#1158: I dated a witch!

Welcome to a series of posts related to Halloween 2024!  Holen has written some guest posts, and I have my own bag of treats planned.  Enjoy!

RECORD STORE TALES #1158: I dated a witch!

 

A sequel to #904:  2000 Dates and #616:  None of My Exes Live in Texas

 

I have held off telling this tale long enough!  There are many reasons why I haven’t told this story until now, but here are the two main ones:

  1. I didn’t want to upset my grandmother.
  2. I don’t know anything about witchcraft at all, therefore I don’t want to seem like I’m making fun of someone’s religion.

However, I also think it’s amusing to say the sentence, “I dated a witch once”.  So here we go.

I explained in Record Store Tales #904:  2000 Dates, I did a lot of online dating in the year 2000.  Every time, it seemed the girl had something unique about her.  For example:

  1. One girl was the cousin of Haywire singer Paul MacAusland, and suffered from I osteogenesis imperfecta, the same disease that affected Mr. Glass in the Unbreakable trilogy.  We went out once, and she wasn’t into me.
  2. Another girl was in AA and I actually attended a meeting with her, which was a bad idea.  We went out a few times.  She wasn’t sure if she wanted a friend or a boyfriend, so I stopped calling her.
  3. One was legally blind!  She got into that movie The Cell with Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D’onofrio for free.  She was starting a new life in a new town and I don’t think I was her best prospect.  I stopped hearing from her, until one day she accidentally emailed me.  I think we went out twice total.  She had awesome black dreads.

This story is about none of those women.

Cynthia was from Toronto.  She shared her surname with a prominent Star Trek character.  She was into Sloan and A Perfect Circle.  She took horrible care of her CDs.  We wanted to listen to music, and I suggested 4 Nights at the Palais Royale by Sloan, but the discs were all mixed up in her collection.  I knew it wasn’t going to work out.

We had one day together.  I drove up to Toronto, got lost, and had a huge panic attack on my way there.  No GPS, but I did have a cell phone.  That was actually the end right there.  It had nothing to do with her.  It was the drive.  I knew I’d never do that drive again.

Besides listening to music, I watched Cynthia work.  She was an online psychic.  I’m a sceptic, but the kind that would like to be convinced.  She got on her computer, opened a word file, and began responding to emails.  She scrolled through her word file, found a paragraph she liked, and hit “copy”.  “This one will work,” she said.  She had all her “psychic” readings pre-written; she just selected one that applied to the question.  “I do real ones sometimes,” she justified to me.  Sometimes.  Not that night though.

We went for a walk, we talked, and Cynthia tried to explain her religion to me.  She was a “weather witch”, she told me.  She practiced Wicca.  Wicca and witchcraft, she explained, were not interchangeable terms, but she was both.  I was pretty clear that I was comfortable where I was spiritually, but hey, cool.  I very much had a “you do you” attitude when it came to religion.  We were both raised Catholic, so we had that in common.  She had two roommates, also Wiccan.  They had a picture up in their main entrance of their horned god, which was interesting, but they didn’t laugh when I commented that their god appeared “horny”.  Come on, cut the new guy some slack!

I made it home on Highway 401 in one piece.  I knew I’d never be going back.  It was a matter of telling her.  She did not take it well.

Cynthia had made for me a little magic pouch to protect me on the highway.  When I told her I could not do that drive again, she was quite upset.  “I’ll take the bus to you!” she offered.  There were tears…I felt awful.  I had described her as a “stage 5 clinger” before, which is unkind but not untrue.  It was the first time I had experienced something like this.  I went from indifferent dates, to this!

I went out the night of that phone call with some friends to a round of mini-golf.  It helped me get my mind off things.  I shared that I was slightly afraid she’d cast a spell on me.  You always say “Oh but magic and witches aren’t real,” but I thought, “Cynthia didn’t think so.”  What’s real?  And what the hell did I know at age 28?   We laughed a lot during that round of mini-golf, but then my friend Will prank called my car phone pretending to be an angry friend of Cynthia’s.  That took some calming down after.  Later, I was teased at a staff party by my co-workers about the kinds of spells she would put on me for dumping her.  You can see why I haven’t told this story before.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to all these people I went out with during that period of time.  Married, with adult kids now?  Do they even remember me?  I’m the one writing all this; maybe I’m the clinger after all.

 

 

REVIEW: Aerosmith – “F.I.N.E.” (AOR Mix) (1989 Promo)

Thanks to Ash Geisler for this CD!  It is a welcome addition to my collection!

AEROSMITH – “F.I.N.E.” (AOR Mix) (1989 Geffen Promo PRO-CD-3806)

“AOR” equals “Album Oriented Rock”, a radio format established in the 1960s that essentially means “classic rock” by today’s standards.  Therefore, this Aerosmith single would be a remix aimed specifically at those kinds of radio stations.  Frequently and historically, many of these remixes are barely different at all from the album version.  Additionally, “F.I.N.E.” from 1989’s Pump album was not really considered a single.  It wasn’t available to buy commercially, and it wasn’t made into a music video.  It was a radio single only.  At 4:08, this track is not edited.

“F.I.N.E.”, which was track 2 on the album, is considered one of Aerosmith finer rock moments from the Geffen years.  It was always focused on a biting heavy Aero groove, a melodic Tyler vocal, and that irresistible chorus of “It’s aaaaaaaalright!”  This remix is hardly different at all.  If anything, the bass might be coming through more clearly.

If you have a look at the waveform file below, you can see there isn’t much difference, though some are visible.  The AOR mix is at top, the original 1989 CD file at bottom.

I don’t feel there’s any point in rating a promo CD single like on a scale of 5, because what’s the point?  This CD is valuable as a collectible to fans and hoarders alike.  It has an exclusive remix, and whether you can hear a difference isn’t the point to a collector.   Sometimes obscure AOR mixes get reissued on greatest hits or box sets, but to date, this one has not.

“Joe Perry says I’m aaaaallright!”

Thanks again to Ash from Australia for sending me this CD which I shall file with my Pump collection!

BOOK REVIEW: This Is Spinal Tap – The Official Companion (2000)

THIS IS SPINAL TAP – The Official Companion (2000, Bloomsbury, London)

You have the soundtrack.  You have the DVD (maybe even the Criterion edition).  You have the breakfast cereal.  What else do you need?  The Official Companion book, that’s what!

We begin with a “Prepilogue” by Michael McKean, who plays David St. Hubbins, offering some background on how Spinal Tap came to be, in the real world.  From a 1979 TV appearance, to a 1982 demo film (not a script, like most movies, but a demo film!) to the 1984 finished masterpiece, McKean sums up the history and his gratitude from the start.

Next up is one of the funniest and most essential chapters.  “Tap’istory” is a fictional timeline of Spinal Tap, from Derek Smalls’ birth in 1941, to a 2000 appearance with Mick Fleetwood on drums, and a remixed and remastered version of the film.  This section is fascinating as it has release years for all of Spinal Tap’s fictional albums, including Brainhammer, Nerve Damage, and Blood to Let.

I found this book in the screenplay section of the book store, but Spinal Tap didn’t have a screenplay like most movies do.  Instead of a screenplay, the bulk of the book is made up of a cool transcription of the film.  This is done to extreme accuracy, to the point of transcribing Nigel’s final line, “wh-wh-what are the hours?” exactly as you read it here.  If you ever wanted to quote This Is Spinal Tap as a hobby, this is how you do it to perfection.  At the conclusion of the film transcription are several deleted scenes, such as David St. Hubbins meeting up with his now-punk rocker son.

Then we get to the lyrics, for basically every Tap song, including obscurities like the then-unreleased “Celtic Blues”, and stuff I’ve never heard like “Just Spell My Name”.  Following this is an incredibly detailed glossary of everything Tap related you can imagine, including Rob Reiner, Steve Lukather, lukewarm water, and Walter Becker (who scribed the liner notes to Break Like The Wind, also included here).

For those Spinal Tap fans unable to read, the book also includes some full colour photo pages, with behind the scenes shots and rare promotional photos.

For any seasoned fan of Spinal Tap, this is an obvious augmentation to your collection.  Tap into your local bookstore today and ask for a copy.

5/5 stars

“Tap” into the show! 40 Years of Spinal Tap: The Music with Marco D’Auria, Dan Chartrand and Uncle Meat

A huge thank you to Marco D’Auria of the Contrarians, Dan Chartrand of Off the Charts, and the near-legendary Uncle Meat for comprising our expert panel tonight.  The subject was Spinal Tap, the band and the music.  It may be fair to call Dan a “superfan”, as he had some Spinal Tap rarities that I don’t.  Dan provided some cool physical product, including CDs and LPs of This is Spinal Tap, Break Like the Wind, and he even unfolded his Back From the Dead CD packaging to show us what it looks like when it’s a little paper stage set.

Taking a cue from another big Spinal Tap fan, Peter Kerr, I stole a tactic from Rock Daydream Nation and did some discussion questions in rounds.  Here’s what we tackled:

  • Were you ever in the blissful unawareness that Spinal Tap was a fake band?  Or were you always in on the joke?
  • Evaluate the musicianship of Tap.
  • Pick a favourite song from the soundtrack.
  • Pick a favourite song from Break Like the Wind.  
  • And a quick discussion of Back from the Dead.

Along the way we discussed the history of Tap, both real and fictional.  We had a look at the DVD for the Return of Spinal Tap, and had a chat on that subject.  I peppered the panel with trivia throughout the night.  We had an insightful discussion about talent, and the three actors who played the central characters:  Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer.  We speculated on director Rob Reiner’s role in the songwriting, and technical aspects of the writing and playing.  Did Harry Shearer play fretless bass on “Break Like the Wind”?  I don’t know, but we do know he can play upright bass thanks to his role in A Mighty Wind.  In short, the music and movie were given as much appraisal and analysis as we could do in an hour.

Meanwhile in the comments, Pete Jones provided quote after quote after quote, from a variety of Tap interviews and performances.  Thank you Peter!  And thank you to everyone who watched and joined in.  

I started the show with a quick unboxing, from Australia’s Ash Geisler, who has been a huge supporter of the show.  Thanks again Ash for watching, and for sending me this awesome package.  I guarantee some of them will be getting a review.

One topic I didn’t get to mention on the show, but did come up among the viewers:  Spinal Tap II is coming to theaters in 2025.  How do you feel about this?  Let us know in the comments.  I for one don’t think it’s necessary or a good idea.  The cameo-laden cast seems gimmicky, but Rob Reiner is back is the director’s chair.

Thanks for watching, and if you didn’t, the link is below.  This is one I’ll be watching over again.  

NEXT WEEK:  A Mighty Wind with Dan Chartrand, John Clauser & Uncle Meat!

40 Years of Spinal Tap: The Music with Marco D’Auria, Dan Chartrand and Uncle Meat

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man
Episode 72:  40 Years of Spinal Tap: The Music with Marco D’Auria, Dan Chartrand and Uncle Meat

Tonight we’re gonna rock ya, tonight!

Formed as the Thamesmen in 1964, Nigel Tufnel and David St. Hubbins scored a hit with the single “Gimmie Some Money” / “Cups and Cakes”. The band soon employed bassist Derek Smalls. After a name change to Spinal Tap, the band wandered through progressive rock, jazz fusion, funk, reggae, hard rock, and heavy metal.  In 1984 they became a household name with the release of the documentary film by Marty DiBergi, called This Is Spinal Tap.  It is hard to believe it has been 40 years since that film brought Tap to the silver screen.

Tonight, Contrarians Marco D’Auria and new face Dan Chartrand will join Uncle Meat and I, as we Tap into the history of this great band’s music.

From rock and roll (“Gimme Some Money”) to hippie flower power (“Listen to What the Flower People Say”, “Rainy Day Sun”) to heavy metal (“Stonehenge”), few bands have struggled to find a direction like Spinal Tap has.  Now with DiBergi back on board, the band are primed to release a new documentary film on their more recent exploits.  Our panel tonight will try to avoid talking about the drama (puppet shows, air force bases, girlfriends) and focus on the music.  And what music it is!  Nigel Tufnel is one of the most critically acclaimed guitar players in the world, not just for volume but also for pioneering the art of double his guitar solos with voice.  David St. Hubbins is such a legendary lead singer, that Ronnie James Dio wouldn’t allow him to sing lead on Hear N’ Aid’s “Stars” for fear of breaking the board.  And Derek Smalls?  His solo album Smalls Change proves he’s not a one-trick moustached pony.

Join us tonight, and Tap into the music of Spinal Tap.

 

Friday September 27 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T. / 8:00 P.M. Atlantic.   Enjoy on YouTube or on Facebook!

#1157: The Lone Classic Hard Rocker

RECORD STORE TALES #1157: The Lone Classic Hard Rocker

For almost my entire tenure at the Beat Goes On, I was pretty much the only “classic hard rocker”.  By that I mean, the guy who not only liked Rush, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, but also Poison, Dokken, Motley Crue, Kiss, and the Scorpions.  I started in 1994, and hard rock was definitely the black sheep of the musical family back then.  The entire genre had received a hard thrashing from the new generation of bands, who had cleaned the slate and wiped the charts of the old guard.  For a little while, anyway.  When I began in 1994, hard rock was all but banned from store play.  That’s obviously a broad statement, as I distinctly recall giving a store play copy of Tesla’s Bust A Nut a shot while working with the boss.  He didn’t like it, but there was no way I was going to play Poison in the store with him around.

“Nobody’s buying that stuff,” he would say, and he wasn’t wrong.

When Trevor started later that year, he too liked a lot of hard rock bands, but he probably more into the current crop of groups.  Brother Cane, and this new snotnosed group out of the UK called Oasis.  He discovered all that Britpop stuff on a trip to England, and he was quick to adapt to electronic and dance beats too.  While he enjoyed some Poison and Motley Crue, I don’t think he would have played them in store.  I don’t think he would have called himself a hard rocker.

When I was bestowed my own store to manage in 1996, my staff gave me a nickname:  Cheeser.

The reason being, I listened to “cheesey” music, such as hard rock.  They wouldn’t give me credit for the jazz albums, or the Faith No More collection.  They only looked at the Dokken and the Brighton Rock.  I should have said, “Don’t call me Cheeser.  I’m your boss.”  Not that I was opposed to nicknames.  Many employees had nicknames of their own, but that one really bugged me.  It was unfair and it was uncool.  It was one-dimensional.  I remained the only classic hard rocker at the store.  Oh sure, one guy liked the Black Crowes.  Another guy had a soft spot for classic 70s Kiss.  They were not hard rockers in that classic “cheeser” sense.

I look back on those days, and I was very different then.  I was not assertive.  I was eager to fit in.  So, I let them call me Cheeser.

I felt like a second-class citizen due to my musical tastes.  The boss seemed to think playing a Poison in the album would lose us sales.  He wanted a family-friendly atmosphere, and I tended to be the rebel when he wasn’t around.  I was told to remove AC/DC from the CD player once.  An band that has sold about 200 million copies worldwide, incidentally, but with God as my witness, my boss hit the “stop” button one morning and took it off himself.

This is why I had low sales, I was assured.  You wanted people to linger and shop.  People would leave the store if the music was too heavy.  I only saw it happen a couple times, but no more than I saw it happen with other genres of music such as rap and dance.  It was rare you’d have a walk-out due to the music, but I will argue that hard rock did not get this reception any more than other genres.  I do remember one guy giving me credit for playing Poison’s Native Tongue one afternoon.

“I’ve never heard this before in a music store!” he said, with his compliments.

I would get the occasional surprised reaction when people would ask what the cool music I played was.  Motley Crue?  Poison?  No way!  That doesn’t sound like Poison.

Our store was very generic “music store circa late 90s early 2000s” when you walked in.  There would be music playing from the current charts, lots of indi bands with cool haircuts, and the requisite Motown, soul, and 60s albums.  Exactly the music you expected to hear, and I suppose that was the point.  If my manager reviews were poor, one of the gripes was the music I chose to play.  I broke the rules, and they made note of it.  I became quite despondent.  I would pick five CDs in the morning, that I picked for the soul purpose of not getting in shit that day, and I hit shuffle.  I’d leave them in all day.  Or, I would just leave in whatever the previous shift had playing.  I literally stopped caring, because those above me had sucked me dry.  I had no soul left.  My heart was empty.  It was time to go.

By the end, my only motivation was survival.  There was no enjoyment.  There was no challenge.  There was nothing to look forward to, except a day off.  I was dead inside.  I couldn’t care about music anymore.  The music I played in the store towards the end…I can’t remember the bands.  I seem to remember names like Death Cab For Cutie, Death From Above 1979, and Metric, but I cannot tell you if those were bands we played in the store, or bands that the staff liked.  Eventually, some of their musical tastes wore off on me.  I did buy a Killers CD, and I did buy one Bright Eyes.  If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, but I have not played either in over 15 years.

I know some of my old co-workers and staffers were surprised to hear all these revelations from me.  What can I say?  I was fakin’ it.  I was fighting, quite frankly, to stay alive at that place.  You can take that to mean whatever you like.  In those days, I was not aware of the importance of mental health.  The store was run with a real old school “pick yourself up by the bootstraps” methodology.  I remember one day, my boss handed me a business card with the name of a counselling service on it.  I didn’t ask for this, and I considered it a huge invasion of my privacy.  I also considered it an invasion of my privacy when he called my parents behind my back at their home.  Yet, when I wanted him to listen to me, the only person who could possible change my fate, he didn’t listen.  He waited to talk.  He lectured.  The bullying situation at the store had reached unacceptable levels, and he was so biased towards certain people, that I had no hope.  None at all.

I went from being the lone classic hard rocker, to completely alone.  It was a very dark time in my life.  I am sorry if my old friends do not understand why I had such anger for the people in charge.  I know I am not the only person to feel alone, but what happened, happened.  It was an emotional time and I wrote about it emotionally.  It was a necessary expulsion of bad feelings and poison.

But not Poison.  Today there’s nobody calling me Cheeser.   They might shrug and wonder why I need so much Poison, but the difference is respect.

#1156: To What Lengths? (Shelf Wear)

RECORD STORE TALES #1156: To What Lengths? (Shelf Wear)

We, as collectors in this community, generally buy our music on a physical format to listen to it, but also value its condition and cosmetic perfection.  We don’t want creases in the inner sleeve, or banged-up covers if we can avoid it.  We especially don’t like being the ones responsible for damage.  It does happen.  Sometimes it’s as simple as pulling a favourite CD or LP out of its designated filing location too many times.  Scratches and scuffs appear on the jewel case or sleeve, if not protected.  Most people protect their vinyl LPs in plastic, and a small minority of CD aficionados do as well, which mitigates damage to just those moments you remove the packaging from that sleeve: the dirt and oils in your hands, the dust in the air, the light wear from handling.

If you’re new here, this is a judgement-free place!  If you go to tremendous degrees to protect your jewel cases (I had one customer who bought them 5 at a time and insisted each one be in its own separate little bag) then I applaud you.  I wish I had your discipline, honestly.  I’ve cracked and scuffed many-a-case over my years as a fan and collector.

Another fact known to CD collectors:  Many, especially in the 1990s, came in specialised jewel cases that could not easily replaced if damaged.  The best you could hope for was a Krazy Glue solution.  Example:  Pet Shop Boys’ Very CD in 1993, which came in a unique, opaque orange case with lego-like bumps on the front and a sticker with track listing on back.  It had a matching orange tray inside.  Fortunately, these were a bargain bin perennial and if you broke you case, you could buy a replacement for under $6 bucks.  If not, you could do a reasonable repair job with glue.

Coloured jewel cases were another variation.  With collector’s allure, Alice In Chains’ self-titled CD in 1995 came in two variations.  The common one was a yellow case with a purple inlay.  The very rare reverse was purple case with yellow inlay.  So rare in fact that in my 12 years in music retail, I never saw a copy come my way without one or both components damaged.  Less rarely, Kiss’ 1996 CD You Wanted The Best, You Got the Best came in a wine-red case with yellow tray.  I may or may not have swapped some at my store with plain cases, allowing me to keep the wine-red and yellow for myself, for other Kiss releases.  Perhaps I did.

 

 

Regardless of how you acquire such packages, the ideal collection has them relatively intact for the duration of their stay at your home.  How to do ensure this to the best of your ability?  As implied, I don’t want to put every CD I own in a sleeve.  However, I do make sleeves for discs like the above.  Simple ones out of clear comic bags (for example) cut down to size.  They even make sandwich bags in the exact right size if you feel lazy.  Remember:  no judgement!

Of course, this cannot prevent breakage all the time.  If you have ever moved house with boxes of CDs, you probably endured some damage.  When I moved, I did two important things:  1) I insisted only I handled the boxes marked “CDs”, and 2) I packaged all specially-cased CDs in a special padded box, also handled by myself.

Another variation, and perhaps my favourite, is the engraved jewel case.  One of the most common is the Prince “Love Symbol” CD, fairly easy to find multiple intact copies.  My most treasured engraved case is Deep Purple’s 25th anniversary edition of In Rock.  (Now we’re over 50 years…)  I bought my copy in 1996, in Toronto, at (I think) Sunrise.  It was there or HMV, and I was present with the mighty T-Rev, who braved the streets of Toronto with no air conditioning on a hot summer day in my Plymouth Sundance.  He drove – I wouldn’t.  I cradled my precious Purple in my arms so carefully on my way home.  I could see easily that the signatures and text on the front were in the plastic of the case, and not printed on the booklet.

I made a plan, and carefully executed it.  My solution protects my CD to this day.

Using a Swiss Army knife, I carefully slit the right side of the plastic wrap, all around the entire CD, and removed this side flap.  I then carefully coaxed the CD out of its plastic home, and upon success, pushed it back in.  I had created a little sleeve that protected my new purchase upon my shelves.  It still functions today, and my copy of In Rock still looks pretty good despite hundreds of plays.

Fingers crossed!

 

Everybody’s Working for the Weekend

Working hard, or hardly working?  This Is Spinal Tap was played on the front porch for the first time, in preparation for a special 40th Anniversary examination on Grab A Stack of Rock this Friday!

Retro Gaming Weekend: Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dig, Pole Position & Yar’s Revenge [VIDEOS]

I got my Ms. Pac-Man Plug and Play working again! In combination with an expansion cartridge, this gave me access to Dig Dug, as well as Pole Position. Join me as I play the first game of each of these in a year.

I did pretty well in Dig Dug, but turned in a disappointing Pole Position score. The controller is cool; if you twist the joystick it acts as your steering wheel.

I played two games of Ms. Pac-Man, with the first being the best.

Finally, I dug up the Atari 2600 Flashback machine and played a game of an Atari classic: Yar’s Revenge. Join me as I explain this game in extremely technical terms.

Drone Videos, Deep Purple and the wonders of the beach [VIDEOS]

This could be the last weekend for good drone flying weather at the lake. Here’s what I made, and some great tunes for you to enjoy.  First up we have a Thursday night flight to the tune of “The Roller” by Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye.  Then we have two Deep Purple instrumentals on an unedited Friday morning flight:  “Son of Aleric” and “Contact Lost”.

Notably, the water levels are noticeable lower than two weeks ago, and the river entrance has dried up.  I took the drone a little further to the river than on past flights.  Got up to max altitude each time.  Lots to see here, and some cool flying techniques that really leave you feeling like you’re gliding along with me.

The third flight on Saturday morning might be the most beautiful. The water was so clear, and the reflections from the sun made for beautiful flying. I soared in close to some boulders, and took a look across the river for the first time. There I found an big boulder we used to sit on as kids. The music for this video is “Blue Ocean” by Flying Colors.