REVIEW: Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits (1974)

ALICE COOPER – Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits (1974 Warner)

Picture this:  a kid, just turned 17.  An older uncle named Don Don.  Recording tapes off each other in the summertime.  I didn’t know much of Alice Cooper.  “Teenage Frankenstein”, “The Man Behind the Mask”, and “I Got A Line On You” were the songs I knew best.  I heard a bit of a live version of “I’m Eighteen”, and a Krokus cover of “School’s Out”.  That’s all I knew.  But my uncle had Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits in his tape collection, and I had a blank tape.

I recorded Greatest Hits on one side of a 90 minute cassette.  (Eventually I taped Trash on the other side.)  My impressions at that young age were mixed.  The music sounded old fashioned.  Not at all like his 80s stuff.  While some songs (“Desperado”) flat out lost me, after a couple listens, other tunes started to jump out.

Some of the elements that appealed to me were the lyrics.  “She asked me why the singer’s name was Alice, I said ‘listen baby, you really wouldn’t understand.'” (“Be My Lover”.)  “The Reverend Smith he recognized me and punched me in the nose.”  (“No More Mr. Nice Guy”.)   Of course, “Elected” too — that goes without saying.  Simple, comedic and effective lyrics.

The huge orchestration behind “Hello Hooray” hit me where it counts too.  I grew up on soundtracks and orchestras, so anytime a band used a big bombastic arrangement like that in rock song, it immediately appealed to me.  Even then I was aware of Bob Ezrin from his work with Kiss.

My favourite song on the whole thing was “Teenage Lament ’74”.  What is it about that song?  The old-fashioned jangly rock and roll?  The unforgettable “What are you gonna do?” chorus?  Although it’s fallen by the wayside since, “Teenage Lament” is still an Alice Cooper triumph of triumphs.  On the cassette version, it had a place of honour — second song, side one, right after “I’m Eighteen”.  I couldn’t figure out all the words but I got the jist.  I still love what I perceive to be its old-fashioned sound.  Alice Cooper didn’t need to be heavy to be awesome.  I was learning this.  None of Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits would be considered “heavy” by the standards of the time when I first heard it (1989).

“Is It My Body”, “Under My Wheels”, and “Billion Dollar Babies” were the next songs to slowly reveal themselves to me.  “Muscle of Love” and “Desperado” were the last ones to enter into this new Alice love affair.  Before long, they were all memorized.  Then it was time to start collecting the albums!  Billion Dollar Babies seemed like a wise choice, since I liked so many of its songs on Greatest Hits.  And that’s how a greatest hits album is supposed to work.  It is meant to whet the appetite and make you want more.

Today Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits has been supplanted by more recent, more complete greatest hits discs, remastered for the modern age.  That’s fine and well, but Greatest Hits works better as a first Alice.  The track order, the more concise running time (41 minutes), and of course the classic cover art made this something special.  It’s historic as it was the very last product released by the original Alice Cooper group before Vincent Furnier went solo.  Also worth noting:  all tracks were remixed by Jack Richardson, but you probably won’t even notice.  Completionists, pay attention.

Want an awesome first experience with Alice Cooper?  Follow my lead and check out Greatest Hits.

5/5 stars

REVIEW: cameo.com (Father’s Day gift idea)

cameo.com

Have you heard of Cameo?  Services like Cameo have become popular during Covid, when we can’t just reach out and hug each other.  I have used it twice this year (more on that below) when I couldn’t be with my family directly.

Cameo is a website where celebrities will record a brief personal message for a fee.  My first reaction was, “As if celebrities need more money,” but some of the fees are quite reasonable.  Gary Holt from Exodus is only asking $25 for a personal video greeting.  That’s a steal, considering the video is yours forever.  Mike Portnoy?  Only $50.  Bruce Kulick is $100.  Work your way up to Caitlyn Jenner and you’ll be dropping $2500.  The range for your budget is huge, and you can choose form thousands of people in sports, movies, music, wrestling, and TV (reality and otherwise).

Each celebrity has a time frame during which they will make your video.  If you forgot your dad’s birthday today, it is too late to get Chevy Chase ($250) to record a video for him.  But if it’s not until next week, Danny Trejo ($100) can have a video to you in five days.

I struggled with a way to treat my mom right on Mother’s Day. I happened to be scrolling Facebook when I noticed a friend had received a Cameo video as a birthday gift.  It was Michael Rapaport ($175) and I thought it was a cool idea in a time when we couldn’t just give somebody a gift.  I started searching and came upon Jann Arden.  My mom loves Jann Arden.  She’s seen her live at least twice (only once for me).  Jann was asking only $65 with a three day turnaround.  I was just in time so I booked her.  Best of all, 100% of her proceeds went to various animal charities.  No celebrity greed there!

In two days (one less than expected!) I received a personal video from Jann Arden to my mom.  Jann sang “Good Mother” and I think my mom must have just about fallen out of her chair!  It was everything I hoped for and more.

Two weeks later I had another quandary.  My dad’s birthday.  He hates it when I spend money on him, but I don’t pay any attention to that!  I decided that I would do another Cameo.  But who?  My dad knows so very few celebrities.  It’s not like John Wayne is around to make videos.  Then I thought, “Star Trek”!  Who’s available?  A small number of people.  Marina Sirtis (The Next Generation), Garrett Wang (Voyager), Mary Chieffo (Discovery) and Evan Evagora (Picard) were some of the notable names, but I needed someone really special to him personally.  Then I found him:  Number One!  Jonathan Frakes!  Riker himself.  My dad is a huge fan of Captain William Riker.  Within three days, and $200 later, my dad received a personal message from Number One.

Dad was over the moon. He still thinks I shouldn’t have spent the money, but who cares?  I think it’s the best birthday gift I’ve ever given him.  And I’ve given him a Lego Sopwith Camel.  (Added bonus:  Frakes was wearing a Picard Season 2 jacket, confirming his involvement in the second season.)

The only drawback to Cameo is that you only have 250 characters to communicate what you want from the celebrity.  It’s enough to tell them who it’s for, who it’s from, and a little bit about the occasion.  Not much else.  Celebrities don’t need to read an essay, but what harm could another 100 characters do?

Whether Cameo still remains popular when the world returns to a semblance of normal, I cannot say.  Most of these actors, sportsmen and musicians will be back at work.  I’ll be able to go and gift my dad a real Father’s Day gift.  And some of these people are asking way, way, way too much money for a short video.  Is Tommy Lee worth $400 when you can get Mike Portnoy for $50?  I’d go with Portnoy, on Cameo or in a drum battle.

Consider a Cameo for your next socially distant gift.

Cameo 4/5 stars
Jonathan Frakes 5/5 stars
Jann Arden 5/5 stars

#837: Freestylin’ 7 – Into Best Buy

GETTING MORE TALE #837: Freestylin’ 7 – Into Best Buy

I hadn’t set foot inside a store since March 15.  Three months later on Jun 13, I broke this long streak and went into Best Buy.

We’ve been trying to stick to essential trips, and Mrs. LeBrain was doing the groceries and other essential shopping while I worked.  Ontario entered “Phase 2” of re-opening on June 12 so it felt like a good time to see how shopping had changed.

There was no lineup, but there were clear and nicely marked spaces for you to wait outside.  At the front was a gentleman in a mask.  Even with the mask I recognized him from a previous Best Buy excursion, back before the shit hit the fan.  He asked what I was looking for that day, and I said “laptop speakers”.  He instructed me to follow the arrows on the floor until I got to the computer monitors.  You can still walk around and browse, but they are trying to keep things efficient.

Most customers wore masks but they were not mandatory.  I have chosen to wear a mask in public.  To coin a phrase from our Prime Minister, I don’t want to speak “moistly” on people.  I tend to do that.  Of course as soon as I walked in, a maskless guy was meandering against the arrows talking on his cell phone.  Of course.

Best Buy have this re-opening well in hand.  They were organized, friendly and asked us to use hand sanitizer on our way in.  After a squirt and a quick walk around, I found the exact laptop speakers I was looking for.  $27.  Cheap and simple.   Looked around a bit more, and headed for the cash registers.  No line there either.  Mission accomplished with no fuss and no muss.

New speakers in action.  Uncle Meat made fun of my porch music choice.

The Covid world definitely looks different from the pre-Covid world but I think we can deal with this.  It’s going to take patience and a willingness to play ball.  There was a story on the weekend of a man entering a mall in Guelph where masks are mandatory.  When he refused to wear one, he coughed on the mall employee and fled.  This kind of behavior is disgusting.  Retail workers have it bad enough.  I’ve had people throw things at me but never had bodily fluids fired in my direction during a pandemic.  If you think wearing a mask is infringing upon your freedom, then take a stand and don’t shop at those places.  Vote with your wallet.  Don’t cough or spit, and don’t give a retail workers a hard time.  You’re the asshole if you do.  In the meantime, I will wear my mask.  I wear it to protect you from my flying spittle when I talk.  I’m not afraid.  I care.  You’re welcome.  I don’t care if you think I look stupid or not.

I look stupid on my best days anyway.

After Best Buy, we took a drive.  Streets were busy like a normal Saturday in the summer.  You couldn’t tell anything was amiss from the roads.  Restaurants, not so much.  Meals are permitted on patios.  Places with open patios looked comfortably full to the new Covid standards.  Establishments without had empty parking lots.  Elsewhere, we saw a lineup at the Nike store that went around the building.  Must have had a sale.  I don’t need shoes that badly!

I did need shoes, actually, but then I ordered some online.  It was actually better than shopping in store.  No picking through boxes looking for my size in a style I liked.  I simply clicked the shoes I wanted, clicked the colour, and picked my size.  They fit perfectly when they arrived a few days later.  Most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned, actually.  I could get used to this.  In fact, why should I buy shoes in a store again when there is a better selection online?  I hate shopping for shoes!

Yes, the world has changed.  It will continue to change, and our old world is gone.  Look at music.  Doro Pesch played a concert to a drive-in audience, and it looked cool.  Artists are constantly live streaming chats and performances now.  We adapt.  Some restaurants, businesses and rock bands will not survive.  The economy is still being ravaged.  Most bands will not return to the concert stage until 2021.

In the meantime, people are hungry for entertainment.  Bands and record labels would be wise to release stuff from the vaults during this time.  Unreleased live recordings?  Put ‘em out.  B-sides and outtakes?  Release them.  There has never been a better time for a band to put out of a box set of rarities.  Record stores are opening and need the business.

Unless our collective mistakes cause another surge and another lockdown, I am optimistic.  We have made it through three months of this.  While in some respects we are looking at a lost summer ahead of us, I think we still have a lot to look forward to.

Doro

 

 

 

REVIEW: Trapper – “Illégal” / “Bye bye mon cowboy” (2020 single)

It’s a LeBrain/Superdekes two-fer! Check out his Trapper review by clicking here.

TRAPPER – “Illégal” / “Bye bye mon cowboy” (2020 iTunes single)

Trapper are a Canadian supergroup who gained a bit of extra attention when they got to open for Def Leppard.  Sean Kelly (guitar), Emm Gryner (vocals/bass), Frank Gryner (bass/guitar) and Tim Timleck (drums) impressed everyone with their version of “Illégal” by Corbeau on the concert stage.  Their only EP sold out long ago, but now Trapper are back with a studio version of “Illégal”.  The two-track iTunes single is backed by a surprising cover:  “Bye bye mon cowboy” by Mitsou.  Two Canadian covers, both in French…ballsy move for a single!

“Illégal” has a beautifully chunky riff, and Kelly captures that with a nice crunchy guitar tone.  Emm Gryner’s lead vocal is to die for, squealing in all the right parts, shouting it out loud, and delivering the goods.  She has depth, grit, power — the whole package.  The drums are huge.  When you hear it you’ll be wondering where this song has been your whole life.  And that’s all before you hit the guitar solo, a treat in itself, like something from a classic Bon Jovi track that you never heard before.

Now I’ll be honest about something here.  As a snobbish rock fan in the 1980s, I hated “Bye bye mon cowboy”.  It was on MuchMusic all the time and I grew weary of Mitsou.  But I like Trapper’s version!  I am pretty sure Mitsou didn’t have this much guitar.  Transformed into a rock song, “Bye bye mon cowboy” works!  The groove is perfect and Emm’s delivery is just right.  Big rock hooks, while still retaining everything important about the original.

As for that guitar crunch?  Sean Kelly says “Can’t beat a Les Paul and a Marshall!  (Actually the Headrush Plexi amp simulator.)”  There you have it, players!

I wholeheartedly endorse Trapper’s “Illégal” and “Bye bye mon cowboy” for your patio this summer.  I knew this was going to be good, but I didn’t expect to like “Bye bye mon cowboy” as much as I do.  They rocked it up, put it in my ballpark, and I’m pumping my fists to Mitsou!  Grab ’em on iTunes today, and cross your fingers and hope Trapper have more music coming in the future.

5/5 stars

Sunday Chuckle: Ladano’s Wild Kingdom

As you know, I’ve been live streaming on weekends during lockdown. Well that’s not all!

Maybe you’ve caught a live instalment of Ladano’s Wild Kingdom too? I get these massive earthworms on the front lawn, and since we’re locked down with nothing else to do, people have been watching live streams of worms! For your Sunday Chuckle, here’s an episode of Ladano’s Wild Kingdom.

It’s an historic episode too. It’s the first one where James Kalyn offered me $7 to eat a worm and a stick!

 

Superstream! LeBrain Train talks Top Live Albums of all time!

You can thank Harrison the Mad Metal Man for the idea.  A “Nigel Tufnel Top Ten” list for the best live albums of all time.  With little notice, I whipped up some lists.  We also recruited John Snow (2 Loud 2 Old Music), Holen MaGroin, and Uncle Meat to contribute lists.  While the lists varied in some respects, many albums made repeat appearances, sometimes in the same position on two lists!

We ran into some audio issues at the start but those five minutes have been edited out of the stream for your convenience!

 

 

Friday Evening Live Stream – Live Lists, Live Guests!

The stream returns to Friday night!  I like to shake it up and give everybody a chance to catch the show.

This week, I’ll be looking at some new arrivals at LeBrain HQ, talking shop, and most importantly — lists!

By request of Harrison the Mad Metal Man, this week we will be doing a “Nigel Tufnel Top Ten” list for Greatest Live Albums of All Time.  There will be at least three lists and, technical issues notwithstanding, at least one guest!

Join us Friday night, sometime after 6:00 PM, for the live stream action!  Facebook:  Michael Ladano

The First LeBrain Live Streams – Watch ’em here if you missed ’em

It appears that I started this lockdown live streaming stuff on March 20th — a Friday.  I went live again on Saturday the 21st, and then for almost three straight hours on Friday March 27.  I started running out of gas on April 3, but kept plugging away anyway.  I started uploading my live streams to YouTube for those who missed them with the April 10 show.  The videos below are all the live streams that were previously unposted.

MARCH 20 – LOVE AT FIRST STREAM.  I was just messing around and people started watching.  We were fresh into lockdown (March 18) and looking for ways to connect with each other.

MARCH 21 – THE SECOND STREAM!  Live streaming was an addiction.

MARCH 27 – THE EPIC 2 HOUR 43 MINUTE STREAM OF MADNESS.  This was like a long-distance race.  Tremendously fun.  Music, Star Wars, Uncle Meat, and Harrison galore.

APRIL 3 – RUNNING OUT OF STREAM. “The Author Reads” was not a big hit. Lots of poo and fart content.

GAME REVIEW: Exploding Kittens (2015)

This week, Ontario heads into “Phase 2” of re-opening.  With gatherings of up to 10 people permitted, it’s about time to release this review I’ve been sitting on for three months!

EXPLODING KITTENS (2015 card game)

Quick and simple card games are great for work lunch hours.  Here’s one that you can play a round of in 10 to 20 minutes.  Although the game states it’s for 2 to 5 players, it works best with 4 to 5.

Exploding Kittens is very simple.  There is a deck of cards with different kinds of kittens on them.  You don’t want the exploding kind.  If you draw an exploding kitten, the only way to survive is with a defuser card.  Once you run out of those, you better watch out.

There are all sorts of cards to help you stay alive.  The “See the Future” card will allow you to view the next three cards in the deck.  If you don’t like what’s next for you to draw, you could play a “Shuffle”,  “Skip” or “Attack” card, forcing somebody else to pick it up.  If you don’t want to be forced, you can play a “Nope” card to cancel it.  But it’s just as easy for somebody else to “Nope” your “Nope” card!  We had a chain of four “Nopes” in a row.

The simplicity of the game is what makes it enjoyable, although the amusing cat artwork on the cards is also worthwhile.  There are certain cat cards that you can collect to put together combo moves.  Stealing cards from an opponent can be a killer move (literally!) if you can get their defusers.

For added fun (and players) you can pick up an expansion pack with even more kittens, though we have a blast with just the basic game.

4/5 stars

#836: Transformers 2 – Revenge of the Schnauzers – How It Was Made & Full Movie

GETTING MORE TALE #836: Transformers 2 – Revenge of the Schnauzers

For one weekend in the summer of 2012, I put the music on pause.  Transformers 2 – Revenge of the Schnauzers was the title.  It was a series and  I made four movies in total.  Five, if you count the final one that I shot but never edited.  There’s something so satisfying about animating Transformers.  I wanted to go big or go home this time, and what I ended up with this time was a 44 minute movie (originally split into two parts for file size reasons).

It’s amazing to think I did this movie in a single weekend in July 2012.  Probably Canada Day weekend.  I filmed the whole thing in just two days.  You can see the the light change as I filmed from sunrise to sunset, in order to squeeze time out of every minute.  And this movie was just my side project!  At the same time, I was also posting 1-2 articles per day for my main gig:  reviews and Record Store Tales.

I came prepared for Canada Day weekend with my Nokia C3 cell phone as my only camera.  Here’s something you didn’t know.  Cell phones back then were so much easier to do primitive animation with.  There’s a pause button you could hit when you’re making a video, and it essentially allowed me to do the stop motion very single-handedly, very quickly, just by hitting that pause button.  Sure, I made a few mistakes along the way.  I had to reshoot entire scenes when I didn’t know I was pausing “off” instead of “on”, but it did enable me to do this entire thing in just two days.  I barely stopped to eat, and I was just wiped by the end of it.  I think it was a manic episode to be honest with you, but a doctor never diagnosed that so it’s just my opinion.

I chose the characters (and more importantly, toys) that I wanted to use for the movie.  Most of them are from the Generations lines, with some third party add-on kits for Hound and Goldbug.  Others are reissues of G1 originals:  Soundwave and his tapes, Predaking, and Ultra Magnus.  I needed figures that would be easy to transform on the fly.  Magnus and Predaking were brand new in my collection and I wanted to show them off.  I decided to bring more Decepticons with me than Autobots to give them a real disadvantage.  I built the teams and roughed out a story.  Dialogue was improvised on the spot but not fixed in place until the editing stage a few days later!

I used Windows Movie Maker, then and now, to edit.  It was much less stable then (or at least my computer is more powerful now).  The amount of edits I used numbered in the hundreds and crashes were frequent.  Even though I was essentially editing “live” in-camera as I filmed and animated, I was also tightening up those edits with Windows.  Funny enough, Windows has no more features in the current version than it did in 2012.  For the laser blasts, I added a “split” and inserted a “fade in from white” effect.  They are remarkably effective.

I originally edited the movie with mainstream rock music as the soundtrack.  I used Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson, and AC/DC among others.  Needless to say, YouTube never let me upload it, so it sat on my various hard drives and DVDs all these years.  Until I recently had an idea.

Uncle Meat’s hatred of my “playing with action figures” inspired me to use his music to get around the YouTube issues.  More accurately, Max the Axe’s music (with a little of my sister’s mixed in).  It worked brilliantly.  Just as well as the original version, though with music you’re not familiar with.

Now you can hear many of these great Max the Axe tracks for yourself.  While watching robots blow each other to bits!

Sure, it was cool when I used “Accident of Birth” by Bruce Dickinson as the entrance music for the Colossus Schnauzers and….

Oh!  You’re confused about the Schnauzers.  Having grown up around the wee beasts, I realized that in action figure scale, you could use them as giant monsters if you could get them to do what you wanted them to do.  With Kathryn Ladano’s help, we used treats as incentives to chase and attack Autobots.  I affixed Decepticon logos to their foreheads and wrote them into the story as Shockwave’s latest creation:  Colossus Schnauzers.  With DNA stolen from a secret lab (named after the two doggies Laci and Ali), the Decepticons engineered giant versions of the beasts.

It’s up to the Autobots to find out what they are up to, with a small squad led by Ultra Magnus.  (I had focused on Optimus Prime in the preceding chapter with his death and rebirth as Powermaster Prime, so I wanted a different leader figure this time.)  I used two Bumblebee figures.  One was modified with a third-party head that made him into a Generations version of Goldbug, his rebuilt form.  This is all roughly based on an original Marvel comics storyline.  I also took inspiration from the TV show.  One figure that I wanted to show off next time was my transparent “Ghost Starscream”.  I didn’t have time to get into that with this chapter, so I ended it with some foreshadowing that would allow me to introduce my ghost version of the figure next time.

I coloured the dialogue to make it easier to tell which ‘bot is talking. I did an “infodump” introduction for the Predacons.  This is the much-critisized technique used by Bob Budiansky in the 80s Marvel series.  Each new toy had an introduction, because the comic was just a device to sell toys.  That was my homage to Budiansky.  The characterisations of the figures in my film are meant to be true to their toy bios and comic book appearances. Although my story takes place in a universe all its own, it’s similar to the ones you know.  The “release the Schnauzers” scene is of course a parody of the the Kraken scene in Clash of the Titans.  I wanted something that reminded me of Poseidon pulling the chain that opened the big gate.

I haven’t watched this movie for a long time. I had forgotten that I even included a “blooper reel” at the end. This is the only part of the movie that still has its original music soundtrack. Though I’ve forgotten the name of the track, that’s Kathryn Ladano’s music playing and that’s her in her only cameo!

Consider that I shot this thing in two days, sunrise to sunset, and edited it together in a couple more, all while posting new daily reviews and Record Store Tales. That’s unbelievable and probably also unhealthy. But I still enjoy the results! I legitimately like this. I also enjoyed adding the new music by Max the Axe and seeing how it worked out.  I’m proud enough to post it here for you to enjoy. And I hope you do!