Trevor’s in the habit of texting me whenever he sees something that I may want. Which is more often than I can afford, as it happens, so I have to pick and choose! I just received another box of goodies from T-Rev last week. Inside I found the contents below:
Gotta love picture discs eh? I’ll never play that Ozzy EP (all songs are also on his Prince of Darkness box set) but it sure looks cool. (Look at Jake E. Lee! Oh, Jake.) Didn’t even know it existed. That Grim Reaper one, I’d never seen the album cover before. Never even knew what it looked like! Sure love that title track though. And I’m well on record for loving the Rage For Order LP by Queensryche!
Also in the box was a rare 12″ single by Kim Mitchell. You know, the guy who teased your brains with Max Webster, and then your taste buds with “Go For Soda”.
Trev and I are both Kim and Max fans, but undoubtedly he’s the bigger fan than I am. So it was with utmost gratitude that I accept this record: “Go For Soda (Syphon Remix)” / “Love Ties”. This was from his own personal collection. As far as I know, neither of us have seen another copy. I spoke to my buddy, that guy Craig Fee who works at that radio station Dave FM, and he’d never heard of it, let alone encountered it in his vast travels.
Anyway, Trev found this one, back in the record store days! I don’t know when or where but maybe he’ll pop in with his remembrances! But this is the kind of thing we lived for. Finding something rare, cool, and previously unknown.
There’s no credit for who did the remix, essentially an extended version. The song has a different intro and is beefed up from 3:26 to 4:59. It’s a UK import, from Bronze records. Mitchell’s stuff is released by Anthem over here in North America. Bronze released Motorhead and Girlschool records in the 1970’s, I wonder if they commissioned this remix themselves.
So thanks Trev for another treasure. This is the kind of thing that Trev was prone to finding. I recall he had an etched Megadeth picture disc, and he also somehow scored me a double Bon Jovi 12″ single with 3 rare live tracks.
Must be the keen eye of a skilled Record Store Guy! I salute you sir.
THE DARKNESS – Hot Cakes (Deluxe edition with 4 bonus tracks, 2012 Canary Dwarf Ltd.)
The Darkness are probably the band that came out in the last decade that I truly love most. Something about this band just makes me feel GOOD. They always have. I love this band, much to the consternation of some of the people I used to work for at the record store! I love this band, so I worked their music into our wedding reception, and played a shitload of air guitar to it! I just love this band.
I loved the Stone Gods too. But this is the original Darkness: Dan, Justin, Ed and Frankie.
At first I was kind of “blah” to the idea of an original lineup reunion. I liked Richie Edwards just fine too. But Frankie co-writes a number of these tracks, and he has a great stage presence. As for Ed, his trademark drum fills might not be Neil Peart material but he has his own identifiable sound, and his fills are always dead-on perfect for what the songs need. Play air drums to The Darkness some time, you’ll see what I mean!
To get to the point, though: Hot Cakes? It’s magically delicious!
If you didn’t like their second album, the arguably over-elaborate One Way Ticket, then you’ll be happy with Hot Cakes. They’ve brought things back to the basics of guitars, bass, and drums with only the odd embellishment along the way.
But the lyrics are certainly not toned down!
Every man, woman and chile wants to…
SUCK MY COCK!!!!!
Justin’s lost nothing. He’s still bonkshit!* Except maybe just a hint (just a hint!) of his high voice. Or maybe it’s just the production that make it seem that way. It might even be my imagination. So who cares? And to sing and play lead guitar and run around like Steven Tyler? That can’t be easy either!
The majority of songs here are great, and would make my road tape. Much like the first and second albums, there are songs that I keep coming back to over and over again. You become attached to certain hooks in them and then suddenly, BAM! The song is stuck in your head! Examples of this:
“Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us” – Great fast catchy Darkness single, with one of their classic sounding choruses.
“With A Woman” – Simple, basic AC/DC rocker but with Justin’s flare and yet another catchy chorus.
“Everybody Have A Good Time” – “Come on people, tell me how you feel. You want a good time? Well you got yourself a deal!” Along the blueprints of the feel-good tunes from the first album.
“She Just A Girl, Eddie” – Tied for best song on the album. This is the one I can play 10 times in a row and still hit repeat (usually in the car). As for the lyrics? “There are four billion other girls, who want to make love to you.” Eddie can’t argue with that math. And speaking of Eddie, Ed’s drum fills are what I was talking about earlier — simple, powerful, perfect.
“Concrete” – Solid, riff-based song with great high Justin vocal. Catchy as hell.
“Street Spirit (Fade Out)” – Holy. Shit.
On the negatives: The album somewhat follows the blueprint of the first one. For example a ballad, “Living Each Day Blind” falls on track #5, the same place that the similar sounding “Love Is Only A Feeling” was on Permission To Land. At times it gets predictable, but thankfully the song quality back it up.
I paid a fair chunk of money to have the deluxe edition shipped here from Amazon.co.uk. I’m glad to say it: These four extra songs are worth it!
There are two acoustic demos: The campfire-like “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Love”, a song as good as any on the album proper. Then there’s a demo version of the album song “Love Is Not the Answer”, which is better than the album version. The album version seemed very much the answer to “Holding My Own” from album #1. The acoustic version loses that soundalike aspect, and exposes bare Justin’s vocal prowess.
Then there’s “Pat Pong Ladies”. No idea what this one is about since it’s not included in the lyric sheet. This one has a more layered and operatic vibe, more akin to album #2. Having said that, it’s a great tune, better than some of the album tracks. It gets positively Queen at times.
Lastly, “Cannonball (Long Version)”. As my fellow rock enthusiast, Heavy Metal Overload asked, “Where’s the short version?” Maybe Ian Anderson knows. He plays that flute part. Of course! But this isn’t a ballad, or even a Tull-like rocker. No, this is The Darkness sounding like themselves (circa album #2 with some boogie piano underneath and layered screams)!
I’m so glad this band is back. I hope to catch them live. I hope Lady Gaga’s audience is into them…now there’s an odd pairing!
Even though half a decade has passed, sometimes I still get recognized from the CD store today. Just two weeks ago, I was at a lunch with some friends of my wife. One guy recognized me. “Do you still work at the CD store?” he asked as I said hello to everyone. He was an old regular. Not all regulars still recognize me. An older gentleman, Charles, my best classical customer, didn’t recognize me when he bought classical discs from my garage sale last summer.
Today, I tend to get recognized not for my face but for my name. Rather, my nickname: LeBrain.
I never mentioned how that handle came to be. After winning my umpteenth 4 O’clock 4-play on 107.5 Dave FM, Craig Fee dubbed me with that name. “Mike Ladano and his massive brain…his massive LeBrain!” The nickname stuck, and that is how I became LeBrain. Next thing you know it, we had an entire “Stump LeBrain” week where I guested at the station for a week, and a full month (“LeBrainuary”) of my own 4-play quizzes.
I was first recognized in person by the owner of the local UPS store, while picking up a parcel. “Are you that guy from the radio?” he asked me. Turns out he was a fan. He’d listened to all of LeBrainuary in his store.
I was also recognized by some of the younger chaps at Sausagefest, who thought my voice was familiar. “I know that voice…is that LeBrain?” they said.
I buy a lot of stuff off eBay (you’ve seen much of it here on the blog!), and the girl at my local post office now knows me as LeBrain. She is always excited when my parcels come in. “What’s in this one?” she’ll ask.
“Oh, that one is a rare Maiden 12” single,” I’d say.
“Cool! That’s awesome!” One time, she knew one of my parcels had arrived immediately, because the seller had put a Kiss sticker on the box. I walked into the post office, and she said, “I know which parcel is yours!” with an excited tone in her voice. She explained that she heard me on radio earlier as LeBrain.
So, to Post Office Girl: Sorry, I don’t even know your name. I would like to dedicate this blog to you, and my 15 minutes of fame!
We’d always done radio ads. They weren’t mindblowing, but a lot of people responded to them. You’d get people calling every single week saying, “I heard your ad on the radio. You buy used CDs?” Radio ads were also expensive, so obviously you wanted to hit a home run every time.
What I didn’t know is that we had a radio jingle. I didn’t know until I started getting prank called by kids. I’d pick up the phone, hear a couple kids giggling, and then recite this jingle to me. Then they’d laugh some more and hang up. I was perplexed. I had no idea what they were singing.
I went to one of the people in Operations. “These kids just called me singing this song with our store in the words. What the hell was that?”
“Oh that’s our radio jingle. Haven’t you heard it before?”
Hell no! If I had I’m sure I would have spoken my mind. Later on I heard the actual jingle. It wasn’t…bad…it was just…not good. Today, it still haunts my darkest dreams.
Back in the day, the boss used to always ask our opinions on our ads. “What do you think of this one?” We’d throw in our two cents. As the company grew we weren’t consulted anymore. I’m not sure who was consulted, but it sure wasn’t us! We had no issues being honest, positive or negative, and maybe we just said “that sucks” one too many times in the past. Either way our opinion wasn’t sought. But mine sure was given after the fact. When kids start pranking you making fun of your jingle, that’s probably not a good sign.
The funny thing is, Meat already came up with a much better jingle.
Him and Tom used to eat at this greasy spoon place in (I think) London. Tom used to say, “Man, the food here isn’t good, but it’s cheap.” Meat would respond, “Yeah, just think about the money you save on the food.” And that turned into a jingle.
In his best Michael McDonald voice, Meat would close his eyes tight and croon, “Think about the money you saaaaaave on the food!” It was hilarious.
So, the next logical step was, “Think about the money you saaaaaave on the tunes!” Perfect!
This topic was suggested by Mr. Craig Fee of 107.5 Dave FM. He wanted to know about discounts in the record store days. So here goes!
RECORD STORE TALES PART 83: Discounts
Yeah yeah, I know I know. I know the story. You’re a DJ. Or, the owner usually gives you a discount. Or, the “other guy” usually haggles with you. Or, you’re senior and you get a discount at McDonalds. Blah blah blah blah.
So we kind of had this set deal in place, a frequent buyer card. Buy “x” get 1 free within certain parameters. It actually worked out to be a really good deal, if you bought low and redeemed high. However people usually wanted a discount instead of that. (Occassionally, a guy would DEMAND!!! a certain discount not realizing that our card was a better deal.)
I always thought it was funny when people would say, “I’m buying two. What kind of discount can I get?” Two?
You’d get people who say, “The case is cracked. Do I get a discount?”
No, but I’ll put it in a brand new case for you. Just like new now.
“You can’t give me a discount? I’d prefer that.”
No, all it needs is a new case, dumbass!
Another classic: “Hey. No tax on these today, right?” Well, shit. Maybe you should talk to Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty about forfeiting their cut of my sale because that one I can’t even override.
It was really, really rare that I would budge on prices. In the early days the rules were very strict on that. Later on they got a little more lax, but sometimes you could placate a customer by stamping their card a few extra times. If you redeemed your card for the max value, each stamp worked out to be worth a buck.
One thing that 50% of customers never figured out: You won’t get a discount by being annoying as fuck. That means not calling me “buddy”, “bud”, and especially “chief”. And if you make me run around the store to fetch 25 fucking discs before you pick 3 of them, no, you ain’t getting a discount!
You’ve seen me say it here many times: I love physical product. I hate being forced to download something. I hate paying money to own…what? 1’s and 0’s floating on a magnetic disc, a fragile thing that can die just because it wants to. Know what I mean?
I like packaging. I like knowing who wrote the songs, who produced them, who played what. I like artwork, I like lyrics, heck I even like the thank-you’s! Ever read the thank-you’s inside Def Leppard’s Hysteria? Extensive and hilarious! Mostly though, I think you gain an appreciation of an artist’s body of work, the more you know about it.
I like CD’s, and I’m fortunate to have worked in a CD store for pretty much the entire age of CD domination. When I began in ’94 we still sold tapes, and I was actually still buying tapes, if the price was right. Cassette was my primary physical product for another year, before I began the slow (still incomplete) process of re-buying all my tapes on CD.
For example, Wolfsbane’s first album. Still don’t have that on CD, very hard to find in this part of the world.
My CD collection increased approximately by 50 times, over my years there. I love physical product!
I like to keep them in good shape, and for that reason, I’m glad about the improved quality of digital media and players these days compared to back then. I don’t have to haul my discs around with me anymore when I’m heading to the cottage. I used to pack 15, 20 discs for variety. Now I just load up a 64 gig flash drive, and throw it in the car. When I get to the cottage I have my mp3 player at the ready. I don’t have to worry about breaking the cases, scratching the discs, or anything.
You know something? When I was a really young fella, like 13 or 14, we used to go to the cottage for 2 weeks at a time in the summer. When you’re 13, you get bored pretty easily at the cottage, so I began bringing my entire tape collection, my record collection, and my turntable with me. Incredible! Granted my collection wasn’t big, it was two cases of tapes and about 5 records, but still. Today, flash drive, MP3 player. Done.
But I’ll always keep my physical product, and at home I will listen to nothing else. I think my buddy Marko Fox at 107.5 Dave FM said it very well:
Technology is my mistress as well…and I love her…but I still must be surrounded by records, tapes and CDs for my soul to survive.
That’s it right there.
I’ve posted this video once before, but I don’t care, it rocks.
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