RECORD STORE TALES #1223: The Creative Process and Why I Love Editing
(The new and improved Grab A Stack of Rock show intro video)

Funny thing about creativity:  Sometimes size does matter.

The size of your canvas, that is.

I love editing videos, and my pet project for three years now has been the theme video for my YouTube show, Grab A Stack of Rock.  In those three years, I have created over 100 revisions.  I have spent countless hours at my deck working on them.  My old PC’s fans used to groan in protest when loading the files.

Ever since the old LeBrain Train days, I wanted an opening theme song video that include every guest who had ever been on the show.  When we started over from scratch, that was still my goal.  Now we have had 50 guests and the old theme song video was getting cramped.  Tim Durling extended it a long time ago by looping a chorus, so I came to him for help once again.  Creatively, Tim added a guitar solo to extend the song’s length even further.  Modestly, Tim said “It should be apparent to anyone listening that a professional guitar player I am not, but it sure was fun.”  Hey man, it’s good enough for rock and roll, and it gave me a much larger canvas to play with.

When I had the much shorter video, it was always painful for me to edit when we had a new guest to add to the show.  What do I cut, in order to fit the new person in?  There were some parts of the video that were synched to the song and were set in stone – Paul Shortino’s cameo, for example, my laugh at the end, and so on.  I love editing; it is one of my favourite parts of the creative process.  I can sit and edit all day and not realize how much time has gone by.  I always pay for it later in cramps.

Thanks to Tim and this ever-expanding song I now have more canvas, and I’ve been playing with it even more.

“It needs more Dan Chartrand,” I said at first, and so I added more Dan, and just for kicks, more Jex too.  Game Show Host Jex, with the jacket.

There was also one shot in the original video that always bugged me.  It’s one of the oldest shots, but it is from a Christmas show that included Brian Richards as a guest – his only show as a guest.  But it was a static shot and always stood out for that reason.  It hasn’t looked right for a long time, so I took this opportunity to replace it with a moving shot of Brian waving.  I also wanted more Nurse Kat, since she did two episodes with us, and more Archie Gamble since he did three.  In a fun happenstance, I got one shot of Archie synched up to the chorus, so it looks like he’s singing Grab A Stack of Rock.  I also wanted more Davey Cretin, so a chose a shot from our Brave New World episode that has me holding stacks of Maiden during the chorus.

I hope this brief glimpse of a day’s work gives you an idea of why I love working on editing videos.  There is almost always something you want to fix, but the process of doing so either becomes so impossibly tedious that I say, “That’s it, this work is done.”  Not done – abandoned!

I have been working in the video medium, as an amateur, for 36 years.  I like editing to music.  I like placing my edits at key moments of songs, or at least with the beat.  It gives me a framework and enhances the visuals.   I’m obviously just a hack; this isn’t a “how-to”.  I’m just expressing what I love and why I drink my coffee until it is stone cold, sitting here trying to perfect that magical “final” edit.

And then I wait, because now I can’t wait for the next guest to arrive and be added to the showcase.*  We still have several more to come!**

One day I’d like to do some more animation, but that is mostly an outdoor summer activity for me.  For now, I will continue to enjoy doing this for myself, because at the end of the day, nobody else notices all the minute little tweaks and changes I make to my passion projects.

 

 

 

*We’ve already added Lana Teramae, and another new addition, Bob Cesca, will join us this week on 50 Years of Iron Maiden.

**Two more guests are coming on 50 Years of Iron Maiden:  Ryan Murphy from RushFans, and D’Arcy Briggs from darcyska.  We also have plans with author Robert Lawson, and an interview with a musician that I am not ready to disclose.

 

 

 

Written by Mike Ladano, Jen Ladano, and Tee Bone Erickson.  Recorded and performed by Tee Bone, guitar solo and remix by Tim Durling

1. Blaze Bayley
2. Harrison Kopp
3. Mike Ladano
4. Eric “Uncle Meat” Litwiller
5. Aaron KMA
6. Tim Durling
7. Rob Daniels
8. John T Snow
9. Marco D’Auria
10. Grant Arthur
11. Brian Richards
12. MarriedandHeels
13. Kevin Simister
14. Dr. Kathryn
15. Jen Ladano
16. Grace Scheele
17. Jex Russell
18. Spencer “Spenny” Rice
19. Nurse Kat
20. Peter Kerr
21. John Clauser
22. Erik Woods
23. Jason Drury
24. Pierre-Luc Allard
25. Len Labelle
26. Reed Little
27. Metal Roger
28. John the Music Nut
29. Mike Slayen
30. Pete Jones
31. Todd Evans
32. James Kalyn
33. Angie Moon
34. Ryan Gavalier
35. Chris Preston
36. Dan Chartrand
37. Glen “Archie” Gamble
38. bicyclelegs
39. Davey Cretin
40. Melissa Nee
41. Sidney Cini A
42. Ashley Geisler
43. Martin Popoff
44. Bert Blotto
45. F Lee Harvey Blotto
46. Bowtie Blotto
47. Broadway Blotto
48. Jake Not From State Farm
49. Bob Cesca (Camp Chaos)
50. Lana Teramae
51. and (briefly) Max the Axe

Plus Daisi the Dog, Gimli the Cat (RIP) and Galadriel the Cat