#1146: 35 years ago, Mike heard this classic album for the first time… (An Uncle Don Don story in under 2 minutes) [VIDEO]

My Uncle Don Don was the youngest of three kids.  He was quite a bit younger than his two older sisters, who liked The Beatles.  My uncle was from a younger generation, raised on Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple.

I had more in common musically with my uncle than my mother.  So, when my uncle approached me early in the summer of 1989 to swap tapes to record, I knew he’d have something interesting to tape.  I grabbed a Maxell 90 minute cassette, and chose an album of his to record on one side.

Hear the album and the story in the 2 minute video below.

FAITH NO MORE: A Career Retrospective on Grant’s Rock Warehaus [VIDEO]

One of my favourite bands, going back 34 years this summer, is Faith No More. The San Fransisco band hit it back in the summer of 1990 with “Epic”, but they had been plying the rock waters for years before, including a brief stint with Courtney Love on lead vocals. It was the acquisition in 1988 of Mr. Bungle singer Mike Patton (replacing Chuck Mosely) that was the final ingredient needed to push them over the top. Even though they are undoubtedly one of the weirdest rock bands to hit the Top Ten, they pre-dated the grunge era with their funky bass, rapped lyrics, and soaring choruses.

Grant Arthur and I covered the whole shebang, including a triumphant return with the reunion album Sol Invictus.  What is it?  It’s a damn great episode of Grant’s Rock Warehaus.  Give it a watch below!

#1145: Goals 2024

August approaches!  So much still to do this season!  Yet, goals have been achieved:

  1. Numerous Amazon deliveries to the front porch, including my new cottage desk for outdoor work.
  2. Lots of animal footage, including a couple shots of the fox.
  3. Several episodes of Grab A Stack of Rock and Tim’s Vinyl Confessions recorded and streamed from the new porch (and new desk).
  4. Drones drones drones.
  5. Two epic birthdays done.

If summer ended tomorrow, I’d say goals have been achieved and the season was a success.  Yet there is more to be done!

  1. Finish (or at least continue to make progress) organizing the music collection.
  2. Take the drone even further for more videos.
  3. Animation – haven’t done any animation videos in a couple years.

What would you like to see this season that we have not done yet?

 

 

VIDEO: “Bang!” It took Mike 35 years to get this rock CD…

Some albums just fall by the wayside.  Here’s a CD that came out 35 years ago, and I just never got around to.

This album, from a new hard rock band, was on my radar due to involvement from some people in the circles of Bon Jovi.  It was scarce in these parts, either unseen on the shelves of local stores, or left sitting in favour of other purchases.

Another thing about the summer of 1989 is that there were few quality record stores at the cottage 35 years ago.  Now, I just have to find what I want on Amazon, and new music is on its way to me while I wait for it on the front porch.  Absolutely amazing.  Tell that to 17 year old Mike in July ’89!

 

A Friday Hang with Johnny Metal & Mike Ladano – Classical Music, Quiet Riot, Lego Jazz, Movie Props and more!

Thank you to John Clauser of My Music Corner for joining me for an impromptu Friday afternoon!  I wanted to finish showing off my birthday hauls, because there was some cool stuff still to be seen.  Possibly the coolest of them was a Star Trek:  Strange New Worlds plaque made by the propmaster on that show and purchased directly from him.  I also received a replica lamp from the Star Wars series Andor, and a Tchaikovsky CD.  This led to an informative back-and-forth about classical music in the comments, led by Pete Jones.

John Clauser brought with him some personal stories and rare copies of his own music.  One is an album that he played some guitar on, one is an album of his own making, and another is a live DVD recorded at a coffee house!  He also has a demo tape of his early W.A.S.P.-influenced solo music.

Quiet Riot was an artist that John spotlighted, with a bonus Randy Rhoads bootleg.  He also brought a double live Accept — a prelude to his next big deep dive series on My Music Corner!

The final thing I had to show off was my Lego Jazz quartet, which ironically, Aaron received for his birthday a few days ago.

Thanks to everyone for the lively comments.  This is why I love going live.  See you next time!

Surprise Friday Stream – Johnny Metal & Cool Music

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man
Episode 66:  Surprise Friday Stream with John Clauser

SURPRISE!  John Clauser from My Music Corner and I will be live at 3:00 PM this afternoon.  That’s just three hours from this posting!

John & felt like being social this Friday, so come one and all and join the conversation.  I have some new things to show off, including birthday gifts and cottage treasures.  John will have some cool stuff to show as well.  Perhaps we’ll even discuss his Twisted Sister series and what is to come next at My Music Corner.

Join us today at 3:00 for a classic cottage afternoon show.  These are always a blast.  Welcome to the cottage John!

Friday July 26 at 3:00 P.M. E.S.T. / 4:00 P.M. Atlantic.   Enjoy on YouTube or on Facebook!

#1144: “In The Summertime” (2020 Hindsight)

RECORD STORE TALES #1144: “In The Summertime” (2020 Hindsight)

Remember the summer of 2020?  It seems so far away now.  It was the “summer that wasn’t” for a lot of people who were quarantined at home during the first major pandemic in 100 years.  I knew I would have a lot more perspective on it eventually.  Hindsight is, as they say…20/20.

After that harsh winter (got severely sick twice, and don’t know if it was Covid at any time because tests didn’t exist yet), I needed a break.  Then Premiere Doug Ford closed the beaches.

It wasn’t just the big city Toronto beaches that closed, but even our little private beach.  It made little sense to us.  Weren’t we safer outside?  Even travel to the cottage was prohibited in 2020.  Only “essential travel” was permitted.  The idea was not to stress out-of-the-way hospitals, and prevent the spread of the disease.  We all know how well that worked!  At least I didn’t get Covid for three years (that I know of).  This was the reason beaches were closed:  to discourage travel.

 

Since we own property in cottage country, my parents used that as a reason to travel.  Property must be inspected and cared for, especially after a winter like that.  I used mental health as my reason.  My wife and I needed the cottage or we’d have snapped here in our tiny little apartment.  By the end of May, we finally made our first trip back up to Lake Huron.  Nobody reported us, nobody judged.

We own a piece of property that is beachfront.  There was no way we weren’t going down there.  It was a cold May.  There was nobody around.

We cherished every second we had at that cottage, even though we were alone and social distancing from any neighbour we ran into.  That actually suited me fine.  As a classic introvert, I really thrived during social distancing.  Not shaking hands, not seeing people in person…sometimes, it felt like my own personal utopia!

Beaches started to open up in the spring, and with this came the onslaught of “Sooners“.

People weren’t going on holidays.  Most of them were stuck at home.  Instead of going away on a holiday, they instead made day trips to beaches like ours.  My dad called them “Sooners”.  Sooner:  “a person settling on land in the early West before its official opening to settlement in order to gain the prior claim allowed by law to the first settler after official opening.”  That’s what my dad dubbed the annoying beach-goers that crowded our little area in 2020 and 2021.  There was “Man-Bun” and his two girlfriends, and a family of umpteen kids whose mom let them run around naked.  Those were the memorable ones.

I’m going to take you on a slight detour here.  Another thing that happened in 2020 was the temporary halting of many of our favourite TV shows and movies.  YouTube began to seriously thrive.  This is when my friend Uncle Meat introduced me to many new channels I had never heard of before.  I began consuming the work of Todd in the Shadows by binge.  One of his main features is a series called “One Hit Wonderland”.  One of the tracks he covered in that series was “In The Summertime” by Mungo Jerry.  It was a deep dive on what made the song a hit, and why Mungo Jerry never followed it with anything as iconic.  I became obsessed with the song that summer.

My dad believes in asserting your territory, especially where Sooners are concerned.  For him that meant sitting down on our beach chairs, ensuring nobody used them.  For me, that meant singing out loud like we owned the place.  There was more to it than just that though.  I was genuinely just happy to have a beach to go to, and my childhood beach at that!  So I sang, and I felt every single note in my heart as I reached up to touch the sun.

In the summertime, when the weather is high,You can stretch right up and touch the sky!

Jen joined in.

When the weather’s fine,You got women, you got women on your mind,Have a drink, have a drive,Go out and see what you can find.

Wait a minute…did he just sing “have a drink, have a drive?”  1970 was a different time for sure.  Still, it sang well as we raised our voices in song.  Nobody turned to stare.  Everyone (and there were a lot of people!) stuck to their own groups.

Ahh, social distancing.  Gotta love it.

The one and only flaw with our perfect afternoons of singing?  I only had one verse of “In the Summertime” memorized.  It got repeated over and over.  Nobody noticed.

Now that things have returned to something resembling normal, the Sooners have gone.  Social distancing is no longer necessary.  I don’t mind.  I still sing “In The Summertime” when I hit that water.  I still stretch right up so I can touch the sky.  I still think Mungo Jerry wrote a great song.  Its corniness is its charm, but unless you’ve sung that song at the top of your lungs while enjoying a brief respite during a global pandemic, you haven’t experienced “In The Summertime”.