REVIEW: KISS – “Hell or Hallelujah” single! (2012)

Stepping out of continuity: Part 5 of my series of Kiss reviews, this time on the BRAND NEW SINGLE, leading up to the release of Monster!

Yes, I know I forgot part 3.  It’s coming.  I just forgot to publish Dressed To Kill!

KISS – “Hell or Hallelujah” single (download only, 2012)

If you’re still hung up on Ace and Peter not being in the band anymore, just go away.  Get over it.  This sounds like Kiss.  Pure and simple Kiss.  Like the 70’s crossed with the speed of the 80’s.  Picture a song like “Take Me” with the velocity of “Under The Gun”.

Sticking to the seldom-broken formula of having a Paul song be the first single, “Hell or Hallelujah” kicks ass from start to finish.  I can’t say I prefer it to the first single from the previous album, “Modern Day Delilah”, but it’s certainly heavier.  I love the sound of Gene and Paul singing together.  The riff is retro-Kiss, and Paul is singing great.

Tommy Thayer shines, with a guitar solo that is less Ace and more Tommy.  Rather than rip off a bunch of Ace licks like he did last time, this solo reminds me more of something like Bob Kulick would have done back in the day.  Still Ace-like enough in general sound, but with much more dexterity.  Having said that I don’t think it strays too far from the classic Kiss sound, and it’s about time Tommy got to really show off his chops.

Clocking in at 4:06, and selling for $1.29 on iTunes, I can’t wait for a better sounding format.  The CD has to sound better than this!

4/5 stars

REVIEW: KISS – Alive!

Part 4 of my series of Kiss reviews, leading up to the release of Monster!

KISS – Alive! (1975)
For the record I would recommend the Alive Box over this, simply because you get the first 3 Alives in one set with extra material. Buut we’ll get there evenually.

Kiss Alive!…what can you say? Greatest live album of all time? Not really live? Who cares! It sounds amazing and 35 years later people are still buying it. The same cannot be said of many live albums from the era. Live At Last by Black Sabbath was recorded around this time, nobody buys that record now. It’s one of a handful of classics. Frampton Comes Alive, and Live & Dangerous (Thin Lizzy) are up there with it.

Is it live? Sort of. Paul’s guitar playing and singing was not up to snuff for the live album that producer Eddie Kramer wanted to make (too much jumping around) so a lot of it was done in the studio. Can you tell? Absolutely not. You can’t tell at all.

The sound: Epic, loud, superior in every way to the studio albums. The songs: Played faster, more intense, solos are crazier and longer. Paul’s stage raps became popular because of Kiss Alive! Now everybody knows the rap about “a taste of alcohol” (“Cold Gin”), and the big middle section to “100,000 Years”.

You can’t fault one single song inclusion on Kiss Alive!, and indeed this version of “Rock And Roll All Nite” has become more well known than the original. Sure, there are other great Kiss songs that didn’t make it here, but when a live album becomes too long it also becomes harder to listen to.

This (or the Alive Box) should be your first Kiss purchase if you’ve never bought one before.

6/5 stars!

Part 71/ REVIEW: Pink Floyd – Shine On (9 disc box set)

Shine On came out in ’92, I got my copy 11 years later.  First, the story of how I acquired this exceptional copy, and then the review!

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 71:  Shine On

I still have the receipt:  I paid $199.99 on February 12 2003.  New, it’s going for about $440 on Amazon.com these days.  I paid a lot, that is true; we did not get staff discounts on big ticket things such as this.  However, when I encountered Shine On that day, I’d never seen one in better shape.

The hardcover book, containing 110 large pages of text, photos, artwork and credits, was still sealed in plastic.  Nobody had even bothered to open it.  The eight artwork post cards were intact in the black envelope.  The little black fold-out display box was still folded, and remains so to this day.  It’s a very nice touch but I prefer to keep mine as I found it.

The discs, each housed in its own shiny black plastic case, are all mint.  Maybe some were never played before I got hold of it.  The cases are also nearly spotless.  Most of the time, the biggest defect with used copies of this set were broken cases.  Each case was unique:  The front of the case had a small image of the album, and the spine of the case had a piece of a rainbow embossed.  Put all 8 CD cases together in the correct order and you get an image of the Dark Side prism effect.  That’s why the set comes with that little cardboard display – in case you felt like showing them off this way.

Lastly, the bonus CD, The Early Singles, is intact.  A set in this condition was a rarity and I’d never seen better.  Over the years, every set I encountered had a defect of some kind, major or minor:

  • The bonus CD would be missing
  • One or more discs badly scratched
  • One or more cases badly broken
  • One or more postcards or pieces missing
  • The box itself would sometimes be missing and all you’d get is the discs with the little display case
  • Or, just the book would be missing
  • Once, the book was warped and damaged from excessive moisture

You can see why I jumped at the chance.  A box of this condition, used, well that could not be passed up. Likely I’d never see one again that wasn’t sealed brand new — but as a deleted catalogue item, new copies were upwards of $300 at the time.

So, no staff discount?  No problem.  VISA to the rescue.

A $200 sale was a good chunk of my daily quota.  Head office was in the habit of calling at 5 and checking the sales for the day so far.  I read mine off, which was high obviously, but didn’t say why it was high.

“Wow!  Good for you Mikey!  You’ve been busy, keep it up.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a good day y’know,” I responded.  May as well take the credit for it too, right, hell it was my money.

I was dating Radio Statio Girl at the time.  However I was already starting to get cynical about our prospects, having been dumped once already by this time.  Our second go-round was pleasant but a bit tense.  I was supposed to drive down to her place that night, but I decided to spend the evening with Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason instead.

I called.  “Yeah, hey.  I’m not feeling well at all.  I think I’m going to puke.”

Considering the much bigger lies she tossed my way before and after, I thought my little white lie was pretty innocuous.  Especially when I was immersed in Meddle for the first time ever!

PINK FLOYD – Shine On (9 disc box set) (1992)

At the time of release, this was probably the coolest way to get some of the best Floyd discs.  Now with Immersion Editions, Why Pink Floyd…?, fresh remasters, and 5.1 mixes all available, this seems pretty basic.  Indeed, all albums are simple 1992-ish remasterings, no bonus material aside from the afforementioned The Early Singles disc.  And just FYI, you can often find that disc on its own.  Somehow it got separated from a lot of Shine On box sets.

As I described in my story above, the box’s contents are elaborate and fragile, and difficult to find complete.  This is a heavy, heavy box too — not exactly portable.  I find the remastering to be fine, it was 1992 and it’s probably not as loud as more current editions.  Picky audiophiles, I have no idea which you will prefer.

The albums included are as follows:

Disc 1: A Saucerful of Secrets

Disc 2: Meddle

Disc 3: The Dark Side of the Moon

Disc 4: Wish You Were Here

Disc 5: Animals

Disc 6: The Wall part one

Disc 7: The Wall part two

Disc 8: A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Disc 9: The Early Singles

So you’ll notice right away that there are some important albums missing.  Sure, you can understand why albums like Atom Heart Mother or Obscurred by Clouds were not included in a (merely) 9 disc Floyd box set, if the purpose was to boil it down to essentials.  I think it’s a shame that The Final Cut, one of my favourites, is not inside.  I would have preferred that or Piper at the Gates of Dawn to A Momentary Lapse I think.

The real bonuses to this set are twofold:  The book and The Early Singles.

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I don’t know what the current status of these single A and B sides are, in regards to current CD releases.  I know the Piper three disc set has some of these tracks.  But here’s the contents of The Early Singles:

  1. Arnold Layne
  2. Candy and a Currant Bun
  3. See Emily Play
  4. The Scarecrow
  5. Apples and Oranges
  6. Paintbox
  7. It Would Be So Nice
  8. Julia Dream
  9. Point Me At the Sky
  10. Careful With That Axe, Eugene

There are no liner notes with this disc.  I believe all tracks are stereo mixes.

The book is absolutely stunning and will take days to read.  There are extensive interviews from magazine sources, lyrics, liner notes, a nice discography, and loads of old reviews both gushing and nasty.  There’s plenty of artwork and photos to look at, too.

I won’t go too deeply into the music.  Reviewing these albums each on their own would be a monumental task.  Suffice to say that there is much brilliance within.  I think both Dark Side and The Wall are complete triumphs while Meddle and Animals come very very close to that level.  There is much to love here, and much that will take many listens to penetrate.

As a set, this is not perfect and I think the biggest flaw is the selection of albums.  Having said that, for a collector who wants a beautiful deluxe collector’s item, this is easily a:

4/5 stars.

For people who would rather have something with more music on it, you’re better off going with some of the more recent reissues.

Alex, Tom, Meat, Geddy

Part 70: Canada Day Weekend Rush!

Canada Day Weekend, 1997.  Rush were closing up their final bunch of dates on Leg 2 of the Test For Echo tour (June 30 and July 2).  Tom, myself, Trev, and several other record store guys had the whole weekend off and went to see Rush on the Monday show, which was the first of the two shows.  Outdoor show, at Molson.  We did not know that a few months later, Neil Peart would experience unbelievable personal tragedy.  For years, it appeared that we had seen some of the final Rush shows, ever….

One of the guys,Troy, brought his younger brother Tyler. Tyler worshipped Zeppelin.  Still does.  He named his (black) dog “Zep”.  Back then, he was 17 and had never heard Rush.  He thought Bonham was absolutely the greatest drummer who ever lived.  We told him, “Tyler, Bonham was god-like.  But you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen Neil Peart.”  He scoffed.

We brought some beer in the trunk of the car, and snuck into the bushes and had some drinks.  We stumbled into several groups of people in the bushes, drinking, smoking (cigarettes I’m sure) and partying.  It was great.  We were all there, every one of us, to bask in the glory that is Rush.  It was a giant communal party.  Some people were already out of it, and slurring, “Duuuude…they’re gonna play 2112 dude!  We are the priests of the temples of the sphinx! (sic)”

Indeed, I had heard from one of my customers at the store, that Rush were playing all of side 1 of 2112 on this tour.  What would that sound like?  Could Geddy even sing it anymore?

There was no opening act.  There was instead a brief intro before Rush hit the stage to “Dreamline”.

At the halfway point, Rush did indeed play side 1 of 2112 (as chronicled on their Different Stages LP).  They took a brief break before coming back to finish the show.  These being the last Toronto shows of the tour, the roadies were out there clowning around, playing with puppets, all to the delight of the patriotic crowd.

Of course, the Professor did his unbelievable drum solo.  This was around the time that Freddie Gruber had been teaching Neil, and Peart was beginning to feel jazzier in his style.

Tyler was blown away.  “You were right…that guy was almost as good as Bonham!”

Tom and the rest of the guys were so blown away, they actually bought some more tickets from scalpers and came back to see the second show on July 2.

By far, the best and most patriotic Canada Day Weekend I ever had was seeing Rush.  What could be more patriotic than rocking to Canada’s official ambassadors of music?

REVIEW: Motley Crue – Shout at the Devil (2003 Remastered edition)

MOTLEY CRUE – Shout at the Devil (2003 remastered edition)

If Too Fast For Love was nothing more than a gloriously wreckless demo pressed to vinyl, then perhaps Shout is the first “real” Motley Crue album. It is certainly among the best, with only Too Fast and ’94’s self-titled coming close to the metallic goodness of this disc in my world. It is a shame that the original cover did not survive to CD (a pentagram embossed on a pure black cover) because it was a statement of purpose: You are about to Shout at the Devil.

Instead, the CD (and cassette!) cover had four makeup wearing dude-chicks scowling, primping, preening and teasing. However, it was the 80’s, and it was OK then. Don’t let the cover scare you away.  The Japanese vinyl replica CDs also have a replica of the original pentagram cover.  I had one years ago, but sold it off to buy the remaster with bonus tracks.  But we’ll get to those later.

The album opens with a piece that, when we were kids, I loved and played over and over again because it just sounded cool: the spoken-word “In The Beginning”. “In the beginning, good always overpowered the evil of all man’s sins…”  It sounded cool, so we used it on Halloween tapes and just about anything else we could think of.

Then, the opening chords of “Shout At The Devil” hit you right between the eyes, Mick’s guitar as wreckless and hammering as ever. The man had yet to really discover his bluesier talents; for now he was just content to sloppily riff you to death. All is well. Vince Neil drunkenly slurs every lyric, but it works. Tommy’s drums are as simple but as hard hitting as ever.  Really, Tommy’s not a great technical drummer but his hard hits give him a great sound perfect for this album.

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You should know most of these songs: The adrenaline rush that is “Looks That Kill”, the mid-tempo harmonies and drama of “Too Young To Fall In Love”, and even the Beatles cover “Helter Skelter”. Side two of the album is the real surprise, loaded with non-singles that kick as much butt as the singles. “Red Hot” is a proto-thrash number, while “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” is as good as anything on side one. There’s also the equally good but controversial “Bastard”. The PMRC attacked it for the line, “In goes my knife, I pull out his life, consider that bastard dead.”  When I was 12 years old, we owned this on cassette. There was no lyric sheet and Vince Neil slurred so much, you couldn’t make out the lyrics. I had no idea at all what he was singing until about a decade later. By then I was old enough to understand that it’s just storytelling.

There’s a bit of filler in “God Bless the Children of the Beast”. It’s nice for Mick Mars fans, a caveman version of neo-classical guitar, but otherwise it’s just an intro to the manic “Helter Skelter” cover. Kind of like how Sabbath used to throw in a slow instrumental just before hammering you once again with riffage, just that I think Sabbath’s stuff was a little better executed.

The bonus tracks here are rough and not nessesary, except for collectors (like this guy!). “I Will Survive” was completely unreleased until the first run of Crue remasters came out.  It’s a decent track but not up to the album’s lofty standards. “Hotter Than Hell” is a demo version of “Louder Than Hell” from the next album. (Not availablke on this CD is a great track called “The Black Widow”, finally released a little later on Red, White & Crue.  Also missing is “Sinners and Saints” which is on Supersonic & Demonic relics.)

There are also three more demos from the albums sessions:  “Shout”, “Looks That Kill” and “Too Young”.  The 1999 remastered edition did not have “Too Young To Fall In Love”.  That was a Japanese bonus track instead.

There’s also a music video for “Looks That Kill” for your PC if you care, but I don’t.  All the Crue vids were made available on the Greatest Hits DVD.

I believe Shout At The Devil is the essential Crue album to own, and also a great metal album for any collection. Yes, Priest, Sabbath, Maiden and Purple are the cornerstones, but Motley Crue for a short time were the flag bearers. This is a great sloppy metal meal, a burger and fries with all the works. Enjoy the meal.

5/5 stars.

Original LP artwork, and remastered CD back:

REVIEW: KISS – Hotter Than Hell (1974)

Part 2 of my series of Kiss reviews, leading up to the release of Monster!

KISS – Hotter Than Hell (1974)

Hotter Than Hell was my first Kiss album. I had it on a scratched up piece of vinyl that I don’t have anymore. Because of the condition of the record and my turntable at the time, I had no idea just how bad Hotter Than Hell sounds. And it does sound bad. Kids these days, used to ProTools and gloss, are gonna find it unlistenable.

Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise produced once again, two guys who didn’t know how to achieve the heavy rock that Kiss wanted, but tried anyway. The result is a murky impenetrable sound with drums that sound like Peter’s banging away on wooden blocks. The cymbals are nearly impossible to hear. Yet this white noise serves only to make the album heavier and darker to these nostalgic ears.

“Got To Choose” kicks off the album, a Kiss classic. I remember playing it to my 8th grade class much to the teacher’s dismay. Gene and Paul sing harmonies together, but this is a Paul song. The acoustic version from MTV Unplugged is also quite excellent. “Parasite” follows, an Ace song that Gene sings and one of the fastest tunes Kiss were to do in the early days. The Alive! version is more fully realized. A ballad of sorts, “Goin’ Blind” follows. This is a Gene song from his pre-Kiss days, previously known as “Little Lady” and co-written by his Wicked Lester bandmate Steve Coronel. This version doesn’t do it justice, but lines like “I’m 93, you’re 16” hint at territory that Gene would revisit later in other songs. The title track, “Hotter Than Hell” is a Paul song and one of the best on the album if not in Kisstory. The riff and coda are both so memorable. (I miss the days when Kiss used to tack on these extra riffs as codas, they were always so heavy and cool.) Side 1 ends with “Let Me Go, Rock And Roll”, a fast rock n’ roll Chuck Berry guitar number which I always found comical due to Gene high voice at the beginning. The Alive! version has become a classic today.

Side 2 begins with a “lost” album cut called “All The Way”. It’s not played live often but it has one of my favourite choruses. You just can’t get the melody out of your head. Plus it has cowbell! “Watchin’ You”, a Sabbathy Gene song, follows. This song was even revisited for Kiss Alive III in a funkier guise. “Mainline” is a Paul song, sung by Peter Criss. It’s a little more rock n’ roll again, but with that great chrous melody. “Comin’ Home” is another Paul song that ended up on MTV Unplugged. Strange how many of these songs sounded great acoustically! It was always an album favourite of mine with great lyrics. The album ends with the dirgey “Strange Ways”, an Ace Frehley written song, but sung by Peter Criss. This is probably the only song on the album I don’t like very much, even though it is so heavy and Sabbathy.

Rumour has it that Peter recorded a lengthy drum solo, and demanded that it be included in the song, or he was going to quit the band.  (This is according to Gene Simmons.)  The solo was not included, and Peter stayed.

Given the upcoming deluxe remixed edition of Destroyer coming this year (remixed by Ezrin!), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold hope for a remix of Hotter Than Hell.   Maybe, though, it should never be remixed.  Maybe the shite sound is part of the charm?

If that sound issue doesn’t bother you, then delve in and discover a true Kiss classic. Just look at how many songs keep popping up on setlists to this day. That’s the sign of a classic album.

5/5 stars

Check out my review for the live bootleg Kissin’ Time in San Fransisco by clicking here!

Part 68: The Fucked-Up Tooth

You think you’d remember something like losing a tooth at work.

So it was weird one day, when while cleaning the store, I found an old rotten tooth behind the counter!  Like, way behind the counter, like where the dust bunnies multiply at the edge of carpeting and corner.

I didn’t know it was a tooth when I picked it up.  I thought it was a stone.  I picked it up and turned it over and half of it was black and/or missing and it was obviously a molar.   But where the fuck did it come from?  I was perplexed!  This is the store that I opened, have always helmed, I knew everybody that worked here, ever.  Where the fuck did this tooth come from?

I mean, we were a CD store!  It’s pretty straightforward.  Lots of discs, lots of cases, lots of paper sleeves.  Not a lot of teeth.

Today, I can only really see one plausible scenario.  Since we bought and sold discs, when we bought ’em, they often came in big boxes or bags that have obviously been sitting around.

So, imagine this:  Scuzzy crackhead man or woman walks in with a big brown cardboard box full of shitty scratched up Steve Miller discs.  In the bottom of the box, God knows how, but in the bottom there’s an old rotten tooth.  When the staff get the boxes in, they often temporarily stash them behind the counter, right up against the wall where the dust bunnies roam.  Tooth gets dislodged, only to be found on the next thorough cleaning…

That’s just my theory.  You’re welcome to come up with your own.  Bottom line though, how the fuck does an old rotten tooth end up in the carpeting of a CD store?  That’s the biggest mystery I ever encountered.

The answer now is probably lost to the sands of time.  Like the tooth.  Which I threw in the trash seconds later!

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DUAL REVIEW: Foo Fighters 7″ singles! “Best Of You” & “All My Life”

You lucky, lucky readers! Today you get two reviews for the price of one. Since I’m currently transferring my vinyl to CD, let’s talk about two 7″ singles from…

FOO FIGHTERS!

“All My Life” numbered limited edition 7″

While I like the tune, “All My Life”, I wasn’t big on the album One By One.  So it’s little surprise that I’m not into the B-side, “Sister Europe”, a Psychedelic Furs cover.  I do like the Ace Frehley guitar slashes in the song, but otherwise…blah.  You can also get “Sister Europe” on one of the CD singles for this song, which I don’t have.    Never run across them.

The record is numbered though; I’m 1375! (Out of how many? I don’t know.)

3/5 stars.

“Best Of You”

I was much more into “Best Of You”, and its album In Your Honor.  I can still still remember the first time I heard it.  One of the guys had forgotten his keys and couldn’t lock up the store.  He called me and I raced in to lock up for him.  I turned on the radio, and was immediately assaulted with “Best Of You”, a classic Foo rocker, an anthem really.   My passion for the Foo Fighters was immediately reignited.

I went out and bought both CD singles for “Best Of You”, each with its own unreleased bonus tracks.  I was also sent a copy of the UK version of the album by my good buddy Dan Slessor of Kerrang! magazine.   The UK edition had a bonus track, too.

This 7″ single with “Spill” was the final piece of an amazing puzzle of music.  It’s a hard, fast, underproduced raw rocker.  Taylor Hawkins hits the drums so hard, you can really hear it.  Great song, equal to anything else on In Your Honor.

Not a limited edition, but I give “Best Of You”:

5/5 stars

Ex-Queensryche’s GEOFF TATE UPDATE: Still a douche

I’ll let Geoff say it all.

Q: How about musically? Were you guys seeing eye-to-eye on the sound of the band at this point?

A: “Well, this is kind of a weird situation too. In the press release they said there were “creative differences.” But to have creative differences, you have to have two entities or more offering up creative ideas. And that just wasn’t the case. Queensrÿche has always been my idea, starting from the first record. Queensrÿche is about albums. It’s about concepts and themes, and those concepts were mine. [Laughs] I started out with The Warning, bringing those ideas in for Rage For Order, Operation: Mindcrime… all the albums. I write 81% of the music and the lyrics. Of the 144 songs that Queensrÿche has released, I’ve written 116 of those. I am the creative energy in the band, especially since Chris left. When he was in the band it was more of a shared thing between him and I. But once he left, the burden was on me. I don’t consider it necessarily a burden. That’s what I do. I’m a creative person. I write everyday and I’m constantly coming up with creative ideas. I present them to the other guys and they go, “Yeah, sure, that sounds good to us.”

This guy is so full of himself, it’s not even funny.  It is undeniable that Geoff Tate has written some great songs.  It also seems apparent from recent developments that the band just wanted to get back to playing progressive metal again.  And what is wrong with that?  And the video footage of Tate spitting on Rockenfield live in concert?  Disgusting.  Geoff will one day have to apologize to his old bandmates, mark my words.

Also, Geoff says:

For it to end in such a hostile way, it’s just mind-boggling.

DUDE!  Mind boggling?  You were the one holding the friggin’ knife, man!

More Queensryche:

Mike Ladano: Exclusive EDDIE JACKSON interview, part I

Mike Ladano: Exclusive EDDIE JACKSON interview, part II

Mike Ladano: Exclusive EDDIE JACKSON interview, part III

Mike Ladano: Exclusive EDDIE JACKSON interview, part IV

Part 67: Klassic Kwotes VIII!

1.  “Can I return this CD?” said the man who handed me an empty CD case.

2.  One Boxing Day, I helped a lovely family of four (dad, mom, two boys) pick out roughly $100 worth of music.  They got gift certificates for Christmas.  It took about an hour to help them, as (of course) they wanted to listen to everything first.  I collected all the discs from the players, rang in the order, and they handed me a gift certificate for a different fucking CD chain.  When I explained to them, “Sorry, no, we’re not that store.  We’re [insert name].”  A perfectly reasonable response would have been, “Oh man, sorry…sorry to have taken your time.”  But no.  No, the response this time was, “Well how the hell was I supposed to know that?”  Well, maybe by looking at the fucking sign out front before you walk in!

3. Once, we caught a little thief trying to sell us discs that he had just stolen from HMV an hour before.  Tom was on the phone with a cop at the HMV when Tom asked, “Hey, uhh, while I’m talking to you, do you have any Willie Nelson over there?” 

4.It was always kind of funny when people pronounced names wrong, in certain cases.  So when a guy asked me if I had any Bruce Cockburn, I can tell you that it rhymed with clock-burn.  Figuring that I should probably tell him how to pronounce it so he doesn’t go around all over asking for the CD that way, I politely corrected him.  His response was, “Yeah, great, thanks that’ll come in handy next time I talk to him.”

5. “How do I get in there??”  This desperate question was asked by a woman, banging on our windows, not 10 feet away from our actual entrance.

6. “Can I get each of these in a separate bag?”  A guy bought 10 empty CD cases.  He wanted each one bagged on its own so it didn’t get scratched.

7. “Can I ask you a question?  Are you a believer?”  We were also frequently handed pamphlets from Jehova’s Witnesses.

8. “Got bad news for you buddy.  Somebody ripped you off.”  The customer then opened a CD case and showed me there was no disc inside.  Apparently he didn’t notice the signs that said, “All cases are empty”, nor all the discs in storage behind me.

9. That “All cases are empty” sign was more trouble than it was worth.  Multiple times, people would say to me, “So, I have to pay $12 and I just get the case?  Where am I supposed to get the CD?”

10. “Can I use your phone for a sec?”  A common question, in the pre-cell-phone days.  But this guy used the phone for 10 minutes!  And then when the call waiting went off, instead of handing it to me, he answered it!