cassettes

REVIEW: Sammy Hagar – Turn Up the Music! (EMI special markets)

SAMMY HAGAR – Turn Up the Music! (1989 EMI)

Turn Up The Music! is a compilation by EMI Special Markets. Translation: You know those cheap CDs that they sell at gas stations? That’s what this is. It has no booklet or liner notes, it runs at a brief 35 minutes and the tracks are not remastered. However I really enjoy this CD and here’s why.

Back in ’89, I got this album on cassette.  I remember going to a pharmacy store to get acne medicine with my parents and this tape was sitting in their cheapie bin.  Yep, I was so cool there at the pharmacy store with my folks buying zit cream. I remember seeing a girl there from my highschool on this particular trip.  I was so embarassed.  I always remember that detail when I listen to Turn Up The Music!

This was my first exposure to pre-“I Can’t Drive 55” Hagar. To this day I don’t know a lot about this stage of his career but mostly because those albums are hard to find on CD, not because I don’t dig the music. I lost this tape a while ago (probably in a Thunder Bay landfill), but it’s pretty easy to find the CD version online.

I know “Trans Am” and “Plain Jane” come from the Street Machine album (one that I do have). I love these two songs. I wish Van Halen covered “Trans Am” live, that would have been something. Eddie would have gone bananas on those cool guitar slides. “Plain Jane” is just a really cool Seger-esque song, based on piano and acoustic guitar on the verses. The bass line bops along and Sammy sings awesome.

“Iceman” is kind of an odd duck. It tries to be atmospheric and bluesy but it really only sizzles during the chorus. “Run For Your Life” was my second favourite song after “Plain Jane” and I am really glad to finally have this song back in my collection again. It’s really 70’s in this cheesy/cool Journey way. In fact Steve Perry sings on it.

“I’ve Done Everything For You” is also from the Street Machine remastered CD. This song, I am 110% certain, was not on my cassette original. It could be this is an extra track. Anyway, this pop rocker was a major hit for Rick Springfield later on, apparently.

Side two of the original cassette began with “Rock N’ Roll Weekend”. This is a cool fast rocker, another one that Van Halen would have sounded awesome covering. The lyrics are your typical “Been working hard all week, now the weekend’s here and it’s time to party lyrics.” And that’s fine, there’s always time to party.  If I feel like listening to something more serious I already have all the Dream Theater albums….

“Turn Up The Music” is a fun rocker with a nice tuneful riff. There’s some nice Seger-ish piano backing this one too. “Urban Guerilla” is one I never liked much for its awkward riff. As far as hard rock goes, this is as heavy as Sammy’s ever been. This one is pure heavy metal, fast and brutalizing. If only it had decent production. Unfortunately the song is tinny and the hi-hat is maddeningly annoying.

“Love Or Money” is a fast over the top rocker, catchy and memorable as hell. The final track is also quite metallic in delivery, “Reckless”. Aside from the overused title, this one is loaded with charisma. It works great as a compilation closer. An organ riff keeps it grounded inside a solid pocket.

So there you go, 10 songs, a full 7 of them being worth owning to me. Maybe there is a better compilation of this material elsewhere, I really don’t know. I do own the really cool Essential Red Collection but most of these songs are not on there. There is a CD called The Best of Sammy Hagar that has 7 of these songs, but my second favourite song “Run For Your Life” isn’t on it.

Proceed with that in mind, and purchase accordingly. The original cover of the cassette, by the way, was the same picture as the Danger Zone album cover. Weird!

3/5 stars

HAGAR_0002

WTF Search Terms: Unsolved Mysteries edition

WTF Search Terms XIV:  Unsolved Mysteries edition

Welcome back to WTF Search Terms.  Below you will find 10 phrases that people typed into a search engine like Google, which somehow took them to mikeladano.com.  The 10 terms below have one thing in common:  I have no idea what the answers would be.  If you can help out these people, post your knowledge in the comment section, or these may forever remain unsolved mysteries!  Enjoy.

ritchie blackmore private life

puff daddy’s embarring habit

michael jones’ ebay wealth

perks of living in san diego

make a wooden cassette box

solo pizza commercial tania creighton-castillo

knuckle dtaggers bikers kincardine ontario

dreadlocks security guard manchester

gorge and martin and elile and alice and donss facebook

what id the dimond sign minr when jazz and lebrain put it up in the

For more WTFs, click here!  Subscribe so you’ll never miss one again.

STACK

Part 246: Dancing Steve


RANGERS

RECORD STORE TALES Part 246:  Dancing Steve

One of our best customers at the original store was Dancing Steve.  I’ll get to why he’s named Dancing Steve in a minute, but I first met Steve when I started at the store.  Steve would come in or call looking for various cassettes (never CDs), and put them on hold until he had $150 or $200 worth, and buy them all in one shot.  That’s just how Steve rolled.  Normally we would never stockpile so much inventory for a customer for so long, but Steve spent so much money and was so pleasant that it was a special arrangement just for him.

Steve would call looking for songs.  I can remember putting a Gina Vannelli tape on hold for Steve, and I also remember him looking for Rod Stewart’s then-recent song “This”.  I found that song on Rod’s latest, the excellent A Spanner in the Works.  It was always so nice dealing with him, he was so friendly, and even if we didn’t see him for two months at a time, he was uber-reliable.

I knew Steve was a hockey fan as he would often wear a Kitchener Rangers hat or jacket.  What I did not know was that Steve was legendary among Rangers fans!  Steve often wrote (and I think he occasionally still does) long letters to the editor of the local newspaper, cheering on our Rangers and offering his strategic advice.

T-Rev and I found ourselves at a Rangers game one weekend.  I don’t remember the circumstances.  We may have got the tickets for free, but neither of us were particularly fans of the game back then.   The Rangers scored, the crowd cheered!  Then, T-Rev noticed some commotion in the seats of one corner of the auditorium.  To our left and down was a man in a Rangers jacket and hat, dancing.  It wasn’t a sophisticated dance, it was a bit of an awkward shuffle, in that big warm Rangers jacket.  The crowd loved it, cheering him on!   It was none other than Steve, our Steve.  I found out his actual nickname in town was Dancing Steve, because he had seasons tickets and rarely missed a game.  Steve would get up and dance any time something good happened: a goal, a power play, whatever!

To this day, I feel cool that a local legend like Dancing Steve was one of our earliest, most loyal customers.  In fact we didn’t lose Steve until 1997, when we discontinued carrying cassettes.  Steve didn’t make the transition over to CD.  He was crushed when T-Rev had to tell him we weren’t going to be selling tapes anymore.

I have been to a couple Rangers game since, but not seen Steve.  I know he still goes though, as I’ve heard tell that Dancing Steve dances on at the Aud.  I would like to dedicate this chapter to Steve, an example of a jolly good fellow if there ever was one!

TOMORROW:  Something exciting.

Gallery: T-Rev’s Tapes Part Deux – Ruckin’ Fockin’

Last year for Record Store Tales Part 145, I dug up some of T-Rev’s old mix tapes, complete with custom artwork.  T-Rev always put such work into his tapes (sequencing and art included, he even numbered them as a series!), so it is a pleasure to give you this gallery of three more of T-Rev’s Tapes!

Rockers love to discuss “mix tapes”, so I invite you to comment on your own personal picks.  Led Zeppelin?  Metal Tunage?  What would you do?

Tapehenge

Gallery: Def Leppard – Pyromania (India import cassette)

Aaron finds the weirdest stuff!  In a recent Box of Goodness that he sent me (including an awesome Thin Lizzy Thunder and Lightning reissue on vinyl) I found this.  It’s Def Leppard’s Pyromania (review here) on cassette, but not just any cassette.

The weird extra-thick and bendy clamshell case was the dead giveaway that this was something unusual.  A quick look at the sleeve reveals it’s an actual Vertigo release, but also an import from India!  Does anyone know if cassettes in India always came in these odd cases?  The cassette actually snaps into the case, and is held by two tabs.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  This version even has an oddly coloured Def Leppard logo, that I’ve never seen on anything else.

Pyromania had a max. retail price of 60 rupees. That’s approximately one US dollar today.

Even though the yellow price tag on the side says $2.99, Aaron got this for the princely sum of one Canadian dollar!  And now here’s the gallery of this strange oddity.

What to do with an old cassette case – USB edition

Rock & Roll & Recycle!  Two weeks ago, Marko showed you how to use an old cassette case to hold a smartphone such as a Blackberry Z10.  Unfortunately, as Aaron pointed out, the iPhone charges from the bottom.

So, for iPhone users, I present to you my own original idea of an alternate use for an old cassette case!  We all have a ton of these things sitting around!


Stickers from the folks at reprolabels.com.

REVIEW: Ozzy Osbourne – Speak of the Devil / Talk of the Devil (1983)

 

OZZY OSBOURNE – Speak of the Devil (1983 Epic)

After Randy Rhoads died, Ozzy really seemed to have gone into a tailspin. He just seems to have been completely miserable at the time and he really tries to bury the albums he made in this period. Speak Of The Devil, a live album featuring Brad Gillis (Night Ranger) on guitar, was not even included on Ozzy’s 2002 reissue program and went out of print.

Ozzy owed his label a live album, and had actually recorded one too (Randy Rhoads Tribute).  With fresh wounds from the loss of Randy, Ozzy didn’t want to do a live album at all.    So a compromise instead; Speak of the Devil (Talk of the Devil overseas) consisted entirely of Black Sabbath songs.  At the same time, Sabbath was releasing their own double live album, Live Evil.  This direct competition poured fuel over an already volatile feud.

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL_0003I always hate to compare Ozzy’s versions of Sabbath songs with the originals. Ozzy’s have always sounded different because of the guitar players he’s chosen to use over the years. These Gillis versions are about as authentic as Ozzy’s been, until the fortuitous discovery of Zakk Wylde five years later.  Gillis is a flashier player than Iommi, but without Randy’s intricate classical bent.

You absolutely cannot argue with the track list (from the Ritz, in New York). This is Sabbath boiled down to its black core. These are the desert island songs, and I love that “Never Say Die” and “Symptom of the Universe” were included.  Through the classics, Ozzy sounds tremendously drunk.  Colossally smashed, not quite completely out of his fucking head yet, but close.  Still lucid, not yet totally annihilated.  His voice takes on an angry shade when he starts reminiscing about the the groupies at the old Fillmore East (“The Wizard”).  (Sounds like a naughty word was awkwardly edited of out this ramble, too.)

I do love a moment when, just before breaking into the aforementioned “Wizard”, Ozzy says to somebody (a roadie?) “Hey, what’s happenin’ man?”

The vocals sound like they’ve been sweetened in the studio.  They’ve been double tracked, or manipulated to have that effect.  I’m normally not a fan of that kind of thing, but it’s still a great listen.  There’s some annoying feedback at points…it doesn’t bother me too much, hell, when I first heard this album (on cassette) in 1991, I couldn’t even hear the feedback, for the shitty fidelity of cassette tape.  I’m sure Ozzy considers the album to be sonically embarrassing, that seems to be his modus operandi.

Of note, “Sweet Leaf” did not manage to make the original CD release, but has been restored to this version, its CD debut.  It was on the original cassette version, a cassette-and-LP-only “bonus track” at the time.  (Aaron, that means you gotta buy remastered or LP.)

Band lineup: Osbourne/Gillis/Sarzo/Aldridge/Airey.

4.5/5 stars

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL_0004

 

Part 173: Gene Simmons’ Asylum Demos

RECORD STORE TALES Part 173:  Gene Simmons’ Asylum Demos

Back in 1994-95, when I was working at our original store, I would always proudly fly the Kiss flag.  This was before the mega reunion, and on the heels of the Revenge album, which I was really into.

I had a small online presence back then, I had created our very first online ads in 1994.  I was talking about music on every single BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the area, and on one board, called Wanderer’s Rest, I had a forum for my reviews.  I was going by the online name “Geddy” (hah!) back then, and I was extremely prolific.  Very little has changed since!

One guy, name long forgotten, messaged me.  “Hey, I’m a customer at your store.  I have some rare Kiss demos.  Do you want to do a tape swap?”  Of course I did.  For him, I made a copy of the March 25 1974 show in Washington at the Bayou club.  It was a cool show because they played an unreleased song called “You’re Much Too Young”.

For me, he made a tape of Gene’s Asylum demos, on one of our Maxell UR60’s that we sold in our store.  Gene is a very prolific songwriter.  Not everything he comes up with is gold (clearly!) but he usually submitted a dozen tunes or more for consideration on each album.  Judging by this cassette, Asylum was no exception, even though he was very distracted by Hollywood at that time.

The tape, which unfortunately did not survive the years very well at all, contains 13 of Gene’s demos, 3 being instrumental ideas, and a bonus track.  A couple songs made the final album.  I tried to listen to the tape, to see if I recognized any ideas.  Unfortunately, this tape now sounds terrible and is unlistenable.  I ripped only one song, which was “Russian Roulette”, to see if it resembled the version that later ended up on 2009’s Sonic Boom album.  From what I can tell, only the title survived to Sonic Boom.

Musically however, the song was recycled on the Monster album, as “Eat Your Heart Out”!  It’s the same riff.  Although you can’t make out the lyrics on the demo version at all, you can tell they are completely different.

See the pictures below for the tape made for me by the Mystery Kiss Fan back in ’94-95.   If you know any of these Gene songs, please comment below!  We can hope that good quality versions will come out on Gene’s “Monster” box set, if it ever comes out!

VIDEO REVIEW: Transformers Encore 21 Soundblaster / Wingthing / Enemy (Soundwave)

Enjoy this 7 minute video review including stop-motion animation.

Part 165: Cassette Case Man

RECORD STORE TALES Part 165:  Cassette Case Man
cassette case 1

The setting:  my store

The year:  1997

The characters:  me and a scary dude

Remember tape cases?  Some looked like briefcases.  You could store anywhere from 24 to 60 tapes in one case, which snapped shut with a clasp.  Others were double sided, made of nylon, zipped shut, and could hold 120 cassette tapes.  At my peak, I owned about 10 cases altogether, different sizes, to hold my cassette collection.

cassette case 2

We had phased out tapes completely by 1996.  It was a dead format.  CD had taken over completely, and our stores were some of the first in the area to go 100% CD.   You could still buy tapes downtown at Encore Records, and I occasionally still did.  I remember buying Fireball, by Deep Purple, on tape there in 1996, because finding a CD in town was impossible.

One afternoon in ’97, when I was working alone, a big dude walked into the store.  Outside of a Tarantino movie, I’d never heard so many “F-bombs” dropped in one conversation.   Luckily I was journaling back then and recorded the conversation for posterity.

Big guy:  “Hey, where are your cassette boxes?”

Me:  “You mean like tape cases, for carrying your tapes around with you?”

Big guy:  “Yeah, them fuckin’ things.”

Me:  “Uhh…we don’t carry those anymore.  We phased out tapes a while ago.”

Big guy:  “Fuck.  You fuckin’ sure you got nothin’?”

Me:  “Yeah, pretty sure.  We don’t carry tapes, so we don’t carry tape accessories either.”

Big guy: “Why the fuck don’t you carry tapes?  What are people supposed to do who listen to fuckin’ tapes?”

Me:  “Well, you could try the mall.  I think some of those stores carry tapes.  They probably have cases too.”

Big guy: “Think so?”

Me:  “It’s worth a try?”

Big guy: “Fuck.  I’ll just make one.”

Me:  “OK.”

Big guy: “Yeah.  Fuck.  I’ll just buy some fuckin’ wood.  Cut ‘er up nice and build a fuckin’ box for my tapes.  Just get some fuckin’ wood, fuckin’ slap ‘er together, and make a fuckin’ tape box of my own.  Yeah.  That’s what I’ll do.”

Me: “…That sounds like a good idea.”

Big guy: “Fuck, it’ll be easy, I’ll just buy some fuckin’ wood.”

And I never saw him again.  True fuckin’ story!