kitchener

VIDEO: Max the Axe – “I Don’t Advocate Drugs” live in Ontario – Lego animated by Harrison Kopp

From the album Live In Ontario, here is the second music video from the CD:  “I Don’t Advocate Drugs”.  This video was painstakingly animated, using real Lego bricks, by hand.  No AI here folks.  Bricks were collected to create these characters including all four members of the band:  Max the Axe (lead guitar), Uncle Meat (lead vocals), Mike Mitchell (bass), and Dr. Dave Haslam (drums).   Depicting a druggy trip and a stage performance by the band, look for several easter eggs referring to past Max the Axe songs, or even Dr Dave’s well-stated hatred of Transformers.

A magnificent job, Harrison!  Well done!

#1186: Reunion of the Legendariumites

RECORD STORE TALES #1186: Reunion of the Legendariumites

A sequel to #1182: The Legendarium of George
and #1184: The Legendarium of George: Gene Simmonsarillion

There we were, three men in our 50s, sipping hot drinks as old men do.  One of us is bald now.  One of us has grey, stringy hair.  The third one, perhaps having sampled the powers of longevity from the One Ring itself, had barely aged a day.  There he stood, tall and red:  the legendary Bob.

“What’s your drink?” I asked, having ordered a large coffee for everyone.

“I only drink tea,” he explained.  “I’ve never drank coffee actually.”

“I did not know that,” I replied.  You learn something new everyday, even about the guy you grew up with.

And so, Scott Peddle, myself and the legendary Bob gathered over hot beverages to catch up.  For Bob and I, it had been only a year and a half since the last funeral at which we reunited.  Lately, it has only been funerals.  For Scott, it was their first meeting since 1989, when Bob graduated highschool.

We smiled, we reacquainted, and we laughed.  It was good to be together again.  Our small trio was only a fraction of the old neighbourhood gang.  George, of course, is 10 years gone now.

“So I have to know, do you still listen to music?  And do you listen to the old stuff?” I asked Bob.

“Not so much; my kids like the current music.  One of my sons likes the old rock.”  I smiled.  Someone was continuing the legacy.

Scott then showed off his magnificent Kiss tattoos.  Both of us still love Kiss.  Some things have never changed.  Bob still has some of his old Iron Maiden picture discs.

Talk soon focused on the old neighbourhood.  The late George was older, and always a bit of a pervert.  He had no problem telling us what dirty song lyrics were really about.  “Let me ask you something,” I queried Bob.  “Did you know what a ‘love gun’ was?  Or did you think it was something else?  I thought it was like a gun that shot love potion, like in stories and movies.”  Bob agreed.  It didn’t occur to us that Paul Stanley was singing about his wiener.  Our innocent minds interpreted the lyrics innocently.

I remember a conversation with George about the Kiss song “Under the Gun”.  I assumed the song was about cars.  “Let’s hit the highway doing 69!” sang Paul Stanley.

“That’s not about driving,” said George, but declined to elaborate.  He was always the one with the dirty mind.

Coffee with Bob and Scott was probably the fastest two hours I’ve ever spent.  We spent just as much time talking about the past as the present.  What are you driving?  More like, what is your son driving?   Remember that time that Mike threw a lawn dart and hit Mrs. Reddecopp’s car?  Bob and I agreed to cover for me by blaming it on George.  It was the only time George was innocent, but got the blame anyway.  Most of the time he was the guilty party.  Not always.  We reminisced about all sorts of activities that we got into in the 80s.  Speaking from my own perspective, I think we felt entitled to own those streets as kids.  Cutting through a private parking lot to get to the mall quicker?  That was OUR route; we beat that path into the grass with our own feet, week after week.  How dare they fence it off!  What rebels we were.

Walking to the mall and Short Stop on a Saturday is a memory of something I miss.  Short Stop in those days was like a different store.  No liquor, but loads of comic books and magazines, candy and kites.  When we were young, we’d walk or bike and buy a comic and a candy bar.  When we were older, it was a rock magazine and a bag of chips.  We were, literally kids in a candy store, but the candy store was way better.

Conversation drifted back and forth from family to vehicles to work, but always circled back to George; the tie that still binds us.

I noticed something interesting.  Within the microcosm of our small suburban neighbourhood, there were subdivisions.  Scott Peddle was part of the “Secord Gang”, consisting of himself, George, and Sean and Todd Meyer.  I was in the Owen Avenue Gang, which featured George, Rob Szabo, Bob and his brother.  George’s house was the dividing line, thus he was in both groups.  Further down, there was the snootier Halliwell Gang, and so on.  These groups didn’t intermingle much, even though they were only meters apart.  When you’re a kid, meters may as well have been miles.

Before too long, two hours were behind us, and other duties beckoned.  We pledged to reunite again soon.  And we will.

Some things are as temporary as morning mist, others last a lifetime.  It’s a comforting thing to know.

 

#1184: The Legendarium of George: Gene Simmonsarillion

Much as Tolkien was reticent to write a sequel to Lord of the Rings (itself, technically a sequel), I was reluctant to talk about the Legendarium of George any further.  I thought I had said as much as was needed about this character and his adventures in 1980s Kitchener Ontario.  Upon further reflection, I realized that the story of George was incomplete, even insofar as public information was concerned.  If a story is private, it’s private, but if it was common knowledge in the neighbourhood, it’s safe to discuss.

RECORD STORE TALES #1184: The Legendarium of George: Gene Simmonsarillion

My sister and I hid in the garage.  We opened up the milkbox/mailbox from the inside, and pried open the mail slot with a stick.  Then, we waited.  And waited.  Some days, nothing would happen.  Others would be like pure gold; like finding the hord of Smaug.

If we were patient enough, the bass playing would begin.

It was easy to identify certain basslines, such as “100,000 Years”.  George would hit the first two notes – “Dm dmmmmmm…”, pause and hit them again just like Gene Simmons did on Kiss Alive!  And then…

“I’M SORRY TO HAVE TAKEN SO LONG, IT MUST HAVE BEEN A BITCH WHILE I WAS GONE…”

George half-yelled, and half-croaked out the lyrics to the song.  My sister and I sat there, laughing out loud but unheard by George.  He was enveloped in song.  If we had X-ray vision, we could have seen him in his room, headband holding his curls in place, wristbands on each arm, and absolutely mangling “100,000 Years”.

George was good entertainment.  He’d boast about how great he was, but we got to hear him loud and clear.

Then, suddenly, his mother would shriek from the kitchen below.

“WILLIAM!  SUPPER’S READY!”*

“I’ll be down when I’m done this song!” he’d yell back.

“WILLIAM!  GET DOWN HERE NOW!”

We never found out why his mother called him “William”.  That wasn’t even his middle name!  But that was the name she screamed when it was supper time, no matter where he was.  Usually he was down the street.  Everyone always knew when it was supper time at George’s house.

His mother was a character too.  One day she came over our house with a bag full of clothes that didn’t fit her or the kids anymore.  Take ’em, she said.  My mother threw this gross bag of clothes in the trash.  A few days later, George’s mom asked for the bag back.  “Oh I’m sorry, I donated it!” lied my mom wisely.  Who gives away a bag of clothes and then asks for it back?  George’s eccentricities were certainly genetic.

I remember some time around 1986 or 87, George was constantly on the shitlist with his parents.  Even if I wasn’t evesdropping, I could always hear them arguing from my bedroom window.  One afternoon I overheard his dad saying he was going to kick George out.  That was the day I wrote my first ever original song.  It was called “George Is Gone”, and it went something like this (to a jazzy rock beat).

“George is gone,
Yeah he’s really really gone,
George is gone,
Yeah he’s really really gone.”

[Repeat]

They never did kick out George, but he was around less and less as we got older.   I ran into him once at the Record Store, shopping with his mom.  That was the last time I ever saw him in person.

George may be gone, but thanks to the Legendarium of George, he’ll never be gone.

*Some recall that his mother yelled “GEORGIE!” when it was supper time.  It was probably both that and “WILLIAM”!

#1182: The Legendarium of George

RECORD STORE TALES #1182:  The Legendarium of George

Every neighborhood has a legend.  While in my own mind, I’d like to think that Bob Schipper and I were the legends, we were far too normal.  Oh sure, we were quirky, but we were not unique enough to be legends.   In our neighborhood, there was only one kid that was an absolute legend, and of his own making.  He was the obligatory “older kid” that had all the records, all the pornography, and reigned as the ultimate outcast.  That neighbor was George.

We lived in a relatively new subdivision.  When my parents bought their house, it was practically new.  Only one family owned it before.  Next door to us, George’s family had been there the longest.  Though he would only have been four years old, George always said he could remember when I was the new baby next door.

George was a dick from when he was just a kid.  He was also the ultimate neighborhood geek.  He had the big glasses.  He had the center-part.  But he was an enigma.  Even though he was most definitely a geek, he was also a braggart.  This probably came from his age, being the oldest kid on our street.  He was also one of the first kids to acquire a record collection, which meant there was often a reason to have to spend time with him, besides the times he’d just invite himself over.

His family was what you’d call dysfunctional today.  He never really had a chance, but George couldn’t be trusted.  While he could be sweet, he started young as a bad apple.

In one of my earliest memories, I was in my basement playing with Lego.  I built a colourful airplane.  I brought it outside to show George, and his two friends Todd and Sean.  “Make it bigger!” they egged me on.  I raced back inside and added another layer of bricks and brought it back out to show them.  “Bigger!  Make it even bigger!”  Eager for approval, I ran back inside and added another layer of multicolour bricks.  I leaped up the stairs and out the back door to show them again.  “Add more!  Keep adding!” they advised, and so I went back inside and added more bricks.  This went on approximately five times total.  The final time, I showed them my massive and impractical airplane, and George smashed it.  Laughing, they stole my bricks as I ran inside in tears.

Indeed, George soon earned a reputation as a thief.  In grade school, he was caught stealing Play-doh.  It became a well-known neighbourhood fact.  “George is a stealer!” said Michelle across the street.  It was like this black mark upon his house.  After he was caught, we didn’t see him around for a while.  He laid low.

Eventually the status quo returned, and George resumed joining the rest of the kids on the street in various activities.

We had a school with a baseball diamond and a tennis court nearby.  Two baseball diamonds in fact.  One summer afternoon, we were playing catch, but not on the diamond.  We were just playing in the schoolyard.  Someone threw George the ball; he ducked, and it went through the school window.

“Oooh George that’s your fault!”

“No it isn’t, you threw it too hard!”

“You should have caught it!”

We were all eager to throw George under the bus for that one.  We all felt he had it coming.

George would always bring two cans of pop with him when we went to the baseball diamond.  If you were thirsty, though, you didn’t bother asking George for a sip.

“These are mine for my diabetes,” he would always answer.

One of our weekend activities was playing “Pop 500” on the baseball diamond.  I don’t remember the rules, but the idea was to hit the ball as far as you could.  There was a regular group of us that played.  They included Bob Schipper, his brother John, George and his friends Todd Meyer and Scott Peddle.  It was well established that Bob was the best athlete in that group.  That wasn’t in dispute.  He was the biggest, strongest and fastest.  But George had his own ideas on how we ranked.

“Bob is the best at Pop 500,” he told me one afternoon.  “Then me, John, Todd, and you and Scott are in last place.”

He sure did think a lot of himself.  It seemed like he always had to be the best (or second best) at something.

Back to the Lego, when we were younger, George discovered this cartoon called Force Five.  It was a North American version of a few Japanese anime series.  Bob and I had never seen it or heard of it, but George was raving about this cartoon.  He built a Lego robot based on the show, but it was really shitty.  The arms and legs were just skinny little twigs that didn’t move, and it had a gun where its…well, where its dick would be.  Bob and I critiqued it fairly, but negatively.  However, we did take inspiration from George, and built our own robots.

We re-convened on my back porch with our robots.  Ours were cooler, had some movement and most importantly, didn’t have a gun for a penis.  (Oh, don’t worry, we’ll be talking about a different kind of “Love Gun” soon enough.)

George’s critique back at us was also in the negative, but for unexpected reasons.

“You see, yours are based on the idea of ‘robot’.  Mine is based on Force Five.”

Always had to be the best at something, to the point of basing the contest upon a show that neither Bob or I had heard of.  Sometimes it was hard to like George.

He was not the giving type, though he was always happy to show his younger neighbours his Playboy magazines.  I can distinctly remember one afternoon, we were out on the sidewalk, burning stuff with a magnifying glass.  I had an awesome plastic magnifying glass that could really burn.  For George though, burning holes in leaves and newspapers wasn’t entertaining enough.  He brought out a Playboy and encouraged us to burn the nipples.  That might have been the first pair of boobs I ever saw.

His young obsession with pornography put my parents on alert.  I think they considered George the neighbourhood pervert.  Indeed, he was the one who would introduce, shall we say, new terminology to our vocabularies.  He was the first one who had porno videos.  He would often talk about girls and sex, and at my age, I would have rather talked about Star Wars or comic books.

Because George was older, he was often first on board with many fads.  He had a Commodore computer early on, as well as a great collection of Transformers and GI Joes, including their accompanying comic books.  He had his own VCR, and he would borrow a second one from Todd to record porn videos.  And, he had a pretty killer record collection early on.  His favourite band was Kiss, and there is no question that without George, Kiss would not have been my favourite band.  When I discovered music, I spent a lot of time learning about Kiss, and other bands, from George.  He would bring his VCR over, and let me tape his music videos.

George’s big weakness was money.  He was stupid with money.  He would come into some money, and go to the comic store and buy a whole bunch of comics.  Then, six months later, he would get into something new, and sell off all his old stuff dirt cheap to fund his new obsession.  And so, he sold to me the first 24 or so issues of GI Joe: A Real American Hero for something like 50 cents each (except the early issues, which were a couple bucks).  This included the super rare first printing of issue 2, which I still have.  Unlike George, I kept every single thing I bought from him.  I still have everything.  This included G1 Optimus Prime, and a ton of early GI Joe figures and vehicles.  I have the GI Joe “MANTA” sailboard, which was mail-order only.  These things are priceless today.  He sold them to us for a few bucks.  Every time we came into some money, from allowance or chores, we could go over to his basement and buy a GI Joe toy.  This went on for a few weeks until he eventually sold everything, to buy records.  Because records were his new big thing.  Until CDs.  But let’s not jump ahead.

When George got into music, Kiss were his favourite band followed by Iron Maiden.  He quickly became a know-it-all.  He would play a tape, and try to stump us.  “Who’s this playing?” he asked.  We’d never heard the song before.  “I don’t know, Black Sabbath?”  He’d smirk and go, “NO, it’s Uriah Heep!”  This went on and on, to an annoying degree.  Bob and I decided to get our revenge and stump him instead.  Bob had recently acquired a cassette called Masters of Metal Vol. 2.  This compilation included a cool song called “Balls to the Wall” by a band called Accept.  “Who does this sound like to you?” asked Bob of me when he got it.  “It sounds like AC/DC to me,” I answered, considering the similarity between Brian Johnson’s grit, and Udo’s.

A plan was hatched.  We were going to put George in his place.

And so, in my back yard, gathered around a boom box, Bob challenged George to “name that band.”  Masters of Metal Vol. 2 was cued up to track five on side one:  “Balls to the Wall”.

George was quiet for the first minute of the track.

Then, “Watch the damned!” screamed Udo Dirkschneider from the speakers of that boom box.

Immediately George answered, “AC/DC”.

“No!  It’s Accept!”  exclaimed Bob in victory.

“Sign of victorrrrryyyy!” sang Udo behind us.

Bob and I stood up and high-fived in our own sign of victory.  George immediately tried to justify his mistake, by saying my stereo wasn’t very good quality, and that was the reason he got it wrong.  He certainly knew AC/DC when he heard it, he claimed, but my boom box was too cheap and crappy to tell the difference between AC/DC and Accept.

Sure…

Though George was seriously into music, as were Bob and I, there was one guy on the street that was miles ahead because he was in a band.  Rob Szabo is talented singer/songwriter today, but I remember when his favourite bands were Motley Crue and Stryper.  Rob had started playing with Peter Coulliard down the street.  He had even written and recorded two songs.  The second one was called “The Stroll”, and I can still hum it today.  George desperately wanted to be in that band.  He wanted to be cool.  He wanted to play in front of girls.  And Rob’s band needed a bassist.  George would hang out with Rob, watching him play, and Rob was kind enough to show him a few things on guitar.

George sold more of his stuff, and saved some money.  Soon, he had enough to buy a brand new bass.  He decided to surprise Rob one day by showing him.

“Look what I have!” he grinned.  “Now I’m your bassist!”  Only, George couldn’t play.  Rob was horrified.  He didn’t want this.  He was serious about music.  He also felt terribly guilty, because George bought the bass specifically because Rob needed a bass player!  For two weeks, George was technically “in the band”.   Rob made a copy of his two-song tape for George.  I was there when George played that tape for the girl he liked.  We were outside on the sidewalk, and George had his ghetto blaster in hand.  He played the first tune.

“That’s us!” he said.  “That’s my band.”  He wasn’t on the recording at all.

Like a kid who didn’t know how to break up with his girlfriend, Rob took a while to tell George he was “out” of the band.  He was crushed, but to his credit, he didn’t give up.

George kept practising.  Gene Simmons was his favourite bassist, followed by Steve Harris.  George would often bring his bass and amp outside to play, so he could be seen and heard by the neighbours.  Desperate to look cool, George brought his bass over to my house and plugged in on the back porch.  Then, he’d be back to “Guess this song” again, trying to stump us.  “Guess this song from the bassline!”

Durm durm durm durm.  Durm durm durm durm.

“Uhh, I dunno, ‘Shout It Out Loud’?”

“No, it’s ‘Love Gun!’”

Bob and I hated that game.  We may have schooled him on Accept, but he was relentless with the basslines.

Most of them were Kiss anyway.  He had a growing Kiss collection.  He would frequently come home from Sam the Record Man with new Kiss albums.   There was a point when he only needed two:  Hotter Than Hell, and The Elder.  There are good stories about each, but the main thing is that I actually got Hotter Than Hell before he did.  I had acquired it and Kiss Alive!, my first two Kiss albums, in a trade with Ian Johnson.  I gave him my sister’s Atari 2600 cartridge of Superman and got the two Kiss albums in return.  She was angry with me, but today accepts the importance of that trade to me.  I still have that copy of Kiss Alive!  As for Hotter Than Hell, I immediately phoned George and leveraged it in another trade, for a Walksman, a Black Sabbath cassette of Paranoid, an Abbot & Costello record of Who’s On First, and some Iron Maiden 12″ singles.  I definitely came out the winner.  That copy of Hotter Than Hell was brutally scratched.  But, I was now well on my way to having a rock music collection.

I taped most of my Kiss off George as I began my collection.  The annoying thing there wasn’t so much that I had to hang out with George to tape his records.  The annoying thing was that he would sit there and play bass as we were taping.  So, I had to politely compliment his playing, as he played along to the records I was taping.  The bass would bleed through, and therefore my dubbed cassette of Kiss Unmasked had his bass all over it!  I wasn’t able to get a proper copy of Unmasked for about two years, so for a long time, all I had was the cassette with George’s damn bass on it!  I can still hear it in my head, especially on “Naked City”.

George finished highschool, but I was just beginning.  In grade nine, I saw my first Battle of the Bands.  Rob Szabo was playing the regionals, and it was a big deal.  The grand prize was recording time at an actual studio.   I sat with Bob Schipper and Scott Peddle.  We were there to support Rob Szabo’s band, Over 550, but also to heckle George.  He had joined a band called Zephyr.

George was really rocking out.  He leaned way, way back as he played his bass.

“Don’t fall over George!” I yelled.

“You suck George!” shouted Bob Schipper.  Scott had his own comments that he yelled at the stage.  We thought we were absolutely hilarious.  It was our revenge for all the stupid bass he made us listen to in the back yard.

George eventually got a job at Long John Silver, a nearby seafood restaurant.  He was memorably disciplined for “finding a faster way to cook the fish,” but that was his main gig.  He would leave early in the morning, walking down the street alone.  He was notorious for singing on his way to work, with a Walkman and earphones.  George was not a good singer.  Not in the least.  My sister and I took to watching him from the front window when we saw him leaving for work.  We’d laugh in hysterics at his horrendous, off-key caterwauling.

The best example of this had to be one time we heard him singing Kiss.

He started his walk silently.  He was already halfway down the street when he raised his fist in the air and shouted “Alright! Love Gun!”  Then he proceeded with the off-key chorus.  “Love guuuuuuun…looove guuuuuuuuuuun!” he bellowed.  Somewhere in the distance, a dog answered his howl.

It was absolutely hilarious.  If there was such a thing as cell phone cameras back then, you can be guaranteed that I would have recorded it.  It was a moment, for sure!

When he was old enough to get into bars, he acquired his very own beer belly, which he showed off with his short T-shirts.  He got a perm.  With his big glasses, it looked even more hilarious than it would have on its own.  He wore studded wristbands and assorted metal jewelry.  He looked like an actual parody.  He used to show off this one photo of him with a bunch of strippers at a strip club, as if it were a trophy.

He was always talking dirty.

“Hey guys.  Wanna hear something cool?  I was getting out of the shower the other day, and I had a boner.  I hung a towel on it.  Pretty impressive.”

“What, a tea towel?” chided Bob.

Unfortunately, George’s problem with money was genetic.  After two and a half decades in the same house, they had to sell it and move.  He moved around a lot, and then eventually we lost track of him completely.  There were rumours he was in Orillia, or Windsor.

One day in 1995, I came home from work to find a message on my answering machine.

“Hey Mike, this is George calling.  I just wanted to tell you, I just bought all the new Star Wars Power of the Force action figures.  Call me.”

I could hardly believe it.  We hadn’t seen this guy in years and he was still up to his old habits:  Going all-in on the latest thing.  I’m sure by 1997, he had sold them all at a tremendous loss.

I didn’t call him back, but kind of regretted it.  Over the years, curiosity got to Scott Peddle and I, as we Googled and searched.  There was no sign of George, anywhere.  It was as if he had vanished without a trace.  Scott and I made jokes about how George was probably plotting his revenge against us somewhere, but the truth is, we spent more time telling “George stories” than anything else.  Because he was a legend.  A total legend.

Eventually, Facebook reunited us.  It was as if none of the past ever happened.  Nothing need be said; we were friends.  Perhaps for the first time.  As for George, he was more into Star Wars than ever.  He started a fresh collection of Star Wars Black Series action figures.  He read this blog, and commented on it.  But the sad ending to the story is that George died young, before he could even see The Force Awakens in the theater.

George passed on Boxing Day, 2014.  He was 46 years old.  He went to a party the night before, came home, and never woke up.  It is strange to think that George was always older than us, but now he will always be younger.  He went far too soon.  We reconnected as friends, but we learned that we are only immortal for a limited time.

We may talk shit about him to this day, but Scott and I toasted George when we went to see The Force Awakens together.

“Cheers, George.”  It was a moment.  He would have loved to see Star Wars back on the big screen.

We talk trash about him, and we make fun of him, but I guess he really became our friend.  He did earn every bit of shit that we threw his way.  It was always deserved.  I mean, he stole Bob’s brother’s bike.  (We know, because he put it in his garage, and his garage didn’t have a door, so you could see the bike from the street.)  He stole Lego from me more than once.  (We know, because I had a rare 4×3 clear windshield slope that disappeared one day and re-appeared in his collection.)  He stole Lego from Bob.  But, he let us tape his records and videos.  He taught us about bands, albeit in the most annoying ways.  Maybe when we were kids, the better word would have been that we were “Frenemies”.  That word didn’t exist back then.  When we reunited as adults, we became friends for real, though so briefly.  I’m not sure if George had a happy life.  He always had a smile, but he lost his family fairly young, and never married or had kids.  He was a loner.

But he was a legend.

 

#1181: Ice Storm April! [with Dashcam Video]

RECORD STORE TALES #1181: Ice Storm April!

I think one of the greatest reasons that my seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) has been non-existent this year is the revelation that I can work from home, and when I do it’s not as bad as I feared it would be.  This means if I can avoid driving due to weather, I don’t have to drive.  My work has a good policy on working from home that would give me this flexibility.  After all, when it comes down to brass tacks, the worst part of winter isn’t the weather.  It’s driving in it.  Looking at it from inside is actually kind of fun.

Our spring has been warm/cold off and on, but spring is definitely here.  That means that a few drivers have prematurely taken off their snow tires.  Canadians seem to forget that April can get angry, just when you think it’s all over.  I don’t know why they forget this, year after year.  Perhaps it’s wishful thinking.  Regardless, when that last angry storm hit us on April 3 2025, the lack of snow tires on cars that should know better by now, created an actual perfect storm of traffic chaos.

I was at work that morning, and watched as a wet mix of snow and rain suddenly pelted my car from outside.  Although I should have gone home immediately, I ate my lunch and emailed my bosses that I’d be working from home that afternoon.  I wish I had left 30 minutes earlier, but if wishes were horses…I’d probably still got stuck in traffic.

I watched as a pickup truck in front of me, on only the slightest incline, began to skid backwards.  He veered off to the left, and made a U-turn, unable to go up the slightest hill.  Once I crested the hill, I was met with three transport trucks that were completely stuck in the snow and ice.  I had to carefully navigate the space between them in order to proceed.  The hill got steeper, but I had no problem with my snow tires.

It was nerve wracking and I had my dad on the phone the whole time, keeping him up to date with my progress home; he was so worried.

I saw cars pull over to the side of the road just to brush the accumulating snow off their rear and side windows.  I was luckier.  With my dad’s help the day before, we just finished installing new windshield wipers on my car.  They were more than up to the task.

Lessons learned in the winter of 2025:

  1. Working from home alleviates the anxiety aspect of Seasonal Affective Disorder.
  2. Don’t take your winter tires off until mid-April!

Songs:

Buffalo Crows – “Starlord” from Bovonic Empire

Sword – “Unleashing Hell” from Sword III

Stir of Echoes – “Wild Eye” from Stir of Echoes

Blotto – “Secret Agent Man” / “Metalhead” live at Toad’s Place

MAX THE AXE – “Randy” – Live In Ontario! – Newly remastered audio (2024)

This great version of “Randy” is finally available on CD. Contact Max the Axe to get your copy now.

Max the Axe – “Randy” – Live at the Boathouse, Kitchener Ontario

Newly remastered audio. Newly edited video of live performance.

REVIEW: Max the Axe – Live In Ontario! (2025)

MAX THE AXE – Live In Ontario!  (2025 maxaxe)

Kitchener Ontario’s Max the Axe has several studio albums and EPs, plus a “best of”, but never before have they released a live album.  Until now!

Recorded in 2006, 2017, and 2018, the album features a spread of Max classics new and old, including favourites like “Scales of Justice” and “Gods On the Radio”.  Each song features Eric “Uncle Meat” Litwiller on vocals.

“But Mike,” you ask. “I thought Meat joined the band later than 2006.”

True.  While we won’t get into details, if you consider Kiss Alive to be a great album, then you should have no problem with Live In Ontario!

The first six tracks come from a 2006 recording called Heads or Tails, recorded in Etobicoke Ontario.  The lineup includes Litwiller, Mike “Max the Axe” Koutis on guitar, Tom Cole on bass, and Jeff Slauenwhite on drums.  These tracks are heavy on bottom end.  The guitars are pure sludge.  Opener “Blood Runs Red” sounds great with Meat singing; a fantastic vocal performance.  The familiar “River Grand” follows, and once again the vocals stand out, with Eric adding twists that aren’t on the album versions.

“Labyrinth” has distortion and groove.  Max wrings some cool sounds from his axe on this frantic, messy, punky classic.  It’s very shambolic, definitely with a punk rock appeal.  Back to a more metallic sound on “Immortal” (subtitled “I Feel the Sun”).  The vocals are more tentative here, as the song was less familiar when recorded.

“Mexican Standoff” opens with the traditional Mexican sounding guitar lick, and then it’s off to the races with Meat in peak voice.  This version lacks the shouted backing vocals, but is cool nonetheless.  Max throws some wah-wah on during a noisy interlude.    One more song from this gig is the Metallica-like “Space Marine”.   It is great to finally have versions of these older songs with Meat singing, tentative as some are.

Onto the next batch of songs from 2016 at “The Farm” in Woodstock Ontario.   This was the very first gig with the new (and definitive) lineup:  Mike Mitchell on bass and Dr. Dave Haslam on drums.  Having never played live before, and with a batch of brand new songs, the gig sounds much as you would expect.  It’s energetic and engaged, but good as the songs would come to be, they are not there yet.  The set features a number of compositions that would later appear on the Status Electric album, plus “I Don’t Advocate Drugs”, the first version available with Eric on vocals. He cranks it up a couple notches.

A very cool band intro leads into “The Other Side”, a very embryonic version.  The parts are all there, but it’s not tight yet.  “Loose” is a good word to describe this live album in general.  There’s also an extended guitar solo.  From there, Eric asks the audience if anyone out there owns a snake?  Which means, of course, that “Scales of Justice” is up next.  It’s not as crunchy as the album.  If anything, maybe it’s a bit more Zeppy.  Yet those vocal hooks are there, and Meat is in peak voice.  This track needed some work before it was album worthy, but it is fun to hear these early versions, flaws and all.

“This is a song about gambling,” explains Eric.  This means the “Next Plane to Vegas” is about to land.  It barely hangs together, but it’s over in a flash.  Finally, “Gods On the Radio” closes the set with Max’s best song.  Again, it’s not quite what it would become on album yet, but the bones are there and the vocal hooks are 100% intact.  It doesn’t have the drive of the album version and unfortunately the drums are hard to hear.  The guitar solos also haven’t evolved yet.

Finally, “Randy” from 2018 was recorded on a cell phone by your’s truly.  While a limited run of one (1) single  picture disc was made, this is its first CD release, and in much better sound quality.  In terms of performance, this is by far the best track.  All the songs were by now well rehearsed by the band, as the album had been completed.  The difference between this and the Farm tracks is clear.

It is a shame the whole 2018 Boathouse set was not recorded.  That said, you do the best with what you got.  In this case we have a 2006 recording of an early band lineup, with the older songs.  Then you have the 2017 recording of the definitive lineup, but with songs that they were still honing.  So it’s not a perfect situation, but it’s history recorded.  Something to remind us that albums don’t come fully formed.  They must be worked on diligently, and if anything, Live In Ontario! makes us appreciate Status Electric that much more.

“Randy” on the other hand could be the best version of that song, period.

3.25/5 stars

FILM REVIEW: forty-eight (how not to make a film in 2 days) (2004)

“Wait.  I got a Wookiee in my office.” – Dan Narvali, forty-eight.

forty-eight (how not to make a film in 2 days) (2004 independant film)

By Matt Head and Adam Skinner

It’s hard to believe that the early 2000s were so long ago! Get ready to feel old:  they were!  The short film called forty-eight by local Kitchener filmmakers Matt Head and Adam Skinner sure proves that time has elapsed.  Witness:  the goth-emo-punk clothes, the ear tunnels, and a sense of humour that was on point for 2004, but terribly dated by 2024.

Skinner and Head originated in a local “Jackass” style comedy group called Me6.  In the wild wild days before YouTube, these guys were buying used Blockbuster uniforms and filming themselves whilst pretending to work at the hallowed video rental establishment.  Me6 would hit each other in the head with frying pans.  What they did wasn’t subtle or original, but it was local.  Given that Jackass was one of the biggest franchises in the world, fans were seeking more of that style of stunt comedy online.  Me6 were on the pulse during an age when the internet was not yet saturated.  All they really needed was some originality.

Forty-eight is very original.  It is an 18 minute film, and the project that showed what Skinner and Head were capable of doing themselves.

Matt and Adam play fictional versions of themselves.  At breakfast one morning, Adam spies an ad for a film festival in two days.  Matt is skeptical that they can come up with a movie in just 48 hours, but suddenly has an idea:  a summetime fun movie!  The only problem is it’s February.  The project is abandoned in favour of a supposedly better one.  Seeking funding from a local lawyer named Dan Narvali, the pair secure $71.50 to do another film idea:  Dan Narvali’s Killer in the Basement.  Actors and a crew are hired, and things immediately deteriorate.  Blame falls directly upon the disorganized shoulders of Skinner and Head.  Everyone quits.  Dan Narvali’s Killer in the Basement is changed to Baseball Dog, which fails to launch, and changes to a fantasy film.  The high fantasy changes to Sexparty, then a war movie, and finally to Ghosts With Guns.  Strife within the crew, and everyone constantly trying to get the only female cast member to take her top off, causes everything to crash to a halt.  Will the duo ever get a movie made in time for the festival?

The humour is largely crude, relying on gay slurs and sexual harassment jokes.  One always must remember the time in which a movie was created.  Compared to any other vulgar comedy in 2004, this is on par.  There are also things that are objectively funny, such as trying to make a fantasy film called Quest for the Crown starring a girl wearing a snake suit while wielding a rifle.  There’s also a genuine moment of laughter when one actor falls down a snowy hill yelling, “We’re gonna take the crown!  Cover me Serpentina!”  The performances are spot-on, spontaneous and big time.  These are funny actors.

The DVD comes with deleted scenes, gag reel, stills, and an informative audio commentary track by Skinner and Head.

As a product of its time, forty-eight is a serious accomplishment for independent filmmakers.  The movie really was made in just two days.  However, the cringe factor today ranges from uncomfortable to gross.

3.5/5 stars

 

 

#1136: Prophets of Disaster

RECORD STORE TALES #1136: Prophets of Disaster

A teaser for the 30th Anniversary story & video of my hiring at The Beat Goes On

From day one at the Record Store, there were always the doomsayers.  The people who expected us to go under any day now.  The prophets of disaster, who say the ship is lost.  It was almost like they wanted us to fail.

“How’s business?” people would ask.  My boss taught us to always answer this question simply.  “When people ask you how business is going, just answer ‘good’.  Don’t tell them you’re having a great day, or a slow day, or offer any details of any kind, OK?  Just say ‘business is good’.  That’s all.”  This was very shrewd.  If someone sniffed out that there was a lot of cash in the register, you could have just made your store a target for a break-in.  And, of course, you never wanted to give the impression that business was slow, even if the store was empty.  “Always look busy,” the boss told us.  “Don’t let the customers see you leaning and chatting behind the counter.  Always be filing, organising, cleaning.”

When I first started working alone in late 1994, at Stanley Park Mall, I encountered my first doomsayer.

“So, I heard you’re closing soon,” said the man as I rang in his cassette purchase.

I took a moment, and answered simple, “Not that I know of.”

“I heard this place is going to be a shoe store,” he responded.  I shook my head no.

Of course I told my boss about this encounter.  I didn’t think we were in danger, but I did think he should know what people were saying.

He shook his head.  “Mike, people have been saying that since the week I opened.  They said we wouldn’t last a month.  Then they said we wouldn’t last a year.  That was three years ago.  See, this is why I told you never to say anything other than ‘business is good’.”  Smart man.  The thing about it that bothered me is these people sometimes seemed to be taking pleasure in telling me we were going out of business.  Like, what did we ever do to you?  Lowball you on a CD you sold to us?  How about supporting your local business?

I bet those guys loved going to Future Shop to buy their music.  They always had plenty of Skynyrd, cheap.

It kept happening, when I moved to manage my own store in the Canadian Tire plaza in 1996.

“I hear you guys will be closing soon,” said one guy.

Deciding to play with him, I answered, “No, we close at 9:00.  Lotsa time.”

“No, I mean I hear you guys will be going out of business soon.”

“We just opened three months ago,” I answered, smiling politely.

“Lotsa luck,” said the guy as he left, buying nothing.

That store is still open today, in a new unit at the same plaza.

At one point, there was a rumour going around that one of the unpopular employee’s dads was going to buy us out.  A few people were spooked by that.  I considered for a moment, but told them, “I’ve seen the old beater that he drives.  He drives her to and from work.  He doesn’t look like he’s swimming in excess cash.”

This July will be 30 years since I started working at that store in Stanley Park Mall.  While we weren’t exactly winning the lottery at that location, we definitely did well enough for the owner to expand to the many locations he has today.  He could not have done that if the original store was not a success.  Thanks to a lot of hard work (including two years of dedication at that location from me), he thrived and grew.  No matter what the naysayers claimed they heard.

I really don’t get it.  We’re supposed to be supporting local.  Why did some people seem to want us to fail?  Did they find a cassette tape cheaper at Zellers?  Was it personal?  I’ll never know.

DRONES! I think I have a new hobby…

I probably won’t be posting every drone video I make here on WordPress, but this is the official announcement:  I have a new hobby!

Since this is primarily a music website, please enjoy the song “The Optimyst” by an awesome band, the Forrest Williams Democracy.  My #1 song of 2023.  The F.W.D. is one of my favourite new bands, featuring Matt DeMatteo and Scott Maybee on vocals.  Their music is perfect for a video like this!  You might remember Forrest as the original drummer of Big Wreck.

Forrest Williams in Big Wreck, far left

As you listen to the song, you’ll witness a test flight of my new Potensic Atom SE drone.  I took it 118.8 feet in the air on this test run, with a great view of Highway 8, from Hofstetter Park.  I even landed it on home plate of the baseball diamond!  This drone will get me some awesome cottage footage this summer.

Please enjoy!  “Like” and subscribe to my YouTube to see more, and to support the site.