up the staff until they know you. Another way is to apply like any other job, and have a wealth of musical knowledge to back you up. I don’t know how important musical knowledge is anymore, with Google able to answer most questions, but that’s how it was for us.

FAQ 5: What’s the rarest thing you ever saw come in?

Well, that depends. Rarity is relative. What was rare then can be common now. But one thing for sure was that rare Tea Party album. I also saw a Japanese import Deep Purple box set.

FAQ 6: So, it’s just like Empire Records, right?

GAHHHH!

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