I’ve been making videos for over 30 years. It’s important, when possible, to keep your source material. It’s necessary if you ever feel like revisiting your work. Or, if you feel like presenting “previously unseen material” to your audience as new content.
Here are some outtakes representing the last 30 years of making videos. You’ve never seen ’em before and I hope you enjoy!
Enjoy music just a little different from the norm? Here are Kathryn Ladano and opening act, combining members of Harp+ and Seagram Synth Ensemble at the TWH Social After Dark Space January 11 2020. My Samsung couldn’t get a good image in the dark, but the audio is decent in full stereo. Enjoy the track “Flow” from the new album Masked and clips from other tracks on the disc!
The synthscape of the opening act was quite awesome. Now, I don’t normally drink, but I was with Max the Axe. Before long I had a rum and Coke in me and I was taken on this wild synthesizer trip through the cosmos! For roughly 30 minutes, a stream of music emanated through the room, like a slideshow of NASA photos from the 1960s. Can’t wait to hear the Seagram Synth Ensemble’s album which was for sale and now in my collection.
Kathryn Ladano played interpretations of music from her album Masked. “Interpretations” because the music is improvised and never the same twice, they just follow the same rough blueprints. “It’s better live” whispered Max (you can hear this in the video), and Dr. Ladano agreed.
Great show, great venue, try and catch them live!
Yesterday on my way home from work, I thought this guy was gonna eat it.
A sequel to #774.5: Seasons Ends. Buckle up, it’s a busy one!
GETTING MORE TALE #785: Seasons End (Oh Deer)
+ BONUS Nutshell Review: El Camino – A Breaking Bad Movie
+ BONUS Star Wars – The Black Series 6″ figures “Abandoned” Video Reviews
“Be careful of the deer problem,” said my dad when I phoned him from Lucknow, about 20 or 30 minutes away from the cottage.
“Don’t worry, I’ll drive safe,” I reassured him in that voice that hardly reassured him.
“You know about the deer problem?” he asked to confirm.
No, but now I did. Funny thing; I’d been driving up to the lake by myself for over 20 years and never came close to hitting a deer. There are warning signs along all the major roads, some with flashing yellow lights. Turns out Thanksgiving 2019 was my first on-the-road deer sighting.
It got dark quick after Lucknow, and soon it was like pitch. I had been driving slower since the sun went down but it was Jen who saw the deer first. I slowed down carefully until he jumped away unto the brush. The guy behind me wasn’t paying attention and almost rear-ended me.
It’s so strange to review the dashcam footage afterwards. What felt like an eternal moment of tense surprise was really only seven seconds.*
Until that moment, we were wrapped deep in Iron Maiden. I played the first album, with Paul Di’Anno, and the bonus tracks for the full-on experience. This was music I’d been listening to for 35 years and under the weight of all that nostalgia, I immediately began singing along. I remember “Charlotte the Harlot” coming up just as we were detouring past a town called Dorking. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s funny. Once completed, we switched over to Piece of Mind. That’s the Maiden studio album that I have the longest deep relationship with. Every word was dancing on my tongue, even “Revelations”. But then again, I remember having that song memorised back in highschool. My friend Andy and I sang it back to a rap kid named Patrick Barnes who claimed that metal lyrics are just unintelligible noise and nonsense.
All this Maiden reminiscence led to the writing of a new future chapter of Getting More Tale called “Run 2 the Hills”, a direct sequel to Record Store Tales Part 1. Look for that one in the near future.
We had the near miss with the deer after both albums were complete, and I’d started on random tunes from Powerslave. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was the song playing when Bambi was spared by some good driving.
Upon arrival, I had get my Netflix fired up to watch El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. Nutshell review:
EL CAMINO: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019 Netflix)
I didn’t think I cared where Jesse Pinkman went at the end of Breaking Bad. Turns out, I cared enough to watch this well-written coda to a great TV series. Aaron Paul rules, equipped with very little dialogue and only his body language. Paul gives us a hard insight to the PTSD-infested survivor Pinkman. Every cameo you desire is in store via relevant flashbacks, fleshing out the original series a little bit. After a while, you, like Pinkman, are disoriented and can’t remember if you’re watching past or present.
4/5 stars
It was a little freaky when I finished the film, went on Twitter, and saw Bryan Cranston announced that Robert Forster had died, just after I watched his final film.
In the morning I wrote up the rough draft of my new Maiden chapter while it was all fresh in my head, but I otherwise accomplished very little, creatively speaking.
I tried, I really did try. When mom & dad stepped out of the house for a few minutes I thought I could squeeze in time for a Star Wars Black Series video review. You’ll see what happened. Something like this occurred any time I attempted to make a video. So what you see is what you get; I gave up!
Abandoned Reviews
For entertainment use only. Back off, fanboys!
Instead of using my creative juices for this one final weekend of the lake this season, I decided to pour it into cooking instead. I picked up three beautiful steaks and a pound of lobster tail. I made some garlic butter, clarified it, and put the tail on the grill. Everything was phenomenal. I felt like we ended the season right with these meals.
There was the traditional turkey dinner the following night too, stuffed with goodness, but I feel the lobster tail and the steaks really put a cap on the season.
The drive home was enabled by Twisted Sister’s Live at the Marquee and The Razors Edge by AC/DC. I don’t know how often I’ve played The Razors Edge in the car since it came out before I could drive. Could this have been the first time? I liked it better in the car than I do sitting at home. As for Twisted Sister, Live at the Marquee is by far their greatest live product. The raw heavy stage purity can’t be touched.
And now we are home, preparing for the arrival of winter routines and monotony. Hibernation begins. But spring will return again, and with it, so will the roadtrips, the steaks, and the sun.
Stay warm, my friends!
* It was just a young deer When you start having more frequent animal sightings in cottage country like this, it means they are being displaced from somewhere else. There has been a lot of building and development this year.
2/5 stars?
GETTING MORE TALE #781: What Happened to C-3PO’s Hand? The Story
Pardon the volume on this video, I really struggled with it and then said “fuck it”.
I’ve had this camera for just a week, and look at this fool.
The first weekend of August is a long weekend in Ontario. It’s called the Civic holiday, but people in retail still have to work it. I did, almost every single year at the Record Store. This year we spent the holiday at the lake, where I secretly began work on the next review series here at mikeladano.com. With the encouragement of my good buddy Superdekes, two posts were completed at the lake, on the front porch. You couldn’t have asked for a better setting.
As usual I’ve assembled a video of some of our weekend fun, all to the tune of Max the Axe (“My Daddy Was A Murderin’ Man”, and “Call of the Wild”). Check out crystal clear waters, mountains of food, and rock and roll. And of course that sneak preview for our next review series!
