The Artist Formerly Known As LeBrain

Cum On Feel The Disgrace – a QUIET RIOT rant
None of these people are Frankie Banali.

None of these people are Frankie Banali.

1983:  Quiet Riot unleash Metal Health, one of the most critical albums to my personal musical makeup.  I played that album over and over again.  Side one was my favourite, but side two has grown on me tremendously since then. It was basically my only album for like a year.

2007:  Lead vocalist Kevin DuBrow, original member, and writer of all their original songs, dies of a cocaine overdose.  Drummer Frankie Banali, who joined the band in 1983 for Metal Health, wrote this:

“I have been approached to see if I would be interested in contacting Rudy Sarzo and Carlos Cavazo and to audition singers for Quiet Riot. I have also been approached to see if I would be interested in contacting and reforming the version of Quiet Riot that included Paul Shortino, Carlos Cavazo and Sean McNabb. Let me make this very simple and perfectly clear. While I am still actively involved in the business interests of Quiet Riot and will continue in that capacity, I reject any and all suggestions to have Quiet Riot continue as a live performing entity. My friendship, love and respect for Kevin DuBrow as well as my personal love and affection for Kevin’s mother and his family makes it inconceivable for me to ever entertain any ovation to reform or to continue Quiet Riot. Kevin was too important to go on without him. It would also be a disrespect to the fans who have supported Quiet Riot for nearly 25 years. I thank everyone for the wonderful and sometimes unpredictable adventure that I was able to share as a member of Quiet Riot. The only regret that I have is the loss of Kevin. May he rest in peace. I now begin life after Quiet Riot.”

2010:  Frankie Banalie re-forms Quiet Riot, with new vocalist Mark Huff.  They contain no original members:  Both DuBrow and founder Randy Rhoads are dead.  Original drummer Drew Forsythe no longer playes music.  Co-founder (and best friend of Rhoads) Kelly Garni plays bass in a band with Doug “Kelle” Rhoads, Randy’s brother.  Rounding out the new band are bassist Chuck Wright (who played on a few past QR albums), and guitarist Alex Grossi, from the final incarnation of the band with DuBrow.

2012:  Mark Huff requires brain surgery.  Banali fires Huff days before scheduled surgery.  He is replaced by Keith St. John, of Montrose, for touring purposes.

2012:  Ronnie Montrose passes away, putting an end to St. John’s gig with them.

2012:  Banali replaces St. John with an unknown named Scott Vokoun.  His first gig will be late March.

Now, I’ll take you back to 1983.  Quiet Riot were the only band I listened to for like a year.  I slept with that album. When that happens, you stay with a band through all the ups and downs.  Some of the downs downs sucked:  the firing of DuBrow and subsequent replacement with Paul Shortino, the break up of the band in 1988, the death of a talented bassist named Kenny Hillery, the crappy Down To The Bone CD, the crappy Alive & Well CD, the break up of the band again in 2004, the crappy Rehab CD, and of course the death of DuBrow.

There weren’t as many ups, at least to this fan.  I still bought every album, even if I don’t listen to them.  I just want “the complete collection”.  I was excited when they reformed in 1993 and released the excellent and heavy Terrified CD.  I was excited when the “classic” lineup reunited in 1997.  Carlos Cavazo and Rudy Sarzo, two of my favourite musicians in any band, helped restore the long-missed Metal Health lineup.

I’m a true fan, in other words.

I’m not a fan boy, though.  A fanboy worships every move a band makes, even when it’s as ill-advised as reuniting the band after stating it would never, ever happen.   A true fan, one who loves the band, can be critical.  True love can take the form of tough love.

Frankie, I’m really disappointed.  I know you say that you got DuBrow’s mother’s blessings for this.  That’s good, I’m glad about that.  That doesn’t mean I have to give you my blessings, nor does any other fan.  It’s not right.  No original members, Frankie!  Remember when you tried that in 1988?  How did that work out for ya?

You promised us that we’d never have to put up with a hack Quiet Riot again — a tribute band called Quiet Riot, playing all the old songs that Kevin and Carlos wrote.  You promised us  that you would respect Kevin DuBrow’s memory.  I know you always dedicate the shows to Kevin and talk about Kevin, and I think that’s really nice, and I’m not being sarcastic.  I just don’t think it does respect to Kevin, having a hack band playing barely recognizable versions of his hits.

Frankie, listen.  As a fan, we’d much rather be getting archive stuff.  You know, live albums, re-releases, rarities.  Anything but crappy live shows, essentially.  It’s great that somebody’s releasing the US Festival on CD and DVD, but it’s not you doing it, is it?  I don’t think it is anyway.  You’ve got tapes, somebody has to have DuBrow’s tapes.  Where’s “The Mighty Quinn”?  Where’s the live video of “Laughing Gas”?  Give us decent re-releases of the later albums with the bonus tracks so we don’t have to pay $100 on eBay.  That kind of thing.

I hope the movie you’re releasing will be good, but I think sadly it’s too late for a film.  Anvil caught lightning in a bottle.  And I’m not too sure about who you hired as a director.

I keep saying it, I’m a fan.  I can tell you that the version of Quiet Riot with Mark Huff on vocals sounded good.  It did make a believer out of me.  I held out hope for a new album with Huff on vocals (even though I couldn’t fathom who would write the songs).  But then Frankie, you fired him.  And then Frankie, your girlfriend/ fiance/ whatever-the-fuck, Regina, says that you didn’t knowhe was going to have the brain surgery.  That may be, but she didn’t need to kick the man in the balls when he’s down, by alleging that he was fired for drug use.  Did you guys even make a statement wishing him a speedy recovery?  Where’s your class, Frankie?

As a final insult to the founder of Quiet Riot, Randy Rhoads himself, Regina tried to erase that part of the band’s past.  She clumsily edited the band’s history to read that the Quiet Riot of Metal Health is a completely different band, not to be confused with the Quiet Riot of 1979. Sure, they had the same singer, same bass player, same name, used the same logo on occassion and played the same songs, but they were a different band, because they briefly broke up in betweem incarnations!

That’s kind of like saying that Deep Purple is not Deep Purple.  (They have an original member by the way — the drummer.)

Regardless, DuBrow himself said in 2005, “Happily, I am back with my life-long musical love, and the band I helped Randy Rhoads form Quiet Riot.”  Here, DuBrow states clearly that he makes no distinction between the Quiet Riot of 2005, and the original band with Rhoads.

Why are the Banali camp doing this?  Well, by erasing the version of Quiet Riot that included Dubrow, Rhoads, Garni, and Forsythe, they can call the Metal Health lineup that formed in 1983 the “original” version of the band.  Thus, the version touring today would have one original member:  Frankie Banali himself.  This serves to justify the existence of a hack Quiet Riot that in reality, has no original members nor any of its major songwriters.

But, they got the drummer thay played on Metal Health.  The drummer.  Why, Frankie?  Is Carlos making substantially more money playing in Ratt?

Like I said earlier though, the version of Quiet Riot with Huff sounded good.  The guy’s a great singer, truthfully.  I’ve watched numerous youtube videos, and when he was in Quiet Riot, they kind of kicked ass!  He was a screamer, this guy, and similar enough in grit and range to DuBrow.  This Keith St. John clown, though?  Shit singer, shit stage presence, shit hair, shit shirt.  He’s on stage telling stories about the “Slick Black Cadillac”.  Man, the two guys who wrote that song are dead.  You don’t have any stories to tell about a “Slick Black Cadillac”.

Besides, by Regina’s logic, that song is a cover, isn’t it?  It first appeared on Quiet Riot II, the second of the two Rhoads albums.  By her line of thinking, Quiet Riot are merely covering that song.

I’ve yet to hear this new singer of theirs, but I no longer care.  You’ve shit all over your fans enough, Frankie.  You’ve shit all over Randy, Kevin, and the fans.  I’ve had it.  Break up the band, call it a day, and go back to W.A.S.P. or form a new band or something.  Besides, it’s not like Quiet Riot is a band of the stature of, say, Thin Lizzy.

Thin Lizzy are at least touring with their original drummer.

LeBRAIN WEEK! (Day 5)

I want to say a big THANK YOU to Craig at  107.5 Dave FM, for yet another fantastic LeBrain week.  I think this is the third LeBrain week, and of course all of February was LeBrainuary!

To cap it off for me, Craig picked my favourite 4-play.  Would you have solved it?

Today’s 4-play:

  1. Guns N’ Roses – You Could Be Mine
  2. Ozzy Osbourne – Mama I’m Coming Home
  3. Motley Crue – Girls, Girls, Girls
  4. Hanoi Rocks – Boulevard of Broken Dreams

ANSWER: Vince Neil is a Douche!

  1. Guns N’ Roses – You Could Be Mine (Vince and Izzy got into a backstage scuffle with led to a longstanding rivalry with Axl Rose.)
  2. Ozzy Osbourne – Mama I’m Coming Home (Vince started a feud with the “Mama” of this song – Sharon Osbourne which basically makes it a feud with Ozzy too.  He trashed her in his book.  And you know Sharon  doesn’t back down.)
  3. Motley Crue – Girls Girls Girls (What Vince, where?  FIRED that’s where!  And let’s not forget the MTV interview with the Crue where they mocked Vince Neil for hitting a coral reef while surfing.)
  4. Hanoi Rocks – Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Vince killed their friggin’ drummer!)

LeBRAIN WEEK! (Day 4)

Tune in ALL WEEK to the Craig Fee Show on 107.5 Dave FM, at 4 pm!! It’s LeBRAIN WEEK all week!

Today’s 4-play:

  1. The Beatles – A Day in the Life
  2. Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
  3. Kiss – Shout It Out Loud
  4. Kiss – Black Diamond

Answer:  Each song features performances by two lead vocalists singing different parts! 

  1. Lennon sings the start, and Paul sings the finish on A Day in the Life
  2. Roger sings the verses, with David on the choruses
  3. Gene and Paul trade off some lines
  4. Paul sings the intro, Peter sings the body of Black Diamond

Incidentally, Black Diamond is one I have never heard of Dave before.

LeBRAIN WEEK (day 3)

Tune in ALL WEEK to the Craig Fee Show on 107.5 Dave FM, at 4 pm!! It’s LeBRAIN WEEK all week!

Today’s 4-play:

  1. Bon Jovi – Runaway
  2. The Rolling Stones – Emotional Rescue
  3. Kiss – Magic Touch
  4. The Darkness – I Believe In A Thing Called Love

ANSWER:  All songs featuring falsetto vocals!

Notes:  I have never heard Magic Touch on the radio before today!

LeBRAIN WEEK (Day 2)

Tune in ALL WEEK to the Craig Fee Show on 107.5 Dave FM, at 4 pm!!   It’s LeBRAIN WEEK all week!

Today’s 4-play:

  1. Deep Purple – Smoke on the Water
  2. Rainbow – Stone Cold
  3. Bon Jovi – Livin’ on a Prayer
  4. Journey – Separate Ways

Answer: All five piece bands (on these recordings, anyway) of the v/g/b/d/k configuration! 

Incidentally, two of those bands spent some time as four pieces. 

 Bon Jovi has been a four piece since 1994 when original bassist Alec John Such left.  He was unofficially replaced by Hugh McDonald, but McDonald remains a side musician even after 18 years with the band!  Journey was a four piece for a short while, on the second and third albums.  CAN YOU OUT-BRAIN LeBRAIN?

LeBRAIN WEEK!

Woah Nelly!

Tune in ALL WEEK to the Craig Fee Show on 107.5 Dave FM, at 4 pm!!
IT’S LeBRAIN WEEK!  The 4 O’clock 4-Play! And it was off to a KICKING start this week!

  1. Skid Row – 18 & Life
  2. Twisted Sister – The Price
  3. U2 – Bullet The Blue Sky
  4. Kiss – I Was Made For Loving You

Answer:  All artists have done MUSICALS (Jeckyl & Hyde, Rock of Ages, Spiderman, Phantom!)

CAN YOU OUT-BRAIN LeBRAIN?

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Part 10: What’s it like, working in a record store?

Yours Truly

Everybody always wanted to know how awesome it was to work in a record store.  They all had this Empire Records idea of it when the truth is much closer to High Fidelity.  I kind of considered myself a combination of the John Cusack and Jack Black characters.  I ran the place like Cusack, but I was a Jack Black-like smartass.  Black played a character named Barry.  You know that scene where the guy in the suit is looking for the song, “I Just Called To Say I Love You”?

Customer: Hi, do you have the song “I Just Called To Say I Love You?” It’s for my daughter’s birthday.
Barry: Yeah, we have it.
Customer: Great great… Well, can I have it?
Barry: No, you can’t.
Customer: Why not?!
Barry: Because it’s sentimental tacky crap that’s why! Do we look like a store that sells “I Just Called to Say I Love You”? Go to the mall!
Customer: What’s your problem?!
Barry: Do you even know your daughter? There’s no way she likes that song! Oh oh oh wait! Is she in a coma?
Customer: Oh, okay buddy. I didn’t know it was Pick on the Middle-Aged Square Guy Day. My apologies. I’ll be on my way.
Barry: Buh-bye!
Customer: Fuck you!

I never quite went that far, but I was always fond of the subtle insults.  I was also known for being stubbornly obtuse.  Like for example, the guy who couldn’t pronounce “Triumph”.  I knew very well what band he was looking for, but he kept saying, “Tramp”.  He didn’t know how to spell it either.  Just the very idea that he couldn’t spell nor pronounce the word “triumph”…how could I not have fun with that guy?  I eventually sold him The Sport of Kings, when I felt like he’d earned it. 

Spelling was an issue in this part of town.  We had a lookup terminal where you could search for inventory on your own.  The best question I ever got at that terminal was, “Mike, how do you spell ‘metal’?  I don’t spell so good.”

In short, stuff grinds your gears just like it does at anybody’s job.  There are times when you saw a number on call display and just did not want to answer.  Just like any job.  Annoying callers, annoying customers, lazy customers who made you do absolutely everything for them, including pick what they want to buy!

You had sales quotas just like any day job.  You had responsibilities to get done.  If they weren’t done, you can’t just say “we were really busy” if your sales numbers weren’t big.   And you had to do things accurately.  In any environment where you buy and sell used goods, you had to be sure of what you were buying and what you were paying for it.  This is made just as difficult in a music store as anywhere else, due to the multiple versions, reissues, special editions, and imports of a CD that determine just what it’s worth.  You could go from offering $2 to $20 for a single album, the exact same title, just a different version thereof.

Same album different versions, and none of these are even the standard version. How would you price them?

And customers really hated being told their discs were “too scratched to re-sell.”  They really hated that one.

You got to listen to tunes all day, that was true.  That is something that I thankfully still do today, thanks to the radio.  I actually prefer the radio to choosing store play discs.  You were so tightly constrained by various rules, which narrowed the scope.  I actually loathed picking store play discs.  If I was working to someone else, I often just said, “You pick, I’ll pick something later.”

Lo and behold, I still have a copy of the store play rules!  I’m a packrat.  I keep everything.

  • Forbidden bands list:  Kiss, Rush, Frank Zappa, Spinal Tap, Dio, Judas Priest
  • Nothing heavier than Metallica’s “black” album
  • No musicals, no classical, no instrumental
  • Must play one new release in every shift
  • Must play 5 discs in shuffle mode, must never play album all the way through except in specific promotional cases
  • Each of the 5 discs must be a different genre
  • No songs with swearing
  • No rap
  • No comedy
  • Could only play discs that were in stock for sale instore

Jazz, soul, indy, and oldies were encouraged.  Hard rock was especially discouraged. 

Of course we broke the rules. If I knew there was no chance of getting caught, I’d bring in my own discs from home all the time.  The best shift I ever had, I played all 5 discs of the Kiss box set, in a row!  I played lots of shit with swearing, all the time.  It wasn’t intentional of course, it’s just that sometimes a great album has swearing on it, and I like to listen to great albums.  Sinatra at the Sands, for example.

We sold Sinatra at the Sands in minutes, by the way…by playing it instore.

I played Dio all the time when I could get away with it, even though he was strictly off limits. 

I remember Tom walking in, during Holy Diver. 

“Wow.  That’s ballsy man,” he said.

I played Spinal Tap once, but one of my buddies got written up for doing the same thing.  Seriously.  That time I was playing Spinal Tap, there was this guy seriously rocking out to it.  He didn’t look like a fan though.  He walked up to me and said, “Sounds like you got some Sons of Freedom going on here!”  Oops!

And I played heavy stuff too.  I know I played Maiden in the store, any night I could.  (Astute readers will recall that Maiden is where we started.  Go back to Part 1 if you haven’t.)  I remember two little kids laughing at Bruce Dickinson’s shrieking during a live take of “Fear of the Dark”.  But, I also remember lots of cool kids in Kiss shirts, buying their first rock albums, and it was cool corrupting those kids.

So what did I have to complain about?  Well, I only played those albums when I could get away with it.  Which wasn’t often.  There was usually someone  in there store who could give you shit for it.

So you’d have to put up with the following:  Much Dance xx, Big Shiny Tunes, TLC, Christmas music all day while seasonal, Dave Matthews band, Linkin Park, plenty of new country, and whatever was the flavour of the month at the time.  There’s a reason I know entire albums inside and out by shitty band like The Dandy fucking Warhols.  I could tell you every fucking song on the first two Coldplay CDs.  I had the unfortunate fate of having to listen to the self titled album by Blur every fucking day for a month.  There are bands that I legitimately like, such as Oasis and Kula Shaker, that I rarely play at home anymore because I have heard them so many Goddamn times.  It sucks when you can’t stand music you actually like.

The record store will do that if you spend too many years there, and I spent too many years there.  Gratefully, I love music again.

The worst thing about the record store though were the cliques, and from what I’ve heard, many record store were like this.  You either fit in or you didn’t, and I definitely did not fit in.   They were all into the latest indy rock bands, and all wore sunglasses.   I’ve never been a sunglasses kind of guy.  Indoors, I think they’re just pretentious.  I tried, oh but I did try.  I went to their shitty bars and drank and pretended to have a good time, but I just couldn’t pretend that I liked the Dandy fucking Warhols.

But, if I didn’t experience all that, I guess I wouldn’t be LeBrain!