RECORD STORE TALES PART 119: Judas Is Rising In Hamilton, Ontario
Feburary, 2005. The week before Judas Priest’s new Angel of Retribution comeback album was about to drop.
I was on the road again, this time working in Hamilton Ontario. I don’t remember the circumstances anymore. Store after store, they all blended together. I’m sure it was another staffing crisis, again. I dutifully hit the road to Hamilton and helped put out whatever fire was happening. I do remember that in the chaos I had forgotten to do something at my home store, where I was also pulling double duty. I remember catching shit for whatever it was, while unwrapping those shiny new awesome Priest discs.
The burden of sin echoes the prophecy Ascending from Hell, forever despising Judas is rising
I remember that the store was really bad shape, really badly organized. Albums were everywhere, just filed carelessly, and a lot had gotten lost somewhere in the netherworld of obscure genres. Cases had gone missing, but so had ther actual CD’s behind the counter. So to keep me busy, there was a list of missing discs and sections to organize.
There was plenty of time to do this. I don’t know how that store stayed in business, because the days that I spent there were really slow. I remember playing almost an entire CD of the Mr. Bergis prank phone calls while I organized sections, because over an hour had passed before the last soul walked through my doors! Not including me, as I went out to my car to get the CD.
Lunch time wasn’t too bad, as a lot of surprisingly polite highschool kids frequented the store at lunch. They didn’t buy a lot, but they were pleasant enough and it was better than picking my nose. That was refreshing, most highschool kids at my home store were pricks.
White bolts of lightning Came out of nowhere Blinded the darkness Created the storm
It was pretty much just the kids that were tolerable. The adults, not so much! I remember opening up one morning and the first people in were selling a large box of discs. They were a pain in the ass. Everything I did was, “Oh, the regular person does it another way,” or “The regular person pays more for that one,” or “The regular person doesn’t ask me for ID.”
It sucked being an irregular person!
There was also this one fellow looking for a Christmas song by the Eagles. I knew this was on their recent box set, which I verified on Allmusic and told him. I didn’t have a copy of the box set, since we were a used CD store and nobody had traded one in, which I explained to him.
“No problem, I don’t want to buy it. I just want to hear it. Can you play it?”
Unfortunately in 2005 that wasn’t possible, not with the computers we had, and any websites that would have allowed me to play music were blocked anyway. Upper management was more worried about staff sitting there mucking around on the internet, than being able to play a song sample for customers.
“You can’t play it for me? Seriously? That’s useless!” said the nice man, as he walked out.
Forged out of flame from chaos to destiny Bringer of pain, forever undying Judas is rising
All told, Hamilton was another “fun” and “exciting” road trip for me. The only good thing that happened was the chance to play the new Priest in store. Not only was there no upper management to tell me to turn it off, but it wasn’t even out yet. Sneak preview for my ears only, in an empty store, private audience of one! Judas is rising indeed!
In the early days, Tuesdays were one of the busiest days of the week. That was the day that new releases came out. We’d also re-stock all our other stuff that day too. Canpar would show up with several boxes which you would crack open to gander at the goodies inside. It was also cool to see the new releases for the first time. Checking out the album covers, the song titles, stocking them, seeing how they’d sell. Any time there was a new release that I was personally into, it was twice as fun.
I still remember on my very first Tuesday, April Wine’s latest album Frigate came out. I remember thinking, “April Wine? Do people still buy new April Wine albums?” (They didn’t.)
In the days before computers you’d have to make an inventory tag for each new release. That was your trigger to re-order the title. You’d put the tag on one copy of the CD. If that copy of the CD was bought, you’d take the tag off, and put it on another. When there were none left, you’d file that tag. (We always filed by record company – there were more record companies back then, many have merged.) Then come order day (Mondays) you’d go through the tags and re-order things that were sold out.
I remember when Kiss’ MTV Unplugged came out in March 1996. Trevor was working the day shift, me the night.
“I left the Kiss Unplugged for you to make the tag.”
Maybe only a record store guy would get it, but that was cool of him. That inventory tag would be in the store forever. Little things like that meant something to us.
I remember when Radiohead put out The Bends. We ordered three copies, and sold out immediately! Imagine that today — ordering three copies! But back then, as far as we were concerned, they were a band with one novelty hit.
The worst new release Tuesdays were the ones where we didn’t get something important. Maybe the distributors stiffed us on an in-demand title. Maybe we just missed some new hip-hop artist that we’d never heard of. It would happen all the time.
I would always try to get in rock titles that I knew we could sell. Rock wasn’t huge in the mid-90’s, but I did carry the flag. I made sure we ordered 5 copies of Queensryche’s Hear In The Now Frontier album in 1997, which we sold out. Then I ordered three more, which I also sold. In fact, I sold out of that faster than I sold out of Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous second album (which was twice the price, however). I also carried Bruce Dickinson’s Accident of Birth. I sold out of that one. Even though the numbers were insignificant as far as our store sales went, I felt good that we were at least bearing the flag for rock during the 90’s. Believe it or not, in 1997, we didn’t even carry the new Judas Priest. That’s how bad it was for metal at the time. I ordered one copy for myself, and just one copy.
New release Tuesdays were a long day – you had to rearrange the charts to accomodate for the new releases, and sometimes in the old days when we had more new releases, you wouldn’t even finish stocking until the next day. Sometimes your fingers were sore from applying peel-and-stick security tags. The excitement of new release Tuesdays, and the surprises in store, meant it was always a shift to look forward to.
The Great Change happened around the turn of the millennium.
Prior to that, CD sales were fast and furious. DVD sales had begun to replace VHS sales. We still carried blank cassette tapes. Not too many people were downloading music. Most people weren’t even connected to the internet yet. I still had friends who would come over to use it, and I only got it in mid ’98.
Then I noticed a change. Cassette sales dwindled while requests for blank CD’s increased. Initially we resisted carrying blank CD’s. We thought by doing so, we would be unintentionally killing a CD sale. Eventually we began carrying blank discs, when they started dropping in price. They, they took off. We started hearing about Napster. And Metallica. Metallica fans began selling off their discs.
I remember one guying coming in with a great selection of Metallica discs. All the albums, plus the Live Sh*t box set.
“Wow, this is a great Metallica collection you have here,” I commented as I went through the discs.
“Thanks. I’m selling them because of that fucking asshole Lars. I ripped them all to my computer and now he can go fuck himself.”
I’ll never forget that because at first I felt like, “Well, that doesn’t really do anything to Lars, you already paid for the discs and gave him your money,” but I guess it was the principle of the thing. People were really pissed off. And that represented a huge change. People always bitched about CD prices. $24 for a regularly priced disc, that’s a lot of money. I used to get two albums for that money in 1986. There’d never been a satisfactory answer as to why a kid had to pay $24.99 for the new Judas Priest in 1998. And believe me, it wasn’t the stores ripping off the kids. The margin we made on new CDs could barely be called profit.
Over the next five years, I watched CD prices and sales drop, while we were forced to diversify in order to stay alive. We had already been carrying DVD’s. We started carrying McFarlane dolls. They were cool, but a lot of them were really limited. For example, for Kiss, we only got one Eric Carr, and two Aces. People would want the whole set, but all you’d have left was Paul and Gene.
Then bobble-heads came (which I hate, I absolutely hate bobble-heads). Then Osbournes family toys. Trivia games. Simpsons toys. Clocks. Posters. Books. Hats. CD wallets with a Linkin Park logo on them. Anything we could make a reasonable buck on, even if it was only marginally related to what we did, like the Simpsons toys. (We carried DVD’s, so Simpsons was marginally related.) Then we’d knock down whatever wasn’t selling to clearance prices, and try something else.
The only tangent that was really successful was Xbox and Playstation games. We had so many requests, and physically a game is identical to a CD or DVD, so games were a no brainer. People asked for them all the time. We had to educate ourselves from the ground up on game pricing and we jerry-rigged a way in our computer system to inventory them. However to me, the scent of decay was in the air. Because downloading had killed such a huge chunk of our music sales, the stores were nothing like the way I remembered.
Working in a store selling video games and bobble-heads wasn’t the dream job that started me on this path. I was always there for one reason: the music!
Sometimes, things just came into the store that no matter the cost, you had to get it. You’ve all seen Pawnstars, right? It could get that way. 99% of transactions were pretty ordinary, but sometimes you’d get a pretty wild score, and you couldn’t back down.
You’d see imports, singles, bootlegs, promos, special editions, bonus tracks, bonus discs, and sometimes damn near complete collections of several artists. Tom tells the legend of a guy who came in selling a near complete Zappa collection.
There was one guy that I just loved. We’ll call him C. He was addicted to hard rock, heavy metal, and Euro metal. He was a collector and he had numerous Japanese imports. And frequently, he sold us those Japanese imports, of just about anything decent. A few that weren’t so decent, but very very few. I don’t know where he got the stuff, and I didn’t ask. None of my business!
Thanks to C, I have a pretty close to complete collection of Japanese Harem Scarem imports, Bruce Dickinson, and Journey. Whoop de do for a lot of you, but these things are mucho expensivo to buy! Why?
In Japan, it is actually cheaper to buy a CD imported from America then their own (superior) domestic product. So the Japanese counteract this by putting bonus tracks on their domestic product. Much of time, these are songs specifically exclusive to Japan.
A really good example of a song written and recorded specifically for the Japanese market would be “Tokyo is Burning” from W.A.S.P.‘s K.F.D. album. Another would be “Himalaya” by Glenn Tipton. (Ignore that the Himalaya mountains are not in Japan, please, I’m guessing Glenn didn’t know that when he wrote it.)
There are collectors in every city and every town who pay premius prices to get these discs imported here from Japan. Average prices can run from $35 to $50 for a single disc, much more if you’re talking about multi-disc sets. The most I ever paid for a single Japanese disc (new) was $80 (Come Hell Or High Water by Deep Purple), and the least I paid (new) was the “Woman From Tokyo” single by the same band.
So back to the point, these discs were worth coin. And C might actually bring in 4 or 5 at a time. I recall he brought in 4 Harem Scarem imports at one time, each with bonus tracks.
Now, C wasn’t stupid. He knew that if he didn’t get what he wanted for the discs, he could try downtown where there were more collectors and afficianos, and fewer hockey moms. However, he also knew it would be much easier to come to me personally, because I knew what I was doing when it came to imports.
And frequently, since I was usually seeing stuff I wanted for my own collection, I’d be willing to up the ante when needed. Since I frequented Amazon, I knew exactly what these things were worth.
One of the coolest things he ever brought in was a Helloween Japanese box set, 4 discs. I’m shooting myself in the foot for not picking it up back then. I’ll never see it again, I’m sure.
Often, the Japanese imports were packaged with extra goodies: stickers, extra booklets, patches, posters. To find a used Japanese import with these goodies still intact was very rare. That ups the value as well. And for the ultimate collector, Japanese discs come with something called an obi-strip. They are a piece of paper with Japanese writing on it, that goes over the jewel case of the CD. This is what they look like: click to embiggen
Because the obi strip is actually outside the jewel case, it’s hard to keep, and most people end up throwing them away. Add a couple bucks to the end value of a CD if the obi strip is intact. See how this goes?
Unfortunatley, C usually threw out to obi strips, so most of my Japanese imports lack them. You can easily store the obi strip by putting your CD in a sandwich bag as you can see with my Bon Jovi single.
One of the drawbacks of dealing with C is that he became used to a certain level of money when he came in. And, nobody else liked C. They all hated him. I heard it had something to do with him chewing gum when he talked. Never mind the cool-ass shit he brought into the store that nobody else in town could get! So, negotiations could get heavy. He knew what his stuff was worth, and if I could have owned it all, I would have!
Another situation where negotiations could get fierce were with large sales. The largest I ever saw was an estate sale. I can’t remember how many discs we looked at. I’m thinking the number is close to 3000, all in one shot. I think they were in these big gray convention containers that could hold about 400 each. And there were 7 containers, plus a few boxes. And in this case, it was good, good shit. Sometimes, you’d buy a handful of crappy stuff just to get a mountain of good stuff. Because the seller often wanted them all gone and not to deal with them anymore. Clear slate.
When going through these big estate sales, you’d often have a pile of awesome jazz titles alone that probably numbered in the hundreds. Blues, same deal. Of course you’d also get boxes of crap, but sometimes you’d take it just to get to the blues and jazz titles.
Inevitably, there were times when you just could not justify asking as much as the customer wanted. I remember, very unhappily, having to turn down this Rolling Stones CBS years box set, which came with a bonus EP. The box even had this neat paper tongue. I just couldn’t give the guy what he wanted and still make any money off the thing.
Another one that sucked to turn down was the CultCollection 1984-1990 box set. This sucker is hard to find. I just couldn’t give the guy what he wanted. I wanted it for myself as it was, so I was willing to go even higher than the call of duty allowed. Alas, it was not to be. Thankfully, most of those tracks have been released on the Rare Cult boxed set(s), which I have…thanks to C!
Other great box sets I got from C: Black Sabbath‘s The Black Box. Bon Jovi’s 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong. Metalogy, by Judas Priest, complete with limited edition DVD. A complete Motley CrueMusic to Crash Your Car To box set with the poster and stuff still inside.
Sometimes you’d see stuff that, if you don’t grab it, you’ll never see it again. One of my treasures is an Aussie import of Faith No More‘s Angel Dust with a 4 song bonus disc called Free Concert in the Park. Snagged it. Never seen again. On the Faith No More front, I also picked up a split live bootleg album with King’s X called Kings of the Absurd. I have the first Tea Party album, which actually came in more than once. I paid at least $50 for it. Possibly $100, I don’t remember anymore. There was at least one album that we could sell for $100, which was Standing in the Dark by Platinum Blonde. And people would pay it. I was offered a $100 reward once to find the album, as in, whatever the CD cost if I found it, plus a $100 finder’s fee. I never did find it, but I later picked up Alien Shores at a cool hole in the wall in Stratford, and gave it to Peter.
Nowadays, just about everything I want is available from my sofa, even if it’s located in Japan. eBay and Amazon have changed everything about finding rare music. Just a few weeks ago I snagged the Japanese disc of You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best!! by Kiss. Been hunting for that since 1996. Never seen it for sale anywhere, and the one I got was mint. Got it for $40. Incredibly, a month or so ago, I found one of the last two Maiden singles that I still needed. I got “Hallowed Be Thy Name (Live)” for $35. This single, thought at the time to be Dickinson’s swan song with the band, features a cover of Eddie impaling Bruce through the chest!
My advice to aspiring collectors out there: Pick your #1 favourite band, and start on Wikipedia. Explore the discography, and see what you’re missing. Check eBay and see what the pricing is like. Then hunt until you find one at the right price. Good luck!
Another suggestion from Tommy Morais, my Amazon rock buddy from the east! He wants to read about glam rock bands, and Canadian bands! I played a lot of each at the store, especially in the earliest days. I’m gonna throw some prog and metal in here too. Here’s some of my fondest memories.
LeBRAIN’S STORE-PLAY CLASSICS!
1996. We had just opened our flagship store, and I was selected as manager. This meant I’d be working alone for most of the day, and I could play what I wanted. In the earliest days there were fewer rules. The boss might make fun of me for playing Poison, but in the old days, he never told me to take it off as long as it was only once in a while.
I remember playing glam metal stuff like:
Poison – Native Tongue. I enjoyed trying to turn kids onto music they’d like, but would never touch if they knew who it was. It sometimes worked! I think I sold one copy of Native Tongue that way, anyway.
Motley Crue – self titled. This is in my top three Motley records of all time. The one without Vince Neil. A guy from the HMV store in Waterloo gave me props for playing it. I once sold it to a guy who hated the latest Crue, Generation Swine. I turned him onto self titled instead. Instant fan.
David Lee Roth – Your Filthy Little Mouth. I played this a shit-ton in the spring of 1995 too. I don’t know why I like it so much, it’s so cheesey. Dave does country! Dave does reggae! Dave does jazzy loungy stuff! Dave does VH! But Dave does write hilarious lyrics, and I did like that.
Van Halen – Any time, any where, any how. But any time we had a copy of 1984? Hell yeah! And you couldn’t keep Best Of Volume I in stock for very long. Certainly not if you played it. The first year or two it was out, I probably sold it every time I played it!
Def Leppard – Slang. Again, much like the Poison and Crue, I was trying to turn new kids onto these classic bands that had explored new directions. Unfortunately, Slang sold like shit. I think it was too different for the old fans, and too old for the new fans.
And now let’s talk about Prog rock. Ashleigh used to call prog music “smart-guy rock”. That’s one reason why I wanted to play it every shift we shared. I was trying to show her I was a smart guy, see?
Marillion – Misplaced Childhood. I played Marillion so frequently, that my co-workers Matty K and Ashleigh knew the words to some songs. Unfortunately, they didn’t consider that a good thing.
Fish – Kettle of Fish. See above!
Dream Theater – Images and Words. This came in so rarely, that when it did you had to play it. It always sold if you played it. We had so many musicians and wanna be’s (like me) coming into the store, they inevitably would ask what the fuck is this? This one kid, a drummer named Curtis, loved Dream Theater. I sold him his first Dream Theater. Do you know how cool that is, selling somebody their first Dream Theater? Curtis is a fantastic musician. He’s jammed with my sister, actually.
Rush – Moving Pictures. Like nails on a chalkboard to the girls in the Operations staff. Could not play this if they were in the city, let alone the store. But my fuck, what an album. I remember Tom put a sticker on it that said, “Best album of the 80’s!”. I thought to myself, “Then I need to hear the whole thing!” I had never heard “Vital Signs” before. I am sure Matty K remembers to this day, “Everybody got to evelate from the norm”.
And speaking of Rush! I did a lot of Canadian themes. We had a 5 disc changer. A lot of the time, I would specifically pick 5 Canadian artists to take up a shift. You’d often hear:
Sloan – 4 Nights at the Palais Royale. In my opinion one of the top five live albums of all time. It is also my favourite Sloan album.
Stompin’ Tom Connors – Anything we had in the store would work, as he didn’t come in frequently. Unfortunately, Stompin’ Tom didn’t fare too well for store play in Kitchener. Nobody seems to like him in this town.
Rush – duh?
Triumph – ditto.
Kim Mitchell / Max Webster – Another artist our Operations people hated. I did one entire 5 disc shuffle of nothing but Kim and Max. Kim was playing in town that day so I was hoping to drum up some sales. I failed to do so, but I did try. I was told to remove the Kim and Max from the player.
Helix / Brian Vollmer – I’d play Helix when it was in, which was infrequent. I remember playing the Brian Vollmer solo album for Kevin, one of the guys that ended up in my wedding party. I played the song “Good Times Don’t Get Better Than This” in the store. I thought he would enjoy it. Unfortunately, he did not. I believe the words he used were, “This is not good.” Kevin, I kindly submit that I strongly disagree to this day.
Even more rarely though came the opportunity to play the early stuff, the stuff with Brent Doerner singing lead. Once — just once — Breaking Loose and White Lace & Black Leather came in. I’m kicking myself for not buying them. But when they were in store, I played “Billy Oxygen” on repeat for about 20 minutes.
Oscar Peterson – I only had the opportunity to do that once though.
Voivod – self titled. The first one with Newsted. Metallica had come out with St. Anger and a lot of fans didn’t like it. I tried to sell this, which was more traditionally prog metal like old Metallica.
Incidentally, at the same time, I was training a new franchisee around that time. He was amused by how excited I was that the album Angel Rat, by Voivod, had come in, with 3D glasses intact. I explained that usually these would be missing, but the CD was mint! And “Clouds In My House” sounded great in-store!
Voivod crosses the boundary from prog into metal (or is it vice versa?), but I certainly did play a lot of metal in the store.
Bruce Dickinson – Balls To Picasso. I played this virtually every shift during the fall of 1994. At the time, I thought “Tears of the Dragon” and “Change of Heart” were among the deepest songs I’d ever heard. Yeah, well.
Iron Maiden – Brave New World. I love this album. Matty K knows every word of “Blood Brothers”.
G//Z/R – Plastic Planet. Easily the heavist thing I have ever played in store. Even I was uncomfortable!
sHeavy – The Electric Sleep. Incidentally, the greatest Black Sabbath album that was not made by Black Sabbath. Every time, people would ask, “Is this the new Ozzy?” Every time. You could put money on it.
Judas Priest – Turbo. It was the only one I could get away with!
Man, those were good times! I am sure I could write another dozen of these. I mean, we played a lot of music. From Esquivel to Brushy One-String to Pansy Division to Jaymz Bee & the Royal Jelly Orchestra, we tried and sampled everything.
Some record store peolple had shady musical pasts. In the effort to appear cool, they would conceal any musical sins of the past.
Now, my musical sins are well on record. Thanks to my sister, who emailed Craig Fee at 107.5 Dave FM on the Friday of LeBrain week, the entire region knows my musical sins. But I don’t embarass easily. She thought I’d be embarassed by:
Melanie C – I don’t own it anymore. It was her “rock” album produced with Rick Rubin.
Hilary Duff – I liked one song called “The Getaway” that happened to work really well on a CD I made (cross-faded into “Somebody’s Out There” by Triumph).
Avril Lavigne – I still stand by her second album, which is really guitar heavy. If it had solos and nobody knew who she was, it would have been considered metal.
Craig ended up spinning some New Kids clips in her honour. She was a lot more embarassed than I was. I wish I’d told Craig she also liked Rick Astley. (hint)
Anyways, I don’t embarass musically. I did have a misguided period in the 90’s when it was hard to find good new rock music, where I’d listen to anything. I’ve since realized that there was a difference between albums you’d listen to at work, and albums you’d listen to at home. Not necessarily the same thing. I got rid of everything that I never listened to at home.
Some people at our store were not quite like me. There was one guy who was a massive Barenaked Ladies fan back in grade school, but never admitted it. My sister went to school with him and distinctly remembers that BNL was his favourite band one year. Now that he’d moved on to the Grateful Dead, he didn’t want anyone to know his dirty secret.
This is me in grade 9, baby.
Another had a massive crush on W. Axl Rose, and used to love Guns N’ Roses — she shall remain anonymous, since she doesn’t like people knowing this. I don’t know how she fell out of love with Axl, but I do know that she hates stuff like GN’R now, both lyrically and musically. I have a hard time understanding how you can swing from one side of the spectrum to the other like that!
And there was another who thought that Limp Bizkit was “#1”! The following year, she was over Durst and onto the next one. I can remember pictures of Durst being taped up everywhere from the counter to the bathroom. Our store was a Shrine to Durst. I also remember one guy stroked out his name on one of the posters…
Fred Durst Worst!
Meanwhile, I thought it would be more scenic to put up a giant poster of Kittie in the office. I think I was right.
I got made fun of pretty hard during my entire tenure for the music I liked. The same guy who used to like BNL used to call me Cheese Metal Mike. Cheeser, for short. Well, at least I still listen to Iron Maiden. Another made fun of me for buying Tesla. The last album I got from Tesla was their recent covers set, Real to Reel, which I consider easily in my top five cover albums of all time. Still love the band. They kick a fuck of a lot more ass than, say, Mnmnmickelback….
There’s not much that embarasses me, certainly not music. Girls I used to have crushes on, yeah. Absolutely. We won’t go there. I already mentioned Sporty Spice and that’s enough from me. If my sister had emailed Craig and had him broadcast the names of all my old celeb crushes, she could have really embarassed me. Don’t get any ideas, Kathryn.
(OK one more. I really liked Elizabeth Hurley at the time of Austin Powers. Something about that accent. (I ended up marrying a Brit, a girl of Sunderland heritage.) A year later it was Kate Winslet, and a couple years after that, it was the lead singer of Scratching Post, whatever her name was…Scratching Post had one good song. I wish I could remember the name of it. I saw them live a couple times and they were really good live. Shame their albums sucked so bad. )
To me, the most embarassing thing has to be coming in and selling every CD by a band. If you have every CD, it means you really liked them. I’ll never forget the guy with the Motley Crue tattoo who sold every Motley Crue CD when Vince was out of the band. You’d also see the odd guy here or there who found God and unload a massive amount of music that they find distasteful. I got a lot of my metal collection that way.
I’m cool with anybody who finds God, no problem there. But don’t tell me I’m going to h-e-double-hockeysticks for listening to Ozzy Osbourne. That happened, in the store. This one guy told me that Ozzy was the pathway to hell.
I responded, “Have you heard his song called ‘Killer of Giants’?”
“No, I won’t listen to him at all,” said the guy.
“Well, ‘Killer of Giants’ is an anti-nuclear war song. All of his old Black Sabbath lyrics are also anti-war or anti-nukes. I would say that Ozzy and God have a common agenda when it comes to peace among mankind.”
He had no answer for that one.
In short, I’ve never been embarassed about anything I’ve listened to, be it the worst Mike Patton album I’ve ever heard (Adult Themes for Voice) or be it Puff Daddy’s remake of “Kashmir” with Jimmy Page and Tom Morello. I don’t give a crap. People have been making fun of my listening to tastes since grade 7, ever since I found Kiss. (see Part 3: My First Kiss)
I got called out in grade 8 for wearing a Judas Priest shirt to school, in front of everyone. It was a Catholic school. How the hell was I to know that “Judas priest!” was a swear word back in the 1950’s or something! I was embarassed for the moment, but my love for the Priest has only solidified over the years. Through the departure of Halford to the Ripper years to the glorious comeback, it’s all been good with me. (I’ll talk more about how heavy metal and Catholic schools didn’t mix back in 1985 in the future.)
Don’t let anybody tell you what music is good and what music is crap. Including me! If you like something because your friends like it, that’s not sincere. If you honestly sincerely like something because it’s resonating with some part of you, then it’s true and good!
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE – Rated R (2010 deluxe edition)
Any serious heavy rock fan worth his or her salt own at least one QOTSA album, usually Rated R. I mean, let’s face it…do you need integrity in your rock music? Could you give a crap about comercial stuff? Rated R is the album for you. While my personal preference is the Songs For The Deaf LP, Rated R is a close second.
This two disc edition is awesome and renders obselete any old versions you own. I happily gave away my previous UK only two-disc edition which came with the “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer” single and video. This new deluxe edition even replicates the colour scheme of the Rated X LP version which had the bonus track “Ode To Clarrisa” (included here).
Every B-side from the Rated R years are included, live and studio. It also includes a concert, live at Reading from 2000, expertly captured by the BBC. That concert is awesome, containing QOTSA hits as well as the Desert Sessions classic “Millionaire”. (Later re-recorded by QOTSA on Songs For The Deaf as “You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire”. Personally, I don’t think you can go wrong with live QOTSA, and this isn’t just live QOTSA…this is live QOTSA with Nick Olivieri still in the band. I lost interest to a certain degree after Nick was fired.
What of the album itself? Well, of course this edition sounds awesome. You should know some of these songs, especially “Feel Good Hit”. You may have heard “Monsters In The Parasol” from Desert Sessions or the QOTSA live album. Mark Lanegan’s vocal turn on “In the Fade” is awesome, and forshadows that singer’s awesome work on Songs For The Deaf. “Leg Of Lamb” is awkward but undeniably catchy. My personal favourite track is “Better Living Through Chemistry”, exotic, atmospheric and grooving. Perfect for late nights with a beverage by the campfire.
Noteworthy cameo: Rob Halford (who was not in Judas Priest at the time, but in fact was in Halford). He’s on “Feel Good Hit of the Summer”. I couldn’t hear it at first, but, according to Uncle Meat:
Yes you can…put the song on right now…I am serious…do it!! Listen closely at about the 2:03 mark … the little cuh-caine … about 2:03 or 2:04. Go do it!
He’s right! That’s Halford!
Pick this up, if you’re only going to own one QOTSA album, this one is fully loaded and well worth the cash!
Of all my highschool friends, there was only one who had a job that he enjoyed. Peter worked at Steve’s TV, still pretty much the best video store in town. All my other friends worked at the typical places. One guy worked at the closest convenience store every weekend. Two more worked in the McDonalds kitchen. A few more worked at rival fast food places. All pretty typical for kids at age 16.
Peter on the other hand (who later became the best man at my wedding) had his wicked job. Back then there wasn’t much to choose from, the biggest chain store was Jumbo Video. Everything else was pretty crusty, except for Steve’s TV. Steve’s started in the late 70’s. Back then they had one room, one wall of videos (3/4 VHS and ¼ Betamax) and a small bin of video discs, the precursor of laserdisc. They used to offer package deals: Rent a VCR and five movies for a weekend for a special price. Not too many people had VCRs back then.
The store grew and grew and relocated pretty close to home. That’s where Peter worked during highschool, that and learning an electrical trade with his dad later on. We used to call him “TV Pete” because TV seemed to be his big love back then, so working at Steve’s TV was totally appropriate. Peter used to borrow movies from work, tape them, and bring them back the next day. Peter always had copies of all the new releases, and a library hundred of titles big.
I first became interested in working in a record store in highschool. There was a small record store in Kincardine, Ontario that sold a mix of CDs, LPs and cassettes. I bought a couple titles there over the years, including Out of This World by Europe, and Judas Priest’s monstrous Painkiller.
I thought to myself, what a great summer job that would be.
Instead, during the fall of 1989 my dad told me to go into the local Zehrs store, and speak to a man named Don. I went out and got myself a haircut. It was the first time I had a hair cut in 5 years where I didn’t ask the barber to “leave the back long.” I cut ‘er all off. It was a bit of a blow, as my hair had become…well, not great, but it was long enough that it was my trademark.
Neck still itchy from the clippers, and wearing some ill-fitting dress pants, I walked into the Zehrs store. The conversation was brief. My dad must have told the guy that I was getting my hair cut, because he told me my hair was “fine”. He outlined the requirements of the job, and asked me if I could start the next day. I accepted. I was employed! I began plotting my next order from Columbia House.
During my tenure there I bought my first CD. (Trash by Alice Cooper.) Other albuims to follow were Fair Warning by Van Halen, Damn Yankees, Slip of the Tongue (Whitesnake), the charity CD Stairway to Heaven / Highway to Hell, Black Sabbath’s We Sold Our Souls For Rock And Roll, Ozzy’s Live E.P., and the debut album by Badlands were all bought during the first few months with Zehrs money.
I didn’t like the hours, which interfered with the Thursday edition of the Pepsi Power Hour. I still caught the Tuesday edition on most weeks, but this meant my metal intake was now cut in half!
It was a job. That’s all it was. It was something to keep my dad off my back and make money to spend on albums. That was pretty much it. Monthly, the Columbia House catalogue would arrive. There was never a month when nothing was ordered. I was trying to explore everything.
But that was nothing, next to the dream job.
1993. Fuck yeah.
In July 1994 my dad once again came to me. “Go see the guy at the record store in the mall. He wants to talk to you.” I put on my cowboy boots (the closest thing I had to dress shoes) and walked over to the mall once again, the same fucking mall where the Zehrs was. It was awesome.
The store had been open three years. There had always been a place in the mall to buy music. This new store was replacing a failed A&A Records, and many predicted the same thing would happen to the new store. The young guy who started it came to my dad for help setting up an account. My dad managed the Canada Trust at the mall, and because of that connection, I was the first person thought of when he needed a new part-timer.
The owner worked all day, all night, every day, and rarely even paid himself for three years to keep that place afloat. He employed his brother and during the busy times hired part-timers. Then he hit upon the idea of selling his own used CDs at the store. He brought in a tray, marked it to about half price, and all the discs sold. He worked up a pricing scheme and was soon buying and selling. That’s when I came into the picture.
I’d already known about the used discs. I bought Kiss My Ass for $11.99 there, the previous week. It had just come out so I was fine with saving $10 on something I only really wanted a couple songs from. Other than the used stuff though, everything there was overpriced. It was one of those stores, the ones at the shitty malls with no selection and high prices. That was all about to change and I got to be in on the ground floor.
I worked there in training for the whole summer, and by fall I was closing all by myself. Those were the best nights. Those were the nights when I got to pick the music myself. We didn’t have many store play discs, and some albums were out of bounds anyway, but I gave a few a shot. Jar of Flies by Alice In Chains was in the player pretty much every night. I also found that I really liked David Lee Roth’s “multi-faceted” latest, Your Filthy Little Mouth. The only problem: We had a stack of 10 of ’em, and nobody wanted any of them.
The store owner was a shrewd businessman but musically clueless. While he was playing Anita Baker and Don Henley, kids were coming in asking for Pigface, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, and Ministry. He ordered a pile of David Lee Roth discs, in 1994. What the hell was he thinking? He did the same thing again with Motley Crue’s latest. There must have been 20 of them sitting there.
Very quickly in my tenure there, I picked up many treasures. Rush Chronicles, a King’s X / Faith No More split live bootleg, numerous rare singles, and deleted back catalogue titles like Twisted Sister’s You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll. We had the catalogues in front of us, so any time something decent was deleted, I made sure I snapped it up. I already had a lot of this stuff on cassette, but cassettes don’t last and I wanted to replace them all.
During my time at the record store, I pretty much accomplished that. If you come back, I’ll share some of the cool treasures that you may never see yourselves.
RECORD STORE TALES PART 1: The Beginning – “Run To The Hills”
I still remember the first time I heard Iron Maiden.
Maybe it’s this way for some when they remember the first time they heard the Beatles, or the Stones. Or for those younger, maybe it’s like the first time they heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Fake Plastic Trees”. The first time I heard “Run To The Hills” was monumental to me, but I didn’t realize yet what the massive impact would be.
It was Christmas of 1984. I was a mere 12 year old looking for musical direction. I hadn’t been much interested in music prior to that. I had albums by Quiet Riot and Styx, but my majority of my collection was John Williams’ movie soundtracks.
I really wasn’t interested in music yet. I had yet to dedicate myself to any particular style. At the same time that I would listen to Quiet Riot, I somehow also thought Billy Ocean was cool.
Well, the video for “Loverboy” was nifty….
I had always been kinda afraid of heavy metal bands. Guys that wore spikes, like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden. Kiss literally scared me when I was buying my first comics (there were always ads for Kiss posters inside comic books), and I know I wasn’t the only one. The neighbor kid was scared to death of Gene Simmons spitting up blood. Bands like Maiden and Priest looked like a bunch of hooligans, definitely up to no good, definitely out to hurt people, including kids.
Boxing Day, Bob came over. It was tradition, every Boxing Day, Bob and I would get together and compare our Christmas scores. Bob scored a cassette tape called Masters Of Metal Volume 2 and I was given an Atari game called Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron.
In my basement, we sat down to play the video game. Our goal was to take the game as far as humanly possible, to see what happened when you shot down so many planes that the Atari didn’t have enough characters to display it anymore. (Incidentally, disappointingly, like most Atari games, it just starts counting up from zero again.) We sat there playing that game so long that Bob had to go home and eat lunch, then come back. But what he left behind while eating was Masters Of Metal.
“Run To The Hills” came on. Some people speak of moments of clarity: That was my moment. The music was fast, powerful, dramatic and melodic. The lyrics were cool and you could mostly sing along. Most importantly, the music and lyrics seemed to combine with the game experience. When Dickinson was singing “Run to the hills, run for your lives!” it meshed perfectly! Too bad Aces High wasn’t out yet!
A moment like that could quickly pass into history and be forgotten for most people. As the day wore on, I realized that I had found something. This music kicked ass! I was brought up on movie soundtracks. This stuff had the same drama, but with guitars! This was even better than Quiet Riot and AC/DC, so I said at the time.
It didn’t end there of course. We played through Masters Of Metal, finding a few more diamonds. “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” By Judas Priest was definitely a close second to “Run To The Hills”. We were fixated on Accept’s “Balls To The Wall”. We’d play it over and over again laughing hysterically at the lyrics. But the song still rocked! I can still remember when MuchMusic started the Power Hour, and they played that video. There’s little Udo Dirkscheider, in his camo pants, and crew cut, rocking with these skinny German guys with long hair. It was fucking hilarious!
We skipped (what we then thought was) the crap…Lee Aaron, Anvil, Triumph. I grew into them later, particularly Triumph. Something to do with double guitars, maybe. I digress. We always came back to Iron Maiden. Always.
Bob would bring other tapes over as the months and years went by. W.A.S.P., Motley Crue, Black Sabbath. Now Bob’s a father of four who doesn’t listen to rock music anymore, which makes me sad in a way. I’m not sad for him, because he’s got a great family and always has. I’m more sad because I don’t think he can ever appreciate what impact our shared experiece of rocking out had on me. Listening to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and the rest. The was it, the beginning.
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