RSTs Mk II: Getting More Tale

#854: Mushy

GETTING MORE TALE #854: Mushy

15 years seems like a long time even though it’s really just a blink of an eye.  My life changed forever 15 years ago.  That’s when I met Jen.  A big gaping hole in my heart was filled forever that day.  There was never really a question that she was the “right” one for me.   She always knew.

She had my back from the start and helped give me the confidence that I needed to finally quit the Record Store.  Since 2000, the environment there had become extremely toxic and I needed to get out for my own health.  If she didn’t have my back, I wouldn’t have left and my sanity would have been frayed.

This extra-mushy post has been brought to you by love.

Our first few years together were filled with dreams.  We talked about what we wanted to do for our wedding and what we were going to name our kids.*

Then she got sick.  That put the brakes on some of our plans.  Her doctor wanted us to wait to have kids.  When her health got under control, we thought, we could have as many as we wanted.  Two seemed like a great number.  A boy and a girl.  I really wanted a baby girl.  As time went on we realized it was never going to happen.

“Why don’t you just adopt?” asked people who didn’t know our situation.  Adoption stopped being possible when her health got worse.  The reality was we needed someone to babysit her, not someone for us to babysit.  It has been a tough reality but I’ve never regretted any of it.  I’d rather live with just the two of us, than have kids with somebody else.  If this is what our lives were meant to be, then so be it.

After we got married and settled in, we had to deal with loss after loss after loss.  We still paid off the condo, and just rolled with everything that life threw at us.  Every time one of us feels like giving up, the other one says “no way”.  We’ve come too far to throw in the towel now.  The things we’ve endured together would slay lesser mortals.  Sometimes at night, I’ll just lie there thinking about how lucky I am.

We keep on keepin’ on.  Because of her, love songs are sweeter and breakup songs don’t sting like they used to.  We live quiet lives now but I’m never, ever bored.  She gives me the time, space and inspiration to keep on writing.  In exchange she can watch all the sports she wants!  It’s a pretty sweet deal and I’ll never take for granted what a lucky bastard I am.

 

* She has never approved of my choice, Spencer Peter Oscar Carl Kevin.  Spell out the initials.

#853: “The wedding is coming and life is very sweet!” (Getting More Retro!)

Jen dug up this Facebook note that I wrote on August 8, 2008.  I thought it would be nice to include as part of Getting More Tale.  Even back in 2008, I was excited about Sausagefest and bitching about the Record Store.  The wedding was August 31, 2008 and I was obviously very excited.

GETTING MORE TALE (Retro) #853: “The wedding is coming and life is very sweet!”

I can’t believe I haven’t written a note in more than a month. If you had told me that getting married was this much work, I wouldn’t believe you. Actually, some of you DID tell me that getting married was this much work, and I didn’t believe you.

However it wouldn’t have changed anything. I still love my crazy Leafs girl and would have married her anyway.

So what’s new? Well, last I wrote, I was just about to head to Sausagefest. I did and it was awesome. The new format needs a little work* I think, there were a few kinks in the tape. Meat, Tom and Haslam hosted a great party and we had an awesome time. Even Tyler’s dog Zeppelin didn’t bug me this time. And Zach’s lamb was DELECTABLE. My compliments to the Chef Britton.

After that, I turned 36…wow…unbelievable! However I will still tell people that I am 26.

Work is great. Unbelievable amount of responsibility and it weighs heavy sometimes. However I have been there over a year now, and it looks to be like I will be there a long time to come. There will be news about that soon but I can’t talk about that yet.**

It’s interesting. I spent 11 1/2 years working in the record store, working my way up, until there was nowhere left to work up to. A lot of people wish they could have worked in a record store, and I’m glad to say that I did it. I always have the best work stories,*** and I’m glad to say that with the glow of nostalgia, all the stories are good ones.*^ However everyone grows up, everyone gets older, and I didn’t want to be that guy who’s on call 24/7 anymore. In my 30’s I wanted to do something else.

So, I spent the last 3 years working in accounting departments, working for manufacturers and refining my skill set and experiences. It’s slowly been paying off; it’s tough starting over but it was worth it. Now I never have to bring my work home with me, and when the phone rings on the weekends it’s usually a telemarketer, not work!

So here I am about to embark on the next stage of my life, this time as a married dude. In a lot of ways I’ve become the guy I never wanted to be when I was a younger: The guy who never buys a CD by a new band because he thinks all the new bands suck. The guy who thinks nothing since 1978 has ever sounded as good. But you know what? I don’t give a fuck. I stick to my guns, always have and always will, and I’ll never go for the trends. Sure when I worked in the store I bought a lot of stuff, but my heart and soul will always be with the heaviest of metals.

Meat can bug me about the Danko Jones (ha ha),**^ but who cares…in the end he knows that I like what I like not because YOU think I should like it, but because I liked it.

This is another busy weekend…tomorrow our new bed gets delivered, tomorrow we’re going to hopefully pick our rings, and Sunday we meet with the DJ to cross the t’s and dot the lower-case j’s.

But for tonight, I think I shall rock to The Scream featuring John Corabi, and play Lego Star Wars. Yes I shall.

 

* This could have been the infamous “Bag of Rock” format that nearly derailed Sausagefest.

** The news was that I had been offered a permanent position, but I couldn’t say anything until papers were signed.

*** Record Store Tales.

*^ “Good” as in good stories, but not necessarily happy ones!

**^ Meat raked me over the coals for picking “Take Me Home” by Danko Jones as my tribute song.

#852: On The Loose

GETTING MORE TALE #852: On The Loose

Though they formed in 1979 and were already on their third album, I didn’t notice Europe until 1986.  Even then, I managed to ignore their first few airings on MuchMusic’s Pepsi Power Hour.  Host J.D. (John) Roberts made a big deal out of the fact that they were from Sweden, which I didn’t understand since Yngwie Malmsteen was also from Sweden and nobody mentioned that as the most interesting thing about him.  Roberts warned us that Europe didn’t really sound like heavy metal but they were playing them anyway.

After the second or third run, the hook to “The Final Countdown” was stuck in my head and I decided that I liked the band.  I asked for their album for Easter of 1987.  What did I think about this new band from Sweden when the Easter bunny granted my wish?

Didn’t care for it much. The title track still had me hooked, and a song on side two called “Cherokee” was a sure-fire hit.  The rest of it sounded like awkward filler.  “Rock, now, rock the night!”  What kind of chorus was that?  I knew English wasn’t their first language but it didn’t hook me. Likewise “Stranger on the Track”, which I still envision as a guy running around on a 400 meter track & field course.  Even the mighty “Ninja” slipped past me with lines like, “If I were a noble ancient knight, I’d stand by your side to rule and fight.”  As for “Carrie”, it was just too soft.

But I was committed now; I had received this cassette tape as a gift and I had to give it a fair chance.  “Ninja” did rock, and so did a song called “On the Loose” on side two.  It was this song that rocked the hardest.  It also featured some amazing shredding by guitarist John Norum, which turned me into a fan.  That and his cool guitar strap.

By summer it was safe to say that I really liked the album.  Once the big singles wore themselves out on me, I found favourites on side two.  “Love Chaser”, “Heart of Stone”, “Time Has Come” and of course “On the Loose” were great songs.  As I learned more about the band, I discovered that John Norum had already departed and been replaced by Kee Marcello, who was in the video for “Rock the Night”.  But all anybody remembers about “Rock the Night” now is Joey singing into a ketchup bottle. the band miming their instruments on silverware in a diner.

Though clearly dated to a specific part of the 80s, The Final Countdown still stands as a thoroughly enjoyable album. Every song is fondly remembered.  It’s brighter and more instantly appealing than its following Out of This World.  Though they burned out by ’92, they have enjoyed a quality second era with Norum back in the fold.  Who could have imagined that back in ’87?

#851: Freestylin’ 8 – Back to the Future

GETTING MORE TALE #851: Freestylin’ 8 – Back to the Future

“May you have interesting times.”  Have you heard that saying before?  They call it the “Chinese curse” but there’s no evidence it originated in China.  There is little doubt that today we are living in interesting times.  Historic times, too.  The days we are living through now are the days that your children and grandchildren will be studying in school.  Remember asking your grandparents what World War II was like?  Kids one day will be asking you about the great pandemic of 2020-2021.

In recent days we’ve seen some worthwhile attempts to get “back to normal”, specifically with entertainment.  Concerts are a thing again, albeit most of them are different from the ones we remember.  Drive-in concerts could help get us through this period.  Live-streamed concerts have also started.  Bands have used the downtime to jam, write, and record.  It is reported that the Scorpions and the Cult are back in the studio working on new albums.

The landscape has also been devastated.  Venues are closing at a blurry pace, with Rhapsody Barrel Bar being the latest local casualty in a dizzying series.  When this is all over, I believe we will see demand for sports events, movies and concerts as if Covid never happened.  In the meantime, people have to put food on their tables.  There are no easy answers.

I’ll tell you one thing, though:  I’m glad for once that I’m not a parent.  I have enough to deal with.  Talking to my folks the other night, my mom said “I don’t think I would have sent you back to school if this pandemic happened when you were kids.”  I don’t think I would have wanted to go back.  Right now all I can do is cross my fingers, say a prayer and hope that the kids going back now will be safe.  In Canada, we just don’t know yet.  We’ll be finding out soon enough.

It’s true that I have a lot on my plate.  I don’t need to get into the work details — you all have problems, too.  But here we are in late August and I haven’t missed a day (except for scheduled vacations of course).  There were many times I didn’t think I could finish a whole day, but I did it.  But the hard times are relentless.  On August 14, Jen lost her grandfather, a proud Air Force veteran with the wisdom of a sage.  Yet another loss for poor Jen, who nevertheless keeps on getting up and going at it every single day.  This in the same year I lost my Uncle Don.  It’s been hard on our family.  My grandmother turned 96 and is just aching to get out of the house.  She still lives in her own home but can’t go anywhere except out onto the driveway, due to the dangers of Covid when combined with her age.

I’ve talked about this a number of times already, but my 2020 was stressful well before Covid hit our shores and I decided to get some help.  According to my records my first counselling session was February 7.  I’m very lucky that I had good support already setup when lockdown began a little over a month later!  All of this coincided with deep desire to delve back into childhood memories, and music.  I’ve been focused on music I used to enjoy in my teens.  Kiss has dominated.  Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Europe, Frehley’s Comet.  Stuff from happy summers of the past.

It’s incredible how, in the correct mindset, these albums have created aural time travel for me.  I don’t even have to close my eyes, but all the feelings and images and words from that time come back to me like pictures on a screen.  When I listen to The Final Countdown, all I can think of is spring, 1987.  With Frehley’s Comet, suddenly it’s July.  The last time I played Frehley’s Comet, I was at the cottage.  I yelled over to my sister (she’s two lots over to the left), “Hey!  I’m playing the album you gave me for my birthday in 1987.  What is it?”  Without hesitation she yelled back, “Frehley’s Comet!”  She remembered!  That’s pretty cool.

You know what?  These have been interesting times.  I’ve been on my own personal journey, and it probably wouldn’t have taken the same path if it wasn’t for Covid.  As shitty as 2020 has been (and make no mistake, this has been a shit show of a year) I cannot deny that it came with some personal good.  The only thing better than discovering new music for the first time is rediscovering it with fresh eyes, ears and soul.  Take it in anew.  Relive the experience and rejuvenate.

#850: Truly A Marvel

GETTING MORE TALE #850: Truly A Marvel

You can blame my dad!  He doesn’t remember getting me into Marvel comics, but he started it.

My neighborhood friends did have something to do with it initially.  Marvel’s Secret Wars was turning into the comic event of the year.  Neighbors like Bob Schipper and George Balasz introduced me to some of the characters – The Vision, Scarlet Witch, Rogue, Storm, and Bob’s favourite Hawkeye.  Bob liked collecting “limited series” and 1984’s The Last Starfighter (based on the movie) was the first he completed.  Marvel also had the comic rights to Star Wars and Indiana Jones, so it was natural for me to gravitate to them rather than DC.   Even Kiss had a Marvel comic.

I remember Marvel four-packs at convenience stores.   You would get four Marvel comics from four different titles in one bag.  My dad would buy these for us on the way to the cottage to give us something to do.   Just one bag of four books would keep us occupied on those long drives.  Iceman, Iron Man, ROM the Spaceknight and the X-Men entered our lives this way.  I didn’t want DC comics; I wanted the characters that I knew.  We were not comic fiends the way some kids were, but Marvel was there for me with astounding tales of science fiction and fantasy.

My father has no memory of buying those old books.  He looks at these Marvel movies today completely dumbfounded.

“Who’s that guy?” he’ll ask.

“That’s Tony Stark!  Iron Man!  You bought my first Iron Man comics when I was a kid!”

Although he always responds with “I don’t remember that,” I sure do.

It’s all true.  He bought my first Iron Man.  When I started reading them, James Rhodes was actually Iron Man.  Tony was just about to reclaim the helmet for himself when I jumped in.

Of the heroes, ROM was my favourite.  His adventures crossed over with Ant Man, Alpha Flight and others, exposing me to more Marvel characters.  A ROM annual (#3) with the X-Men hooked me on the Spaceknight.  At this time, my grandfather was dying of cancer.  When we went to visit the hospital, I wasn’t allowed to see him anymore.  He was too sick and they didn’t want me to remember him that way.  I can remember sitting in the waiting room reading ROM #62.  The battle to save Earth from the Dire Wraiths was a good distraction from the hospital sounds and smells.

As a little kid, I couldn’t buy everything.  It was hard just getting to the stores to catch every issue.  So my mom got out her cheque book and bought me subscriptions to my three favourite books.  Now there was no way I would be missing the latest issues of ROM, GI Joe, and The Transformers.

DC Comics had the big movies – Superman, Batman – but Marvel didn’t seem to translate well to live action.  We had the TV show The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferigno, but it was only loosely based on the comic.  (The TV producers didn’t want the Hulk to be green but fortunately Stan Lee insisted upon it.)   Marvel finally came out with a great film in 2000’s X-Men, directed by Brian Singer.  Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan were fantastic, but it was Hugh Jackman as Wolverine that was the real breakthrough.  Unfortunately the X-Men films declined in quality too quickly.  Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man debuted in 2002, but suffered the same fate by the third film.

Whether it was Blade, Fantastic 4 or Ghost Rider, Marvel rarely made me gasp in awe at the silver screen.  Not until Iron Man flew around the world in 2008.  That Jon Favreau film was a game changer.  Especially when Samuel L. Jackson showed up in a surprise cameo as Nick Fury to discuss the “Avenger Initiative”.  Suddenly the idea of Marvel heroes interacting with other Marvel heroes seemed possible.

None of us could have imagined the marvel-ous tapestry that they would weave over the next 22 movies.  Finally seeing my heroes like Captain America, Thor and Ant Man in movie form made me remember what I loved about my old comics.  They tried to stay reasonably close to the original stories.  The costumes might have been updated and less colourful, but there was no mistaking the Mighty Thor for anyone else.

And now all these decades later, I’m going back, buying graphic novels and catching up on my old friends in the Marvel Universe.  Reprints of The Infinity Gauntlet, Secret Wars, and the very first adventures of the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the X-Men are all in my library any time I need some nostalgia therapy.  Thank you Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and all the rest.  Jim Shooter, Larry Hama, Bob Budiansky and Simon Furman, I will always be grateful for bringing me childhood heroes month after month!

 

#849: Indoor Day

Sunday was what we call an “indoor day” at the lake. This is what I did with my indoor day.

The video took me most of the day, because my poor old laptop (10, this year) couldn’t handle all of the large files at once. So I started over from scratch and figured out a workaround until I was done about 7 hours later. I cooked, I went outside, I played with action figures, and I drank coffee until it finally saved without errors.

This video should scratch itches for a variety of people including:

1) Max the Axe fans – the full song “Randy” is included.
2) Dr. Kathryn Ladano fans – the full song “Masked” is included.
3) Those who enjoy driving videos. This is my first extensive use of my dash cam.
4) Nature buffs. You will hear real lake noises, rainstorms, and waves. You will see more cool underwater footage from the beaches of Lake Huron, and the legendary Greatest Sunset in the World.
5) Marvel / action figure fans. Look for a special “Build A Figure” Hulk.

 

You will not get:

1) Audio of me singing “Kissing Time” by Kiss; this was lost with the first version of the video.
2) Any of my pork chops.

But you can freely:

1) Live vicariously through me and absorb the good vibes through your monitor and speakers.

While visitors showing up on our little private road was not unexpected on a long weekend, it is disappointing when they show such little respect for the people who live here. A guy parked his ATV on our grass and said “Don’t get your knickers in a bunch” when my mom asked several times for him to move it. This came after arguing that he had the right to park there due to a “snow allowance”. There is no such thing.

Then we had Kenny the fireworks guys shooting off a “truck bed” full of firepower at 9:30 Saturday night. That was…distracting. As much as I love this place it certainly has changed in the last 45 years. Enjoy the video — the good the bad and the ugly!

#848: Dear Bob

Dear Bob,

I know we don’t get to talk much anymore.  I think the last time I saw you was at a funeral.  We both have our own lives now.  You have four kids to raise, and I have a Jen to take care of and cherish.  While we have separate journeys now, I will always remember and treasure our shared origins.  We were the lucky few to grow up on a very special street in a neighbourhood like no other.

Some of my earliest memories are of us playing in the front yard.  You were two years older but at that young age it hardly mattered.  All that mattered were our adventures.  It started with dinky cars, Lego and plastic swords.  Do you remember building little garages for our cars?  I do.  You showed me how.  A few twigs stuck into the ground covered with a grass roof, and we had multi-car garages right in the front lawn.

You taught me how to improvise our fun.  With cardboard boxes, we constructed a Cloud City for my Star Wars guys to play around in.  Do you remember showing me how to make little sliding pocket doors?  Or how about that board game we came up with on our own?  It was huge!  How many of my mom’s shoeboxes did we cut up to make that?  We used my Army Men for the pieces.  We constructed traps for them, that could you trigger with the pull of a thread.  Mom eventually said “No more shoeboxes!”

I could go on, and on, and on about how we created our own worlds to live in.  The drawings, a huge binder of which I still have!  We designed our own video game.  We wanted to submit it to Atari.  Then, when my family got a computer, we discovered a new world:  word processing!  No more pen and paper; now we could really come up with stories.  The program was called IBM Writer’s Assistant and we pushed the limits of what we could achieve.  We co-wrote the Adventures of Comet-tron, though it was your idea.  I even sold copies of our “book” at a garage sale.  25 cents each, and there were two issues!

Building obstacle courses in the back yard.  Improvising audio equipment with little more than a few wires and black electrical tape.  Riding our bikes, exploring the trails.  Renting horror movies and pausing to see fake rubber props.  Writing down the rules to our own invented version of street volleyball.  These are all things I did with my best friend.  If I didn’t have you, do you think “Double Bounce Volleyball” ever would have been conceived, much less documented with actual rules?  Chances are high that the only reason I owned a volleyball was because you had one first.

It’s funny that you studied architecture later in life, because I remember us sitting down with pencils and designing our future houses.  In our blueprints, we still lived on the same street.  We bulldozed all the other houses, and added on to our own (things like swimming pools and helipads and secret tunnels and overhead bridges).  We put new houses for our families to live in, while our original homes were connected by an enclosed bridge so we could hang out without even having to go out!

As your interests changed, so did mine.  Where you led I was eager to follow.  Music was next.  Do you realize how lucky I was to have you and other older kids around the neighbourhood?  While my classmates were listening to music they’d be embarrassed by in six months, you guys had discovered Van Halen.

Do you remember our front porch listening sessions?  One of us would plug in the stereo, and somebody else would bring over the Van Halen.

“Van Halen!?” said my dad as he came home from work.  “Sounds like some kind of tropical disease!”

And so began the long tradition of my dad creating memorable quotes about rock bands.  Wouldn’t have happened without you.  Your dad had some good ones too.

“Is there something wrong with that man?” he mocked when Bruce Dickinson was screaming the high notes.

Classic!  Absolutely classic.  You were not only there for it, but you were the guy who supplied the music for them to mock!

What I’m getting at here is this.  I need to really let you know how much you shaped my life, and how much I looked up to you.  I wanted to be you.  For years I was your mini-me.  You were smart, you were cool, you were big and strong and creative and everything I wanted to be.  I had nobody like you at my school.  Why did you have to go to a different school?  How life would have been different if you were able to stand up for me during the dark times.

I’ll never forget one thing you did for me.  It was grade six.  My bully Steve went at me really hard that year.  He made me cry in class.  It’s not a good feeling, crying publicly with 30 of your peers.  All I could think is how badly I wished you were there to stop him.  Stop all of them.  Then one day, you did make an appearance.  Our schools had March break during two different weeks.  During your March break, you got on your bike and paid me a visit during recess.  None of those kids had ever seen you before.  Maybe they thought you were my imaginary friend.  Not any more!  Steve actually fell flat down on his back when he saw how much bigger you were.  The memory still makes me smile.

I don’t know if you really understood how bad I had it at school.  It was a daily living nightmare.  You were the opposite of that.  I’d come home, phone you up, and 10 minutes later we’d be in the back yard jumping hurdles made of lawn chairs, and everything was forgotten.  You just got me; we shared the exact same sense of humour.  Nothing can gravitate two friends together like a shared love of laughing at the same things.  You also drew out and nurtured my creative side.  Anytime you came up with something cool on your own (which was frequent) you’d share it with me and together we’d expand on it.  It was the exact opposite of what I had at school.  There, nobody understood me.  There, nobody nurtured me.  There, nobody laughed with me.  Only at me.

You were my hero, man.  You were my Wolverine or Iron Man.  Funny enough, I got into Marvel comics because that’s what you read!  Do you remember reading comics on the patio?  Hawkeye was your favourite Avenger back then.

I mean it when I say you were my hero.  You were smart and popular and I was just happy to be the sidekick!  When I finally made it to highschool, you sneakily got an extra locker next to mine.  I felt so cool sharing that illicit locker, like part of an elite club.  We had some excellent times in highschool.  You bought a black guitar and so for contrast I bought a white one.  We never really put the effort in, but we did have fun drawing our logo.  “Paragon” was the name you chose for our band.  We never really learned to play, but we made a music video.  I know you’ll never forget that.  Together we spent a week after hours at the school in the editing suite, finishing the video with a very tight deadline.  We did it, though.  It was hard work.  We fought through technical issues and were recognized for our efforts by having our video shown at the local 1989 Charlie Awards.  What an honour for us.

I know for a fact that I would not be the person I am today had we not crossed paths 40-some years ago.  I think I’d still find ways to be creative, but the things I do today are just extensions of the things we did then.  Sequels, reboots, remasterings.  I like to think that I’m continuing with the projects we started together.  Together we made a music video and two movies.  Today, I make several music videos every year!  And as hard as it is to believe, I even completely re-edited one of the movies we made 30 years ago.  Finishing the work that we started.

It’s OK that you went to college and started your own life.  It was always going to be that way.  We were never really going to bulldoze the neighbourhood and live in connected houses.  Back then, I was never able to express how important you were — and still are.  You helped me survive.  I knew that all I had to do was endure a week at school.  On Saturday it would be us again, you and me, racing cars, flying starships or hosting our own shows.  Despite everything I had to go through at school, I always have considered it a good childhood.  The best childhood.  And that’s because I had you, my best friend.  We embarked on truly great adventures, and they far outweigh the damage the other kids could do.  When it was you and me, they couldn’t touch me.  They weren’t a part of the worlds we were building out of cardboard and Scotch tape.  You projected a force field around yourself and nobody would touch you.  In turn you were able to shield me with it too.  That was a tremendous gift that you can’t understand unless you were the beneficiary.

Do you remember why you chose the name “Paragon” for our band that never was?  “Because it means we’re the best,” you said.  It was true!  We were the best.  We were the paragon of friendships with adventures that shaped a lifetime.  Thank you for sharing that with me.

 

Happy birthday, buddy.  I hope you’re well.

 

#847: Taping the Kiss

GETTING MORE TALE #847: Taping the Kiss

My obsession with Kiss was started in September of 1985.  You all know the story.  I knew that the neighbour, George Balasz, only needed two Kiss albums to complete his LP collection.  He needed The Elder, and Hotter Than Hell.  One day Ian Johnson called, wanting to trade some records for an Atari game:  Superman, one of the poorest games in the Atari catalogue.  He could have that stinker!  He was trading me copies of Alive! and the much coveted Hotter Than Hell.  I already knew that I was going to spin Hotter Than Hell over for more trades.

I played Hotter Than Hell once.  Then I called George to negotiate a trade.

By the conclusion of the evening, I had acquired a Walkman, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid on cassette, an Abbott and Costello record and an Iron Maiden 12″ single.  Not bad for a shitty Atari game.

Now, technically the Atari game belonged to my sister and I, and she was pissed that I traded it without at least consulting her, but today she understands the monumental significance of her sacrifice.  My Kiss collection had begun.

I owned a record player, but it was a terrible one, so my Kiss focus was going to be cassette.  I asked George to record that scratchy copy of Hotter Than Hell for me.  Between that day in September of 1985 and summer of 1987, I taped just about every Kiss album from George.  The ones I didn’t tape, I bought at the local Zellers store.  Their selection was limited.  For that matter, every store’s selection was limited.  There wasn’t much Kiss available on cassette in 1985 Kitchener.  I had to have them.  I had to get them all.

I can’t remember the specific order anymore.  I probably recorded Animalize off George next.  I say this because it was on the flipside of the 120 minute cassette that also contained Hotter Than Hell.  Those, plus my LP of Kiss Alive, kept me occupied for a few months.

There were only a few vintage Kiss albums you could find on tape in town.  Dynasty and Destroyer were common.  They had been reissued in something called The Priceless Collection, a low budget series of repressings.   The vinyl edition of Destroyer in this series lacked the gatefold.  I got Dynasty in one of the local stores, and a few weeks later, accidentally dropped it into a bucket of wallpaper water.  My dad bought me a new copy right away.  I have an amazing dad.  He always took care of me.

It was a neat experience, getting those Kiss albums on tape as a kid.  It was a whole new world to me.  Imagine getting a Kiss album, and hearing for the first time who sang which songs.  You’d try to guess from the titles.  You couldn’t guess from the writing credits, necessarily.  I’d listen to the words and try to figure out what Kiss were singing about.  Wonder if, when I was a grown-up, I would have some of these experiences with the ladies that Kiss were talking about.

I taped a few more off George in the interim.  Sometimes I’d just drop a tape off at his house while he was at work.  I asked him to record Kiss, Dressed to Kill, Unmasked, Creatures of the Night, Love Gun, and Double Platinum. He wrote down the song titles as neatly as he could, and then I made my own covers.  I had a system.  I always had a big Kiss logo on the top half of the cover.  I tried to draw them identically every time.  If it was a single album, I would add a crude drawing of something to do with the album.  On Dressed to Kill, I had Gene in a trenchcoat.  On Love Gun, a pistol.  On the back cover I’d write out the tracks.  But for a double album, I used the bottom half of the front cover to list all the songs.  There wasn’t enough room on the back for a double album tracklist once I cut (or punched) out the two holes for the tape shell.  The back cover also had the year of release, and I drew a symbol on the tape label to indicate whether I recorded it from LP or cassette.  The spine featured a “Dolby stereo” logo.  I was meticulous about keeping all my Kiss tapes looking the same.

The only one of these Kiss tapes that I still have the hand made cover for is Crazy Nights, and I half-assed it because I knew I’d be buying a copy as soon as I could.  I can remember recording Crazy Nights the day it came out from George, and this temporary cover was on the tape that tided me over until I could get a real copy.*

Of course, some were store bought.  Lick It Up was a Christmas gift and I bough Asylum myself.  Destroyer was another early purchase.  I had it before I heard Double Platinum.  I had never heard “Detroit Rock City” before.  I was familiar with some tunes from Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, my first exposure to many Kiss hits.  I found Destroyer to be weird and I was surprised how much George liked it.

A memory that I have of Creatures of the Night is how good that album made me feel.  Listening to that tape in the garage after a day of bullying at school was a powerful experience.  The music was defiant.  The lyrics sounded good.  “Get me off this carousel, you can do as you please, you can go to hell.” Yeah you can!

Once George got The Elder, I taped it pronto.  I remember we couldn’t read all the song titles.  “Escape from the Ish?  What is that?”  He couldn’t legibly squeeze “Island” into the line.  Then I started seeing Kiss cassette reissues in stores.  Creatures came out with Kulick on the cover.  Most importantly, all the Kiss solo albums, which were otherwise impossible to locate on tape, were reissued in early ’87.  I asked — nay, demanded — all four for my birthday.  And because I was so spoiled, I received all four.  I listened to them in alphabetical order three times each.  A lot of the tunes weirded me out.  Too much funky bass.

Last to land in my collection was Rock And Roll Over.  And I recognized, that until Kiss out with a new album, this was the last time I was going to have this experience:  hearing a Kiss song for the first time, guessing who sang what and trying to understand the lyrics.  It was bittersweet.

It turns out, even when Kiss do put out a new album, it’s just not the same.  I don’t feel like I am learning something of Kisstory, like I did with the older albums.  I don’t get the sensation of “Wow, this is a classic song that I didn’t know before.”  It is just not the same.  But I’m glad I had the experience.

* When I got Crazy Nights, I recorded over this tape and re-used the paper for the cover.  Mixed Songs replaced Crazy Nights, a compilation of singles by Dokken, Ratt, Anvil, Helix and many more.

#846: The United Federation of Planets

GETTING MORE TALE #846: The United Federation of Planets

I used to be an optimist.  In my younger, more impressionable 20s, I felt like humankind had the universe by the balls.  The things we could achieve when united were remarkable but only the tip of what we could do collectively.  Where did I think we’d be by 2020?

Not here, that’s for damn sure!  I didn’t think we’d have the flying car, or free energy.  I thought we’d be on a better road than this.

At that younger age, I immersed myself seriously in science fiction.  Clarke in particular, but Roddenberry was also crucial to my mindset.  The optimistic future of Star Trek was the one I chose to believe in.  Gene Roddenberry was not wrong about what humanity could do when united.  I believed unity was our ultimate destiny, as we left behind our tribal pasts and prejudices.  I thought it was inevitable that eventually we would have something like the United Federation of Planets.  Prosperity through technology and collective wisdom.

It makes me sad and broken to see that we have not made many strides towards Roddenberry’s future, but have taken many steps backwards.  What would Gene think?  While I think he would be delighted to see that technology has leaped faster in some regards than he predicted, he would also be crushed by our continued divisions.

It’s in the news every day.  People are angry.  Some have forgotten the basic manners that their mothers taught them while others are behaving like, frankly, assholes.  Covid has us all stressed, and it has brought some of us together more closely while dividing others even more sharply.  I try to consume as little news as possible but it’s all but unavoidable to see this bullshit.  Even if one only reads music news, it is everywhere.  Ratt and Bobby Blotzer’s son feuding with Sebastian Bach and Dee Snider over the wearing of masks during this pandemic.  This cultural tension has pervaded every aspect of society.  At least you can buy some sweet Kiss-branded masks now.  Yet the amount of hate in the air over this issue is actually quite scary.

Incidentally as a side note, as our economy continues to be devastated by this disease, every brand in the world should start making masks.  Metallica, Maple Leafs, Kiss, Kellogg’s Froot Loops.  People are going to buy them and it’s time to strike while the iron is hot.  Only by adapting to this pandemic are we going to save businesses.  But back to where we were.

I used to believe good would always triumph over evil.  That is what all my favourite stories taught me.  Good is stronger.  Show humanity some adversity and we will unite and overcome.

Roddenberry did predict we’d need a Third World War before we get there.  I hope he was wrong about that too.

Star Trek was popular because people wanted to live in that world.  Star Trek fans exist in every part of the political spectrum.  Millions dreamed of being the helmsman on a starship, and to live in that world.  A world where the Earth knows no war, no poverty and no starvation.  Some of Arthur C. Clarke’s fiction was equally optimistic.  I figured guys as smart as Clarke, who conceived the communication satellite, were smart enough that they were probably right about the future.  Yet here we are, stuck in the mire like it’s still the 1950s.

Of course it’s not too late.  We can still turn around and say “I don’t care if you are this or that, and believe in A, B or C.”  We’re going to have to.  Why can’t everybody see this?  Humanity has no hope of survival if we can’t rise above our tribal differences.

 

#845: VHIII

This piece is a followup to the Friday July 17 live stream “Lead Singer’s Disease”.

GETTING MORE TALE #845: VHIII

We carried two magazines at the Record Store:  Spin, and Rolling Stone.  I cannot remember which printed the following comment in 1996, when Van Halen announced their new lead singer.  After a tumultuous few months with Sammy Hagar quitting and David Lee Roth briefly re-joining, the Van Halens decided on Extreme frontman Gary Cherone to carry the VH torch.

Spin or Stone, in a brief paragraph, commented:  “Roth, Hagar, Cherone…the downward spiral continues.”

Bullshit!

I called bullshit then and I call bullshit now.  That is crap journalism, and so typical of the anti-rock attitudes of the 1990s.

First of all, we hadn’t heard one note of Gary Cherone’s new music with Van Halen, so how could they make that judgement?  Second, it severely short-sells Sammy Hagar, who took Van Halen to their first #1 and scored some seriously massive followup hits with the band.  Critically acclaimed ones too, like “Right Now”.  So:  bullshit!  They were absolutely out of line to print that, and we had many reasons to be optimistic about Gary Cherone.

Some of the thoughts that crossed our minds when the Van Halen news hit:

  • Will Van Halen play “More Than Words” live, like they use to give Sammy a solo song or two?  Eddie would sound amazing on that, wouldn’t he?  He’d put his own spin on it, surely.
  • With Cherone, Van Halen would be able to play a wider variety of Roth tunes again.
  • Gary’s natural charisma, as witnessed at the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert, was bound to bring new life to Van Halen.
  • His lyrics, usually more serious than Hagar’s, would allow Van Halen to adapt to the 1990s.
  • The only drawback I saw was that Gary didn’t play guitar, bringing Van Halen back to just one guitar, live.  The tiniest of issues.

I was not only optimistic, but I was excited.  It’s natural, when two bands you like merge in such a way.  One of my favourite singers working with one of my favourite bands?  Yeah, I was overly excited.  At that time, coming off three amazing Extreme albums in a row, I was a bigger Gary fan than Sammy.  However, when Van Halen III finally came out in 1998 after an agonising wait, I was not immediately impressed.  Nor were a lot of people.  But I gave it more than a fair shake, cranking it as much as I could get away with at the Record Store.  And it grew on me.  It was my favourite album to play in the car during the spring of ’98.

I bought the album in the limited edition tin.  I got it from Al King at Sam the Record Man.  I had a lot invested it in emotionally and monetarily.  T-Rev will remember me praising the record, but also telling him, “Something about it doesn’t sound like Van Halen.”  What I sensed then was the lack of Michael Anthony who only appeared on three tracks.  His lack of vocals was very obvious.

When Eddie first decided upon Gary Cherone as singer, one of the things he commented was that Gary had the “voice of an angel”.  I found that encouraging, but when they made Van Halen III, Gary bellowed almost every single song at the top of his lungs.  His blown-out voice carried none of the nuance it did on the same-titled Extreme album III.  It was a disappointing choice, making Cherone sounding overly similar to Sammy Hagar.

“Why bother changing singers if the new guy is trying to sound like the old guy?” I wondered to myself.

Van Halen did not play “More Than Words” or any other Extreme songs live.  One could argue that Extreme didn’t have the pedigree of Sammy Hagar and didn’t deserve to take up any time in a setlist when you could play another Roth song instead.  Many of them returned to the live setting after an absence:  “I’m the One”, “Unchained”, “Mean Street”, “Romeo Delight”, “Dance the Night Away”, “Feel Your Love Tonight”, and even “Somebody Get Me a Doctor”, albeit now sung by Michael Anthony.  The new Cherone album took up a generous chunk of the set, and the Hagar tracks were reduced to a few key hits:  “Why Can’t This Be Love”, “When It’s Love”, “Humans Being” and “Right Now”.

The new Van Halen underperformed to say the least.  I was shocked when we received 50 copies at the Record Store.  There was no way I was going to be able to sell 50 copies, and I tried.  Lord did I try!  I have been very critical of our regional manager in the past, because she was absolutely merciless in pointing out every one of my failures.  Now that she can’t hurt me anymore, I feel freer to talk about some of it.  She definitely can’t blame me for us getting stuck with a huge pule of Van Halen III.  I never would have ordered 50 copies.  20 was what I had in mind.  But she didn’t ask me.  Hand on the bible, this one was not on me.

YouTuber Todd in the Shadows tackled Van Halen III in one of his “Trainwreckords” episodes, and he goes into great detail about every single thing that went wrong with the album.  This excellent and funny analysis is well worth the 18 minutes of your time.