Last night was a bounty of success, except for poor Mr. Jex, who suffered from wi-fi issues all night. Thank you to Jexciter for showing up and playing along! Rob Daniels, John T. Snow, and special surprise guest @MarriedAndHeels all joined in last night for a casual chat!
We successfully streamed to Rob’s Facebook, and the 2loud2oldmusic & Jex’s Vinyl World pages! This will help us reach more viewers in the future.
Unfortunately, Tim Durling could not join us, which is a real shame since he was responsible for two of the albums I unboxed, both Japanese imports.
John had some rare Whitesnake and Bon Jovi to show us, Rob had a book and a Helix-related soundtrack, and Jex some Judas Priest and monster movies.
The California Girl known as @MarriedAndHeels showed us her new Nike’s that took her on a 12.5 mile run earlier this week!
We had a lively discussion about Richie Sambora/Bon Jovi, Kiss’ Farewell Tour, Star Wars and a myriad of topics!
Thanks for watching, and if you haven’t, then please give it a watch below!
The worst and most tiring kind of days at the Record Store were the ones with customers bringing in endless boxes of discs for us to buy. These took up a lot of time and counter space to keep organized. I hated it when multiple customers with multiple boxes arrived at once. All you could say is say “leave your name and number and we’ll get through these as quickly as possible. It could be a couple hours.”
Some customers understood, some did not. That’s retail.
By contrast the best kind of days were often the ones without the pileup of CD boxes. If everything came in at staggered times, that was ideal. Even better if all the discs were in good shape. Icing on the top of the cake if the customer wasn’t a jerk about pricing. Everybody assumed their discs were worth solid gold. To be truly the best kind of day, customers would be bringing in good stock that you wanted for yourself! Whether it be a new release or something rarer from a back catalogue, those were the good days. You’d slap your name on a post-it note, stick it to the CD and claim it for self-musical enrichment.
I may have mentioned this a couple times before: the Big Boss Man hated when we bought stock for ourselves. But that was 50% of the reason people wanted to work in a music store. The best of days were those when the Big Boss Man and his underlings were not around!
One factor that didn’t affect whether the day was good or bad: who I was working with. I liked virtually every single person that worked in my store. There were one or two who made me pull my hair out, but they never lasted very long. I was very fortunate to have good working relationships with just about everyone in my staff. I tried to show my appreciation by buying them CDs or dinner.
Speaking of dinner, one of the best days I had was in the late 90s. A Jack Astor’s restaurant opened in the plaza across the street. I was working one afternoon minding my own business when a guy showed up at my door with a “Jack Attack”. I was shaking my head “no” as if to tell him I didn’t order any food, when he explained it was all complimentary! A bucket of wings and six bottles (bottles! Not cans!) of root beer. He dropped off a menu with ordering instructions for delivery. That was a very good day. I was working alone, but I left a couple bottles of pop for the night shift. (A couple. I was thirsty.)
I liked working alone, but eating a meal on a lone shift was tricky. Even the best of days were food-free days. The boss absolutely hated when we ate meals at the counter, but where else was there to go? We were working alone, we couldn’t leave the store. We couldn’t go into the back room to eat for 15 minutes. So most days, at least the ones working alone, were junk food only. Chips, pop, candy bars, pepperoni. That was it.
But combined with good tunes and no bosses, a pretty good day!
The rest of the world is trying to get me to write 200 or 500 word reviews. Padraig isn’t happy with 912 though. Waiting for him to post a link to his Sultans of Ping F.C. review. I’m sure his punctuation will be immaculate.
WARNING! This is not a pretty story. A sequel to #686: Puke!
Jen was super sick on Thursday. She had eaten some Indian food from a place that was new to her, and it wasn’t good. We both assumed it was food poisoning. Until Friday night.
I was scheduled to go live at 7:00 PM. I messaged the guys at 6:40 – “I just barfed”. Usually I’m just “one and done” when it comes to barfing. Not this time. I was prepared to go on with the show, but 10 minutes later I barfed again and got hit with the chills. I cancelled.
By 8:00 PM I had barfed five times. This never happens to me. Clearly, Jen didn’t have food poisoning the previous night. Whatever stomach bug she had, I now had it too. Five pukes in 80 minutes – that’s a new record for me. The last few were closer to painful, dry heaves.
I asked Jen to place a Skip the Dishes order with a gas station or a Little Short Stop – get me Gatorade, ginger ale, and water. (We scored here – we ordered and paid for small bottles but they sent big two-liter ginger ales.) I began sipping the sweet, cold, soothing beverages as soon as they arrived, and they were the most incredible sips I’ve ever taken.
The farts that came with this sudden illness were unreal. Easily and by far the most wretched and lingering smells I have ever produced, and that is saying something. Putrid, foul, rotten. My wife is a saint.
Despite sipping the drinks, I was so thirsty. Constantly thirsty. I was sipping every five minutes. Obviously dehydration set in. I barfed again at 10:30, but I then changed my strategy a bit. When I was a kid, my dad wouldn’t let me drink anything when I was sick, so I wouldn’t barf it back up. This time it was different. I drank Gatorade and ginger ale in earnest until I could feel my stomach was full.
The next three barfs were nothing but water, ginger ale and Gatorade. They came out easily, in mad gushes, and amazingly still tasted good. The red Gatorade puke still tasted exactly like red Gatorade. Because it was pure liquid and nothing else, it was effortless to bring up and I was in no pain (unlike the dry heaves). When I was done throwing up, I re-hydrated immediately and repeated the cycle a few more times. My final puke was around 4:00 AM on Saturday, my ninth. Another record. But I didn’t have any dehydration or associated pain/discomfort. A win.
I’m feeling a lot better now, just sore. Very sore. My joints are sore and mostly my chest.
I tested Covid negative, so it’s just a bug. Unfortunately I cannot go see my grandma in the hospital today because of this, and she is lonely.
I think it’s safe to say that the 1998 British film Still Crazy is my favourite movie about a fictional band. Yes, that means I like it better than the “big one”. I definitely prefer it to Rock Star. It’s just plain better, from story to performance to music. I never cried during Rock Star, but I do weep during Still Crazy when guitarist Brian makes his triumphant return to the stage during “The Flame Still Burns”, as sung by Jimmy Nail.
Foreigner later recorded “The Flame Still Burns” in 2017. It was co-written by Mick Jones.
I live a life that’s surreal Where all that I feel I am learning My life is like an ever spinning wheel Fueld by a fire that’s still burning
And in time, it’s all a sweet mystery When you shake the tree of temptation Yeah and I, I know the fear and the cost Of a paradise lost in frustration
And the flame still burns It’s there in my soul, forever I know And the flame still burns From a glimmer back then It lights up again in my life
Ooh I, I want my thoughts to be heard The unspoken words of my wisdom Today as the light starts to glow Tomorrow who knows who will listen
But my life has no language of love No words from above are appearing But in time, in time the fire will grow With a reason for hope and believing
And the flame still burns It’s there in my soul, forever I know And the flame still burns From a glimmer back then It lights up again in my life
Oh, keep rolling, keep that flame still burning Keep on rolling while the world keeps turning Ah, keep rolling Yeah, keep rolling Ah, yeah, ooh
And the flame still burns It’s there in my soul, it’s there in my soul And the flame still burns Yeah, it’s there in my soul, forever I know And the flame still burns From a glimmer back then, oh yeah
And the flame still burns Oh, it’s there in my soul, oh, it’s there in my soul And the flame still burns From a glimmer back then Oh, it lights up again in my life In my life
The original title for this chapter was “My Sister, Age, and How Things Change”. It was originally Chapter 8.
RECORD STORE TALES #1045: The Lost Chapters: Doctor Kathryn
My sister had some distinct musical phases. Early on, she decided that she was going to like most of the music that I liked. At first that meant Quiet Riot, Kiss, and Motley Crue. Motley Crue was her favourite, but not for the right reasons. They were her favourite because a) Nikki and Tommy were really tall, and b) they both had spikey hair.
There was further evidence that my sister was bordering on wimp territory. One was that she didn’t like W.A.S.P. In fact she hated W.A.S.P. I’m not sure if it was Blackie Lawless’ voice, or if it was the fact that he drank “blood” from a “human skull”. Either way, I liked W.A.S.P. a lot, and if she didn’t like them too, this demonstrated an unhealthy streak of independence.
Then, the proverbial shit hit the fan. (We didn’t have air conditioning back then, just fans.) One day in 1985, she decided that she liked The Pointer Sisters. And Cyndi Lauper. And Corey Hart. She always liked Bryan Adams, but I forgave her this. Bryan wore jeans and T-shirts, so he was still firmly in rock territory, even if he wasn’t heavy metal. (I didn’t find out for a while yet that Bryan did in fact have some metallic roots. He wrote several songs with Kiss, including the heaviest material on the Creatures Of The Night album.) The music that Kathryn liked was incorrectly labelled by us as “New Wave”. We didn’t know that New Wave was a term usually used for bands like Blondie, Devo, or the Talking Heads. We just assumed all crappy pop music with synthesizers was New Wave. And New Wave was bad. Very very bad.
Back then, life was simple. Life was black and white. Whatever MuchMusic’s “Power Hour” played was good. Everything else was bad. The only exceptions to that that rule were Kim Mitchell and Bryan Adams. I’m not sure why Kim was an exception, except that he and long hair, and that I liked him, and so did the next door neighbour. If you wanted to boil it down further, stuff with guitars was good. Stuff with keyboards was bad. And the stuff Kathryn listened to didn’t have any guitars, just lots of keyboards, fake synth drums and people with really silly clothes and hair.
There were a few exceptions. I had never known a Van Halen without keyboards, so I accepted them. They were clearly a heavy metal band. The Power Hour played them all the time, David Lee Roth had wicked hair, and everybody was talking about that guitar player. Even if I didn’t know the difference between a guitar and a bass, and thought that Michael Anthony was in fact Eddie Van Halen, I decided that Van Halen were cool. You were allowed to like them. Eventually I sneaked ZZ Top into the list of music that was allowed as well, because one of the neighbours said they were like Van Halen.
So if the music Kathryn liked was bad, and the music I liked was good, you can imagine the arguments. They were glorious and often ended in physical injury and/or destruction of property, and not just by me.
Her awful taste in music even held back my own progress. She liked Bon Jovi first, therefore I had to dislike Bon Jovi—until they released that damned “Wanted: Dead Or Alive” song. The song was so good, so undeniable, I had to let Bon Jovi into my life. I still think it’s a fantastic song, well written, well played, with some beautiful 12 string guitar. (Another reason Bon Jovi didn’t make the grade at first was due to their keyboards. This does not explain why Europe did make the grade. There were many inconsistencies.)
Kathryn’s rebellion worsened. Her taste in music declined. I won’t even begin to list some of the awful music she listened to, but I will say that she bottomed out in 1990 with New Kids On The Block, MC Hammer, and Vanilla Ice. Obviously, this was a person who had no clear idea about integrity within music. However, like a junkie who hits rock bottom, she eventually started to rise up again, with a little encouragement from Her Loving Brother.
The turning point was when Vanilla Ice cancelled his Kitchener tour date in early 1991. His reason stated was that he was too big a star to play a town like Kitchener. There was an instant hatred for the man all over town. Kathryn sold her Vanilla Ice tape immediately.
There were some other clear signs of improvement. A newfound obsession with Cheap Trick was good. Sure, they weren’t metal, but they were definitely rock! Hell, they even worshipped Kiss within their song lyrics. I happily encouraged this love of Cheap Trick, and even bought her Cheap Trick tapes. I think most of her Cheap Trick collection was courtesy of moi.
Rod Stewart came next. I feel that perhaps Rod snuck in the door due to his enormous hair, but I didn’t care. Rod still had a rock pedigree. I encouraged her love of Rod. I asked her questions about him and his music. It was like carefully manipulating a mentally ill person back to health, and I was succeeding in a marginal way. I felt that she’d never come all the way back to metal, even though she owned tapes by Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Poison. Yet I was satisfied with the progress we were making.
Now, 15 years later, I own Rod Stewart, Cheap Trick, Bryan Adams, The Payola$…all music that she introduced me to. She got the last laugh. I’ll never admit that she was always the smarter one (I can’t, since she never understood any movies we watched) but I’ll admit that she got the better of me on this one. We even attended concerts together. It started with Blue Rodeo, then we saw Jann Arden and Amanda Marshall. While I still won’t own any albums by Arden or Marshall, they both put on excellent shows. Blue Rodeo blew us both away and now they’re one of my favourites. I’ve never seen any band more often than Blue Rodeo, and I’ll argue that they’re Canada’s best band, with Rush as a close second.
Even my parents get points. They sure hated “Big Balls” by AC/DC, but now I own more Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot than they do.
Now, I certainly can’t allow Kathryn to come off as the winner in this chapter. So here’s a punch in the arm for you. There, now we’re even.
I don’t know what I was collecting these quotes for, but I found them on a hard drive recently, and so here are my favourite quotes by Eddie Van Halen!
“I can’t read music. Instead, I’d do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize – out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, ‘Very interesting interpretation!’ I thought I was playing it right.”
“The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.”
“It’s music theory, not music fact”
“If it sounds good, it is good. Who cares if you didn’t do it modernly.”
“To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.”
“I destroyed a lot of guitars trying to get them to do what I wanted, but I learned something from every guitar I tore apart, and discovered even more things.”
“Music is for people. The word ‘pop’ is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I’m just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I’m cool.”
“David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C’mon – Van Halen doing ‘Dancing in the Streets’? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else’s music.”
“It’s all about sound. It’s that simple. Wireless is wireless, and it’s digital. Hopefully somewhere along the line somebody will add more ones to the zeros. When digital first started, I swear I could hear the gap between the ones and the zeros.”
“If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.”
“Actually, if I could deliberately sit down and write a pop hit, all my songs would be pop hits! Let’s put it this way. I play what I like to hear. And sometimes I like to hear something poppy, and sometimes I don’t.”
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