mental health

#1227: Steele Away the Night

RECORD STORE TALES #1227: Steele Away the Night

The roots of anxiety run deep.  Some things from childhood, I can remember vividly.  I have strong memories of some of the unhappy moments, frozen in time.  When I say “unhappy”, it’s important to stress that these stories might not seem like a big deal to you, but they obviously impacted me in ways that still have repercussions today.

I can pinpoint the year to 1980.  It might have been March break.  Lego was a favourite hobby.  Lego Technic, or what we called “Technical Lego”, was hot and new.  I had a couple sets, including the 1978 go-cart (set 854), a 1979 bulldozer (set 856) and a really cool motor (1979 – set 8858) that were challenging and interesting to a kid (and now adults too).  The holy grail was the 853 car chassis, which came with a similar motor, rack-and-pinion steering, adjustable seats, and the biggest tires that Lego made.  It was completely customizable and a challenge to assemble with little kid hands.  I never had one.  I did get to play with one, once.  This is that story.  But it’s not going to go how you think.

My mom begins the tale.  When you’re a kid, sometimes your “friends” are just your parents’ friends’ kids.  My mom tells me that one of these friends of theirs thought it would be a great idea for me to have a sleepover with her kid.  Mark Steele was his name.  I didn’t know him.  I had probably met him at one of those random things that parents did together sometimes, but I didn’t know him at all.  I was invited to do a sleepover, and I think is was for two nights.  My mom tells me that one of the other kids in the parent-circle went over for sleepovers and had a great time.

I have strong memories about the rest.

Adults always thought I was “shy”.  I guess that is true, but the truth is even back then, I had severe anxiety.  I did not feel comfortable around people I did not know.  I felt very comfortable around close family and friends, but very few people outside that circle.  My dad had this one childhood friend who moved out west and became a scientist.  I took a real shine to him.  Very few others were that fortunate with me.  I did not know these people and I was being sent away for two nights.  Rather than be a fun time that I was looking forward to, it was something that I had to make it through, so that I could go back to my own home and bed.

I was treated with nothing but hospitality, but I simply was never the sleepover type.  I had it pretty good at home.  I had all the Star Wars toys that a kid could want.  I had a sister that I adored, to play with every day.  I had parents that made food that I liked and let us watch whatever we wanted on TV.  I had my best friend Bob, only ever two doors down.  Why would I want to go anywhere else?

Mark was a very friendly and welcoming kid.  His bedroom had a giant poster of a hockey player on the closet door – it was cut in half in such a way that you could opens the doors.  It might have been Wayne Gretzky, but that would not have helped me at all.  I knew nothing about hockey, and had no interest in it.  I liked Star Wars.  Even though every effort was made to make me feel at home, I felt so homesick.

For lunch, Kraft dinner was served.  I have always been a picky eater, and very much so a Kraft dinner purist.  I loved Kraft Dinner.   Nobody made better Kraft Dinner than my mom.  I do today it the way she did it back then.  Lots of milks, extra runny sauce.  No hot sauce, no pepper, just the KD out of the box with nothing added.  Well, wouldn’t you know it.  I was being served Kraft Dinner…with hot dogs mixed in.  I don’t know what I said, but I know I was vocal in my dislike of the concept of Kraft Dinner with hot dogs.  I tried to eat it, and it was probably more psychological than not, but I did not like it.  I still don’t.

For entertainment, we all went out to see the film The Black Stallion.  I remember them trying to pump me up over this movie.  “You’re going to love it!”  I have never cared about horses, and I need not tell you, I did not enjoy The Black Stallion.  My mom loves the film, but I distinctly remember thinking, “This isn’t a kid’s movie, this is a grown-up movie that kids can watch with their parents.”  I liked Star Wars!  I had no idea who Mickey Rooney was, or why he was a big deal.  I didn’t understand the movie.  The horse didn’t seem particularly likeable and I had no idea why the kid in the movie wanted to ride the horse.  Like, who cares?  That was my attitude as a nine year old.

Sleeping was difficult for me in a strange bed in another kid’s room.  As a person with music deep in his soul, and in an age before personal tape players, I liked to hum myself to sleep.  Usually a John Williams soundtrack piece.  I couldn’t do that if I wasn’t alone.  I really had to…not be myself…if I slept over at someone else’s house.

The one thing I do remember, and is definitely a happy memory, is that Mark owned the 853 car chassis.  I got to play with it.  I got to handle it and experience it for myself.  I remember thinking that, visually, it wasn’t very striking.  It was just a red bare-bones chassis. Yes it was everything you stared it in the little Lego catalogue photos, except up close in real life.  At the time, the 853 car chassis was the most desired of all the technical Lego sets.  It had the motor with four pistons that moved as you pushed it over the carpet.  It had loads of big technical pieces, a ton of gears, and was massive in hand.

As hard as they tried, the only thing I really remember enjoying that weekend was the Lego.  The lesson here is that Lego is just plain good for your mental health.

🅻🅸🆅🅴 Harrison’s Box Sets and Mike’s Whitesnake

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

Episode 119: Harrison’s Box Sets and Mike’s Whitesnake

Time for a Maiden break this week, as Harrison and Mike have their ears full of live Maiden preparing for the next two shows!  In the meantime, Harrison has acquired a good sized collection of box sets, while Mike is only one Whitesnake box away from completing his collection of Coverdale’s boxed compilations.  Not much else to say except we will dive deep on some cool collections tonight!

“Ere’s a box set for ya!”

This is possibly the last cottage show of the season, and an indoor one this time due to the early sunset.  Join us tonight live for this special look at some expensive beauties.

 

 

Friday October 3 at 7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.

 

 

#1217: When the Fall Starts to Fall

RECORD STORE TALES #1217: When the Fall Starts to Fall

 

The Equinox has passed us (Sept. 22).   All that remains is the clock change (Nov. 2).  The Seasonal Affective Disorder remains at bay for the moment.  Green still rules the outdoors, for now holding the bleak grey back.  Soon, however, this shall change.  What challenges will the fall bring?

I think, for the time being at least, I am done doing the live Contrarians on Wednesday nights.  It was a key part of my mental health strategy last winter, but like many things it became monotonous.  If the Contrarians do return on Wednesday nights this fall and winter, I am not sure if I will participate.  It was a healthy form of expression, but I confess that I prefer doing my own thing.  It enabled me to meet and work with new friends, which was valuable.  It is possible that I may replace it with something of my own in the same time slot, if it is not being used by the Contrarians.  We shall see.

My biggest challenge at the moment is what I call the “Monday Crash”.  I seem to struggle with waking up on a Monday morning these days.  Sometimes I just can’t see to get out of bed, and I end up working from home.  The option to work from home does help, but working from the office is infinitely more efficient.  My Mondays seem to be an uneasy truce between depression and dedication.  This happened through the summer too, but I worry about how fall will effect the battle.  Will it sway one side or another?

Back in 2022, my strategy for coping with fall and winter involved sending pictures and videos of Canadian weather to my new friend in California, MarriedandHeels.  While it did help for a while, it was not a good long-term strategy.  The novelty of taking winter pictures for a far-away friend, for her reactions, was a good idea but it could not last the whole season.  I needed strategy that focused on me, and not someone else.  I am pleased to say that MarriedandHeels and I are friends again, on normal social media, and have been for longer than we were originally the first time.  Unfortunately, she is dealing with her own things today and I can’t base any strategies on her in 2025.  I find myself trying to support her, which is not a bad thing.

For the winter of 2025, I am going to try and do some things that we never got around to last year.  These ideas included a winter trip to the cottage.  That is still in the cards, if the weather happens to line up with a free weekend.  Record shopping in the winter is also a must.

Things seem to be going OK.  I just got a new PC (though the CD drive is not quite working yet), and 50 Years of Iron Maiden is keeping me busy.  It has been an enriching experience.  Before we’re done, we’ll have three more guests who have never been on Grab A Stack of Rock before.  These things are healthy and keep me from becoming a recluse.

Here we go, lads.  Let’s have a triumphant winter like last year.  Repeat performance.  Let’s go!

BLAZE BAYLEY interview: 50 Years of IRON MAIDEN bonus episode!

For all things Blaze Bayley, go to BlazeBayley.net.

50 Years of IRON MAIDEN bonus episode:  BLAZE BAYLEY interview

GRAB A STACK OF ROCK #117

We cannot imagine a better way to wrap up the Blaze years on 50 Years of Iron Maiden, than chatting with the man himself.  Metal fans worldwide, we present to you Blaze Bayley!

This isn’t just any Blaze interview.  With Harrison and Mike involved, you know we’re going to go deep.  We’re going to respect the man and his entire career, from Wolsbane to Iron Maiden to solo.  A lot of the information we covered won’t be found in mainstream interviews.

In this interview, we cover:

  • Punctuality!
  • Re-recording Wolfsbane as “Live Faster…” and what that means.
  • AI, science fiction, Blade Runner, and technology.
  • “Do, or Do!”
  • A secret, unwritten conceptual storyline to King of Metal, that Blaze reveals here.
  • The Silicon Messiah and the dangers of AI.
  • How “Virus” came be
  • The waist-high snowbanks of Canada.
  • Who the King of Metal really is.
  • The stigma of mental health.
  • Meeting Absolva, and joining forces with the Appletons.
  • And so, so much more.

For us and this series, asking Blaze our favourite questions was the realization of many dreams.  Instead of saying “Do or Die”, Blaze likes to say “Do, or Do”.  This interview was the culmination of us just doing it, for the love of music and the love of Iron Maiden.

Folks, you are in for a treat.  Please welcome Blaze Bayley to Grab A Stack of Rock.

Friday September 12 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T.  Enjoy on YouTube.

Past episodes:

Handy YouTube Playlist:

🅻🅸🆅🅴 Music & Mental Health 3 with Dan Chartrand @offthecharts

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

Episode 116: Music & Mental Health 3 with Dan Chartrand

The third part of our Mental Health trilogy will be a live show, Friday night as usual, but what will we do differently this time?

Special guest Dan Chartrand will be with Mike as we discuss the challenges of overcoming Seasonal Affective Disorder, and childhood bullying.  Even if it happened 40 years ago, bullies can still have an affect on your behaviour today.  If you ever feel overly defensive, for example, that could relate to old bullies that you thought you have long forgotten.  We will dive deep.

With fall upon us, we’ll also tackle Seasonal Affective Disorder and techniques to deal with it.  This is a ghost that has haunted Mike for many years and though it is an annual struggle, Mike will share what he has learned.

As always, we’ll bring it all back to music too.  Mike will share his favourite music that he plays to feel good when things get him down.  Don’t miss this live episode as we’ll be taking your questions and comments.

Be kind to yourself.  See you tonight.

 

Friday September 12 at 7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.

 

#1207: “Sometimes You Just Gotta Laugh!” Music and Mental Health Update

Our Music and Mental Health series on YouTube seemed to do some good.  We decided to keep going with it.  Viewers told us they’d like updates on how we’re all doing, so here’s an update on:

  • Jen’s health
  • House issues
  • Writing Grandma’s funeral speech

The speech is now coming along, and I’ll be proud to post it here after the funeral.

I hope you get something from this video, because when things get hard, sometimes you just gotta laugh.

Click the pic below to get to our Music & Mental Health playlist on YouTube, and check it out.

#1206: I Can’t Help the Feeling I Could Blow Through the Ceiling…

RECORD STORE TALES #1206: I Can’t Help the Feeling I Could Blow Through the Ceiling…

 

Two steps ahead, but one step behind?  It’s still progress.  It may not feel like progress, but it is.

In 2024, we had our shelf disaster.   My priceless collection spilled forth unto the ground, knocking my spirits down with them.  But we got back up again and rebuilt.  We rebuilt despite the following furnace replacement, requiring my precious collection to be move again.

Now in 2025, we have prevented yet another shelf disaster.  I returned home from the lake to find another set of shelves slowly peeling from the walls.  I stopped it in time, removed the heaviest items, and prepared to make plans to replace the shelving.  This will be a more difficult task this time, as it will also require me to tear apart my stereo system and place it on the new shelving.  Not an easy task; there are so many cables it’s like black & blue spaghetti.

It’s hard to keep up.  We have so many projects.  We continue to pare things down and get rid of excess possessions.  We continue to clean up and organize.  We continue to replace broken household items.  It’s an uphill climb and the list keeps growing.

New TV, new cable box, new rug, new blinds, new computer, new this & that…

I can’t help the feeling I could blow through the ceiling sometimes.

 

Drone video from Saturday August 9.

#1205: Crash

RECORD STORE TALES #1205: Crash

I’ve been crashing hard on Mondays.  It’s been getting worse.

My pattern on cottage weekends goes something like this.  Wake up Sunday, clean the dishes, get rid of the garbage, and pack up my things to go home.  We usually leave the lake on Sundays around 11:00 AM, arriving home around 1:00 PM.  I start feeling pretty down around the time of departure.  It is very hard to leave that place.  It doesn’t matter what music we pick in the car on the way home.  This last trip, we went back to the late 80s with Blow Up Your Video by AC/DC and Dream Evil by Dio.  What we listen to doesn’t seem to change the mood.

When we get home, we unpack, turn on the air conditioning, and decide what to do about food.  Usually, to cheer myself up, I order something in.  Sometimes this causes frustration at home, because Jen and I can rarely agree on food.  If she’s craving it, I’m burned out on it.  If I want it, she’s allergic to it.  We usually end up with something overpriced that neither of us were happy with.

I start to feel down in the dumps by late afternoon, and really tired.  I’m almost always in bed before 7:00 PM on a Sunday night.

Through the night, I can feel anxiety gathering, in my dreams.  I will dream of jobs.  Of work.  Of things that I have to return to when I come home from the lake.  I can often stop the dream, and think about other things, but these dreams are just symptoms, not the problem.

No matter how much sleep I get that night, I just stay in bed.  My alarm goes off; I hit snooze.  Sometimes it can be 12 hours in bed and I’m still tired.

Monday is often a trainwreck.  I’m usually in a terrible mood, and usually go to bed again without eating that night.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

 

🅻🅸🆅🅴 Music & Mental Health II with Johnny Metal and Mike

SPECIAL TIME!  2 episodes coming today!

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

Episode 112: Music & Mental Health II with Johnny Metal and Mike

This special live episode is a sequel to last month’s mental health episode called Ask Jex Anything.  In this installment, Mike and Johnny Metal return to the cottage, live, to discuss new developments and updates.  Returning to work after a mental health leave can be daunting, but we’re going to go there.  Mike is also dealing with the death of his beloved grandmother, and all the complex feelings that arise from that.

Music will always remain important when we talk about mental health.  When Mike first started experiencing his own issues, there was a new single out by Motley Crue called “Primal Scream” that seemed to express his feelings after a lifetime of bullying:

When I was just a young boy,
Had to take a little grief,
Now that I’m much older,
Don’t put your shit on me!

What a release music can be!  We will also discuss physical activity such as yoga, and other healthy ways to help purge those negative thoughts and feelings.  We’ll also share an incredibly thoughtful email from Broadway Blotto, from (of course!) the band Blotto.

This is the first of two episodes today.  50 Years of Iron Maiden will continue in the evening.  Look for this in a separate post.  We hope you can join us live this afternoon for this very important episode of Grab A Stack of Rock.

 

Friday August 8 at 3:30 PM EST, 4:30 PM Atlantic.  Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.

#1197: Moose Sausage & Mental Health

RECORD STORE TALES #1197: Moose Sausage & Mental Health

Summer is well on its way.  I’ve waited a long time to get here.

I love doing live broadcasts from the cottage.  This weekend was going to be packed full, just like our bags and boxes that we loaded in the car for our first trip of July.  We hit the road at 4:30 on Thursday.  Preparing for Friday’s live episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden, we played all of Live at Donington on the way to the lake.  Not necessarily the best album for a lake drive, but Jen liked it, and it helped me prepare a little bit extra for the show.

Thursday night was peaceful, but hot.  There was not much to do but play music on the porch.  I cued up Tonight At Toad’s Place by Blotto, and started working on some show-related writing.  Dr. Kathryn came over for a quick visit.  We gossiped a bit about people we used to know, and after dark I shut it down for the night.  Friday was going to be a fun day for us.

I began my Friday morning by cooking up a delicious moose sausage, and editing a new episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden.  I wanted to do minimal editing, just to fix a couple spots with issues, but I ended up having a little more fun with it.  At 8 AM we left for the butcher (The Beefway) and bought two steaks, a chicken breast, some lamb chops, and the best bacon I’ve ever cooked in my life.  This extra thick cut bacon was so soft and sweet.  It led me to an idea.

Canadian breakfast:  moose sausage & mayo on a bun, with coffee.

We were going to do roasted potatoes on the BBQ.  Jen likes to stuff hers with butter, but I had a different idea.  I sliced up some fatty parts of the bacon and stuffed my potato with that.  The end result was a delicious potato that tasted like a Smokey Bacon BBQ potato chip.  The bacon pieces inside were soft and melted like butter in your mouth.  A new masterpiece, but one that I feel I can only do with the exact right bacon.  It has to be cut thick with lots of fat.  And it worked beautifully.

The lamb, chicken and steaks also turned out really well.  I did up some stuffed peppers with cream cheese, green onions and more bacon.  The chicken breast ended up being the best one I’d ever made.  The Beefway simply have the best food, and I have to admit I’m not too bad a chef myself.  I used about half a bottle of BBQ sauce on one chicken breast, but that’s because I wanted it perfectly and completely coated.  It came out so juicy and flavorful.  Grocery store chicken seems to have a weird preservative taste these days.  Not the stuff from the Beefway!

Friday night’s episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden went really well.  It was our first live episode in quite a while, but I am glad that Harrison and I still have the skills.  A surprise came that night:  a donation!  Our very first donation!  Viewer Ryan Potter had this to say:

Thanks for this series guys! I’ve been enjoying revisiting these albums and going through my Maiden Collection with each episode.

Thank you Ryan for this first-ever thank-you.  If we ever felt like we were not doing as good a job as we want to, Ryan’s comment will remind us that we’re doing just fine.

Friday was a difficult episode, because we had to review four CDs of Iron Maiden:  A Real Live One, A Real Dead One, and Live at Donington (2 CDs).  There were also two CD singles with an additional three bonus tracks to tackle.  It required a lot of listening and a lot of notes, but Harrison and I managed to cover it all between the two of us.  A proud night.

Friday night’s broadcast location for 50 Years of Iron Maiden.

But that was just the beginning for our live streaming adventures on the weekend.

Jex Russell, my “other” main co-host for many moons in the past, has been dealing with life lately.  He recently had some free time come up, and said to me, “I’m ready.  I want to do a live show.  I want to tell people where I have been and what I’ve been up to.  Let’s call it Ask Jex Anything and we’ll discuss mental health.”

I loved this idea.

We discussed when to go live.  I was pushing for 8 AM Saturday morning, based on a past show we did in that time slot together.  Mostly though, I didn’t want to do two live shows during prime cottage hours.  One was fine.  Two would be spending too much time on a screen during the best time of day.  Jex was hesitant.  What’s the point of an “Ask Jex Anything” episode if there’s nobody watching to ask?  I crossed my fingers and set up the broadcast from my favourite spot:  fireside.  I gathered the firewood and a Canadian flag for an epic backdrop.  I waited for 8 AM to come.

I think I had pretty much the best broadcast desk of any music show on YouTube today. You can get Pete Pardo with his wall of CDs behind him, or a “Hair Metal Guru” with loads of memorabilia, but nobody else in music had a backdrop like mine.  A roaring fire, a Canadian flag, and nature.  A few people walking down the road were wondering why this guy was out at 8 AM, talking on a laptop, at a computer desk in the middle of a beautiful green enclave.  Why?  Because it’s awesome!

Saturday’s office.

I had confidence that we would do a good show, viewers or no viewers.  We always do.

It didn’t take long for the viewers to show up, and for Jex and I to open up, about mental health, music and balance.  The questions began pouring in, and I could not keep up with the comments.  Some people woke up early just to watch this special episode of Grab A Stack of Rock.  Johnny Clauser and Tim Durling joined as surprise guests to share their own stories.  Confessions were made, and I told a chapter of my story that I have never revealed before.  Not even in Record Store Tales.

I believe that Satuday’s show, Ask Jex Anything: Music and Mental Health, is the most important episode we’ve ever done.  Much to Jex’s relief, we had great views.  Even exceeding the previous night’s 50 Years of Iron Maiden.  We are very, very proud.

It ended up being a very good decision to go live in the morning.  Black Sabbath were playing their final concert that afternoon.  Everybody would be watching that, had we decided to go live later on.  The morning show was a blessing.

From that point on, Saturday was ours to enjoy.  It got hot – very hot.  Eventually we went into town to get some air conditioning and soda pop.  Staying cool was a challenge, and it prevented me from doing too much that day.  No writing completed.

Droning on.

I did get to fly my drone a bit.  I chose to fly my original drone, the Potensic.  It is the better drone for stunt flying, and I made a few great videos.  I still have to edit these.  I managed to get one uploaded, which is “Nothing At All” by Deep Purple, to the visuals of a Lake Huron sunrise.

Sunday morning was time to pack our bags and head home.   My mood crashed that day.  It was an uncanny feeling of autumn; of “back to school”, even though it was only July.  I could not shake that depressed feeling.  We listened to April Wine on the way home because I wanted music that I was less familiar with.  “All Over Town” is my new favourite song, but the crash hit me hard.

We tried to cheer me up by ordering in a nice dinner (The Burgers Priest), but failed.  I woke up Monday morning unable to get out of bed.  I lay there for hours, tired and worn out.  I worked from home on Monday.  In the old days I would have gone to work and felt worse and worse as the day went on.  This time I managed.  It is nice to have those options to work from home.  It saved my Monday.

A beautiful weekend was had, despite the crash at the end.  We’ll be back for my birthday.  Close yet far!