Led Zeppelin IV

#1060: Max the Axe’s Garage Sale (Trillion Dollar Treats)

RECORD STORE TALES #1060: Max the Axe’s Garage Sale

A huge thank-you to my host Max the Axe today at a fantastic garage sale!  BEHOLD!

“9:00 AM!” he said.  “Serving shots and weed to my Facebook friends starting at 9 AM!”

There was no way I was missing this garage sale.

I only had four hours sleep, and a large Tim Horton’s coffee, to prepare me.  I didn’t think I could make it.  After the events of last night, which left me rocked (in a bad way), I didn’t think I was up for it.  But at 9:00 AM I said “to hell with it, let’s go,” and Jen and I were in the car off to the Trillion Dollar Treats that Max had on offer.

First up:  cassettes!  I picked up six:

  • Poison – Flesh & Blood
  • Metallica – Metallica
  • Van Halen – Diver Down
  • Extreme – II:  Pornograffitti
  • Ozzy Osbourne – No Rest for the Wicked
  • Van Halen – Women and Children First

You can blame Tim Durling for my sudden interest in buying Cassettes That I Already Own On Remastered CDs.  He did point out the Diver Down cassette was an unusual cover variant, with the image slanted taking up the whole cover.

Speaking of Tim Durling…

  • Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV

I’ve caught the 8-track bug, baby!  Tim remarked that my copy was in better condition than his.  Max had more 8-tracks but none from bands that I collected.

So that’s cassette and 8-track.  What about CD and vinyl?  Maxie has plenty of both, but my tab was starting to rack up.  I gave him $20 for this rare AC/DC longbox, still sealed.

It’s the live “Highway to Hell” single, with long box intact and not in terrible shape.  I used to have CD longboxes, but I foolishly tossed them when I moved, assuming their were worth next to nothing.  Just paper.  But now…

Next up:  Max has been trying to sell me a tape deck for years.  This one was $20, a Kenwood.  My old Sony has seen the better of days, and Max says this one runs perfectly.  I guess we’ll find out soon enough, to try out these new tapes I just bought, huh?

Finally, we have the magazine scores.  Some MAD, some Cracked, some Star Wars, and some music!  Even a M.E.A.T Magazine!  A little bit of everything, and…woah, that’s Lee Aaron!!

Max has so much stuff, and you still have time to get down there.  Kites, speakers, tape decks, collectables, magazines, all killer deals!  Blank media galore.

Am I ever glad I went to Trillion Dollar Treats to see Max the Axe on my Saturday morning.  My Friday was brutal – absolutely brutal.  I am sure you will eventually be reading about it in one way or another.  My real life has a habit of becoming public knowledge, because when I’m hurting inside, I need to get it out.  My only weakness.  Thank you to everyone who sent helpful messages and offered to talk.  I need to single out Boppin, Jex, Tim, James and especially Jen for talking to me last night and this morning.  I love you all.

 

Part 231: Top 5…of all time?

RECORD STORE TALES Part 231:  Top 5…of all time?

I put in just shy of 12 years at the record store.  That’s a lot of time to work retail.  If you’ve worked retail, you know what I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, it has its ups and downs.  The ups include discounts.  The downs entail being abused by the general public on a daily basis.

I have a nice plaque around here somewhere, commemorating 7 years at the store.  It was a pretty cool gift.  It was a total surprise, how it happened.  My boss phoned me out of the blue one day.

“Mike,” he said.  “I need a list of the top 5 albums of all time.  It’s for an article we’re doing.”

“Cool!” I responded eagerly.  “But what are the parameters?  Is it like rock, or all genres?  Because that’s just a wide-open question.”

“Just what you think are the top albums of all time, that’s all I really need.”

Cool!  I started work on it.  I wanted to be objective, fair.  If I were making a personalized list of a top 5, it would be easy, I know there would be some Kiss and Sabbath in there.  I wanted to discount my own personal biases and try to be as open as possible for this particular list.

First of all, I chose The Wall.  I admit that I chose this over Dark Side due to personal preference, also I think a double album like The Wall deserves many accolades.  I obviously had to give respect to two of the greatest bands of all time, Led Zeppelin and The Beatles.  I chose Zeppelin IV and Abbey Road.  I really couldn’t choose a Zeppelin, so I went with IV as kind of a default answer.  Abbey Road is arguably the most genius the Beatles ever were, so I could easily choose that over Sgt. Pepper’s.

OK, three down!  Even though all three artists I chose were different from each other, they were all rock, so I needed to go outside that box.  To represent country, I decided on Folson Prison by Johnny Cash.  Were this a more personalized list, I would choose San Quentin, but I went with Folsom as it seems to be the best known.

I didn’t know what to pick last, so I went with a cop-out answer.  Back In Black.  What a weak, spineless choice!  What am I a college student?  Anyway, again I decided to be open and think about how many copies it sold, not about the many superior AC/DC albums.

I submitted my list.  A month or two later, I was presented with this plaque!  And these five albums were on the plaque!  My boss had collected lists from a few of us who had been there a while, and given us custom made plaques, with the CDs and everything.  It was really cool and I treasured mine for years.

I only wish he had worded his question differently!  If I had known in advance what he was really asking (thus spoiling the surprise) I would have chosen these five:

5. Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind

4. Kiss – Alive

3. Kiss – Hotter Than Hell

2. Deep Purple – Fireball

1. Black Sabbath – Born Again

The original plaque is packed up in a box, as Mrs. LeBrain and I are planning a move to a bigger place.  Here’s the five albums that made it onto the plaque though, at least all albums I proudly own.  And because I don’t do anything small, I own them all in some kind of crazy deluxe box set.  Enjoy.

REVIEW: Led Zeppelin – The Complete Studio Recordings

A photo-heavy review for you today folks, enjoy the goodness!  This one goes out to Rich, from KamerTunesBlog, a collection of detailed journeys through the discographies of many great artists.

LED ZEPPELIN – The Complete Studio Recordings (1993 10 CD Atlantic box set)

It’s funny to read some of the complaints about this box set on sites like Amazon! “The Song Remains the Same isn’t included!” Well, correct. It’s called Complete STUDIO Recordings, not Complete Live Recordings. “The artwork is too small!” Well, it’s a CD, not an LP. I’m of the belief that you can’t go wrong buying the Zeppelin LPs in mint condition.  Much like Kiss or Alice Cooper, Zeppelin often gave you extra bang for your LP buck (more on that later). “Presence and Coda suck!” Well, I’m sorry if you feel that way, but this is the COMPLETE Studio Recordings, not the Personal Favourite Studio Recordings.

ZEPPELIN COMPLT_0015

Anyway, I listened to the entire box set last weekend once again, and it’s always nice to revisit Zeppelin’s back catalogue in that way. After all, each album is a portrait of where they were at that time, and are truly best when played as complete albums, not songs on a compilation. Zeppelin I and II are an embrionic, pseudo-heavy metal band with hippy tendencies, but you are immediately blown away by how good this band was. All four members were simply stunning, a raging and ripping Plant included. By Zeppelin III they really started to explore the “light and shade” that Pagey speaks of in the included Cameron Crowe essay. It is a beautiful album. Zeppelin IV of course combines the sounds of the first three together into one multi-platinum work of art.

ZEPPELIN COMPLT_0016After Zeppelin IV, their albums become harder to characterize, but diversity is still key. Much like the Beatles before and Queen after, Zeppelin were not content to be a simple bass/guitar/drums combo. Strings, prototypical tape-based synth, and numerous other instruments are brought in to add to the Zeppelin mosaic. Houses of the Holy contains one of my favourite moments in “No Quarter” which is anchored by John Paul Jones’ keyboard and synth work, a hauntingly beautiful piece. Physical Grafitti contains perhaps their highest achievement in “Kashmir”, but certainly songs like “The Rover” continue the metallic goodness that spawned the band. Presence is an album misunderstood by many, a back-to-basics tour-de-force of power. The very Rush-like “Achiles Last Stand” combines progressive rock tendencies with Plant’s lyrical mysticism. Finally In Through the Out Door represents Pagey taking a step back and Jones filling the gap with modern forward-thinking synthesizer arrangements. “All My Love” is a ballad that came about five years too soon, a Plant/Jones penned masterpiece of beauty. “In The Evening” haunts with Plant’s vocals buried in the mix under cascades of Jonesy’s synth and Page’s whammy bar. “Hot Dog” is a pure country ho-down, and Zeppelin ended their career with the diversity that they started it with. But it doesn’t end there, as an expanded version of Coda is included, an odds-and-sods collection of outtakes. Certainly these are not the absolute greatest of Zeppelin moments, but “Bonzo’s Montreaux” represents the kind of experimentation that Zeppelin were founded on. A sequel of sorts to “Moby Dick”, it is a drum orchestra and worthy of the albums before. The expanded edition includes one of my favourite tracks, Zeppelin’s version of “Traveling Riverside Blues”. Page’s slide guitar is eloquent as it is excellent.

IMG_00000647The packaging is ample.  A thick booklet with photo after photo is included, as well as the aforementioned Cameron Crowe essay. Reading it, you can see where much of Almost Famous came from. Each CD is packaged with a reproduction of each LP’s original artwork. That means, for In Through the Out Door, you get all six covers, plus an image of the paper bag, and the inner sleeve. Zeppelin III gives you a miniature version of “the wheel”, and Physical Graffiti, the “windows”. These are static versions; if only you could manipulate them like the originals, but alas.

Remastering job is OK. I detected what I thought were a couple problems, I thought I heard some tape drop-out. I hate to say it, but maybe the Zeppelin catalogue could use a fresh remastering. 20 years have passed since this was released.  And hey, just in time, Jimmy’s working on remastered deluxe editions of each album!  Stay tuned.

As for the here-and-now, you can either go out and buy each album separately, or you can buy this set. Personally I think this set is the way to go, especially if you care about packaging.  And it’s Zeppelin — you kind of need all the albums, don’t you?  I won’t rate albums individually (that would require a Zeppelin series, something I would like to do) but I can give this box set:

5/5 stars