OZZY OSBOURNE – “Flying High Again” (2011 Record Store Day exclusive)
Here’s something of an underappreciated item. Everybody knows that Ozzy and Sharon re-recorded the drums and bass on Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman back in 2002. In retrospect this was a shrewd move despite the fan backlash. In Lucas-esque fashion, it enabled them to restore the original versions for much-hyped reissues in 2011. To usher in these new/old releases, Record Store Day shoppers were able to buy a replica original “Flying High Again” single.
Both the reissue and the original 1981 single featured the B-side, “I Don’t Know”, recorded live at an unspecified gig. Like Diary of a Madman itself, this B-side had its bass and drums re-recorded in 2002. It is difficult to hear the differences, but listen to the bass tracks right around the 2:10 minute mark. Where Bob Daisley plays lots of interesting harmonics, the re-recorded version has Rob Trujillo hitting the lows. The bass parts are very different.
The credits on the 2002 edition of Diary indicate all tracks, “live” one included, were remixed with new bass and drums.
When Diary was reissued in 2011, it did not include this B-side, but instead an entire (different) concert on a bonus CD. Therefore the original version of the “I Don’t Know” B-side remains a vinyl exclusive. Cool. I am not sure why this was not advertised on the single sleeve or in the media. In fact, I’ve owned this single for two years without putting 2 + 2 together. The “Flying High Again” vinyl single is the only place you can get the original, untampered “I Don’t Know” live B-side!
For that reason alone:
5/5 stars
But is this worth $12 as per the price tag? That’s one thing that bugs me about these singles today. I understand that manufacturing costs have changed and it’s a niche item, but still! $12 for one song. One song, because they were going to sell us all “Flying High Again” itself on the Diary reissue, as advertised on the front.
Cassettes Part IV – LeBrain’s Tapes (What Remains)
I used to have a lot of tapes. So many, that T-Rev converted my closet doors to shelving, just to store my numerous cassettes! It was quite a feat of engineering on his part.
If you’ve read the otherthreeparts of this series on cassettes, then you’ve already seen some of the awesome artwork that T-Rev used to come up with for his tapes. Doing those articles got me nostalgic, but very few of my own tapes remained. A year or two before I met Mrs. LeBrain, I briefly dated this one girl who was getting into hair metal. I had succeeded in replacing most of my tapes on CD (although still incomplete; I need a copy of Live Fast, Die Fast by Wolfsbane, and Phenomenon 1). All my tapes were redundant, and I gave her boxes and boxes full of them.
God knows where those tapes are now. I doubt she took them back home to Thunder Bay when it was all over, they probably ended up in a landfill. No big loss really, the only shame of it is that, like T-Rev, I used to make a lot of my own custom artwork.
Mrs. LeBrain and I were visiting her mom yesterday, and I found some of my old Beatles tapes that I had made, at her place! Her dad drove a delivery van with nothing but a tape deck inside. He was more than happy to receive my old Beatles tapes, and he loved them. And there they were, still at the house, complete with my computer generated J-cards. Nothing elaborate, although I did paste the cover for Abbey Road onto that tape.
This inspired me to dig through some boxes here, and see if I had any of my own tapes left. Surely there must be something here, with some of my own custom cover art! There was just a handful left, stuff that I wouldn’t have parted with at the time, and lo and behold, there was my old artwork. These sure brought back memories!
Back in the early record store days, cassette was my primary medium. They were portable, you could leave them in the car and not worry about them getting banged up, so I recorded everything onto cassette. It wasn’t until I had left the record store in 2006 that I got my first car with a CD deck. Before then, I had one of those adapter kits to play a discman in the car, but it sounded shite. I was glad to find the following treasures tucked away in a box!
Ahh, Spinal Tap. A Spinal Tap Reunion was recorded from a 1992 TV special. Unavailable on DVD today, as far as I know. That’s a shame.
I bought Grande Rock by The Hellacopters on vinyl, to get that bonus track “Angel Dust”. Or, more accurately, one of my record store compatriots got it for me at Orange Monkey Music in Waterloo. I dutifully recorded it to cassette without making elaborate packaging, but I did put some effort into the cassette spine.
You Fat Bastards by Faith No More was the full show that was released on CD in truncated form on the Live at the Brixton Academy CD. This was from a VHS release.
Guns N’ Roses did a couple cool TV specials. I recorded Live at the Ritz off T-Rev, who stuck on some demos for bonus tracks. The cover was made by adapting an old Appetite For Destruction J-card. I think this turned out pretty cool. Invade Paris! was a TV special from 1992.
These two Maiden tapes were from VHS releases. It’s a shame that Raising Hell was never released on a CD. Here’s hoping the band will put that out on a future box set. It was Bruce’s “final” show. I just edited out the crap sections with “magician” Simon Drake. Maiden England is also taken from VHS, but this is the full show. The CD release omitted two songs: “Can I Play With Madness”, and “Hallowed Be Thy Name”. My cassette didn’t! I thought my J-card for Maiden England turned out pretty cool, using an old Seventh Son cover as its basis.
Unfortunately, this is all that remains of my old cassette art. I did some much more elaborate things, which Thunder Bay Girl probably tossed out. One was for Savatage’s Dead Winter Dead. When I recorded that one to cassette, I actually painted the gargoyle onto a J-card. Wish I kept that one. Rush’s Test For Echo may have been the most elaborate one I’ve done. Using some old cardboard and a full-page ad for the album, I created my own digipack for that cassette. It would be nice to still have. Ahh well.
It seems funny, in today’s age of mp3 files and players, that a format as crappy as cassette was anyone’s main format. But there you go. Before I could play CD’s in the car, they were the best way to bring music with me. I’ve always believed a music collection was for showing off as much as listening to, plus I enjoyed making the artwork. I’m glad some still survives today!
In alphabetical order, here’s Part 2: 88 albums that meant the world to me in the 1990′s but never got the respect I felt they deserved.
Dokken – Dysfunctional (reunion with George, adventurous album)
Steve Earle – I Feel Alright (jail obviously did him some good — his best record)
Steve Earle – El Corazon (among his best records)
Extreme – III Sides To Every Story (don’t get me started!)
Extreme – Waiting For the Punchline (a stripped-down oft-forgotten classic with Mike Mangini)
Faith No More – Angel Dust (…)
Faith No More – King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime
Fight – War Of Words (I didn’t like Halford’s followup effort but this one is brutally heavy)
The Four Horsemen – Nobody Said It Was Easy (it wasn’t easy, is why)
The Four Horsemen – Gettin’ Pretty Good…At Barely Gettin’ By (but they released two great records in the 1990’s)
Fu Manchu – The Action Is Go (started me on my Fu Manchu addiction)
The Gandharvas – Sold For A Smile (my cousin turned me onto this one while I was in Calgary)
Halford – Live Insurrection (better than any of the live albums that Priest did without him)
Harem Scarem – Mood Swings (brilliant album, you can hear Queen influences, but it’s the guitar and vocals that set it apart)
Harem Scarem – Karma Cleansing (…now a bit more progressive, like progressive-lite)
Harem Scarem – Big Bang Theory (…and now, short and to the point!)
Helix – It’s A Business Doing Pleasure (too soft for the general Helix masses)
The Hellacopters – Grande Rock (the album Kiss should have made instead of Psycho Circus)
Glenn Hughes – From Now On… (anthemic and spiritual)
Iron Maiden – Fear Of the Dark (it gets a bad rap but it pretty much got me through 1992)
Journey – Trial By Fire (I don’t think they’ve ever made a better record to be honest)
Killer Dwarfs – Dirty Weapons (ditto!)
Sadly, my concert review for this show no longer exists. Ye olde floppy discs don’t exist anymore, and the site that once hosted the review (sabbathlive.com) no longest exists. Therefore I’m forced to re-write this as a Record Store Tale.
RECORD STORE TALES PART 136: Black Sabbath July 22 1995
July 22, 1995. Tom, myself, and a few of the boys decided to go see Black Sabbath. They were playing Lulu’s Roadhouse, the world’s longest bar, with Motorhead opening. It felt like a step down for both bands, but the place was packed.
We arrived just before Lemmy hit the stage. They ripped into a scorching set to promote their latest album, the high-octane Sacrifice. I remember Lemmy introducing the title track: “Don’t try to dance to this one or you’ll break both your fucking legs!” At the end of their set, Motorhead promised to return (and they did a year later).
I remember Tom and I being blown away by Motorhead. I didn’t own any — this show officially was what made me a fan. I kicked myself for not really paying attention to them earlier, but better late than never eh?
Motorhead remain today one of the best bands I’ve seen.
But I was there to see Black Sabbath. We moved closer to the front of the stage to be in position. We chose a spot perfectly between where the two Tony’s would be, right up front.
The crowd was getting a little drunk and restless. A fight started…well, I hesitate to really call it a fight, it was over before it started. We all turned around to see this big huge dude headbutt this little tiny Kurt Cobain looking guy. Knocked him out cold. Then the big guy realized everybody was watching and hastily made an exit.
Then, Black Sabbath: Tony Iommi, Tony Martin, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray, and Geoff Nicholls. What we didn’t know was that Cozy only had seven more gigs after this one. Then he would be replaced by another Sabbath vet, Bobby Rondinelli. And of course little did I know that I’d never see Cozy live again in any band: He was killed in a car accident 3 years later.
They hit the stage to the classic Martin-era opener, “Children of the Grave”. Sabbath’s set was sprinkled with tunes from the Ozzy era (“War Pigs”, “Iron Man”, “Paranoid”, “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, “Black Sabbath”) and the Dio era (“Heaven and Hell”, “Mob Rules”) and many of his own tracks. They played three from the lacklustre new record, but at least three of the better songs: an awesomely dramatic “Kiss Of Death”, the explosive “Can’t Get Close Enough”, and the filler song “Get A Grip”.
It was just before “Get A Grip” that the stagediving began. Tom vacated the stage area right away. “Get a grip is right!” he said to me. “I’m out of here.” Two songs later I followed him. This drunk girl started grinding me from behind, so I took the first chance to slip away and catch up with Tom.
The one song I really came to see was “The Shining”, one of the best Martin-era tunes, and his first single with the band. Sabbath delivered. They also played two from Headless Cross including “When Death Calls”. Neil Murray played the chiming bass intro to this song that I’d never heard before. It was the only unfamiliar song. I resolved to get Headless Cross as soon as possible. (It took two months for Orange Monkey Music in Waterloo to get it from Europe.)
Vague memories:
Tony Martin was a so-so frontman. Much of the time, he would spread his arms Christ-like and shake his thinning hair. He talked a lot and I remember he had small, beady but friendly looking eyes. He did the best he could. He sang his ass off, although he had lost a fair chunk of his range.
I remember Iommi ditched his SG for an unfamiliar red guitar during the overdriven “Can’t Get Close Enough”.
I could barely see Cozy, which is my biggest regret.
I was pleased that Sabbath played a well-rounded set with new stuff.
Little did I know that the end was near. Not only was Cozy soon to be out, but promoters cancelled much of the end of the tour. Sabbath headed over to Japan, threw “Changes” into the set (OMG!) but were done by the end of the year. For the first time in a long time, Sabbath were put on ice while Tony (Iommi) worked on a solo album with Glenn Hughes.
Meanwhile, the lawyers were conspiring to create a new/old Sabbath lineup. By 1997, Ozzy was back, and the band now featuring founding members Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and new drummer Mike Bordin of Faith No More.
I’m glad to have seen Sabbath with Martin. He did five albums, and I like three of them. I think he did the best he could under difficult circumstances. He’s a talented guy, so it’s great to have seen this lineup especially since Cozy would be gone so soon!
Part 32 of my series of Kiss reviews, leading up to the release of Monster!
VARIOUS – Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved (Official tribute album, 1994)
Kiss My Ass (you just knew they’d use that title eventually) was released in several formats: LP, CD, and a cool almost unrelated DVD too. I’ll talk about it all.
In the 90’s if there wasn’t a tribute album for your band, you didn’t matter. But Kiss had one out before Zeppelin and Sabbath. Kiss put it together themselves, which isn’t a bad thing — Black Sabbath and Robert Plant participated in their own tribute albums, too. Kiss My Ass or A** (available with and without profanity) is an enjoyable, diverse listen from start to finish, leaning heavily on stars from the 90’s, but also reaching back in time to a handful of earlier legends.
Up first is a great, very different version of “Deuce” by Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Wonder. Stevie plays some seriously honkin’ harmonica on the track. It’s completely unlike the original but if you like Lenny Kravitz (which I do), it’s awesome.
The Garth Brooks track is probably the most interesting on the album. Not because it’s Garth — Garth could probably do “Hard Luck Woman” in his sleep, it’s right up his alley and the world knows what a huge Kiss fan he is. It’s his backing band, who appear here uncredited. You may have heard of them. A little band called Kiss. Kiss even performed the song live with Brooks on late night TV.
Anthrax (with John Bush on vocals), who are also diehard Kiss fans and have done many Kiss covers over the years, simply pummel “She” to a pulp, and once again it’s great. Incidentally, produced by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons.
By now you’ve heard three diverse tracks by three completely different bands, so you’ll be excused if you find the ride a little bumpy now.
The Gin Blossoms played it very straight on “Christine Sixteen”, but Toad The Wet Sprocket really shook it up on “Rock And Roll All Nite”. You have to admire their urge to experiment with the most famous of all Kiss tunes, but really, who spiked their water with Valium? I snooze through this one every time. It sucks.
“Calling Dr. Love” is performed by supergroup Shandi’s Addiction: Tom and Brad from Rage Against The Machine, Billy Gould from Faith No More on funky bass, all topped by the unique vocals of Maynard James Keenan. How much more 90’s can you get? None, none more 90’s. I can’t say this track is a winner but it sure is different. You’re forced to keep listening out of sheer curiosity. It sounds like a mash of all three bands which is pretty unimaginable.
Dinosaur Jr. turn up one of the best performances on the disc with a dour, lush “Goin’ Blind”. This mournful version is true to the spirit of the muddy original, and J. Mascis just nails it. Heh…Dinosaur Jr! Yeah, it must have been 1994.
At this point, I’m realizing that Kiss My Ass is just as much a tribute to the bands of the mid-90’s as it is to Kiss!
Extreme turned in a slowed down but groovy version of “Strutter”, complete with Nuno’s own sweet harmony vocals. Great track by a great, underrated band.
I could do without The Lemonheads’ version of “Plaster Caster”, but it is very faithful to the original song. Once again, kids today will ask “Who are the Lemonheads?”
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones really had balls to open “Detroit Rock City” the way they did. It opens with a phone call from Gene Simmons explaining that they could not perform “Detroit”, as Ugly Kid Joe and Megadeth were already fighting over who was going to do the song. Gene advises them to pick another song, right before that bone-crushing opening riff kicks in. And this is truly a great version, if you dig the Bosstones’ unique style of vocalizing. Ironically neither Megadeth nor Ugly Kid Joe made the cut for this album. Nor did Nine Inch Nails, who recorded “Love Gun” (still unreleased).
The final track on the domestic CD is a beautiful orchestral version of “Black Diamond” by someone called Yoshiki (X Japan). This is a great instrumental, and the ideal way to end an album such as this. The album, diverse all the way through, ends on a very different note from that which it began!
Import and LP versions have a bonus track, “Unholy” by some German industrial band. I haven’t heard it because I never opened my LP, but for those interested, it is the only non-makeup song included on the album.
I mentioned a DVD release. It’s badass. It’s basically a third DVD, along the lines of Exposed and X-Treme Close Up. It’s loaded with vintage clips and has some interviews with Paul, Gene, Bruce, and Eric. They briefly show Anthrax in the studio cutting their Kiss cover, as well as Gin Blossoms. There’s even a preview of the cover artwork for the forthcoming Kiss album to be called Head…
Lastly, I even have a rare, rare, really really rare promo Kiss My A** On the Radio CD. I have no idea what this sucker is worth today. It is the only audio release of some of the best live tunes from the Kiss My Ass DVD, seven of them, along with tons of Gene and Paul talking.
4/5 stars all around.
The track lists can be found within the photo gallery below:
RECORD STORE TALES Part 84: Carpet Cleaning in December
We used to get our carpets steam cleaned twice a year, once in the summer and once in the winter. The winter one was the biggest waste of money you can wipe muddy boots on.
The very last one that I was there for, 2005, was memorable. To make it even more fun, earlier in the day as he was leaving the store, my boss said, “Do good sales or you’re both dead.” Total morale boost!
I had to stay late to watch the store while the cleaners were doing their business, and lock up after them. They usually took an hour, so that’s not too bad. What sucks more is the day after. Because you have to move everything off the carpets for the cleaners, you have to come in super early the next morning to put it all back.
So, 8 am, December. It was starting to snow. I entered the store.
1. Everything is wet. Condensation on the windows means I had to remake a whole bunch of paper signs. (We had no lamination device.)
2. The carpets will probably remain wet for most of the week.
3. The very first customer of the day tracked in muddy snow on his boots.
4. It’s STUPID!
By the end of the day, the carpets looked the same as they did before! At least we must have done good sales, because I’m still alive.
The first time a record store person had any impact on me was actually well after high school. Until then, I never spent much time interacting with them. I always knew how to find what I wanted, and I never special-ordered anything because the stuff I wanted, they couldn’t get anyway. I had to order my rare albums from magazines.
In 1990, Peter and I got heavily into Faith No More. Peter got Introduce Yourself before I did, but I found We Care A Lot first. I found it at Sam The Record Man, generally considered the best store in town at the time. Angel Dust had just came out on CD, but I hadn’t got it yet. We Care A Lot was a rarity; therefore a priority in my spending budget.
It was there, on cassette. $14.99. Not cheap.
Al King was behind the counter. Al King was the undisputed music guru in town. Undisputed. I strived to be what he represented. Heck he even had a feature spot on a weekly local TV program — The Metal Mike Show — which I watched many times.
“Do you have the new Faith No More yet?” Al asked me as he took the security tag off my purchase.
“No, not yet. I saw this and I had to get it because I’ve never seen it before,” I answered.
“The new one is…pretty different. Have you heard Mr. Bungle?” he inquired.
Al was engaging me. He had just seen Bungle live. He liked Bungle, but the new Faith No More was still growing on him. He explained to me that you could really hear the Bungle influece on it. The next time I came in, he told me he had just seen Faith No More. He told me everything about the show.
Years later, things cycle around, and I found myself in Al’s shoes. Kids were coming up to me and asking my opinion on things. I tried my best to be honest and treat them with respect. I had my bad days — we all do — but I certainly didn’t want to recommend music that I didn’t think was any good.
When I saw a young guy or girl come in buying Kiss, that was an instant obvious coversation starter. Tall One and Short One, who I talked about several chapters ago, started getting into bands like Kiss and Oasis, so I tried to steer them into the albums I was into.
I made a lot of friends that way. Shane Schedler, who I’ve talked about twicebefore was one guy who trusted my opinion implicity. There was another guy, Italian Tony, who always wanted to know what I was into. I sold him Slash Puppet that way, I knew he would be into that band. And then there’s my buddy Statham. Some found me on Facebook, some I just run into randomly.
Of course I had just as many failures. Sometimes you expect someone to be into a new Maiden album just because they liked the old Maiden, for example. Then they don’t trust you anymore.
I don’t think I appreciated my position back then. I don’t think I saw myself as Al King. I think I saw myself as still trying but not quite succeeding at being that guy. It’s only now that I talk to people and get it. Somebody will say to me, “You told me to buy this album, and I did, and it’s in my top ten of all time now.” That’s a cool feeling. I wish I appreciated it back then.
The truth is, it was a job just like any other. You were a business and businesses were supposed to make money. Stores have to be cleaned, books balance, shelves stocked. Sometimes it felt like conversation was keeping you from your job. And spend too much time with a single customer, and you got dirty looks from people with the authority to give you dirty looks.
I appreciate now though, that conversation was the job. Conversations that I don’t even remember have turned out to have huge impacts on people’s musical lives. Al King was a trusted musical guru to me. It’s weird to think that I might be that to other people. But if that truly is the case, I have to say thanks, because that’s all I ever really wanted anyway.
All record stores have their fare share of record store bands. The names are fading into obscurity, but there are two that I still remember because I still listen to the CD’s more than a decade later.
It doesn’t matter if a band ever makes it big, or if you’re the only fan. If the music moves you enough to still listen to it over a decade later, then that is all that matters. Two bands that I still listen to over a decade later are Here Comes Jim and The Candidates.
Both Here Comes Jim and The Candidares were bands fromCambridge, Ontario Canada. They were “our” bands – made up of record store guys, our friends, and talented ones at that. They didn’t sound anything alike, but in my opinion, both had the potential to get signed.
THE CANDIDATES
This four-piece was a rock band influenced by The Who, The Jam, and the mod scene in general. They started out with all four members wearing suits and ties on stage but this later evolved into a looser image. Their stage presence was such that they could have played a hockey barn, as they acted as if there was a thousand people in the audience even if there were only a handful. Their tunes were solid, well composed, and well played. They boasted three lead vocalists, including this guy Neil M, who came all the way from Scotland to rock the tri-cities.
Their tunes were full of attitude. For example, “Who’s Your Daddy Now” was a song written for Trevor, about this girl that ended up using him for a ride to her home town (Ottawa) and then breaking it off. She was obsessed with pictures of herself:
Sold your soul for a photograph,
I tore it up and had the last laugh,
Who’s your daddy now?
He ain’t got nothin’ on me!
The Candidates eventually split and morphed into other bands. For me personally, nothing was better than the original four-piece, the band that I went to see as often as possible. They hit me right in the nuts and I think their debut album had all the right moves in all the right places. They made an equally good second album, but it’s the debut that was special to me personally.
HERE COMES JIM
Another four-piece, this was a more experimental band. The lead singer was this extremely talented guy named Matty G. I believe that he was actually a trained singer, which would help explain why he was able to sing so many different styles (often within one song). I used to compare him to a Mike Patton, a comparison that he was flattered by. Yet I think the comparison was accurate. The difference is that Matt used to sing and play lead guitar too.
They had quite a few good tunes. My favourites were “She Is”, a melodic winner with a chorus that kills, and “Negator”. “Negator” was just a pissed-off, scream-loaded, headache inducing pile of distorted guitars and vocals. I would compare it to Faith No More tunes such as “Surprise! You’re Dead!” for sheer power and aggression. Either song could have been a hit, in a just world.
Neil, Matt, and the rest of the gang that I’ve lost touch with are still some of the most talented musicians that the tri-cities have produced. I’m glad I saw these bands back in the day, bands that are now forgotten in the dusts of time. However, if you’re ever in the area, wandering through the pawn shops and music stores, and you run into a copy of either album, pick it up. It’ll be a better listen than whatever Nickelcrap that MTV is pushing these days.
I’m going to take you back in time a bit. Back to a time before the record store….
I remember back to the 80’s and early 90’s when MuchMusic was king. Back when there was no Jersey Shore and they played actual music videos. There was no internet at that time, so you had to go to the store to buy your music (more often than not, on cassette). To hear new bands, you watched videos on Much and listened to the radio. There was no YouTube.
There was this frickin’ awesome show on Much back in the day — you remember it. It was originally only on once a week (Thursdays at 4 if I recall) and was hosted by one John “J.D.” Roberts. Yeah, the CNN guy. After he left, the hosting slot rotated between Michael Williams, Steve Anthony, Erica Ehm and Laurie Brown and then finally the late Dan Gallagher. Despite his long hair, Dan didn’t know a lot about metal — he didn’t know how to pronounce “Anthrax” and had never heard of Ratt. But that show was by far the best way to hear new metal back in the day.
That show was THE POWER HOUR.
It was so popular that they eventually had two a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4, which was awesome for me since by 1989 I was working every Thursday at Zehrs. I could still catch one a week, usually.
I remember tuning in, VCR at the ready to check out all the new videos and catch onto the newest bands. There was this band called Leatherwolf that I found via Hit Parader magazine and first heard on the Power Hour. I loved that band. There was another band called Sword from Montreal. Psycho Circus. Faith No More. Skid Row. Armored Saint. Testament. You could always count on the Power Hour to have Helix on. That show rocked.
They had some of the best interviews as well. Usually they’d have someone come in and co-host for an hour. They had everybody from Gene Simmons to Brian Vollmer to Lemmy. In depth stuff too, at times.
Then in 1990 something else cool happened. I discovered a magazine called M.E.A.T (the periods were for no reason at all, just to look cool like W.A.S.P. but eventually they decided it stood for “Metal Events Around Toronto”). M.E.A.T was awesome because it was monthly, free, and had in depth articles clearly written by knowledgable fans. There was no magazine with that kind of deep coverage. Even Slash loved M.E.A.T, at a time when Guns hated rock magazines! I loved M.E.A.T so much I eventually sent them $10 to subscribe to a free magazine. I did this on a yearly basis.
I discovered a whole bunch of great bands via that magazine. I Mother Earth, Slash Puppet, Russian Blue, Jesus Christ, not to mention they were way ahead of the curve on alternative. They had a Nirvana concert review back in 1989. They got behind Soundgarden way before they were cool. And you could count on them hanging onto the oldies. They’d put an indi band from Toronto on the cover one month, and put Black Sabbath on the cover the next month. Next issue they’d have an in-depth interview with Kim Mitchell. They’d talk about bands that nobody else did.
Their CD reviews were my bible! My music hunting was probably 90% based on their reviews, especially since by then the Power Hour had changed into the 5 day weekly Power 30 hosted by Teresa Roncon, and sucked. The started playing too much thrash and grunge and never gave the old bands a shot anymore.
Things have changed so much now. I never get into new bands anymore, back then I used to just eat them up. I guess new bands just don’t interest me anymore. I like my old time rock and roll. I did buy the new Sheepdogs, twice. The last new band I got totally and 100% excited about was The Darkness, and that was, what…2003?
Yet I can’t get into these new metal bands. The music sounds so sterile to my aging ears. The rock has lost its balls. The album I have been most excited about in 2012 was the new Van Halen — a band that is approaching 40 years old. But my God does it rock. Kiss and Black Sabbath both have new records coming out, and I’m excited about them, but I could two shits about the new Nickelback.
In a lot of ways, it’s a better time for music now. With eBay and Amazon I’ve managed to fill nearly every gap in my music collection. There are some bands that I now have complete sets of, and others that I am achingly close. I’m missing 4 Maiden EP’s and 1 Deep Purple import, for example. Back in the 80’s you didn’t have access to this. You didn’t even have access to an accurate and complete discography. It wasn’t until the internet that this kind of information was even available.
Aside from that, today kind of sucks for music. Sure, it’s easier to find new bands now, but we did OK in the 80’s. M.E.A.T turned me on to lots of bands, and they were always giving away sampler cassettes. Much played all the new videos by all the metal bands at least once, basically. You had to work a little harder, but we only appreciated the music more. It wasn’t disposable.
And there were a lot more new bands around that just plain rocked!
mikeladano.com 