Thanks for hanging out this week for six new instalments of the ongoing series Getting More Tale! Today we bring the week backfull circle.
GETTING MORE TALE #502: Sausagefest XV: The Complete Countdown
Clickity-click the glorious list below to enlarge. This complete countdown was a blast to enjoy over two nights. A few people said, “This was my favourite mix of tunes so far.” As the 15th Sausagefest, that’s a mighty statement.
A couple notes:
Songs with names but no numbers are “tributes” to that particular Fester.
Only three songs that I voted for made the list this year:
“Take Hold of the Flame” – Queensryche
“Hollywood (Down On Your Luck)” – Thin Lizzy
“Empire of the Clouds” – Iron Maiden
You may be wondering what’s up with that version of “Whiskey in the Jar”. What they did here was an interesting experiment. Tom called it “ham-fisted”, and it was, but it was still a lot of fun. We had three votes for “Whiskey in the Jar”, but by three different artists. Technically, that would count as one vote each for three songs, rather than three votes for one song. Instead, Tom creatively mixed together a medley of all three versions by the Dubliners, going into Thin Lizzy, then Metallica, back to Lizzy and ending with the Dubliners again. Ham-fisted perhaps, but an interesting contrast that went over very well with the crowd.
If there are any tunes below that you haven’t heard before, I recommend giving them a spin!
There are very few experiences in the world quite as trying as being forced to listen to a captive audience religious lecture at work. Now why would that happen? Well shit; in retail it happens all the time!
At the Record Store, I worked alone most of the time. Most of us did; we only staffed one person on duty for most of the day, from 10-5, for many years. This led to a number of inconveniences such as trying to find a moment to eat a lunch or take a wizz. Everybody dealt with it in their own ways; my way usually involved eating less lunch and more junk food, and getting really good at “holding it” for hours at a time.
But we weren’t busy all of the time. There were long stretches of…not boredom, but different kinds of work, when the store was slow and empty. Cleaning, balancing books, organising, doing inventory, taking annoying phone calls from higher-ups asking if the store was busy yet (and then somehow implying it’s your fault because “Cambridge is really busy right now”)…there was always lots to do! Unfortunately when you were alone at the store, you could sometimes get cornered by a talky customer for long periods of time.
The worst of these “conversations” (not really because they were usually one-sided) were the religious lectures. These were rare. I don’t want to mis-represent the situation. These religious lectures didn’t happen every day. But every once in a while, you would get cornered by somebody who just wants to tell you all about Jesus.
Yes, Jesus. I was never bothered by atheists, Muslims, Hindus or Wiccans. It was only the Christians, and only certain varieties of them, that wanted to tell you about their faith. I have nothing against any religions; I am a Christian myself but I consider this a somewhat personal journey. I really hate when people get my back up lecturing me about their faith. I like talking, not being lectured, and not at work! I’m trapped there; I don’t have an escape route. I don’t think this is an unreasonable pet peeve. But it happened. I’ve been handed Watchtower pamphlets, been invited to church services, and been told the music that was playing was satanic.
My strategy was “nod and smile”: Trying not to say too much, trying to get it overwith, and praying to my own Lord and saviour for the phone to ring so I could exit. You may think to yourself, “Well why not just tell the person you’re not interested?” Because they are used to hearing that and have answers to everything.
The religious solicitation at work continues today but with new methods. And there is only one church soliciting me today.
It started with the faxes in 2013: “Come to lunch at the Church of Scientology”. They were arriving weekly, the faxes, shortly after the new church opened in town. We joked about going; apparently they had a cafeteria that served lunch. We were getting sick of all the Wendy’s, McDonalds, and Burger Kings in town, but it never progressed further than joking. “Wouldn’t it be funny if…?” Even though they are open seven days a week during the day, the place always looked ominously deserted. It is mere walking distance from where I work today.
This week, I got my first Scientology invitation at home. It came in the guise of an offer for a “Free Personality Test” in my mailbox. It’s a “limited time” offer only (I’m pretty sure that’s false) and takes just one hour. It’ll help me improve my happiness and success in life. On the front it says “Oxford Capacity Analysis” (a nonsense phrase unrelated to Oxford university, designed to sound smart), and has graphs inside showing…something? The numbers on the axes aren’t explained. Only when you turn to the very back do you see who is offering this “Free Personality Test”, and yes, it’s the local Church of Travolta.
I find all of these tactics very cunning and shifty. In all these situations, they are coming at the target (me/us) with an advantage. I was cornered at work at the Record Store, putting me in a situation where it’s hard to escape the lecture. Today they send out these enticing booklets and invitations without being truthful about who they are until the last page. There’s something un-trustworthy about that.
Holy craaap! It’s chapter 500 ofRecord Store Tales/Getting More Tale! Chapter one (“Run to the Hills“) was posted on March 9, 2012. Over four years and 500 chapters later, we are still rocking. If you’ve been here since day one, then you rule. If you’re new, then stay tuned because the stories are far from over!
GETTING MORE TALE #500: 500 Up
A little four-piece band from Halifax formed in 1991, at an art school. Hardly the kind of thing to make history, but they strove to make history just the same. Another art school band in the 1990’s? Who needed that?
They named themselves after a friend who had the nickname “Slow One”. Within a few months, the band known as “Sloan” had recorded and released their first EP,peppermint. Their debut single “Underwhelmed” began to make waves on MuchMusic and the buzz was building. Sloan’s secret weapon was the sheer talent of the four members. Not only were all four lead singers in their own right, but also multi-instrumentalists. Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, Andrew Scott and Jay Ferguson were more than capable of playing whatever music they envisioned. In 1992, Sloan signed to Geffen.
Sloan’s debut album Smeared boasted a couple hit singles: a re-recorded “Underwhelmed”, and a song called “500 Up” featuring lead vocals by Patrick Pentland and drummer Andrew Scott. A few album tracks such as “Sugartune” and “I am the Cancer” gave the album some depth, but it wasn’t until their crucial second LP that Sloan really broke some serious artistic ground.
“500 Up”
Unfortunately that second album, the brilliant Twice Removed, was engulfed in problems. Chart magazine called it “the best Canadian album of all time”, in 1996. Geffen however was unwilling to promote it. They would have preferred if the band remained an alterna-grunge darling, rather than explore the lush sounds of Twice Removed.
The band went on hiatus and somehow managed to extricate themselves from their contract with Geffen. A brilliant single (“Stood Up”/”Same Old Flame”) released on their own Murderecords let the die-hards know they weren’t dead, although the impression in mainstream circles was that the band had folded. They were actually hard at work, recording yet another album for just $10,000 in only two weeks.
That album, the critically hailed One Chord to Another, cemented Sloan as a force to be reckoned with in Canada. Three brilliant singles including the hard edged “The Good in Everyone” ensured Sloan lots of air play in 1996. But it was 1998’s Navy Blues that hooked me in.
There was a palpable buzz in the air. Customers were asking about the new Sloan song “Money City Maniacs”, a hard edged rocker often compared to “Firehouse” by Kiss. Some people know it as the “goat piss” song due to one of the commonly misheard lyrics in the song: “And the joke is, when he awoke his body was covered in Coke fizz.” Coke fizz, goat piss: Same difference right?
“Money City Maniacs”
Upon release, we gave Navy Blues daily store play. I can all but guarantee that album was played in one of our stores each and every day upon release in ’98. Although it was not as well received critically as the prior two Sloan albums, it did go gold and earned a Juno nomination for Best Rock Album.
Even though Navy Blues was the first Sloan album I bought, I didn’t become a full-fledged Sloan fanatic until they did the inevitable double live album. Sloan are Kiss fans and classic rock fans, so a double live was all but inevitable. It’s only appropriate that this is the album that cemented my fandom.
4 Nights at the Palais Royale was recorded in Toronto, and the full tally was 28 great all-original songs over the course of almost two hours. It is simply one of the greatest live albums I’ve ever heard: fun, very live sounding, with loads of audience participation. The band consider it representative of a typical Sloan show, and you can hear both their sloppy rock chops and lush pop vocalizing. It’s all there. The package was brilliant, stuffed with photos and liner notes from the band. If one can claim a single moment when Sloan “arrived”, I would argue for 4 Nights at the Palais Royale as that moment. Talk about being on a roll: the even managed to release another studio album that year! (My favourite one, Between the Bridges.)
Now completely addicted to Sloan, I bought all the albums, and then soon upgraded them. During a trip to Toronto in 1999, I headed over to the once-big HMV on Yonge and bought all the Japanese versions of the Sloan albums, with bonus B-sides added. It was quite a haul and a brilliant score. Like any good classic rock band, they have a number of B-sides that are as good as the hits. I still have these; it is hard to find Sloan singles, but worthwhile. Some of their most interesting material exist on B-sides, such as the aforementioned “Stood Up”/”Same Old Flame” and the impossible to find instrumental “Rhodes Jam”. (I’m still missing that one.)
Though the Sloan story continues on today with 11 albums and a 25th anniversary tour, my story peaks here. That double live album remains the high water mark for this fan. It’s a time machine. Upon hitting play I am instantly transported back in time. What a glorious summer that was. As it turned out, 4 Nights at the Palais Royale is the exact same length as a drive to the cottage. As such it got car play almost every single trip. Even my grandmother liked it.
On the occasion of this 500th instalment of Record Store Tales/Getting More Tale, I encourage everyone to check out some Sloan. Not only an incredible band, but Canadian, eh?
Selected Discography
1992 Peppermint (EP)
1992 Smeared
1994 Twice Removed
1996 One Chord to Another
1998 Navy Blues
1999 4 Nights at the Palais Royale (live)
1999 Between the Bridges
2001 Pretty Together
2003 Action Pact
2005 A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005 (best of)
2006 Never Hear the End of It
2008 Parallel Play
2009 Hit & Run (download-only EP)
2010 B Sides Win: extras, bonus tracks and b-sides 1992-2008 (download-only compilation)
2011 The Double Cross
2014 Commonwealth
Welcome back to the week of Getting More Getting More Tale. This one is…not funny.
GETTING MORE TALE #499: Top Five Most Heinous Rock Criminals
Who are the biggest dicks in rock? People who have committed crimes so atrocious, so heinous, that forgiveness is all but impossible? Here is a list of some of the most well known examples of extreme douchebaggery in rock and roll.
5. Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols)
Not everybody gets to have Gary Oldman play them in a movie. In order to attain this dubious distinction, you have to be the bassist for the most notorious punk band in the world, stab your girlfriend (Nancy Spungeon) to death, and then die of an overdose before the case can go to trial. The unanswered questions will remain so forever.
4. Phil Spector
The genius producer extraordinaire may have been most well known for his “wall of sound” in the 1960’s, but today people remember him showing up in an array of outrageous wigs for his murder trial. On February 3 2003, actress Lana Clarkson was killed by a gunshot to the head at Spector’s mansion. Spector was found guilty on April 13 2009, and has been in jail ever since. His bald mugshot was a stark contrast to the huge wigs he was known for.
3. Varg Vikernes (Burzum)
This bizarre tale cannot be summed up in a paragraph. Varg did 21 years in jail for stabbing Mayhem guitarist Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth) to death. Vikernes has explained and justified the events of August 10 1993 many times, but every interview just makes the situation more bizarre and surreal. Vikernes is a free man today, continually working on and releasing new music with his solo project Burzum.
2. Vince Neil (Motley Crue)
Drinking and driving is a crime that no-one should ever take lightly. When it involves injury and death, that goes double. On December 8 1984, a drunk Vince hopped into his Pantera with Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle Dingley to pick up some more booze. Neil hit an oncoming car, seriously injuring its passengers, and killing Dingley. Neil spent 15 days in jail. To make matters even worse, this was not Neil’s last instance of drinking and driving. He faced charges in 2007 and again in 2010. This is an example of a man who is old enough to know better, but will never learn.
1. Ian Watkins (Lostprophets)
Ian Watkins is in jail right now, and hopefully will remain there for a very long time. His crime? According to investigators, Watkins is a “committed, organized paedophile” and “potentially the most dangerous sex offender” they had ever seen. His lack of any sort of remorse has made his crimes that much more disgusting.
Welcome back to the week of Getting More Getting More Tale!
GETTING MORE TALE #498: Hang-Up Wars
When the employee Joe “Big Nose” began working at one our stores in the late 90’s, he quickly became known for his surly phone demeanor. Not towards customers mind you; just towards co-workers! Joe was not much for pleasantries: “How ya doin’,” or “Have a great day.” We have said it many times in these pages before: Joe Big Nose was a very unique person. And hilarious.
The first time I ever spoke to Joe on the phone, I was calling his store from mine, looking for a stock check. Somebody wanted to see if a particular CD was in stock at his location. Joe pleasantly got it for us, took down the customer’s info, and put it aside. “Hey thanks a lot eh!” I said to the new guy. He didn’t answer.
I stared at the phone. “Did that guy just hang up on me?” He had! Joe doesn’t wait on the phone long enough for thanks and goodbyes. In fact there were uncountable times I thought I was speaking to him, and he had already hung up!
“Don’t worry, that’s Joe,” said his boss. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. That’s just his way.” OK, then, fine and dandy!
As I befriended Joe over the years, we would get into some friendly competitions over who could hang up the phone fastest on the other person. This started as part of the normal course of a day. We’d call each other looking for stock, but when business was done, it was only a question of who could hang up on the other fastest. My strategy was delaying him by asking something like, “I just have one more thing for you to check,” and THEN hanging up.
This grew into a competition with a life its own. We began calling each other with no purpose other than just to hang up.
For example, “Hey, do you have a used copy of the new Metallica?” CLICK!
Or, “Mike, I have a customer who wants to know if the new Bon Jovi is any good?” CLICK!
Or my favourite, just at the start of the call: “Hey Mike.” CLICK!
We took this to its natural extreme, which was me phoning Joe and hanging up just as he answers. A hang up can’t get much faster than that! I won the hang-up wars! (The bosses didn’t approve, but since the owner started the store pranks in the first place by stealing my Mars bar, I think they had it coming!)
Welcome to another week of Getting More Getting More Tale! Join us each day this week for a new instalment of the Getting More Tale series, including the all-important, top-secret #500.
GETTING MORE TALE: #497: Sausagefest 2016 Official Report
I have returned, bitten by many insects of all kinds, from Sausagefest.
Every year, Countdown has its own personality, or personalities. This year, the fifteenth annual, the 81 songs were drawn in almost equal amounts from the fountains of heavy metal and soul/funk. There was Metallica, and there was Five Alarm Funk. There was Iron Maiden, and there was Charles Bradley. It was a stunning mix, also including long bombers by Yes and ELP. Because of this year’s countdown, I will soon be purchasing Close to the Edge by Yes, and a number of Clutch CDs.
The countdown began, appropriately, with a song by Hibakusha and a previously unheard Paul MacLeod comedic bit. MacLeod had a comeback show scheduled for the same weekend as Sausagefest. It is sad that it could not come to pass.
I was given 10 songs to do “LeBrain” intros for. They were as follows:
78. “Hanger 18” – Megadeth (for this I did a 7-minute comedic steam-of-consciousness bit as my own intro) 67. “Go Down Gambling” – Blood Sweat and Tears 60. “Snakes for the Divine” – High on Fire 55. “Rock and Roll Suicide” – David Bowie 49. “Why is it So Hard” – Charles Bradley 42. “Old Joe’s Place” – The Folksmen 36. “Burn In Hell” – Twisted Sister 29. “Fade to Black” – Metallica 18. “The Sounds of Silence” – Disturbed 11. “Empire of the Clouds” – Iron Maiden
Now, I do not care for Disturbed, and I did not want to introduce that song. I wanted another tune because I had an intro planned already for it (“Hollywood”, by Thin Lizzy). Tom and Uncle Meat refused to give me Thin Lizzy. They did not want to hear Disturbed so they left it to me. I told Meat, “Fine, but I am going to record my intro in the bathroom while taking my morning shit.” And that’s exactly what I did. The intro was received…with grace, all thing considered, by the people who voted for Disturbed. I have no issue with David Draiman, he is an incredibly gifted and obviously trained singer. It’s just not my cup of tea. It’s not a song I wanted to hear done that way. So I did my intro the only way I knew how: with exaggerated disgust. Love it or hate it, nobody ignored it!
The weather was a challenge, but not unbeatable. Friday afternoon and early evening, we were pelted with rain, hail and lightning. Due to the weather forecasts, it was decided late last week that there would be no live jams this year. The more capable among us assembled tarps and gazebos to protect the precious Wall of Sound, and us. Standing in the refreshing rain on such a hot day, I felt like Andy Dufresne after having climbed through the mile-long shitpipe. There were many personal highlights for me this year, but I will say this. I am glad that I slept in Saturday morning, and did not go into Flesherton to get breakfast at the Flying Spatula. A highlight of previous trips, the Spatula is now under new, surly ownership. Our guys were treated to disinterested and slow service. One group of eight guys was asked to share one booth. Disappointing. We’re disappointed in you, Flying Spatula.
The most important part of Sausagefest besides the countdown is the camaraderie. Every year it gets better, too. Many of these guys only see each other once a year. Some of us show up fatter, balder, or both. Some of us even showed up with a broken ankle. That’s dedication. It’s that important to us.
Or, as Uncle Meat sang during his interpretation of Pink Floyd’s “Hey You”:
“HeyScott, Where the fuck are you? Did you have better things to do Than rock and roll, man?”
It was a rite of passage: When the youth began renting restricted horror movies!
In the mid-80’s, my best friend Bob was obsessed with horror movies. He found them funny. He liked pausing and going slow-mo any time a rubber prosthetic was being hacked off a victim by the killer. We enjoyed laughing at the ridiculous situations. Don’t go into the woods at night, for god’s sake, and don’t trip over every twig and branch when you’re running away from the bad guy!
Of course, there were always rock and roll connections. Via the soundtracks, you’d get exposed to a few cool rock tracks. The first horror movie Bob and I watched together was a perfect example of this: John Carpenter’s adaptation of Stephen King’s classic Christine. We’ll circle back to the music. But the language! Oh my. We had never heard swearing woven into such intricate dialogue before! King truly is the master of the art of profanity. We learned new ways to swear from that movie. Some favourites:
“Yeah try it you little bald fuck, and I’ll knock you through the wall! FUCK!” – Buddy Repperton
“OK, that’s the last time you run that mechanical asshole in here without an exhaust hose!”– Will Darnell
“I knew a guy had a car like that once. Fuckin’ bastard killed himself in it. Son of a bitch was so mean, you could’ve poured boiling water down his throat and he would’ve pissed ice cubes.” – Will Darnell
We watched Christine, rewound the tape, and watched it again, twice in a row. I still love that movie today. It’s not my favourite horror of all time (that would be The Shining, also based on Stephen King) but it does come in second. My dad and uncle didn’t mind me watching it, because the car involved in the film was a 1958 Plymouth Fury. Such things seemed to matter to adults.
I always preferred comedy to horror, but Bob and I were a team, so we compromised and usually rented two or three movies at a time. Strangely enough, it’s really only the horror films I remember today. I couldn’t tell you what comedies we rented, but I remember Friday the 13th, do I ever!
We would ride our bikes up to Steve’s TV on Frederick Street. It’s still there, too, in the same spot but stocked with the latest and greatest tech. In the 80’s, it was a growing business and had the largest collection of videos for sale and rent that I’d ever seen. Bob and I would discuss and pick out a couple horror films and a comedy. We’d bring them back by bike and rent more. The first time we did this, Steve’s TV asked for a note from our parents to rent an R rated movie. Minor delay! We’d just have to make another trip on our bikes.
We rented the first Friday the 13th, and the second. I somehow missed the third and fourth (I am pretty sure I was at the cottage on vacation those weekends) and jumped right onto the poor fifth movie (A New Beginning), which didn’t even have Jason in it. As I started highschool, Jason finally returned in Part VI (Jason Lives) and our movie renting continued. When the Friday the 13th movies were done, we did the Freddie movies, and the Halloween films. We even did the third Halloween, the one that had nothing to do with the rest of the series.
We rented so many that eventually Steve’s TV had nothing left we hadn’t seen. We started checking out a new store, Jumbo Video. They had a cool horror section that looked like a haunted castle. We rented everything there, too. Jeff Goldblum’s remake of The Fly was one. I remember a really terrible movie called Madman Marz, but there were many more that I can’t remember at all. As highschool went on, we ran out of horror movies to rent at Jumbo. We temporarily began renting ninja movies (Bob was taking Karate at the time) but it was horror that we really liked.
An automated video rental place opened up. It was a small room full of vending machines that dispensed videos! They had a small selection of horror, so Bob and I began to eat those up too. The Fly II was one of the first we rented from that automated store, and it was just awful. Clearly, we were exhausting the horror movie stock in Kitchener Ontario. There was nothing left for us to rent.
The rock and roll connections with a lot of these films were really interesting to us, since we were both exploring hard rock at the same time. Christine, our first horror experience, had an incredible soundtrack of oldies: Little Richard’s “Keep-A-Knockin’”, “Not Fade Away” by Buddy Holly, and of course the newbie “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood. As much as we were obsessed with the movie, we obsessed over that song. Playing it over, and over, and over again. A bit later on, Alice Cooper appeared in a couple films, also providing music for Prince of Darkness and Friday the 13th Part VI. Horror went hand in hand with our rock obsession, but in the long run, “there could be only one”. For me, rock won out. Horror films still bring a chuckle, but the days of obsessively trying to watch them all are long gone. Do they even make good horror movies anymore? I don’t even know. They do still make great rock and roll, that’s for sure.
As anybody who has ever manned a cash register for a living knows, you gotta keep that sucker stocked with change!
During the transactions of the day, you inevitably run low on certain coin denominations. With the Harmonized Sales Tax added in (our HST was a whopping 15%!) a used CD purchase always came to one of these four totals: $6.89, $10.34, $12.64, or $13.79. (Incredible, how I still have those totals memorised hey?) Most customers paid with a $20 bill. You can see how, through the course of a business day, you would build up a large stack of $20’s, while slowly running out of pennies, dimes, quarters, loonies ($1 coins), twonies ($2 coins) and $5 bills. (We rarely had to replenish the nickles. Since that time, pennies have been discontinued in Canada.)
One other critical factor to consider: We bought and sold used CDs. We paid between $2 and $7 cash per disc. You can see how would we run out of $5 bills, twonies and loonies quite easily on a busy day.
There were fewer worse feelings than running out of change midday, with no backup to make a bank run. Customers don’t like receiving a mitful of dimes for change because you don’t have anything larger left. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t help the situation. Some would try to give you exact change, or at least helpful change, but most would just lazily hand you a $20 bill even though they had a hand full of change, enough to make exact change. Granted, a large portion of customers actually wanted to keep their quarters and loonies for bus and laundry money. But I’ve also seen the odd guy here and there who would be paying, start counting out change to pay with, then lose count and just hand me a $20. Anyway: long story short, we were always handing out tons of coins and in need of change and small bills.
Managers like myself were responsible for keeping the register stocked with enough change. If we failed that, or miscalculated how much coin we’d need to get through the day, there’d be hell to pay in the morning! We had one nasty boss who was really good at yelling. Once she had unloaded the artillery on you, you didn’t want to disturb the beast ever again or you’d get it even worse. You didn’t ever want to have repeat offenses with this person. She could peel your skin just with a glare. So, I created a practical yet unpopular solution to this problem.
One day, after being yelled at for the umpteenth time for this, I said, “Fine. From now on, I’m stocking enough change to last us an entire week. We’re not running out again.” And we didn’t.
I’d have to call the bank in advance so they could prepare my large change order. (One bank wanted 24 hours’ notice — ridiculous!) I’d go to the bank with a small wad of $20 bills and return with a heavy bag of coinage. Fortunately we could use the “business line”, bypassing the large queue of regular customers, who sometimes would glare or make comments about the guy “jumping the line” (me). Unfortunately for my staff, whoever was closing at night had to count a whole bunch of coin and small bills. They complained, but I explained simply: “I’m not getting yelled at again for running out of change, so we have to live with it.”
Like I said, it wasn’t a popular solution, but it was an effective solution. Other store managers who might have been on the “good side” of that evil perfectionist boss didn’t have to worry about getting yelled as frequently as I did. She picked on me and a few select others harder than her favoured crew of close friends. Counting a shit-ton of change at night was a very small price to pay for this minor slice of peace of mind!
GETTING MORE TALE #494: I Think I’m Going Bald (a sequel to #488:Almost Cut My Hair)
A short while back, we took a look at popular hair styles in different genres of music. One hair style we ignored, because it really knows no boundaries, is the old fashioned bald head, or the “Jean-Luc” as the kids call it today.*
When I was a young fella discovering rawk at the dawn of the 1980’s, I hadn’t seen any bald rock stars that impressed me. Now my first musical love truly was John Williams, and he was bald. Hard rock at the beginning of the 80’s wasn’t like that. There was…a uniform. Unless you were Rob Halford, Paul Di’Anno or Udo Dirkschneider, part of that uniform was having long hair to thrash about.
The only bald rockers I had seen included one rare picture of Bob Kulick, brother of Bruce, and the bass player from Blotto. I didn’t like Blotto: they also had a short haired geek with thick rimmed glasses on guitar. So, by extension, I didn’t like bald heads in rock!
Then grunge came, and long hair was no longer a “thing”. Then, even worse, our mortal rock stars began aging! How was this possible? There was no time to consider the thought, as one by one, rock stars shaved their heads completely: Rob Halford, Kerry King, Scott Ian, Billy Corgan, Joe Satriani, hell even Billy fucking Joel has lost the curls and gone cue-ball!
There’s nothing wrong with the bald head, obviously I have learned this now. I myself have rocked the bald look on and off for about 15 years now. Most people don’t do it on and off, but I’ve been blessed with a full head of hair (thanks mom’s side of the family!), and I shave it for convenience and to look tougher than I already am. Seriously though, there’s nothing better than having a shower, jumping in your clothes and heading right to work without worrying about hair. There’s nothing better to beat the heat in the summer either.
Now, funny thing. My mom and my wife both think I am going actually bald. They tell me my hairline is receding. What they don’t know is that my hairline started receding at age 16. Then it stopped and never started receding again! I have the exact same hairline I had at 16, only nobody believes me, because at 16 I was trying to hide that by growing it out! It has not moved one centimetre since highschool, and that’s a fact, Jack!
This being summer time, I have shaved it all off once again. This is the closest you may ever see to a picture of “topless LeBrains” here.
Before
After
Who are your favourite bald rockers? Do you favour Sinead O’Connor for her fearless 80’s buzz cut? Do you call it a tie between Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel? There are so many epically talented bald rockers (not looking at you, Chris Daughtry) today that it truly is hard to choose.
* Not really, but a better name than the “Bieber” which was the name of an actual fucking hair cut.
The first big hit movie soundtrack LP in history was 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire. That may seem like a long time ago, but it was only 26 years later (a small blink in terms of history) that John Williams composed one of the most popular scores of all time: Star Wars. That was the first soundtrack I owned. Today, soundtracks are still an integral part of any record store.
In my own days as a Record Store Guy, movie soundtracks were a dicey product to stock. Aside from some specific timeless examples, they seemed to have a limited shelf-life.
There was always a demand for certain classics: Saturday Night Fever, Last of the Mohicans, Heavy Metal. On the other hand, other discs were bargain bin perennials: Titanic, More Music from Titanic, The Bodyguard, City of Angels, Phenomenon, Romeo + Juliet…my God there were so many. Once a movie had run its course, often its soundtrack did too.
Classic.
Much of the time, people bought a soundtrack CD for one song. Once that song was available elsewhere, the soundtrack sales usually dropped off completely. When Goo Goo Dolls released “Iris” on their album Dizzy Up the Girl, nobody wanted the City of Angels soundtrack anymore. Celine Dion put “My Heart Will Go On” on a bunch of different CDs, meaning almost everybody who bought Titanic on CD tried to sell it later. Good luck – I’ve seen bargain bins with a dozen or more copies in it. At one point we were so desperate to get rid of the soundtracks that we were bundling them up with the movie at a cut rate price.
There were certain soundtracks that were so unpopular that we weren’t even supposed to buy them used. Operation Dumbo Drop comes to mind. Now that was a CD that sat on my shelf for years and years. When it finally sold, it was like a celebration. We had long “Do Not Buy – Ever!” lists. I’m sure many of them were soundtracks.
There are always customers on the lookout for obscure soundtracks. My buddy Rob Daniels, for example, has a radio show specialising in movie soundtracks. He has an extensive library of soundtracks, carefully curated over the past 16 years or more. Unfortunately for soundtrack fans, guys like Rob are in the minority. Most people simply didn’t care. They wanted the couple songs from the movie they liked and that was pretty much it. People looking for obscure scores were few and far between. Once a song is available on an artist’s album, the soundtrack can look forward to a long life in somebody’s bargain bin.
This week, we will be looking at different movie soundtracks every day! I have a weird knack for remembering the first time I bought an album in great detail. To lead into the first soundtrack review, I’ll set the scene.
The year was 1992. I wasn’t working at the Record Store yet, but I was a customer. The boss there used to have a saying (well he had many sayings but only one applies to this story): “Do as I say, not as I do.” He didn’t exactly set the best example on that one visit in ’92, which I liked to painfully rib him when I got hired on in July 1994.
I was looking for a specific soundtrack, a new release, and I wanted it on cassette. Like the majority, I’m often buying a soundtrack only for a few songs. I didn’t want to pay CD prices ($20 roughly) when the tape would be much cheaper. So, I went to the local Record Store, the one at which I’d start working in two years, and looked. They had to have it. I made a special trip to the mall just to get that one tape.
When I walked in, the owner was chatting it up with some hot girl. From the conversation it looked like they knew each other from highschool. I looked for the tape, looked and looked, but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t in the new releases and it wasn’t in the soundtracks. But they had to have it! I wanted to ask, but the owner and the girl were deep into whatever they were talking about. I wanted to get his attention and ask about the tape, but I was a shy guy back then and didn’t want to interrupt. I thought I could maybe jump into their conversation and say, “I went to that highschool too! Include me! Include me!”
I hovered nearby and waited for a break in their conversation to ask my question. As I flipped tapes nearby, I thought I heard him ask if I needed help finding anything? So I said the name of the soundtrack I was looking for. He turned to me and said, “Pardon me?” I answered, “Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking to me. I’m looking for a soundtrack.” He said, “Sorry, no I’m sold out of that one but I’ll have more in next week.”
I wanted it that day, so I skipped across the mall over to Zellers and bought the tape for $10.99.
“Do as I say! Not as I do.” Pay attention to customers! When I told him that story a couple years later he didn’t believe me. It’s true though; my friends will testify that 99% of the time I can tell them exactly when and where I first bought my albums. Normally he was great at customer service, but that morning in ’92 was an epic fail!
Can you guess which soundtrack I was looking for? Find out tomorrow.
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