This has been one of my personal favourite episodes! Bootlegs were the subject, and we saw a wide variety. Yet even with the limitless possibilities of bootleg recordings out there, we still ended up with one duplicate. You’ll have to watch and see which one was on two lists!
Lots of audio/visual backup here to go with these bootlegs too. For that reason alone, this was one of the best shows we’ve ever done. Thanks for watching and being a part of it!
One of my favourite ways to spend a Saturday morning was down in the basement drawing pictures while listening to heavy metal music with my best buddy Bob. Most likely, we were watching one of my VHS tapes of the Pepsi Power Hour while doodling away with our pencils. It was the best of times, with the best of friends, and the absolute best kind of music.
In the early to mid 1980s, MuchMusic was only available on pay TV. We had it, but Bob Schipper did not. Therefore he only had two pathways to the Pepsi Power Hour:
Wait for the one or two weeks per year when pay TV was free for sneak preview.
I tape the videos, and share my finds with him on Saturday mornings.
It was an amazing way to bond as kids. He brought with him his paper and pencils, and we would get down to business while watching music videos.
In the summer, we moved activities to the front or back porches, with a ghetto blaster playing Kiss or Iron Maiden as we sketched. In fact, the story really begins on the back porch. The very same back porch on which we schooled George Balasz about Accept. Bob had mastered the art of drawing muscled warriors in cool poses. His very first was a master of escape whom he dubbed “Motor Head”. In his first appearance, he seems doomed, hanging from a noose. But a closer look reveals him casually smoking a cigarette and holding a pair of nun-chucks for his imminent escape. Note the frayed rope. He was in no danger – he was biding his time!
Having mastered this first character, it was time to expand on the concept. Bob drew many different designs and body types. Giants, archers, characters with cybernetic limbs…the field was wide open, but heavy metal music was always an influence.
Bob’s second sketch was a man in a metal Quiet Riot mask he named “Killer”. Killer was one of Bob’s favourites. As his drawing abilities grew, he expanded upon Killer. Next, he designed a custom car and robotic pet for the character. I liked the way he used metal plates and rivets for detail.
Bob taught me the secrets of drawing these heroic figures, and I began to create my own warriors. The characters we were sketching resembled Mad Max marauders, crossed with heavy metal tropes. Really, all of that metal stuff was inspired by the post-apocalyptic fiction genre that was all the rage in the early 80s. Nobody did it better than Mad Max, and many of our characters wore masks like Lord Humungous. Others had bandaged faces, like Eddie in some of the Powerslave-era Iron Maiden artwork. Some wielded ninja-like weapons, since ninja movies were also all the rage at the time.
We called our characters “Death Team”.
Bob’s backstory concept of Death Team was a school gang, with a strong influence from martial arts movies. The idea was that the gang evolves into a government-sanctioned fighting force. That meant no limits. The cars and trucks that we drew were armoured and kitted out. Very much inspired by M.A.S.K., Mad Max, and other shows of the time. If there was something cool on the screen, we would try to draw it and add our own twists. What I brought to the table was my interest in GI Joe comics, and the military side of fiction. The ninjas were the common ground between Death Team and GI Joe, and many of my characters had weapons and outfits inspired by the comics. I started giving my characters code names and bios, just like GI Joe, and gave them the inverted star sigil.
At this point during the earliest Death Team drawings, my sister and I had our big musical schism. That means that up until 1985, she was into the same music I was. Well…not W.A.S.P. But she liked Quiet Riot, Motley Crue and Iron Maiden. Then something happened, and she went into what I called “New Wave”. Pointer Sisters, Corey Hart, Tina Turner. To counter our heavy metal Death Team, she created her own squad called the Wavers. She drew her own team members: “Waver” and “The Wave”. Needless to say, Death Team would have crushed the Wavers in combat.
Bob and I sketched solo, during the week. Then we’d gather on the weekends to share our work. We’d inspire each other and keep drawing more. Those are the Saturday morning Power Hour sessions I remember so fondly.
One weekend, Bob came over excited that he had learned to draw “a really cool bike”. He arrived at my door with his new character “Bike Ninja”. We helped each other name our characters, but that one didn’t need anything fancier than simply “Bike Ninja”. His boots had outward-facing spikes, and his left hand was replaced by a robotic claw with a laser in it.
“That might make it hard for him to ride his bike,” I offered up.
“Nahh!” said Bob. “He’s a ninja!”
My mom noticed that many of the characters were smoking cigarettes. She asked why that was. Bob started putting cigarettes in some of their mouths (even the ones wearing masks) to make them look cooler, so I followed suit. That was the rock and roll influence, as many of our rock star heroes like Eddie Van Halen were constantly smoking. We had no interest in it, but the visual followed into our art.
Bob’s art was much better and more original than mine. I improved over time. By 1987 I had finally drawn one I was really proud of, a character all about street justice and inspired by Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. In fact this character was meant to be the real Dee Snider, joining our team to save Earth. The concept was stolen from Sgt. Slaughter, the WWF wrestler who joined the fictional GI Joe team. If that could happen, then Dee Snider could join Death Team!
As Bob and I built our little world of characters on paper, we realized our gang needed someone to fight. Bob was watching the Silver Hawks cartoon before school in the mornings, and took influence from some of the creatures seen on early morning TV. We decided on a force of alien invaders as our adversaries, and a wide variety we did draw.
Bob was really the visual guy though; his drawings were so far ahead of mine. I was more a conceptual guy. I came up with the character bios and some of the overarching story. It was hard bridging the street gang origins together with the alien invasion concept, but I wrote an origin. Together, Bob and I wanted Death Team to be a Canadian team (with some American and overseas volunteers). We wrote them as a down-on-their-luck school gang who lived together on the rough side of town, wherever that was. They actually began as two rival gangs who combined their forces together. We wrote the first pages together and then I finished writing the story. The guys were so tough, that they were swiftly recruited by the Canadian government as a unit of street enforcers. The Death Team was born!
I decided that the leader of the alien invasion was to be a human. Perhaps inspired by Xur in The Last Starfighter, the alien leader was a former Death Team computer wizard who made contact with the aliens by sending a signal through a black hole. He then defected and joined them, determined to conquer the Earth for his own. We even named our alien alliance the “Xor Aliens”.
Bob was really good at drawing aliens, though most had human bodies with alien heads, hands and feet. Some were covered with hair. He was good at drawing big round mouths with a circular row of teeth. I thought that was a cool visual. Many of ours were aquatic. Planet Xor must have had a lot of oceans.
When I look back at these drawings, I see a difference between Bob and I. It’s quality vs. quantity. His are better while mine are plentiful. Some of mine were little more than outlines with no shading or depth. Plenty of mine are rip-offs. He was coming up his own ideas. The thing we have in common, easily seen in these sketches, is how much fun we had!
The pinnacle of of our fun was realized one afternoon when we decided to commit Death Tape to an audio adventure. One side of a 60 minute tape contains us acting out our favourite characters, in a series of adventures. This is all done to the backing tracks of great hard rock tunes. It opens with “In the Beginning” and “Shout at the Devil” by the mighty Motley Crue. This meant we used two ghetto blasters in making this tape. One to record, and one to play the backing music while we acted out the scenes. Quiet Riot’s “Slick Black Cadillac” and “Caught in the Crossfire” by April Wine were the songs used for the other scenes. I just remember having so much fun doing it. It didn’t matter if the tape is unlistenable. My face was red from laughing so hard that day.
All this Death Team stuff goes hand-in-hand with the earliest days of my discovery of metal. You can see the influences bleeding through. Characters named “Motor Head” and “Killer” and “Helix” and “Crazee” and “Iron Maiden”. We weren’t terribly original, but we were terrifically entertained. Entertained by ourselves! All we needed was some paper, some sharp pencils, and a good song. I can still hear the tunes playing, whether it was W.A.S.P. or Motley Crue or Iron Maiden themselves. The tunes were critical. The team could not have existed with the tunes, and the tunes were only more fun to listen to while drawing pictures of the team.
Later on in school, when I was much better at art, I tried my hand at doing a sequel team, called “DT 2”. I played the music, and tried to recreate the magic by sitting down and drawing some updated ninjas. Without my friend it was a futile exercise. Death Team cannot exist without three things:
2020 may have sucked, but the music didn’t. This year I bought and reviewed more new releases than ever before, which I narrowed down to the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten studio albums of 2020 listed below.
I would like to dedicate this list to my good pal Uncle Meat who originated the concept of a “Nigen Tufnel Top Ten” earlier this year. It has become our thing.
BEST ALBUMS OF 2020
11. Now or Never – III
10. Mr. Bungle – The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo
Storm Force’s debut album goes straight to #1 on their very first appearance! No surprise here. I’ve been raving about this disc since February and I owe it to Superdekes for putting these guys on my radar in the first place. This is a well-deserved #1. Age of Fear is an uplifting album with depth. It’s a thoughtful, heart-pounding blast of classic hard rock.
Deep Purple’s Whoosh! and AC/DC’s PWRUP prove two things: old dogs that both learn and don’t learn new tricks can all be champions. (I call this theory “Schrödinger’s Dog”.) Deep Purple’s growth continues while AC/DC managed to tap into the vein of success that always worked for them. Both records deserve their spots in the Top 3.
It was a thrill for me to learn that Dennis DeYoung both read and enjoyed my review of his newest album 26 East Vol 1. It’s a terrific, Styx-like conceptual work that will please the old fans. As will the new albums by Harem Scarem and Stryper, who didn’t stray far from their successful classic hard rock formulas. Kim Mitchell and Sven Gali on the other hand dared to be different. Kim went laid back and acoustic, while Sven Gali went with their heaviest uninhibited inclinations. As for Mr. Bungle, it has been 21 years since their last album California. All four Bungle studio albums are completely different from one another — four different genres. For The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny, they teamed up with Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo to re-record their first thrash metal demo tape. And it could be their best album since the self-titled debut in 1991. Not bad for a bunch of songs they wrote in highschool.
Corey “Mother Fuckin'” Taylor makes his debut on any list of mine with his solo album CMFT. It’s a surprising collection of commercial hard rockin’ tunes. Also appearing for the first time is Now Or Never (NoN) with their third album called III, featuring singer Steph Honde. It’s an excellent, dramatic metal album with light and shade.
Song of the year: “LeBrain Train“ by T-Bone Erickson
Single of the Year: Mammoth WVH – “Distance”
Ultimately whether or not you liked the new Ozzy, its success or failure falls at the feet of producer/guitarist Andrew Watt. He is already working on the next Ozzy album, so….
Huge thanks to T-Bone Erickson for the “LeBrain Train” theme song, which amazingly and unexpectedly became the song of the year in 2020! Weird how that happened. No bias here I assure you.
Finally, Wolfgang Van Halen finally released his first solo music under the name Mammoth WVH. The non-album single “Distance” is dedicated to his late father Eddie. Though musically it’s a modern power ballad, the lyrics and especially the music video evoke serious emotion. Well done Wolfgang. Can’t wait to check out his album in 2021.
There were a lot of cool rock releases in 2020, so we need more lists! Of course the brilliant new live Maiden deserved some loving attention. Meanwhile, Sloan, Def Leppard and Thin Lizzy have continued to put out quality collections of rarities & unreleased material, well worth the time and money you’ll spend on them. The Sloan collection is a vinyl exclusive and the first in a series of LPs re-releasing some of their B-sides and non-album and bonus tracks. Finally, Metallica delivered the goods even without Michael Kamen on S&M2, a very different live set than the first S&M. That’s the way to do it!
It’s naive to assume that major touring and concerts will return in 2021. This appears highly optimistic at present, with Covid still ravaging the landscape and vaccinations only just beginning. Instead of looking ahead at things like the resuming Kiss tour, or the Motley Crue reunion, we should continue to put our faith in new music.
Accept have a new album due January 15 intriguingly titled Too Mean to Die. It is their first without bassist Peter Baltes. Steven Wilson has a new record out at the end of that month. In February we get new Foo Fighters, The Pretty Reckless, Willie Nelson and Alice Cooper. Greta Van Fleet, Weezer, Rob Zombie, Ringo Starr, and Thunder will be back soon too. Many other bands are writing and recording without an announced due date. Ghost, Marillion, Scorpions, Megadeth and even Ratt are hard at work to make next year suck a little less. Support the bands by buying the music.
IRON MAIDEN – Nights of the Dead – Legacy of the Beast – Live in Mexico City (2020 Parlophone)
I feel a bit like a jackass reviewing this, because so many people I know caught this tour, or at least one of the recent tours, and I’ve never seen Maiden live. I only have these live albums to go by. But what I like about Iron Maiden is that they take the time to document almost every single tour since the Bruce reunion era began. (Only three tours did not receive a live album.) The Legacy of the Beast tour was in support of a video game, and featured a sort of “legacy” setlist, heavy on the old classics with a small smattering of more recent material. This prevents too much crossover with the prior live album, The Book of Souls – Live Chapter.
Without going track by track, I can tell you that Nights of the Dead was pieced together from three shows in Mexico City, much like Live After Death in Long Beach and Hammersmith. Even so, Bruce’s voice only tends to get stronger as they go further down the setlist. By “Hallowed” and “Run to the Hills”, it sounds like the man is just warming up!
The setlist is a delightful mix of hits, deeper cuts and the odd recent classic. “Where Eagles Dare” from Piece of Mind whips the throng into immediate hysteria. “Revelations” from the same LP has a certain contemplative gravity that it brings to any live album, and hearing it here is sheer nostalgic delight. Two Blaze-era songs return to the set in “Sign of the Cross” and “Clansman”, both lengthy epics. Enhanced by the three-guitar lineup and the Air Raid Siren, can we say these versions challenge the originals for supremacy? Though it wasn’t written for Bruce, “Sign of the Cross” has more dynamics with him at the microphone — he adds a few high notes for embellishment. Not to mention the depth that the third guitar adds to a song that was always a bit thin sounding.
Reunion era Maiden is cut back, leaving only “Wicker Man” and the always welcome “For the Greater Good of God”. Both deserving songs. Stuff like “Wicker Man” (and the earlier “Flight of Icarus”) really pump up the adrenaline levels by keeping it short, sharp and unshackled.
Then you have the stuff that you have to call “the hits”: songs like “Aces High”, “2 Minutes to Midnight”, “Trooper”, “Beast”, “The Evil that Men Do”, “Iron Maiden”, “Fear of the Dark” and “Run to the Hills”. These are the Maiden standards; a serving of essentials that everybody has connected with at some point in their life. Some of them float in and out of setlists, and some always remain.
A word should always be said about the packaging and artwork of any Iron Maiden album. The Mexican-themed Eddie can be found in a couple pieces of art inside and out. Manager Rod Smallwood wrote the included liner notes, explaining that the live album came to be when the world came to a halt due to Covid-19. Yay Covid? Joking aside, Smallwood’s notes are always informative to read while rocking along to the CD. There is even a mini 2021 tour poster (let’s hope!) included, with the Trooper version of Eddie surrounded by iconic imagery from prior Maiden artwork. Icarus, the mushroom cloud from “2 Minutes to Midnight”, a crashed Spitfire…have a look. Finally, a sticker sheet is an added bonus though most of us will be keeping the stickers intact, I reckon.
Perhaps it’s just giddy glee that there’s a new Maiden live album to cap off this year, but Nights of the Dead is so good that I wouldn’t change a thing.
Picking a favourite episode among the 41 (!) shows we’ve done is a bit like picking a favourite child. Impossible to do! But I took a real shine to this week’s instalment: the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten Iron Maiden Deep Cuts.
Each of us had our own personal criteria to determine if a song was a “deep cut”. For example, I chose no songs from Live After Death, or any leading tracks from an album. Harrison the Mad Metal Man decided that he would include no single A-sides, and no songs that were played live…ever.
As an added bonus to this episode, we brought back Geoff from 1001albumsin10years. The Graph Alchemist himself had to be involved, to track all these crucial Iron Maiden songs. In particular I wanted to see what albums were dominant. Geoff then went above and beyond the call of duty by bringing us a four-way Venn diagram showing all the songs that the panel had in common. Ever seen a four-way oval Venn before? You will!
These four lists were all graphed and included in the episode’s statistics.
We also had three “bonus lists” that we ran right at the top of the show. These bonus lists were submitted by:
Reader KK
The Mighty Holen
Michael the Box Set Wizard
Finally this episode also marked the debut of the brand new LeBrain Train theme song by T-Bone. So good that I played it three times. Everybody loves the song and video — let me know what you think too.
Best show ever? Definitely top five.
Shoot, do I have to do a Nigel Tufnel Top Ten LeBrain Trains now?*
The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano
Episode 41
It had to happen eventually: the return of Harrison the Mad Metal Man, and our first Iron Maiden list show! It’s the Iron Maiden Deep Cuts this time, a subject sure to generate tons of discussion. Of course, B-sides are fair game, as are Blaze Bayley cuts!
No spoilers but I can tell you that Harrison is being very stringent about what certifies as a “deep cut”. However, this is a “no disqualifications” episode, so nobody will be getting killed by Eddie tonight.
Iron Maiden’s gonna get ya no matter how far.
The Nigel Tufnel Top Ten lists (concept by Uncle Meat) are always a pleasurable diversion, especially when we keep track of the stats! To that end, Geoff from 1001albumsin10years will be back tonight to bring us more graphs! We also hope that the Meat Man himself will be joining the fun with his hard-laboured list.
We have not had Harrison on the show since May, when we counted down the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten Judas Priest albums.* Because of the time difference between Canada and Australia, Harrison and I did the last show in the morning here. He also had an awesome moustache. This time we’re doing it at the usual 7:00 PM E.S.T. (He can be the one to get up early this time.) Will the moustache remain?
* The last time Harrison was on also happened to the first show broadcast from the cottage. A very special show for me because of both location and guest.
Trying to remember exact details is a bit like filling in the blanks, but here are the facts that I know I can state with confidence:
The vinyl copy of Piece of Mind by Iron Maiden is the original that I bought back for Bob Schipper as a gift in the mid-80s.
It was purchased at a music store in Kincardine, Ontario.
It ended up becoming my property because he already had it.
I think it had to be the summer of 1985. I remember being on vacation at the cottage. I was just getting into heavy metal. I know the basics but not the details. Being away from home, I missed my best friend Bob, but I looked forward to getting him a birthday present. I wanted to get him an Iron Maiden album. I thought that he didn’t own Piece of Mind, and there it was in stock at this little music store on the main street of Kincardine. I got it for him, or, more likely, I picked it out and my parents paid for it. I was 12 turning 13.
For some reason, I think the record did not come sealed. Again, memories are hazy here. I might have known two songs: “The Trooper” and “Flight of Icarus”. I seem to remember looking at the credits and wanting to tell Bob about these two guys pictured inside named Martin “Black Night” Birch and Derek “Dr. Death” Riggs. Bob knew the names of the band members, sure, but did he know these two guys? I actually didn’t note that it was spelled “Black Night” instead of “Black Knight”, nor would I have caught the Deep Purple reference if I did.
On the other side of the inner sleeve, I thought Bob would love the photo of the band at the banquet table, Bruce wielding a mean looking blade. At that point, I at least knew who Bruce was. I also recall that the neighbour kids liked Dave Murray least because they thought he looked kind of goofy. Meanwhile, Adrian Smith appears absolutely flabbergasted at the feast before them.
I looked forward to giving Bob the record, but there was a hiccup of some kind. Either he already got Piece of Mind, or the LP format wasn’t good for him anymore. He would have had to play LPs on the living room stereo rather than his own bedroom’s tape deck. It could even have been both those things. Either way, because of that well-intentioned gift, I ended up with my first Iron Maiden.
I consider myself lucky to have this record so early in my life.
By ’86-87, I was spinning it pretty regularly on the turntable. I was lucky enough not only own this album as a young teen, but to even have a turntable in my own bedroom. My parents weren’t going to use it anymore, so they handed it down. Any time they wanted to hear a song from their records, I would tape it for them.
I can recall studying for exams in the 9th grade playing Piece of Mind, and a Triumph single, in constant rotation. Although I should have had my mind on other things, I ended up memorizing the lyrics of the Dave Murray tune “Still Life” instead. It was one of my first love affairs with a deep cut. I mostly memorized “Sun and Steel” too. I practiced singing these songs in my bedroom.
I had the writing credits committed to memory. I liked all the songs. It was an extraordinary album to me. Few were the albums where I truly liked all the songs. Some more than others, (“Quest For Fire” is perhaps not as good as “Revelations”, yeah?) but I liked them all for their own reasons. Even the twisting, complex “To Tame a Land” was a cool Iron Maiden epic, though certainly not as accessible as “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” or “Alexander the Great”.
20 years later I went full circle back to Piece of Mind once again dominating a time in my life. I had finally quit the Record Store and was working a blissful job in the mail room at United Rentals. I had just started reading Frank Herbert, starting of course with Dune. This led me right back to Piece of Mind and “To Tame a Land”. And finally, I memorized those lyrics too. “He is the Kwizatz Haderach, he is born of Caladan, and will take the Gom Jabbar”. I finally understand what the shit those words meant! Insofar as a layman in the Herbert world, anyway. The lyrics are a bit ham-fisted, but did it matter? No, of course not, as I sang the words over the incessant rattle of that mail machine.
It was a contraption of aligned (or mis-aligned more often than not) components, at least 10 feet long. Place a carefully sorted stack of invoices in one end, load a handful of windowed envelopes somewhere in the middle, and in theory, the thing would fold, insert, seal and stamp all the mail. In reality it required constant babysitting at almost every step, but I soon became its master. And I sang away in victory:
The time will come for him To lay claim his crown And then the foe yes They’ll be cut down You’ll see he’ll be the Best that there’s been Messiah supreme True leader of men And when the time For judgement’s at hand Don’t fret he’s strong And he’ll make a stand Against evil and fire That spreads through the land He has the power To make it all eeeeeend!
Even over the clanking of that machine, I could still be heard. I knew that, and I kept singing anyway. I actually loved that job and wanted the world to know it. I was so happy to be free of the Record Store.
Playing back Piece of Mind today is like putting on an old familiar T-shirt. It fits just right, no adjustments needed. Eventually you forget that it’s there, except that for persistent smile on your face. Peace of mind indeed.
The LeBrain Train – 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano Episode 32
We were supposed to talk about the upcoming big releases in music last week — and then King Edward died. Devastating. We needed to talk about Eddie. But now, we’ll talk some AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Sloan and more! The angle is based on something Deke said (and others have echoed) a few weeks ago: something along the lines of “2020 needs new AC/DC”. And it does. We deserve it.
This week’s panel will include John from 2loud2oldmusic, the expert on all things New Release-wise. He will be joined by AC/DC scholar Kevin / Buried On Mars, who will bring the perspective of the diehard, deep cut kind of fan. I’ll probably just stand by and drink coffee!
For those who show up early, there will be the customary unboxing, this one courtesy of CDJapan!
The new LeBrain Train artwork was made by Weeping Willow Creations. If you don’t like it, blame me, not her! She took the image I had in my head and made it digital. All aboard the LeBrain Train — thank you Weeping Willow Creations!
Did anybody really enjoy doing speeches in school? I dreaded them year after year. Pick a subject, write a speech, memorize it, time it right, and then it’s showtime. My first speech was an award winner. In was in grade three, and I wrote a speech about falling into the Athabasca glacier on my summer vacation. It was a hit. But that didn’t get me off the hook. Year after year, you had to keep coming up with new speeches.
Grade five was Pac-Man, and it didn’t do as well. Not that I minded. I wanted to do just well enough, not so well that I had to do it again in a semi-finals. I was obsessed with Pac-Man that year. I truly had Pac-Man fever. In my speech I discussed sequels like Ms. Pac-Man, and how the Atari 2600 version was such a disappointment.
In eighth grade I changed things up considerably and did my speech on Kiss. I can tell you that the teacher Mrs. Powers visibly reacted every time I said the words Hotter Than Hell. My speech was like a condensed version of Kisstory, a predecessor perhaps to what I like to do today. It was actually really good although it was mostly off the cuff. I knew I wasn’t going to get a good grade because of the subject matter, and I knew a speech about Kiss wasn’t going to make it to any kind of semi-finals, and I really knew they didn’t like the word “hell”. Name dropping Mick Jagger didn’t help. But it was really good, natural sounding and I only stumbled a couple of times.
The teachers didn’t really want you to do a speech about rock bands, but I was determined to express myself. I didn’t want to spend five minutes talking about, I dunno, making steak sandwiches. I could have whipped up an easy speech on Antarctic exploration or World War II, and gotten a better mark. The more I look back, I guess I was a teeny tiny bit of a rebel. But it was the teachers who gave me shit about my Judas Priest shirt that brought it on.
In grade nine I did my speech about Iron Maiden. I should have diversified. I could have spoken about nuclear power, Baron Von Richthofen, or Wrestlemania. To my credit I was always good at telling a story, and I made them interesting. I just tried to squeeze music into my schoolwork any chance I could. If the jocks could do a speech about baseball, I should be able to do one about heavy metal. I do remember one guy had a really well written comedic speech about a blind date. If I knew fiction was a category I would have tried a hand at that!
In later years I did more expansive independent studies on other subjects, but still managed to work in music. I did it for a sociology project and a few English ones. And why not? I couldn’t do that in algebra, physics, chemistry, or calculus.
These little acts of rock and roll rebellion didn’t get me an A, but I did well enough to be admitted to Wilfrid Laurier University in 1991. So: no regrets. I can still write about Manfred von Richthofen if I want, and I’m fortunate enough that you would probably still read it. I’ve writtenabouthistory (tied into music) here a number of times. I’m sure I’ll do it again. And why not? It’s easy to tie this stuff to music; Iced Earth have a song about Richthofen. Queen have a song about Robert Falcon Scott. Iron Maiden have songs about everything that ever happened. The field is wide open.
As you’re aware, I’ve been doing a lot of introspection lately. I hope you don’t mind. A lot of my reflection has been to my distant past. As I look back, I am reminded how music was always there in my life. One of my first truly beloved records was the original soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back. The bombast, drama and power of those pieces really appealed to me. It’s safe to say that I discovered music through Star Wars and John Williams. Until they came along, music was just something that was around me. It wasn’t inside me until Star Wars.
They stopped making Star Wars movies (or did they…?) in 1983, coincidentally the same year that Quiet Riot released Metal Health, and Styx came out with “Mr. Roboto”. I simply jumped from one train to the other! They were both going in the same direction so it wasn’t much of a leap. Rock music was very much about bombast, drama and power. And it stuck with me, bonded at a molecular level.
But why metal? There were other trains I could have boarded. At school, every other kid was into Duran Duran. I couldn’t have given a crap about Duran Duran, even if they were in a James Bond movie! So why metal?
The first factor to examine would be peer groups. Essentially, I had two: the school kids and the neighbourhood kids. The school kids were, frankly, assholes. But none of them lived in my neighbourhood. It was like growing up in two separate worlds. My classmates weren’t near me and I was fine with that. Every time I came home, it was like I had entered a safe zone. The older kids in my neighbourhood were legends. Bob Schipper, Rob Szabo, and George Balasz. They were the ones I looked up to and they were all rocking the metal. Szabo’s favourite bands? Motley Crue and Stryper. Balasz liked Kiss. Schipper was into Iron Maiden.
We would gather on front stoops with boomboxes powered by D-cell batteries. Van Halen cassettes would be passed around like a joint. I heard Maiden Japan by Iron Maiden on my front patio for the first time because George brought it over. The guys were eager to educate me. Quiet Riot, Helix, Judas Priest, W.A.S.P., Black Sabbath were names I was trying to memorize. I had a few things mixed up though. I thought the song “Sister Christian” by was Motorhead, because when they sing “Motorin’!” I heard “Motorhead”. So sure.
On the other hand, the peer group at school was mostly what we called “wavers”. They liked Mr. Mister and Michael Jackson and whatever else, I simply wanted nothing to do with it. At an instinctive level, I think these people repulsed me. I had witnessed and been victim to their cruelty. I wanted nothing to do with their music or their sports and I think that was largely unconscious. I would have loved if they liked me instead of mocking me; it would have made life easier. Obviously I had given up trying. So why not? Heavy metal music was like Musica proibita in Catholic school. There were a few headbangers — I didn’t like them either — but just a few. Those guys thought it was hilarious that I was still into Quiet Riot in 1985 when they had moved onto Van Halen. They would challenge me to “name three songs by Helix” to see if they could trip me up. That was the difference between the rock guys at school, and my friends at home. The guys at home would have just taught me what songs were by Helix.
Fucking school assholes.
An other notable factor on the road to heavy metal that has to be mentioned is the one nobody wants to talk about: puberty! But it is true that the bands I was discovering were (mostly) masculine manly men, and soon I would be wanting to attract a mate like they taught us in sex ed class. To exude masculinity, I chose metal. I am certain that was a conscious decision. Despite the long hair, the guy in Iron Maiden was clearly a tougher dude than the guy in Duran Duran. If there was going to be a fistfight, I wanted to be on the Maiden guy’s side. Easy choice. It seemed that simple in grade seven.
Of course, heavy metal music had the opposite effect in trying to attract girls. It absolutely repelled them, every single one of them. The fact that I just went double-down on the metal showed that my love for the music was genuine. Girls didn’t like metal, but I did, and I was already too committed to discovering all the bands I could. I was living in the rabbit hole.
A gleaming, riveted stainless steel rabbit hole. With a million watt stereo system.
Parental approval? Not really. Though they liked Bob Schipper, they didn’t know what to make of this metal music. They tolerated it, and never gave me a hard time about any of the bands I liked. They probably would have preferred Springsteen like the family across the street listened to. But hey, they bought me the tapes I wanted for Christmas, and they let me tape the videos on TV, so a big applause to my parents. I think my dad was worried that I was becoming such an introvert. I remember him telling me “Garnet Lasby doesn’t sit in his room listening to tapes all day.”
When he said that, all I could hear in my head were the Kiss lyrics, “Get me out of this rock and roll hell, take me far away.” I was so confused. I loved listening to music in my room. The only thing better was listening to music with my friends. Was it bad? I really thought about it, but obviously decided to follow my heart.
One more factor in my journey to metal that is easily overlooked but must be accounted for: the fact that rock and roll is one big soap opera with enough drama, violence and musical brilliance to fill an entire Star Wars trilogy. As my friends taught me the songs, they also introduced me to the stories. “This is Randy Rhoads. He was the greatest until he died in a plane crash.” And Kiss? Woah nelly, there was every kind of story within Kisstory! How many guitar players? And crazy costumes and characters to go with the story? Buying a Kiss album was never just “buying a Kiss album”. It was always buying a issue of a comic book. What would Kiss sound like this time? What seedy subjects would they be wrestling with on a lyrical level? What would the cover look like and what colour would the logo be?
It seems obvious now, but the only way for me to go was metal. In every single alternate universe, I am a metal fan.
Music allowed me to rewrite my persona a bit. I hoped that, instead of that nerdy kid with the Star Wars fetish, I would be remembered as the nerdy kid that was really into music. (Music that is still popular today, incidentally.) Why metal? Because it really only could have been metal.
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