hockey

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.

Sausagefest XII: VIDEO REPORT!

Sausagefest is an annual all-dude, all-meat, countdown of rock.  Five of us from the old Record Store attended!  This year, there were 110 songs (75 countdowns plus 35 “tributes”).  #1 was Max Webster — “Toronto Tontos”.  Other artists who made the countdown included Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Queens of the Stone Age, Tool, Rush, and Tenacious D among others.   For the history of this event, check out Record Store Tales Part 30.

Thanks to Jeff Woods and Craig Fee for your contributions — above and beyond the call of duty!

And of course, thanks to Tom our host, and Uncle Meat, Seb and Dr. Dave for the music.

Uncle Meat will be providing me with the full track list.  Stay tuned for that post, too!

The man, the Meat, the legend

MOVIE REVIEW: FUBAR II (2010)

“Knowledge of non-knowledge is power. “  – Dean Murdoch

FUBAR II

FUBAR II (2010 Alliance, directed by Michael Dowse)

Most sequels aren’t worth owning.  Fubar II is.  Plus, it comes with a bonus disc: Fubar, the original complete film. This was a total surprise to me. I had no idea it was going to be in there. I’m a little bummed that I bought the original film on blu shortly before this.  I gifted it to my buddy Cliff at work who also adores the exploits of Terry and Deaner.

Synopsis:  5 years after surgery, Deaner is celebrating these years of good health. Even though an eviction is looming, he and Terry have no real worries.  During a drunken house-trashing party, Tron tells them they have jobs waiting in Fort McMurray. Terry and Dean pack up their meager belongings and head to work in the oilsands.

As with the first Fubar, tragedy must eventually strike. Terry and Dean come to blows over a girl, Trish, who Terry has moved in with. Dean gets some bad news, and Terry gets even more unexpected news from Trish. For a while, Fubar II becomes much darker than the first film.

Unbelievably, a stroke of scripting genius turns Dean’s tragedy into triumph. This ending was as satisfactory as it gets. I ended Fubar II with a huge smile on my face. This sequel does something very unusual: it is funnier than the original, it has more emotion than the original, yet it doesn’t copy it. I have to say this is one of the best sequels I’ve seen.

The footage of the oilsands is really cool.  It looks like a cross between Vegas and the Mustafar system – a whole other planet. One thing about this movie, you can tell it had a budget this time, compared to the original. There are some really nice looking shots, and the movie itself looks great. The graininess has been replaced by slick production. The documentary style has been mostly dropped in favour of more traditional storytelling, although a few interview segments are scattered within.

For music geeks, Justin Hawkins of The Darkness has a vocal cameo near the end.  You’ll know it when you hear it!  The movie also features excellent tunage by Ronnie James Dio & Black Sabbath, The Gun, and Dean’s own classic “Whale Hunter”.

I mentioned the bonus disc with the entire original film, bonus features intact.   Other special bonuses in this set include a ton of deleted scenes. While some were overly long and you can seen why they were edited or pared down, others add to the story and comedy. There were several regarding Dean’s illness that might have worked well in the movie. One, “Mixing Meats,” was a shorty that just had me howling. Also, like the original film, this one comes with a commentary from Michael Dowse and others. Better though will be the in-character commentary by Terry and Dean. This was a real treat on the original film, and I’m sure this one will be too. I’ll have to check that out on next viewing.

Pick this up. Just give’r.

5/5 stars

Part 175: Flyers

“Like” the brand new LeBrain Facebook page!

RECORD STORE TALES Part 175:  Flyers

No, not the Philadelphia Flyers.  I’ve never been the biggest Scott Hartnell fan despite the Sideshow Bob haircut.

Back in ’96, we decided to promote one of our new stores the old fashioned way:  by running around parking lots sticking flyers on cars.  Now, me personally, I don’t know anyone who enjoys finding those things on their windshield.  I thought it was a waste of money, personally, but since they were going to pay me to do it, I volunteered.  It was summer and it seemed a great way to spend a nice sunny Saturday.

T-Rev volunteered too.  I packed a cooler full of pop, and we decided to hit up three of the local malls.  We started first thing in the nice, cool morning but before too long it got really hot.  Good thing we wore hats.

After only an hour, we discovered that we had to flyer the cars strategically.  T-Rev was the first one to get yelled at.

“Hey!  Get away from my car!”

T-Rev just handed him the flyer instead.  The dude was not impressed.  We came up with a set of rules.  We wouldn’t flyer any cars that had obvious alarms.  We wouldn’t flyer any nice expensive cars.  And if we saw someone approaching, we wouldn’t flyer any cars in the area they seemed to be walking to.

“Mike, that’s a ‘Vette!  Don’t put a flyer on that one!”  That kind of thing.

It wasn’t a total loss.  A couple people said they would come in to the store.  Unfortunately by the end of it, dozens of flyers littered the parking lot, as people ripped them from their windshields.  T-Rev and I still made a day’s wage working outside.   Not a bad way to earn a day’s pay!

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES:

Part 176:  The story of the laziest man at the mall…

Part 163: Hockey

Hockey season has begun!  Enjoy this Record Store Tale….

flames

RECORD STORE TALES Part 163:  Hockey

The date:  May 14, 2004

The location:  My store

The characters:  Store employee Matt, and a really dumb kid who claimed to be 20 years old, selling used discs.

The NHL playoffs were in full swing.  Oftentimes, when you’re selling used CDs, it takes time to go through them all and assign values to them.  Customers like to make small talk during this time.  In Canada, small talk often amounts to hockey talk.  According to my journal, the conversation unfolded as below.

Dumb Kid Who Says He’s 20: “Who are you cheering for in hockey?”

Matt: “Calgary.”

DKWSH20: “Calgary? What for, why aren’t you cheering for someone Canadian?”

Matt: “Calgary IS in Canada.”

DKWSH20: “It is?”

Matt: “Yes.”

DKWSH20: “Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve looked at a map.”

REVIEW: Neil Peart – “The Hockey Theme” (2010 single)

NEIL PEART – “The Hockey Theme” (2010 single, iTunes)

For my international friends and readers, you’re just going to have to take my word for it that this little tune is one of the most iconic pieces of music in our nation’s great history.  Mike Myers called it “Canada’s second anthem”.  If you’re home on a Saturday night, it’s a given that any true hoser is watching Hockey Night In Canada.  That theme song was the anthem that said, “Alright fans, go get your beer and your jerseys, the action starts now.”

I won’t get into the details of why this song isn’t the theme to Hockey Night In Canada anymore, but the song was picked up by another network, and it still kicks off hockey games every week — just not on Hockey Night in Canada.

In 2010, Neil Peart did a drum and horns version of the theme song, and put it up for sale on iTunes.  People bitched that they had to pay $1.29 for a song that was barely over a minute long.  All I can say to those people is, don’t buy it.  It you’re really huffing and puffing about paying $1.29 for a simply incredible piece of music by the world’s greatest drummer, then it is possible that you may in fact have no soul.

If you’re familiar with Neil’s work on the Burning For Buddy albums, then you already know that he tends to really kick traditional arrangements in the nuts.  And that’s what he does here.  He turns “The Hockey Theme” into a stomping, fill-laden anthem that is perfect for kicking off just about any mix CD that you have in mind.

Now, if we could only get an actual hockey season happening this year, we’d be talkin’!

5/5 stars