Part 112: Klassic Kwotes IX!

RECORD STORE TALES PART 112:  Klassic Kwotes IX!

1. “I just have this image of Josh shaking his ‘thing'”.  Not actually spoken in-store, this was found on the ground on a piece of pink notepaper, after a gaggle of school girls had left the store.  Odd.

2. “I’ll tell you something, somebody’s getting fat off that Gumbo thing!” said the surly old man when I showed him the price of the Forrest Gump soundtrack.  Too rich for him!

3. “So how is the new N’Sync CD, is it decent?”  Why would you even ask this question of a guy wearing a Kiss shirt?

4. “I hear good things about it.”  My response.  This was a standardized response for if you hadn’t heard the album in question, or had heard it but hated it.  For example, “How’s the new Nickelback?”  The correct answer would have been, “I hear good things about it.” 

5.  Another standardized answer for questions like that:  “If you liked their last album, you’ll like this one.”

6. “Can I try these out?” said the guy holding about dozen discs, 10 minutes before closing time.  (Luckily, we had a policy of shutting down the CD players 15 minutes before close to avoid these situations.)

7. “Sorry man.  These things are on timers.  I can’t even turn it on.”  This is what you said if a simple, “No, sorry man, we’re closing,” wasn’t good enough.  And people believed it!  There was a neat trick.  The headphones were hooked up to these little amps.  But if I shut down the amp, there was a good 20-30 second delay before the music died.  So I covertly could flip a switch to kill the amp, walk across the store, and be doing something else before the customer’s music stops.  Then when they’d say, “Hey, the music stopped, I don’t know what happened,” I would respond:  “Sorry man.  Those things are on timers. We’re closing and they automatically shut down at this time.”  This was reserved for the jerks who abused the players.

8. “Sorry man, this CD is too scratched for me to take,” said I, to the customer selling the disc.  His classic response?  “Fuck!  That’s what you said when I brought it in last time!  But this time I fuckin’ buffed it in Turtle Wax!”

9. When we first opened, we had a big huge sign that said “WE PAY CSAH FOR USED CDS“.

10. The man from the sign company came in to fix the sign.  He said to me, and I swear to God I’m not making this up — he said to me, “That’s Bill.  He spells ‘cash’ wrong on every sign.”

BONUS 11! “Hey man.  You spelled ‘cash’ wrong on your sign you know.”  No kidding?  And Bill fuckin’ spelled it wrong, not me!

REVIEW: Accept – Stalingrad (2012)

ACCEPT – Stalingrad (2012 Nuclear Blast, bonus track)

They said there could be no Accept without Udo!  But here we are, two albums deep onto a healthy Accept rennaissance with Mark Tornillo at the mic.   Wolf Hoffman and company have carried on with class.  Has there ever been a metal band that so seemlessly replaced their beloved longtime original throat?

I think on Stalingrad, Tornillo’s fitting in better than ever.  It seemed to my ears that they have upped the SPM (screams-per-minute) on this Accept album, and Tornillo’s never sounded better honestly.  I guess that big long tour really tightened everybody up, because the whole band sounds awesome.

Stalingrad is very much a companion record to the successful comeback Blood Of The Nations.  It sound like a natural succession, with perhaps a little more emphasis on melody and catchiness.  The tracks are still as Teutonically heavy as before, but there seems to be just the oddest incremental increase in melody.

Strongest songs:

“Stalingrad”, “Flash To Bang Time”, “Shadow Soldiers”, “Us Against The World”, they’re all good!  I also liked the 9/11 song “Never Forget”, which is a bonus track on some editions.

On a final note, I think Peter Baltes is a damn fine and underrated metal bassist.  He sounds great on this album!

4.5/5stars

REVIEW: Iron Maiden – Virtual Lights Strikes Over France (1998, bootleg CD)

IRON MAIDEN – Virtual Lights Strikes Over France (1998, bootleg CD)

This awkward title was a disc I was really looking forward to playing.  I snagged it in early 2000 at a record show in London, Ontario.  I remember wanting to look at the discs before I bought it, because cheap bootlegs on CD-R’s were becoming more common.  I wanted to make sure this was an actual factory pressed CD, not a CD-R, and the seller pretended she didn’t know what a CD-R was!

I like the Blaze-era Maiden albums and I was eager to have a live document of those years of some kind.  A quick glance at the back cover reveals this concert to be an excellent choice.  Not only do they play 7 of the 8 songs from Virtual XI, but there are three bonus tracks from 1996’s X Factour as well.  All in all, an excellent cross section of Blaze material, with a smattering of Bruce and Paul.

Upon first listen, however, I was horrified!  Blaze is shockingly tuneless!  The rumours of his voice being shot during the Virtual XI tour seem to be confirmed.  Judging by his recent solo output, his voice is much stronger today.  But in 1998, something was clearly very wrong.  He misses notes more often than he hits them on this one.  Neither Blaze nor Steve Harris have really elaborated on the why’s.

Gratefully, the 1996 recordings are much stronger.  Blaze’s voice here was album-quality strong.  These three tracks are truthfully the only thing on this disc that I can stand listening to.  The rest is just tunelessly bad.

1/5 stars

    

REVIEW: King’s X – Dogman (1994)

quiz

Complete studio albums (and more!), part 7

DOGMAN FRONT

KING’S X – Dogman (1994 Atlantic)

I remember getting this for Christmas of 1994.  “Blown away” about sums it up.

Is Dogman their best album?  No, but it sure was a shock to my system when I first heard it.  Back in the 1990’s, I skipped the previous (self-titled) album and picked this up based solely on the strength of the killer first single “Dogman”. I could not believe the song — groovy, basic, heavy, angry but loaded with soul and melody. Just like King’s X in general, but “Dogman” upped the heavy and downplayed some of King’s X whimsy.

When I got the album Dogman, one thing surprised me — not one song was sung by Ty Tabor! Except for the bridge on “Dogman”, all lead vocals were handled by Doug Pinnick. This was disappointing to me as I like bands with two lead singers. I never heard why Ty doesn’t sing on it, but I adjusted.  Truthfully every song on Dogman is a winner, and are suited to Doug’s vocals.  In hindsight, it fits the direction.

I mean, this band is so freakin’ talented!  From the sheer unique sound of this band, mixing progressive rock with heavy metal and soul, mixed with the Beatles and so much more…you can’t see enough good things about King’s X.  I love Doug’s bass, I think he’s playing 8 or 12 string in spots.  But what makes this band unique is Doug’s voice.  Nobody else has that.

Doug’s lyrics are quite obtuse (I don’t know what “Tide, underside my pillow, willow, whoa-oh, thundering” means) but the way he sings it sure sounds like he has something to get off his chest. “Passionate” might be one way to describe these songs.  At the same time there are slower songs like “Flies and Blue Skies” that I won’t call a ballad, but have that ballady vibe.

Highlights: The title track, “Shoes”, “Cigarettes”, “Pillow”, “Pretend”, “Fool You”, “Go To Hell”, “Complain”, and…hell.  All the rest.

I really like “Cigarettes”…it’s just mournful.  “Shoes” is more upbeat and grooving, although still with dark undertones.  Really, the whole album has darker undertones than previous King’s X releases.  And that’s just fine.  It was 1994.  What are you gonna do?

Lowlights: None. There are no weak songs.  Maybe just the live version of “Manic Depression” (Hendrix).  I liked that they tacked on a live cover at the end of the album, it’s just not my favourite Hendrix tune by a good margin.

Notably, this is King’s X first album without Sam Taylor producing.  It was crushingly produced for the 1990’s by Brendan O’Brien.

4.9999~/5 stars

Part 1 – Out of the Silent Planet (1988)
Part 2 – Gretchen Goes to Nebraska (1989)
Part 3 – Kings of the Absurd (split bootleg with Faith No More)
Part 4 – Faith Hope Love by King’s X (1990)
Part 5 – “Junior’s Gone Wild” (from 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey soundtrack)
Part 6 – King’s X (1992)

Part 111: The Girl In the Sam Roberts Shirt

RECORD STORE TALES PART 111:  The Girl In the Sam Roberts Shirt

Saturday, Sept. 17, 2005.  I had a rare Saturday off, and I wasn’t wasting it.

I was single, and interested in a couple different girls.  First there was Mel.  She was a nice but just always in a hurry.  She drove like a maniac and for her it was all rush-rush-rush.  We had a “date” that Saturday morning.  We were heading to St. Jacobs to go to the market.

Well, this wasn’t the kind of market excursion I was used to.  She was rushing from vendor to vendor, getting what she needed, with no time to look around!  I had a couple things I wanted to buy and she paced and tapped her toes waiting as I looked.  It wasn’t comfortable.  I ended up buying some T-shirts (Bob Marley and Slash) and a Lego set.  The Lego set, the Ultimate Collector’s Series Y-Wing fighter, was $200.  She wanted to pay for it.  That creeped me out a bit, considering I barely knew this girl.  I said no.  And that was basically it.  She drove me home, and that was all.  No sparks, just the creeps.

Before I went on my date with Mel, I was up all night talking to Jen.  Jen was from Brampton.  She was a hockey loving Christian who also liked Johnny Cash and Nirvana.  I didn’t even sleep that night, we were on the phone until daylight.  I said to Jen, “I have this date with this Mel girl in a few hours.  But I don’t even really want to go.”  In a way I was relieved that the “date” didn’t go well.  I wasn’t into it, and even though she was a hockey-loving Christian, and I hadn’t been to church in almost 20 years, I had a much better connection with Jen.

I spent Saturday putting together my Lego set.  It actually took me all week to finish.  It was massive.

Sunday the 18th I had to work.  I grew to hate working Sundays.  I don’t remember anything about that work day at all — maybe I’ve blocked it out?  Jen recalls a little bit.  She remembers me telling her that I was having a shitty day at the store.  Sundays were usually pretty busy right from the get-go, and Sundays we were usually inundated with jerk knobs and dipsticks.  It wasn’t a great part of town to work in.  We attracted a high ratio of customers that did not carry any kind of currency, but needed to kill time listening to music at a CD store.

“Hey!” she said.  “Are you doing anything tonight?”

“Well, nothing I can’t cancel,” I said.  “Why?”

“Do you want to come down to Brampton and hang out?”

Sure!  I was down for that.  She gave me the directions, and I hopped in my green Dodge Neon and hit the highway.

I pulled into the driveway, and a blonde girl wearing a Sam Roberts T-shirt, with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen was waiting for me.  She smiled a smile that lit up the whole day.  I was wearing the Marley shirt that I bought the day before.  The night flew by.  We went to a park and played on the swings.  We went to Sonny’s, and had some of their legendary poutine, and probably the best cheeseburger I’ve ever had in my life.  The night flew by.

I had to work Monday morning, as usual.  I left Brampton around 9 so I could get home and get to bed at a decent hour.  As I drove down Dixie Road towards Highway 401, I said to myself, “That girl is special.  Whatever you do, you have to make sure she doesn’t get hurt.  She’s different than the others you’ve met.”

And she was.  And 3 years later, Jen became Mrs. LeBrain.

GUEST REVIEW: Helix -“All I Want For Christmas is the Leafs to Win the Cup” by Mrs. LeBrain

While I’m qualified to talk about Helix, I’m not qualified to talk about what this single means to a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.  For that reason, I’m handing this one over to Mrs. LeBrain!

And don’t miss my exclusive interview with Brian Vollmer! Click here!

HELIX – “All I Want For Christmas is the Leafs to Win the Cup” (2012 Helix Records 7″ single)

Helix has their Heavy Mental Christmas – This is the carol I will sing to my great-grandchildren…

All I want for Christmas… Is the Leafs to win the CUP.  That is a present worth fighting for.

From my earliest memories I have been “torontomaplegirl”.  This song sings to everything that I am.  The Toronto Maple Leafs have one of the longest droughts in professional sports, but their fans, oh their fans will be loyal until the end of time.

We load up in cars and airplanes to watch them play in other cities because it is impossible to get decent seats at their Bay Street home.  We decorate our homes with a Maple theme and select our cars and clothes in that delicious royal blue that sets us apart.  (I convinced LeBrain that we wanted a blue car that I have since named Dougie Carmour.)

“Go LEAFS Go” are the first words we teach our children, and Brian Vollmer has them wonderfully placed throughout the song’s chorus.  He makes a quick reference to the hundred year old rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens in a cute way – advising that a Habs jersey would be an unpleasant gift during the Christmas season.   He also references 1967:  the last year that the Stanley Cup was in the place it belongs.  (I have kissed the Stanley Cup on 1967 during a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1994, hoping it would bring the glory back to Toronto – we made it to game 7 of the western conference finals that year.)

The song is available in two places.  It can be found on the new Helix Best Of CD covering hits from 1983 – 2012.  Available for the serious collector is a vinyl single, autographed by Brian Vollmer in green vinyl.  It has a heavy mental “Jingle Bells” on the other side.  In future releases, the vinyl will be released in different colours.  I am patiently awaiting the Maple Leaf blue coloured single to make it into the LeBrain family home.  [The vinyl release also comes with a download code in case you can’t play vinyl — nice touch. – LeBrain]

Now we just have to get working on my Thanksgiving gift wish of firing Gary Bettman so we can get this lockout bullshit taken care of.

4/5 stars

Below:  Helix sells the single, album and T-shirt as a bundle

Way to leave the closet door open behind you while taking a photo of yourself, LeIdiot!

Part 110: FAQ

For those of you just joining us, I felt now was as good a time as any to answer some FAQ’s about working in a record store in general, and my experience specifically!

RECORD STORE TALES PART 110: FAQ

FAQ 1:  So, it’s just like Empire Records, right?

NO!  Not even close.  We never had a couch.  I hate that movie.

FAQ 2:  I thought working in a record store was supposed to be fun?  Why is your blog so bitchy?

This is something I am trying to be especially conscious of – a good balance.  Yes, working in a record store is fun.  The treasures that float your way, the characters you run into, and the situations can be quite funny/cool/exciting.  But my experience was both sides of the coin.  Being a manager, reporting to a corporate structure, during the beginning of the downloading era had plenty of sucky moments too.  It is easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and say, “We did this wrong, we missed the boat here, and we messed this up.”   My bottom line has always been to make you laugh and hopefully that happens from time to time!

FAQ 3:  So you got a discount, right?

Yes!  New employees didn’t get one until they were done probation, due to past abuses.  Once it kicked in, it was pretty sweet.  The only thing that we couldn’t get discounts on were rarities.  Anything rare, like let’s say the first Tea Party CD, we were not allowed discounts on.  But that discount allowed my collection to grow 20-fold!

         

FAQ 4:  How do I get a job in a music store?

In my experience, there are two ways.  One is to know somebody that works there to get you in. Keep shopping there and chatting up the staff until they know you.  Another way is to apply like any other job, and have a wealth of musical knowledge to back you up.  I don’t know how important musical knowledge is anymore, with Google able to answer most questions, but that’s how it was for us.

FAQ 5:  What’s the rarest thing you ever saw come in?  

Well, that depends.  Rarity is relative.  What was rare then can be common now.  But one thing for sure was that rare Tea Party album.  I also saw a Japanese import Deep Purple box set.

FAQ 6:  So, it’s just like Empire Records, right?

GAHHHH!

REVIEW: Helix: Best Of 1983-2012 (2012)

Don’t miss my exclusive interview with Brian Vollmer! Click here!

BEST OF HELIX FRONT

HELIX: Best Of 1983-2012 (Anthology, 2012 Helix Records)

Just in time for the hockey season — or not? — here comes Helix with a brand new single called “All I Want For Christmas Is the Leafs to Win the Cup”.   It’s on 7″ vinyl, but in case you can’t play vinyl, you can still get that track on their brand new anthology as a bonus track.  I’m going to let Mrs. LeBrain review the single.  Let’s talk about the anthology.

SAM_0445

The packaging is a bit skimpy, but Brian Vollmer autographs every copy that you order from his site, so that makes up for the lack of a booklet, in my opinion.  I’ve always been about owning a physical product, and if a CD doesn’t have a booklet to flip through, an autograph helps make up for that.

A lot of people (if you’re reading this, say hello!) don’t care about owning a physical product; to them it’s all about the music.  So let’s talk about the music.

Helix have lots of hits compilations out there available, but nothing that covers this range of material.  I’m really fond of the albums that Helix has made in more recent years.  Vagabond Bones and The Power of Rock and Roll are both up there among the band’s best work, and one of my favourite Helix albums ever is B-Sides.  I’d recommend those albums to anyone who enjoys rock and roll in the gritty, honest and catchy style that Helix specialize in.  So it’s nice to have material from those three albums in one place.

There are familiar hits here as well, including “Running Wild in the 21st Century”, the ballad “Good To the Last Drop”, and the recent remake of “Heavy Metal Love” from the Power Of Rock and Roll album.  You’ll also notice other big ones:  “Wild In the Streets”, “Deep Cuts the Knife”, and “Rock You”.  These are re-recordings, I assume because Capitol/EMI owns the originals.  I think an original version is always superior to a re-recording.  But you can understand the reason for it.  A brand new song written by the duo of Brian Vollmer and Sean Kelly called “Axe To Grind” rounds out the album.

Personal favourites:  The heavy and grooving “Danger Zone”, from B-Sides.  The undeniably catchy “Get Up!” (seriously, you won’t get this song out of your head).  “You Got the Love That I Like”, another modern and heavy one from B-Sides.  The slick and fast “Animal Inside”, from Vagabond Bones.

Omissions:  I would have loved an acoustic track from Helix’ excellent Smash Hits…Unplugged CD.

Unlike a lot of hits packages released this time of year, Best Of 1983-2012 is a really good and justified compilation.  Helix has had a hell of a lot of good music in recent years.  Even for fans like myself who have the albums already, hearing a good compilation like this really highlights some recent triumphs.

4/5 stars

Part 109: The Summer From Hell!

RECORD STORE TALES Part 109:  The Summer From Hell

Summer, 2004.

I had one really, really awful summer at the store.  My full-time backup had quit, and head office made the decision not to hire a replacement until the Christmas gear-up season.  Instead, they decided to spread out the part-timers to cover the hours.  They were always eager for hours, but not necessarily weekend hours!

I was required to work two Saturdays a month anyway.  That summer, I had to pull a lot more than that.  Saturdays, Sundays, the odd 12 hour shifts…I didn’t get to the cottage very much that summer.  Allegedly, one head office staffer was overheard saying to another, “It’s going to be funny watching Mike try to work all summer without a full-timer.”  Good to know they had my back.

I was furious.  But I was also defeated.

I had one weekend booked off in July.  I couldn’t miss that weekend.  My grandma’s 80th birthday party was that weekend.  There was no way in hell that I was going to miss my grandma’s 80th birthday party.  It was a 2 hour drive away, in Kincardine Ontario.  I only have one grandma (88 this year!), but wouldn’t you know it?  Nothing ever went smooth for me….

I had a date the previous night (Friday), with this girl who was originally from Thunder Bay.  We went out and we had a nice meal followed by a night of drinks.  I woke up slightly hungover, but eager to hit the lake, and say hi to grandma.  Then, my phone rang.  Not a good sign.

My least reliable employee, Wiseman, was calling in sick.  The truth was more likely that he was calling in wasted.  Somebody had to get the hell over there and cover him.  And that someone was me.

I pulled in, unshowered, unshaven, and pissed off.  I had never been so mad at Wiseman in my life.  It was becoming a far, far too regular occurrence that he was always “sick”, and someone had to cover for him.  You can’t expect every part time employee to give up their Saturday plans and work on no notice, but a manager had to.

To her credit, there was one head office person on duty that weekend, and she came in to take over.  I will always be grateful to that person for covering me on my grandma’s 80th birthday weekend.  If memory serves, my great aunt Marie, her sister, made it that weekend too.  I think that was the last time I ever saw her, she passed away not too long after.

My relationship with head office people was rocky to say the least, especially after that “It’s going to be funny watching Mike try to work all summer…” crack.  But she did cover me when I needed it.  I won’t forget that, and I’ll always be grateful.

The rest of the summer was what it was, weekend after weekend of working, the same grind and drudgery.  The musical light in the tunnel that summer was the release of Marillion’s double Marbles CD.  It is my favourite Hogarth-era Marillion to this day, and when I received it that summer, it got me through.  We didn’t carry it in stock in our store, but it was in my car, and on my home player, all summer.  It brightened the mood, it kept me going, waking me up in the morning and getting me out the door.  The Summer of Hell’s bright spot was Marillion, and my grandma.

I would like to dedicate this installment of the Record Store Tales to that one head office person who stepped up and covered for me that day.  We had many knock-down-drag-out arguments over the years, and I’m sure that her side of many events differ from mine.  Regardless, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been present for my grandma’s 80th, and for that I owe her a debt of gratitude.

Thank you.  It meant a lot to me.

Below:  the soundtrack to that summer

REVIEW: Rush – Icon (2010)

Icon.jpg

RUSH – Icon (2010 Universal)

No “Tom Sawyer”? No “Subdivisions”? No “2112”? This baffling compilation had zero involvement from the band, and should probably be avoided. There are plenty other Rush comps — official Rush comps, longer and with better variety of tracks — to satiatate your need for the holy trinity.

I do give whatever exec put the track list together credit for including ancient classics like “The Necromancer” and “Circumstances”…but this set of obscure album tracks mixed with singles makes little sense.  It will only disappoint those looking for a good one CD Rush collection with all the songs they know.  And real Rush fans don’t need to buy discs like this.

0.5/5 stars.

  1. Working Man
  2. Fly by Night
  3. The Necromancer
  4. The Twilight Zone
  5. Closer to the Heart
  6. Circumstances
  7. Freewill
  8. Limelight
  9. The Analog Kid
  10. Red Sector A
  11. Marathon
  12. Force Ten