Part 16 of my series of Iron Maiden reviews! NOTE: This album was later reissued as part of A Real Live Dead One.
IRON MAIDEN – A Real Live One (1993)
And then the bombshell hit. Just as Iron Maiden were releasing their next live album, Bruce Dickinson was leaving the band.
It was another in a string of major metal singer departures: Vince Neil and Rob Halford in 1992, and now Bruce Dickinson. Not to mention Dio splitting with Sabbath, again. It was a very demoralizing time to be a metal fan.
Tattooed Millionaire was a big enough success to warrant a sequel. On the advice of Maiden manager Rod Smallwood, Bruce was encouraged not to just do a half-assed sequel, but to really throw himself into the creative process. What he came up with was very different and intriguing; Bruce likened it to early Peter Gabriel. This triggered some soul searching. What if this direction was to pursued? What then?
Bruce approached Smallwood. “As you can see, the music is very different, that’s the good news,” he started. “The bad news is I’ve decided to leave the band.”
As a compromise, Bruce agreed to do the next tour, promoting the live album A Real Live One. A Real Live One was a document of the Fear of the Dark tour, and after it was mixed the band planned to hit the road again for a second leg. Bruce did not want to jeopardize the tour, and Steve Harris agreed to do it as a farewell. This was a decision that all parties would regret, but more on that later. In the meantime, Maiden had a live album to promote, with a distinct black cloud over it.
Maiden had chosen to do two live albums. First came A Real Live One, which covered music from 1986-1992. Then, post-tour, A Real Dead One covering the early years was scheduled. Splitting the live album into two may have proven to be a mistake, as it meant A Real Live One was lopsided and full of songs that many in North America did not care about: “Heaven Can Wait”, “From Here To Eternity”, “Bring Your Daughter”, but nothing of the beloved earlier period previously covered on Live After Death.
And how do you top an album like Live After Death? You can’t, so A Real Live One was doomed to be deemed inferior from the start.
Making matters worse, not only were Maiden releasing a live album that summer, but so did Kiss, Ozzy, and Van Halen.
The production seemed a little muddier (the first without Martin Birch since the early days). The performances were fine, as expected, Maiden are nothing but professionals. I don’t listen to this album often. Later live albums that cover this material are superior, and it would have helped if the album had pre-1986 classics on it. Although A Real Live One had four albums to draw upon, that period of Maiden is not the golden era, and the albums are undeniably less classic than the pre-’86 period.
I can understand their reasoning of doing the release like this. I’m sure they felt that a live album without overlap with Live After Death was better value for the money. And if you wanted those songs, you could get A Real Dead One later on. But still, a Maiden live set without “The Trooper” or “Hallowed” or “Number” was a lopsided Beast indeed.
Worthy: “Fear of the Dark”, “Afraid to Shoot Strangers”, “The Evil That Men Do”, “The Clairvoyant”.
Ugh: a flat “Can I Play With Madness” & “From Here To Eternity”.
Missing: “Wasted Years”. That would have been a worthy addition to the set.
Derek Riggs returned to do the cover art for this and it’s a fun striking painting. Nothing special, just another cool Eddie.
The single was the awesome “Fear Of The Dark”, live (which had a better cover than the album). This had become a concert classic already, with a massive fan singalong. The B-side was “Hooks In You” from the No Prayer album and tour. I’ve never been a fan of this song, but I have no problem with Maiden issuing live B-sides of songs that are rarely aired live. It’s good for documenting history. It’s also available on the Fear of the Dark bonus disc edition.
Most people know the story by now: Turbo wasn’t supposed to be so lite. It was originally supposed to be a double album called Twin Turbos, featuring a mix of styles from ballads to hard rock to heavy metal. When the record company balked, they put the most commercial stuff out as Turbo, saving the rest of the songs for later use. Some, such as the awesome “Heart of a Lion” (later covered by Scott Travis’ band Racer X) and “Red White & Blue” ended up on Priest box sets and remasters. Other songs such as “Ram It Down” were re-recorded with a heavier sound and put out on the next album.
If you’re one of the many who considers Turbo one of the worst (if not the worst) Judas Priest album, I get it. It was their “sell out” album. It’s cold, it’s synthetic, it’s somewhat soulless. I understand. However, I tend to look at the Judas Priest back catalog, the complete gestalt, if you will, as one whole. Looking at this album in context, it is clear that Turbo is a unique record in Judas Priest’s canon, and indeed the whole of heavy metal in general. There’s never been an album that sounds quite like Turbo and it’s likely that there never will be again.
Turbo came in ’86 while Priest decided to experiment with guitar synthesizers. These are not keyboards on this album, but guitars played through a synth. Priest have done it since (Ram It Down, Nostradamus) but never again to this degree. Some of the sounds on this album are really cool. That weird vacuum cleaner combined with a jet engine sound in the opening of “Turbo Lover”, for example? Cool.
The songs are also good, albeit commercia hard rock. Priest had been increasing the commercial tendencies ever since British Steel, but on Turbo it veered heavily into MTV territory. “Turbo Lover” is an example of this. There’s not much in terms of a riff, which used to be the bedrock of a Priest song. The melody is the framework on which you hang the cool sounds and robotic groove. But it works, and the song is often brought out into the setlist, still — the only song from Turbo to make the setlist post-1987.
“Locked In” is a bit more rockin’, not a great song, but at least it ups the tempo a bit. The shout-chorus of “Private Property” is catchy as hell and this could easily have been a single. It sounded great live with the crowd joining in.
“Parental Guidance”, was probably my favourite Priest song in ’86-87. It’s just really catchy. It’s not heavy metal, but it’s really well-written pop metal. And as kids, we dug the words, even though Halford was 35 years old when he wrote them!
“Rock You All Around The World” closed side one, a fast number designed to get the crowd going nuts in concert. Sounds like Scorpions to me.
Side two started off with the long, dramatic epic, “Out in the Cold”. Man, what a great song. This one opened the live show in 1986 (and the following live album, Priest Live). I guess this would technically be the ballad of the album!
A pair of so-so songs follow, “Wild Nights, Hot And Crazy Days” (sounds like Van Hagar) and “Hot For Love” (another fast one that could have been covered by Scorpions). Not great songs, but at least they’re rockers. “Wild Nights” is kind of one of those 80’s party rockers. Nothing special, but it suited the times.
The final song is a total winner, “Reckless”, written for the Top Gun soundtrack but held back for this album. Awesome tune, “coming at galeforce ten.” This is just a perfect rock song for Judas Priest. Not a metal song, a rock song. It’s as aggressive as it gets on this album and it has a great solo, too.
There are two bonus tracks on the current remastered edition, “All Fired Up” (a lacklustre outtake) and a live version of “Locked In”. Since “Locked In” didn’t make 1987’s Priest Live album, it makes good sense to include it here. It was a single/video, released at the exact same time as “Turbo Lover” but always remained in that song’s shadow. Good to finally have a live version.
Liner notes and pictures are included. This album also contains the infamous “lead break credits”! While I don’t know if Glenn and Ken are interesting enough guitar players to warrant lead break credits for every song, it was a feature I enjoyed at the time and helped me identify the individual styles of the two players.
We used to have piles and piles of CDs, stacked on a unit behind the counter. Due to lack of space, this is where we put stock that was:
1. on hold for staff
2. on hold for customers
3. being sent elsewhere for customer orders
Unfortunately these stacks were visible to customers, although not available for sale to the general public. Sometimes you’d have a situation like this:
“Cool! I can see OK Computer by Radiohead! Is that for sale?”
And it wasn’t, which you’d explain. If the CD was on hold for someone, they’d often ask how long it was on hold for so they could be next in line, provided the other person didn’t pick it up.
When stuff was on hold for staff (who usualy snagged the best stuff and held it for longer periods of time) I didn’t like the customers seeing it. But we didn’t really have anywhere better to put it. I proposed putting it in the back room but that didn’t last long. So what we’d do is disguise it in some way. Instead of having a pile labeled “Mike”, we’d change the name. It sometimes threw the customers off the scent.
At one point, I had all the staff hold piles named after Canadian cities. That way looked like stuff that was ordered by other stores. So for example, we’d have a pile labeled “London” which would be a pile of stuff destined for that store. Next to it was a pile labeled “Saskatoon”. We didn’t have a store in Saskatoon, Saskatoon was a staff member’s pile. We didn’t have stores in Yellowknife or Winnipeg either, but those labels threw customers off the scent. They’d assume the stock was there for another store.
I liked this system, but the staff often preferred nicknames on the labels. Some people liked their nicknames, some people didn’t. There was a girl named Meredith — she really hated being caled Megadeth, for example (I assume that’s true of most Merediths out there). I hated being called Cheeser — so named because I liked what other people refer to as “cheese metal” (although I think Zakk Wylde would be happy to punch somebody in the face for calling his music cheese metal).
Later on, someone had all the piles named after Family Guy characters. At the time, I’d never seen an episode in my life, and I didn’t know it was a bad thing that my nickname was Quagmire! Joke was on me I guess!
IRON MAIDEN – Fear of the Dark (1992, 1996 bonus disc)
I remember staying up late one night, listening to Q107, waiting to hear the new Maiden track. They promised it, and after airing “Burn” by Deep Purple, they debuted “Be Quick Or Be Dead”.
Nice riff, I said. The song took a while to grow on me, because Bruce was still growling a bit too much for my taste. If there was one thing I disliked about Maiden’s previous, No Prayer for the Dying, it was Bruce’s growl. I’d rather hear him sing. He was growling the verses, and singing the choruses. And Nicko was doing some serious steppin’! It was the Maiden writing debut of Janick Gers (with Bruce), and it was a rant on big business. Maiden were the 99% in 1992! I thought it was one of the best songs from the new album, Fear of the Dark.
The second track, “From Here To Eternity” featured the return of Charlotte! Harris wrote this one alone, and it too was a single. It has a shout-along chorus, but too much rinky-dink bass way up high in the mix. This song wouldn’t make my road tape, I never particularly cared for it.
Much, much better is “Afraid To Shoot Strangers”. Steve wrote this one for the men and women who served in the Gulf War, who as Bruce said, “never wanted to kill anybody.” I consider this song to be the birth of the “new” Iron Maiden. The gentle guitar, with the melodic bass in the background, the keys…is it a ballad or an epic? It’s both. Then it picks up with some of the catchiest guitar parts Steve’s ever written. There would be many many Maiden songs that followed this blueprint on albums to come, especially The X Factor. (My friend Andy and I beat this song by a year. In 1991 we wrote a Maiden-inspired tune called “Unleashed in the Middle East” about the Gulf War. Fortunately, it remains unrecorded to this day.)
Did you also noticed Maiden getting more topical? Big business…the Gulf War…it was the 90’s.
The Zeppish “Fear Is the Key” is next. Bruce and Janick wrote this one, but again, I’m not too fond of it. It has a great hook, and it’s technically accomplished, but Maiden and Zep don’t always mix. I don’t think they ever played it live. Do I hear a slide?
“Childhood’s End”, written by Steve, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the Arthur C. Clarke novel. It is rhythmically complex and melodic and powerful with a soaring guitar melody. I don’t consider this one of Maiden’s greater songs in the canon, but it is one of the better songs on Fear of the Dark.
The triumphant ballad, “Wasting Love” closes side 1. This one may have thrown people for a loop, both by the title and the music. Maiden, singing about love? More Scorpions sounding than Maiden, this one came from Bruce and Janick.
Maybe one day, I’ll be an honest man
Up til now I’m doing the best I can
Long roads, long days
of sunrise to sunset, sunrise to sunset
The song seems to be a reflection on infidelity on the road, but was there more between the lines? “Maybe one day I’ll be an honest man…”
Yes, it’s a ballad, but it is not wimpy. The guitar harmonies evoke mellow Thin Lizzy. I think “Wasting Love” is among the three best songs on Fear of the Dark. “Afraid to Shoot Strangers is another one, and we’ll get to the third in due time.
Side 2 opened with Steve’s “The Fugitive”. It takes a long time to build. It’s OK, nothing special. Again, I doubt it was ever played live. I don’t know if The Fugitive really needed to be made into a song, but Steve beat the movie adaptation by a year!
Bruce and Davey’s “Chains of Misery” follows. I think it’s another OK song, again nothing special and again I doubt it was ever played live. Nice shout-along chorus.
Another Zeppish song is next: “The Apparition”. Steve wrote this one with Janick. See above comments: OK song, never played live. The lyrics start with promise, a ghost story perhaps, but then it turns into a series of pieces of advice from the apparition to the living. Stuff like “You can make your own luck,” etc. And Bruce is doing that annoying growl vocal!
Thankfully, “Judas Be My Guide” gets us out of this slump! Ironically I always found this one to sound kind of Priest-like! I like this tune. Bruce wrote it with Davey, and to me this is the kind of song that Adrian Smith used to bring to the table. Melodic, powerful, anthemic, sing-along metal. I don’t think it was ever played live, but to me this one would have been single material. I would have picked it over “From Here To Eternity”.
The mellow “Weekend Warrior” is one of the oddest on the album. Bruce does his growl vocal (again!) but the song goes from acoustic section to electric section to acoustic again, and it’s quite unlike most Maiden songs. The lyrics seem to be about football hooliganism. I’m not sure if this was a topic that Iron Maiden needed to delve into, but there it is.
Finally, we have the Steve epic you have been waiting for: “Fear of the Dark”. It’s a little simple and repetitive compared to past epics, but it’s solid and has remained in the live set tour after tour after tour. It is a fan favourite worldwide, and I think it’s great. Although it’s simpler musically, I think in a lot of ways it’s one of Steve’s best epics. It’s absolutely perfect live, it begs to be sung along with, and it goes from peak to valley so well! I like big gothic opening riff. The mellow sections, again, would serve as a blueprint for the next era of Iron Maiden. Steve’s melodic bass, backed by quiet keys…
And that’s the album, a fat 12 songs, and although many are in the 3 minute range, there are several over 5 minutes this time. It was a generous slice of studio music from Maiden, never before had they crammed so many songs onto a record. It was also released on DAT, cassette, and CD. The vinyl was a double, and very hard to find. Vinyl was an import here in Canada: Capitol stopped pressing vinyl here in early 1990.
As I mentioned, there are moments here that musically look into Maiden’s future. But changes were already afoot, and in a real way, Fear of the Dark is the first album of the new Maiden. For the first time ever, Derek Riggs’ artwork was absent. Maiden instead chose a painting by Melvyn Grant. Gone were the Riggs trademarks, and a lot of fans reacted negatively to the new art. Eddie looked more Nosferatu than Eddie, and the idea of Eddie being reborn from a tree was…weird?
This was also to be Martin Birch’s final production effort. He retired after Fear of the Dark. Happy retirement, Martin! What can you possibly say bad about the man who produced Machine Head? Nothing. I will say though that this album, recorded digitally for the first time, sounds very thin. I think it was immediately noticeable and this was rectified on future albums.
My 1996 reissue has a bonus disc chock full of B-sides.
“Be Quick Or Be Dead” came with the piano-infused joke boogie tune, “Nodding Donkey Blues”, an ode to plus-sized ladies. It’s actually really great fun. “Ahh, there should be some kind of guitar solo here!” says Bruce before the piano kicks in.
Also from the same single is Montrose’s “Space Station #5” – Sammy Hagar’s first and only writing credit on an Iron Maiden disc! Maiden of course kick this song in the nuts. What an awesome riff. But wait — don’t turn it off. The hidden track “Bayswater Ain’t A Bad Place To Be” is yet another hilarious roast of manager Rod Smallwood!
Second single, “From Here To Eternity” was an oddity of sorts, one of the few Maiden singles to not feature Eddie on the cover. It’s B-sides included a Chuck Berry cover/ode to roadie Vic Vella called “Roll Over Vic Vella”. There were also two live tracks from the previous tour: “Public Enema Number One”, and “No Prayer For the Dying”. Nice to have live versions of these songs, as I doubt they were played again after that tour.
“From Here To Eternity” also supposedly featured a remixed A-side — a “Triumph Mix”. (The name “Triumph Mix” is only printed on the disc itself and not the back cover.) I can’t tell the difference, so don’t get excited. I also haven’t attempted to do a detailed comparison, so if you know more than I do, please comment.
The third and final single was “Wasting Love” which unfortunately had a terribly boring music video. It’s just too 90’s! It had three more live tracks, all from the previous tour: “Tailgunner”, “Holy Smoke”, and “The Assassin”. Same comment as above: Nice to have live versions. But note, none of these songs are on the 1996 reissue with bonus disc! Not one! And this is one of the rarest of Maiden singles. Took me a while to find a copy at a decent price.
There was one bonus included on the 2 CD edition of Fear of the Dark, in lieu of the above: “Hooks In You”, also live from the previous tour. Probably my most hated of all Maiden tunes. It’s actually from a later single, and I’ll get to that when I get to that album.
This was the last of the ten Iron Maiden 2 CD reissues from 1996.
So there you have it: Fear of the Dark. It’s superior to No Prayer, I believe. Both the good songs and the filler are superior. It pointed the way to some interesting new directions, mixing light and shade, and it proved that Janick Gers was an able songwriter in Iron Maiden. He had also begun to gel with Dave Murray as guitar player. Yet the album also had much filler, it would have been stronger at a traditional 9 or 10 tracks. I still have a fond place in my heart for Fear of the Dark, for it was one of many albums that helped me get through the 90’s.
But if you thought the last couple Maiden albums were controversial among fans, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
The Bargain Bin was where we sold our overstock — discs we had three or more copies of — at $5.99 per disc. Which was cheap by 1996 prices. New discs went from $16.99 to $24.99 at the time.
I think it was Trev who made the sign for the Bargain Bin. Trevor was the resident sign-maker because he had some artistic ability, where my boss couldn’t read my handwriting let alone my signs. It was originally called the “Bin O’ Bargains”. It was a big red sign, and it looked something like this:
Bin ‘O Bargains. But yet 90% of customers couldn’t read it. They would always say, “What’s in your Bin Bargains?”
“Bin Bargains”? That doesn’t even make sense!
The Bin O’ Bargains, as mentioned, was a hodgepodge of overstock. Any type of music was fair game, from Alan Jackson to Hammer to Lionel Richie to Hole to the Pumpkins. $5.99 each. We later lowered this, but at the start everything in there was basically the same price. We figured, that was simplest.
Simple to us, but not to everyone else. The Bin O’ Bargains created many questions and problems for both customers and staff! I mentioned that it was for stuff we had three or more copies of. That’s an oversimplification of things, but there were also things that we’d NEVER throw in the bargain bin. For example, if by some weird coincidence, we had four copies of a Queen album: Staff would think maybe, “OK, that’s plenty of copies, I’ll put this copy of The Miracle in the Bin.”
Nooooo! No no nononono!
Queen, Metallica, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Lightfoot, …doesn’t matter how many copies we have or what we paid for them. You never, ever, ever bargain bin bands like that. If we happened to have a bunch of used copies, that’s just pure chance!
You’d also never throw a greatest hits CD in there, because they were good sellers.
Err…except those cheapie greatest hits discs that you can get new at the grocery store for around $5.
Try teaching all that to a highschool kid who just wants to work at a record store to be cool. We ended up selling all kinds of stuff for $5.99, by mistake, instead of stockpiling it. I remember once a kid handed me a copy of Metallica’s Black Album that he found in the bin at $5.99. Lucky kid! That CD never should have been in there, since it was a regular easy sale at full price. (It doesn’t matter what you think of that album, it was huge, people wanted it all the time.)
So, there was that. There was always the confusing aspect that since our Bargain Bin was overstock, you’d find the same album on our regular shelves for $11.99. So people would logically ask:
“This copy is $5.99, and this copy is $11.99. Is that because one is scratched more?”
Oooh. Hated that question. It required a set response that both stated our quality policy (all discs are guaranteed and scratch free) and a quick explanation of overstock. People were often confused and who could blame them?
After you explained the Bin O’ Bargains to them, they’d hold up the $5.99 copy. “So…I should buy this one, right?”
Yes. Yes you should.
Since the bargain bin was a hodgepodge, we just threw stuff in there — nothing was alphabetized. Which caused us problems with lazy customers who didn’t want to flip through the treasures within.
“The other day you had Bryan Adams in here. Can you help me find him?”
ARGH! Why didn’t you buy him the other day? Yeah, I’ll help you find him. Flip flip flip. Flip flip flip. Flip flip flip. I could flip the whole bin in around 5-10 minutes, but still…tedious.
We did brisk business out of the bin. The markup was decent and we might have sold 20 out of there each day. Some people used it to take chances on new music, others to pick up long-ignored albums. It just boggled my mind how many people complained about such a great deal!
“I can’t search through this bin…it’s completely random! I’m not wasting my time.”
“Can you give me a deal if I buy 5?”
We also had this frequent buyer card like a buy-10-get-one-free type of card, but it specifically said, “Not applicable with any other special deals.” The Bin O’ Bargains was already a special deal, so we weren’t allowed to stamp the card with it. Which pissed people off. Which made me wonder, “What are you complaining about? You’re already getting a CD for a quarter of its regular price.”
When the Bin O’ Bargain was full to the brim, and sales were slow, we’d have a Bargain Bin sale. Something like buy two from the bin, get one free. We were still making money and stuff cleared out of there quickly. It was one good way to get rid of all those Lionel Richie Louder Than Words discs.
But don’t worry, the Bin would fill up again in short order. There were always people looking to get rid of their Lionel Richie.
If Tattooed Millionaire had not happened, neither would so many things in Maiden’s history: No #1 single (“Bring Your Daughter…to the Slaughter), Janick Gers might never have joined the band, and so on.
Due to the six months downtime between Seventh Son and No Prayer, Bruce decided to have some fun. He first recorded “Bring Your Daughter…to the Slaughter” for the Nightmare on Elm Street 5soundtrack. This opened the floodgates and before too long, Bruce and guitarist Janick Gers had more than enough songs for an album. (Other band members: Andy Carr – bass, Fabio Del Rio – drums.)
And an album there was, and what a fine album indeed! Bruce made no bones about it: This is not a heavy metal album like Maiden. This is a hard rock album, along the lines of his influences: Deep Purple, AC/DC, Mott the Hoople, and more. What was surprising even to me at time was just how good it was.
The first single, “Tattooed Millionaire” was catchy as hell while still sounding very British and uncompromising. Vocally, the song and album combines Bruce’s classic soaring voice, with his newer style of spitting out the words in a furious assault. The combination is effective; Just listen to “Hell On Wheels”. While innuendo-loaded verses are spat out, the chorus soars in a singalong fashion. “Dive! Dive! Dive!” and “Lickin’ the Gun” tackle similar lyrical territory.
But it’s not all sexual innuendo. Bruce tackles more philosophical topics on songs such as “Born in ’58” (a great single), “Son of a Gun”, and “Gypsy Road”. Meanwhile, “Tattooed Millionaire” pokes fun at the rockers of the L.A. scene, loaded with cash but not too much in the way of brains.
Tattooed boys with expensive toys,
living in a bubble of sin.
Money can buy you most of anything,
fix your nose or the mess you’re in.
Some speculated that this was aimed at former tourmates, Guns N’ Roses. I believe Bruce later said the inspiration was Motley Crue!
Bruce admitted that doing a cover song for a single was “cheating”, but “All the Young Dudes” was a great choice to cover. Fear not; Bruce does it justice. Bruce kicks it in the head. Gers’ guitar work is perfect for the song, and it’s good to have a chance to hear him play a more laid-back style, unlike his usual work.
The album spawned plenty of singles, each with their own B-sides worth collecting. But luckily, the fine folks at Sanctuary put all of this stuff together, along with “Bring Your Daughter”, on a tasty bonus disc.
The bonus disc includes some acoustic music (“Winds of Change”, “Darkness Be My Friend”, and the joke song “Ballad of Mutt”). It also has some kickass live covers: Deep Purple’s “Black Night” and “Sin City” by AC/DC among them. Bonus — there’s also a studio version of “Sin City”, and some live versions of the album’s hits.
Absolutely essential: “Son of a Gun”, “Tattooed Millionaire”, “Born in ’58”.
Great: “Gypsy Road”, “Zulu Lulu”, “No Lies”, “All the Young Dudes”
Are you a young person working in the world of retail? Have you been offered a raise and a salary instead of hourly wages?
If you answered “yes” to both those questions, then sit right back and you’ll hear a tale.
I never much liked working Saturdays, for two reasons. One, it was the longest, busiest shift. Second, when I worked alone at least I picked the music. Saturdays we had two people on, because it was the busiest day. More often than not, I didn’t think much of the music the other people picked.
I mean, I hope it’s obvious by now — I’m a rocker! Unfortunately I didn’t work with many other rockers. On the other hand, they didn’t think much of my Journey discs. We actually later wrote it into the training manual — try not to knowingly pick music that your co-workers disliked! That narrowed the scope for me!
But as I said, Saturdays were our busiest days. Makes sense — kids are off school, a lot of other people have the day off — why not pick up tunes for the weekend?
One day, the boss called a staff meeting. He was giving us store managers a raise, and a salary. The only catch? We had to work one extra Saturday per month. They decided (and logically so) that our best people needed to be working on our busiest days. Therefore managers must work a minimum of two Saturdays a month. Makes sense. Previously we were only working one Saturday per month, and I knew that it was a free ride of sorts. I wasn’t surprised when it ended, although it definitely meant less cottage time.
Later that week, T-Rev called me.
“Have you done the math on your new salary yet?”
“No,” I answered. “Why?”
“Well,” he explained, “Even though he called it a raise, when you account for the extra Saturday we’re working, we’re actually making less money per hour now.”
“No shit,” I answered. “That sucks.” Once we were on salary, we couldn’t go back.
Salaries came with all sorts of interesting loopholes. For example, as managers if we couldn’t get someone to work a shift and we were short people, it usually fell on us to work the hours. Now, we weren’t getting paid extra to do it anymore. Another new duty that came with the salary was stock transfers: Driving stock around town to another store in rush-hour traffic. The gas in your tank and miles on your car? “That’s all a part of your salary”.
Not to mention all the extra hours I started to do in training duty and putting out fires, and the aforementioned twice-weekly stock deliveries. I did the math one time — you don’t wanna know how much more money I would have made on my old hourly wage! Enough to buy several of those new Iron Maiden picture disc sets!
So, young grasshoppers: if you too find yourselves pinned on the horns of a dilemma like this, think hard on your options!
RECORD STORE TALES PART 69: Porn Don’t Go Platinum
Back in June, I posted an old story called Porn Don’t Go Platinum. It was part 69, and how could I resist posting a story about a time that porn came into our stores? It didn’t happen often. Probably less than five times in my experience. People didn’t get it; just because we bought and sold CD’s and DVD’s didn’t mean we bought and sold that kind. Nor did I want to touch somebody’s used porn movies.
Anyway I kind of assumed at the time that I’d start getting random hits for Google searches about porn. Which is what happened. Pretty much every day, I get hits for the following terms.
69 porn
real 69 porn
69porno kiss
Sometimes, throw this one in. Cheaper people, I’m assuming.
free 69 porn
That’s fine, whatever. Then I got this one. Go back and read the original post and you’ll see why:
missing teeth porn -old
But then I started noticing really weird ones. Here’s one for example:
japen lebrains for the first time fuck
If anybody can tell me what that means…don’t. I don’t wanna know.
mikeladano.com 