JUDAS PRIEST – Rocka Rolla (1974 Gull, 2024 Exciter Records Remixed and Remastered)
How did he do it?! Somehow, by some digital miracle of the master tape gods, producer Tom Allom has remixed Rocka Rolla, and transformed it from one of my least favourite Priest albums of all time, to one of my favourites.
Generally I can’t get into the remixed versions of albums. Even if the remix is objectively a better release, such as Rush’s Vapor Trails or Marillion’s Radiat10n, I always find myself coming back to the flawed originals.
Not this time.
For context, Tom Allom didn’t originally produce Rocka Rolla, and this is not the first remix of it. Rodger Bain produced, but his name appears smaller than Allom’s on the new back cover. The Rocka Rolla (full album) remix that appeared on Hero, Hero (1981) was helmed by Bain, less effectively. Tom Allom is best known for producing the run of Judas Priest albums from Unleashed in the East (1979) to Ram It Down (1988). What he has done with Rocka Rolla is somehow give it a makeover to sound more like a real 1970’s Priest album. Sonically, it now has thickness. There’s a real beefiness to the mix, but not in the sense that you immediate say “oh yeah, this is different.” It just sounds like the album always sounded that way, and you just got your stereo system upgraded.
The track listing is unchanged. “One For the Road” still opens with a groove, but now that groove hits different. You can better appreciate the guitar fills at the end, and the songs goes well past its old fade-out. This is a trick that remixed album should do more often.
“Rocka Rolla” remains a metal delight, but there is new shimmer to Rob’s vocals and the song chugs with more edge. It’s all very objective and subtle, but once again Tom Allom took a Priest classic and made it sound like it was always this weighty.
The “Winter” suite is the most altered of any of the tracks. Notably, Allom chose to separate the tracks from the suite format, and leave them as individual songs.
John Hinch’s drums sound crushingly Bonham-like on “Winter” itself, and the backing riff far more weighty. The biggest change is that it no longer fades into KK’s guitar showcase “Deep Freeze”. You can hear more of KK at the end, with some experimental playing that was inaudible before. The track fades out past its previous point, and “Winter Retreat” stands on its own as a song. In the 70s, Priest were experimenting with acoustics and psychedelic sounds from time to time. “Winter Retreat” can now join those songs as something that sonically fits in better. Finally, “Cheater” always was its own song really, and now it’s just heavier. Rob’s harmonica is more prominent, which of course recalls the heaviness of Black Sabbath.
Moving on to side two, “Never Satisfied” finally has the punch it always felt like it had inside: A little more echo on this this vocal line, a lot more weight behind the drums, more texture on the guitars, and a few things made audible for the first time. We now have the definitive version of this song. With the impressive soloing mixed in just right, this becomes a long, jammy Priest thumper as it always should have been. If Rocka Rolla sounded like this when I was a kid, I would have got it immediately.
“Run of the Mill” takes time to build as it always has. It has a long instrumental section, with some mindblowing guitar playing, and now it’s all finally hitting right. The bass isn’t just sitting there. It’s picking you up and taking you along with the groove. The keyboards in the background are more ominous. Everything about this is just so much better than the original.
Perhaps the only song that still bores, for the first half anyway, “Dying to Meet You” is similarly upgraded but benefits less from the treatment. That is until it picks up midway in the “Hero, Hero” section. This part of the song still cooks, but has a different, more spare feel. Finally, the light instrumental “Caviar and Meths” really benefits from the remix treatment. The drums, once again, really add atmosphere to it.
As an added attention to detail, the front cover of Rocka Rolla is now as three dimension as the music. The water drops are now tactile. You can feel the bumps with your fingers. A perfect topper.
What did Tom Allom do with these master tapes? Did he conjure some kind of heavy metal spell and make a two dimensional album sound big and beefy? Only Allom knows, but now I do believe in magic.
The first Halloween costume I distinctly remember wearing was a robot suit. My mom and dad got a big cardboard box, cut out a head hole and some arm holes, and helped me decorate it with tinfoil. Then another box became the head. I drew on buttons and knobs with crayons. I was so excited to be a robot that night. That is, until I saw an older kid with a way better robot suit. His had lights! I briefly wondered if he was a real robot and dismissed the thought.
My costumes were sometimes store-bought, sometimes home made. Darth Vader was a plastic mask and glow-in-the-dark sword. Frankenstein was a costume I made myself, using cardboard to cut a square-ish wig, and green face paint. It was so difficult to wash all that green off in the bathtub that night. There was a green ring around the tub that my dad was furious about. It’s very likely I went out as Empire Strikes Back Han Solo in 1980. I already had the costume: a blue hooded snow coat, goggles, with a gun and holster. Another classic Harrison Ford costume was Indiana Jones. I used brown makeup to simulate a 5 o’clock shadow, and had a rope-whip and a gun. I was mistaken for a cowboy, which really peeved me. How could you have not heard of Indiana Jones in 1981? Maybe my costume just wasn’t good enough.
In 1984, my mom sewed us elaborate Ewok costumes. While I wore mine that night, I wore a different costume to school: that of a Cobra trooper from GI Joe! I painted some red Cobra logos on a blue helmet, pulled my shirt up over my nose like a balaclava, and armed myself with a rifle. Back when you could bring toy guns to school! Weren’t those the days? School was very particular about Halloween. You had to participate. If you didn’t bring a costume to school that day, the teacher would take a garbage bag, cut some holes in it, and force you to wear that. I’m not kidding.
I went out for Halloween one more time in grade nine, but that was the last year. I may have only gone to one house: the “fudge house”. There was an elderly couple who made home-made fudge. It was so good, and so popular, that some kids would change costumes and go two or three times. It was very sugary fudge, but so good. Then, the era of Bob-Halloweens began!
From grade 10 onwards, Bob Schipper and I started making out own haunted houses. That’s its own story, but I dressed as Alice Cooper that year. I painted up a black jacket with flames and wore a sword at my side. Doing Halloween haunted houses was our thing for a few years, each time getting more elaborate. We had mummies, scary sounds, flashing lights, spiders and cobwebs, and lots more. It was a passion project. We would spend a month or two preparing for Halloween. November 1st always sucked. Nobody likes cleanup.
When Bob moved on to college and doing his own things, I was left to man the fort by myself. My first Halloween alone was 1991, and a lonely one it was. I began preparing to do the haunted house, alone. Without Bob’s collaboration or input, I made my usual mix tape of scary sounds. I always took these sounds from cassettes I already owned. The bit from Judas Priest’s recent “Night Crawler” with Rob Halford talking about the monster at the door was my latest addition to the scary sound library. When I put the tape together, my sister said there’s “too much Judas Priest!” She was right, but without Bob, I was left to my own devices. I did what I wanted to, for better or for worse.
1991 was a lonely Halloween. It wasn’t fun anymore. It was a lonely time in general. Up until then, I looked forward to our Halloween creativity. I didn’t bother anymore after that. We were seeing fewer and fewer kids at the front door, and for me, without Bob, what was the point?
KK’S PRIEST – Sermons of the Sinner (2021 EX1 Records)
You can hear from the sound of this album, KK Downing is pissed off. He wants to prove himself. He wants to out-Priest Judas Priest. To that end, he’s recruited former Priest singer Tim “Ripper” Owens for this metal feast, with the emphasis on “metal”. Everything about this album is about competing with Judas Priest, from getting their younger singer, to initially recruiting Les Binks on drums (replaced by Sean Elg), to song titles, and musical throwbacks. The end result verges on the territory of “heavy metal bullshit”: music contrived to sound a certain way, evoking a certain image from a certain time, resulting in generic songs.
Right from the opening “Incarnation”, KK is doing those noisy guitar roars from Priest’s “Sinner”, his trademark solo. Then we get Elg doing similar double bass work as Scott Travis, and Ripper Owens with a big Priestly scream. Enter: “Hellfire Thunderbolt”! To his credit, Ripper is singing more to the Priest vibe here than he did on either of his actual Judas Priest albums. “Hellfire Thunderbolt” is equivalent to much of Priest’s current catalogue, and it sure is nice hearing KK wail. We did miss KK’s sound, no matter how good his replacement is. It’s not just a single guitar band, with AJ Mills joining KK in a dual solo. “Hellfire Thunderbolt” is a pretty good, very Priest-like song (right now to the thunder-cracks, very similar to Ram It Down) though not as memorable.
The title track “Sermons of the Sinner” has a title that recalls KK’s signature song, and opens with an impressive drum flurry and a really good riff. Ripper takes the screaming to the nth degree, and the guitars absolutely shred. Unfortunately the song is a little faceless, with the focus on speed and not much else. There’s a great middle section where things slow down, allowing the guitar melody to breathe, but it’s over quickly and then we’re back into a chaotic metal hailstorm, shards of steel hitting your ears in unpleasant ways.
“Sacerdote y Diablo” keeps the pedal to the metal, but does not satisfy the craving for memorable riffing or hooks. KK’s soloing is starting to sound like razorblades, as he just keeps going for it, and going for it, proving he’s more “metal” than Priest, or something. “Raise Your Fists” is more like it. Mid-tempo with melodies you can sing along to, bringing some needed variety to the album. It’s not a classic, but it could be given time and reception. Some of the guitar melodies are almost Maiden-y. The lyrics are just an ode to the experience of a heavy metal concert, a tired concept. “Brothers of the Road” is another good tune, this time with more groove and chug. This album is better when KK allows variety to creep into the songwriting. “Brothers of the Road” isn’t packed to the gills with hooks, but it’s definitely an album highlight. As great as Ripper is at screaming, this allows him to sing more melodically.
Though the music that opens “Metal Through and Through” is delicate and cool, the title is tiresome. Perhaps Rob Halford wrote too many epics about metal over the years, and this is just a redundant theme now. Lyrically, it’s KK paying tribute to the fans, and frankly, to himself. “And our legacy will prevail”. Unfortunately the song sounds like a bunch is disjointed bits mashed together, including one that sounds like Accept. It’s an attempt at an epic, short of the mark by a fair margin. Considering that all songs are solely credited to KK, this is where we start to really miss the songwriting input of Glenn and Rob. An unnecessary eight minutes, with an out-of-place fade-out.
“Wild and Free” is back to breakneck. “We’re rule breakers! We’re hell raisers!” announces Ripper. Great for headbanging or driving real fast, with some rhythmic recollections back to “Freewheel Burning” right before the chorus. Intentional? Probably. “Freewheel” is a far better song, and there are times when Ripper’s vocals get to be a bit much.
“Hail For the Priest” (this is getting tiresome) opens with a melody aped from “Sign of the Cross” by Iron Maiden. Though almost certainly a coincidence, the similarity is unmistakable. Some of Halfords lyrics are cribbed (“terrifying scream” from “Painkiller”), but once the riff kicks in, we’re off the races. Nice bass work here from Tony Newton. The drum pattern is a little less busy, and leaves a little bit of space on the verses. These factors help make it one of the better songs on the album.
The final track is nine minutes of metal “Return of the Sentinel”. How do you out-do Priest? Write the sequel to one of their best tunes, I suppose. There are references to “Tyrants” and appropriate musical recollections directly lifted from the original “Sentinel”. Some cool dual guitar work ensues, and an acoustic guitar break brings texture. Unfortunately there is no proper ending, just a fade out that leaves it feeling unfinished. Still a pretty good song, though like many sequels, it is more more indulgent, yet still a shadow of the original…and unnecessary.
On his debut, KK stakes out his territory, claiming his slice of the pie. It is a strong and bold statement, but without the songwriting that we have grown to expect from this heavy metal pioneer.
This week, I was honoured to be on John Clauser’s My Music Corner one more time, to discuss Temporary Replacement Singers in the 1990s. We tackled four singers and four bands. My choice: “Corabi Crue”, aka “Motley ’94”, perhaps the most underrated of them all. We talked the genesis, highlights, lowlights, and how it all ended. I’ll let John tell the story from here:
Anthrax Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, and Judas Priest all went through a period from the 90s into the 2000s where either the original singer (or more known singer) left the band, and they were temporarily replaced. What became of the music made during the era for each band?
On this, I moderate a discussion between Mike Ladano, Peter Jones, Jake Not From State Farm, and my co-captain John The Music Nut as we look into each band.
This is a monumental interview from my VHS collection. I wore this tape out, as you can tell! Judas Priest’s Rob Halford provides a lot of detail on the goings-on in 1988, that you don’t often hear. That was the year of Ram It Down, Stock Aitken & Waterman, “Johnny B. Goode” and much more! Hear about all that, English tax collectors, Lita Ford and more. Watch as Michael Williams presents Rob with a gold record for Ram It Down, and Priest…Live!
Topics discussed:
Why did Priest choose Canada to open the Ram It Down tour?
Priest’s longevity and why they have lasted so long.
The rotating drum seat: Spinal Tap? Why so many drummers?
Why did the guy’s pants fall down in the video for “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming”? (“The day’s not complete without an exploding head!”)
Why did Priest work with Stock, Aitken & Waterman in January of 1988, and what did they record? (Hear an excerpt from “You Are Everything”.)
“Johnny B. Goode” and how it came about.
How do they keep going day after day on a year-long tour? Are they still hungry for it?
What happens next with Judas Priest?
Violence in heavy metal.
Please enjoy this classic Rob Halford interview that I almost wore right out as a kid. Lots of info here that is interesting to this day!
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!
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 onFacebook!
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!
I never say this, but this time it’s true: Our first weekend at the cottage was absolutely perfect. Without a hitch. Exactly as planned, right down to the last detail. And loaded with new music!
The road trip began at 5:15 on Thursday night, April 25. Traffic was heavy, but not as heavy as the music! (We may need to look for another route out of town next time, as it took us almost half an hour just to escape Kitchener.) I had decided early in the week that the first road album of 2024 had to be Invincible Shield by Judas Priest! I had no doubt it would be one of the best road albums of the year. So confident was I, that I packed up my copy for Friday night’s Grab A Stack of Rock – Top 11 Albums to Play with the Windows Down. And I was right. “Crown of Horns” was the singalong track, though there were no duds. The album comes to a natural close on “Giants in the Sky” which has a classic Priest ending, but it’s not over yet! The bonus tracks give you a little extra road play, with a second ending in “The Lodger”. Brilliant album that kept us energized for the drive.
Priest couldn’t take us the whole way. When the Invincible Shield had ended, we moved onto Bruce Dickinson’s Mandrake Project. I haven’t had the time to absorb it yet, but Jen really enjoyed the album as we pulled down our little dirt road and into the driveway.
Everything was exactly as I left it back in October.
Taking my speakers out of storage, and making myself comfortable on the cool front deck, I chose the first porch album of the season. I didn’t want something as heavy rocking. Nor did I want something mellow and acoustic. This calls for the Arkells!
“We got gas in the tank to go all night,” sang Max Kerman from my porch. I danced away to this perfect evening. Rally Cry is the album I connected with the least last summer, being more political and less personal. This time it hit all the right spots, scratched all the itches, and began the season on the right note.
Jen noticed that I was joking around and more giddy than usual.
“Because I’m happy,” I said. “I feel alive again. This is what I had been waiting for.”
Friday was forecast as a summery, sunny day. We started early by picking up the first steaks of the season at the Beefway. We chose one porterhouse and one ribeye. This is our place to buy meat. There’s nobody better around. We stocked up on fish, pies, bacon and cooking oil. I had duck for lunch, and hot dogs and hamburgers in the evening.
For now, it was time for the main event: the first Grab A Stack of Rock from the cottage! It was a 3 PM afternoon show, and Jex was on board with his Top 11 Road Songs, in contrast to my album picks. Once again, everything went really well! Though Jex was late with work (the only unscripted thing about it), it will go down as one of my favourite shows ever. The roaring fire in the background was something new. I love playing with my visual setting, on Grab A Stack of Rock, at the cottage. Thank you Jex for an amazing start to the year. I hope we can do more, but even if we can’t, I got to do the fireside show that I had hoped for. Scratch that off the list.
The rain began Saturday, but it only got warmer. Another day on the front porch was in order, but first we went into town to see what was new.
We hit up a thrift store. I keep seeing all these guys on Facebook buying everything they can at thrift stores. I don’t know what they do with the CDs afterwards. Do their play their new Trisha Yearwood albums? Do they try and flip them? I found nothing in the gospel and country that they had, except for one signed CD by an unknown artist. The Facebook people would have bought them all; I chose none. I don’t buy for investment and I don’t really need a lot of music “on spec” when I barely have time to enjoy what I own.
Saturday was a weird day. It’s hard to explain exactly what happened, but as the day went on the feeling got more intense. I was having Deja Vu feelings every few minutes. It wasn’t specific memories, just…overall feelings. They were usually centered around people from my childhood, but I don’t know why. I would be cooking steaks in the back yard, and having Deja Vu feelings from grade school, but I was unable to nail down any specific memories. It was just a weird feeling like, “I have done this before,” but unable to identify a specific memory. I just felt like it was childhood. It intensified at dinner time. Perhaps the aromas of the cooking brought me back to Saturday dinners at the table, with steak and corn. Our steaks were perfect.
I mentioned earlier that everything went down without a hitch. That is not entirely true….
The Toronto Maple Leafs shit the bed. We shall not discuss this. It is not a good subject.
Otherwise, everything went perfect. I was starting to feel sad on Sunday morning, as I did the dishes and packed my bags up. Deciding what to bring back home and what to leave behind, I felt sad.
“Not this time,” I said, and I fought it back.
We played Kiss on the way home. Unmasked, Rock and Roll Over, and Asylum. These albums of childhood happiness drove the sadness away, and I woke up Monday morning feeling good.
This year’s first weekend at the cottage was a diametric contrast to 2023, which ended prematurely when I decided to go home early.
2023’s first weekend began with anxiety, as my former co-host was focused only on her solo show, and did not seem to care at all what I was doing. That weekend was not just supposed to be my return to the lake, but also hers. This is where we met (online) and bonded. I could not wait to return and do it again. She couldn’t seem more disinterested. She began stripping online that weekend, and I knew the friendship was all but over. I knew that was a road I could not follow, and I knew she wanted me to, even though she refused to come right out and say it. The writing was on the wall, that cold and rainy weekend. Within seven days, the friendship had ended, as I knew it would. She would never join me at the cottage again, even though we had spent six months planning it.
Not this time.
2024 is off to the right start. Even if Jex can’t do as many summer shows with me this year, we accomplished what we set out to do. An amazing weekend was had. The music we road tested passed the gauntlet, and we are ready to get on with the summer.
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.
Last night I had the pleasure of interviewing bassist Harper on the subject of Kiss and more. Topics covered:
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