Sunday Chuckle will return next week. This Sunday, we remember the sacrifices made by those who served their countries. For me in particular, it’s my Grandfather and his brother who fought against the Nazis in World War II that I like to remember. As dark forces encircle the world today, let us not forget those currently serving who are keeping us free.
Here are our past stories regarding Remembrance Day, please give them a click and a read.
GETTING MORE TALE #715: The Lost Chapters – “The First Year”
Ever seen High Fidelity with John Cusack? When Cusack says, “I hired these guys to come in three days a week, and they started coming in every day. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.” That was us. That me and T-Rev. The boss man hired on Trev in the fall, two months after I started. We worked opposite nights and opposite weekends. We were like ships passing in the night. We never would have gotten to be such tight friends if we didn’t keep coming into the store every freaking day!
See, as used CD store, we got in new inventory every day. We were getting in cool shit. I was just beginning to transfer my music collection over from cassette to CD, so I just started to upgrade and buy up old back catalogue. I snagged You Can’t Stop Rock And Roll by Twisted Sister that year, which was a big deal to me because it was deleted at the time. I got some Dio CDs that I never had before. I began collecting Rush in earnest. We had rarities too. I got a split King’s X / Faith No More live bootleg called Kings of the Absurb which is pretty damn good. I really got quite a few CD singles at that time too. A few previously unknown Faith No More singles dropped into my lap. It was crucial to come in frequently. If you didn’t, you might miss something you were looking for. Or something you didn’t know you were looking for.
After two months of shadowing the owner, I was working solo and loving it. I got to pick my own music every night, within reason. There were obscure rules. Judas Priest was out, but Soundgarden was OK. Anything that was a new charting release was considered OK for store play. We were allowed to open anything to play it, as long as we didn’t abuse that. For the first while we were even allowed to bring music from home.
That ended when I brought in a bunch of recent purchases to listen to one morning. They included an indi band from Toronto, called Feel, formerly known as Russian Blue. The sound was vital, and the early 90s buzz was that Toronto was going to be the next Seattle. I was all over these bands, like Slash Puppet, Russian Blue, Attitude (later Jesus Chris), Gypsy Jayne, and the rest.
[An aside: I caught a little flak when I took in a used copy of Slash Puppet. “This is an indi band,” the boss complained. “It’ll sell,” I defended myself. “Trust me I know this band.” I knew half a dozen customers by name that I could recommend it to. I sold it to the first of those guys to come in, this insurance guy named Tony who loved 80s rock. He bought it after one listen.]
The day I had my personal Feel This CD in the store player, a customer noticed it. He thought it was cool, wanted it, and asked how much. I had to tell him it was my own personal copy, and no I couldn’t order it in because it was an indi band. He would have to write to the band to get a copy, and I wrote down the information inside the CD for him.
The boss thought this was kind of a silly situation, and rightfully so. Why play music we weren’t selling and were not able to sell? This was a store. So that ended. No more bringing music from home. I guess I’m the guy who ruined it for generations of Record Store employees to come.
They probably thought I was going to hell the day I showed up on the first day of school in that Judas Priest T-shirt. Mrs. Powers was a devout Catholic, with a judgey side to go with it. She enjoyed publicly humiliating her “misbehaved” students. I can only imagine what she really thought. Here was her “A” student, and over summer holidays, he’s got himself a T-shirt that says “Judas Priest” on it. He’s drawing pictures of guitars in art and doing his class speech on a band called Kiss. What the devil is with that Ladano kid?
If Catholic school was ever too sedate or solemn, this was magnified 100-fold in the lenses of the 8th grade.
It was the year you made the choice of which highschool to go to. You’d undergo the Sacrament of Confirmation. It was their last chance to make sure you didn’t go off the rails and do something stupid, like do drugs or leave the church!
There was a weeklong Catholic retreat to an old convent in Ancaster called Mount Mary. “Every student I ever had who did not go to Mount Mary grew up to do drugs, or killed themselves,” said Mrs. Powers. Holy shit! I didn’t want to be there and it was obvious. It was the middle of winter and every day had extensive outdoor activities, but worse, you were not allowed to bring any of your music. No Walkmans, no tapes. There was a radio tuned to an approved radio station in one of the activity rooms. I didn’t know what to do, so before we left, I listened to and memorised as many Kiss songs as I could. Double Platinum worked for my last minute Kiss cramming session. The song I was most successful with was “Love Gun”. I had just received a taped copy of The Elder but did not have time to investigate it much. I had to go to Mount Mary instead. This intrusion into the wants and desires of my musical passions kind of pissed me off. I had to wait a week to get into The Elder. Stupid retreat. I was so scared of being caught with any contraband that I flushed my candy before getting on the bus. Humming “Love Gun” in my head, we were off.
Mount Mary conjures up some real discomfort. They were trying to teach you to be open minded about it but all I can really recall are negative feelings, and some disgusting hot chocolate. I was isolated from everything I loved and stuck with a bunch of people who I didn’t particularly like, and felt the same towards me. I knew this because we had to form circles and tell everybody something we liked about them. Nobody seemed to know much about me at all. “You like Star Wars, uhhh…and I don’t, but that’s cool.” was the most memorable.
There was a day spent outside in the snow as “hunters” and “hunted”. I don’t remember the moral of this activity. The hunters had wooden sticks as rifles, and my bully Steve Hartman was one of them. The role playing had a bizarre shade of reality. There were no explanations to us as to why people were selected for their roles. The hunted were supposed to find some specially marked trees, but I spent most of the time just hiding in the woods from hunters and teachers alike. There was another day including a long hike up something called “Agony Hill”.
The day we were released from Mount Mary and sent home was cold and wet. The snow was melting, but it was just dirty slush. My parents were supposed to pick me up when the busses arrived at the school, but I didn’t see them and vice versa, so lugged a giant heavy suitcase home through the snow. At least when I got there, a brand new Marvel Transformers comic was waiting for me with my mail in the kitchen. #17, “The Smelting Pool”, considered one of the best of the series.
“Well that’s over,” I said to myself. “Now I just have to get through the rest of this school year and it’s freedom.”
That teacher just had a bad impression of me. There was the rock and roll devilry which seemed to bring humiliating public interrogation.
“How many of you went to church this past Sunday?” she questioned the class. “Put up your hands.” She was determined to find out just how devout our behaviour was. No excuses.
About half the class raised their hands.
“How many of you were there last week?” A few more hands went up.
“And the week before?” A couple more. “How many have been to church in the last month?” She noticed me, and I noticed her. My hands were in my laps.
“MICHAEL.” Radar locked.
“WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WENT TO CHURCH?” she boomed.
My sister dubbed it “The Hell Hole”. The school and church are right across from each other
It had been a couple years. Powers had her “no excuses permitted” policy regarding going to church, so I didn’t even try to explain. (Essentially her policy was: You are old enough to go to church on your own now, so don’t tell me your mom was sick.) I just endured the firepower of Mrs. Powers. What else could she do; send a note home to my parents? If I wasn’t going to church, chances are they weren’t either. And there was a reason for that.
It was an Easter service a couple years prior. Good Friday mass, very busy, and the church was packed. My dad always liked to get an aisle seat so that’s what he did on Good Friday. That was his mistake.
My sister and I had better instincts. We preferred to hide somewhere in the middle of the pews. Do you know what our least favourite part of service was? The part where you have to shake hands and greet your neighbours. We were shy and would rather not, so we just turned to face each other. We’d shake hands and say, “Hello sir how are you today?” “Oh, I’m good sir and how are you?” We’d do this for as long as we could credibly ignore the adults around us trying to shake our child hands.
On Good Friday we tucked in down the pew while dad sat on the aisle, when the Priest announced that for this special service, volunteers would come and wash your feet if you were sitting on the aisle. John 13:34: “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” My dad has a hard time saying no. He kicked off his shoes and socks and politely pretended not to be hating every second. And the family simply stopped going to church after this. Coincidence?
Mrs. Powers, you can judge all you like. Maybe my dad was sick of church and I was sick of your shitty school.
One of the heavy metal albums from my childhood that reminds me most of that period is Born Again, by Black Sabbath. Boy, Powers sure would have hated those lyrics. “Good life is contradiction, because of crucifixion.” You can only imagine, if she knew what was I was hearing!
The devil and the priest can’t exist if one goes away, It’s just like the battle of the sun and the moon and the night and day, Force of the devil, that’s what we’re all told to fear, Watch out for religion when he gets too near, too near….
Of course Ian Gillan isn’t a satanist; he’s just a singer! But those lyrics would have set her head on fire, if the album cover didn’t do that first. Do we mind “Disturbing the Priest”? The truth is, the words were inspired by the rehearsal sessions for the album. They were receiving noise complaints from the local church. Do we mind “Distrurbing the Priest”? “Not at all, not at all, not in the least.” Once you know the genesis of the song, the lyrics fall into place. Not exactly Catholic-friendly, but certainly not evil.
Evil-sounding though? Absolutely. Born Again might be the most traditionally evil sounding metal album in the history of the genre. That’s why the original mix is so important even though it sounds like the refuse of the Golgothan excremental demon. The lack of clarity, the muddy haze, and the echoing bottomlessness of it just add to the mystique. You should not be able to clearly hear what the singer is saying. It should remind of you a bad hazy dream. Hell, it’s not the lyrics that make it evil; it’s Geezer’s fuzzy bass!
This article was produced after discussions with friends and acquaintances from different faiths and backgrounds. Some had similar experiences. Some are still dealing with residual Catholic guilt. We were talking old church stories, and all this stuff came flooding back. The sitting, the kneeling, the hand-shaking…my sister and I singing “Stars” by Hear N’ Aid instead of the hymns…the good and the bad.
One of the school bully kids was killed four years after Mount Mary, riding his motorcycle to work. I morbidly wondered what Powers thought of that; he went to Mount Mary yet he was on her dead roster. Would she add that detail for next year’s class?
It’s obvious I still hold a lot of resentment to those school years. I wonder if that’s why I have such a strong attachment to the heavy metal music of the era. Let the psychoanalysis begin!
GETTING MORE TALE #713: End of the Road? Paul Stanley’s Voice
In 2012, before the release of the last Kiss album Monster, I wrote an editorial about Paul Stanley’s voice problems. Thanks to the advent of Youtube, anyone can hear how rough Paul’s voice has become in the last decade. The guy who was once one of the top singers in rock, ever, is now the worst singer in Kiss!
Curiosity in Kiss and Paul’s voice has peaked again due to the End of the Road tour. I received some hits from a Q&A site called Quora, so I followed the address and checked out the site. I found something very interesting, from a man named Kevin Richards, who says he was a vocal coach for Paul Stanley and others such as Rod Stewart. His story checks out. Mr. Richards answered a question about Paul’s current vocal state, and it was very revealing indeed.
Richards said that Paul’s vocals today are a result of health and age. He is also trying to live up to his own image too hard. “He is trying to maintain a stage presence from 25 years ago and doesn’t realize he isn’t in the vocal shape to do so. He is being VERY STUBBORN in doing anything that changes what he thinks the audiences expectation of the ‘Starchild’ should be. The way he moves, the way he sings, etc.”
Paul is still great as a frontman, but to me, it’s the music that matters more, and the voice is the biggest part of that. Richards continued, saying he “told Paul that he needs to rethink how he sings his songs because it’s not 1990 or 1984 or 1976 anymore. He had to make adjustments to his vocal delivery and rearrange the set lists to give him more space between his songs. He reluctantly agreed but again stressed the ‘needs’ of the audience. I said ‘yes, but they also have an expectation that you sound good at THEIR concert. Bad vocal performances aren’t rumour anymore, its on Youtube the next day.'”
You have to admire Paul for wanting to give fans a level of showmanship above and beyond the call of duty, but his priorities seem mixed up. Richards’ bottom line is that Paul is a “stubborn, aging rocker refusing to accept that he can’t perform like he’s 30 anymore.” There is even more, so be sure to read what he had to say.
“Great” form? I’ll let you know how Paul sounds when Kiss hit Toronto in March 2019. Can Stanley’s voice survive a whole tour? Will there be more Gene, Eric and Tommy vocals to compensate? We will find out at the End of the Road.
GETTING MORE TALE #712: Does Paul Stanley Get Enough Credit for Writing Killer Riffs?
Think for a moment about the greatest guitar riffs of all time. “Smoke on the Water”, “You Really Got Me”, “Iron Man”, and “Whole Lotta Love” might make your own personal favourites. Indeed, these songs usually show up on any decent list of great rock riffs. Planet Rock did a dubious list in 2017, featuring the classics and questionable choices like The Darkness. It also featured a number of hot licks by Hendrix, Ozzy, and Van Halen. The usual suspects. They do get points for including Budgie’s “Breadfan”.
I once read a quote by a guitar player* who said he hated Jimmy Page because “He already wrote all the greatest riffs, and I’m jealous.” Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, the Young brothers and even the young fellas from Metallica are often credited as the greatest riffmasters in rock. They’ve all done their part to enrich our lives with memorable, chunky and headbangin’ guitar riffs. But so have others.
Consider Kiss’ Paul Stanley. Once upon a time, the singer was considered one of the best with very few rivals. You’d often see his name on singers’ lists with guys like Freddie Mercury and Ronnie James Dio. Paul must, absolutely, be considered one of the greatest frontmen in history. That is hard to dispute. On the other hand, few give him credit for his guitar.
“I’m no slouch,” said Paul of his guitar playing. He’s even responsible for some Kiss solos. But as a riff writer? We rarely think of Stanley, yet behold the songs! Looking only at tracks with lone Paul Stanley writing credits, the list of monster riffs is impressive.
“Black Diamond”
“Hotter Than Hell”
“C’mon and Love Me”
“Rock Bottom”
“God of Thunder”
“I Stole Your Love”
“Love Gun”
“Tonight You Belong To Me”
“Magic Touch”
Paul had some pretty awesome riffs on co-written songs like “Mr. Speed”, “Makin’ Love” and “Creatures of the Night”, but since other writers may have contributed, we’ll exclude those. This list also doesn’t include his catchy acoustic riffs like “Hard Luck Woman”, or lesser-known later material like “Modern Day Delilah”. If you wanted to delve further into Sonic Boom and Monster, there’s plenty of Paul’s guitar thunder without co-writers. This is strictly a list of the most impactful material: the 1970s.
So Stanley doesn’t get enough credit. Does this make him a riff master, up there with the other guys?
I’m going to go out on a limb: Maybe, leaning towards yes.
“God of Thunder”, “I Stole Your Love” and “Love Gun” are monolithic enough to stand next to an Iommi or Blackmore riff. Just like a Deep Purple fan knows there is more to them than just “durrh durrh durrh!”, a Kiss fan can recommend a number of rock solid riffs from their albums. A huge number of those are Paul’s, although certainly Gene did just fine with “Deuce”. “Deuce”, admitted Gene, is just a Stones lick played backwards. Paul’s best stuff is less derivative than that. “God of Thunder” is just that — “God of Thunder”. You can say it sounds vaguely Sabbathy, but it doesn’t sound like anything specific. Same with “I Stole Your Love”. As for “Hotter Than Hell”? Much like a great Sabbath song, it boasts two killer riffs in one track!
Elitists like to scoff; make fun of adults in makeup and spandex. Fair enough. Tony Iommi never needed makeup or particularly tight pants to be a rock star. Sabbath played with the “Satanic” gimmick but didn’t rely as heavily on image and flash. Kiss wouldn’t have made it in the first place without the makeup and costumes, but as they developed, they had the music to back it up.
Do yourself a favour and go back to listen to Paul’s classic guitar riffs. They are often highlights of the song, little rock solid gems that are ready for air guitar. He really hasn’t received the credit due for coming up with a number of simple, solid and dynamic riffs on his own. Should his name be spoken with Page, Blackmore, or Young when talking of riffs? We’ve made our case, so get Kiss’ed on these classics.
GETTING MORE TALE #711: Why Kiss Need to Suck it Up and Bring Ace Frehley Back
In a recent episode of Rock Talk with Mitch Lafon, former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley said, among many things, that it would take $100,000 per show for him to play on Kiss’ recently announced End of the Road tour. While that amount of money may seem like ransom, Ace might be able to make those kinds of outlandish demands. He may have Kiss over a barrel of sorts.
Ace is in a good position right now. 2018 is an interesting time for this Kiss farewell tour to happen, because of what Frehley has been up to. Since acrimoniously splitting with the band in 2001 (after a previous “farewell” tour), Ace has rebuilt his credibility and his standing. Over the last decade he’s regained the respect of fans who feared he could no longer write, with a series of increasingly good solo albums. Anomaly, Space Invader, and the recent Spacemanhave been well received by fans and critics alike. Most importantly, since 2016, some crazy things have happened. First Ace reunited with Paul Stanley on Origins, Vol. 1, a covers album. Then Ace re-ignited his friendship with Gene Simmons, as Gene promoted his Vault box set. Gene appeared on Spaceman, and now Ace is touring with Gene’s solo band. Ace appears cozier with Kiss than he was when he was actually in Kiss.
Throw the farewell tour into the mix. Kiss will be touring with the current lineup of Stanley, Simmons, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer. Some fans still call Singer and Thayer “scabs”, merely imitating Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. Eric Singer has won over more fans than Tommy Thayer has. Perhaps it’s because Singer has been in the band longer and played on the legendary Revenge. More likely, the fans resent how closely Thayer imitates the licks of Frehley — on the orders of Simmons and Stanley, let’s not forget. At the end of the day, they sign the paychecks, and the employees play the way they want them to. That’s why they are still in the jobs all these years later. Regardless, fans have largely accepted Singer as the drummer in the Cat makeup. Peter Criss has retired with dignity, and realistic fans know that he’s no longer really capable of playing the kind of tour that Kiss are looking at. Peter had his farewell with Kiss and his chapter certainly appears to be closed.
Frehley, however, is on a new leg of his career and the quality of his new material is encouraging. In addition to his ask of $100,000 per show, Ace has also suggested the real way to end Kiss would be one final studio album. It’s almost as if he’s throwing down the gauntlet to Kiss. An Infinity Gauntlet with only four stones: Ace, Paul, Gene and Eric.
A studio album might be a bit far fetched. Monster is from 2012, and Kiss seem scared of their own shadows in the studio. But Ace on tour? It simply has to happen before it’s over. Not doing so would be a slap in the face.
Fans are going to demand it. Black Sabbath blew it on their The End tour. Bill Ward probably couldn’t have done a tour, but to not invite him back, for at least a few songs at the end? A wasted opportunity that can never be repaired. The original Black Sabbath were all still alive. Bill Ward was willing and able. The Sabbath camp didn’t want to hear it, and so finished with 3/4 of the original band plus Ozzy’s drummer Tommy Clufetos. It’s sad to say, but the next reunion of the original Black Sabbath might have to be at one of their funerals.
Deep Purple can never reunite their original or even their Mk II lineup.
Led Zeppelin will never be whole again. Neither will Queen, Styx, Stone Temple Pilots or Soundgarden. Sabbath had the chance, and they let it go. Truly a regrettable, ego-driven mistake.
Kiss cannot make the same mistake. True, without Peter Criss, it’s not the originals, but Criss has not expressed interest or ability. Ace has. Repeatedly. And we know the clean and sober Ace today can do it. He is on another creative high, and already getting along with Paul and especially Gene. To lose this opportunity in the face of the fans would be a mistake some would be unwilling to forgive.
Start the tour, as normal, with Tommy. Bring Ace out for a couple guest appearances. See how it goes. I’ll tell you how it will go. Ace would sing “Shock Me”, the crowd would go bananas, and you’d be forced to do it again. And again. And again. Eventually, Tommy could bow out gracefully having had his farewell. Ace could take over from that point. Or do half a show each. There are many permutations for this to work. This is almost exactly how Duff McKagan returned to Guns N’ Roses. You’re Kiss; you can figure it out.
Don’t let money stand in your way, Kiss. Money is not forever. History is. You do not want to go down like Black Sabbath, when you could go out the way fans want to see you.
Nobody knows how much time they have left on Earth. The next reunion cannot be a funeral. We also don’t really know how many shows Paul’s voice has left before it’s gone for good. A reunion with Ace Frehley must happen before it is too late.
What about Vinnie Vincent and Bruce Kulick, you ask? It would be wonderful to see them guesting too, but let’s not set hopes too high (even though Vinnie has been spotted in Kiss makeup). Focus on what is important: that is getting the original Spaceman back for the final leg(s) of this tour. Fans may have to be vocal. (As if Kiss fans are anything but.)
What if Kiss just flat out refuse to pay Ace’s greedy ransom, and Ace can’t be negotiated with? It would be a loss for all parties, particularly the fans. While Kiss will still play spectacular shows, would ticket sales be any different from the last few tours? Kiss have always done well enough (that’s why they keep touring), but the 1996 reunion tour made $144 million gross, which Kiss haven’t equalled since. A farewell tour without Ace, and with Paul’s voice in its current condition, simply won’t touch that.
With Ace though?
With Ace, they would generate a lot more hype, press and positive reviews. Ace Frehley, playing as great as he is today, could inspire yet another generation of kids to pick up the guitar. It’s what Ace does. He is a superstar, and even the most staunch fan must admit that Tommy Thayer is not. If Kiss want to go out as big as they can, they need Frehley. It’s that simple.
No dates have been announced yet. Paul Stanley has teased on his social media that the band is rehearsing. They’re talking about doing a 25 song set. There is plenty of time for more pieces to fall into place. A big piece is Spaceman-shaped. They need to make it fit. Without Frehley, The End of the Road tour will just be another Kiss tour. New costumes, sure. That alone won’t sell tickets.
Kiss have always been a band that claimed to “listen to the fans” and “gives the fans what they want”. This then would be Kiss’ last chance to live up to it.
Before we proceed, we must put some time into trying to define the work “grok”. One of the greatest science fiction writers of all time, Robert A. Heinlein, coined the word in 1961 in his epic novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Perhaps you recall the “I Grok Spock” slogan from the late 60s when fans mobilised to save Star Trek from cancellation. There’s no easy definition of the word, although “I grok” can mean “I love”, among many other things. Depending on its usage, “I grok” can mean:
“I hate”
“I see” or “I understand”
“I fear”
“I live”
“I am a part of”
“I drink” or “I eat”
“I think”
To use Heinleins own words, grok means to understand something “so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you.”
Grok means all these things, and according to Heinlein, “a hundred other English words, words which we think of as antithetical concepts. ‘Grok’ means all of these.”
Heavy stuff, but the more I think (or grok) on it, I realise (or grok) something very sad. As much as I love, cherish, adore and try to further my understanding of it, I think I can never fully grok rock music. In order to do that, I would have to understand it to a depth I have not reached yet. As a non-musician who has tried and failed to do play it, true grokking of rock music has eluded me my whole life.
Music exists in several ways simultaneously. There are the vibrations in the air that are soundwaves on different frequencies. There are the hairs on your inner ear, moved by the soundwaves. This physical action is converted to electromagnet signals, sent to your brain and then interpreted and perceived as music. I can comprehend these things, but true understanding of music means understanding its structure. Why do those frequencies sound good together? Why does a recurring rhythm sound good to you even if you don’t know it’s 7/8 time? Or even know what 7/8 time is?
There is an underlying mathematics to music, an almost mechanical precision. Well guess what. I’m no mechanic either! I have to pay someone to change the oil in my car.
I’m fortunate enough to have Dr. Kathryn Ladano in the family, who truly does grok music. As an improvisational musician, she creates living music in and of the moment. She and the players she works with can grok it on an instinctual and intellectual level. The funny thing about this is that I used to have to help Dr. Kathryn with her math homework. On paper, I was better at numbers. Within music, it turns out she can really grok math.
I’ve spent most of my life with music in my ears. There are bands whose history I have an understanding of deeper than my expertise in that of Canada, and I’m a history B.A.! There are songs that I have memorised down to the last note and beat, such as “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath. But I still don’t really comprehend how it’s was constructed, why it works, or what makes it unique. And it drives me insane.
I’ve tried, Lord knows I’ve tried! I thought I’d pick up the guitar again a few years ago and see if my older, wiser mind could grasp the universal secrets of music. Again, I failed. I put my guitar away, but now we have a couple acoustics. I’ve been strumming. You can’t kill this curiosity. I really don’t think I will ever grok rock in the truest sense, but I keep trying!
It’s a frustration situation, but rock and roll isn’t about quitting. That much I do grok.
October 17 2018 was a day like any other day. I got up, showered, went to work, worked, ate lunch, worked some more, and came home. You might have had a similar day yourself.
I drove home with Cheap Trick in my ears (“If You Want My Love”, great pop rock) and it was a regular commute, just like any other. Uneventful is good. I exited the car into the cold air. The chill has come, but as I walked towards the building, there was something new. I smelled the Stuff.
The Stuff is legal in Canada now. Cannabis, also known as marijuana, ganja, reefer, weed, pot, the electric lettuce…add your own to this list. Where was I? Legalisation. The Justin Trudeau Liberals actually lived up to its campaign promise and the Stuff is now legal. You can smoke it, you can grow it, and there are rules and regulations to go with it. In the province of Ontario you can’t just walk into a store and buy it. You have to order it online. I heard they’re already sold out. But it’s legal, is the point I’m making. Somebody upstairs in the building was celebrating, and that’s fine.
My main point: like many things, the world didn’t shift today. I read worried nay-sayers asking questions like “Have they considered all the stoned pot heads driving during the winter while on the Stuff?” Yes, that’s been considered. Anybody stupid enough to drive while stoned was already doing it. What’s one law when you can break two, I guess. Life in Canada has gone on pretty much normally. The mail came again. It was all junk, again. Gas is pretty much the same price as yesterday. Same with milk. Donald Trump tweeted stupid things. Just a normal day in 2018.
There was one other minor difference today. There was a mass email at work reminding everyone of the drug & liquor policies. They haven’t changed though, it’s still basically “Don’t come to work drunk or stoned.” Same as the day before.
Moving on, I like to think of all the songs I heard as a kid, loaded with references to the Stuff that I completely missed. I was a pretty naive teenager, I guess, and I really didn’t have a clue! “Sweet Leaf” by Black Sabbath? I thought it was about a girl named Leaf. Leaf isn’t a common name, but it’s a name. “I love you Sweet Leaf, though you can’t hear.” Hey, maybe she’s too far away to hear. I didn’t know! I swear to Christ almighty, believe me or not, I thought “Sweet Leaf” was about a girl. Don’t forget Black Sabbath cassettes didn’t come with lyric sheets, so I was guessing at most of the words. Same with “Flying High Again”. No clue.
Early 1990, I was working at the grocery store at the mall with a guy named Scott Gunning. I was obsessed with “Sweet Leaf” that spring. I just got Sabbath’s We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll tape. “Sweet Leaf” was one of many favourites, but I really loved that riff. I thought the cough at the start was just an unrelated joke. Scott, who was older and knew Black Sabbath, must have thought I was a complete stoner, how much I was talking about this song! Meanwhile I wouldn’t have known the Stuff if it bit me on the nose!
As kids, we always preferred anti-drug songs to ones about getting high. We were young, and we could relate to the “cleaner” lyrics of a band like Kiss. “I don’t need to get wasted, it only brings me down.” Clear cut and easy to understand. Gene Simmons would be happy that his lyrics had a positive resonance with kids.
Legalization is a good thing. A lot of money is going to go right into the economy. Hell, Mrs. LeBrain has had a prescription for a year and a half now. Another irony: she doesn’t take her meds. She doesn’t like it. And that’s another factor that people are forgetting. There are going to be plenty of people who are going to legally try it for the first time, and they’re going to hate it. They won’t like how it makes them paranoid, or lazy, or hungry, or whatever their reaction will be. It’ won’t be like the nation will go pot-mad.
Even if it did, I’d rather be living here than down south.
I once read a quote from Keith Richards in the late 80s about the state of rock and roll. “I hear a lot of rock,” he said, “but not much roll anymore.”
I thought I knew what he meant. You heard a lot of rocking, but not a lot of that Stones-y jangle. None of the rhythm & blues. None of the subtlety. That’s what I read his quote to mean.
Then I heard something else a decade later that made me wonder if “roll” meant something else.
WHAT IS “ROLL”?
A knowledgeable rock guy named Neil was working that day. The Verve were still popular, and for good reason. 1997’s Urban Hymns was a phenomenon brought on by “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, which has since become a classic. The song even has a Stones connection. The famed string section is a sampled from Andrew Loog Oldham’s cover of the Stones’ “The Last Time”. The lawyers had a field day with that one.
On this afternoon, a guy came in and started asking lots of questions (including “Do you believe in Jesus?” but I digress). One thing we always hated was when customers would ask to listen to music on the store system even though we had six listening stations. (Granted, only four worked at any given time, but again, I digress.) This guy asked to listen to The Verve.
Because we tried to be nice and not dicks, we put The Verve on the store system and skipped through the tracks for the guy. He told us, “There’s rock and roll, and then there’s rock, and then there’s roll. This CD supposedly has the first ‘roll’ performed since the 1960s!” That’s what he was listening for.
We went back and forth through a few tracks. Then he burst out, “Did you hear that? Did you hear that! That was a perfect roll! The first roll performed since the 60s!”
To this day I have no idea what he was talking about.
Rock and roll is an amalgam of different influences, including gospel and R&B. None of those influences have gone extinct since the birth of rock. Whatever it was that this guy heard, something that hadn’t been performed since the 60s, I still cannot figure out.
I’ve seen Alice Cooper twice. Unfortunately, I didn’t write a review either time. I certainly should have. Both shows were special and perhaps unique in unexpected ways. I have a couple stories to tell you.
The first time I witnessed the Alice Cooper show was on his Rock N’ Roll Carnival tour (no opening act), August 28 1998. We were lucky enough to get the lineup with Reb Beach (Winger) and Eric Singer (Kiss), who had recently rejoined the band. It was the now legendary Lulu’s Roadhouse featuring the world’s longest bar. Thanks to the internet, we know the entire setlist.
Hello Hooray
Sideshow
Billion Dollar Babies
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Public Animal #9
Be My Lover
Lost in America
I’m Eighteen
From the Inside
Only Women Bleed
Steven
Halo of Flies
Nothing’s Free
Cleansed by Fire
Poison
Cold Ethyl
Unfinished Sweet
School’s Out
Encore:
Jailhouse Rock
Under My Wheels
I went with Lyne (one of our store managers) and her husband. A little while later Lyne was bullied right out of the organisation and went to work for HMV instead. (I used to call her “Lynie Lynie Boing Boing” for some reason.) We had an amazing time and I remember being impressed that Alice was still playing material from 1994’s The Last Temptation. “Sideshow”, “Nothing’s Free” and “Cleansed By Fire” were unexpected treats. It was also a pleasure to hear so many Nightmare-era songs.
At the end, as per usual, Alice introduced his band, and then himself. He tore open the front of his jacket to reveal a T-shirt that said “Alice Spice”. Yes, 1998 was the time of Girl Power and Spice Girls were the biggest thing in the world. It got the required laughs.
One weird memory stands out. A few tables ahead of us was a girl who was missing an arm below the elbow. But that didn’t stop her from getting into the show, air guitar and all. The missing arm was her strumming arm and she was just pumping it and going for it. It was an unusual thing to see but she had a great time and that’s all that matters. An unforgettable night.
The thing about the late 90s period of Alice Cooper: It was a remarkably unproductive time as far as new material. From 1994’s The Last Temptation to 1999’s A Fistful of Alice (a live album), there was nothing new. In 2000, Alice cranked the machine again for a rapid-fire series of new albums starting with Brutal Planet. The live setlist had changed dramatically too. When I saw Cooper in 2006 with my new girlfriend (now known as Mrs. LeBrain), we got a very different show.
My mom had early access to tickets at the Center in the Square and surprised us with second row seats. On May 9, Alice rolled into town with his new band and new show. On drums once more: Eric Singer of Kiss. Opening act: Helix! Another favourite of mine in a hometown setting! Alice’s latest album was the excellent Dirty Diamonds and we got to hear the title track plus “Woman of Mass Distraction”. In addition Alice rolled out a few forgotten oldies like “You Drive Me Nervous”, and “Wish I Were Born in Beverly Hills” which was dedicated to Paris Hilton.
Department of Youth
No More Mr. Nice Guy
Dirty Diamonds
Billion Dollar Babies
Be My Lover
Lost in America
I Never Cry
Woman of Mass Distraction
I’m Eighteen
You Drive Me Nervous
Is It My Body
Go to Hell
Black Widow Jam
Feed My Frankenstein
Welcome to My Nightmare
Medley:
The Awakening
Steven
Only Women Bleed (with Steven reprise)
Ballad of Dwight Fry
Killer
I Love the Dead
School’s Out
Encore:
Poison
Wish I Were Born in Beverly Hills
Under My Wheels
There’s no record of Helix’s setlist, but they were able to play a number of songs including a brand new one: “Get Up“. I was sad to see that a few people in the front row didn’t bother coming early enough to see Helix, but that made it easier for Brian Vollmer to see me in the second. I pumped my first and sang along to every song — including the new one, once I got the hang of the chorus. Vollmer obviously noticed the one guy singing every song, and came down to shake my hand. Vollmer is one of the most fan-friendly artists in rock, bar none. This was only the first of several times he’d shake my hand.
(Back) Brent “Ned” Niemi, Alice Cooper, Brian Vollmer, Rainer Wiechmann (Front) Jim Lawson, Jeff “Stan” Fountain, Cindy Wiechmann – May 9 2006
From Planet Helix
As good as Helix were that night, nobody puts on a show like Alice Cooper. Kitchener was no exception. Mrs. LeBrain found herself swooning over guitarist Damon Johnson. (I thought bassist Chuck Garric would be more her style, based on a previous Tommy Lee crush.) Guitarist Eric Dover and the aforementioned Eric Singer rounded out the band, with Alice’s daughter Calico playing numerous roles as stage dancer! (“Put some clothes on!” said her dad after introducing her.)
I remember two things about the show very clearly. At one point, right in the middle of a song, a woman walked up to the front of the stage and held up a CD for Alice to sign. I didn’t get it…you expect him to sign your CD while he’s performing? While he’s in character as Alice Cooper? Who did she think she was?
Alice ignored her until he was obviously fed up. Swinging his cane in the air, he smashed the CD out of her hands. The sour looking woman returned to her seat dejected. You don’t interrupt Alice when he’s doing his show. “What a self-centered idiot,” was all I could think.
Alice’s action with the autograph seeker was made all the more noteworthy later in the show. Contrasting his attitude towards the previous woman, Alice paid special attention to a young girl in the front row. Wearing proper ear protection, the young girl was with her dad, possibly seeing her first ever rock concert. Recognising this, Alice personally handed her some of the fake Alice money lying on stage after “Billion Dollar Babies”, and some of the plastic pearls from “Dirty Diamonds”. The little girl was the only person in the audience who got special attention from the performer. Cooper, the consummate showman, plays for everyone not just the front row. That girl will never forget Alice Cooper as long as she lives, and he made sure of it. I couldn’t help but think Alice was also making a statement. “Treat my show with respect and this kind of stuff happens. Don’t interrupt me mid-song for an autograph.”
Whether I’m right or not, that’s one outsider’s impression of the events of the night.
Whatever I happen to think, there would be no argument that Alice Cooper puts on some of the best concerts in rock, and you should try to see him. Make it a bucket list goal. The lineups change, and the setlists evolve. You’ll always get “School’s Out” but chances are you will also hear a smattering of special classics that don’t get rolled out very often.
Go see Cooper and come back with your own stories to tell.
mikeladano.com 
