live streaming

Adventures in Epilepsy – Special Re-Formatted Episode – Tonight Jun 13 7:00 PM EST

Originally broadcast on Oct 2, 2020 as two streams totaling 2 hours and 12 minutes.  This new version has been re-focused down to a perfect 50 minute show.

In October of 2020, right in the thick of the pandemic, Jen had a seizure at a local fast food restaurant.  She fell and broke her arm.  We decided to make that week’s episode of the LeBrain Train all about epilepsy awareness.  While we did our best, we had technical difficulties that night, and the episode didn’t turn out like we hoped.

It’s funny to go back and watch live streams from five years ago.  So much has changed since then.   The original 2020 show was split into two live streams as some viewers reported that the Facebook feed was freezing, so we stopped and re-started.  Additionally, the original show was live and off the cuff, and was interrupted several times.  This new edit has all the epilepsy content in one stream.  As such, Adventures in Epilepsy episode has never been presented as one cohesive video before.

Hear all about missing out on a free U2 concert, having to leave movies and shows early with no refunds, and nearly walking into traffic!  Also hear the lighter side of seizures.  We learned early on, if you can’t laugh at these things, you’re doomed.

Join us tonight as we educate and illuminate living with epilepsy.  Though a lot has changed since 2020, the experiences remain raw and true.  Health has improved since then, which we also touch on with additional narration recorded in 2025.

Jen herself appeared in this episode, as good a sport as any.  Good friend and author Aaron Lebold joined the show that night to discuss his own experiences with epilepsy, which he seems to have grown out of in his adult life.  Rob Daniels from Visions in Sound and Kevin Simister from Buried On Mars also joined the show at the end to say hello.  Though most of their parts were cut to shorten and focus the episode (some unboxings and other outdated content were cut), we always appreciate their support.

Check out this special re-amplified episode tonight at 7:00 PM EST on the Grab A Stack of Rock live streams.

Top three musicians with epilepsy

1. Prince.  The royal single-monikered one was born epileptic and suffered a lot of taunting at school.  He obviously came a long way from there

2. Adam Horovitz.  This Beastie Boy is sensitive to flashing lights, which I am sure they use in their stage show.  It certainly didn’t seem to hold him back from massive success.

3. Neil Young.  He was medicated for epilepsy as a child, but didn’t like the side effects of the meds, which can go all over the spectrum depending on you and your meds.  Neil chose to make lifestyle changes instead, and has lived without medication since!  And, obviously, rocked the world.  Good on you Neil.

RE-RUN: Steph Honde – An Artist You Should Know!

No show tonight, as Harrison and I are busy working on 50 Years of Iron Maiden!  So, instead, we bring this 2020 interview with former Paul Di’Anno guitarist Steph Honde. It originally aired on my old show the LeBrain Train.  This newly edited interview with the friendly French fireball will run tonight at 7:00 PM EST at the usual places.  My writeup is below.

Steph Honde is a talented singer/guitarist from France who has performed with Paul Di’Anno, Sun Road, Chris Holmes, Hollywood Monsters, Jim Crean, Now or Never, and as a solo artist. In this wide-spanning interview, we discuss his favourite Canadian artists such as Max Webster, Wireless, VoiVod, Rock Candy, and Roch Voisine. We even touch on Celine Dion. We talk about his friendship with Paul Di’Anno, playing live with no rehearsal, and speeding up the songs. Steph talks about the rock scene in France, and going it alone without a label. Steph is a fan as much as musician too, so he gushes over Marillion, touring with DeepPurple, his signed Deep Purple 7″, and a private performance by a favourite musician. We talk about John Sykes, and other influences. Of course, we also had to talk about his epic cover of “Supper’s Ready” on his Ashes of Empire album. Steph’s defiance is refreshing. If he’s going to play without a label, then he’s going to play “Supper’s Ready”, because he wants to. Steph also did an acoustic cover of Deep Purple’s “Sail Away”, which he did to be different. Finally, we ask him what it’s like to open for AC/DC in front of 80,000 people.

This interview was conducted early in the pandemic, so of course that dominates part of the conversation. It’s weird to look back on with 2025 eyes.

Many of those old LeBrain Train shows were too long and could use some refreshing.  This one never got enough views back in 2020.  Let’s expose Steph Honde to a new audience!  You won’t regret giving him a listen.

Streaming Live at 7:00 PM EST on Friday March 28, on Youtube and Facebook.

Surprise guest @MarriedandHeels rocks your Friday with Mike, John, Rob and Jex (Grab A Stack of Rock #16.5)

Last night was a bounty of success, except for poor Mr. Jex, who suffered from wi-fi issues all night.  Thank you to Jexciter for showing up and playing along!  Rob Daniels, John T. Snow, and special surprise guest @MarriedAndHeels all joined in last night for a casual chat!

We successfully streamed to Rob’s Facebook, and the 2loud2oldmusic & Jex’s Vinyl World pages!  This will help us reach more viewers in the future.

Unfortunately, Tim Durling could not join us, which is a real shame since he was responsible for two of the albums I unboxed, both Japanese imports.

John had some rare Whitesnake and Bon Jovi to show us, Rob had a book and a Helix-related soundtrack, and Jex some Judas Priest and monster movies.

The California Girl known as @MarriedAndHeels showed us her new Nike’s that took her on a 12.5 mile run earlier this week!

We had a lively discussion about Richie Sambora/Bon Jovi, Kiss’ Farewell Tour, Star Wars and a myriad of topics!

Thanks for watching, and if you haven’t, then please give it a watch below!

A Year to the Day: Rest in Peace, Eddie Van Halen

‘Twas only a year ago I wrote these words:

There will never be another Van Halen.  No player before or since will have the ingenuity and influence he did.  From modifying his own guitars and amps to achieve the perfect “brown sound”, to brutalizing the strings with a drill, he was an innovator.  He was the most important of all the guitar innovators. And he sheepishly grinned through the whole thing as if to say, “Who, me? I did that?”

A year later, it’s only more certain that there will never been another Eddie.  You can read my full memorial here:  Rest in Peace to the greatest guitar player of all time.

The week Eddie passed, we did a tribute to him on the LeBrain Train.  You can watch that tribute below, starting at the 20 minute mark.

As if that wasn’t enough, we followed that with another Van Halen show: VH deep cuts!  One thing for sure, Eddie certainly inspired a lot of conversation on the LeBrain Train over the past year.  You can watch the deep cuts below, starting again at 20 minutes.

Let’s all take a moment to reflect, and play some Van Halen tonight.  Tonight, I’m going to go with “Dirty Movies” from Fair Warning to spotlight the greatest gee-tar picker of all time.  What song or album will you play for Eddie tonight?

#935: LeBrain Train Finale Stats and Analysis

RECORD STORE TALES #935: LeBrain Train Finale and Stats

A week ago we wrapped up the weekly LeBrain Train series to take a nice break.  This has allowed me to devote more time to listening and writing and living!

It’s also been enlightening to look at the last 18 months of shows, and the feedback of viewers and my fellow co-hosts.  Harrison the Mad Metal Man went to the trouble of graphing everyone’s picks for favourite episodes — 11 lists total.  Have a look at the stats and click to zoom in for details.

It’s rewarding to see that most of the shows were on somebody’s favourite list.  Even some of the shows I thought were not very good.  Even one of the early shows, pre-Nigel Tufnel Top Ten, made a list thanks to Harrison.  The very first Tufnel list show was Rush, which showed up on three lists.  This must be heartwarming for Uncle Meat, who was the originator of that Nigel Tufnel Top Ten list idea.

In the beginning I was resistant to doing list shows.  “I hate lists!” I complained.  (Because they’re hard — I could do five Rush lists in one night, all different.)  But Meat persisted, and came up with the Tufnel gimmick.  The concept, based on everyone’s favourite scene in This Is Spinal Tap, is that we call it a “top ten” but we really go to 11.  The gimmick appealed to me, and when we actually went live that day, the Meat Man and I had some great lists.  We also had a Rush list from Michael Morwood making it a nice tight three.  The next week we did Kiss and brought more people in.  The ability to bring in participants this way really appealed to me and the show began to take off.

That Rush list show could definitely use a re-visit….

Votes for favourite shows are clustered on the latter half.  The votes focus mostly on shows from late November 2020 onwards.  At that point streams starting getting a lot longer with more guests.  What do you think is the ideal time for a live show?  I think two hours is prime, but we’re a talkative bunch and most of the later shows clocked in over three hours.  Viewers seem to like a variety of guests with a lot of conflicting opinions, but keeping it to two hours is impossible!

Another interesting thing about these statistics is the way the interview shows break down.  Most of us decided to choose only one show per celebrity — so even though Andy Curran appeared three times, we only picked one each.  So it might appear bizarre that some great, great interviews got no votes:  Brent Jensen’s first visit, and Andy’s first and third did not make any lists.  Only because each of those guys did one show that was far and above some of the best stuff we’ve ever done!

Overall there were six shows tied for first place:

  1. One Hit Wonders.  Probably due to Max the Axe’s hilarious appearance that night.
  2. Top Maiden Artwork.  A very visual show with some serious fans.
  3. Andy Curran/Mike Fraser double header.  A magical moment when the two guys got to talk to each other while I just sat back and smiled.
  4. Paul Laine.  Truly a special interview and special moment for John Snow and I.
  5. Top Spielberg Films.  A recent show.  The velvety voice of Erik Woods had a lot to do with this!  But it was also truly a great set of lists.
  6. Top Animated Films.  Another recent show (with Woods!) and one I went into with barely any knowledge of animated films at all.

It’s very pleasing to see those last two shows on so many lists.  It proves we were doing quality work right to the end.  I have no doubt the final episode would have made lists too if we could do it again!

Mostly, Harrison’s graph tells me yet again that it wasn’t for nothing.  It meant something to people, and it was consistent if not growing.  We didn’t do a handful of great shows.  We did a series of consistently great episodes.  Peaks and valleys, yes, but lots of peaks.

 

 

 

Long Live the LeBrain Train

The weekly LeBrain Train has come to an end after 18 solid months.  I’ve done what I wanted to do — keep you entertained and connected during this pandemic.  I’ve not missed a week, but my fuel tanks need refilling and now’s the time to take a break.  But not to fear — as we announced, there is an alternative.

Darr Erickson said, “What about re-running classic episodes instead of going live?”  So that’s what we’re doing!  Special and well regarded past episodes will be repeated on Friday nights at the regular time and regular place.  The shows aren’t necessarily easy to find so we’ll do the searching for you, and play the best of the best one more time.

Next week tune in for the ZZ Top Deep Cuts episode, which made many lists tonight.

Oh right, the lists!  Joined by Harrison the Mad Metal Man, we listed the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten episodes of all time.  Lists submitted by:

  • Tee Bone (x 2)
  • Rob Daniels
  • Uncle Meat (x 2) – special cameo appearance
  • John T. Snow
  • Scotty Peddle
  • and me (x 2)

We also had plenty of special features!

  • Harrison’s Top Albums He’d Save From a Fire (0:08:00)
  • Brand new Tee Bone song “Ode to Darr” (0:29:00)
  • Special Sausagefest 20 highlights & video from Uncle Meat (0:31:15)
  • Lego LeBrain Train diorama & Easter Eggs with Harrison (1:01:30)
  • Not one but two new LeBrain train intros, adding new faces

Watch the video to learn who’s who in this Lego diorama by Harrison!

 

Discussion in the comments was lively and made me wonder if more people are still home on a Friday night than I assumed.  I hope you enjoy next week’s repeat of the ZZ Top episode.  With Dusty’s recent passing, it will be interesting in retrospect.

And we’ll be back with Superdekes on September 24 to talk to Storm Force one more time.  Our first interview was Storm Force so it’s full circle.  Stay tuned for plenty more list and theme shows.  The ideas flowed in the comments section so there is no shortage of potential themes!

‘Til next time….

A LeBrain Train Retrospective

Lego by the awesome Harrison

 

The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike Ladano

Episode 81 – A Retrospective

When you put as much into something as I have with this show, you eventually need a break.  I said I would keep doing this every week so long as Covid is keeping people stuck at home with nothing to do on a Friday night.  I think I’ve done that.  While not 100% of us are back to situation normal, it’s clear that most of us have had other things to do on the weekends.  And that’s awesome.

Given that the landscape has changed, and I’ve been at this for 18 solid months, changes are coming.  This show is to honour the past and look to the future.

Tonight, Harrison and I shall discuss our Nigel Tufnel Top Ten LeBrain Train Episodes of all time.  We’ll also run down the show’s history from its debut on March 20, 2020 to the present.  The fun, the ambition, the setbacks, the wins, the losses, and the memorable.  And what is to come!  We have something very, very cool planned.  You have Darr Erickson to thank.

I’ll be back September 24 with Superdekes to talk to Greg Fraser of Storm Force.  And we’ll be back again and again, any time a bunch of us want to talk about music on a Friday night.

As Ozzy would say, “Thank you, goodnight, I love you all.”

And you know about Ozzy and farewells.

 

Friday August 27, 7:00 PM E.S.T. on Facebook:  MikeLeBrain and YouTube:  Mike LeBrain.

 

Complete Show List

 

#908: Practice Practice Practice

RECORD STORE TALES #908: Practice Practice Practice

Time for another confessional!

After our amazing interview with Paul Laine a little while ago, I finally have the confidence to say that I feel like a good interviewer.  I didn’t always feel that way.  My very first interview, with Eddie Jackson of Queensryche, was 20 years ago.  That was a great interview, but I didn’t think I was a good interviewer yet.  I felt like I needed a few more under my belt first.  My next interview didn’t go nearly as well, and I stopped pursuing them.

Here’s the truth.  I don’t care how stupid this sounds.  You go and interview Paul Laine yourself if you think this sounds stupid.

When I was younger…I used to practice interviewing rock stars in my room.

Paul Stanley.  Ace Frehley.  Bruce Dickinson.  I made up questions and I practised asking them.  I worked on my cadence and imagined loose, fun interviews.  I pictured myself improvising followup questions.  I practised!

This continued into my 20s.  Listening to albums.  Reading interviews.  Thinking, “I could do better than this.”  Pondering the questions you really wanted to know the answers to.

I’m happy that I’m now well past the point of practising.  Only experience can be my guide now.  If this shtick comes naturally to me, it’s only because I practised at it for years!

 

#896: Plans

RECORD STORE TALES #896: Plans

Plans.  Gotta make ’em, but sometimes nothing goes according to them.

Winter is over.  We made it through.  I have Seasonal Affective Disorder (appropriately acronymed as SAD), so winter is always a hard time.  It feels good to be on the other side of it, and not have to put on layers of warmth just to take out the garbage.

Last fall I made some plans to make it through the winter.  I completed some, and I left others unstarted.  That’s just the way the cookie crumbles, and what was winter 2020/21 but a shitty stale crumbled up cookie?

As we hunkered in for the winter, I gave myself a couple projects to keep me occupied.  One was continuing with the VHS Archives.  I accomplished very little on this.  I did not play any video tapes at all this year, and only uploaded videos I already had on my hard drive.  This season I only posted six videos.

I also wanted to teach myself Photoshop this winter.  I didn’t get anything done there.  As it turns out, I didn’t really have to, thanks to the generosity of friends.  Good ol’ T-Bone has donated his time and made plenty of great artwork for the LeBrain Train live show.  Plus our artist friend Saige did some great work too.  I’m so lucky that we have built such an amazing community of artists and writers together.

Speaking of the live show, I had one plan that I thought would be easy, but never came to be.  As a proud Canadian boy, I wanted to show some of our American friends (especially the one in Hawaii!) what a Canadian winter looks like.  I planned on doing a live show outdoors in a snow storm.  I thought that would be an absolute hoot.  The weather never really aligned with a good live stream day.  It was kind of a mild winter compared to others.

Looking back at the goals from the fall, there are two I did accomplish. One was to make a dashcam video of a shitty winter drive, set to the music of Max the Axe. I did that with “Magnum P.I.” and it is a great example of a typical winter commute.  The second mission accomplished was to keep on live streaming.  I still haven’t missed a week — knock wood.

I couldn’t have done it without my friends.  You know who you are.  Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re one of ’em.

Brent Jensen and the Raiders of the Lost Mahogany Tape Case

Thank you Brent Jensen for appearing on the show a second time!  Although the conversation veered wildly from Cinderella to Raven and back again, we orbited around Brent’s mahogany box of cassettes.  Maybe you had one like it.  But was your stuffed alphabetically from Accept to W.A.S.P.?  Take a look inside Brent’s tape collection and listen to the amazing stories that unfold.

The chat with Brent commences at 0:23:00 of the stream.

As my One Year Anniversary Show, we are doing a CD giveaway too.  Next week we’ll draw a winner from a hat.  See bottom for the trivia question and submission form!

The trivia question was: What is the tagline on Brent’s No Sleep ‘Til Sudbury podcast? Watch the episode for some pretty obvious clues and submit your answer in the form below.  Really, really, really obvious clues.  Really obvious.

 

A winner will be drawn next week!

NEXT WEEK

Marco the Contrarian joins Uncle Meat and I for the Blackest of Sabbaths, only on a Friday!