marillion

Forgotten Treasures – Ignored Albums of the 1990s – LeBrain’s List Part 5

Whoops!  I forgot these.  Thanks to the Heavy Metal OverloRd for pointing at least one of these out.

I really should have included these in my list of 88 albums that went under-appreciated in the 1990’s.  I loved these, still do, and my life wouldn’t be the same without them.

In alphabetical order:

BLUE RODEO – Just Like A Vacation (up there with Sloan as one of my fave live albums of all time)
FISH – Kettle of Fish 88-98 (my introduction to his solo music, a great set!)
HELIX – B-Sides (a misnomer: no B-sides included, but all great tracks that didn’t make albums)
GEORGE LYNCH – Sacred Groove (pure smoke!)
SANDBOX – Bionic (I guess Mike Smith makes significantly more money playing Bubbles on Trailer Park Boys)
SANDBOX – A Murder In The Glee Club (brilliant, brilliant concept album on insanity. Genius!)
REEF – Glow (I think these guys were pretty big in the UK but unknown here)
ROCKHEAD – Rockhead (see my review for all the details)
SLOAN – Between The Bridges (can’t believe I forgot my fave Sloan studio record!)

THIN LIZZY – Dedication: The Very Best Of (the song “Dedication” was my intro to Lizzy!)
BILL WARD – Ward One: Along The Way (I have a review forthcoming, one of the best solo Sabs ever)
THE WHITLAMS – Eternal Nightcap (Aussie band, saw them open for Blue Rodeo, blew me away)
ZAKK WYLDE – Book of Shadows (thanks HMO! Liked it so much I bought it twice)

I really hope I didn’t forget any more.  Embarrassing.  Check these out…all great albums front to back!

Most Unrightfully Ignored Albums of the 1990s – LeBrain’s List Part 3

In alphabetical order, here’s Part 3:  88 albums that meant the world to me in the 1990′s but never got the respect I felt they deserved.  

King’s X – Faith Hope Love (most KX discs didn’t get the attention they deserved!)
King’s X – Dogman
King’s X – Ear Candy
King’s X – Tape Head
Kiss – Carnival of Souls (while you can’t argue it wasn’t a sellout, it sure wasn’t wimpy!)
Leadfoot – Bring It On (Karl Agell and Phil Swisher ex-COC)
Marillion – Brave (what a brave, brave album)
Marillion – Radiation (a lot of people don’t like this one, but I consider it a highlight for them)
Duff McKagan – Believe In Me (diverse, fun and pissed off)
Kim Mitchell – Aural Fixations (a little soft, but Kim in the 1990’s was scarce indeed)
Kim Mitchell – Kimosabe
Motley Crue – Motley Crue (they were better without Vince, honestly)
Vince Neil – Exposed (…and Vince wasn’t doing too badly himself)
Ozzy Osbourne – Ozzmosis (it sold by the buckets, but I think today it’s ignored which is a shame)
Poison – Native Tongue (Ritchie Kotzen took them to a new level of maturity and virtuosity)

Pride & Glory – Pride & Glory (Zakk Wykde’s first album without Ozzy, and one of the best)
Queen – Innuendo (in North America, most of what Queen did went ignored before Freddie passed)
Queensryche – Promised Land (spacey and mature)
Queensryche – Q2k (riffy)
Quiet Riot – Terrified (the only thing they’ve done since the 80’s worth playing)
David Lee Roth – Your Filthy Little Mouth (I didn’t need to hear Dave do reggae but it ain’t bad)
David Lee Roth – DLR Band (John 5 on lead guitar…crank it up)

REVIEW: Geoff Tate – Geoff Tate (2002)

With Geoff’s recent departure from the original Queensryche and his decision to form a simultaneous second Queensryche, I felt I should pull Geoff Tate off my shelf, where it has sat collecting dust for almost 10 years.  The web (and comments on this site) has been abuzz with opinions on every side of the Tate situation, so dig in and let me know what you think.

GEOFF TATE – Geoff Tate (2002 EMI)

When I first heard this album 10 years ago, it seemed a lot more “different” than it does now.  Now I listen to it and I can hear aspects of it (repetitive drony guitar bits, drum programs, mellow vibes) that Geoff  incorporated into Queensryche albums that came later.  But this is clearly a Tate album and not a Queensryche record, “Helpless” being one that would not have fit in on any Queensryche album.

Yet try as I might, I cannot get into this album.  It has moments that I like (again, “Helpless” is an example with strong vocal melodies and guitar parts), but mostly just fleeting moments. “Helpless” in particular has a nice acoustic guitar solo, flamenco in flavour, that is appealing to me.  Yet I find the song still sunk by (what sounds like) awful programmed percussion and bass.

Up next is “Touch”, a nearly tuneless mellow drone with something that sounds like telephones dialing a melody in the background.  Ugh. The track after, “Every Move We Make” has a nice simple guitar melody, a pretty one that could have had some feeling in it, but it’s choked under a blanket of samples and effects.  Geoff never comes up with a memorable vocal to go with it either.  It does have some nice sounding (real) drums, and some cool guitars. “In Other Words” rests itself on piano and acoustic guitar backed by what sounds like viola.  The music is pleasant sounding, just not memorable.  It picks up steam towards the end.  Perhaps this one could have made a most excellent Queensryche album closer, similar to “Someone Else?”, in another world.  “A Passenger” has memorable moments, although it awkwardly stumbles from one section to others that sound nothing alike.

Best song:  Epic closer “Over Me”.  Great cascading guitars, liquid bass, no nonsense.

There’s nothing wrong with albums like this, every artist needs to explore their creative muse.  More power to Geoff for doing it.  But I’m not particularly into this kind of mellowness.  Back in the record store days, if I had no idea who Geoff Tate was, I wouldn’t know where to file it and I guess that’s the point of doing a solo album like this.  At no point does it rock, but it’s also too aggressive in spots for Easy Listening and New Age.  It incorporates aspects of world music and electronica but couldn’t be called either.  None of that is bad — I love a lot of records that can be described in similar ways, when genres collide.  (Accidentally On Purpose, by Gillan/Glover perhaps?)  The problem here boils down to the songs — they’re just not all that good.  Marillion make albums that you might say sound like this — but better.

2/5 stars

Part 109: The Summer From Hell!

RECORD STORE TALES Part 109:  The Summer From Hell

Summer, 2004.

I had one really, really awful summer at the store.  My full-time backup had quit, and head office made the decision not to hire a replacement until the Christmas gear-up season.  Instead, they decided to spread out the part-timers to cover the hours.  They were always eager for hours, but not necessarily weekend hours!

I was required to work two Saturdays a month anyway.  That summer, I had to pull a lot more than that.  Saturdays, Sundays, the odd 12 hour shifts…I didn’t get to the cottage very much that summer.  Allegedly, one head office staffer was overheard saying to another, “It’s going to be funny watching Mike try to work all summer without a full-timer.”  Good to know they had my back.

I was furious.  But I was also defeated.

I had one weekend booked off in July.  I couldn’t miss that weekend.  My grandma’s 80th birthday party was that weekend.  There was no way in hell that I was going to miss my grandma’s 80th birthday party.  It was a 2 hour drive away, in Kincardine Ontario.  I only have one grandma (88 this year!), but wouldn’t you know it?  Nothing ever went smooth for me….

I had a date the previous night (Friday), with this girl who was originally from Thunder Bay.  We went out and we had a nice meal followed by a night of drinks.  I woke up slightly hungover, but eager to hit the lake, and say hi to grandma.  Then, my phone rang.  Not a good sign.

My least reliable employee, Wiseman, was calling in sick.  The truth was more likely that he was calling in wasted.  Somebody had to get the hell over there and cover him.  And that someone was me.

I pulled in, unshowered, unshaven, and pissed off.  I had never been so mad at Wiseman in my life.  It was becoming a far, far too regular occurrence that he was always “sick”, and someone had to cover for him.  You can’t expect every part time employee to give up their Saturday plans and work on no notice, but a manager had to.

To her credit, there was one head office person on duty that weekend, and she came in to take over.  I will always be grateful to that person for covering me on my grandma’s 80th birthday weekend.  If memory serves, my great aunt Marie, her sister, made it that weekend too.  I think that was the last time I ever saw her, she passed away not too long after.

My relationship with head office people was rocky to say the least, especially after that “It’s going to be funny watching Mike try to work all summer…” crack.  But she did cover me when I needed it.  I won’t forget that, and I’ll always be grateful.

The rest of the summer was what it was, weekend after weekend of working, the same grind and drudgery.  The musical light in the tunnel that summer was the release of Marillion’s double Marbles CD.  It is my favourite Hogarth-era Marillion to this day, and when I received it that summer, it got me through.  We didn’t carry it in stock in our store, but it was in my car, and on my home player, all summer.  It brightened the mood, it kept me going, waking me up in the morning and getting me out the door.  The Summer of Hell’s bright spot was Marillion, and my grandma.

I would like to dedicate this installment of the Record Store Tales to that one head office person who stepped up and covered for me that day.  We had many knock-down-drag-out arguments over the years, and I’m sure that her side of many events differ from mine.  Regardless, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have been present for my grandma’s 80th, and for that I owe her a debt of gratitude.

Thank you.  It meant a lot to me.

Below:  the soundtrack to that summer

Part 66: The First Time I Heard Marillion

 

RECORD STORE TALES PART 66:   The First Time I Heard Marillion

Winter – spring, 1999.  The last couple of years had been a messy string of bad dates, break-ups, and bad music.  Heavy metal, at least in this town, spent most of the 90’s in a coma.  I had been stretching out and selectively buying different kinds of music, just due to the sheer lack of quality and selection in new metal music.  I don’t think that really changed until Iron Maiden roared back with Brave New World.  I noticed a seismic shift, a growing pulse, in metal at that time.

Working in the store, I got to try anything I wanted.  I had explored Brit-pop, Australian indi bands, a little electronica, and a lot of mainstream stuff, as long as it had some guitars or aggression to it.

One day, the same guy who sold me that rare Oasis live album  walked in.  He had a whole bunch of remastered albums for sale, among them three Marillion discs:  Script For A Jester’s Tear, Fugazi, and Misplaced Childhood.  These were the remastered versions with the bonus discs.  Absolutely impossible to find in town.  Even hard to get on the leading websites, such as HMV.com and CDnow.

Now, I had definitely heard of Marillion, but never heard Marillion.  I had read about them in M.E.A.T Magazine, and my buddy Tom had a dozen Marillion posters on the wall.  I thought they would be my kind of band, just I had never stumbled upon them before.

I called Tom.

“Tom!  I just got three Marillion remasters in.  Misplaced, Fugazi, and Script.  Do you want?”

“Oooh…he didn’t have Clutching at Straws, did he?” Tom asked.  I replied in the negative.

“Listen,” Tom said.  “You have three great albums there, but if you want to try some Marillion, go for Misplaced, before you try the other two.  You’ll like Misplaced.  The other two can be kind of dense at first.”

I took Tom’s advice, and bought Misplaced.  I brought it to the cottage with me that weekend, and listened to the whole thing on my boombox.

What an experience, immersed in the music at the lake, nobody around, hearing Fish’s smooth voice and sometimes jagged enunciation.  This Fish guy, I didn’t know what he was on about yet, but I was intrigued by three things:

  1. He looked cool.
  2. His lyrics were very poetic, unlike any I’d heard before.
  3. He was Scottish, just when I was starting to get interested in my own Scottish half-background.

“Kayleigh” jumped right out at me on the first listen, but soon “Heart of Lothian” followed.  Then “Lavender”, “White Feather”…the album really spoke to me!  I get it!  It’s about girls, right?

In the same Oasis article mentioned above, I talked about being an obsessive compulsive collector.  Well, after buying Fugazi and Seasons End in short order, I was off to the races.  I went to their website and bought everything.  Every friggin’ thing.

Everybody at work hated Marillion.  Everybody!  I remember being at a record store party once.  This guy named “German Mike” was there, he was somebody’s friend that had flown in.  From Germany.  Anyway, they were on the topic of whatever new bands were happening at the time.  I broke in, saying, “I’ve actually been going back to discover old bands.  I’m really into Marillion right now.”

“Fuck Marillion,” said German Mike.  He later puked potato chips all over his shirt.

Nah, sorry German Mike.  I’ll stick to Marillion, but maybe you should cut the chicken chips!

Pre-Marillion:  douche. 

Marillion is good for you!  

Girlfriend!  Thanks, Marillion! 

Part 27: Store Play

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.