GETTING MORE TALE #851: Freestylin’ 8 – Back to the Future
“May you have interesting times.” Have you heard that saying before? They call it the “Chinese curse” but there’s no evidence it originated in China. There is little doubt that today we are living in interesting times. Historic times, too. The days we are living through now are the days that your children and grandchildren will be studying in school. Remember asking your grandparents what World War II was like? Kids one day will be asking you about the great pandemic of 2020-2021.
In recent days we’ve seen some worthwhile attempts to get “back to normal”, specifically with entertainment. Concerts are a thing again, albeit most of them are different from the ones we remember. Drive-in concerts could help get us through this period. Live-streamed concerts have also started. Bands have used the downtime to jam, write, and record. It is reported that the Scorpions and the Cult are back in the studio working on new albums.
The landscape has also been devastated. Venues are closing at a blurry pace, with Rhapsody Barrel Bar being the latest local casualty in a dizzying series. When this is all over, I believe we will see demand for sports events, movies and concerts as if Covid never happened. In the meantime, people have to put food on their tables. There are no easy answers.
I’ll tell you one thing, though: I’m glad for once that I’m not a parent. I have enough to deal with. Talking to my folks the other night, my mom said “I don’t think I would have sent you back to school if this pandemic happened when you were kids.” I don’t think I would have wanted to go back. Right now all I can do is cross my fingers, say a prayer and hope that the kids going back now will be safe. In Canada, we just don’t know yet. We’ll be finding out soon enough.
It’s true that I have a lot on my plate. I don’t need to get into the work details — you all have problems, too. But here we are in late August and I haven’t missed a day (except for scheduled vacations of course). There were many times I didn’t think I could finish a whole day, but I did it. But the hard times are relentless. On August 14, Jen lost her grandfather, a proud Air Force veteran with the wisdom of a sage. Yet another loss for poor Jen, who nevertheless keeps on getting up and going at it every single day. This in the same year I lost my Uncle Don. It’s been hard on our family. My grandmother turned 96 and is just aching to get out of the house. She still lives in her own home but can’t go anywhere except out onto the driveway, due to the dangers of Covid when combined with her age.
I’ve talked about this a number of times already, but my 2020 was stressful well before Covid hit our shores and I decided to get some help. According to my records my first counselling session was February 7. I’m very lucky that I had good support already setup when lockdown began a little over a month later! All of this coincided with deep desire to delve back into childhood memories, and music. I’ve been focused on music I used to enjoy in my teens. Kiss has dominated. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Europe, Frehley’s Comet. Stuff from happy summers of the past.
It’s incredible how, in the correct mindset, these albums have created aural time travel for me. I don’t even have to close my eyes, but all the feelings and images and words from that time come back to me like pictures on a screen. When I listen to The Final Countdown, all I can think of is spring, 1987. With Frehley’s Comet, suddenly it’s July. The last time I played Frehley’s Comet, I was at the cottage. I yelled over to my sister (she’s two lots over to the left), “Hey! I’m playing the album you gave me for my birthday in 1987. What is it?” Without hesitation she yelled back, “Frehley’s Comet!” She remembered! That’s pretty cool.
You know what? These have been interesting times. I’ve been on my own personal journey, and it probably wouldn’t have taken the same path if it wasn’t for Covid. As shitty as 2020 has been (and make no mistake, this has been a shit show of a year) I cannot deny that it came with some personal good. The only thing better than discovering new music for the first time is rediscovering it with fresh eyes, ears and soul. Take it in anew. Relive the experience and rejuvenate.
According to Ye Olde Photo Album, we began building the cottage in the summer of 1980. Until then we stayed in a log cabin down the road with Grandma and Grandpa. It was a tight squeeze. Grampa had a bunk house out back where he spent the night. Grandma had a bedroom where Little Baby Kathryn Ladano slept in a crib. My mom and dad had a room. That left me to sleep on a cot in the living room.
Many of my memories of that cabin are Star Wars memories. The Empire Strikes Back had just come out. I remember reading the comic book and the collector’s cards by the little front windows. My mom bought a whole box of Empire Dixie cups for the lake. Our action figures were always there with us. I didn’t have a Boba Fett yet, so in the meantime I used a Micronaut with missile-firing backpack. The cabin had structural support cables running from front to back, and they were great for hanging Star Wars figures in precarious adventurous positions.
There wasn’t much room in that little log cabin so eventually we needed to get a place of our own. My parents bought a vacant lot nearby and began clearing the land. We had no phone, no cable TV, nothing other than what we brought with us. That was usually our Star Wars guys and sometimes a little Fisher-Price tape recorder to play cassettes. But all my Star Wars soundtracks were on vinyl. My grandfather had a record player at the cottage but we didn’t play Star Wars records. Just country!
The land was cleared, a foundation was poured, and flooring laid. Insulation was installed under the floors and that’s when it rained. Insulation had to be re-done, a messy job. The construction attracted attention from local cottagers and a curious little boy named Cyril became my first cottage friend.
Cyril was not only my first cottage friend, and not only my first black friend, but also the first black kid I’d ever met in my life. Growing up in Catholic schools in Kitchener Ontario was a very white experience. I’d never even see a black kid before that wasn’t on television. The picture of Cyril checking out the brand new window delivery was typical. That was as exciting as things got. There were always trucks dropping off mountains of lumber. Like all other little boys in 1980, Cyril was a Star Wars fan. We got our figures together and played. I remember freezing Han Solo in a glass of water. It was the best way to make a “frozen Han” back then!
Funny thing about Cyril. He had an older step-brother. Eight years after meeting Cyril, his older brother was my science teacher: the legendary Mr. Marrow, one of the greatest teachers I ever had, and a guest star in my “Nothing But A Good Time” music video. He played – surprise surprise – the teacher! And he nailed it!
I’m not sure what happened to Cyril or Mr. Marrow as their family sold the cottage long ago. I did see Cyril once as an adult. He towered over me, and apparently developed a love of Phil Collins!
By 1981 we had a space we could live in. The interior was not finished, and we used an old folding table in the kitchen. The back yard was nothing but dirt and stones. My mom’s ashtray and cigarettes sat on the kitchen table. It took years to finish the inside, room by room. The wall slats went up and the ceiling was eventually finished too. Soon, front and back decks went on.
The next photos come from Easter of 1986, an occasion I’ve written extensively about. Easter fell in March that year, and we spent it at the lake. The water was still partly frozen, but a few leads opened up in the ice and we took out the canoe for a trip. You can see my little sister hunkered down in the middle while my uncle and dad paddled. Later on in the back yard, I could be found playing air guitar on my favourite weapon – a badminton racquet. If there was a tape deck on the back porch, it would have been playing “Turbo Lover” by Judas Priest. The video had just come out and I recorded it to tape so I could listen to it whenever I wanted. Naturally “Turbo Lover” was followed by “Locked In”. I wouldn’t get the album itself until September.
One of the most interesting things to me about the older photos is the lack of puppies. The first Schnauzers arrived in August of ’86. We had two to choose from – Gentle Ben and Crystal Belle. I connected with little Ben as the photos show. I thought he might like to listen to some Triumph on my earphones. But we chose Crystal (I was outvoted 3-1), and she was our puppy for the next many years. I’ll be honest and admit that the stories you’ve heard were true. At the time, I did not want a dog. I didn’t want a dog because my sister did, and I didn’t want her to have her way.
In a photo from fall of 1987, she can be seen looking for cookie scraps as we lounged on a hammock. I was wearing an Iron Maiden “Trooper” shirt that I don’t even remember owning at that age. Later that fall we went on a big hike, following the lake north. Shortly after, I painted that black vest with flames, and it became part of my Alice Cooper Halloween costume.
During the school years, I stayed home more often. I didn’t want to miss any WWF wresting, or Much Music Power Hour music videos. The absence of cable TV and a telephone made it feel like you were really out of contact with the outside world. Of course, that was the point, but when you’re in your teens that’s not a point you really feel like making.
In the winter, my parents would go for day trips while I would stay home and get into mischief with Bob Schipper. A photo was snapped of my dad shooting one of his guns on one such trip. I stayed home to make cardboard guitars with Bob.
Time flew – and so did we! My dad had a good friend named Jack, who was an airline pilot. Because of Jack, any time we were going on a flight, he could made arrangements with the pilot to let us come up to the cockpit. I felt like the kid in the movie Airplane!, meeting Captain Oveur. Jack was a customer of my dad’s at the bank and that’s how they met.
Jack also had a small plane over his own. When he came to the cottage for a visit, he didn’t drive. He flew. Summer after summer we always looked forward to his visits. He’d take us all up two at a time if we wanted to. It was pretty wild being able to see the cottage from the sky. Too bad we didn’t think to take pictures from the air.
The 80s turned into the 90s. I’ve written extensively about the summer of 1991, and the photos show change! The old brown back deck was never meant to be a permanent fixture. In ’91 we designed and built a bigger and better deck. It was my job to cut out holes for the trees to grow through and you can see this in the photos. Or at least you can see me goofing around for the cameras in my beloved Jon Bon Jovi Blaze of Glory T-shirt. I bought that album there, on cassette the previous year. The “bloody” scene was caused by a bottle of ketchup, cropped out of the photo (but left in on the original print). Neon pink was in at the time, by the way.
Seasons passed and hair grew. I had pretty good long hair when my Aunt came to visit in 1992. You can tell it was 1992 by the Wayne’s World shirt. I just had to have one. Wayne’s World was everything in 1992. I started talking like Wayne, using words like “spew” and “not”! The tape deck that summer was loaded with Queen, Iron Maiden, and my favourite band Kiss who was out for Revenge. We still have those old plastic deck chairs too!
What is really amazing to me is how quickly the time has gone by, especially those early years. It felt like ages to finish the cottage. It seemed like the unpanelled walls and temporary furniture was forever. Even into the 1990s, our closets were not finished. You could find the words KISS and NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK inked into the wooden 2x4s framing our closets. Archaeologists will be able to determine whose room was whose based on hidden graffiti.
I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane and can imagine what it was like to be a kid at the lake, playing Star Wars, and later rocking the air guitar badminton racquet to “Turbo Lover”. Maybe next time there I will break out the racquet for another go.
“If you’re going to keep sitting next to me, never sing again,” said Steve Vanderveen. It was the first day of grade 9, the first day of highschool, the first day of my new life. And I fucked it up! In Catholic school, we had to sing “O Canada” and we had to sing it like we meant it. Little did I know, in public school, they didn’t sing. They just stood at attention. But on that first day of school, it was me and only me singing, without even realizing it.
What a winner.
I managed to recover from this embarrassment, and make a go of highschool. Without all the loser baggage I carried from the grade school days, it was a fresh start. The bullies were gone. I was making new friends! There was Rob Daniels and his buddy “Gumby”, there was Danesh and Anand, and I had never seen such diversity in a classroom before. As strange is this sounds, in all the years from kindergarten up, I never had a black kid in my class before. And now here was Carlton, a popular kid who loved to talk about how beautiful Jamaica was. I don’t think I knew anyone who’d even been to Jamaica before. I wanted to be his friend! And of course there was Peter Cavan, who absolutely was not my friend in grade 9! I ratted him out for eating liquorice in Geography class, so you can understand why it took him a few years to warm up to me. By the end of highschool, we were best friends.
And the girls? I had never seen so many in one place before. I developed many secret crushes. They never knew, because I never quite figured out how to talk to them! But they were there, lots of them, and I thought maybe I’d have a shot.
The first week of school, I bought some new music: Turbo, by Judas Priest. I did my homework on the back porch, with that cassette on the boom box. I only had three Priest albums: Screaming, Defenders, and Turbo. Turbo was easily my favourite. While not as heavy as the other two (and let’s face it, Screaming for Vengeance can rip heads clean off), Turbo was more the kind of music that I was into. It was melodic, with hook after hook, and possibly even female appeal.
But soon after, something monumental happened. Monolithic. Youth-defining.
Iron Maiden came out with a new video.
“So, understand!” sang Bruce Dickinson in what was, quite honestly, the best video we’d ever seen. “Don’t waste your time always searching for those wasted years!” A bit of a word salad. If a certain president said something like this today, we’d consider it another sign of his declining mental faculties. But even to us as kids, it was obviously a road song. A song about the loneliness of touring. Many of the new Maiden songs were darker and introspective. This was not lost on us. Nor was the lack of Dickinson writing credits on Somewhere In Time. It was clear to us that some of the rumours were true, and Maiden were starting to burn out a bit. That they put out an album as awesome as Somewhere In Time is remarkable, but I recall an air of disappointment in the press. Certainly, after the triumvirate of Beast, Piece of Mind, and Powerslave, it had a lot to follow.
My best friend Bob and I sat in the basement, watching my recording of “Wasted Years” over and over again, pausing to catch every single Eddie painting. The video was a combination of black & white performance, with still photos and album artwork edited in quick flashes. The kind of thing two kids should be obsessively pausing and analysing! Eventually we both got the album and naturally gravitated to the same songs. I used the lyrics for “Alexander the Great” as a calligraphy project in art class.
My friendship with Bob was the cornerstone of my youth, and as much as I looked up to and emulated him, there were times he did me no good whatsover.
One night we were throwing a ball around the park, and one of us (probably me) threw it over someone’s hedge. Steve Pushcar’s hedge, as it turned out. Bob jumped the fence to retrieve it, and got yelled at by Steve’s mom. Bob said he was only getting his ball back, but this quickly degenerated into an argument. Bob always was a bit cocky. Whatever he said that night, Steve Pushcar went at me for the next two months.
Me? Why me? I was just the sidekick! I just stood there? I didn’t say one word! Why me? Because Pushcar couldn’t get at Bob, and he’d have been flattened if he tried.
Pushcar was in my art class. First he stole my pencil case and returned it to me completely empty. Then he stole my art. He was a fucking asshole. The shitty thing was, he did all this anonymously. I didn’t even know he had a grudge against me. Not until a mutual friend told me. That’s the kind of coward he was. But his campaign only lasted a couple months, and highschool was actually pretty uneventful after that.
As the year went on, I discovered two “new” bands: Bon Jovi, and Europe. Neither were really new; they were both on their third albums. But the teen magazines pitted them as rivals: heartthrob vs heartthrob, Jon vs. Joey. Who would win? (Jon.) Really, all they had in common musically was the use of a full time keyboardist.
Partway through the year, who should show up but Steve Hartman, my old nemesis from Catholic school. He had transferred from wherever the hell he was. But he couldn’t get to me. I was in the “advanced” program and he was in the “general” level. We had no classes together, and I think he only lasted half a year. I do remember him showing up in our gym class, wearing his shirt over his face so the teacher wouldn’t realize he had an extra student. We were doing ball hockey, and the teacher Mr. Paull was too spun to figure it out. I had a malingering wrist injury that I really milked so I could stay on the benches. As if Mr. Paull would even notice.
At the end of the year, it was obvious where my talents did not lie. My two worst classes were French, and typing, 66% in each. Typing? I know, right? I type all day. It’s all I do. And I still fucking suck at it. I was never good at proper form, and today type using only four fingers. Funny thing. The French and typing teachers were married. Monsieur and Madame Euler. They were fantastic teachers, just because I was a disappointment doesn’t reflect on them. It reflects on me absolutely sucking at languages other than English, and my lack of physical coordination. I mean, the following year I tried to play guitar. The same problem followed me from keyboard to strings: I can’t make my extremities go exactly where I want them to. I’m sloppy and clumsy and have no timing. Madame Euler wasn’t going to be able to fix that in a grade 9 typing class.
I didn’t get any girls to talk to me, but I had a good year. For what might have been the first time, I really had a good year. They’d only get better. I was heading into a summer full of great music. Stuff like Priest Live, Frehley’s Comet, and Love Is For Suckers. Even then, I could not believe how much my life had changed for the better. I succeeded — I escaped.
The future was bright. Bob and I went on to have many adventures and a few “Crazy, Crazy Nights”. But that’s another story.
Pardon the technical difficulties, we had some audio lag and some viewers experienced frozen video. I think we pushed the limits of what Facebook and our own bandwidth could handle.
The best live stream of the series so far is available for you to watch below! We went for 90 minutes and featured so much vinyl your head will spin. We also had three special guests joining us: Dr. Kathryn Ladano, Uncle Meat, Scotty P, all local legends in their own rights!
I’ve never been much of a winter guy. I get that from my dad. The winter of ’92 was long with a number of serious snow days. I had just learned how to drive and it was certainly a challenge. Details are not important. You don’t need an accounting of times my little Plymouth Sundance got stuck or struggled to make it home from school. All you really need to know was what was in my tape deck.
I was still digesting a lot of the music that I received for Christmas at the end of ’91. The live Poison and Queensryche sets got a lot of car play once I dubbed them onto cassette. At this point my attention to detail was becoming overwhelming. I painstakingly faded in and faded out the sides of the live albums onto cassette. This had to be done manually as you were recording. If I missed the cue I’d do it over again until I got it right to my satisfaction. I should have known there was something wrong with me!
We had one serious snow day that year, and although class wasn’t cancelled I stayed home. My school friend Rob V made a tape for me of David Lee Roth live in Toronto on the Eat ‘Em and Smile tour. I know that I played that tape on that day because the memory is so clear. It was a great concert. Roth and Steve Vai had a fun interplay, where Steve imitated Roth’s vocal intonations with his guitar. Vai followed his voice as Roth told the crowd, “Toronto kicks ass, because the girls are soooo fiiiine!”
Time flies, and 1992 didn’t take long to kick into gear with new releases.
I had just discovered Queen. Suddenly here comes this new movie Wayne’s World which made Queen a worldwide phenomenon for a second time. More important to me though was the fact that the soundtrack CD included the first new Black Sabbath track with Ronnie James Dio in a decade: “Time Machine”! My buddy Peter didn’t care — he was strictly an Ozzy Sabbath fan. No Dio! (And certainly no Tony Martin!) But I was excited. I wanted to get that soundtrack as soon as possible.
There was a new music store that had just opened at the mall about six months prior. The very first tape I would ever buy there was the debut album by Mr. Bungle in late ’91. It would be the very Record Store that I would later dedicate years of my life to…but not yet. When it opened, I recall my sister and I being glad that there was finally a music store at the mall again, but disappointed in the prices. $14.99 for a tape was a lot of cash. CDs were unfortunately out of our price range. New cassette releases like Wayne’s World were cheaper at $10.99, so I went to the mall before class one morning to get a copy. And this is a funny memory as you’ll see.
When I worked at the store, the boss would give me shit if he thought I was talking to someone too much. I think he would have preferred good old fashioned silent labour, but I don’t know that. He also drilled into us to pay attention to every customer and don’t ignore anybody. So it’s quite ironic that he lost a sale that day by ignoring me and talking it up with some hot girl visiting him!
I was standing there in front of his new release rack looking for Wayne’s World. I knew it was out, but didn’t see it anywhere. I checked his soundtracks and it was missing in action. I wanted to ask him if he had it, but he was chatting it up with this girl. Eventually I caught his attention, but only because as I stood there waiting, I thought he did ask me a question. So I said, “Pardon me?” But he wasn’t actually talking to me, he was still talking to the girl. Once he noticed me, he informed me that Wayne’s World was sold out but he could hold a copy for me as soon as the next shipment arrived. I was ticked off so I said no thanks, and picked it up at the Zellers store down the hall instead.
Wayne’s World in the deck, I happily rocked to Queen, Sabbath, Cinderella, and hell even Gary Wright. Peter and I saw the movie one Saturday night at a theater in Guelph, and liked it so much that we went back to see it again the following afternoon. I saw Wayne’s World four times that winter!
I got my fill of Queen with the recent Classic Queen CD, released later that March. I got the CD for a good price at the local Costco! This enabled me to get a good chunk of Queen hits all at once in glorious CD quality.
The next big release to hit my car deck was a big one. A really big one. An album five years in the making through triumph and tragedy.
On March 31 I went back to the Record Store on my way to class, and the new release I was waiting for had arrived. I left gripping Adrenalize in my hands. An album I had been waiting for since highschool and even had actual dreams about! It was finally real. Into the tape deck it went as I drove to school. Less riffy…more reliant on vocal melody…not bad? I’ll let them have it though. After what they’ve been through? Yeah, I’ll cut them some slack.
Two weeks later, I was digesting another massive chunk of music.
I didn’t get Pandora’s Box in 1991 when it was released. There was so much going on. But my parents bought it for me as an Easter gift in April ’92. That Easter I was “Back in the Saddle” with three CDs of Aerosmith!
It was a bittersweet gift. Traditionally the family spent Easter at the cottage. I have lots of happy memories of playing GI Joe in the fresh Easter afternoons up there. This time I had to study for final exams and stayed home with my gift. I must have played that box set two times through while studying that weekend.
Exams were over by the end of April and suddenly…it was summer holidays. In April! It was…incredible! I stubbornly refused to get a summer job. I have to say I don’t regret that. I had savings from my previous job at the grocery store and I was getting Chrysler dividends cheques (yeah, baby). Between that, Christmas & birthday gifts, I got most of the music I wanted. And I got to spend that summer just enjoying it all. It felt really good after such a long and frankly lonely winter.
Pandora’s Box tided me over. After all, it was a lot to absorb having heard very little “old” Aerosmith up til that point. My favourite track was “Sharpshooter” by Whitford – St. Holmes. I liked that they included a sampling of solo material by various members. These were new worlds to discover, but what about the next big release? Who would be the one to spend my valuable savings on?
Iron Maiden were back on May 11 after a very short absence with Fear of the Dark, their second of the Janick Gers era. But I needed to save my money, and wait one more week for something even more important to me. It was Revenge time.
Speaking of triumph and tragedy, it was time for some overdue spoils for Kiss. Having lost drummer Eric Carr to cancer in late ’91, Kiss deserved to catch a break. Fortunately Revenge turned out to be a far better album than the previous few. I recall getting over a really bad cold, and my lungs were still congested on that spring day. The outdoor air felt amazing. I walked over to the mall on release day and bought my CD copy at the Record Store. I probably ran all the way home to play it, lungs be damned.
To say I was happy was an understatement. In 1992 you had to come out with something strong or you would sink. It was a more vicious musical world than just a year ago. Fortunately Kiss did not wimp out and came out with an album just heavy enough, without following trends. It would be my favourite album of the year, though a few strong contenders were still lined up.
My birthday was coming and I would have to wait a little while to get some more essential tunes. Fear of the Dark was on the list. So was Faith No More’s Angel Dust, which was a must. And, of course, rock’s ultimate royalty returned in 1992. A band that rock history cannot ignore, though it arguably should. A band that defined the term “odorous”. A band with a colourful and tragic backstory. A band making its long feared return with its first album since 1984’s Smell the Glove. And with their new album Break Like the Wind, they proudly proclaimed, yes indeed, this is Spinal Tap.
Once again, quite a bit of music to absorb. I had been anticipating the Iron Maiden. I heard the first single “Be Quick or Be Dead” on Q107 late one night, and didn’t think much of it at first. I was concerned that Bruce Dickinson’s voice was becoming more growly and less melodic. The album helped assuage these concerns with a number of melodic numbers including “Wasting Love”, “Afraid to Shoot Strangers” and “Fear of the Dark”. But the album was infected with lots of filler. “Weekend Warrior”, “Fear is the Key”, “Chains of Misery”…lots of songs that were just not memorable. Fear of the Dark sounded better than its predecessor but could you say it was better than Seventh Son? Somewhere in Time? Powerslave? No.
Though it was murky and dense, the Faith No More album blew me away. The M.E.A.T Magazine review by Drew Masters gave it 2/5 M’s. I gave it 5/5. I wanted something heavy and weird from Faith No More. I got what I wanted. Peter was a big Faith No More fan too, but I don’t think he dug Angel Dust as much as I did. We both appreciated the comedic aspects but I really got into the samples, nuances and rhythms. It was, and is, a masterpiece. I believe I can say that I was of that opinion from the very beginning.
And Spinal Tap, dear Spinal Tap. The Majesties of Rock took a little longer for me to fully understand. And no wonder, for Spinal Tap are playing musical 4-dimensional chess inside your ear canals. I simply had to accept that several years had passed since Spinal Tap last recorded, and they had grown in their own stunted way. I’ve always thought that the title track was sincerely brilliant. But I never liked that Nigel Tufnel had so few lead vocals. I have long appreciated bands that had multiple lead singers. While this time even bassist Derek Smalls stepped up to the microphone, it was David St. Hubbins who sang lead on 11 of the 14 tracks. Now, this is certainly not to criticise the enviable lead pipes of St. Hubbins, but merely to state that there wasn’t enough Nigel. Having said that, Nigel did branch out by employing a new guitar playing technique — doubling his solos with vocals, like Gillan used to do with Blackmore. He also got to unleash his new amps that went up to infinity, which debuted live at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert in April.
Like all things, summer eventually came to an end and it was back to school once again. That fall and into Christmas I got some of the last new releases that were on my radar. I missed Black Sabbath when Dehumanizer came out in June. That one took a long time to really like. While the production was incredibly crisp, the songs didn’t seem up to snuff to me. At least at first. In time, it became a personal favourite album.
That Christmas came the new Bon Jovi album Keep the Faith, Queen’s new Greatest Hits, and of course AC/DC Live. It was also the Christmas that I first realized there was something wrong inside my head, and I realized it because of those albums. It was partly the obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also a massive hangup about being ignored. I wanted the AC/DC double Live, but was given the single. I wanted Keep the Faith and Queen on CD but got cassette. As I grew older and learned more about myself, I realized that I became very upset if I felt like someone was not listening to me or understanding me. Nobody seemed to get why I wanted specific versions (because of my OCD actually), and I couldn’t explain it, so that set me off even further. I became extremely grumpy that Christmas over these gifts, and it was ugly. I isolated myself to stew in my own negativity. It’s not something I’m proud of, and you can call me a spoiled brat if you want to (you wouldn’t be wrong). At least I’ve worked at trying to figure out my defects.
It’s not like any of it mattered in the long term. I have re-bought all of those albums twice since, each!
1992 went out much like it came in, cold and snowy. Canadian winters are hard. Some people have the DNA for it, but I don’t. I’m half Italian. I wasn’t designed for snowy, damp winters. That’s why music is so important to me in the winter months. Music can be a completely indoor activity and I had a continually fresh supply. 1992 was a big year for heavy metal even though the grunge revolution had already started. Of course, things were not to stay as they are. Iron Maiden and Faith No More were about to hit some major speedbumps, and Black Sabbath had already split in two by the end of the year! 1992 was the last time we could pretend heavy metal was still in good health. Hard rock was about to endure further challenges and hardships. At least we had ’92.
You can always trust a Sausagefester to recommend good music. Today I bring you two lists, from Frank the Tank and from Max the Axe’s Stunt Double (also known as “Michael”). Frank listens to more new music than I do, and MTASD sees way more concerts. Enjoy these lists!
FRANK THE TANK
FRANK THE TANK’S FAVOURITE SONGS OF 2019
“Sorry Mike! Not sure what happened to the list of songs I was keeping. I tried to recreate it, but it is a sad attempt at this point.”
IRON MAIDEN – Virtual Lights Strikes Over France (1998 bootleg CD)
I took some flak when I first reviewed this. “So funny, you guys bashing on a Maiden album,” said a disbelieving Aaron. “Compared to contemporaries, you gotta know they still kick ass and take names over any of the pretenders to the throne.” If only it were that simple. More recently, Blaze Bayley-devotee Harrison has questioned my 1/5 star score. It’s time to revisit the album after seven years and see if it sounds any better.
Ever wonder why Blaze only lasted two albums with Iron Maiden? Most people assume it’s because they were more popular with Bruce, which is true. But there was more to the story than that. The evidence is here on Virtual Lights Strikes Over France, a live bootleg from the 1998 tour. A handful of tracks aside, Blaze’s voice was in rough shape. He struggles to hit and hold notes, on his own material no less. He’s not as bad as Vince Neil, mind you. He sings all the words and gives it all he’s got. He’s just continually flat or sharp on key notes.
“Futureal” starts things in a promising manner, powerful and solid. The struggle begins on “Angel and the Gambler”, missing notes here and there. He begins “Lightning Strikes Twice” prematurely. He does OK through the verses, but the chorus is a lost cause. This is the tipping point.
“Man on the Edge” from The X Factor should be a slam dunk. The problem is when Blaze hits a bad note, he really commits to it. When the first Bruce Dickinson song is up, “Heaven Can Wait”, it’s all over. No matter how good Iron Maiden are, this version is as close to unlistenable as the storied metal band ever gets. Bayley recovers for a while on “Clansman”, but “Two Worlds Collide” must be tougher to sing. “Murders in the Rue Morgue” is a slaughter. Shame, since it’s a rarely performed Paul Di’Anno tune. “2 Minutes” is marginally better.
In general, Blaze fares better on his own songs, but that doesn’t mean they’re exempt from problems. You have to be a patient fan to listen to the entire set in one sitting, and you’ll absolutely wince multiple times.
The second CD has three bonus tracks from a show two years prior, from the X-Factour. On these, Blaze is tops! The difference is striking. Here, he’s got the power necessary to accompany Iron Maiden on stage. You can at least buy this CD for definitive live versions of “Fortunes of War”, “Blood on the World’s Hands” and “The Aftermath”. It’s clear Blaze’s voice had changed between the two tours.
Am I being harsh? Admittedly, yes, but for two reasons.
Iron Maiden and Steve Harris have higher standards than this.
I paid $60 for this goddamn thing.
The main point though is 1. Obviously this situation was not going to be sustainable and Harris made the necessary change. If he hadn’t, Iron Maiden might have risked being known as one of those bands who are hit and miss in concert, like Kiss and Motley Crue today.
I am going to revise the score higher. It is live, and it’s not all terrible. But few songs are free from some seriously sour notes, and for that reason, Virtual Lights will remain the least played Maiden CD in my collection.
GETTING MORE TALE #792: The Summer of ’93 – Live Album Explosion
Keeping up with new releases is challenging for anyone. Today, every band is releasing a box set, live album, compilation, EP, or even (gasp) new material! This is not a new phenomenon. As a young collector in an earlier time, 1993 was particularly challenging. I was suffering from “live album burnout” due to a number of double lives that year. I dutifully picked up the most important ones to me, as much as I could afford.
I plotted things out. The first batch of live albums on my radar that year were as follows:
Four of my favourite bands in one brief chunk of time, with two of the four being doubles. I had to budget this out somehow.
I’m not sure when I bought Van Halen’s album, but I most likely bought it first. The dual CD set was at Costco for thirty-something bucks so I put it in the cart. I know it was early in the year because I remember listening to it in the car while driving to school for final exams, which occur in April. Specifically I remember listening to the live version of “Cabo Wabo” on my way there.
I found the Van Halen album underwhelming. Too much stuff from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and some clattering solos made it a struggle to finish in one sitting. Sammy Hagar would later comment that the album sucked because too much of it was re-recorded in the studio. I just thought it was a drag.
Kiss were (and are) my #1 band, so I dutifully bought it as quickly as I could. I didn’t get it on the day of release (May 18), but I do know the exact date that I purchased it: May 20. I know this because I remember that we had to get home from the mall (Fairway Park Mall’s HMV store) in time to catch the series finale of Cheers. I got the free poster with my cassette copy. I chose cassette for strategic reasons. Double live albums were a bigger investment, so I liked to get those on CD. I was already starting to distrust the cassette tape format. I’d hate to buy a double cassette set and have one of the tapes go bad. Alive III was a single tape, so I went for that and stayed with that until I got a double vinyl reissue a couple years later.
The Ozzy was a limited edition package. I needed that special grille cover with the two “tattoos” inside. I couldn’t afford it so I put it on my birthday list. I accompanied my mom to HMV to make sure she got the right one. Killed the surprise, but also the anxiety of not getting the exact version I “needed” for my collection!
Ozzy Osbourne had already supersaturated the market with live albums, and his was tedious to listen to. I gave it more it than a fair shot, as I wanted to really hear how Zakk approached the live versions differently than Randy or Tony had. It was an exercize that paid minimal dividends, wading through minute after minute of numbing “extra extra crazy” Ozzy monologues.
I decided to hold off on Iron Maiden as long as I could. The idea of a single disc live Maiden album was a little off-kilter for me. An album of tracks from 1986-1992 didn’t sound all that appealing to me. Maybe I should wait until the second disc, due in October, came out so I could listen to both equally. Maybe I should skip A Real Live One entirely. The album seemed a hasty entity, being released so Maiden could tour to support new product. The cover art was also lo-fi sketchy, compared to predecessor Live After Death.
Good or bad, I decided to hold off on Maiden for the time being. I had enough live metal to digest anyway.
Kiss was the only album I was happy with, though it was clearly an inferior offering to Alive I and II. Unlike Osbourne, it wasn’t too long, and kept the filler to a minimum.
When the next batch of live albums rolled out, I was weary.
Testament – Return to the Apocalyptic City EP – summer 1993
The Bon Jovi live disc came with a pricey special reissue of Keep the Faith, a limited edition. I immediately put that one on my Christmas list and did my best to pester my mom into buying it. I had to make a decision about the others. I scratched Satriani and Testament off my list. They weren’t going to be priorities this time.
As for the final call on Iron Maiden? The decision was made for me when I found Live at Donington, once again at HMV. What was this? It looked like a bootleg, but wasn’t. It had no liner notes. Absolutely bare minimum packaging. Nary an Eddie in sight. It was a “limited edition“, and a double CD with a complete concert. The easy choice was to buy this instead of the other two albums. For the time being, at least. I finally did get all three albums, when I was working at the Record Store, in 1996. The Boxing Day sale enabled me to get both live Maidens and the recent Tesla greatest hits for a reduced price. It took me three years to get ’em!
That busy 1993 list doesn’t include live home videos released that year (Ozzy, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Kiss) or the albums that I didn’t even know about (Live Cult). I had to draw the line and audio has always been my priority over video.
Too much is too much, and in 1993 we just had too much.
Do you remember what live albums you bought in 1993? Comment below!
As for the final call on Iron Maiden? The decision was made for me when I found Live at Donington, once again at HMV. What was this? It looked like a bootleg, but wasn’t. It had no liner notes. Absolutely bare minimum packaging. Nary an Eddie in sight. It was a “
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