The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano
Episode 36
We have a special show lined up for you tonight — one I have been waiting six months to do! Please join Deke, Mars, and myself tonight as we host the legendary Frank Loffredo, from Thunder Bay’s fine establishment Crocks N Rolls.
Last month, for a limited time, a documentary film by Kirsten Kosloski called Five Bucks at the Door: The Story of Crocks N Rolls was available to stream for free. We were blown away by the musical history at Crocks, and also the guy at the centre of it all: Frank. This is a guy who put every band he could get on the bill, from Quiet Riot and King’s X to Sloan and Deke’s own Current River. You don’t want to miss the stories that he has to tell.
THE CULT – Dreamtime (Originally 1984) / Live at the Lyceum (Originally 1986) (2006 2 CD Beggars Banquet Japanese set)
This was a bit of a surprise to me. Once I got this Japanese pressing in my hot little hands and opened it up, out popped two CDs! This was not advertized on the case. (Well, maybe it was in Japanese, but I can’t read Japanese!) The second CD is the legendary and extremely hard to find live album, Live At The Lyceum. For that live album alone, this Japanese import is worth the price of admission.
The debut album by The Cult is surprisingly solid, a fully-formed vision of the band with complete and catchy songs. For a long time this album was hard to get and all but unknown to “new” fans of the band who thought that it started with Love. This was rectified in the 90’s with numerous reissues, plus many of these songs found their way onto the Pure Cult compilations.
Dreamtime has a punk-like energy. The drums (by Nigel Preston) hit hard. “Horse Nation” and “Spiritwalker” open Dreamtime with a powerful one-two punch. “Gimmick” has soaring vocals with stabbing guitars, coupled with a fast beat that gets the heart racing. The title track has a similar accelerated pace. The Cult are also known for their slower, darker, macabre side. “83rd Dream”, “Bad Medicine Waltz” and “Butterflies” certainly cover that. Dreamtime sounds like an angry young band unwilling to compromise.
Yet tracks like “Go West” had tremendous commercial potential. Memorable, punchy melodies and Ian Astbury singing with all the panache he can muster. “A Flower in the Desert” could be called a ballad if you like. A dour, dusky one. An impactful “Rider in the Snow” has some excellent guitar shimmer.
Gladly, I have found that there is not one weak track on this album. The songs are more challenging and not as instantaneous as Love, but when Astbury’s one-of-a-kind vocals mix with Duffy’s angular guitars, it sounds like the Cult. Period. From aggressive rock songs to mournful dirges like “Bad Medicine Waltz”, this album has a bit of everything that the Cult would later become, in embryonic form. This set contains just the album, the original 10 songs, and none of the B-sides. Don’t fret however as those songs can be found on the Rare Cult set.
Although I got Live at The Lyceum (the original abbreviated cassette which only had eight of the 15 songs) in my teens, I was a stranger to early Cult. This raw live disc (which opens with a bit of Wendy Carlos’ score from The Shining) includes all the songs from the 1983 Death Cult EP: “Christians”, “Horse Nation”, “Ghost Dance” and “Brothers Grimm”. It also includes the blistering Death Cult single “God’s Zoo” live, and the B-side “Bone Bag”. Going even further back, “Moya” predates Billy Duffy, being an early single by Ian’s band Southern Death Cult. It slams with vital energy. As good as this whole live album is, “God’s Zoo” has to be the highlight.
Astbury is as combative as ever, and the crowd eats it up. The energy of this live album is astounding. I strongly encourage you to look for a Japanese copy of this CD for the live album — it is totally worth your time and money to do so. Lyceum was the second Cult album I ever owned (shame it was just a cassette) and I have very fond memories of learning about the Cult’s history by playing that tape over and over.
This Japanese CD release has the original, superior cover art. With the full 15 song version of Live at the Lyceum included, it’s the standout version to own. What an album, and what a live disc to boot. Dig into the Cult.
METALLICA – Death Magnetic(2008 Vertigo Coffin Box)
“What don’t kill ya, make ya more strong!”
Like many bands these days, Metallica decided to release a boxed special edition of Death Magnetic to make a little extra cash. And also like a lot of other bands, this “coffin box” edition was crazy expensive. To me the deciding factor wasn’t all the bells and whistles (and there are a lot of them) it was the inclusion of the exclusive CD Demo Magnetic. This disc includes 10 demo tracks, unfinished and otherwise unreleased versions of the final Death Magnetic songs.
There were only 2000 copies of this made, so if you didn’t pre-order, chances are you gotta pay the late tax.
Contents:
Death Magnetic CD (the digipack version, identical to the retail release)
Demo Magnetic CD
The Making of Death Magnetic DVD
Four imitation guitar picks (made of flimsy plastic, not actual guitar picks)
Exclusive T-shirt
Exclusive bandana
Backstage pass with lanyard
A card with a download code for a free show
Coffin-shaped poster
Death Magnetic is, unfortunately, one of the most famous victims of the Loudness Wars. Why put time and effort into production only to drown it all out in the mastering? Apparently the version of Death Magnetic that was used in the video game Rock Band 3 was mastered “normally”, and is far better. This CD has punch though, I’ll give it that.
On its own the album is worth 4 stars. Mastering aside, It is an above-average collection of typical Metallica rockers. Gone are the nu-metal tendencies of St. Anger and that was the correct move. Clearly, Metallica were reaching back and trying to write riffs that sound like the late 80s and that’s also fine. Metallica are not Dream Theater. They do what they do, and they do it quite well.
Expect typical Metallica riffage, barking Hetfield vocals, the usual Lars drumming, some tasty solos from Kirk, and slamming bass from Robert. That is what Metallica do. It’s not a bad album and some of these songs are damned near as good as the old days. You’ll love “Broke, Beaten & Scarred”, “That Was Just Your Life”, and “The End of the Line”. A favourite song for sheer chorus reasons is “All Nightmare Long”. The demo version (called “Flamingo”) is also really decent.
If you’re a diehard Metallica fan, the kind who owns Fan Cans, then you’ll want this box set for the exclusive music. It’s sure to become a rare collectible.
I didn’t go to the cottage at all in 1994. I was busy with school, then in the summer met a girl, and finally got a job at the Record Store. That was all the distraction I needed to stay home. Girls trumped trees and water. Priorities!
The first summer at the Record Store was a brand new world for me. New faces, new names, new music. Lots and lots of cleaning. “If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean!” went the saying. A lot of the job was tedious. Wednesday was “tape check day”. From A to Z we had to check every cassette in the store and make sure the magnetic security strip was firmly attached. If it wasn’t, we’d get some scotch tape and secure that sucker. My hands always felt so grungy after a day of tape checking.
There was always filing to do, and new stock to price. When we sold a tape or CD, we had to know to re-order them. How was this accomplished? Tapes had a little clear plastic sticker on the back. It had the artist, title and record label written on it. When we sold a tape, we had to file these stickers in a photo album, sorted by record label. Then when the boss was ready to order more stock, he’d flip through the photo album and read the stickers. When we re-stocked the tapes, we had to put the clear sticker back on. CDs were similar except they were in clear bags with the info written on them. The bags were used to re-order discs.
When something new was released, we had to make the stickers and bags for those items too. I remember when T-Rev was hired, he used to leave special releases for me to do the tags and bags for. Kiss Unplugged he specifically left for me, because it was the first Kiss album released during my tenure at the store. The first of many. I drew the Kiss logo on the tag and smiled. Small things like that meant something to me, though after waiting so long for a new Kiss album, it was quite anti-climactic.
We had also started selling used CDs. Some of the first I acquired with my staff discount were Sven Gali’s debut and Chronicles by Rush. Weirdly, I was still buying a lot of cassettes. Kim Mitchell’s brand new one Itch got the staff discount treatment.
In the early days the boss used to give us weekly homework. We had to come in with a current top 10 list every week. This was to ensure that we were familiar with the current hits that people would be asking for. T-Rev did his homework; I did not. I felt like I already knew it all. Before I started at the store, I used to keep on top of “everything the kids were listening to”. I guess the boss recognized that since he didn’t bug me for my homework every week.
I was glad to have this job at the Record Store when in late ’94 my relationship blew up in my face. I compensated by throwing myself into the store. I came in early every day so I could review all the new stock. Business was fairly slow most nights. We were not in a high-traffic mall. We had our regulars and we had our time-wasters. The drunks from the restaurant next door were interesting. Some of them even spent money! None of them were problems, just time wasters. “Tire kickers” as I call them now. Then there were a couple notable janitors. Trevor Atkinson from highschool was one. I wonder what ever happened to that guy? He was certainly a time waster. It’s my theory that he was the cause of the first customer complaint I ever received.
Working in that Record Store was pretty much my whole social life. I didn’t know anybody at school anymore. Through the store, I reconnected with highschool and neighborhood friends that dropped by to shop. Guys like George Balasz and Scott Peddle. The boss didn’t like his employees to socialize at work, but what could you do? It was the local Record Store and I was working in it. I knew lots of people. He socialized far more than I did, but he was “the boss” so nobody could give him shit for it. When one of his friends was in the store, he’d chat it up and get me to take care of everyone else. “Do as I say, not as I do” was another one of his famous demoralizing sayings.
But it was a good job. The boss used to say he was “firm but fair”. For the first few years that was true. For a retail job it was pretty good. We got to listen to music during the shift and we felt like part of a team. It was a special place during a special time. I’m glad I was there before we grew, because that’s when things changed for the worse, from an employment point of view. But for that brief period in the beginning, the Record Store was a part of my identity. I’m still really proud of everything that we did there as a team. I may be critical of some things, but I’m proud of being there on the ground floor when things were about to take off.
GETTING MORE TALE #865: “So I would let it slide…slide like mercury”
In mid-’94, my girlfriend of three months dumped me for the other guy. She was my first breakup. The good news is that eventually they got married and are still together today. I tended to do that to people. When they broke up with me, the next guy is the keeper.
I was young, stupid and immature. We all were. I didn’t know how to deal with this rejection. It hurt like nothing ever hurt before. I had a magazine featuring an interview with Henry Rollins. One of his best quotes in there was about getting dumped and the pain it caused. I couldn’t believe that this big tough guy could be hurt the same as me. What Henry didn’t say in this interview was just how to overcome the pain.
I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and decided that this was the moment I was going to try drinking. I sat there and stared at the bottle, beads of condensation rolling down the label. I looked at it a long time, and put it back in the fridge. I couldn’t stand the taste of beer.
The first song that hit me in the days after the dumping was “Love Song” by Tesla. It was a brand new experience for me: my first breakup song. It was like hearing it for the first time. The impact was all new. I hit repeat and sang that song again and again. The next song that I remember having an impact came later. It was a brand new one: “Descending” by the Black Crowes, taken from their latest amorica.
Released November 1 1994, amorica was the third Crowes disc, and the first during my long tenure at the store. It didn’t take off like other new releases had that season. I gave it a lot of store play. I liked it better than Southern Harmony, though that is a minority opinion. When it clearly wasn’t selling as well as expected, the Boss commented, “Because it’s the same. It’s just the same.” He levelled that judgement at a few new releases that year. They were too similar to the preceding albums. Similar or not, amorica was starting to grow on me.
It came two months after the Great Dumping of ’94, but the wounds were still raw. And evolving. A few friends said, “You have to win her back,” and so I tried mightily. Her brother had become a close friend, which really pissed her off. She was even more enraged when she found out that I was trying to get her back all this time, and the fuel on that fire was the fact that a few of our friends were trying to help me without her knowledge. Yep, an ever changing landscape of scars being ripped open. That was my 1994. “Descending” slipped into my life in the middle of that storm.
The song is calming. Whatever Chris Robinson was actually singing about, I applied the lyrics to my own life.
Have mercy baby, I’m descending again. Open your eyes, This time it’s sink or it’s swim.
I tried not to go out of my way to hurt her, but she and her new boyfriend didn’t have the same rules where I was concerned. To me he seemed to really relish pushing their relationship in my face. I offered an olive branch once — I offered to drive him home when he was stranded out of town at her place. But temporary truces were strictly temporary. So I would put on “Descending” again, or one of the other albums that really impacted me during that period. Balls to Picasso by Bruce Dickinson, Promised Land by Queensryche, and Handful of Rain by Savatage.
None of the songs I was seeking solace in really had lyrics relating to my situation, but I interpreted them as such. One lyric from “Descending” that struck me was the line “But I would let it slide, slide like mercury.” I felt like any time they tried to hurt me, I would just let it slide. Slide like mercury. “All silver, and quick baby, poisonous and deadly.”
I loved the way the pedal steel guitar slides crazily on the fretboard at that exact moment in the song, sounding exactly how mercury skitters about.
We didn’t have the internet but we were all on local “BBS’s” — Bulletin Board Systems. You could put a tagline under your name. I usually had a lyric. “I would let it slide, slide like mercury,” was one of my favourites. It was me saying, “You can’t hurt me.” It wasn’t true, but I wanted them to think that. At one point, he changed his tagline to something like “Stop it with the stupid mercury!” They really hated when I went around quoting lyrics. I know because they said so. Of course that meant I had to keep doing it.
A peace was eventually brokered, and everything was put in the past. Everything that is not forgotten is certainly forgiven. The memories don’t bring pain with them, more a startling realisation. I look back and see a stupid kid who really didn’t know any better. I thought life was like a song. If the girl dumps you, you win her back. That’s what the bands always told us. Not the Crowes though. These messages were foggier. It’s in that misty misunderstanding that you can make the songs your own. “Descending” is just another one of “my” songs.
Have mercy baby, I’m descending again, Open your eyes, This time it’s sink or it’s swim.
No sermons on ascending, No verdict on deceit, No selfish memorandum, No confusion for me.
Curses, curses and clues, A feast for fools.
Have mercy baby, And hand me downs, It was just a few years ago, You’d hand me ups and a map, Right out of town.
But I would let it slide, Like mercury, Silver and quick, Poisonous and deadly, So deadly.
I hope you had a great Halloween. Did you have good fright? If not, check out that picture. I was leaving my office one day and this snow man was just…standing there…in a doorway. Chilling!
Thanks for joining me, “Max the Axe”, for this special episode of Halloween Memories! Where’s Pablo? I’m kind of a big deal. Three yolks, two whites, that’s how you make Hollandaise sauce.
If you watch the video below I’ll give you a sneak preview of the new song “Oktoberfest Cheer” and we’ll visit with special guests “Mean” Gene Simmons and Dr. Kathryn Ladano!
To hear “Oktoberfest Cheer” which I played twice, go to 0:02:35 or 1:31:15. Chose your sound quality — shitty or shittier!
To hang out with Dr. Kathryn, go to 0:13:40.
To see what Mean Gene Simmons has to announce, check out 0:34:05.
It was laundry night, when my phone blew up. Uncle Meat was desperate to get a hold of me. He rang my phone twice and there was a text message to call him immediately. Of course, I was worried about my buddy. If he needed me, I’d be there.
The urgency was apparently musical in nature.
Max the Axe had just finished mixing the three songs that will make up a forthcoming punk EP. He finished that day…a full sweaty day at the studio that ended with “Thirsty and Miserable”, “Pygmy Blowdart” and “Oktoberfest Cheer” on a burned CD-R. The only way for Meat to hear these tracks, songs that he sings on, was convoluted. Max had to physically deliver the CDs to my house, and then I had to rip them to PC and email them to Uncle Meat. That’s how ass-backwards those two guys are with technology.
The bonus in this case is getting an early copy of the still-untitled punk EP, which I assure you, is a killer. But Max was so appreciative of my favour that he randomly gifted me this cool set of Twisted Sister guitar picks. 10 picks mounted on a paper matte, with a cool Twisted Sister picture. Ready for framing. Thank you Max!
What about the EP? “Thirsty and Miserable” is a Black Flag cover with inspiration from Lemmy Kilmister. It’s brilliant is all I can tell you. “Pygmy Blowdart” is an original (Meat stresses that he did not write the lyrics) that sounds like a Josh Homme hit. Finally “Oktoberfest Cheer” is a drunken, sloppy, very messy Kitchener-centric party song that could very well become a local anthem. Oktoberfest actually ended a couple weeks ago, but this song captures the boozy oom-pa-pa of our annual Bavarian celebration. “Don’t crush my smokes, and don’t spill my beer!” I think it’s brilliant in that lager-soaked punk rock tradition. I only heard an early mix, so I hope they take my advice when I say “more accordion”!
Enjoy “Thirsty and Miserable” by Max the Axe featuring lead vocals by Eric “Uncle Meat” Litwiller!
A hearty thank you to Kevin / Buried on Mars, Aaron / Keeps Me Alive, and Eric / Uncle Meat for appearing on this episode of the LeBrain Train! (Conceiving, in Kevin’s case.) And a salute to Derek Kortepeter for submitting a cool list as well. The subject was Van Halen deep cuts and we brought ’em to ya. Any that we forgot came up in viewer comments. And a great show was had by all!
At the start, Kevin and I killed some time looking at some new arrivals, and talking about the forthcoming new punk EP by Max the Axe. (I have a copy and it is killer.) If you want to skip that and go straight to the lists, then start at 0:20:25.
The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano
Episode 34
As suggested by the inimitable Kevin / Buried on Mars, Friday’s show will be the Nigel Tufnel Top 10 Van Halendeep cuts. Join the panel and I as we run through the best stuff they don’t play on the radio. Friday October 30 at 7:00 PM E.S.T.
Episode 35
Halloween Memories! One thing I’ve noticed this year is that many friends are really bummed about the loss of Halloween. I feel bad about this so I thought I’d throw a Halloween live stream party. I used to be a real Halloween kid, so I thought it would be a lot of fun to just talk Halloween memories! I have many good ones going back to the 1970s, and best of all, I will be in costume! Saturday October 31 at 7:00 PM E.S.T.
mikeladano.com 