I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a pest. Sometimes when I’m out with Jen, I’ll sneakily reach over and tickle her while pretending I did nothing. It drives her nuts, but it used to make her mom smile. When I used to drive them around, Jen’s mom would sit in the back. When I was stopped at a red light I’d sneak a tickle. Jen would scold me and then her mom would say “Listen to Jen, Michael.” Then I’d turn around and she’d wink at me and whisper “Do it again!” So I would, and Jen wouldn’t believe me that her mom was encouraging me!
Jen’s mom was a special lady. We only lost her two years ago, so I’m always happy to share those stories that make us smile.
Thanks to Greg Fraser, Patrick Gagliardi, and surprise guest Brian Hamilton of Storm Force for joining me on a Friday night! It was a free-form chat tackling subjects such as:
The album Age of Fear
Memorable impact gigs
Canadian Rock
New music
Secrets to singing
Thunder Bay
Touring and touring and touring
Brighton Rock and Gerry McGhee
And much much more!
In addition I did a CD reveal for this week’s mail. New music from Amazon! Check it out if you want to know what I’ll be spinning this weekend.
For the CD reveals, start at 0:04:15 of the stream.
For Storm Force, skip to 0:16:50of the stream.
Thanks again to Greg, Pat, and Brian for setting this chat up. It was the first but won’t be the last.
I am beyond psyched to welcome Greg Fraser and Patrick Gagliardi of STORM FORCE to the show tonight!
If you didn’t already know, Storm Force released their debut album Age of Fear in January. Nine months later it remains one of the best records of the year. If you haven’t heard it yet, you will want to after our chat with Patrick and Greg. It’s been praised by reviewers from Canada, the US, Australia and Sweden as a must-hear for fans of melodic hard rock “the way you remember it”.
Tune in at 7:00 PM E.S.T. at the location of your preference below.
As this summer flies by, I’m reminded of seasons past. My dad always took the same vacations in the summer: one week in July and two in August. That means we’d be up at the cottage for that time, and I wanted to be well stocked with music. Meaning, I had to bring all my music. All my cassettes, all my vinyl. Everything.
It was a process, to say the least. All my tape cases had to be wedged between seats of the car, and I had “a few” tape cases. Then I took apart my jury-rigged stereo setup and carefully prepared it for transportation. I taped down the tone arm on the turntable so it wouldn’t fly about. I packed up all my wires, head cleaners, and record brushes. My ghetto blaster and record player were loaded onto a seat in the car, with my dad’s old 8-track deck/receiver at the bottom. I was using it as a pre-amp for the turntable, and it worked after a fashion.
My treasured Kiss cassettes were not in a case. They occupied a shelf in my bedroom, with two custom ceramic Kiss bookends. I placed the bookends and tapes into a plastic grocery bag for transport. Upon arrival at the lake, I set them all up on another shelf, always in chronological order. It’s funny to think that I didn’t get an obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis until I was in my 40s. I was pretty clearly already there in my early teens.
Once I got everything hooked up again at the cottage (stealing extension cords from other rooms), I’d begin blasting the rock. With OCD firmly in control, I first had to finish listening to whatever tape was in my Walkman during the car trip. Only then would I choose what I would be listening to that night.
It’s all very clearly obsessive behaviour, but I guess people were not as aware of various mental health issues back then in the 80s.
Then and now, I loved listening to music at the lake. I liked to blast it, which sometimes earned a noise complaint from the parents. They were pretty good about it though. They indulged my musical obsession though never quite understanding it. I only had one true love and it was rock and roll.
Something else I enjoyed very much was buying new music while on summer vacation at the lake. There were not many stores that carried anything good. Don’s Hi-Fi, and Stedman’s were all that was available when I was really young. They sure didn’t have much. Still, listening to Priest…Live! when it was brand new, and breaking the seal at the lake was special. It’s hard to articulate exactly what was special about it. Your normal listening space is a familiar place. Most things you hear, you first played in your own home. When you get to experience an album on less familiar territory for the first few times, it develops a different flavour. It’s not something you can hear, it’s just something you can feel. I guess that’s why I always see myself playing darts in the back yard at the lake every time I hear Priest…Live!
Perhaps that is a feeling only a music obsessive gets.
When we returned from vacation, it felt like I would be welcoming my new albums into their new home. This is where you live now, Priest. This is where I am going to be experiencing you from now on.
Weird, right?
I never claimed to be normal. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve often boasted of not just “liking” music, but actually “loving” it deeply. Maybe the only thing I’m actually boasting about is mental illness!
Whatever. These are all good memories. Although I speak fondly of it today, as a kid I would have chosen to stay home if I was old enough. I missed being away from my friends, my rock magazines, my Pepsi Power Hour and all that stuff. I missed talking about and listening to music with my best friend Bob. Truth told, by packing up all music with me and hauling it up to the lake, I was trying to retain one aspect of being at home, which is my music collection. Today the obsession remains, but I can do the same job with a laptop. Crazy! I never would have imagined that as a kid.
There are worse things to be hooked on other than rock and roll. If it makes you feel so good, can it be so bad?
As you’re aware, I’ve been doing a lot of introspection lately. I hope you don’t mind. A lot of my reflection has been to my distant past. As I look back, I am reminded how music was always there in my life. One of my first truly beloved records was the original soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back. The bombast, drama and power of those pieces really appealed to me. It’s safe to say that I discovered music through Star Wars and John Williams. Until they came along, music was just something that was around me. It wasn’t inside me until Star Wars.
They stopped making Star Wars movies (or did they…?) in 1983, coincidentally the same year that Quiet Riot released Metal Health, and Styx came out with “Mr. Roboto”. I simply jumped from one train to the other! They were both going in the same direction so it wasn’t much of a leap. Rock music was very much about bombast, drama and power. And it stuck with me, bonded at a molecular level.
But why metal? There were other trains I could have boarded. At school, every other kid was into Duran Duran. I couldn’t have given a crap about Duran Duran, even if they were in a James Bond movie! So why metal?
The first factor to examine would be peer groups. Essentially, I had two: the school kids and the neighbourhood kids. The school kids were, frankly, assholes. But none of them lived in my neighbourhood. It was like growing up in two separate worlds. My classmates weren’t near me and I was fine with that. Every time I came home, it was like I had entered a safe zone. The older kids in my neighbourhood were legends. Bob Schipper, Rob Szabo, and George Balasz. They were the ones I looked up to and they were all rocking the metal. Szabo’s favourite bands? Motley Crue and Stryper. Balasz liked Kiss. Schipper was into Iron Maiden.
We would gather on front stoops with boomboxes powered by D-cell batteries. Van Halen cassettes would be passed around like a joint. I heard Maiden Japan by Iron Maiden on my front patio for the first time because George brought it over. The guys were eager to educate me. Quiet Riot, Helix, Judas Priest, W.A.S.P., Black Sabbath were names I was trying to memorize. I had a few things mixed up though. I thought the song “Sister Christian” by was Motorhead, because when they sing “Motorin’!” I heard “Motorhead”. So sure.
On the other hand, the peer group at school was mostly what we called “wavers”. They liked Mr. Mister and Michael Jackson and whatever else, I simply wanted nothing to do with it. At an instinctive level, I think these people repulsed me. I had witnessed and been victim to their cruelty. I wanted nothing to do with their music or their sports and I think that was largely unconscious. I would have loved if they liked me instead of mocking me; it would have made life easier. Obviously I had given up trying. So why not? Heavy metal music was like Musica proibita in Catholic school. There were a few headbangers — I didn’t like them either — but just a few. Those guys thought it was hilarious that I was still into Quiet Riot in 1985 when they had moved onto Van Halen. They would challenge me to “name three songs by Helix” to see if they could trip me up. That was the difference between the rock guys at school, and my friends at home. The guys at home would have just taught me what songs were by Helix.
Fucking school assholes.
An other notable factor on the road to heavy metal that has to be mentioned is the one nobody wants to talk about: puberty! But it is true that the bands I was discovering were (mostly) masculine manly men, and soon I would be wanting to attract a mate like they taught us in sex ed class. To exude masculinity, I chose metal. I am certain that was a conscious decision. Despite the long hair, the guy in Iron Maiden was clearly a tougher dude than the guy in Duran Duran. If there was going to be a fistfight, I wanted to be on the Maiden guy’s side. Easy choice. It seemed that simple in grade seven.
Of course, heavy metal music had the opposite effect in trying to attract girls. It absolutely repelled them, every single one of them. The fact that I just went double-down on the metal showed that my love for the music was genuine. Girls didn’t like metal, but I did, and I was already too committed to discovering all the bands I could. I was living in the rabbit hole.
A gleaming, riveted stainless steel rabbit hole. With a million watt stereo system.
Parental approval? Not really. Though they liked Bob Schipper, they didn’t know what to make of this metal music. They tolerated it, and never gave me a hard time about any of the bands I liked. They probably would have preferred Springsteen like the family across the street listened to. But hey, they bought me the tapes I wanted for Christmas, and they let me tape the videos on TV, so a big applause to my parents. I think my dad was worried that I was becoming such an introvert. I remember him telling me “Garnet Lasby doesn’t sit in his room listening to tapes all day.”
When he said that, all I could hear in my head were the Kiss lyrics, “Get me out of this rock and roll hell, take me far away.” I was so confused. I loved listening to music in my room. The only thing better was listening to music with my friends. Was it bad? I really thought about it, but obviously decided to follow my heart.
One more factor in my journey to metal that is easily overlooked but must be accounted for: the fact that rock and roll is one big soap opera with enough drama, violence and musical brilliance to fill an entire Star Wars trilogy. As my friends taught me the songs, they also introduced me to the stories. “This is Randy Rhoads. He was the greatest until he died in a plane crash.” And Kiss? Woah nelly, there was every kind of story within Kisstory! How many guitar players? And crazy costumes and characters to go with the story? Buying a Kiss album was never just “buying a Kiss album”. It was always buying a issue of a comic book. What would Kiss sound like this time? What seedy subjects would they be wrestling with on a lyrical level? What would the cover look like and what colour would the logo be?
It seems obvious now, but the only way for me to go was metal. In every single alternate universe, I am a metal fan.
Music allowed me to rewrite my persona a bit. I hoped that, instead of that nerdy kid with the Star Wars fetish, I would be remembered as the nerdy kid that was really into music. (Music that is still popular today, incidentally.) Why metal? Because it really only could have been metal.
As always, I was asked to introduce songs at this year’s Sausagefest. I’d like to share some of them with you so you can get a taste of what I do for the Fest.
These four are only some of my favourites this year. I did 10 intros altogether and the longest was about nine minutes. That’s my actual favourite, but it was less about the track intro, and more about inside jokes that mean nothing to you. I also did a well-received Neil Peart tribute as part of my “Passage to Bankok” intro but you can just read it here as it was previously posted in its original text form.
Below is a medley of four intros and one outro. Some notes before you proceed:
Because it’s 2020 and why the fuck not, I understand they did the countdown in reverse order this year. Starting at #1 going down to #100. I didn’t know that when I recorded these.
I like to lift bits from cartoons like Rick & Morty and American Dad. You will hear some. These are not my original bits, just funny things that work as transitions from whatever Tom & Meat had going on before me.
Afroman has been a point of contention. I do not believe Afroman has a place at Sausagefest but they vote it in every year and then make me introduce it. This year I fought back by putting in 0% effort. (50 second mark)
Better than the Afroman intro was the outro which you will also hear. I “interviewed” Werner Herzog about Sausagefest and people that vote for Afroman. (2 minute 15 second mark)
The Herzog bit was probably the most complex to edit. I downloaded random Werner interviews and found a perfect part where he was talking about chickens.*
Getting Darth Vader on Cameo was a real stroke of luck! (3 minute 45 second mark)
* I had to surgically create the word “one” out of the word “chicken” in order for it to make sense. Now you’ll notice but before you wouldn’t.
15 years seems like a long time even though it’s really just a blink of an eye. My life changed forever 15 years ago. That’s when I met Jen. A big gaping hole in my heart was filled forever that day. There was never really a question that she was the “right” one for me. She always knew.
She had my back from the start and helped give me the confidence that I needed to finally quit the Record Store. Since 2000, the environment there had become extremely toxic and I needed to get out for my own health. If she didn’t have my back, I wouldn’t have left and my sanity would have been frayed.
This extra-mushy post has been brought to you by love.
Our first few years together were filled with dreams. We talked about what we wanted to do for our wedding and what we were going to name our kids.*
Then she got sick. That put the brakes on some of our plans. Her doctor wanted us to wait to have kids. When her health got under control, we thought, we could have as many as we wanted. Two seemed like a great number. A boy and a girl. I really wanted a baby girl. As time went on we realized it was never going to happen.
“Why don’t you just adopt?” asked people who didn’t know our situation. Adoption stopped being possible when her health got worse. The reality was we needed someone to babysit her, not someone for us to babysit. It has been a tough reality but I’ve never regretted any of it. I’d rather live with just the two of us, than have kids with somebody else. If this is what our lives were meant to be, then so be it.
After we got married and settled in, we had to deal with loss after loss after loss. We still paid off the condo, and just rolled with everything that life threw at us. Every time one of us feels like giving up, the other one says “no way”. We’ve come too far to throw in the towel now. The things we’ve endured together would slay lesser mortals. Sometimes at night, I’ll just lie there thinking about how lucky I am.
We keep on keepin’ on. Because of her, love songs are sweeter and breakup songs don’t sting like they used to. We live quiet lives now but I’m never, ever bored. She gives me the time, space and inspiration to keep on writing. In exchange she can watch all the sports she wants! It’s a pretty sweet deal and I’ll never take for granted what a lucky bastard I am.
* She has never approved of my choice, Spencer Peter Oscar Carl Kevin. Spell out the initials.
You don’t have to feel obligated to watch this video. These videos are more for me than anyone else. This time I wanted to keep intact the camera audio from the weekend. The sights and sounds (and smells, natch) of the countryside are preserved here. Instead of mixing my still and moving pictures as I usually do, all the stills can be found in the latter part of this video accompanied by the track “Masked” by Dr. Kathryn Ladano.
I saw a lot of birds this weekend (including geese and a family of wild turkeys) and managed to capture a bit on video. Nature lovers will enjoy the wildlife and greenery, the stormy skies and the churning lake. There are some seriously breathtaking pictures of the sky in this video, as well as a blooper and cameos by Sith Lords and Sausagefesters.
Wind and rain aside, it was a lovely weekend full of music, live streaming, barbecuing and the beach.
The steel mill where I work has been there for decades. As we clean it nooks and crannies preparing for closure, we keep unearthing the funniest stuff. One that that work places have to do is replace microwave ovens every few years. I guess they used to package coobooks specific to the microwave with them many years ago. From underneath who-knows-what, we excavated the two books seen below. (The more recent of the two below was dated 1994, the other had no date. Can you guess by the graphic design which is the book from 1994?)
I find them hilarious. Microwave specific recipes! I either a) just reheat stuff or n) follow the instructions on the box! Mmmmmm! Look at that…roll of something? Salmon? Looks like salmon. Mmm, microwaved salmon.
Jen dug up this Facebook note that I wrote on August 8, 2008. I thought it would be nice to include as part of Getting More Tale. Even back in 2008, I was excited about Sausagefest and bitching about the Record Store. The wedding was August 31, 2008 and I was obviously very excited.
GETTING MORE TALE (Retro) #853: “The wedding is coming and life is very sweet!”
I can’t believe I haven’t written a note in more than a month. If you had told me that getting married was this much work, I wouldn’t believe you. Actually, some of you DID tell me that getting married was this much work, and I didn’t believe you.
However it wouldn’t have changed anything. I still love my crazy Leafs girl and would have married her anyway.
So what’s new? Well, last I wrote, I was just about to head to Sausagefest. I did and it was awesome. The new format needs a little work* I think, there were a few kinks in the tape. Meat, Tom and Haslam hosted a great party and we had an awesome time. Even Tyler’s dog Zeppelin didn’t bug me this time. And Zach’s lamb was DELECTABLE. My compliments to the Chef Britton.
After that, I turned 36…wow…unbelievable! However I will still tell people that I am 26.
Work is great. Unbelievable amount of responsibility and it weighs heavy sometimes. However I have been there over a year now, and it looks to be like I will be there a long time to come. There will be news about that soon but I can’t talk about that yet.**
It’s interesting. I spent 11 1/2 years working in the record store, working my way up, until there was nowhere left to work up to. A lot of people wish they could have worked in a record store, and I’m glad to say that I did it. I always have the best work stories,*** and I’m glad to say that with the glow of nostalgia, all the stories are good ones.*^ However everyone grows up, everyone gets older, and I didn’t want to be that guy who’s on call 24/7 anymore. In my 30’s I wanted to do something else.
So, I spent the last 3 years working in accounting departments, working for manufacturers and refining my skill set and experiences. It’s slowly been paying off; it’s tough starting over but it was worth it. Now I never have to bring my work home with me, and when the phone rings on the weekends it’s usually a telemarketer, not work!
So here I am about to embark on the next stage of my life, this time as a married dude. In a lot of ways I’ve become the guy I never wanted to be when I was a younger: The guy who never buys a CD by a new band because he thinks all the new bands suck. The guy who thinks nothing since 1978 has ever sounded as good. But you know what? I don’t give a fuck. I stick to my guns, always have and always will, and I’ll never go for the trends. Sure when I worked in the store I bought a lot of stuff, but my heart and soul will always be with the heaviest of metals.
Meat can bug me about the Danko Jones (ha ha),**^ but who cares…in the end he knows that I like what I like not because YOU think I should like it, but because I liked it.
This is another busy weekend…tomorrow our new bed gets delivered, tomorrow we’re going to hopefully pick our rings, and Sunday we meet with the DJ to cross the t’s and dot the lower-case j’s.
But for tonight, I think I shall rock to The Scream featuring John Corabi, and play Lego Star Wars. Yes I shall.
* This could have been the infamous “Bag of Rock” format that nearly derailed Sausagefest.
** The news was that I had been offered a permanent position, but I couldn’t say anything until papers were signed.
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