Grab a Stack of Rock / LeBrain Train

Top Five Vintage Video Games! With D’Arcy and Dr. K

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

Episode 151: Top Five Vintage Video Games! With D’Arcy and Dr. K

An episode long in the making!  We have been talking about doing an episode on vintage video games for three years, but in January, D’Arcy Briggs and I began to discuss it a little more seriously.  Finally we’ve got the episode ready and we’ve brought Dr. Kathryn along for the adventure.

First we had to define “vintage”.  For our purposes, we limited our choices to 70s, 80s and 90s video games.  This still left us with so many choices, that it was hard to put these lists together without using cheat codes!  Yet we rose to the challenge with very minimal, but predictable overlap.  What came as a surprise was how deeply personal some of these picks are.  You might be surprised how video games helped shape the people we would become.

With arcade classics, adventures, first-person shooters, puzzles and more, coming from hand-held machines, consoles, and PC’s, we have a variety of games for you to look at.  What’s more, in addition to gameplay clips, we have physical product that will knock you out.  Dr. K visited Nintendo-crazy Japan and came home with treasures.  She also had some of our vintage Atari and NES gear on hand.  And wait until you see D’Arcy’s collection!

You’re going to love this episode.  Be sure to join in the comments!

Friday June 26 at  7:00 PM EST, 4:00 PM Pacific.  Enjoy on YouTube.

 

Bonus Episode: Summer HQ Tour with Grab A Stack of Rock!

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

Bonus Episode: Summer HQ Tour with Grab A Stack of Rock!

Tonight, Mike is recording an episode with Peter Kerr of Rock Daydream Nation, so a pre-recorded episode is on deck!  One of my all-time favourites in fact.  As a sequel to last week’s bonus episode, a tour of Grab A Stack of Rock HQ, this week we’re doing the tour of Stack Summer HQ!

As we did last week, we’ll take a look at the memorabilia here at Summer HQ, and hear the stories.  Some will be familiar to original readers, but most will be previously unseen and unheard.  There is a lot of personal music history in these woods, going back to Grandpa’s original backyard parties with his turntable and massive speakers playing “The Gambler”!  There are also plenty of cool books and collectibles, art and animals.  Animals?  Indeed – when one tours Grab A Stack of Rock Summer HQ, one must be prepared for chance encounters in the wild.  One such encounter happens in this amazing video.

Please join tonight!  This is an episode you don’t want to miss.   Since I am recording with Rock Daydream Nation, I will not be in the comments section, but we’ll be back with your regular Stack soon!

 

Click above for the video link.

 

Friday June 19 at  7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube.

 

“Nigel Tufnel Top Ten” RUSH albums with Mike and Meat – re-edited for length

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

Special Re-Run

“Nigel Tufnel Top Ten” RUSH albums with Mike and Meat:  LeBrain Train re-edited

May 16, 2020:  A very special show went down, back in the primitive wilderness days of Facebook Live.  It was pandemic times, and seeking ways to come up with musical discussion topics, Uncle Meat invented the “Nigel Tufnel Top Ten”.  I was resistant to doing list shows, because everybody else was posting lists.  Top ten lists…so ours went up to 11.  Thank you Uncle Meat for coming up with this concept.  This was our first of many list shows, which became our trademark.

In an ironic twist, we lost Fred Willard on that day, who was indeed in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, from which the phrase “these go up to 11” was taken.  We paid tribute to Mr. Willard off the top of the show…and at the end too.

In this short episode, Meat and I run down our top 11 Rush albums, with a special guest list from Michael Morewood.  Back in the Facebook Live days, only two people could share the screen!  Written lists, sent into us, were the only way to include more than two people!

This luminescent list of Rush was a portion of a longer show, so it has been edited down to just the Rush lists and the Willard tribute.  Please enjoy this awesome set of lists, now in a perfectly digestible size!


Wednesday June 17 at  12:00 AM EST, 1:00 AM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube.

 

Bonus Episode: A Tour of Grab A Stack of Rock HQ

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

Bonus Episode:  A Tour of Grab A Stack of Rock HQ

With last week’s 150th episode out of the way, and Harrison taking a break, it’s time for two fun bonus episodes!  In the first, this week we’re taking a tour of Grab A Stack of Rock home HQ.

Friends always want to take a tour of the home office.  Now you can!  Check out my memorabilia, collectibles, box sets, discs, tapes and more.  You’ll even see a unique music format that has gone unseen on this show since the LeBrain Train days.  Join me as we dig through stacks of rock to find nuggets and memories beneath.  Books, instruments, clothing, Lego, figurines, toys…when you have this much rock, space becomes the problem!  So we stack and stack, until one must dig to find it.

This is a fun episode.  Join the premiere so we can chat!

 

 

Friday June 12 at  7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube.

 

Now Johnny Metal has a copy! Unboxing Mental Health for Metalheads: The new book by James Neeson @mymusiccorner

We are absolutely thrilled at the publicity this new book, Mental Health for Metalheads is getting!   Old friend James Neeson has really outdone himself.

Johnny Metal recently received the book and invited me to unbox it with him.  This time, we were able to talk with a little more knowledge about the book and its contents.  It is very similar to clinical self help pages that I have read before, but now they are framed with heavy metal references and lyrics.  This helps the book become a little more relatable and easier to remember for the hard rock lover in your life.

If you’re struggling, don’t be afraid to reach out.

You can get Mental Health for Metalheads at your local Amazon:  Kindle or hardback.

We will be talking to James on July 3, for a special episode of Grab A Stack of Rock.

 

Off The Charts: Mike’s Top Ten Hair Metal Album Opening Tracks

It was my delight to guest on Dan Chartrand’s Off the Charts to discuss my Top Ten Hair Metal Album Openers!  This popular series is one I am proud to take part in!  Premiering June 8 2026, see below!

 

🅻🅸🆅🅴 Top Ten KISS Songs Not About Love! With Johnny Metal – 3:00 PM EST!

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

🅻🅸🆅🅴 Episode

Episode 150:  Top Ten KISS Songs Not About Love!  With Johnny Metal…and more?

Welcome to the 150th (“officially numbered”) episode of Grab A Stack of Rock!  It is only suiting for the 150th episode that we do something special:  my favourite band of all time, KISS.  It’s so strange that we have only done one Kiss episode on Grab A Stack of Rock.  (NOTE:  On the old LeBrain Train in 2020, we did our Top KISS albums.)  Back on Episode 5 of Grab A Stack of Rock, Tim Durling, Marco D’Auria and the Mad Metal Man dissected and analyzed the Kiss Creatures of the Night box set.  We’ve never done a proper Kiss list show on Grab A Stack, or anything spotlighting my favourite band since.  I am not entirely sure why that is, except possibly that I’ve already done many Kiss lists on other shows.  For this one, I think we’ve come up with something unique.

Johnny Metal from My Music Corner (and perhaps others!), will be joining me at the cottage for a special outdoor episode:  Top Ten KISS Songs Not About Love!  For Johnny and other potential participants, this was a difficult task.  For me, it was a matter of elimination.  I hope you like what we’ve come up with.

Excluded from this list:  Solo albums, covers and instrumentals…maybe.

For the purposes of this show, we will have CDs on display for physical product, some never seen before on the show.

How many Kiss songs can you name that are not about “love”…or sex?  Let’s rock and roll.  Join us live and get your weekend started right.  At the cottage, with Johnny Metal and I.

 

Friday June 5 at  3:00 PM EST, 4:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.

 

50 Years of IRON MAIDEN bonus episode: You’re Gonna Love Our Maiden Bootleg Collections!

50 Years of IRON MAIDEN bonus episode: You’re Gonna Love Our Maiden Bootleg Collections!

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK bonus episode

If we knew only one thing about Harrison, it is that he loves live music.  Like many fans of live music, Harrison has attained quite a collection of Maiden bootlegs.  Simply put, Harrison’s goal (and Mike’s as well, though not nearly as complete) is to get a live album or bootleg from every Iron Maiden tour.  In the perfect world, we’d both own live versions of every Maiden song ever played live.  There are many, such as “Caught Somewhere In Time”, that were played live but never recorded or released live.  And that where bootlegs come in.

In this episode we look at our “Maiden boots”, all CD unfortunately.  We always like to have a variety of audio formats to show you, but this time all we have is CDs.  But a lot of them, we do have!

Please join us for the premiere – we love to interact in the comments!  See you tonight.

 

Friday May 29 at  7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube.

SHOW NOTES:  We only have a couple episodes left to do, but will be taking a break from 50 Years of Iron Maiden for a short time.  Grab A Stack of Rock will continue regularly, and 50 Years of Iron Maiden will return as soon as possible.

 

Past episodes:

Handy YouTube Playlist:

 

 

Handy YouTube Playlist:

 

 

🅻🅸🆅🅴 50 Years of IRON MAIDEN episode 34: The Book of Souls: Live Chapter – May 22 Show #2

50 Years of IRON MAIDEN episode 34:  The Book of Souls: Live Chapter

A special 🅻🅸🆅🅴 episode

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK episode 149

Harrison and Mike are racing to the end of 50 Years of Iron Maiden!  After the Book of Souls studio album, Iron Maiden reliably provided us with a Live Chapter to mull over.  Featuring a host of new songs and a clutch of classics, The Book of Souls: Live Chapter is a fine retelling of these stories in the live setting.  This one was released in audio and video form, but Maiden declined to release a DVD or Blu-ray.  Instead the live show was given to us for free on YouTube.  Still, we have already had so many live albums and videos to discuss.  What will this Live Chapter offer us this time?

As usual, Mike and Harrison will break down the album track by track.  Harrison will discuss the tour, what songs were played, dropped and never seen again.  Expect our usual thorough approach and maybe a surprise too!

Join us live in the comments – we always appreciate your participation!


Friday May 22 at  7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.

Past episodes:

Handy YouTube Playlist:

 

 

Handy YouTube Playlist:

 

 

🅻🅸🆅🅴 Science Fiction, UFOS and the Paranormal with author Violeta M Bagia – May 22 Show #1

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

🅻🅸🆅🅴 Episode – Special Morning Broadcast!

Episode 148:  Science Fiction, UFOS and the Paranormal with author Violeta M Bagia

Please welcome our newest guest!  From Australia, it’s author Violeta M Bagia of Melbourne, who has written a number of science fiction books including her Hart of Darkness series and more.  She is a UFO and paranormal buff and it is our pleasure to host her this morning on Grab A Stack of Rock!

This is a show we have been wanting to do for several years, but circumstances never lined up until now.  The goal was always to do a show about ghosts, UFOs and the unexplained, at the cottage, before it’s light.  We’ve finally found the right guest, and the right time!  For her it’s evening in Australia, but for us, the world is yet to wake up.  We will be live at 6AM sharp, which is 8PM Melbourne time.  We’ve seen and heard some weird stuff in the woods at night.  Now it’s time to share that special hour with the world.

On the schedule for this morning’s show:  The books of Violeta, Area 51, ghost sightings, Bob Lazar and Majestic 12, UFO sightings and much, much more.

This will be a show not to miss.  We still have a live episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden for evening viewers!  Please check it out, and join us live if you’re able!


Friday May 22 at  6:00 AM EST, 8:00 PM Melbourne.  Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.