Sunday Screening: The new LeBrain Train intro

Thanks to everyone who watched or shared Friday’s show, I really appreciate it! I think the new, shorter format is going to work. I also think the new intro video is pretty cool. We haven’t got a version that includes every single person who has ever been on the show, but it is a sampling of some very cool people who mean a lot to me. I hope you find yourself in this video! Music by Tee Bone Erickson.

Top 5 Album Openers, on the opening of the new LeBrain Train

Streamlined lists, and three of the most passionate rock fans on the planet came together last night for the relaunch of the new LeBrain Train!  The topic was Top Five Album Openers, and the guests were Uncle Meat and Harrison the Mad Metal Man! We call it “Cinco De List-O” and although the lists were shorter, we made sure we didn’t skimp on the analysis and appreciation.

Every one of the songs listed tonight deserve some time in your ears.  You can read the lists below, or have some real fun and watch the show!

Big thanks to my two co-hosts tonight, for what I think was a pretty damn good re-launch.  Let’s pour on the steam and this train a-rollin’ again.

Note:  Apologies to Max the Axe for playing the wrong version of “Pygmy Blowdart” at the top of the show.  I loaded the early cut into Streamyard.

 

 

 

Cinco De List-O: The New LeBrain Train

It’s back!

The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano

Episode α – Cinco De List-O – Top Five Album Opening Tracks

 

Welcome back to the show, everyone!  Break time has been fruitful, and working closely with the Meat Man, we’ve decided to set aside the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten for now.  In the effort of revamping and streamlining the show, as painful as it is, we have to let go the lists of 11 for the time being.  It was our gimmick, a gift from Uncle Meat, and it worked brilliantly. We did some amazing list shows over the last 18 months and we have the graphs to prove it.  But I need the episodes to run under three hours if I’m to come back to do this again.

Tonight is a trial run.  We’re going to try lists of five instead.  (This is something Martin Popoff suggested to us a year ago.)  Tee Bone calls it “Cinco De List-D” and that’s just too good to pass up so we’re going with it.  Harrison and Uncle Meat will be on hand to discuss our Top Five Album Opening Tracks.  What a great subject for “opening” this new era of the LeBrain Train.

Friday October 1, 7:00 PM E.S.T. on Facebook:  MikeLeBrain and YouTube:  Mike LeBrain.

#943: Irate With a Beeper!

RECORD STORE TALES #943: Irate With a Beeper!

There was once a time before we had our infamous “no questions asked” return policy.  In 1996, we were able to…shall we say, “express ourselves” more freely as managers of Record Stores.

We learned from the best, and we didn’t take kindly to someone trying to rip us off.   Some time in early September 1996, I received a call from T-Rev at his own store.  “Mikey,” he said, “Just a warning.  There’s a guy coming your way with the new Rush CD, that he wants to return.  Now I had a look at it, and it is just hacked.  There was no way he opened it like that.  I wouldn’t let him return it.  You’ll see what I mean when he gets there.  He’s this little short guy with glasses and short hair.  You’ll know him when you see him.”  A prepared myself for the Rush fan with Napoleon complex.

The new Rush album, Test For Echo, was received with mixed reactions.  We started seeing used copies early on, traded in by ordinary fans (albeit impatient ones) who simply didn’t like it.  T-Rev and I both thought it was a step down from Counterparts, while acknowledging that sometimes a Rush album needs time.  We liked a couple tracks, and disliked a few as well.  (“Dog Years” and “Virtuality” were on the shit list.)  We were not surprised to see people returning it, but Nerdlinger here was unique.

The little guy stormed in, straight up to the counter, and asked to return the Rush CD.  “I don’t like it,” he said simply.  I dutifully opened the case and, as T-Rev has warned, the disc was mangled.  Probably due to a car CD deck, which were common and had a habit of murdering discs.

“I’m sorry,” I began, “but I can’t take this back.  It’s seen some pretty serious use and it’s scratched up really bad.”  I didn’t know what else to say.  “I’m sorry,” I added lamely.

He was irate.  “‘Seen some serious use’?” he quoted back to me.  “How?  I just got it at your other store.  It’s a day old!”

Customers always asked “how” their CDs got scratched.  How the fuck am I supposed to know what he did with it?

“I don’t know how it got scratched up this bad, but they don’t come this way out of the shrinkwrap.”  I grabbed our store play CD to show him.  “See, this is one we just opened a few days ago and we’ve been playing it every day.”  He glared through his glasses at our copy.

He insisted he didn’t scratch it, that he bought it that way from T-Rev’s store and he wouldn’t return it.

I didn’t know what else I could say.  “Well, I showed you what they look like coming out of the shrinkwrap.”  Then, poking the bear just a smidge, I chided, “Did you drop it?”

“NO, I didn’t drop it!” he expressed in a mocking tone.  Knowing he was not going to get anywhere with me, he left.  And, much like many tenacious customers of his guilt-free mindset, he returned later that day on the night shift.  A time he assumed I wouldn’t be working.  But he didn’t get anywhere with the night staff.  They knew something wasn’t right about it and asked him to return when the manager is in.  So, like any douchebag worth his salt, he left a pager number for me to call the next day.

“Oh, joy” I said to myself upon seeing the note waiting for me.

I never called a beeper before.  I noted the occasion for its novelty.

A short while later, Nerdlinger stormed back into the store with his Rush CD.  He must have been so dejected upon seeing I was the manager.

And so for a second time I refused to return his CD, and he did the usual expected temper tantrum.  I’m never shopping here again, I’m telling all my friends, I’m this and you’re that.

And life got incrementally better, knowing I’d never have to see that fucking Nerdlinger again.

 

#942: My Brushes With Metallica

RECORD STORE TALES #942: My Brushes With Metallica

I don’t mind admitting that my first Metallica was Load.  Yeah, I was one of them.  Hate on if you gotta.

Like many my age, the first exposure came in 1988 via their first music video:  “One”.  To say the visuals were disturbing would be accurate.  Although I did enjoy the song, I didn’t feel the need to hit “record” on my VCR when it come on.  Other kids at school sure liked it, and copies of Johnny Got His Gun were claimed to have been read by some of them.  I figured I could continue to live without Metallica.

The Black album was released in 1991.  I was watching live when Lars Ulrich called in to the Pepsi Power Hour to debut the new music video for “Enter Sandman”.  The new, streamlined and uber-produced Metallica looked and sounded good to me.  I loved when James said “BOOM!” and thought that hooking up with Bob Rock had worked out brilliantly.  The sonics were outstanding.  While I enjoyed the singles Metallica released through the next couple years, I never took a dive and bought the album.  Why?

Three main reasons.  The key one was that I knew, even before I knew I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, that I would feel compelled to collect all the Metallica singles that I had missed over the years.  That was, as yet, a bridge too far.  Second reason was that I satisfied my craving for that style of Metallica in 1992 when Testament came out with The Ritual.  It had a track like “Sandman” called “Electric Crown”.  It had a song like “Sad But True” called “So Many Lies”.  It was perfect for my needs.  Thirdly, for whatever reason I didn’t think I was going to enjoy “old” Metallica, which again, I would feel compelled to collect.

When I started working at the Record Store in 1994, I had the night shifts alone.  I could play whatever I wanted and sometimes I gave Metallica a spin.  I can remember “Enter Sandman” coming on while I was cleaning, and saying to a customer, “Man I love this song!”  He nodded awkwardly and wondered why I was telling him.

A bit later I was hanging out with this guy Chris.  He was extolling the virtues of thrash metal, and put on Kill ‘Em All.  I was astonished when “Blitzkrieg” came on.  “I know this song!  I love this song!”  I exclaimed as I jumped up.  Air guitar in hand, I started bangin’ to the riff.  “This is a song by Blitzkrieg,” I explained to Chris.  “It’s on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal CD that Lars Ulrich produced.  I didn’t know he covered it.”

This is the point at which I like to say I became a Metallica fan.  Collecting the older stuff was still daunting, and a lot of it was expensive because it was out of print.  Which is really why it took Load for me to finally buy a Metallica CD.

1996 was a glorious but so stressing summer!  I was managing my own Record Store for the first time.  The weather was gorgeous.  The stock we had was incredible.  The stress came from staff, which turned over faster than a dog begging for belly rubs!  There was “Sally” who was caught paying herself excessive amounts of cash for the used CDs she was selling to the store.  There was The Boy Who Killed Pink Floyd who came to work hungover and worse.  And, most trying of all, music sucked for people like me who missed the great rock of the 70s and 80s.

On June 4, Metallica released Load to great anticipation.  Their new short-haired look (a Lars and Kirk innovation) turned heads and it was said that Metallica had abandoned metal and gone alternative.  Of course this was stretching the truth a tad.  Metallica had certainly abandoned thrash metal on Load, and arguably earlier.  Alternative?  Only in appearance (particularly Kirk Hammett with eye makeup and new labret piercing).

Load was the kind of rock I liked.  The kind of rock I missed through the recent alterna-years.  I had been buying Oasis CDs just to get some kind of new rock in my ears.  Finally here comes Metallica, with the exact kind of music that I liked, and at the exact time I needed it.

And yes, I did immediately start collecting the rarities and back catalogue.  Garage Days and Kill ‘Em All (with “Blitzkrieg” and “Am I Evil?”) were both out of print at that time.  I snapped up the first copies I could get my hands on, when they came in used inventory.  We were selling them for $25 each, no discount.  I later found a copy of a “Sad But True” single featuring the coveted “So What” at Encore Records for $20.  The new Load singles were added to my collection upon release.  The truth is, I picked the best possible time to get into Metallica collecting:  when I was managing my own used CD store!  I soon had the “Creeping Death” / “Jump In the Fire” CD.  A Japanese import “One” CD single only cemented what a lucky bastard I was to be working there.

Because Metallica came to me relatively later in life, today they never provoke the kind of golden memories that Kiss or Iron Maiden do.  However the summer of ’96 was defined by Metallica.  Driving the car, buddy T-Rev next to me, playing drums on his lap.  His hands and thighs got sore from playing car-drums so hard.  Load was our album of the summer and it sounded brilliant in the car.  Hate if you hafta, but that’s the way it went down for this guy in the dreary 90s.

 

VIDEO: Mail Call! 6 CDs from Robert

I thought these six CDs had been lost in the mail. I am so, so glad to be wrong.

#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!