#941: Design Flaws – the CD Jewel Case

RECORD STORE TALES #941: Design Flaws – the CD Jewel Case

While CD has proven to be an enduring format (40 years old now!), its packaging has been, shall we say, less successful.  I’m not referring to the “long box” packaging that CDs originally came with, a disposable (but now collectible) piece of cardboard that served a couple different purposes.  It enabled stores to display their CDs in existing LP shelving, and it discouraged theft.  It also also created waste, and was phased out rather quickly.  However worse than that is the jewel case, the same damn jewel case we use today.

You are as familiar with the flaws of the traditional jewel case as much as I.  They have a number of common breakage points:

  1. The hinges snap off quite easily.  Hinges are commonly broken in shipping.  This is really a flaw inherited from its predecessor, the cassette jewel cases.
  2. A ring of plastic teeth holds in the CD in by the center hole.  Weak inner rings often came broken right out of the package.  This is a deadly flaw, because it leaves plastic shards underneath the CD itself, jiggling around and scratching the disc.  Plus the CD itself cannot be secured inside and moves around as well.  Ugly disc damage all but guaranteed.
  3. Also often broken during shipping are the little plastic tabs that hold in the CD booklet.  Not a fatal flaw, but an annoying one.
  4. All of this amounts to a tremendous amount of plastic waste when a broken CD case or component is discarded and replaced.

The music industry, driven by environmentally conscious artists such as Pearl Jam and Neil Young, thought to try the digipack as a solution to the packaging and waste problems of the jewel case.  This was only moderately successful.  While making CD packages such as Vitalogy out of paper did keep plastic out of the landfill, it did not help with longevity.  Unless extra care was taken every time, the CD would scratch itself coming in and out of its cardboard sleeve.  Many were eventually rendered unplayable.  And then you have plastic in the landfill again.  These paper sleeves were also prone to damage quite easily.  Shelfware, scuffs and rips are common.

Some decent packaging solutions worked well but never caught on, probably due to cost.  For example, look at the Super Audio CD (SACD) case.  Some regular CDs also came packaged in these “super jewel cases”, such as Queen remasters.  It features a much stronger hinge design and thicker plastic.  Not unbreakable, but certainly more difficult to break.  You can still crack them right across the front, but at least the jewel case will still function the way it was intended to:  holding the CD in securely without damaging the surface.

While there is nothing you can do about a CD case damaged in shipping, if you take a reasonable amount of care of your collection, you will end up with very few broken cases.  At least there’s that!

VIDEO: Max the Axe – “Pygmy Blowdart” – vertical video performance !

“Pygmy Blowdart” (2021 Koutis)

  • Mike Koutis – Guitar
  • Eric Litwiller – Lead Vocals
  • Mike Mitchell – Bass
  • Dr. Dave Haslam – Drums

From the brand new EP Oktoberfest Cheer.

Sunday Chuckle: My Favourite Picture of Uncle Don Don

1975.  My Uncle Don Don had amazing hair.  Naturally red and with curls, and for a while my hair was similar but never as cool.  But what I really love about this photo is the checkered bellbottoms.  For that reason alone, this has been my favourite picture of Uncle Don Don for as long as I can remember.  You knew he was a rocker just by looking at him!

 

VIDEO: Last Summer Weekend at the Lake 2021 / Max the Axe – “Pygmy Blowdart”

Now that the new Max the Axe EP, Oktoberfest Cheer, has been released, I am happy to present to you their new never-before-heard original “Pygmy Blowdart”.  Lead singer Eric Litwiller stressed to me (more than once) “I did not write the lyrics”.

Video footage was taken the last weekend of August, but held on to until I could use some fresh new Max music.  Check out “Pygmy Blowdart” and let Max and Meat know what you think of this new tune in the comments below!

 

Available at Encore Records.

WTF Comments: D-Funk edition

Always a pleasure when a celebrity comes down to read my stuff!  (Remember when Kenny Hotz wasn’t keen on my Kenny Vs. Spenny Season 6 review?)  Hip-hop producer David “D-Funk” Faulk is the latest to stumble upon my writing.  David “D-Funk” Faulk is a King’s X fan.  David “D-Funk” Faulk did not like my review of the King’s X B-side “Junior’s Gone Wild”, as you can see for yourself.

You’re nuts. “Junior’s Gone Wild” kicks fkng ass! As great as anything they’ve ever done. Loved it the first time I heard it and still love it today. The whole critiquing songs is such a dumb thing to do anyway because it’s simply showing one’s desperation to tell others how they should hear the song. If you don’t like it, fine. Don’t listen. Some people love Anne Murray. Some love Frank Zappa. Some love Milli Vanilli or Lil Wayne. It’s so stupid sitting there writing, “Duhh, I think the third verse should have been shorter and the guitar riff is too similar to one of the guitarist’s other songs. How dare he have a style and play anything that sounds like himself!”. blah blah fkn blah. If you can do better, let’s hear it. Critics are the absolute worst.

Thanks, D-Funk!  I never said any of that.  Should I be flattered that he thought I was a critic?  I think so.  I’m going to start referring to myself as “famed critic”.

My response to him went like this:

Here’s what bugs me the most about this dill-hole.

“If you don’t like it, fine. Don’t listen.”

SAME GOES FOR YOU, PAL, If you don’t like it, fine. Don’t read it.

What am I supposed to do? Lie about what appeals to me, just to satisfy the hard-core worshippers? You think it kicks fuckin’ ass. I don’t. You want me to lie about that? It’s the Complete King’s X studio series. You want me to leave out the ones I didn’t like just so you don’t have to read them? Get over yourself.

Coming soon to mikeladano.com:  Only sunny, positive reviews about music that kicks “fking ass”!  Looking forward to my forthcoming series of Def Leppard deep dives?  F’get about it!  Only 4/5 and 5/5 star writeups from now on.  Reviews so positive that they could have been a toothpaste commercial.  That’s the future.  Fuck honesty.  Write anything even remotely critical and you’ll get shithawks like D-Funk dropping turds all over your pages.

Listen to the song, read my review, and tell me if I was being harsh.

#940: My Friend of Misery

RECORD STORE TALES #940: My Friend of Misery

“You insist that the weight of the world,
Should be on your shoulders,
There’s much more to life than what you see,
My friend of misery.”

James Hetfield may as well have been talking about me.  But it’s not that simple.  I don’t insist the weight of the world should be on my shoulders.  I’d give anything to take some of the weight off.  But I have a lot of responsibility.

Having somebody’s dirty bathwater leaking all over my floor and carpet the last two weeks has pushed me to the breaking point.

“These times are sent to try men’s souls,
But something’s wrong with all you see,
You, you’ll take it on all yourself,
Remember, misery loves company.”

Trying to be proactive about my health, I took a hiatus from writing.  We now have the plumbing fixed.  There’s plenty of damage to repair and lots of stress.  But I think maybe it’ll be OK dipping my toe back into writing.  A little bit.  Cross fingers, knock wood that nothing else gets fucked up.

Metallica has been a soothing remedy.  I haven’t listened to old Metallica in a long time.  This 14 CD / 6 DVD / 6 LP box set is something else.  I’ve played all the LPs and now I’m into the CDs.  James’ riffs tapes range from startling to suck!  The initial “Sad But True” riff is painfully badly recorded.  But a 22 second snippet of a punk rock “Unforgiven” is a truly cool moment.  There’s a lot to go through here.  Metallica have been taking my mind off things.

I did discover something interesting about my car stereo.  It seems to be able to read files that have been deleted.  When you “delete” something off a hard drive, it doesn’t necessarily go away unless you overwrite it.  My car appears to be able to read tracks like this.  This weekend I ripped the massive Metallica box set, and replaced the old album on my hard drive with the newly remastered one.  I also took the time to rip all my Load, Reload and Garage Inc. CD singles to the hard drive.  A complete set of singles, I might add.  Up until St. Anger, the only Metallica release I was only missing was The 6½ Year Anniversary 12″ EP and a “Neckbrace” remix of “Whiplash” (still need both).

On to the car.  The easiest way for me to clean up the car’s hard drive was to completely delete the Metallica folder and then copy over a new one.  What I discovered when I jumped in the fire…I mean car…was that the car drive now had two copies of Kill ‘Em All, Master of Puppets, etc.  My original rip of the Metallica CD was still there, even though I deleted it.  So it seems my car can read deleted files, at least until they are eventually overwritten.

The annoying thing about this is that because of the way the car reads the ID3 tags, each song gets played twice in a row.  So when I play Kill ‘Em All, I get “Hit the Lights”, then “Hit the Lights”, “The Four Horsemen”, “The Four Horsemen”, and so on.  I can fix this but it’s annoying.

So much to fix.  And I haven’t touched on the family health challenges of late.  Some things should stay private.

So let’s try a little writing again.  Because I want to give this Metallica box set a good solid listen, and I’m only about 1/6th of the way through, I won’t be writing up reviews for a little while.  Instead I’ll be focusing on Record Store Tales, a real WTF of a comment, and a new feature.  Now that I’m not trying to constantly keep my floors dry, I can try to be creative again.

I can try.  Yoda says “Do, or do not, there is no try.”

I say “Fucked, you must get, Yoda.”  I’m doing the best I can here!

REVIEW: Leatherwolf – Street Ready (1989 Japanese import)

LEATHERWOLF – Street Ready (1989 Island/Polystar Japan)

Leatherwolf progressed in just three albums from an unremarkable thrash band to a melodic, heavy rock quintet with a knack for a hook.  They also had a gimmick: the “Triple Axe Attack”.  Unlike most bands of the time, Leatherwolf boasted three guitarists.  Geoff Gayer and Carey Howe handled the leads while singer Michael Olivieri played the rhythm.  Their first album was just OK, but on their second they signed to a major label and had some decent production.  They also wrote better tunes, and embellished their sound with keyboards and ballads.

By the third, their songwriting chops had really grown.  In the end, this album is less heavy than the first two; a little more straightforward. It still retains thrash metal aspects mixed with ballads, but on the whole this album is more middle of the road.  Track for track, it’s free of filler and each song has some kind of memorable hook that makes return visits a pleasure.

Traditional metal guitar harmonies and thrashing chords blend on the opener “Wicked Ways”, which careens from slow to fast and back again.  Focus is solidly on the guitars, though Michael Olivieri certainly blows all the fuses on lead vocals.  A great melding of styles, like an 80s Iron Maiden song fueled by nuclear fusion.

For a song called “Street Ready”, a dirty groove is most appropriate.  That’s where Leatherwolf take this nasty little tune with bite.  The riff recalls their single “The Calling” from the previous album.  But the first single this time was the balladesque “Hideaway”. A power ballad with the emphasis on power.  Singer Michael Olivieri had a great range and plenty of lung capacity.  A ballad with bite.

Back to heavy, “Take A Chance” is quite thrash, but faster than the mainstream.  The choppy riff could have come from an early Scorpions album, when they had sting.  Keeping the pace is “Black Knight”, an instrumental thrash rocker with amazing drumming courtesy of Dean “Drum Machine” Roberts.  Faster and heavier than anything since their debut.

Back when albums had sides, side two opened with a big powerful anthem, a roll of bass, and earthshaking chorus.  “I am the thunder that starts the rain.”  This song must have been a killer live.  Slow in pace, but the weight comes from that heavy anthemic feeling, defying the storm.

A second ballad “The Way I Feel” is soft by comparison, but doesn’t lack backbone.  Comparable to “Share A Dream” from the last album. Not for everyone — thrash metal people should certainly avoid.  Everyone else will enjoy its melodic power.  Speaking of power, back in that direction is the ragged “Too Much”, careening off the rails at top acceleration.

“Lonely Road” takes us back to huge anthem territory, like “Thunder”, but faster.  A soft keyboard intro is deceptive.  This ain’t no ballad.  This is a banger; you have to let it get going.  They go full-on for closer “Spirits In The Wind”.  Great tune with lots of metal guitar thrills.

In Japan however that wasn’t the closer.  A bonus track “Alone in the Night” is tacked on for added value.  This originated on the 1988 Return of the Living Dead Part II soundtrack (which also featured Zodiac Mindwarp and two Anthrax tunes).  It has a thinner sound to it, indicating it came from a separate recording session.  Not one of Leatherwolf’s better songs, but not a throwaway either.  Just not as memorable, but a valuable addition.

Song for song, Street Ready is the best Leatherwolf album.  Metal bands just don’t try to sound like this anymore.

5/5 stars

 

Rest in Peace Norm Macdonald (1959-2021)

Norm Macdonald had been fighting cancer for nine years, and none of us knew about it.  That takes guts, to just keep on keeping on.  What a man Norm Macdonald must have been.

Side-splittingly funny.  Like most of us, I first saw Norm on Saturday Night Live.  Then came my favourite, Dirty Work, and of course all the understated brilliance that’s waiting on YouTube for you to discover.

His style was like his fingerprint.  Laid back.  Meandering.  Riveting.

There are others who can say it better than I can, so go on Twitter and read what they wrote.  Seth Rogen cites Norm as a prime influence.  Tom Green counts him as a friend.  Hearts are broken today.  So have a laugh courtesy of Norm Macdonald.  Rest in peace

 

#939: The Frog in the Pool

Cousin Geoff’s grandparents on his dad’s side owned a huge piece of property in the country with a swimming pool, and the most amazing landscape to explore.  Grassy fields gave way to trees, and I don’t think we ever hit the end of the property when we went walking.  It simply went on forever.  Any time we went there, it was a treat.  We spent a few days at the property that summer, swimming and running pretending we were Jedi or superheroes.  The house had an amazing “back yard”.  There was a steep downwards incline, which you traversed via a series of stairs and landings.  To us it was huge!   It seemed like you were climbing down a mountain.  At the bottom: the swimming pool and all the land you could run through for hours. – Record Store Tales #909

RECORD STORE TALES #939:  The Frog in the Pool

The most precious of childhood memories took place around that swimming pool.   I remember my grandpa picking me up like I was a rag doll and tossing me into the water.  Then I’d swim back and ask him to do it again.

There’s a funny old picture of my grandpa at poolside.  I remember that he liked to roll his own cigarettes.  I remember the tobacco tins and my mom having to explain to me what he was doing.  Well apparently he really loved to do it.  In this photo, he obviously packed up all his tobacco and rolling gear, and just sat there at poolside rolling cigarettes!  He looks so happy with a huge pile of tobacco in front of him.  It strikes me as hilarious that he brought all that stuff with him to spend a day at the pool.

Sergeant Winter reporting for duty.

There’s one notable event that happened at that pool that we don’t have pictures of.

I was really young.  Just a few years old.  And I must have had to go bad, so I pooped in the pool.  I remember the little teeny brown nugget at the bottom of the pool.  “Nobody will notice,” I told myself.

Well they noticed a lot sooner than I thought, so I resorted to my “plan B”.  I thought the little poop looked like a frog at the bottom of the pool, so that’s what I claimed it was.  “Just a frog”.  Nobody bought it and somebody got a pool scooper and picked up my poop.  I probably denied that it was mine right to the very end.  This might actually be my first admission that I pooped in the pool!

No it was not a frog.  It was me.  I confess.