I haven’t stayed up til midnight on a New Year’s Eve in a dog’s age, but I did it tonight…for you!
Tonight’s drop-in special ran over three hours and we still failed to squeeze in Aaron from the KMA. Huge apologies to my buddy Aaron. Hopefully I’ll make it up to you next week for the ZZ Top show.
Special guests tonight were invited to drop in and read their Nigel Tufnel Top Ten lists, and each guest chose their own theme for their lists! Guests included:
The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano
Episode 44 – Special “Season One” Finale
Got nothing to do tonight? Join the club! Better yet, join the stream! This week’s special episode takes place on Thursday December 31. It will be a drop-in show, meaning folks will drop in and say hello, and read their own Nigel Tufnel Top Ten lists. It will be any topic, from music on down to favourite children’s breakfast cereals. Several guests so far confirmed. I have a list planned myself, and it’s a very special one!
Strictly going by YouTube views alone (not including the two Facebook channels), here are the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten live streams in 2020 by views. Pick one to watch and enjoy!
You want my personal recommendation instead of just going by the numbers? No problem. I have some special favourites that I’d love for you to watch. Any time we had a special guest interview was cool, so watch: Steph Honde, Storm Force, Frank Loffredo and Brent Jensen. Beyond that….
My Nigel Tufnel Top Ten personal favourite (non-interview) live streams in chronological order:
We’re locked down, but not knocked down as this week’s live show proved! From 1977 to 1991, stories of Christmases past were unfurled for fun discussion. From the Star Wars years, through GI Joe, Transformers, and Atari, to cassettes, CDs and VHS, the greatest years of our lives were presented. Then, special guest LeBrain’s Mom joined the latter half of this episode for her first on-screen appearance…bearing wine!
I had a great night and I hope you did too. Lots of visual aids this time. Thanks for watching!
The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano
Episode 43
Nobody “wanted” lockdown to happen in Ontario, but here we are. You don’t have to be alone on Boxing Day, no matter where you are. This Saturday December 26, join the LeBrain Train for a special holiday episode called “Christmas Memories”. Special memories such as:
Waking my dad up with Lego
Getting Luke’s X-Wing
Finding a Millennium Falcon under the tree
Waiting for a train from Stratford in a blizzard
Killing time…
The Atari years
The year I woke everybody up at 1 AM playing GI Joe
The dawn of the Rock N’ Roll era: cassettes, cassettes, cassettes!
Boxing Day with WWF’s Demolition
1989: The first CD player
1990: Led Zeppelin
…and on and on!
There might be guests — or I might just open it up for anyone to join the show. You’ll just have to tune in and see.
It’s OK if you’re upset or just not in the mood. Who is these days? We have been here for each other since the start and the hope is to spread some positive feelings this week.
I’ll be on break for the next couple days. Have a drink or two, and we’ll see you Saturday December 26. Let’s get into the sweet nectar of nostalgia!
Awesome show this week! The 42nd LeBrain Train was another three hour long epic. The theme was “Best Bands You Probably Never Heard Of”. We never settled on a proper wording for it, or a proper system for keeping score. The goal was to introduce you to plenty of artists we think you’d think. And we hope you do! For the first time ever, there was no crossover with the six lists!
Added bonus: At the mid-way point (1:30:00 exactly) a very-caffeinated-me decided to go on an F-bomb laden rant about people who post The Mandalorian spoilers openly on social media without warnings. Please enjoy my rant!
The final score:
Mike: 11 points
Sarah: 14 points
Harrison: 17 points
Rob: 19 points
John: 23 points
Aaron: 88 points
Huge thanks to everyone for hanging out so long! Thanks for watching and see you next week.
The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano
Episode 42
This week’s episode is brought to you by the brain behind 2 Loud 2 Old Music — John himself. The man is like a music encyclopedia so it’s only fitting that he came up with this particular Nigel Tufnel Top Ten list. What are your Favourite Artists that Nobody Else Has Heard Of? Tonight’s panel will answer that question 11 times each, and hopefully give you a ton of stuff to listen to over the Christmas holidays.
There will also be a couple guest lists for us to run down. That means you could be getting up to 66 bands to listen to! (Depending on list crossover.) Are you excited? I am!
There will be a show next week, but it will not be on Friday! Friday is Christmas after all. I plan to go live on Boxing Day , Saturday December 26, and talk about Christmas Nostalgia. From getting my first X-Wing fighter to the year I got Zeppelin, I can’t wait to tell you some stories.
For the following week, I am tentatively planning to go live on New Year’s Eve, Thursday December 31. I dunno what time yet…it’s not like I have anything else going on…but it’ll just be a New Year’s party. Mrs. LeBrain is planning to join me and we hope you can too!
Picking a favourite episode among the 41 (!) shows we’ve done is a bit like picking a favourite child. Impossible to do! But I took a real shine to this week’s instalment: the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten Iron Maiden Deep Cuts.
Each of us had our own personal criteria to determine if a song was a “deep cut”. For example, I chose no songs from Live After Death, or any leading tracks from an album. Harrison the Mad Metal Man decided that he would include no single A-sides, and no songs that were played live…ever.
As an added bonus to this episode, we brought back Geoff from 1001albumsin10years. The Graph Alchemist himself had to be involved, to track all these crucial Iron Maiden songs. In particular I wanted to see what albums were dominant. Geoff then went above and beyond the call of duty by bringing us a four-way Venn diagram showing all the songs that the panel had in common. Ever seen a four-way oval Venn before? You will!
These four lists were all graphed and included in the episode’s statistics.
We also had three “bonus lists” that we ran right at the top of the show. These bonus lists were submitted by:
Reader KK
The Mighty Holen
Michael the Box Set Wizard
Finally this episode also marked the debut of the brand new LeBrain Train theme song by T-Bone. So good that I played it three times. Everybody loves the song and video — let me know what you think too.
Best show ever? Definitely top five.
Shoot, do I have to do a Nigel Tufnel Top Ten LeBrain Trains now?*
The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano
Episode 41
It had to happen eventually: the return of Harrison the Mad Metal Man, and our first Iron Maiden list show! It’s the Iron Maiden Deep Cuts this time, a subject sure to generate tons of discussion. Of course, B-sides are fair game, as are Blaze Bayley cuts!
No spoilers but I can tell you that Harrison is being very stringent about what certifies as a “deep cut”. However, this is a “no disqualifications” episode, so nobody will be getting killed by Eddie tonight.
Iron Maiden’s gonna get ya no matter how far.
The Nigel Tufnel Top Ten lists (concept by Uncle Meat) are always a pleasurable diversion, especially when we keep track of the stats! To that end, Geoff from 1001albumsin10years will be back tonight to bring us more graphs! We also hope that the Meat Man himself will be joining the fun with his hard-laboured list.
We have not had Harrison on the show since May, when we counted down the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten Judas Priest albums.* Because of the time difference between Canada and Australia, Harrison and I did the last show in the morning here. He also had an awesome moustache. This time we’re doing it at the usual 7:00 PM E.S.T. (He can be the one to get up early this time.) Will the moustache remain?
* The last time Harrison was on also happened to the first show broadcast from the cottage. A very special show for me because of both location and guest.
Thank you to T-BONE for this awesome new theme song and video for the LeBrain Train!
This is a wonderful surprise, and complete with lyrics. All we need to do is get it in the right file format and this will be the intro clip to the LeBrain Train each week! Thank you T-Bone for going above and beyond the call of duty!! (He must really have enjoyed being on the show.)
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