guns n’ roses

Part 145: Cassettes Part I – T-Rev’s Tapes

RECORD STORE TALES Part 145:  Cassettes Part I – T-Rev’s Tapes

I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but back in the day, us Record Store Dudes were expert mix tape makers.  I’ve been making mix tapes since I got my first dual cassette deck, back in 1985.  It was a Sanyo.  Thanks mom & dad.

I made all sorts of mix tapes.  I made mixes of whatever tunes I was into at the time.  I made mix tapes for girls that I liked, sneaking in the odd commercial Judas Priest tune like “Parental Guidance” in order to sway them to the dark side.  I made greatest hits tapes.  I distinctly remember an Ace Frehley greatest hits tape I made, 90 minutes.  The first 5 songs were classic Kiss hits that he sang.  The next 5 were from his first solo album.  Then on side two, 5 songs from Frehley’s Comet and 5 from Second Sighting.   I also made a Kiss hits tape from the post-Double Platinum period, basically all the singles from Dynasty through to Asylum.

When I first met T-Rev almost a decade later (1994), I had met a kindred spirit.  He was doing the same thing!  He made hits mixes for Guns N’ Roses.  The Four Horsemen.  Van Halen.  And so on and so forth.  But in a lot of ways, he had taken it to the next level.

Trevor had an artistic ability above and beyond me, he was really really good at art.  That’s why we used to get him to make all our store signage.  So it probably should have been no surprise to me that he put equal effort into his cover art.  He did a beautiful job on the Guns and Van Halen mixes!

Somehow these ended up in my possession.  I don’t even remember how anymore, but here they are.  It looks to me like not only did T-Rev did awesome cover art, but he numbered all his mixes and must have had a numerical filing system.  The Guns mix appears to be a Part II, and is #34 in his  library.  Van Halen must have followed shortly behind at #38.  I also ended up with an early mix of his, number #14, called What De Hell!!

I’m really glad that I found these!  It brings back a lot of memories of the early days at the record store.  There was no such thing as blank CD’s yet, and even if there was, T-Rev didn’t have a computer to burn one on yet.  Tapes were our canvas, and they even had a longer running time than a CD.  90 minutes was our standard, but you could even go as high as 100 without losing too much sound quality.

Not that there was much sound quality!

Thanks for loaning these to me T-Rev!  If you still have something to play them on, I’ll send ’em back to ya if you want them!

Most Unrightfully Ignored Albums of the 1990s – LeBrain’s List Part 3

In alphabetical order, here’s Part 3:  88 albums that meant the world to me in the 1990′s but never got the respect I felt they deserved.  

King’s X – Faith Hope Love (most KX discs didn’t get the attention they deserved!)
King’s X – Dogman
King’s X – Ear Candy
King’s X – Tape Head
Kiss – Carnival of Souls (while you can’t argue it wasn’t a sellout, it sure wasn’t wimpy!)
Leadfoot – Bring It On (Karl Agell and Phil Swisher ex-COC)
Marillion – Brave (what a brave, brave album)
Marillion – Radiation (a lot of people don’t like this one, but I consider it a highlight for them)
Duff McKagan – Believe In Me (diverse, fun and pissed off)
Kim Mitchell – Aural Fixations (a little soft, but Kim in the 1990’s was scarce indeed)
Kim Mitchell – Kimosabe
Motley Crue – Motley Crue (they were better without Vince, honestly)
Vince Neil – Exposed (…and Vince wasn’t doing too badly himself)
Ozzy Osbourne – Ozzmosis (it sold by the buckets, but I think today it’s ignored which is a shame)
Poison – Native Tongue (Ritchie Kotzen took them to a new level of maturity and virtuosity)

Pride & Glory – Pride & Glory (Zakk Wykde’s first album without Ozzy, and one of the best)
Queen – Innuendo (in North America, most of what Queen did went ignored before Freddie passed)
Queensryche – Promised Land (spacey and mature)
Queensryche – Q2k (riffy)
Quiet Riot – Terrified (the only thing they’ve done since the 80’s worth playing)
David Lee Roth – Your Filthy Little Mouth (I didn’t need to hear Dave do reggae but it ain’t bad)
David Lee Roth – DLR Band (John 5 on lead guitar…crank it up)

Most Unrightfully Ignored Albums of the 1990s – LeBrain’s List Part 1

In alphabetical order, here’s Part 1:  88 albums that meant the world to me in the 1990’s but never got the respect I felt they deserved.  When appropriate, I’ll pop in with comments.  Part 1!  Enjoy!

  • Aerosmith – Nine Lives (better than Get A Grip)
  • Armored Saint – Symbol of Salvation (John Bush lead vocals, nuff said)
  • Barstool Prophets – Last of the Big Game Hunters (from Ottawa Ontario Canada, great album)
  • Big House – Big House (from Edmonton Alberta, long forgotten hard rock classic)
  • The Black Crowes – Amorica (my favourite)
  • Black Sabbath – Cross Purposes (bleak gooder from the Martin-era Sabs)
  • Blue Rodeo – Nowhere To Here (psychedelically delicious)
  • Blue Rodeo – Tremelo (acoustically psychedelically delicious)
  • Bon Jovi – These Days (their most mature albeit darkest work to date)

  • Gilby Clarke – Pawnshop Guitars (the all time best GN’R solo album)
  • Alice Cooper – The Last Temptation (fans love it in hindsight, but it sold poorly in 1994)
  • Corrosion of Conformity – Deliverance (I was hooked upon hearing “Clean My Wounds”)
  • Coverdale Page – Coverdale Page (unrightfully ignored? well, most just disrespected)
  • Cry of Love – Brother (guitarist Audley Freed plays his Fenders like bluesy butter)
  • Deep Purple – Slaves & Masters (I have a soft spot for this ballady Deep Rainbow disc)
  • Deep Purple – The Battle Rages On (there are some strong forgotten tracks here)
  • Deep Purple – Purpendicular (one of the best records of their career)
  • Def Leppard – Slang (ditto)
  • Bruce Dickinson – Balls To Picasso (I believe I’ve discussed these enough in my in-depth reviews)
  • Bruce Dickinson – Accident of Birth 
  • Bruce Dickinson – The Chemical Wedding
  • Dio – Strange Highways (it took a while to grow on me, but at the time it was criminally ignored)

Part 2 of 4 coming tomorrow…

Part 140: For I Have Dined On Honeydew

RECORD STORE TALES Part 140:  For I Have Dined On Honeydew

Back in 19xx, I decided to do a road trip to get some proverbial “good lobster”.  I took T-Rev with me, not because he likes seafood (“nothing that swims” was his slogan) but because you need a road trip companion for a 2 hour drive to get lunch!

We both had Sundays off.  We ditched the record store, and hit the road one Sunday morning for Kincardine, Ontario, home of Pelican’s Roost.  It was the best lobster place in the province.  It’s not there anymore, but it sure was awesome.  T-Rev brought some road tapes.  He was always the master of making road tapes.  I remember he did one that was basically the best of Use Your Illusion I and II.  Another one collected the best tunes by Four Horsemen.

Problem:  The Roost was closed!  It didn’t open again until 5.  I sheepishly apologized to Trevor and asked if it was cool if we stayed until they opened.  He agreed, in the meantime we had lunch at Hawg’s Breath.

Then, we killed time looking for discs.

Kincardine didn’t have a record store then (it did in the late 80’s/early 90’s), but it did have a discount shop with a few thousand used discs to go through.  The great thing about out of the way places like this was finding weird stuff that was valuable, that nobody realized was valuable.

What T-Rev bought that day was not valuable.  It was, however, just too weird not to buy.  So he did.  What the hell were with those track titles?  “Muffle That Fart” was sure to be a top smash hit.

That certainly worked up an appetite for some lobster!

The Pelican’s Roost opened, and I put that unsightly album cover behind me!  I ordered the lobster tail with butter while T-Rev had the chicken.  We returned home with full bellies, and a disc that was just too weird to leave behind!

Part 137: M.E.A.T Magazine (VIDEO BLOG)

Anybody else remember Drew Masters and M.E.A.T Magazine?

RECORD STORE TALES Part 137: M.E.A.T

REVIEW: Bruce Dickinson – Tattooed Millionaire (1990, 2005 2 disc set)

You can’t talk about this part of Maiden’s history without talking about Tattooed Millionaire.  Part 14 of my series of Iron Maiden reviews!

BRUCE DICKINSON – Tattooed Millionaire (1990, 2005 Sanctuary 2 disc set)

If Tattooed Millionaire had not happened, neither would so many things in Maiden’s history:  No #1 single (“Bring Your Daughter…to the Slaughter), Janick Gers might never have joined the band, and so on.

Due to the six months downtime between Seventh Son and No Prayer, Bruce decided to have some fun.  He first recorded “Bring Your Daughter…to the Slaughter” for the Nightmare on Elm Street 5soundtrack.  This opened the floodgates and before too long, Bruce and guitarist Janick Gers had more than enough songs for an album.  (Other band members:  Andy Carr – bass, Fabio Del Rio – drums.)

And an album there was, and what a fine album indeed!  Bruce made no bones about it:  This is not a heavy metal album like Maiden.  This is a hard rock album, along the lines of his influences:  Deep Purple, AC/DC, Mott the Hoople, and more.  What was surprising even to me at time was just how good it was.

The first single, “Tattooed Millionaire” was catchy as hell while still sounding very British and uncompromising.  Vocally, the song and album combines Bruce’s classic soaring voice, with his newer style of spitting out the words in a furious assault.  The combination is effective; Just listen to “Hell On Wheels”.  While innuendo-loaded verses are spat out, the chorus soars in a singalong fashion.  “Dive! Dive! Dive!” and “Lickin’ the Gun” tackle similar lyrical territory.

But it’s not all sexual innuendo.  Bruce tackles more philosophical topics on songs such as “Born in ’58” (a great single), “Son of a Gun”, and “Gypsy Road”.   Meanwhile, “Tattooed Millionaire” pokes fun at the rockers of the L.A. scene, loaded with cash but not too much in the way of brains.

Tattooed boys with expensive toys,

living in a bubble of sin.

Money can buy you most of anything,

fix your nose or the mess you’re in.

Some speculated that this was aimed at former tourmates, Guns N’ Roses.  I believe Bruce later said the inspiration was Motley Crue!

Bruce admitted that doing a cover song for a single was “cheating”, but “All the Young Dudes” was a great choice to cover.  Fear not; Bruce does it justice.  Bruce kicks it in the head.  Gers’ guitar work is perfect for the song, and it’s good to have a chance to hear him play a more laid-back style, unlike his usual work.

The album spawned plenty of singles, each with their own B-sides worth collecting.  But luckily, the fine folks at Sanctuary put all of this stuff together, along with “Bring Your Daughter”, on a tasty bonus disc.

The bonus disc includes some acoustic music (“Winds of Change”, “Darkness Be My Friend”, and the joke song “Ballad of Mutt”).  It also has some kickass live covers:  Deep Purple’s “Black Night” and “Sin City” by AC/DC among them.  Bonus — there’s also a studio version of “Sin City”, and some live versions of the album’s hits.

Absolutely essential:  “Son of a Gun”, “Tattooed Millionaire”, “Born in ’58”.

Great:  “Gypsy Road”, “Zulu Lulu”, “No Lies”, “All the Young Dudes”

So-so:  “Dive! Dive! Dive!”, “Hell On Wheels”

Filler:  “Lickin’ the Gun”

4/5 stars

Part 109: The Summer From Hell!

RECORD STORE TALES Part 109:  The Summer From Hell

Summer, 2004.

I had one really, really awful summer at the store.  My full-time backup had quit, and head office made the decision not to hire a replacement until the Christmas gear-up season.  Instead, they decided to spread out the part-timers to cover the hours.  They were always eager for hours, but not necessarily weekend hours!

I was required to work two Saturdays a month anyway.  That summer, I had to pull a lot more than that.  Saturdays, Sundays, the odd 12 hour shifts…I didn’t get to the cottage very much that summer.  Allegedly, one head office staffer was overheard saying to another, “It’s going to be funny watching Mike try to work all summer without a full-timer.”  Good to know they had my back.

I was furious.  But I was also defeated.

I had one weekend booked off in July.  I couldn’t miss that weekend.  My grandma’s 80th birthday party was that weekend.  There was no way in hell that I was going to miss my grandma’s 80th birthday party.  It was a 2 hour drive away, in Kincardine Ontario.  I only have one grandma (88 this year!), but wouldn’t you know it?  Nothing ever went smooth for me….

I had a date the previous night (Friday), with this girl who was originally from Thunder Bay.  We went out and we had a nice meal followed by a night of drinks.  I woke up slightly hungover, but eager to hit the lake, and say hi to grandma.  Then, my phone rang.  Not a good sign.

My least reliable employee, Wiseman, was calling in sick.  The truth was more likely that he was calling in wasted.  Somebody had to get the hell over there and cover him.  And that someone was me.

I pulled in, unshowered, unshaven, and pissed off.  I had never been so mad at Wiseman in my life.  It was becoming a far, far too regular occurrence that he was always “sick”, and someone had to cover for him.  You can’t expect every part time employee to give up their Saturday plans and work on no notice, but a manager had to.

To her credit, there was one head office person on duty that weekend, and she came in to take over.  I will always be grateful to that person for covering me on my grandma’s 80th birthday weekend.  If memory serves, my great aunt Marie, her sister, made it that weekend too.  I think that was the last time I ever saw her, she passed away not too long after.

My relationship with head office people was rocky to say the least, especially after that “It’s going to be funny watching Mike try to work all summer…” crack.  But she did cover me when I needed it.  I won’t forget that, and I’ll always be grateful.

The rest of the summer was what it was, weekend after weekend of working, the same grind and drudgery.  The musical light in the tunnel that summer was the release of Marillion’s double Marbles CD.  It is my favourite Hogarth-era Marillion to this day, and when I received it that summer, it got me through.  We didn’t carry it in stock in our store, but it was in my car, and on my home player, all summer.  It brightened the mood, it kept me going, waking me up in the morning and getting me out the door.  The Summer of Hell’s bright spot was Marillion, and my grandma.

I would like to dedicate this installment of the Record Store Tales to that one head office person who stepped up and covered for me that day.  We had many knock-down-drag-out arguments over the years, and I’m sure that her side of many events differ from mine.  Regardless, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been present for my grandma’s 80th, and for that I owe her a debt of gratitude.

Thank you.  It meant a lot to me.

Below:  the soundtrack to that summer

Part 102: Dumped in Barrie

Once again, I found myself on the road.  CDs were not completely dead and we were still expanding.  We opened a new location in Barrie, Ontario. It seemed like a good location, and the store had a good layout, with plenty of space and a huge back room for storage.  The shelves were well stocked and the place looked great.  They didn’t have a lot of great, unique stock yet:  It usually took time for a store to grow that way.

As usual I was chosen to do a large share of staff training.  I was sent there for 7 days in total, split over two weekends, training 3 or 4 people.  The higher-ups who sent me there chose not to be there on the weekends themselves.  That’s why they sent me.  I understand that this arrangement was considered “funny” by those who didn’t have to spend their weekends there, or so I was told.

I packed a cooler bag full of lunches and drinks so I wouldn’t have to keep buying food and charging it to the company.  It was easier than running out for food, and it was better for the company.  I was the only one who did this.  All I charged to the company at the end of it all was one meal at Burger King, while others charged wine and expensive meals, so it was alleged to me.  I didn’t even charge my use of Highway 407 to the company, since it was my personal, last-minute choice to use the highway to get home faster.  Nobody cleared me to use it, therefore I chose to foot the bill myself.

I was also at the tail end of another relationship.  I was going out with this chick who called herself “JJJewels”.  She was generous and fun, but not ready to be in a relationship with a guy who hated his job and every waking moment he was at work.  I don’t hold the breakup against her, just the way she went about it.

After a grueling 12 hour day of training and work, I checked into my hotel room.  I wandered around for 20 minutes lugging my cooler bag full of food before I found the actual room.  I went to bed immediately, exhausted, when my cell phone rang.  It was JJJulie.  She was dumping me over the phone while I was in a hotel room in Barrie.  I couldn’t believe it!

I sat there in bed, just shocked that anybody could dump another person while sitting miserably alone in a hotel room in Barrie.  On the other hand, it was inevitable, so there was also a sense of relief.

I called my good friend Shannon the next day and told her what had happened.  It was now Saturday, and I was really lonely stuck in a Barrie hotel room with nobody around to talk to.  The room had two beds, so I asked Shannon if she wanted to come up Saturday night.  Kindly, she grabbed some board games and drove up.  That little gesture meant a lot and it was the only ray of light in the whole time I was in Barrie.  The others who came to Barrie during the week were already with their friends and significant others, because they worked with them.  I took Shannon out to dinner at Red Lobster (paying for it myself, not asking the company to pay for my dinner) and we played Monopoly.  It really helped a lot.

That night, we were awakened by the sound of a hockey team partying in the hallways.  I woke up, and stuck my face out the door and scowled.  There were half a dozen hockey players.

“Hey man!  Want a beer?”

I shook my head and closed the door.  They got the hint and moved it into their room.

The following weekend was much like the first; a cooler bag full of lunches, driving up Highway 400 with Gordon Lightfoot, and Guns N’ Roses on the deck.  The second weekend was marginally better than the first; at least I didn’t get dumped this time.  I didn’t want to spend another Saturday night in a hotel room though.  Saturday night we closed at 6, and we didn’t open again until Sunday at noon.  I wanted to drive home Saturday night and spend it at home, not alone in exile in Barrie.  However the hotel room was already reserved for Friday and Saturday nights.

I told my boss that I preferred driving home on Saturday night, and back on Sunday. I’m guessing the hotel room must have been cheaper than the mileage, because he said no.  I should have just done it anyway, but I followed orders and spent a miserably lonely Saturday night by myself in Barrie.  It just indicated to me that the powers that be had lost the plot and had no understanding of morale.  It would have done me a world of good to spend Saturday night with friends, like everyone else does.

When it was all said and done, after two weeks of no time off, and two weekends of exile in Barrie, they rewarded me with a Monday off.  I spent that bitter Monday in my pajamas watching movies and stuffing my face full of junk food.  The day was over before I knew it, my one day of rest was done.  Back to the grind.

If memory serves, this was the very last time we opened a new store.  The decline of brick-and-mortar music sales meant that I wouldn’t be doing anymore of those weekend training missions.  Thank God!

Part 65: Vinyl

RECORD STORE TALES Part 65: Vinyl

We’d always dabbled in vinyl.  We didn’t do a lot of vinyl, it was the 90’s after all, and vinyl was dead.  We didn’t buy it used, but sometimes something big came out on vinyl that we had to carry.  For example:

In 1994, Pearl Jam released Vitalogy on LP a week earlier than the CD.  We stocked five and they sold out on day one.

In 1996, Soundgarden came out with Down On The Upside LP a week earlier than the CD, so we stocked that.  I can’t remember how many we stocked, but I do remember it took years to sell them!

My copy, still sealed...that's my handwriting too.

My copy, still sealed…that’s my handwriting too.

A bit later on, my buddy Tom opened his own branch and decided to stock used vinyl.  He was the only one to try it, he had a vinyl room in the back.  They phased the vinyl out rapidly after Tom moved on, as he was the chief expert buyer.  However during the period that Tom carried vinyl, I filled so many gaps in my collection.

Here’s some examples.  You have to remember that at the time, these might not have been out on any digital format at all, and downloading hadn’t hit us yet.

  • Ozzy’s Live EP, still unreleased on any digital format today.
  • Helix’s first two, Breaking Loose and White Lace & Black Leather albums, autographed by the late Paul Hackman.  I think these were in Tom’s 25 cent bin.
  • Hear N’ Aid, Ronnie James Dio’s 1986 charity LP featuring exclusive tracks from Kiss and others.
  • Guns N’ Roses 12″ single for “Patience” with an exclusive interview with Axl on the B-side
  • Kim Mitchell, the legendary Max Webster frontman’s first solo foray from 1982.  Easily my favourite record of his entire storied career, and impossible to find on CD under $100.
  • Max Webster’s Live Magnetic Air from 1979, a hard find on CD for sure.

That’s just a sampling, there were many more.  And that’s just that stuff that I bought.  I’m sure Tom saw many a rare disc float his way.

There was one record I’ll never forget.  This sucker was worth $100 right there.  It was by a band from Oshawa Ontario, called Christmas.  It had a tank on the cover.  I guess they had this cult following and only a small quantity of records were made, let alone survived.  And musically, it wasn’t bad.

I’m glad that vinyl is back in a fairly significant way again.  I enjoy buying it, and I enjoy playing it.

I want a USB turntable for my birthday.  I accept gifts.

Part 33: Special Orders

New CD special orders were something we did, but not frequently, because often the person wouldn’t pick the disc up. At one point in 1995/1996 though, we got this new distributer who had the most insane shit in his catalogue. Our own stock improved dramatically because of this. Suddenly we were carrying the Japanese import Hormoaning by Nirvana in our regular stock.  We were also getting in these UK-issued Iron Maiden imports with bonus discs of B-sides.  They are rare and highly coveted today.  Trevor and I oversaw the stocking of this stuff.  Trevor was made store manager of this first location in 1996, and I was given my own store a few months later.

For me personally these were the peak years, when Trevor and I had the most creative control over the store.  For example I remember we had a “forthcoming releases” board, that Trev and I updated every month.  As a joke, we always had Guns N’ Roses on the board as coming “in 6 months”.  This is because even back in 1996, the new GN’R album was constantly being announced and then delayed.

It came out for real in 2009.

We were also alble to use this new distributer to add to our own collections.  For myself, I ordered a complete set of the afforementioned Maiden collections, 10 albums altogether.  I also got all the new Maiden singles as they came out.  It was a great time to be a collector, and if Trev and I thought something was worth stocking, we had the freedom to do so.  We were starting to carry Oasis singles, where they had always avoided that kind of stock before.

Trevor had his finger on the pulse of what was coming out.  He tweaked onto Oasis very early.  He got me into it very quickly.  In a time when good new rock bands were few and far between, Oasis were a breath of fresh air to me.  For a change, a band inspired by the classics like the Beatles and Stones, not another punk or grunge band. 

One thing Trev and I tried to special order for ourselves, but never managed to get, were the Japanese imports of the first two Oasis discs.  They each contained bonus tracks:  “Sad Song”, and “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday” respectively, both great tracks.

Sometimes a customer would special order something, and you couldn’t wait to see it come in.  I remember a guy ordered Twisted Sister’s Live at Hammersmith, back in a time when it was absolutely impossible to find any Twisted Sister in any stores, let along a double live.  I couldn’t wait to check out the tracklisting.  My buddy Aaron special ordered the Sloan 2 CD edition of One Chord, but we failed to hook him up.  He bought it elsewhere.  No hard feelings Aaron.

I probably special ordered stuff for myself more than Trev did.  Trev had a saying:  “Don’t buy it new.  If you buy it new, it’ll come in used a week later.”  And he actually had a pretty good batting average with that saying.  I would say a good 75% of the time, when Trev or myself bought something new like a special order, we saw a used copy come in within the next 7 days.

It was almost like magic. 

Nowadays, there’s never a need to special order anything.  Amazon and eBay are both happy to do that for you.  New or used.  And the collection grows….