Cambridge

First Lunchwalk of the Year! Aching Joints, Happy Head

The clouds have parted, the sun has returned…and so have I, to my old lunchwalk route!

I have two routes.  The shorter one is about 25 minutes.  The longer one is about twice that.  Against my better judgement, I chose the long route.  No pain no gain?  I was definitely in pain!  My right leg specifically.  My knee and hip were groaning towards the end.  I pushed through, increasing my speed as much as I could handle, in order to get back and drink something cold and fizzy.

I decided to go the opposite direction as I usually went last year.  If you recall, I was getting really tired of the same route last year.  As usual, I took pictures.  I really like the one bag of dog poo that someone tried to throw over the fence into the work yard, but got tangled in a tree.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll do the short route!

#1094: Sanchez

RECORD STORE TALES #1094: Sanchez

“There was one customer in Cambridge who hated selling to me, he always asked where “the regular guy” was. He asked my name and I told him it was Sanchez. When T-Rev came back, we had a laugh over the employee named “Sanchez” who was apparently low-balling this customer for his dance CDs.” – Record Store Tales #526: Location, Location, Location

 

The year 2000 wasn’t a particularly happy year at the Record Store for me.  My good buddy T-Rev, who normally managed our Cambridge location, was also a talented guy with a hammer and saw.  The boss sent him off to the GTA to build one of our new stores.  This left his location unmanaged for several weeks that summer.  Because I had a car, I was often the go-to guy to fill in for others.  This meant pulling double duty, managing two stores at the same time.  Sometimes I’d be working the morning in Kitchener, and the evening in Cambridge.  I remember the boss promised to make it “worth my while” but never did.

Another manager had to do two stores at once, and thought I shouldn’t be complaining about my lot in life.  My answer:  “You do you!”  I’ll complain if I like.  It took them weeks/month to pay my mileage, so yes, I’ll complain.

Each location had its own quirks.  Some stores had customers that were more into dance, others had customers that liked classic rock.  Cambridge appealed to the lowest common denominator.  We had just as many customers asking where the strip club was, as were looking for classical music.  (An exaggeration, but a funny one.)  Cambridge also had regulars who were used to dealing with T-Rev, aka “the regular guy”.

Here’s how it went one night in Cambridge.

Dude walks in with a box of crappy dance music.  “Hey, is the regular guy in?”

“No, I’ll take a look at those for you,” I’d respond, although I really didn’t want to have a look at them.

“The regular guy usually gives me a good price,” came the answer.

“Well, we have a pricing scheme that helps us give you consistent pricing, so I’ll take care of that for you.”

“OK…” was the reluctant response.

I’d go through the CDs, which were often scratched and/or outdated, mixed in with a few things of higher value.  I’d sort through.  Put them in piles of things that were scratched vs. in good shape.  Check to see if we had too many copies already.  Check the scratched ones to see if they could be fixed.  Price them accordingly.  Call the guy back to the counter to show him what I found.

This particular guy wasn’t happy, of course, and was sure that the “regular guy” would have done better.  (I would make sure I called “the regular guy” and tell him what I offered so this guy wouldn’t be doing any better when he returned.)

He passed on the offer.  “When is the regular guy back?” he asked.  I told him two weeks or whatever the answer was.  He then asked my name, because of course he would complain.

“Sanchez,” I answered.  It was my standard answer for when an asshole asked my name.  I looked nothing like a Sanchez.  I was as pale as a sheet of paper.  I also had tried to bleach my hair, which came out kinda orange.  Sure enough, this guy returned to the store and complained about “Sanchez, with the orange hair,” who low-balled him on his dance CDs.

I had already discussed this guy with T-Rev, and so when he came back, he didn’t really offer much differently than I had.  But because he was the “regular guy” and not “Sanchez”, the guy took the money and we got the CDs.  We had to do twice the amount of work to get them, since T-Rev had to repeat everything I did, but we were fairly consistent.

T-Rev called me.  “Hey Mike!  I just had a guy in here complaining about somebody named ‘Sanchez’ that lowballed him for his dance mixes?  Said he had orange hair?”  We had a good laugh about that.

I didn’t have to use the name Sanchez often, but I did use it!

 

 

REVIEW: Here Comes Jim – Where Evil is Afraid (1999)

HERE COMES JIM – Where Evil is Afraid – The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1999 Dark Star)

Full disclosure:  I used to know this quartet from Cambridge, Ontario Canada.  They were great.  When I first encountered Matt Greenhough and company, Faith No More had broken up and I was looking for something to replace them in my life.  Something heavy, non-mainstream and with bonkers lead vocals.  Here Comes Jim both terrified and delivered!  I wore their T-shirt, I played the CD in store, I flew the flag.  I loved this band.

That was 21 years ago.  I’m no longer the angry young man.  I wonder how this album sounds today?

It’s still sounds fucking great!  It’s noisy — lots of guitars fucking around.  “Unbridled Rock” meanders around but comes in to focus on the chorus.  The cowbell is a nice touch.  As remembered, the vocals really range from quiet sombering to full-on rage.  “Ran” combines a melodic sensibility with a noisy guitar drowning.  It’s a brilliant and unafraid mix of ingredients.

All the songs come flooding back even though I haven’t played this album in almost 20 years.  “Try to Keep it Clean” was always a favourite.  Melodic guitars and vocals against a cloudy backdrop.  Matty G (that’s what we called him) did the clean and shouty vocals equally well but he’s especially good when he’s singing clean.  He has a good handle on melody, but then at other times he just doesn’t give a shit about melody.  Sometimes it’s about volume, sometimes about atmosphere.  Many of the songs…float.  “Angel Has to Breathe” is one such song, hanging uncomfortably over you.  That is until the powerful chorus of “Who will save my soul?  Who will take my shit and go?”

One of my biggest favourites 20 years ago was the slamming “She Is”, perfect for thrashing out on air guitar.  The verses turn quiet and melodic, before the crash of distorted guitars return for an amazing chorus.  Then the next track negates all that with “Negator”, an absolutely insane thrash-o-matic scream-fest…with a drum solo!

“Negator” sample

Fun fact:  the feedback-laden instrumental track “5/5/2000” refers to an old book from the 1980s that claimed the world would end on that date, due to an alignment of the planets.  All I could think was, “Shit…we have to survive Y2k and then yet another doomsday scenario in May?  Come on!  Who comes up with this?”  The song is far more entertaining than the book from which it took its name.

I may not be an angry young man anymore but I get what I liked about Here Comes Jim beyond the friendship.  They wrote good, stabbingly aggressive, intelligent rock far off the beaten path.  I remember putting tracks like “She Is” and “Negator” on mix tapes and (later) CDs.  There are no songs that suck.  Only songs that rock.  Listening to Here Comes Jim is like going into the ring for 10 rounds and coming out with a concussion.

4/5 stars

 

REVIEW: The Candidates – Who’s Your Daddy Now? (1998 EP)

THE CANDIDATES – Who’s Your Daddy Now?  (1998 EP)

When the Candidates burst onto the local rock scene in the late 90s, I was on board from the get-go.  The Candidates were one of the “Record Store Bands” I wrote about in Record Store Tales Part 40.  They were the product of a former band, The Mighty Fisherman, who put out an actual CD album.  Members of that band formed the Candidates – great guys who made great music.  I don’t use the word “great” lightly.  All four songs on their debut EP (never released to the public) are as good as anything on a major label at the time.  When the guys recorded this EP, they loaned it out to various friends, and so I made my own copy.  (My own liner notes, too!)

I always felt the Candidates had a sound not unlike Sloan, The Who, and the Jam rolled into one.  (Maybe even a hint of Kiss; check out the slow-down ending to “Cash Money”.) The point is: they rocked.  It was rock and roll, nothing but.  No ballads, no fluff, no solos.  Great lyrics, solid riffs and rolling bass lines out the wazoo.  The whole thing is over n’ out in under 12 minutes.

First up, “You’re All Heart”, the song with the most pop in its melody, and a little twang in the six-strings.  The handclaps are a nice touch, as are the rolling thunder drum fills.  Tambourine is thrown in for good measure on “Good to Go”, a song defined by its catchy bassline.  I always liked the line, “There’s nothin’ on the walls, and woo!  There’s nothing on…”  The beat just kills.  “So leave your boyfriend at home, and come hit the town with me.”  It’s the kind of tune that, in our early 20s, was a bit of an anthem.  More handclaps!

Things start to slam heavier on “Cash Money”; a banger of a riff.  “Got my good-to-go boots and I’m gone.”  They don’t come any more rock and roll than “Cash Money”.  Although, as a younger man, I identified most with “Barely Bruised”.  It seems I was constantly having bad luck with the ladies.  I really liked the lines, “I’ve been beaten but I’m barely bruised, I’m lost but I cannot lose.”  I liked the idea of being knocked down and getting back up for more, never giving up.  The band dedicated this one to me in concert one time, and I’ll tell ya, it made my night.  The song itself is a battery of broadsides, so put your dukes up.

Since this EP was never sold, and you’ll never hear it, reviewing it is rather strange and maybe pointless. Eventually, somebody somewhere will google this band, and smile when they read these words.  I just had to tell you about these guys.

5/5 stars

Have a look at my humorous liner notes.  I also stole a setlist from an unknown gig!

#732: Where the Hell Am I?

GETTING MORE TALE #732: Where the Hell Am I?

What is the most important information to possess when you’re shopping?  Is it your shopping list?  Is it money?

No friends, that is not what matters most.  What you need to know most of all is where the hell you actually are.

I was working at the Record Store in the late 90s.  We had big red gift certificates in different denominations.  They had our logo printed on them.  You could use them at any of our locations.  They were pretty standard gift certificates, like any other store might have.  Today virtually everybody has switched to magnetic gift cards instead, which undoubtedly saves on paper.

A family came in one afternoon looking to spend.  They had over a hundred dollars in gift certificates.  Enough for the whole family to enjoy.  Collectively they had numerous questions, but were courteous and friendly.  I spent roughly an hour with them, helping them find songs and retrieving CDs for them to listen to.  They narrowed down their pile of CDs to the discs they wanted most.  Then we got to the checkout counter.

I made sure each case had the right CD inside, and I made sure each one was clean.  I rang them up and told them the total, when the man handed me a little blue HMV gift certificate.

My heart sank.

“This isn’t us, this is for HMV,” I informed the man.

“This isn’t HMV?”  He was stunned!

No!  This isn’t HMV!  Didn’t you notice all our massive signage?  Also, all our CDs are used!  When was the last time you saw a used CD at an HMV store?  My mind was screaming all of these things silently as the man.

What bugged me the most wasn’t all the wasted time on these people, it was that he was actually angry!  Angry at who?  If it were me, I’d be super embarrassed but I sure as hell wouldn’t be angry.  I would also be sure to buy something — anything — to make up for all the time the store spent on me.  This guy escorted his family out, leaving all the discs with me at the counter.

I’m sure the boss man was thrilled when I told him this story, and how effective all our store signage was!

Now a story of my own, but without the temper tantrum.

As many of you know, my friend Jason and I collect Transformers.  There are not really any decent toy stores in Kitchener.  We have a Toys R Us and an EB Games.  Up in Waterloo, there’s a good store called J&J’s, but they don’t carry Transformers.  (I did, however, buy up their GI Joes.)  Cambridge is the place to be for toy shopping.

I took a day off work to go toy shopping with Jay.  First we hit a place called The Toy Society, which is an excellent store for vintage action figures.  A little bit of every genre.  It’s hard to leave without spending money.  But Jay and I had a specific goal that day, which was to check out our friend Dan’s new store.

Dan owns B&K Collectables, which if you collect Pops, is now the place to go to get ’em.  He also carries vintage G1 and new Masterpiece Transformers.  His prices are high but when I buy a vintage figure from him, I know it’s complete and in working condition.  He’s never let me down, and I have scored several rare boxed G1 figures from him over the years.  He used to sell by mail, but in 2016 he opened an actual storefront, in a shared space with a computer store.

Jay and I hadn’t been there yet, and so partially planned this day to check out Dan’s store.  We knew roughly where it was, on Queen Street down by Len’s Mill Store.  We parked and started looking.

“This must be it,” said Jay as we entered a toy store.

We looked and took it all in.  There was a guy working near the back.

“BIG DAN!” shouted Jay.

The guy turned around.  He was big but he was not Dan.

“Did Dan hire someone?” I whispered to Jay.

“Sorry, is Dan around?” said Jay to the started toy store guy.

“No,” he answered simply, but probably confused.

“OK, thanks,” we said as we looked around for a bit.  The store was cool but he didn’t have any Transformers.  We had to be in the wrong place.  Turns out, it was a store called Playin’ Around.  B&K Collectables was still a few more doors down!

Once we found Dan, we had a laugh at our embarrassment.  As usual, his assortment of vintage figures was impressive.  I had my eyes on a complete G2 Megatron, but Jay was more excited about G1 Blitzwing.

“Holy shit you have Blitzwing!” said an excited Jay.  A customer over in the computer half of the store was amused by his excitement.  “I can’t believe you have a G1 Blitzwing, is he complete?”

The computer customer walked over.  “OK, I have to see what a G1 Blitzwing is, if it’s this exciting.”

Jay explained to him, “He’s a triple changer!  He changes into a plane AND a tank.”

“Ahh,” said the guy.

You have to have fun with shit.  Here I am with Jay, two guys in their 40s buying toys in the hundreds of dollars.  The computer guy thinks we’re nuts.  We also walked into a store and accidentally scared a guy by yelling “BIG DAN!”  It’s funny.  The guy with the HMV gift certificate could have made that experience so much better for everybody if he just saw the humour in it (and bought something for all my efforts).

Don’t be angry.  If you’re a dumb shit, just own it and laugh it off.  Ponoby’s nerfect, nam.

 

 

 

Sunday Chuckle: Dem Shoes!

I took a little bit of online flak for this picture, but I think it’s funny.  This was a McDonalds in Cambridge Ontario.  The combination of the track pants, the lazy half-assed wearing of the shoes, and the golden arches struck my funnybone.

It’s OK if you don’t think this is funny.  I’m cool with that.  But don’t be a dick about it.  I wouldn’t take a picture of a homeless person, or a disabled person, but lazy people seem like fair game to me.

I mean, just look at dem shoes.

#526: Location, Location, Location

GETTING MORE TALE #526: Location, Location, Location

I worked at many Record Store locations over the years, often temporarily for training and managing.  Some of them I spent a few days at, others were several weeks or months in total.  Each one had its own flavour and clientele.  While experiences and mileage may vary, here are some memories of some favourite locations (all in Ontario, Canada).

 

cambridge1. Cambridge

The store in Cambridge was our first to carry movies, initially in VHS format.  It was a lot of fun working there from time to time, buying and selling used movies.  There was always something I wanted for my collection, and it broke up the monotony of seeing nothing but CDs every day.

Cambridge was also interesting because we used to get a number of people coming in just to ask where the strip club was.  “It used to be around here!”  I don’t know why the dudes looking for the strip club kept stopping in the Record Store (as opposed to the Tim Hortons or a gas station or anywhere else), but they did indeed used to ask.

Some of the customers in Cambridge were…well, let’s just say they were not all our best and brightest.  T-Rev managed that store, and I took over temporarily when he was on road trips elsewhere setting up new stores.  The customers there wore me down more than anywhere else.  Especially when they came in to sell, which was frequently.  Cambridge bought a lot of stock.  If the customer wasn’t happy with my offer, they’d ask when the “regular guy” would be back.  Maddening since I was more generous than a lot of other folks.

There was one customer in Cambridge who hated selling to me, he always asked where “the regular guy” was.  He asked my name and I told him it was Sanchez.  When T-Rev came back, we had a laugh over the employee named “Sanchez” who was apparently low-balling this customer for his dance CDs.

 

hamilton2. Hamilton

The store I worked at in Hamilton was pretty quiet most of the time.  There was a lunch time rush when kids from the nearby highschool would come in to listen to and occasionally buy CDs.  Given Steeltown’s reputation, I was pleasantly surprised to find the kids I dealt with to be polite and friendly, more than I was used to seeing.  The adults weren’t always so friendly, but no more or less than any of the other stores I worked in.  Hamilton was a shitty place to drive (confusing one-way streets), but I didn’t mind working there at all.

 

kitchener3. Kitchener

I worked in three different stores in the Kitchener area.  One of the other guys there used to refer to Kitchener as a “ham & egger” town, a phrase I never heard before.  A lot of blue collar customers.  It was still a step up from Cambridge, depending on which Kitchener location I was working in.

I’ve said many times that my favourite store was the original one, in a small mall in Kitchener.  It was our only mall store ever.  It was a special place to work.  It was tiny and compact.  It could get really busy on the weekends.  There were a lot of regular customers, more than I remember elsewhere, probably due to the fact we were in a mall.  There was a familiarity – I knew them, and they knew me.  When I was eventually given a larger store elsewhere to manager, I missed the faces I would see on a regular basis at the mall.

I also missed the “unique” individuals you’d meet at the mall store.  Malls have a whole ecosystem of life forms, unlike others in the outside world.  There was Johnny Walker, so named because every day he would walk the circuit around the mall, talking to himself, all day.  One day, something peculiar happened.  He came in, stopped talking to himself, and bought a tape.  He paid for his cassette and then resumed walking and talking to himself again.  I only saw that happen once.  There was Butts, the guy who would dig through ashtrays looking for cigarette butts.  Let’s not forget Trevor the Security Guard, and the drunks at the restaurant next door.  It was a blast!  I didn’t care for the mallrats, but they were a minor annoyance.

 

oakville4. Oakville

I did not like working on Oakville, as was discussed in Record Store Tales Part 16: Travelling Man.  Many of those customers were snooty; just too good for you.  They felt entitled to park in the fire lane, because they were more important than you.  Read the Oakville tale for the misery that was working there.

 

mississauga

5. Mississauga

More than any other location, I may have resented Mississauga the most.  It was a shit location.  There was nothing of any value around.  There was a health products store, but nowhere to buy a snack or a lunch.  There was no foot traffic.  Across the street was an empty field.  It was a dead store from the day it opened.  I invested myself deeply in my work.  There are many things in life that can crush your soul.  One of them is working hard at something (training employees, helping set up a store) and seeing it come up to nothing.  That was Mississauga.  In the used CD business, you depend on customers bringing in good stuff for you to re-sell.  Mississauga provided very little good stuff.

 

There were more, all with tales of their own.   These however were five of the most memorable, each for its own reasons.  While a change of scenery is nice once in a while, there is nothing better than working in a location you love.