Iron Maiden

#1149: Eddie’s Story – The Narrative of Derek Riggs’ Iron Maiden Art

RECORD STORE TALES #1149: Eddie’s Story – The Narrative of Derek Riggs’ Iron Maiden Art

Edward T. Head, better known as “Eddie”, has been Iron Maiden’s mascot since the late 1970s.  He was just a mask then, made by roadie Dave Lights, to hang on the band’s live backdrop.  Why “Eddie”?   Because the mask was essentially just a head, or “‘ead” in British slang.  Therefore:  Eddie the Head!  When Iron Maiden were signed to Capitol Records, manager Rod Smallwood wisely surmised that the band would do well with an identifiable “stamp”…like a mascot.  He contacted artist Derek Riggs, and before too long, Eddie made his painted debut on the cover of Iron Maiden’s 1980 single “Running Free”.

Eddie’s impact cannot be overstated.  He is more recognizable than any single member of the band.  He is seen on T-shirts worn by diehards, casual fans, and even those who have never heard an Iron Maiden song in their lives.  He is ubiquitous.  Needless to say, Rod Smallwood was very wise, and Derek Riggs very talented.  Riggs did the cover art for every Maiden album from 1980 to 1990, and almost every single and EP in the same time frame.

As young impressionable kids growing up in suburban Ontario, we certainly knew who Eddie was.  My friends and I collected not just the albums and singles, but also the buttons.  We were intimately familiar with Eddie, his different outfits, settings, and crimes!  We attempted to draw our own Eddies.  I took a shot at a single cover for “The Duelists”, a favourite song.  It featured Eddie and the Devil fencing at the edge of a cliff.  The Devil was a foe of Eddie’s going back to the “Purgatory” single cover.  Derek Riggs eventually built an extensive mythology for Eddie and associated characters.  He focused on “Easter Eggs”, hiding characters and symbols within the artwork.  Powerslave and Somewhere In Time were chock full of such goodies.  References to the bars Maiden played, the Reaper, and even a TARDIS can be found on those albums.  One of the great pleasures of being an Iron Maiden fan was opening up an album and looking for all the secret images and messages while you played the records.

By 1986, some of us had noticed that the album covers, not including the singles, seemed to a tell a continuing story.  There was a continuity to the cover art, and Eddie in particular, that made us think there was an actual story unfolding with each album release.  This story seemed to run through Derek Riggs’ entire tenure as Iron Maiden’s cover artist, from 1980 to 1990.  While I am certain that this is entirely something made up in our heads, it does seem to hold water.

Let’s have a look at the album covers, and the story they may tell.

IRON MAIDEN -1980

Just an introduction to the character.  Eddie is a street punk, in a loose T-shirt, standing on a London street at night.  Behind him is a lit doorway, and a window with a red light – a reference to “Charlotte the Harlot”.  You can also see two of the streetlamps behind Eddie form an arc, with the moon.  Eddie’s eyes are just black sockets with light behind.  Later artists would change Eddie’s eyes, but Riggs always painted them black with some kind of illumination.  Eddie’s skin appears yellowed and stretched, like that of a mummy.  His hair is pure punk rock.

The story has yet to begin, but Eddie is clearly someone you don’t want to mess with on a London street at night.

KILLERS – 1981

Eddie appears much more refined in this image.  You get a better look at the character, including a belt and blue jeans.  The punk rock hair is gone, though Eddie remains on the streets.  It could be the same neighborhood as the first album.  The black clouds in the sky are similar.  This time, Eddie has a bloody hatchet in hand, while his victim grips his shirt in dying desperation.  Eddie seems to have no mercy.  He even seems to relish killing.  Fitting, for an album called Killers.  Our interpreted story begins here, with a murder.

 THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST – 1982

The plot thickens.  In Riggs’ best album art to date, Eddie appears a giant over a scorched, hellish background.  The rear cover had more of this scenery, indicating we were indeed in hell.  Eddie’s eyes are now lit by flames, matching the ground below.  He also has a fire in his hand, a reference perhaps to Montrose’s “I’ve Got the Fire” which was an earlier B-side.  The most striking feature here though is the appearance of the red Devil himself!  Eddie appears in control, manipulating the evil one with green puppet strings.

This was the first cover that really had us squinting at the details, on our little cassette J-cards.  For if you look closer, you will see Eddie is not in control at all.  Satan himself has his own puppet, and it is Eddie!  Our minds were boggled.  What could this mean?  We began pulling together the threads that seemed to be telling a story.  Derek Riggs had outdone himself, but he was only getting started.

 PIECE OF MIND – 1983

Imprisoned!  Captured, chained in an asylum, and lobotomized to boot!  Now bald, Eddie bore a scar across his head!  He had been cut open like an egg, and this scar would remain for the next several album covers.  Two more details were added:  a stream of blood going down his nose (always his right side), and a metal bracket holding his head together.  The screws in the bracket would always be in the same orientation.

Clearly, Eddie was in trouble.  We saw this as the punishment for his crime of murder.  The Devil came to take his due, and now Eddie is stuck in a cell.  Would he escape?  The next album told us no.

Of course, the real life inspiration for the artwork was the title Piece of Mind.  On the inner sleeve, the band members are preparing to dine upon a brain!  It doesn’t look tasty, and Adrian Smith in particular doesn’t look hungry.  In our childhood fantasy world, the Devil had served up a particularly brutal punishment for our favourite Metal mascot.

 POWERSLAVE – 1984

It appears that Eddie did not survive his brain surgery and imprisonment, for here he was being laid to rest in an ancient Egyptian setting.  In Riggs’ best artwork to date (again), a multitude of Easter eggs were hidden on the front, back and inner sleeves.  The Great Pyramid appears as it once did in antiquity, smooth and topped by a golden capstone.  Eddie’s sarcophagus can be seen, carried up the stairs, to his eternal resting place.

Or was it?

It seems pre-destined that Maiden’s next album would be called Live After Death.  It was really at this point that we started to put together that there was a story unfolding here.  Live After Death, and Eddie was buried on the previous album?  It all made sense!

 LIVE AFTER DEATH – 1985

Now this was an album that simply had to be owned on vinyl.  There was text to be read on the tombstones (“Let It RIP”), and so many Easter eggs on the back cover, including a black cat, the Reaper, and a visible “Edward T. H…” on his tombstone.  For many of us, this was the first indication that Eddie did have a last name!

With a bolt of lightning re-animating the already dead corpse, Eddie was back!  Still wearing his chains from the Piece of Mind album cover, Eddie’s hair had grown back while his T-shirt has seen better days.  Flames can be seen bursting from the ground, hinting at his hellish past.  On the rear cover, a city can be seen, surrounding the pyramid from the last album.  The continuity seemed clear.  The only issue here was that on the prior album, Eddie was laid to rest inside the pyramid.  Here, he is seen bursting out of a normal grave.  It would seem that Eddie’s remains were re-located between albums.  A minor issue easily explained away.

The city on the back cover calls to Eddie!  He was back, and up to his old ways again…

 SOMEWHERE IN TIME – 1986

Riggs outdid himself again, with the Blade Runner inspired Somewhere In Time.  Owning this album on vinyl is simply a must, for there is so much going on.

Still lobotomized, but bearing a new brain of circuitry, Eddie was technologically enhanced.  The blood, scar and bolts holding his head together are still visible despite the modifications.  On his chest, Derek Riggs’ signature emblem can be seen clearly.  It was always hidden somewhere on his albums, but here it was plainly visible.  A poster that reads “EDDIE LIVES” can be seen on the right, with the dying hand of a victim that he has just exterminated.  Back to his old killing ways from the Killers album!  Instead of a blade, Eddie now wields a pair of blasters.  Eddie seems to have arrived in a “Spinner” vehicle, similar to Blade Runner.

The same familiar moon from previous albums blazes behind, but there is so much on the back cover to discover too.  A reaper, red-lighted windows, and the names of things important to Iron Maiden’s lore are present.  As far as our story went, we imagined that Eddie emerged from his tomb centuries in the future.  This time, the Devil would not stop him!  But despite the cybernetic enhancements he underwent, his body was not whole…and soon it would be time to be reborn.

 SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON – 1988

This is where things got weird.  Really weird.  Not content to keep drawing Eddies with axes through people’s heads, Riggs went abstract on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.  Eddie was now little more than a torso, with his skull ripped open and aflame!  The scar, bolts and blood are still present (though the blood would be replaced by a mustard-like substance on the single cover for “Can I Play With Madness”).  The remnants of his cybernetic enhancements are still present, with one eye replaced by a robotic one.  He also still has a metal throat.  An apple can be seen within his ribcage, but most striking is the Eddie-infant he’s holding in some kind of embryonic sac!  This sac is attached to his ribcage with an umbilical cord.  An arc of lamps recalls the first album.  A “book of life” is present on the back cover, tying into the album’s concept.  There are also ice statues of past Eddies on the back cover, for a total of seven Eddies.

Look closely and you can see that the surface below is both solid and liquid, and the icebergs do not touch the surface.  In our story, this represented Eddie on another plane, as he gave birth to his successor – a new Eddie.

 NO PRAYER FOR THE DYING – 1990

For the first time, we felt disappointed by an Iron Maiden cover.  Gone were the layers of Easter eggs.  The art felt unfinished, and indeed, Derek Riggs would remake it for a 90s reissue.  The album was sonically a “back to basics” affair for Iron Maiden, with simpler lyrics and shorter, harder songs.  The artwork reflected this, with a simple Eddie just back to killing again.

Reborn, and without scars, bolts or lobotomies, Eddie emerges from a stone coffin.  Because why not?  The undead should surely be reborn in a grave!  Grasping the poor gravekeeper by the throat, Eddie is seconds away from his first killing in his new body!  Looking at his coffin, the name plate is unfinished, with no clever names or puns.  The fragments of the shattered coffin don’t even fit together properly.  The blue and yellow colour scheme definitely links the album to Seventh Son, Live After Death, Powerslave and The Number of the Beast, but there is far less to keep you looking at the cover.

And this is the end of our Eddie story, for Derek Riggs would not do another Maiden cover for years, and by then there was no point in any continuity.  The next time we see Eddie, he has red bug-eyes and is half-tree.

Iron Maiden would continue to produce fascinating album covers in the future, always featuring Eddie in some way.  Notable artists included Mark Wilkinson, Melvyn Grant, and Hugh Syme.  For most fans, the original run of Derek Riggs covers will remain the pinnacle of Maiden artwork, primarily the period of 1981 to 1988.

Did Riggs have a story that he was telling with his covers?  Probably not; he probably just liked keeping Eddie consistent from cover to cover.  He would probably appreciate the fact that a bunch of Canadian kids in the suburbs had interpreted this entire saga from his artwork.  I think he’d like that a lot.

 

 

 

#1148: No Drone Movies

RECORD STORE TALES #1148: No Drone Movies

With my mom and sister visiting Japan in August, my dad didn’t want to spend his weekends at the cottage.  By that stroke of luck, Jen and I had the cottage for three weekends in a row.  I can’t remember the last time I was at the cottage for three weekends in a row.  I was probably a teenager.

I spoke to my mom after she got back from Japan, jet-lagged by about 12 hours.  My sister managed to catch a case of Covid, but my mom was luckier.  Even so, she was too worn out to use the cottage on the weekend of August 9.  At the last minute, they decided to stay home that weekend.  Therefore, Jen and I could go if we wanted to.

It’s a shame to let the cottage stay empty on a summer weekend.  We had planned on staying home and working on organizing the music collection, but at the last minute, we got out of town and hit the road.

I went with Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind on the way up, followed by War Within Me by Blaze Bayley.  I had been immersed in an Iron Maiden writing project and decided to keep the vibe going on the road.  It was fascinating to hear how recording and production had changed between the two albums.  Piece of Mind was an organic sounding listen, with natural drums and lots of room sound.  War Within Me was modern, clean and technical.  While I prefer the analog, organic sounds, I realize that it is of the past.  A good double bill for the road.

Upon arrival on Friday night, I got the drone out, which is a good thing, because the theme for the rest of the weekend would be “No Drone Movies”!

Editing to the music of “80 Days” by Marillion, it was incredibly hard to fly at sunset with the sun in my eyes.  I could not see my drone from the ground.  I was flying by camera the whole time.  It was a good flight, with great visuals, but it was to be the only flight of the weekend, for within an hour, the gale-force winds rose!  The winds would last all weekend, and would not let up at all.  The drone was boxed for all Saturday and Sunday.

And this is when things got weird for me.

With the air cool, the wind high, and the skies dark, my seasonal affective disorder kicked in.  Big time.  It felt exactly like fall at the cottage.  Even though it was early August, and the previous week had a beach packed with kids and tourists, this was a cold deserted weekend.  All the feelings came rushing back, from years of “back to school” ads and activities.  The memories came back too:  listening to White Lion on a cold wet day on my Walkman by the river, wondering what the next school year would bring.  All back like a Polaroid picture.

My counselor told me specifically it’s too early to worry about fall, but here I am.  Unable to get it off my mind.

I am glad we went to the lake this weekend.  It’s wasteful to leave it empty on an August weekend.  My mental health is better there, than home.  But I can’t shake this foreboding feeling of fall.

 

We have a winner – Powerslave vs. Defenders of the Faith (Maiden vs. Priest)

It was a marathon, but it was never dull!  With Pete Jones on board, we completely dissected every track on these two 40 year old albums:

  • Judas Priest – Defenders of the Faith – 13 January 1984 – peaked at #18 in the US and went platinum.  Produced by Tom Allom, his fifth with Priest.
  • Iron Maiden – Powerslave – 3 Sept 1984 – peaked at #21 in the US and went platinum.  Produced by Martin Birch, his fourth with Maiden.

Harrison Kopp arrived at the end of the show and between he, Peter and myself, we chose a winner.  It was a 2-1 vote.

Lyrically and musically we broke down each track to the individual parts.  We shone light and appreciation on all the players, for what they contributed to each of these epic metal masterpieces.  At the end of the day, it was clear that though both bands are often lumped together, these two albums are completely different.  They have different moods, different directions, and different lyrical themes.  Both are important albums to 80s metal, and to the respective band catalogues.

Subject matter broken down in detail:

  • The bass, drum, and guitar parts to each song.
  • Lyrical themes to each song and album.
  • The B-sides and bonus tracks.
  • The true and hilarious story behind Mission From ‘Arry.
  • Connections between Becket and Iron Maiden.
  • Personal stories and impact of these records.
  • Live performances and songs that have never been played live.

You will also be treated to a live performance of “Freewheel Burning” by Mike!

They call Peter the Professor and for good reason.  He came prepared with tour information and intimate knowledge of the construction of these songs.

Though it pained me to have to pick a winner, we did!

We hope you enjoyed the show, and a big thank-you to Peter for contributing two hours of your Friday night!  Of course, always nice to see Harrison.

This is likely the last evening show of the summer of 2024.  Afternoon shows occur at 3:00 PM on Fridays, when I have an available co-host.  Thanks for watching, and stay tuned…

The next show is an interview with author Angie Moon, regarding her debut music/true time book, Crime of the Century, June 21 on Grab A Stack of Rock!

The Battle of ’84: Iron Maiden – Powerslave vs. Judas Priest – Defenders of the Faith

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man
Episode 62: The Battle of ’84: Iron Maiden – Powerslave vs. Judas Priest – Defenders of the Faith

It is finally time:  the Battle of ’84 has arrived!  40 years ago, two metal monsters released crucial albums:

  • Judas Priest – Defenders of the Faith – 13 January 1984 – peaked at #18 in the US and went platinum.
  • Iron Maiden – Powerslave – 3 Sept 1984 – peaked at #21 in the US and went platinum.

But which album, track for track, is better?

Tonight, Peter Jones and I will attempt to answer that question.  After appearing once with Pete on a favourite episode of Rock Daydream Nation, he finally joins Grab A Stack of Rock.  Peter is a musician, who understands the vocabulary of drums and will explain it all tonight.  (Check out his latest Contrarians episode with Martin Popoff!)  Will the drumming colour his impressions of these two landmark albums of the 80s?  We shall see tonight.

We shall dissect each and every track, including the bonus tracks & B-sides.  Who shall reign?  Find out tonight…live!

 

 

Friday June 7 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T. / 8:00 P.M. Atlantic.   Enjoy on YouTube or on Facebook!

This is likely the last evening show of the summer of 2024.  Afternoon shows occur at 3:00 PM on Fridays, when I have an available co-host.  Thanks for watching, and stay tuned…

The next show is an interview with author Angie Moon, regarding her debut music/true time book, Crime of the Century, June 21 on Grab A Stack of Rock!

#1130: If I Had A Million Dollars? A Top Five List

RECORD STORE TALES #1130: If I Had A Million Dollars? A Top Five List

 

If I had a million dollarsWell, I’d buy you a fur coatBut not a real fur coat, that’s cruelAnd if I had a million dollarsIf I had a million dollarsWell, I’d buy you an exotic petYep, like a llama or an emu

 

Fur coats?  Exotic pets?  No thank you!  If I had a million dollars, I’ll tell ya exactly what I’d buy!

 

1. AV Designhaus Derenville VPM 2010-1

There goes half my money in one shot ($650,000)!  What do I get for my money? A belt-driven turntable on a Corian chassis, that rests on four feet that are supported and balanced through an air suspension system. Has an ethernet connection, and a HD-TV camera that monitors the diamond stylus.  Why?  To watch it on a high resolution monitor and make necessary adjustments. It would probably take two engineers to set up and test; I certainly couldn’t do it myself!  I doubt there is much you could do to improve the sound of a vinyl record that this turntable doesn’t already have packed in.

2. Vintage 1982 Nakamichi Dragon 3 Head Autoreverse Cassette Recorder

This one will cost me another $10,000 Canadian, but some consider it the Rolls Royce of tape decks. If you ever wanted to make a tape sound almost as good as a CD, this is the way to do it. It requires tuning, maintenance, and knowledge. But money is no object in this exercise, so why not? Dare I say why not? It’s a sleek, beautiful looking beast of 80s esthetics.  Just look at all those buttons and LEDs!  Might be more work than it’s worth, but the sound you can get from a high-quality blank tape and this machine are better than what my ears can discern anyway.

3. PS Audio FR30 speakers

$40,000 for the pair. Then I’d need the amplifiers and Paul McGowan himself to set it all up.  I’d also need to move into a bigger house.  They require a large, neutral listening space.  Which I’d like to have anyway!  By all accounts, these speakers (when set up correctly) provide a very real sounding experience, as if you’re in the room with the musicians.  The low end is supposedly amazing, aided by eight passive radiators.  Plus, don’t they just look gorgeous?

4. Iron Maiden – Best of the Beast vinyl (1996)

Needed for just a handful of tracks!  A live version of “Revelations”, and technically the Soundhouse Tapes EP.  In the condition I want it, it’ll cost me upwards of $1000.  Wish I bought it for $300 new when I had the chance back in 1997.  It’ll sound as good as CD, over my new AV Designhaus Derenville VPM turntable and PS Audio speakers!

5. Marantz SA-10

May as well grab a new CD transport while I’m at it!  This Super Audio player boasts a high-end DAC, and will play files from FLAC to MP3 via a USB stick.  It won’t connect easily with your iPhone, which means nothing to me anyway.  I’ve always wanted a Super Audio player, so why not go with the best?   This will set me back about a grand, and I’ll probably never use most of its features.  But that’s what dreaming is all about!

There you go.  500 words on what I could do with a spare million bucks just kicking around.  What would you buy?  Keep it fun – this is a fantasy exercise, so no need for serious answers.  Drop your comment below!

 

#1121: A Look at the New CD Section at the Old Toys R Us Store [VIDEO]

 A sequel to #1119:  The Olde Toys R Us Store Sure Has Changed…

 

RECORD STORE TALES #1121: A Look at the New CD Section at the Old Toys R Us Store

Lo and behold!  CDs have joined their vinyl brethren at the Toys R Us Store!

They are filed with the same lack of attention and care, but they have arrived.  Deluxe and super deluxe editions?  Yes.  Deleted items?  Also yes.  Value?  Sometimes?  The prices were scattered from deals to ripoffs.

Pricing is a problem across the board, but keep in mind, they did beat the Beat Goes On across the street on some vinyl pricing on last visit.  It’s hard to tell if some prices were real or a mistake.  On vinyl, the new Beatles single, for example, on black 7″, was $32 bucks.  The same price as their cheapest Iron Maiden long-player.  They wanted $130 for their Whitesnake Still Good To Be Bad box set.   Other boxes, like Thick As A Brick by Jethro Tull, were moderately priced in the low $30s.

Joining the CDs were DVDs, Blu-rays, and TV series box sets.  They had picture discs and collector’s editions.  I just hope the section continues to grow, and improves in execution, instead of withering on the vine.

For a detailed look at everything I scored at the Toys R Us music section, enjoy the short video below!

 

 

Total Eclispe

Do you have plans to observe the eclipse today?  I have my glasses and will be popping out of the office to have a look.

 

THAT WAS COOL!  It got slowly darker and colder until it felt like early evening.  That part was almost cooler than the eclipse itself.

 

#1119: The Olde Toys R Us Store Sure Has Changed…

RECORD STORE TALES #1119: The Olde Toys R Us Store Sure Has Changed…

Where Toys R Us stands today in Kitchener Ontario, there once was a drive-in movie theater.  That was torn down in the early 1980s, and the mighty Toys R Us was raised.  There it has loomed heavy over Fairview Mall across the street, for four decades, beckoning children with aisles and aisles of Star Wars toys, then replaced by GI Joe figures and Transformers.  It was impossible to enter Toys R Us without finding something you wanted.  It has ebbed and waned since then, now stuffed with unwanted and overpriced 6″ figures and Super 7 cards.

“At least we still have a Toys R Us,” we say.  “Mastermind Toys is closing, and Walmart sucks.  Now let’s go check out the vinyl at the Toys R Us store.”

Full stop.  What?  Vinyl at Toys R Us?

In another attempt to stay relevant as Hasbro drives their prices up and quality down, creating shelfwarming superheroes and Sith lords, Toys R Us is now stocking vinyl at their Kitchener location.

Last time I visited there, about a month ago, they were in the process of re-organizing.  Where the Lego and Hasbro products were, was becoming a book section.  Interesting!  Book stores haven’t done well in the area, with the short-lived Booksmarts closing a decade ago, across Wilson Ave from TRU.  Still, we must applaud any attempts to get kids reading books.  I didn’t have a look at the book section myself; nothing caught my eye.  What did catch my view was the familiar shape of white bins containing shrink-wrapped packages, 12″ by 12″.  Each one was different, boasting vibrant artwork.

They were not calendars.  They were records.  Vinyl had come to Toys R Us.

The first one I noticed was Prequelle by Ghost.  $25.  Not bad.  I picked it up in my eager hands.

I considered buying Ghost on vinyl at that price.  Oh, sure, I already own a CD copy with a lenticular cover and bonus tracks, but…vinyl, right?

I put it back.  Ghost are more of a car band for me.  I wouldn’t play the vinyl more than twice.  Decent price though.

Thinking of the bands aching to be collected on vinyl back at home, I looked for Kiss and Iron Maiden.  No Kiss; lots of The Killers though.  The albums were loosely organized.  Toys R Us doesn’t have a dedicated person for this section to keep things organized, and…ouch!!  What’s that?  A record was clumsily wedged between two rows, pulling the cover in two directions and creating an ugly crease.  I put the records back in rows, but this is why you need a dedicated person when you put a record store inside a toy store.

There were some interesting finds there.  Purple Rain on vinyl would be cool to have.  I chuckled when I saw a Linkin Park Meteora 2.0 box set.  Jen used to love Linkin Park.  I bought her the Linkin Park/Jay-Z album for Christmas when we were dating.

Over to Iron Maiden.  They had a decent selection – better than a lot of the local chain stores.  Several albums I needed on vinyl, and even the three-LP En Vivo set.  A-ha!  Number of the Beast.  I just got ripped off at The Beat Goes On with an overpriced copy a few weeks prior.  How does Toys R Us pricing compare?

Cheaper!  Four bucks cheaper!  Toys R Us had The Number of the Beast four bucks cheaper than the $40 copy I bought at The Beat Goes On across the street.  How can Toys R Us be beating The Beat Goes On, a dedicated music store, in prices?  According to friend Kevin, the record sections are actually little HMVs.  They also have one in St. Catharines.

“They really need to work on their merchandising,” said Chris Preston, who had copious notes on how to improve this situation.  “No genres whatsoever,” he added.  Chris also felt it was a big miss to not sell turntables or accessories with the records.

There was no signage, and the records were as much in order as you’d find at the local mall stores.  There were no letter groups – A, B, C, etc.  Many additional records were not displayed at all, and just shoved into a lower shelf.  That’s where I found Purple Rain.  They did have coloured vinyl and limited editions.  It wasn’t a bad little corporate record section, if it was properly cared for.

I questioned the wisdom of placing a record section in a store primarily occupied by running and screaming pairs of hands, right around record shelf height.  I dealt with this at a CD store, remember.  I think they’re gambling on the nerd factor.  Those people who are coming in for the newest Lego releases or collectible figures.  They’re hoping those people will also stop and buy a record.

“Nerds like records too now, right?”  You can imagine an executive asking that question in a boardroom, somewhere in a downtown metropolis where decisions such as these are made.

Considering three, briefly, I ended up not buying any.  I considered but dismissed Prequelle, and also Somewhere In Time and Powerslave by Iron Maiden.  The prices were a little high for Maiden albums that I remember being stocked at $10 or less at the downtown Sam the Record Man in 1989.  Incidentally, Toys R Us had Powerslave cheaper than Amazon at the exact same time, also by about four bucks.

What does it mean when Toys R Us stores are stocking vinyl in a makeshift music section, but no other formats like CD or cassette?

I think this means we have hit peak vinyl.  HMV is dumping their stock in these micro-locations, because they have too much.  I’ve seen it before.  We did similar things when we had too many CDs in our warehouse.  The Boss Man tried moving them in bulk to a micro-location.  That was one of many schemes that I remember.

I do look forward to buying at least one record at Toys R Us in the future.  I’ll keep the price tag on forever, just to prove it happened.

My overpriced Beast vinyl from The Beat Goes On.  I wonder how the old Boss Man feels about another chain inching in on his territory, with cheaper prices?

#1115: The Winds of Change

RECORD STORE TALES #1115: The Winds of Change

My time in music retail was relatively long, considering how taxing on the soul it can be buying used music from the public on the wrong side of town.  I started in July of 1994, in a small store in a small mall in Kitchener, Ontario, called The Beat Goes On.  We sold some used, some new.  In 1996, I began managing a new store that was a slightly different format:  95% used, with a small Top 40 chart of new CDs.  I stayed there until early 2006.  12 years total, with 10 in management.  Over those 12 years, I witnessed so many changes to the way we did business.  Join me for a journey through time.

Ah, 1994.  I had just start dating a new girlfriend.  Motley Crue had come out with their John Corabi album, which was easily my favourite disc of the year.  I wore cowboy boots to my job interview with the boss man at the Record Store.  I was hired and nervously stepped behind the counter and did my first transactions.

We had a huge cash register, and still took cheques.  Credit cards were processed with one of those imprint machines that made the satisfying CHK-CHK sound when you imprinted the card.  Then began a long process of writing in dollar amounts and getting a signature.  Today, one tap and you’re done!  When we got a debit machine, it used the same phone line as the actual store phone.  When someone called the store, it would interrupt your debit transaction if you had one going.  You usually ended up with two impatient customers that way:  one on the phone and one in front of you!

Our stock was part CD and part cassette, but tapes were on their way out and we only bought and sold used CDs.  The reasoning was it was easier to check a CD for quality visually, looking for scratches.  We carried only those two formats, until one day in November 1994.  Pearl Jam came out with Vitalogy in 1994 on vinyl, two weeks before its cassette and CD releases.  The first vinyl I ever sold.  We only stocked five copies because nobody was buying vinyl back then.  We probably should have stocked 15 or 20, because we were surprised with demand.  People who didn’t even own a turntable wanted it for its collector’s value and larger artwork.

Boyz II Men were big.  TLC were bigger.  Soundgarden and Nirvana were dominating the rock charts.  My kind of music wasn’t popular and wasn’t encouraged to be played  in store.

Tastes changed rather quickly for some of these bands.  Boyz II Men made their way into the bargain.  Thence came Puff Daddy, Mase, and of course the posthumous albums by 2pac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G.  On the rock side, upstarts like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Creed and eventually Nickleback replaced Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains on our charts.  And then came Crazy Town, and by then, it felt like there was no coming back.  Rock was a cartoon.  A “fuck”-laden filthy cartoon.

The job behind the counter became easier.  By 1996, our inventory was computerized.  Cassettes were gone; it was 100% CD.  You could look everything up with a simple search.  Before, I had to physically search the shelves to see if we had inventory.  Of course, we soon learned that just because something pops up on the computer as in-stock, that actually means nothing.  Human error was a huge problem and I was as guilty as everyone else, if not more so!  Putting the wrong disc in a CD case upon sale was so easy to do.  Not every customer realized they bought something with the wrong CD inside, and we didn’t always get them returned.  We ended up with many missing or mis-matched CDs, and also missing cases due to mis-filing or theft.

Soon customers wanted to look things up on computer terminals by themselves.  They also wanted to see what our other stores had in stock, as the we franchised out and grew.  These complicated problems were eventually solved with a little thing called the World Wide Web.

Having internet access at the store in the year 1999 was unimaginable to me of 1994, who had never even been on the internet yet.

Of course, the advent of the internet brought with it an unforeseen danger.  Soon our very existence would be threatened.  No, I’m not talking about computer viruses or Y2k.  Those had little impact at all.  Something else did:  Napster.

Napster changed everything.  Soon we were carrying so much more than just music, to make up for the decline in sales.  Bobble heads, action figures, books, video games, headphones, and so so so so many CD wallets.  Sometimes the toys and action figures wouldn’t have anything to do with music, like the Muppets or the Simpsons.  (Those were carried because a certain regional manager personally liked those shows.)  Osbournes merch was popular.  Kiss had many different toy options available.  Metallica had a cool stage playset.  Macfarlane figures either sold out, or sat around forever.  We stopped carrying blank tapes, but had a variety of CD-Rs available instead.

I recall the boss resisted carrying CD-Rs for a while, because he thought it was counterproductive to our business of selling music on CD.  However eventually it became a case of a dam giving way to a flood.  It was “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” and blank CDs were now being sold by brick or spindle.  Remember bricks and spindles full of blank CDs?

We also sold CD cleaning kits and tended to stay away from snake-oil CD fixing “solutions”.   Instead, we had a couple of guys who fixed CDs with a grinder and wax in their garage.  Eventually we began fixing the discs ourselves using the same method, but actually improving upon the solution by using soap instead of wax.  I’m not sure how the original guys took that, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t pretty at all.

Competition was always fierce.  We had an HMV store at the mall across the street from the store I managed.  We had a Cash Converters pawn shop buying and selling CDs and video games in the same plaza as us.  A few years later, a Best Buy opened next door, and their prices were often lower.  DVDs began to take up a huge share of our sales, and we now had to make room.  Additional shelving was installed.  Then we ran out of space again.  New formats like SACD and DVD-A started to infiltrate our inventory.  Things became really, really complicated compared to the store I managed in 1996.

There are a million stories.  I remember one guy buying an SACD, and coming back wanting to know why the “Super Audio” light wasn’t lighting up on his player.  How the fuck should I know?  I’d never even seen an SACD player at that point.  The guy actually wanted me to write a letter to Sony and ask them on his behalf.  Yeah, I’ll get right on that sir, after I serve you some fresh Grey Poupon on a charcuterie board.

Technology, transactions and inventory may have changed shape, but one thing never did:  the customers.

When we first opened, we had a single disc CD player and tape deck to play music in store.  There was a TV for MuchMusic, but it was usually on silent while we played CDs in store.  If a customer wanted to hear a CD, we had to open it for them and play it on the store speakers.  They’d signal me when to change tracks.  In 1996, we have six five-disc changers, each with a dedicated set of headphones, for customers to list.  We had another five-disc changer for store play, and eventually one for an outdoor speaker we had.  The six customer listening stations took a dedicated person to serve on weekends.  We had to retrieve the CDs from behind the counters and load them into the players.  We often had to assist the customer in the operation of the machines.  And they broke down, frequently.  Some days towards the end we only had two working stations at a time.

Our first store was in a mall with a licensed restaurant.  We had a few drunks.  The other stores I worked at were in strip plazas.  We had a few stoners, potheads, crackheads and gang-bangers.

Ahh, the good old days when it was just drunks!

One thing we never delved into in my time was selling CD players.  We didn’t want to dip our toes into that kind of thing.  Today, they sell turntables at my old store.  We also, strangely, never sold batteries which people frequently asked for.  I guess margins were so low it wasn’t worth it.  I never lasted long enough to see the vinyl revival happen.  We only sold a few things on vinyl in time.  The aforementioned Pearl Jam was one.  Soundgarden (Down on the Upside) was another.

The change that impacted me most had nothing to do with formats, or technology.  It didn’t matter that I now had two shelves full of Sega and Nintendo games.  The biggest change was in heirarchy behind the scenes.  I started as a part timer with one boss.  I was promoted to manager, with one boss, and several peers at other stores.  Then, suddenly, I had two bosses.  Then there were three, and the worst thing about the third is that we were all told “they’re not your boss, they’re here to help.”  That was false.  Three bosses, and there was now an in-house accountant and other periphery people that seemed to get yelled at less than I did.  I’m sure it’s clear from this story that the winds of change did not bring me happiness.  Instead they chipped away at the job I started with, and diluted the “music store” I managed into a music/movie/game/knick-knack store.  I was attending manager meetings in big hotel board rooms.  There were marketing people and franchisees, and nobody ever seemed truly happy on the inside.  110% was demanded of us, but we had no reason to be invested in what boiled down to a bad retail job that caused a lot of stress.

Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change, and there was one change I was happy to witness:  In the late 90s, Black Sabbath reunited.  It was a happy return, though they had their trailer hitched to a nu-metal Ozzfest which wasn’t my cup of tea.  Music began to shift until one day in 1999, something truly remarkable happened.  We didn’t know how long it would last, or what the new music would sound like, but Iron Maiden reunited with Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith.  Judas Priest were a few years behind them, getting Rob Halford back in the band.  Suddenly, classic metal was back in a big way.  Bigger than ever.  It was not waned since.  I was happy that I got to see this process begin at the end of my days at the Store.

My boss used to say that I resisted change.  I don’t agree.  No sir.  I embraced the good stuff.  The computers, the internet, the website, fixing CDs, the abandonment of certain formats (cassettes and VHS) when they were fading away.  The things I struggled with included the diluting of the store with all these other products like video games.  I started there because I loved music.  Fortunately I also loved movies, so when DVDs began to take over a large section of the store, I was cool with that too.  When Grand Theft Auto was upon us, I had no passion.  Then came the addition of more upper management, and increased demands on our personal time and investment in the Record Store life.  Monthly manager meetings dragged on for hours.  We’d leave scratching our heads why this wasn’t just covered in emails.  We had zero autonomy and little say in what we did.  I remembered a time when I loved my job.  There was no love there anymore.

The happy ending is this.  When I quit that job, I rediscovered my passion for music.  Music was fun for me again, not just something playing in the background as I worked.

Music is joy once more.

 

VIDEO: Mike and Roger Unbox Australia! CDs and Marvel Blind Box from Harrison the Mad Metal Man

Harrison the Mad Metal Man continues to be under the weather, and insisted that I open his parcel in the meantime.  So I got Metal Roger on the line and opened Harrison’s box.

My memory is horrible and there is a good chance I already knew about all of this stuff, but here’s what Harrison sent me in a handy-dandy video.  Or, if you’re not patient, there are some photos with additional details below as well.

I also opened one package from Amazon, furthering my quest to complete my Journey collection.

This video is for fans of metal, CDs, and those damned Marvel Lego blind boxes that cursed me last fall!  At the end, Roger and I took a brief foray into an interesting subject – the Mount Rushmore of metal mascots.  A topic for a future show to be sure.

Thank you Harrison for your generosity once again.

 

Iron Maiden – Live After Death – remaster in digipack

Food For Thought – Iron Maiden tribute

Dio – Holy Diver – 2005 Rock Candy reissue with bonus interview track