memorabilia

Bonus Episode: Summer HQ Tour with Grab A Stack of Rock!

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

Bonus Episode: Summer HQ Tour with Grab A Stack of Rock!

Tonight, Mike is recording an episode with Peter Kerr of Rock Daydream Nation, so a pre-recorded episode is on deck!  One of my all-time favourites in fact.  As a sequel to last week’s bonus episode, a tour of Grab A Stack of Rock HQ, this week we’re doing the tour of Stack Summer HQ!

As we did last week, we’ll take a look at the memorabilia here at Summer HQ, and hear the stories.  Some will be familiar to original readers, but most will be previously unseen and unheard.  There is a lot of personal music history in these woods, going back to Grandpa’s original backyard parties with his turntable and massive speakers playing “The Gambler”!  There are also plenty of cool books and collectibles, art and animals.  Animals?  Indeed – when one tours Grab A Stack of Rock Summer HQ, one must be prepared for chance encounters in the wild.  One such encounter happens in this amazing video.

Please join tonight!  This is an episode you don’t want to miss.   Since I am recording with Rock Daydream Nation, I will not be in the comments section, but we’ll be back with your regular Stack soon!

 

Click above for the video link.

 

Friday June 19 at  7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube.

 

Bonus Episode: A Tour of Grab A Stack of Rock HQ

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man

Bonus Episode:  A Tour of Grab A Stack of Rock HQ

With last week’s 150th episode out of the way, and Harrison taking a break, it’s time for two fun bonus episodes!  In the first, this week we’re taking a tour of Grab A Stack of Rock home HQ.

Friends always want to take a tour of the home office.  Now you can!  Check out my memorabilia, collectibles, box sets, discs, tapes and more.  You’ll even see a unique music format that has gone unseen on this show since the LeBrain Train days.  Join me as we dig through stacks of rock to find nuggets and memories beneath.  Books, instruments, clothing, Lego, figurines, toys…when you have this much rock, space becomes the problem!  So we stack and stack, until one must dig to find it.

This is a fun episode.  Join the premiere so we can chat!

 

 

Friday June 12 at  7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube.

 

#826: Promo Postcards (From the Edge of Rock)

The trick is hanging onto the good stuff and throwing out the junk!  I’ve accumulated a lot of junk and not always made the wisest decisions when I throw things out.  Keeping things that don’t take up a lot of space is easiest, and postcards take up very little space.

These postcards came from a variety of sources and only one could be from the Record Store!  I’ve said it many times:  a used CD store gets nothing promotional.  Record companies assumed we would just turn around and sell it.  Which we made a point of never doing anyway.  But we rarely got anything from bands that I liked when we did get promo material.  It was the 90s after all.

I have two of these Test For Echo postcards from Rush.  You can tell I didn’t get them from my store since they’re from Future Shop for a MuchMusic contest.  I don’t know how I ended up with two.

I also have two of these Slik Toxik postcards.  My best guess is that these were packed inside my subscription of M.E.A.T Magazine.  There were perks to subscribing and I didn’t let my subscription lapse.  Slik Toxik were one of M.E.A.T’s pride and joys.  They were behind the band from a very early stage.

Another pair of postcards!  Deadline sent these to me for my birthdays in 1994 and 1995!  Little did they know that I’d still be promoting their band, 25 years later and long after they disappeared.

Then and now, I think this is a really cool touch.  It’s not like today, seeing somebody’s birthday on Facebook and wishing them a happy one.  Somebody had to keep a file with the fan club birthdays and mail these out at their expense.  Glad I hung onto these treasures; I even have my membership card!

 

Finally, the last few postcards here are from a mixture of sources.  I was a Sven Gali fan club member, and for Christmas they sent out of a fully signed postcard.  My membership must have expired shortly after.  The W.A.S.P. card is from their dreadful K.F.D. album, not a disc that I particularly treasure.   This is the only one that could have come from the Record Store, though it’s an unusual item for us.  And the Star Trek shuttlepod is there because I had room on the scanner bed.  No story; no idea where it came from.

GALLERY: A Sven Gali Christmas

Being a pack rat has its advantages.  It means I have loads of fun little pieces of memorabilia to share.  Enjoy these scans of some seasonal Sven Gali mailings!  First is the 1992 Christmas postcard they sent out, signed by all five members.  Including drummer Gregg Gerson (Billy Idol) who left the band not long afterwards.  A cool set of autographs to have, and they’re real.  And let’s not forget it also has the lyrics to a naughty Sven Gali version of “The 12 Days of Christmas”!

The second item is from 1993, and it’s their fan newsletter.  Kinda neat.  The Sven Gali logo on this is not one I’ve seen before.  It was never used on an album.  Cool little keepsakes!

Gallery: Other Stuff I Collect That Isn’t Music

I collect toys.  Lots of toys.

Sh*t LeBrain’s Dad Says: Gene Simmons’ Beard

Happy birthday Dad!!

We were in Kincardine, Ontario, on Queen street, or “the main drag” as my dad calls it.  We were in this crappy clothing store called Sandy’s that’s not there anymore.  But this time, they had a Kiss T-shirt for sale!  I never saw any cool band shirts in Kincardine before.  We spent much of each summer there, and when I was younger the place seemed kind of dull.  Finding a Kiss shirt there, well obviously I had to get it.  It was 1992, a Revenge shirt.

My dad asked, “Did you find a shirt, son?”

“Yep,” I answered.  “This one is cool, because it has the new Kiss member on it.”  [Eric Singer]

“Yeah,” my dad said with a disapproving smirk.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that bearded guy before…”

BEARD