RSTs Mk II: Getting More Tale

#442: Oktoberfest

GETTING MORE TALE #442: Oktoberfest

Gemütlichkeit and willkommen!  Love it or hate it, it’s that time of year again:  Oktoberfest!

Based on the original 200 year old Bavarian festival in Germany, Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest attracts thousands every year to bask in our glorious beer, Polka music, sausage and fall weather.

It’s also the time of year that parts of the downtown gets closed to traffic, and congestion increases to an undesired, maddening level.  With all the construction and destruction this year, Oktoberfest 2015 will be the hardest yet to navigate with your vehicle.  I dread my daily commute in and out of town.  Add in the potential for drunk drivers and you have a great old time lined up, right?  Approximately one million people will show up for the celebrations here, the second largest Oktoberfest in the world.


The climax of the movie Strange Brew was filmed and takes place at Kitchener Oktoberfest.  “Take the 401 to Kitchener,” says Doug McKenzie in this clip.

It’s not all bad.  Sausage and schnitzel on a bun is always a treat, but people don’t come all this way for anything except the beer.  Sample one of the many, many brews while you are here…just don’t make an ass of yourself while you do it.   As a local, I’ve never been fond of this time of year.  I don’t drink beer anymore so there is very little to draw me to the downtown core during Oktoberfest.  However, there are plenty of draws for the rest of you.

Polka music and dancing!  If that’s your thing, then put on your lederhosen and dirndls!  Get ready to do the Bird Dance and check out the accordion of Walter Ostanek.  Sometimes there are some good Oktoberfest shows to be seen, such as the year I Mother Earth played (with Ostanek!).  There are beer exhibits and dining experiences.  There’s Onkel Hans, Tante Frieda and the tapping of the keg.  There’s Miss Oktoberfest and the annual parade.

Actually, forget it – I don’t care about any of these things!  I’ve gone to the parade before, but it’s always so cold that you wished you stayed home and watched it on TV.  I have done my fair share of Polka dancing.  In fact, Polka dancing was compulsory in grade school.  Learning such cultural cornerstones as the Bird Dance was deemed important enough to justify teaching kids about a beer festival in grade school.  While my opinion is certainly not held by all residents, I was burned out on Oktoberfest before I was even old enough to drink.

By the way:  There are plenty of safe transportation options for drinkers, including free busses from the festhallen, free soft drinks for designated drivers, and the excellent company Over the Limit Designated Drivers (1-888-594-9144), who will drive you and your car home safely.

Working the Record Store days, I always hated the seasonal requests for Polka or “Oom-pah-pah” music.  Our used Polka CD selection (filed under World Music) rarely had anything in it, and when it did, it would be snapped up long before Oktoberfest.  Once, Walter Ostanek came into the store himself looking for Polka music.  When I responded that we had nothing in stock, he handed me his card and said, “If you need any, let me know.”  I responded, “Hey, I know you!  You’re the guy who won all those Juno awards.”  He paused and looked at me gravely.  “They were Grammies,” he corrected me.  Whoops!

Oktoberfest 2015 runs from October 9-17.  Come to the festhallen and biergartens, get your Polka on, and get pissed.  But please, don’t drink and drive.  Use one of the options listed above to make sure everyone gets home safely.

Walter Ostanek
Hans Haus on Benton street

#441: Help Wanted!

GETTING MORE TALE #441: Help Wanted!

Back in the Record Store Days, hiring seemed to go in waves, with the students.  Periodically we’d lose some of our best people as they moved on to further their educations.  We’d go on hiring binges, looking for 3-4 good solid new people.  This was done by putting out ads.

Paraphrasing our old print ads, we would advertise that we were looking for the following:

  • Hours: 15 hours a week, evenings & weekends.  Looking for long-term commitment, not a seasonal position.  Duties include buying and selling of used CDs.  Retail experience is helpful but not required.  Superior musical knowledge a plus.  Apply in person only.

Then we would have set hours for them to apply (usually between 2 and 7), during which I (and other managers) would be working.  People didn’t always like that “apply in person only” part, but it was there for a reason.  It was so the store manager (me) could gauge whether you were flaky or not.  Even though store managers were not involved in hiring, we could at least offer our impressions of the applicants when they came in to apply.  Were they polite?  Were they dicks?  Were they high?

Like anywhere, we occasionally ended up with a few bad apples.  If I were to make an “honest” hiring ad based on the number of times we’d been burned before, here is what it would probably look like.

HIRING

Don’t get me wrong – we hired lots and lots and lots of great people with the standard ads.  But I think mine is better!

More:

RECORD STORE TALES Part 94:  Staffing
RECORD STORE TALES Part 185:  Staffing 2.0

#440: What’s the Best Concert You’ve Ever Seen?

GETTING MORE TALE #440: What’s the Best Concert You’ve Ever Seen?

What’s the best concert you have ever been to?  Maybe it was that band that was always on your bucket list.  Perhaps it was a group who puts on an incredible spectacle, or perhaps even your first show.  Maybe you’ve seen so many shows that you don’t even know where to begin!

I’ve had a lot of memorable concerts in my years.

In 1983, my dad took me to see Johnny Cash at the Center in the Square in Kitchener.  My dad worked for Canada Trust, and Johnny was doing a promotional deal with them and their new “Johnny Cash” money machines.    In light of that, Johnny introduced himself at the start of the show as “I’m Johnny Cash, 24 hour money machine.”  Canada Trust even printed their own “Johnny Cash” money.  I wish I still had some.   Cash played all his classics such as “Orange Blossom Special” and “I Got Stripes”.  June Carter kicked off her shoes.  Not a bad first concert experience at all.

In ’87 I finally saw my first rock show.  At the same venue, Helix rolled into town headlining for their new Wild in the Streets album.  Opening for them were a so-so pop rock band from Prince Edward Island called Haywire.  Their big hit was called “Dance Desire” and the girls were going nuts for them.  They were all going ga-ga for the singer Paul MacAusland.  (Years and years later I actually dated a cousin of his.)  I thought they sucked.  The guitar player Marvin Birt was good, but MacAusland’s idea of stage moves involved him lying down flat on his face!

Helix stormed the stage with “No Rest for the Wicked” and put on an incredible show, involving Brian Vollmer climbing the scaffolding into the loges.  He then ran from there onto the mezzanine, right past us, as I was too shy to hold out my hand for him to slap!  Then drummer Greg “Fritz” Hinz mooned the crowd…all backed by high octane Canadian rock and roll.  Every time I have seen Helix, Vollmer has been an energetic mobile threat.  Helix showed us that a rock show was about the on-stage energy rather than lights and explosions.

Best show I’ve ever seen?  No, but it’s in the top ten.

Sometimes it’s the smaller shows that matter most.  In the late 90’s I went to see local Cambridge band The Candidates.  I believe it was a CD release party.  They were playing hard, and drummer Robbie Hancock busted his drum pedal mid-song.  After the show, I told him I thought it was actually their best performance yet.  He didn’t agree, but I told him, “The drum pedal stuff, that doesn’t matter.  The reason it broke is that you were playing so fucking hard, and that’s why the show was so good!”

Next on the list:  Deep Purple, 1996, Purpendicular tour.  T-Rev, Iron Tom Sharpe and I trekked to Toronto to catch the new lineup featuring Ian Gillan, Steve Morse, Ian Paice, Roger Glover, and of course Jon Lord.  Playing a set of personal favourites including “Fireball” (the opener) and “No One Came”, we all left exhausted and satisfied.  Opening act:  Wild T & the Spirit.  Incredible and indelibly scorched into my memory, Purple proved that age does not matter one lick.

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In 1997 I scratched Rush off my list.  This experience was commemorated in Record Store Tales Part 70:  Canada Day Weekend Rush.  Seeing Rush on the most patriotic weekend of the year was a perfect experience.  The played all of 2112 live, an experience not to be missed.  It was also my first time meeting such friends as Tyler (from Tyler and LeBrain fame), and rock god Dr. Dave Haslam.

The final concert on this list would have to be Helix, once again, opening for Alice Cooper in 2006.  The venue was the trusty old Center in the Square, and this time we were in the second row.  Alice Cooper was on his Dirty Diamonds tour, a killer record and a great live set.  Helix were in the midst of working on a new EP to be called Get Up, and they played the instantly catchy title track live.  This time, when Brian came down to the seats, I succeeded in shaking his hand.  He must have noticed the guy in the front who knew every word….

Honorable mentions:  Blue Rodeo and “Weird Al” Yankovic.  I’ve seen Blue Rodeo so many times that I could almost make a list of the best Blue Rodeo concerts I’ve ever seen.  As for Weird Al, what’s not to like?  He has a crack band that can play anything.

Conspicuous by their absence on this list:  Kiss.  This experience was recorded in Record Store Tales Part 8.  Not only did Iron Tom make us miss the first few songs, but it was a boring by-the-numbers setlist.  That would have been fine except for the after-concert shenanigans that didn’t see me getting home until 4 am the next day…with a 10 am opening shift at the Record Store.  Good times?  Not!

Of these shows, I really don’t know which was the best.  Maybe they were all the best!  What’s yours?

GUEST SHOT! #439: 10 E 23rd Street

GUEST SHOT by Mike Lukas

GETTING MORE TALE #439: 10 E 23rd Street

I just finished 93 shows in North America with Steve Earle & The Dukes. I’m their Tour Manager. We have four days off before heading to the west coast for a festival, then on to Europe for another month of touring. Being away from home for so long is tough. So when this little break came up, I told the wife, we were going to take a short trip to NYC. We have tickets to a concert and a Broadway show, a few great dinners, shopping, the works. It was something nice to do together before I leave again.

We are staying at a small boutique hotel in Gramercy. Today [September 29 2015] we were heading across 23rd street on our way to lunch when I saw the number 10 and for some reason that address just kept ringing in my head. 10 East 23rd Street. Over and over, I said to myself 10 East 23rd Street, 10 East 23rd Street, 10 East 23rd Street. Why do I know that address? Then it clicked! 10 East 23rd Street was the loft where KISS was born! It’s the spot where they auditioned Ace and Peter. It’s the place where they took those early pre-make-up photos. I grabbed my wife’s hand and told her we had to stop here.

I filled her in as to the significance this place played in the mind of a KISS fan. I took a quick photo of the façade of the building and noticed the door to #10 was wide open. I beckoned my wife to follow me in. Just a quick peek, the door is open after all.

We went inside and were greeted by a man with a little Boston terrier holding a ball in his mouth. The dog, not the man. He was holding the small service elevator door for us. “Coming up?” he asked. “Nope just popping in for a quick look.” I replied. His expression changed. “You’re KISS fans.” He said with a smile. “Get in the elevator, but we have to be quiet.” In we went and up we went, petting the little pup as we rose. The nice man who went on to explain that every so often people show up at 10 East 23rd Street to see where KISS was born, showed us the door to their former rehearsal spot. “Come over here” he pointed to the stairway. “See those pipes? That’s where that picture was taken.” I of course walked down and snapped a couple pics.

We looked around some more before descending back down to the street. We said thank you again to the man with the dog and made our way down to The Gramercy Tavern for a nice lunch. At lunch I texted a pic over to LeBrain. Knowing full well he would appreciate the experience as only another fellow KISS fan would. His response is what led to this little story!

Mike Lukas

#438: Drunken Record Store Shenanigans

SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY

GETTING MORE TALE #438: Drunken Record Store Shenanigans

2001.  Annual Record Store Christmas party.  I was designated driver.

It was a great bash.  We almost always had great parties.  Great — but always safely.  I was driving an anonymous buddy home.  Getting my buddy out of the bar took some effort.  He ran into somebody at the bar, and I don’t even think they knew each other, but this guy claimed to know Steve Earle.  He told Buddy that he could get him back stage to meet Steve Earle next time he came into town.  Well, Buddy was excited beyond belief!  “I’m gonna meet Steve Earle!” he announced to me, and everyone else in the establishment!  “I’m gonna get to meet Steve Earle!”  It took about 15 minutes for me to drag his excited ass out of that place.

Into the parking lot on that snowy cold night.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna meet Steve Earle!”

In the car.

“I’m gonna meet Steve Earle man!”

I just had to laugh and wished I had a tape recorder.  His rant was about as hilarious as it gets, if you’re into drunken rants for the purpose of humour.

“Oh man…Steve EARLE!”

Then he decided to tell me that he approved of my new girlfriend, who also attended the party.

“That is a really nice girl and you hafta hang onto her,” he slurred.  “But when the light turns green you gotta GO.  And when it’s yellow you gotta go, or stop.  She’s a nice girl.”

I laughed and tried to egg him into saying more hilarious stuff, which was just repeating “I’m gonna meet Steve Earle,” and “when the light is yellow you gotta go.”

I dropped my buddy safely off at his home, where he tells me he passed out on the toilet talking to his girlfriend on the phone.  I’m sure she was also thrilled he was going to meet Steve Earle!

Not that I’m innocent in all this.  I usually chose to be designated driver, but not always.  One night my buddy drove me from a Record Store get-together.  The bartender had cut me off, because (apparently) I was loudly discussing different techniques to masturbate.  Allegedly!  So I am hardly one to throw stones at anyone.  I’m sure there are one or two people who have good Drunk LeBrain stories.  I know on my birthday, the Record Store people took me out for drinks and I proceeded to grab a bunch of dudes’ asses.

However, the truth is, I was usually the driver, and as such, usually have the best stories.  My memories are more reliable than those who were drinking.

I remember Buddy telling the Boss Man that he thought his mom was “hot”.  Buddy later denied this, saying, “I wouldn’t say that because I don’t think his mom is hot.”  But I know what I heard, and I was sober!

I remember Tom eating chicken bones at the Heuther Hotel, and then taking the rest home with him to make “soup”.  I remember one guy stealing ashtrays from the Heuther at a drunken party, and the Boss making him return the ashtrays to them the next week!

One of my fondest memories from that time happened one summer, after we had gathered for a concert at a place called the Banke in downtown Kitchener.  Exiting the venue, one of the guys decided to run into the middle of the street and do a Mick Jagger dance in front of the late-night traffic!  It was truly a sight to behold.  And it was also a pretty damn accurate dance.

Thankfully, nobody was ever hurt at one of our Record Store piss-ups.  We always made sure everybody had a ride.  They were a good time, a part of my youth I will always remember fondly and sometimes hazy!

LeBRAIN ON AIR BASS!


Circa 1997. That’s Iron Tom Sharpe peeking behind me.

#437: So You Want to Make a Mix Tape?

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GETTING MORE TALE #437: So You Want to Make a Mix Tape?

So you’ve decided to hop into your time machine and make a mix tape?  Good for you!  In the 80’s, making a mix tape was a rite of passage.  Today it is a fading art.  Congratulations for wanting to keep that art alive!  Here are some tips.

First of all, who are you making the tape for?  What do you want on it?  Prep all your recording materials in advance.  Get out the CDs and records you want to tape.  Are you doing a straight hits tape?  A mixture of artists?  Roughly plot out your track list, but only roughly, because you will probably have to make changes on the fly.

Get your tape ready.  What length are you using?  I recommend 90 – 100 minute tapes.  Anything longer than 100 minutes and you risk stretching the tape.  This length range gives you more room to play with than a standard 60 minute tape.

Clean your equipment.  Get your tape head demagnetized, and clean those pinch rollers with isopropyl alcohol or something similar.  Use lint-free cloth.  Since you’re making a mix tape, I assume you want it to sound as good as you can make it.  Use a decent quality blank tape.

Now, using a pencil or just your finger, carefully wind the tape so that the clear tape lead is no longer visible.  When you see brown magnetic tape, you are ready to hit “record”.

I used to add the little test frequencies that they put on the start of cassettes to open my mix tapes.  Don’t have one of those?  That’s OK.  Just download one from Youtube!

My recording technique involved having as short a gap between songs as possible.  I viewed a long gap as an amateur move, unless it was intentional, for effect.   To get a short gap, hit “pause” on your recorder immediately after the song stops, but don’t pause for too long.  Leaving that pause button depressed isn’t good for the tape, because on most machines, the tape head is still making contact with the recording tape.  Still, it’s better than hitting “stop” which tends to leave an annoying clunky sound between songs.

Now, the one irritating thing that amateur tapers do is let a song be cut off at the end of a side.  Don’t do that!  It’s very difficult to get exactly a side of music, so leave some space after the last song.  In fact, I suggest having a bunch of “standby” short tracks handy, to fill up any undesired blank space.  It’s also fun to end a side with a brief movie quote or skit.  It’s up to you, how you decide to end a side, but don’t cut a song off.  That’s annoying!  You may have to improvise, select some shorter songs, and re-do some things, but cutting off a song is just a rookie mistake.  You will have to be flexible with your track list when it comes to where the sides end.  Tape speed is anything but consistent, so even if you’ve clocked your side at exactly 45 minutes, if your tape is running fast then you’ll be out of space.

The beauty of cassette is the opportunity to use the two sides to your advantage.  Each side can be its own journey, with opening and closing tracks.  Yet it’s still part of a whole.  Perhaps you’d like to make a Led Zeppelin hits tape.  Why not make side one all electric, and side two acoustic?  You can have a killer electric opening for side one (“Good Times Bad Times” perhaps), and close it with a corker too (like “Kashmir”).  Then you can kick off side two with an acoustic opener, such as “Gallows Pole” and end it with “Stairway”.  The possibilities are endless, but the ability to create distinct sides is so much fun.

Finally, write those songs down on the J-card, or make some custom cover art.  If you’re artistically inclined, the cover art can be the most fun.

Making a mix tape is a time consuming process since you need to do it in real time.  It can also be a taxing job, if you’re a perfectionist trying to make your mix tape flawless.  The main thing is keeping it fun.  Have a good time with it!

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#436: To offend, or not to offend?

GETTING MORE TALE #436: To offend, or not to offend?

It’s 2015 and any serious business has an online presence on Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else.  Ever sit there at your computer and wonder just what the social media guru for a business does?  Ever looked at something online and said, “I could do what they do, and with the resources they have, I could do it better.”  I know I have.

But could I?

There is a huge difference between a paid social media person, and someone like myself who is doing this on his own for the sake of the music.

Let’s look at the goals of the paid social media liaison:

  1. Engage in conversation with customers on social media.
  2. Make interesting posts involving questions, to kick-start the conversations.
  3. Give a peek behind the curtain of their business.
  4. Don’t offend anyone.

The first three points here are all pretty easy to accomplish, especially for us as writers.  Just substitute “customer” with “reader”.  Most music writers online that I follow and read regularly do these things, and with style and fun.

Rock journalist Mitch Lafon is a great example.  Almost daily, he poses loaded questions to his many followers.  Things like “Slippery When Wet, or New Jersey?”  “Iron Maiden, or Judas Priest?”  He also asks fans to choose which interview he’ll post next.  “Slash or Geoff Tate?”  (Slash won.)  Mitch has a very engaged following on social media, thanks to his regular posts and questions.  He’s quite a natural at it, and he has done a fantastic job.  The great thing about social media is the ability for everyone to get involved and be heard.

As for a peek behind the curtains, this is all but expected on social media now, no matter who you are.  Movie studios are always posting drool-inducing teaser photos from the set via Twitter.  Bands do the same from the studio.  I have always tried to give you a look at how my creative process works, showing you the mess behind the scenes at LeBrain HQ.

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The exciting life of a music blogger

The tricky point is the fourth one: “Don’t offend anyone”.  It is very difficult to go through life without offending anyone.  I might be considered an expert on such subjects.

When I used to write CD reviews for our old company newsletter, we couldn’t really say anything negative.  The reviews were one paragraph each, and had to be to the point.  We only reviewed CDs that we could praise, because as a store, we were trying to sell CDs!  We didn’t want to offend a fan, nor discourage one from buying a CD.

We did the best we could considering the circumstances.  Our monthly newsletter had some humour content, such as “funny customer quotes”, similar to my Klassic Kwotes here, but watered down and tamed.  You couldn’t have somebody read the newsletter and say, “Hey, they’re making fun of me!  I’m never shopping there again!”

I’m not doing this to sell anything.  I started this for the sheer joy of talking about music, and to shine a light on neglected albums that deserved more attention.  One of my earlier reader’s comments said something like, “You like everything, how come you don’t have any negative reviews?”  Very well, then!  My negative reviews have since become some spicy favourites.

Surprisingly, the negative reviews (or stories) are no more likely to receive negative comments than positive ones!  It seems that there are many people out there who will take the slightest words the wrong way, or personally.  (My radio buddy Craig, who openly loathes all social media, refers to these people as “humourless bastards”.  He has also noticed that many of them use three names on Facebook, and have a picture of a cat as their Facebook photo.)

Creative freedom is more important to me than ruffled feathers.  It’s different for a business, and I’m glad for that reason that I’m not doing this as a business.  I admit that I have purposely sought to get a reaction.  I’m the guy who once wrote a Quiet Riot review by pasting a picture of a piece of shit on the album cover.  It’s all supposed to be fun.  If you’re offended by that, then you’re reading the wrong website.  (I have a lot more toilet humour where that came from.)

Even if you’re using social media to promote a business, a little bit of humour never hurts. No, you don’t want to go out of your way to offend someone’s tastes, or sensibilities.  You also don’t want to have bland, faceless content.  Let your personalities shine, be creative and have fun with your social media.  You don’t have to take a page out of my book and uses pictures of poop as a product review (tee hee)*, but if you’re not having a laugh, neither are your followers!

* I’m also not discouraging you from using pictures of poop in product reviews, either.

#435: How to Write a Music Review

GETTING MORE TALE #435: How to Write a Music Review

So you want to throw your voice into the din, and write album reviews?  Good for you!  Allow me to offer some suggestions to help yours stand out.

First and foremost:  Know your subject.  That doesn’t mean you have to do a whole bunch of research.  It means you should listen to the music and pay attention to the parts you want to talk about.  Don’t say, “This song is really catchy” before you realize you can’t remember how it goes the next day.  Listen and let it speak.  It’s always tempting to blast a new release and say, “It’s awesome!” or “It sucks!”  Just browse Amazon for hundreds of reviews like that.  Don’t say something is “awesome” or “sucks” unless you are sure that’s how you feel about it, and can back it up in your review.

Research isn’t necessary, but you do have to make sure your review is factually correct.  If you don’t, the trolls will come out.  For example don’t say “Steve Perry is singing better than ever on the latest Journey album,” because that’s not him!  Make sure you get those things straight – who plays on the album, who wrote the songs.  All this can be easily determined via Wikipedia which is usually accurate enough for a review.  It takes a few extra minutes, but helps ensure you won’t sound like an idiot.  When all this information is out there and available for free, there’s no excuse for inaccuracy.

Another great tip:   Be passionate.   It’s music after all.  How does it make you feel?  Put that feeling (positive or negative) into your review.  If readers can pick up on your passion, it’ll help keep them engaged.  You don’t want a dry, boring review that people skip to the end to read the rating.

One reviewers’ strategy that I recommend:  Read other reviews.  Lots and lots of them.  See what you like, and do not like, about other writers’ styles.  What can you do better?  Use this to inform your own style.  Perhaps, like me, you like a review that is thorough.  On the other hand perhaps you prefer to cut to the chase.  Either technique is valid and perhaps you will choose to mix the two.  To me, the most rewarding part of reading other reviews is picking up on words and phrases that I might not have used otherwise.  There are only so many ways that I have in my verbal arsenal to describe “awesome” riffs, “killer” lead vocals, “pounding” drums, “bone-shaking” bass, or “scorching” lead guitars.  Add more words and phrases to your bag by paying attention to other writers.  And by all means, don’t be afraid to use a thesaurus!  I use them all the time, to remind myself of words I like but just can’t think of when I need them!

Once you’ve written a few reviews, I think it’s important to shake it up.  Keep your readers interested by changing up your style a bit.  Don’t do every single review as track-by-track.  Don’t use the same format every time.  Don’t allow yourself to get bored with your own writing.  If you’re bored, will your readers follow suit?

What about length?  Length does not matter.  If you have a lot to say, then say it.  Writing reviews online is completely different from doing it for print publications.  There are no word limits, and there are no censors.  Short is fine too.  Some of the best reviews I’ve ever read were just one sentence.  “Shit Sandwich” – everybody remembers that two-word review from This is Spinal Tap.    Of course the review “Shit Sandwich”, classic as it is, does violate an earlier rule:  “Don’t just say an album sucks.”  Sometimes you can get away with it, if you’re an established reviewer, because readers can refer back to your past more detailed work and see what you had to say about the band before.  This is a thin line – the fine line between clever and stupid….

How about photos and videos?  They are helpful to augment a review.  The help break it up visually and add more information.  But even though a picture can speak 1000 words, make sure your words are up to par.  The words must come first.  Everything else is just icing.  (Don’t use too much icing, either!)

Ultimately, the best advice is the simplest:  Enjoy what you do.  Write music reviews simply because that’s what you want to do.   If you spend all day talking about and thinking about music anyway, chances are you’ve already written a bunch of great reviews in your head.  Now you just need to get them out on paper.

Get out there and do it – there’s nobody to stop you!

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GUEST SHOT! #434: The Man in the Bob Marley Shirt

A sequel to Record Store Tales Part 111: The Girl in the Sam Roberts Shirt.

Guest Shot by Mrs. LeBrain

GETTING MORE TALES #434: The Man in the Bob Marley Shirt

10 years ago was a very interesting part of my life.  I had been out of college for a few years, and took a promotion at a company that I had been working at for some time.  I was single and enjoying my life as a woman in her mid-twenties doing a lot of volunteering and making great friends.  A lot of my friends from earlier years were getting married and having kids, but that didn’t seem like a part of my future at that time.  Until September, 18th.

I had made a friend through the world of social media who lived an hour down the highway in Kitchener Ontario.  We were spending a lot of time using Messenger to chat and occasional phone calls on land lines.  One day this friend was having a bit of a bad day.  He had been on a first date the day before with a woman he found on the internet who he described as creepy.  He was having a bad day at the job he no longer enjoyed.  In our chats I invited him to make the drive up the highway to Bramalea Ontario.  He accepted and we made plans for him to pick me up at my family home.

He told me that he wanted a laid back evening with a walk in a park.  I told him that I could handle that, but in actuality, I was scared shitless.  I had never gone on a single date with anyone from the World Wide Web.  I had heard horror stories of serial killers and this guy wanted to walk in parks on a Sunday night.  Not the smartest of ideas, but for some reason I went with it.  Something was telling me that things were going to be okay.

When he arrived at the house in his green neon I was outside having a cigarette.  I approached the car and opened the door.  Inside was a very cute guy in a grey Bob Marley t-shirt and a blue sweater.  Very cute.  We drove around for a bit turning on a lot of streets that started with the letter A so I could get him a bit lost (Bramalea is divided into ‘sections’ where streets are all named with the same first letter after UK communities – I figured if he was a serial killer, I could out run him and call 911, telling the police there was a green neon, lost somewhere on Aberdeen.

We took a walk into the park and played on some swings before making our way down to a creek to talk about our lives.  He told me that he was starving and saw a Wendy’s.  He asked if we could grab a burger there.  For all burger aficionados, Wendy’s is at the bottom of the totem poll.  I told him there was a much better burger not too far away.  We got back in the car and drove to Sonny’s, a drive in burger joint around since the 60’s.  We ordered two hamburgers with ‘funky onions’ (a fried onion with paprika seasoning) and other toppings too our likings.  We shared a large poutine and talked a lot on the hard to get picnic table.  (The joint is so busy, you usually can’t sit – a picnic table is a prime piece of drive in real estate).  We talked so much, that we didn’t even give our burgers a try.  We left them in their wrappers to eat at a later time.

After our first dinner, we decided to go to another park to hang out some more.  I directed him to Gage Park in Brampton Ontario.  This is more of a romantic park that girls like to hang out in.  We walked around the park, talking for a while, and then moved to a knoll of grass to sit and do more talking.  After a few minutes, the man in the Bob Marley t-shirt leaned in and gave me our first kiss.  It was ground-breaking.  All bets were off.

After a bit more time of kissing in the park, Bob Marley boy realized that he needed to get home because of an early work start.  He drove me home, kissed me one more time in the car and drove back to his home in Kitchener.  I entered the house to my half-asleep mother.  She asked me how my date went.  I sat on the reclining chair next to her and told her that I met the man I was going to marry.

She stood up, looked at me and said “You’re just like your father”* and went to bed.  That was September 18th in a nutshell.

I love you LeBrain.

MARLEY

*  In 1976, Jen’s father was in a Florida hotel.  He saw Jen’s mother for the first time in the lobby and went to the phone where he called his best friend and said “Graham, I just saw the girl I’m going to marry.  Now I just have to figure out her first name.”

#433.9: Top 15 on the 15th (by Iron Tom Sharpe)

NOTE:  Because of the three Top 15 on the 15th posts today, there will be no posting for Wednesday.  A directory to all the Top 15 on the 15th posts can be found here.  Browse them all!

Getting More Tale #433.9 presents: A worldwide online event!
THE TOP 15 ON THE 15th – Guest shot by Iron Tom Sharpe

Latest to throw his hat into the Top 15 on the 15th ring is Iron Tom Sharpe, Meaford’s Greatest Athlete. One of the most knowledgeable rock fans in the country, Iron Tom is a national treasure. He is a former Record Store owner, and one of the Jedi masters who instructed me.

His message to me upon completion of his list: “Fuck that was tough…and I know I left off some big ones…I just know it…Ah fuck, The D! Max!”

There may be no Tenacious D, and there may be no Max Webster. But here is one kick-ass #Top15onthe15th.

 

WARP15. The Sword – Warp Riders

MASTER14. Metallica – Master of Puppets

PERFECT13. Deep Purple – Perfect Strangers

BONGO12. Frank Zappa – Bongo Fury

PHYSICAL11. Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti

SKY10. Kyuss – Sky Valley

FAIR9. Van Halen – Fair Warning

PHASES8. Willie Nelson – Phases and Stages

CLOSE7. Yes – Close to the Edge

POWERSLAVE6. Iron Maiden – Powerslave

ACTION'5. Fu Manchu – The Action Is Go

ALRIGHT4. Steve Earle – I Feel Alright

MISPLACED3. Marillion – Misplaced Childhood

II2. Queen – Queen II

MOVING1. Rush – Moving Pictures

 

 

Almost made it:

  • Orange Goblin – Time Traveling Blues
  • Crosby Stills & Nash – CSN
  • Pink Floyd – Animals
  • Motorhead – Another Perfect Day
  • Black Sabbath – Heaven and Hell

 

And finally…an extra bonus.  Iron Tom’s Top 5 Live!

5. Iron Maiden – Live After Death

4. Jimi Hendrix – Band Of Gypsys

3. Supertramp – Paris

2. Dire Straits – Alchemy Live

1. Eric Clapton – Just One Night