Record Store Tales

#1151: An Egg of a Deal: End of August Scores

RECORD STORE TALES #1151: An Egg of a Day: End of August Scores

I have a coworker whose parents recently passed.  This is always sad, but the time came for my coworker to purge her mom’s music collection.  Periodically when this happens, people come to me to ask my opinion.  Essentially, she wanted to know:  “is there anything here that I shouldn’t take to the local Beat Goes On because it might be worth more?”  She didn’t think much of her chances, but wanted to be sure.

“Sure, I’ll pop over and have a look,” I said.  “I can’t promise you anything but I can at least have a look.”

That was good enough for her.

“I bet I find a bunch of Lawrence Welk!” I joked to Tim Durling and Jex Russell.  You know the kind of record collection I mean.

Indeed, I did find Lawrence Welk in the very first box of vinyl.  I had a laugh and kept digging.  To everyone’s surprise, I found things that might indeed have been valuable, and they had no idea how it got into that collection.

First of all, she had a really nice stack of 78s.  Big Crosby was the first one I saw.  I have no idea on value of 78s, but this were stored well and all seemed in good condition.  It might have been my first time handling a stack of 78’s like that.  They are thicker than an LP, and much heavier.  They require a special stylus as well as a turntable that can go up to 78.  I used to have that equipment.  She even had a cylinder, whether Edison or a competing brand, that was out for professional appraisal.  So, this collection I was looking at had these formats:

  • LPs
  • 45s
  • 78s
  • Cassettes
  • 8-tracks
  • CDs
  • and one cylinder

Pretty wild scope.  The genres were all over the place, from easy listening and country (the usual suspects) to disco, jazz, oldies, and even progressive rock and heavy metal, as you’ll see.  This, I did not expect.

Then I spied an album called Egg.  Something about it jumped out at me.  I flipped it around and there were black and white photos of long haired guys jamming.  That struck me as out of place in this collection, so I set it aside.  Somebody looked it up, and it can sell for easily over $100.  Everyone seemed really impressed by my ability to sniff this out.  I am no expert, folks.  Not at all.  But it looked out of place, which is why I took a second glance.  It turns out Egg were an English progressive rock band, and the album was released in 1970.  Very surprising, but they felt that this one find justified me coming over and looking at their records, so I was happy.

Original price:  $6.99

I found some things I wanted for myself and made an offer.  I left with the following titles:

  • Guns N’ Roses – “You Could Be Mine” 1991 Geffen cassette single.  I own it on CD, but never on cassette.  Why not?  In this day and age of owning everything on every format, why not?
  • The Best Of ZZ Top 1977 Wea Music cassette.  A staple, but one that I somehow have never owned before on any format.  Stone cold classic compilation.
  • John Williams and the Boston Pops – Pops In Space 1980, Philips, made in Holland.  This contains music from some of Williams science fiction classics:  Superman, The Empire Strikes Back (which was brand new in 1980), Star Wars, and Close Encounters.  I haven’t seen this one before.
  • Oscar Peterson – The Trio – Live from Chicago 1961 Verve/1986 Polygram CD.  My second Oscar Peterson score this summer.  You rarely find Oscar in the wild, and never this one.
  • Johnny Cash – His Greatest Hits, Volume II 1971 Columbia 8-track.   This was the Cash album I grew up with in the car with my dad, albeit on cassette.  This cartridge is in great shape, and resides in a bright red shell.  This is my first red shell 8-track tape.

When I called my dad to tell him of my musical scores, he was surprised at the 8-track.  While he clearly remembers that Cash album, he asked me “Do you have anything that plays an 8-track?”  This is a common question that we collectors get.  No I do not.  I don’t have a way to play a Minidisc, a DAT, or a DCC either but I would love to have some in my collection.  My collecting desires are no longer strictly just to have music to play.  Now I collect music I can’t even play too!  Just to have a piece of history.

After we completely examined the collection and left some advice, I departed with my treasures.  Since we were in the neighbourhood, I decided to visit the old Toys R Us/HMV store.  There, I finally decided to pick up Iron Maiden’s Powerslave on vinyl, edging me closer to completing the 1980s collection.  Now, all I should need are the first two Di’Anno albums (I think).  Powerslave was $36 and hard to pull the trigger on, since I can distinctly remember a time when Sam the Record Man was swinning in new copies for $6.99 each, and that sticks with you.  I finally have it now.

A successful Saturday.  Time to listen to some music!

#1150: “867-5309 / Jenny”

RECORD STORE TALES #1150: “867-5309 / Jenny”

In 1981, rock band Tommy Tutone released their second album, 2.  The lead track and single was a song called “867-5309/Jenny”.  As you can imagine, placing an actual phone number in a song was, while catchy, also problematic.   Lorene Burns from Alabama, who unfortunately had that very phone number, had to change it in 1982.  “When we’d first get calls at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, my husband would answer the phone. He can’t hear too well. They’d ask for Jenny, and he’d say ‘Jimmy doesn’t live here any more.’  Tommy Tutone was the one who had the record. I’d like to get hold of his neck and choke him.”

Tommy Tutone was in fact a “them” and the song was written by guitarist Jim Keller, with Alex Call from the band Clover.  The song soared to #2 in Canada, and #1 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.  It’s a great tune.  David Lee Roth recently covered it, but in its original incarnation, it’s a guitar driven rock classic with a plaintive chorus and memorable lyrics.

Jenny Jenny who can I turn to?
You give me something I can hold on to,
I know you’ll think I’m like the others before,
Who saw your name and number on the wall.
Jenny I’ve got your number,
I need to make you mine,
Jenny don’t change your number,
Eight six seven five three oh nine.

Many Jennys were teased worldwide (my wife included) by boys singing the song to them; an anthem of calling a number found on a bathroom wall.  The origins of the song are unclear.  “There was no Jenny,” claimed Alex Call in 2009.  The number, he said, just sounded right when sung.  Tommy Tutone lead singer Tommy Heath claimed in 2008 that Jenny was a real girl, and they wrote her telephone number on a wall just for laughs.  The Alex Call account sounds more believable.

Whatever the origins, many people with that phone number were prank called year after year after year.  One day in 1998, I heard “867-5309” for the first time.  Although I was not involved, a prank call ensued.

It was at the old Heuther Hotel in Waterloo (now, sadly, destined to become new condos).  I had a bad day (girl trouble), and was taken out by friends to get over it.  I sat enjoying a rum and coke (Captain Morgan’s spiced rum, always) with my co-workers Neil and Trevor.  In fact, it could have been my first ever spiced rum.  Tommy Tutone came on, and I liked the song, which I was unfamiliar with.  “It’s Tommy Tutone!” enthused Trevor.  “You don’t know this song?  Come on!”

We rocked along to the tune for a bit before Trevor realized that 867 was a local number.

“Should I call and ask for Jenny?  I’m gonna call and ask for Jenny!”

We laughed and I said no, but the drinks were flowing and Trevor dialed up 867-5309.

“Hello?” went the female voice on the other end.

“Hi, is Jenny there?” asked T-Rev with total innocence.

“Jenny’s not home,” went the answer.

“There’s actually a Jenny there?  COOL!” said T-Rev.  He was assured there was indeed a Jenny there.

“No way!  Really?  A Jenny really lives there?”  Once again, he was told yes.  “Do you know there’s a song called ‘Jenny’ with this phone number?”  The person feigned ignorance and reiterated that Jenny was not home.

“Cool!  Can you tell her Trevor called?  Thanks!”

And that was it!  We laughed all night about there being an actual Jenny at 867-5309, but I think the girl who answered the phone was just so used to getting this call that she called Trevor’s bluff.

We may never know.  Please don’t call 867-5309 and ask.

#1149: Eddie’s Story – The Narrative of Derek Riggs’ Iron Maiden Art

RECORD STORE TALES #1149: Eddie’s Story – The Narrative of Derek Riggs’ Iron Maiden Art

Edward T. Head, better known as “Eddie”, has been Iron Maiden’s mascot since the late 1970s.  He was just a mask then, made by roadie Dave Lights, to hang on the band’s live backdrop.  Why “Eddie”?   Because the mask was essentially just a head, or “‘ead” in British slang.  Therefore:  Eddie the Head!  When Iron Maiden were signed to Capitol Records, manager Rod Smallwood wisely surmised that the band would do well with an identifiable “stamp”…like a mascot.  He contacted artist Derek Riggs, and before too long, Eddie made his painted debut on the cover of Iron Maiden’s 1980 single “Running Free”.

Eddie’s impact cannot be overstated.  He is more recognizable than any single member of the band.  He is seen on T-shirts worn by diehards, casual fans, and even those who have never heard an Iron Maiden song in their lives.  He is ubiquitous.  Needless to say, Rod Smallwood was very wise, and Derek Riggs very talented.  Riggs did the cover art for every Maiden album from 1980 to 1990, and almost every single and EP in the same time frame.

As young impressionable kids growing up in suburban Ontario, we certainly knew who Eddie was.  My friends and I collected not just the albums and singles, but also the buttons.  We were intimately familiar with Eddie, his different outfits, settings, and crimes!  We attempted to draw our own Eddies.  I took a shot at a single cover for “The Duelists”, a favourite song.  It featured Eddie and the Devil fencing at the edge of a cliff.  The Devil was a foe of Eddie’s going back to the “Purgatory” single cover.  Derek Riggs eventually built an extensive mythology for Eddie and associated characters.  He focused on “Easter Eggs”, hiding characters and symbols within the artwork.  Powerslave and Somewhere In Time were chock full of such goodies.  References to the bars Maiden played, the Reaper, and even a TARDIS can be found on those albums.  One of the great pleasures of being an Iron Maiden fan was opening up an album and looking for all the secret images and messages while you played the records.

By 1986, some of us had noticed that the album covers, not including the singles, seemed to a tell a continuing story.  There was a continuity to the cover art, and Eddie in particular, that made us think there was an actual story unfolding with each album release.  This story seemed to run through Derek Riggs’ entire tenure as Iron Maiden’s cover artist, from 1980 to 1990.  While I am certain that this is entirely something made up in our heads, it does seem to hold water.

Let’s have a look at the album covers, and the story they may tell.

IRON MAIDEN -1980

Just an introduction to the character.  Eddie is a street punk, in a loose T-shirt, standing on a London street at night.  Behind him is a lit doorway, and a window with a red light – a reference to “Charlotte the Harlot”.  You can also see two of the streetlamps behind Eddie form an arc, with the moon.  Eddie’s eyes are just black sockets with light behind.  Later artists would change Eddie’s eyes, but Riggs always painted them black with some kind of illumination.  Eddie’s skin appears yellowed and stretched, like that of a mummy.  His hair is pure punk rock.

The story has yet to begin, but Eddie is clearly someone you don’t want to mess with on a London street at night.

KILLERS – 1981

Eddie appears much more refined in this image.  You get a better look at the character, including a belt and blue jeans.  The punk rock hair is gone, though Eddie remains on the streets.  It could be the same neighborhood as the first album.  The black clouds in the sky are similar.  This time, Eddie has a bloody hatchet in hand, while his victim grips his shirt in dying desperation.  Eddie seems to have no mercy.  He even seems to relish killing.  Fitting, for an album called Killers.  Our interpreted story begins here, with a murder.

 THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST – 1982

The plot thickens.  In Riggs’ best album art to date, Eddie appears a giant over a scorched, hellish background.  The rear cover had more of this scenery, indicating we were indeed in hell.  Eddie’s eyes are now lit by flames, matching the ground below.  He also has a fire in his hand, a reference perhaps to Montrose’s “I’ve Got the Fire” which was an earlier B-side.  The most striking feature here though is the appearance of the red Devil himself!  Eddie appears in control, manipulating the evil one with green puppet strings.

This was the first cover that really had us squinting at the details, on our little cassette J-cards.  For if you look closer, you will see Eddie is not in control at all.  Satan himself has his own puppet, and it is Eddie!  Our minds were boggled.  What could this mean?  We began pulling together the threads that seemed to be telling a story.  Derek Riggs had outdone himself, but he was only getting started.

 PIECE OF MIND – 1983

Imprisoned!  Captured, chained in an asylum, and lobotomized to boot!  Now bald, Eddie bore a scar across his head!  He had been cut open like an egg, and this scar would remain for the next several album covers.  Two more details were added:  a stream of blood going down his nose (always his right side), and a metal bracket holding his head together.  The screws in the bracket would always be in the same orientation.

Clearly, Eddie was in trouble.  We saw this as the punishment for his crime of murder.  The Devil came to take his due, and now Eddie is stuck in a cell.  Would he escape?  The next album told us no.

Of course, the real life inspiration for the artwork was the title Piece of Mind.  On the inner sleeve, the band members are preparing to dine upon a brain!  It doesn’t look tasty, and Adrian Smith in particular doesn’t look hungry.  In our childhood fantasy world, the Devil had served up a particularly brutal punishment for our favourite Metal mascot.

 POWERSLAVE – 1984

It appears that Eddie did not survive his brain surgery and imprisonment, for here he was being laid to rest in an ancient Egyptian setting.  In Riggs’ best artwork to date (again), a multitude of Easter eggs were hidden on the front, back and inner sleeves.  The Great Pyramid appears as it once did in antiquity, smooth and topped by a golden capstone.  Eddie’s sarcophagus can be seen, carried up the stairs, to his eternal resting place.

Or was it?

It seems pre-destined that Maiden’s next album would be called Live After Death.  It was really at this point that we started to put together that there was a story unfolding here.  Live After Death, and Eddie was buried on the previous album?  It all made sense!

 LIVE AFTER DEATH – 1985

Now this was an album that simply had to be owned on vinyl.  There was text to be read on the tombstones (“Let It RIP”), and so many Easter eggs on the back cover, including a black cat, the Reaper, and a visible “Edward T. H…” on his tombstone.  For many of us, this was the first indication that Eddie did have a last name!

With a bolt of lightning re-animating the already dead corpse, Eddie was back!  Still wearing his chains from the Piece of Mind album cover, Eddie’s hair had grown back while his T-shirt has seen better days.  Flames can be seen bursting from the ground, hinting at his hellish past.  On the rear cover, a city can be seen, surrounding the pyramid from the last album.  The continuity seemed clear.  The only issue here was that on the prior album, Eddie was laid to rest inside the pyramid.  Here, he is seen bursting out of a normal grave.  It would seem that Eddie’s remains were re-located between albums.  A minor issue easily explained away.

The city on the back cover calls to Eddie!  He was back, and up to his old ways again…

 SOMEWHERE IN TIME – 1986

Riggs outdid himself again, with the Blade Runner inspired Somewhere In Time.  Owning this album on vinyl is simply a must, for there is so much going on.

Still lobotomized, but bearing a new brain of circuitry, Eddie was technologically enhanced.  The blood, scar and bolts holding his head together are still visible despite the modifications.  On his chest, Derek Riggs’ signature emblem can be seen clearly.  It was always hidden somewhere on his albums, but here it was plainly visible.  A poster that reads “EDDIE LIVES” can be seen on the right, with the dying hand of a victim that he has just exterminated.  Back to his old killing ways from the Killers album!  Instead of a blade, Eddie now wields a pair of blasters.  Eddie seems to have arrived in a “Spinner” vehicle, similar to Blade Runner.

The same familiar moon from previous albums blazes behind, but there is so much on the back cover to discover too.  A reaper, red-lighted windows, and the names of things important to Iron Maiden’s lore are present.  As far as our story went, we imagined that Eddie emerged from his tomb centuries in the future.  This time, the Devil would not stop him!  But despite the cybernetic enhancements he underwent, his body was not whole…and soon it would be time to be reborn.

 SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON – 1988

This is where things got weird.  Really weird.  Not content to keep drawing Eddies with axes through people’s heads, Riggs went abstract on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.  Eddie was now little more than a torso, with his skull ripped open and aflame!  The scar, bolts and blood are still present (though the blood would be replaced by a mustard-like substance on the single cover for “Can I Play With Madness”).  The remnants of his cybernetic enhancements are still present, with one eye replaced by a robotic one.  He also still has a metal throat.  An apple can be seen within his ribcage, but most striking is the Eddie-infant he’s holding in some kind of embryonic sac!  This sac is attached to his ribcage with an umbilical cord.  An arc of lamps recalls the first album.  A “book of life” is present on the back cover, tying into the album’s concept.  There are also ice statues of past Eddies on the back cover, for a total of seven Eddies.

Look closely and you can see that the surface below is both solid and liquid, and the icebergs do not touch the surface.  In our story, this represented Eddie on another plane, as he gave birth to his successor – a new Eddie.

 NO PRAYER FOR THE DYING – 1990

For the first time, we felt disappointed by an Iron Maiden cover.  Gone were the layers of Easter eggs.  The art felt unfinished, and indeed, Derek Riggs would remake it for a 90s reissue.  The album was sonically a “back to basics” affair for Iron Maiden, with simpler lyrics and shorter, harder songs.  The artwork reflected this, with a simple Eddie just back to killing again.

Reborn, and without scars, bolts or lobotomies, Eddie emerges from a stone coffin.  Because why not?  The undead should surely be reborn in a grave!  Grasping the poor gravekeeper by the throat, Eddie is seconds away from his first killing in his new body!  Looking at his coffin, the name plate is unfinished, with no clever names or puns.  The fragments of the shattered coffin don’t even fit together properly.  The blue and yellow colour scheme definitely links the album to Seventh Son, Live After Death, Powerslave and The Number of the Beast, but there is far less to keep you looking at the cover.

And this is the end of our Eddie story, for Derek Riggs would not do another Maiden cover for years, and by then there was no point in any continuity.  The next time we see Eddie, he has red bug-eyes and is half-tree.

Iron Maiden would continue to produce fascinating album covers in the future, always featuring Eddie in some way.  Notable artists included Mark Wilkinson, Melvyn Grant, and Hugh Syme.  For most fans, the original run of Derek Riggs covers will remain the pinnacle of Maiden artwork, primarily the period of 1981 to 1988.

Did Riggs have a story that he was telling with his covers?  Probably not; he probably just liked keeping Eddie consistent from cover to cover.  He would probably appreciate the fact that a bunch of Canadian kids in the suburbs had interpreted this entire saga from his artwork.  I think he’d like that a lot.

 

 

 

#1148: No Drone Movies

RECORD STORE TALES #1148: No Drone Movies

With my mom and sister visiting Japan in August, my dad didn’t want to spend his weekends at the cottage.  By that stroke of luck, Jen and I had the cottage for three weekends in a row.  I can’t remember the last time I was at the cottage for three weekends in a row.  I was probably a teenager.

I spoke to my mom after she got back from Japan, jet-lagged by about 12 hours.  My sister managed to catch a case of Covid, but my mom was luckier.  Even so, she was too worn out to use the cottage on the weekend of August 9.  At the last minute, they decided to stay home that weekend.  Therefore, Jen and I could go if we wanted to.

It’s a shame to let the cottage stay empty on a summer weekend.  We had planned on staying home and working on organizing the music collection, but at the last minute, we got out of town and hit the road.

I went with Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind on the way up, followed by War Within Me by Blaze Bayley.  I had been immersed in an Iron Maiden writing project and decided to keep the vibe going on the road.  It was fascinating to hear how recording and production had changed between the two albums.  Piece of Mind was an organic sounding listen, with natural drums and lots of room sound.  War Within Me was modern, clean and technical.  While I prefer the analog, organic sounds, I realize that it is of the past.  A good double bill for the road.

Upon arrival on Friday night, I got the drone out, which is a good thing, because the theme for the rest of the weekend would be “No Drone Movies”!

Editing to the music of “80 Days” by Marillion, it was incredibly hard to fly at sunset with the sun in my eyes.  I could not see my drone from the ground.  I was flying by camera the whole time.  It was a good flight, with great visuals, but it was to be the only flight of the weekend, for within an hour, the gale-force winds rose!  The winds would last all weekend, and would not let up at all.  The drone was boxed for all Saturday and Sunday.

And this is when things got weird for me.

With the air cool, the wind high, and the skies dark, my seasonal affective disorder kicked in.  Big time.  It felt exactly like fall at the cottage.  Even though it was early August, and the previous week had a beach packed with kids and tourists, this was a cold deserted weekend.  All the feelings came rushing back, from years of “back to school” ads and activities.  The memories came back too:  listening to White Lion on a cold wet day on my Walkman by the river, wondering what the next school year would bring.  All back like a Polaroid picture.

My counselor told me specifically it’s too early to worry about fall, but here I am.  Unable to get it off my mind.

I am glad we went to the lake this weekend.  It’s wasteful to leave it empty on an August weekend.  My mental health is better there, than home.  But I can’t shake this foreboding feeling of fall.

 

#1147: Dream On (At The Cottage) Goodbye to Aerosmith

RECORD STORE TALES #1147: Dream On (At The Cottage)

“Aww, crap!” I explained upon arrival at the lake on Friday night.  “I forgot my drone!”

I should have known.  When we packed the car, I said “I’m surprised everything fit so easily.  I thought we had more stuff.”  Because we did have more stuff!  Sitting in a box in the living room…

Drone photography has been the highlight of the summer this year.  Now we’d have to rough it!  Back to regular earthbound cameras for us.

As it stands, without the drone we didn’t do much photography this time.  Last week’s video was so epic, there really wasn’t a need for it this time.  There were plenty of other activities on hand.  For the most part, we focused on music.

Twisted Sister, Kiss and Alice Cooper…all were interrupted by the news that Aerosmith had called it a day for touring.  Cutting short their 50th anniversary farewell tour, the Bad Boys from Boston have been forced to end it due to Steven Tyler’s insurmountable vocal issues.  It’s over – the man can no long sing live.  It felt right to put on the debut Aerosmith album and listen to the beginning again.  It was a bittersweet, but important album to listen to that night.  I’m sure everyone did their own tributes to Tyler that day, but mine was the only one with lake breezes and sunsets.

Come dinner time, and with a fresh tank of propane, I put on the best burgers of my life.  If you bought these burgers in an upscale restaurant, you’d be paying $20 each.  My secret ingredients included thick cut bacon, chopped and added to the mix, as well as minced mushroom, minced onion, and roasted (not raw) garlic. I don’t think these burgers can be topped.

We also bought a beautiful T-Bone and Porterhouse steak for Sunday night, but Saturday night’s dinner had gone bad.  Some wretched pork chops from Farm Boy (in Kitchener) had spoiled, so what do we eat?  Unprepared for this moment, we ordered in Domino’s Pizza, and they delivered right to the front door.  Also delivered right to the porch was a cool set of Lego Speed Champions, which kept me busy in the absence of a drone show.  Ah, the modern conveniences of life.

It’s funny how few people seem to understand how cool it is getting deliveries to the front door.  “I prefer to buy it myself at the store, it is close by.”  Well, for 50 years, there was no such nearby convenience here as “record stores” or “toys stores” or “pizza delivery”.  This is all new to us.

We hope that Steven Tyler is able to enjoy a relaxing retirement, just as pleasant as our weekend at the lake.

 

 

 

#1146: 35 years ago, Mike heard this classic album for the first time… (An Uncle Don Don story in under 2 minutes) [VIDEO]

My Uncle Don Don was the youngest of three kids.  He was quite a bit younger than his two older sisters, who liked The Beatles.  My uncle was from a younger generation, raised on Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple.

I had more in common musically with my uncle than my mother.  So, when my uncle approached me early in the summer of 1989 to swap tapes to record, I knew he’d have something interesting to tape.  I grabbed a Maxell 90 minute cassette, and chose an album of his to record on one side.

Hear the album and the story in the 2 minute video below.

#1145: Goals 2024

August approaches!  So much still to do this season!  Yet, goals have been achieved:

  1. Numerous Amazon deliveries to the front porch, including my new cottage desk for outdoor work.
  2. Lots of animal footage, including a couple shots of the fox.
  3. Several episodes of Grab A Stack of Rock and Tim’s Vinyl Confessions recorded and streamed from the new porch (and new desk).
  4. Drones drones drones.
  5. Two epic birthdays done.

If summer ended tomorrow, I’d say goals have been achieved and the season was a success.  Yet there is more to be done!

  1. Finish (or at least continue to make progress) organizing the music collection.
  2. Take the drone even further for more videos.
  3. Animation – haven’t done any animation videos in a couple years.

What would you like to see this season that we have not done yet?

 

 

#1144: “In The Summertime” (2020 Hindsight)

RECORD STORE TALES #1144: “In The Summertime” (2020 Hindsight)

Remember the summer of 2020?  It seems so far away now.  It was the “summer that wasn’t” for a lot of people who were quarantined at home during the first major pandemic in 100 years.  I knew I would have a lot more perspective on it eventually.  Hindsight is, as they say…20/20.

After that harsh winter (got severely sick twice, and don’t know if it was Covid at any time because tests didn’t exist yet), I needed a break.  Then Premiere Doug Ford closed the beaches.

It wasn’t just the big city Toronto beaches that closed, but even our little private beach.  It made little sense to us.  Weren’t we safer outside?  Even travel to the cottage was prohibited in 2020.  Only “essential travel” was permitted.  The idea was not to stress out-of-the-way hospitals, and prevent the spread of the disease.  We all know how well that worked!  At least I didn’t get Covid for three years (that I know of).  This was the reason beaches were closed:  to discourage travel.

 

Since we own property in cottage country, my parents used that as a reason to travel.  Property must be inspected and cared for, especially after a winter like that.  I used mental health as my reason.  My wife and I needed the cottage or we’d have snapped here in our tiny little apartment.  By the end of May, we finally made our first trip back up to Lake Huron.  Nobody reported us, nobody judged.

We own a piece of property that is beachfront.  There was no way we weren’t going down there.  It was a cold May.  There was nobody around.

We cherished every second we had at that cottage, even though we were alone and social distancing from any neighbour we ran into.  That actually suited me fine.  As a classic introvert, I really thrived during social distancing.  Not shaking hands, not seeing people in person…sometimes, it felt like my own personal utopia!

Beaches started to open up in the spring, and with this came the onslaught of “Sooners“.

People weren’t going on holidays.  Most of them were stuck at home.  Instead of going away on a holiday, they instead made day trips to beaches like ours.  My dad called them “Sooners”.  Sooner:  “a person settling on land in the early West before its official opening to settlement in order to gain the prior claim allowed by law to the first settler after official opening.”  That’s what my dad dubbed the annoying beach-goers that crowded our little area in 2020 and 2021.  There was “Man-Bun” and his two girlfriends, and a family of umpteen kids whose mom let them run around naked.  Those were the memorable ones.

I’m going to take you on a slight detour here.  Another thing that happened in 2020 was the temporary halting of many of our favourite TV shows and movies.  YouTube began to seriously thrive.  This is when my friend Uncle Meat introduced me to many new channels I had never heard of before.  I began consuming the work of Todd in the Shadows by binge.  One of his main features is a series called “One Hit Wonderland”.  One of the tracks he covered in that series was “In The Summertime” by Mungo Jerry.  It was a deep dive on what made the song a hit, and why Mungo Jerry never followed it with anything as iconic.  I became obsessed with the song that summer.

My dad believes in asserting your territory, especially where Sooners are concerned.  For him that meant sitting down on our beach chairs, ensuring nobody used them.  For me, that meant singing out loud like we owned the place.  There was more to it than just that though.  I was genuinely just happy to have a beach to go to, and my childhood beach at that!  So I sang, and I felt every single note in my heart as I reached up to touch the sun.

In the summertime, when the weather is high,You can stretch right up and touch the sky!

Jen joined in.

When the weather’s fine,You got women, you got women on your mind,Have a drink, have a drive,Go out and see what you can find.

Wait a minute…did he just sing “have a drink, have a drive?”  1970 was a different time for sure.  Still, it sang well as we raised our voices in song.  Nobody turned to stare.  Everyone (and there were a lot of people!) stuck to their own groups.

Ahh, social distancing.  Gotta love it.

The one and only flaw with our perfect afternoons of singing?  I only had one verse of “In the Summertime” memorized.  It got repeated over and over.  Nobody noticed.

Now that things have returned to something resembling normal, the Sooners have gone.  Social distancing is no longer necessary.  I don’t mind.  I still sing “In The Summertime” when I hit that water.  I still stretch right up so I can touch the sky.  I still think Mungo Jerry wrote a great song.  Its corniness is its charm, but unless you’ve sung that song at the top of your lungs while enjoying a brief respite during a global pandemic, you haven’t experienced “In The Summertime”.

#1143: Setbacks

“Water, water, everywhere!” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

RECORD STORE TALES #1143: Setbacks

Just when I had my music room coming back together again after the shelf disaster in June, another calamity has struck.  Things were going well.  I had all the CDs organized into the C section and was about to start working on D.  I had everything planned, and I knew I had enough storage to handle all my CDs and then some.  I came home from work one day to find the floor absolutely soaked.

There had been a torrential rainfall in the prior days, so I crossed my fingers and hoped it was an isolated incident.  My office at work flooded, so it didn’t seem impossible.  I got out the towels and fans and soaked it up.  The water refused to dry out.  Looking outside, there was no standing water in the area and nothing that could seemingly get into the house.

Process of elimination insinuated that the water was coming in from the air conditioner unit.  The unit is within the wall directly behind me when you see me hosting Grab A Stack of Rock.  Behind the black curtain is my AC unit.  In front of the access panel…are shelves and cabinets full of CDs.  (Yes, I know that’s not the best storage system, but I’m out of space.)

And so, I ripped apart my music room once again, called a technician in, and paid him overtime to fix the leak.

The good news is, he seemed to have fixed the problem.  Fans are running non-stop and it seems the floor is starting to dry out, finally.

Now I have to put the room back together again, a tedious, laborious, and frustrating task.

On an interesting side not from the files of “it could have been worse”, a pipe underneath my work broke and flooded a hallway.  They had to drill two giant holes in the floor to fix it.  Repairs are ongoing.

I hate water!

Tonight we are back to the cottage for some much needed R&R – rest & relaxation, and rock & roll.  We need it.

 

 

 

 

#1142: A Top Five Birthday!

RECORD STORE TALES #1142: A Top Five Birthday!

After you hit the big 50, it seems birthdays are less important and a little hum-drum.  My 52nd birthday fell on a Friday, so I decided to take advantage of that and have a little long weekend for myself.  My week ended on Thursday, which coincided with one of the boss’ birthdays at work.  He was turning 65, so we had a bit of an upscale lunch to celebrate both birthdays.  My coworkers and I enjoyed an afternoon at Milestones in Cambridge.  I had a delectable penne pasta with shrimp, mushrooms, bacon and a creamy truffle sauce.  The sauce was aromatic, and quite deliciously pungent.  It was almost more an experience of smell rather than taste, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.  A wonderful start to the birthday weekend.

Thursday night was an evening to chill.  I bought a Lego set, the Atreides Ornithopter set which will give me my first Jason Momoa, Oscar Isaac and Josh Brolin minifigs for my collection.  This difficult set kept my hands occupied while I enjoyed a traditional movie treat.  I went with 1984’s The Last Starfighter, a movie that I watched with Bob Schipper the summer it came out 40 years ago.  “Better than Star Wars!” I told my parents when I got home.  Watching it again today, it’s definitely derivative of Star Wars though able to deliver new things in a grounded Earthly setting.  I smiled the whole way through.

I couldn’t sleep that night.  We had water coming into the home office, and after the shelf disaster of three weeks ago, it kept me up at night.  I also slept on my arm in a way that pinched my nerves and left me with two numb fingers on my left hand.  Ah, 52.  But I had morning plans.

I wanted to head down to the Grand River at 6:00 am when nobody is around, and take the drone up.  With Jen at my side on second camera, we had a quick flight over the fog at sunrise and got some remarkable footage.  First birthday goal accomplished!

I wanted to do something special for my birthday meal, and so I chose a lunch instead of a dinner.  Why?  Because as you get older, bed time gets earlier.  I also wanted to do something different that we don’t usually do.  And so, Jen sucked up a Benadryl for me, and we hit up Ye’s Sushi.  There was plenty of stuff that Jen could eat, but an allergic reaction is impossible to avoid, so precautions were taken.  I really appreciated this sacrifice on her part.  Her favourite was the edamame, while mine was the beef short ribs.  For me, generally, beef won the show.   Dessert was deep fried banana with chocolate dip sauce.

Jen had to crash for a couple hours after the allergy meds kicked in, but she enjoyed her first sushi outing and I really appreciate her doing it.  Next year we’ll do something different, but this was a first for us and it was really special.

At that point, it was time to get ready for Grab A Stack of Rock at 3:30.  I warmed up my coffee and jumped in front of the camera.  I had originally thought of taking my birthday off from the show, but as the week wore on, I felt like I wanted to celebrate a bit with my friends.  So, I scheduled a show and Jex Russell, Tim Durling and John Clauser joined me for gifts and memories.  And much more.

All Jen’s gifts came from Encore Records in Kitchener.  They were:

Ratt – Rarities (2024)

A good compilation of demos and live stuff.  There’s a 1989 demo called “Love on the Rocks”, which is a Pearcy/Crosby composition that never made it onto an album.  Good song, and a CD that is hard to find.

Black Country Communion – V (2024)

I hear good things!  I am missing a few BCC releases, but there has never been a better time to jump back into the band.  I’m spinning it now and enjoying that bluesy rock groove with just a hint of Zeppelin that I love so much.

Prince and the Revolution – Live (2022)

From the Purple Rain tour, I figured this release would make a great accompaniment to my Purple Rain deluxe edition.  It will go well in the car on a future cottage trip.  Contents:  two CDs and a blu-ray, including favourites of mine like “Computer Blue” and “I Would Die 4 U” .  Closing the set is nearly 20 minutes of “Purple Rain”.  This will be epic!

The gifts were just a precursor to the main event, which caught me by surprise and knocked me out of my chair.  With the help with Tim Durling, Jex arranged special surprise birthday messages in a video that we ran live on the show.  I was blown away by the words and sentiments from so many people!

    • Jex Russell
    • John Clauser, performing an acoustic version of “Grab A Stack of Rock”
    • Rob Daniels from Visions in Sound, with some kind words that hit me in the heart
    • Aaron Stewart of the KMA
    • Harrison Kopp with Lego art
    • Uncle Meat with some comments that left me head over heels…
    • Martin Popoff with some more kind words that left my jaw on the floor
    • Dr. Kathryn Ladano (with Molli, Daisi, Winston and Bruce)
    • Grant Arthur from the Rock Warehaus with good advice
    • Metal Roger with metal vocals
    • Todd Evans of the Contrarians to grab a stack of cake
    • Tom Brislin, keyboard player from Kansas
    • Jen Ladano right from the bowling alley
    • D’Arcy Briggs from darcyska on YouTube!
    • Marco D’Auria with a funny name mix-up and more kind words that I don’t think I deserve
    • Brent “the Doctor” Doerner of Helix to grab a stack of beer
    • Steve Deluxe and some wise words about B-sides
    • Tim Durling, who helped connect some of these people with Jex
    • Peter Kerr of Rock Daydream Nation with a pretty excellent vocal performance
    • Chris Preston of MyRockandRollHeaven on Twitter
    • My Aunt Lynda and cousin Geoff with embarrassing stories
    • Matt Phillips of GoNorth Design, with a custom Lego Stratocaster
    • My mom and dad

By the end of it, I was emotionally exhausted…so much love and encouragement from people I really look up to.  The one common recurring thread was a message I really need to hear:  keep doing what you do.

What better birthday gift could anyone want?

The rest of the weekend will be spent enjoying music, and reflecting upon the blessings I have in my life.

I cannot thank you, my friends, enough for this very special birthday.  No matter how hard I try to search for the words, they remain out of my reach.  My words cannot sum up the feeling of a full heart.