nirvana

Blu-ray REVIEW: Sound City (2013)

“The internet’s cool for some stuff, but like many things, there’s no book store, there’s no music store, and there’s no Sound City.” — Josh Homme

SOUND CITY (2013 Roswell Films)

Directed by Dave Grohl

Uncle Meat persuaded me to see this movie, and I’m glad that he did.  He said it wasn’t optional; that it was a must and that I would love it.  So I bought it on Blu-ray, invited him over to co-review it with me, and we viewed it one afternoon after work in 5.1 surround.   Needless to say, Sound City was good.  So good that we never felt we could do it justice in a review, so I sat on my notes for over a year!  Having recently re-watched Sound City (directed by Dave Grohl) with Mrs. LeBrain, now I can finally finish what Meat and I started last year.

Van Nuys, California.  Sound City Studios, the legendary place where everybody who is anybody recorded.  Nirvana?  Check.  Fleetwood Mac?  Rick Springfield?  Tom Petty?  Check.  Slipknot?  Also check.  Neil Young recorded much of  After the Gold Rush there, after being enamored of the vocal sound that he got on “Birds”.  Keith Olsen learned his craft there.  It’s not much to look at on the outside:  according to producer Butch Vig, it’s “kinda dumpy”. On the inside, there’s booze and cigarettes everywhere.  Big room, huge floor. Lots of black magnetic tape.

Grohl narrates, personal anecdotes flow, then he steps out of the movie’s way.  Grohl has a nice visual style, a combination of close ups and wide shots with plenty of details to look at.  He infuses the movie with plenty of humour, sometimes at his own expense.  The film has two phases:  the first is a history lesson regarding the studio and the artists who created the hits there.  The second consists of Dave purchasing the studio’s Neve board, moving it north to his own studio, and recording a brand new album with the same legendary artists.  Pretty cool concept.

SOUND CITY_0003

The huge Neve console was built like a “brick shithouse” (Keith Olsen), or a “tank” (Neil Young).  Its original purchase price: bought for $75,175  in 1969 dollars.  A nice house at the time cost around $30,000!   The Neve was one of only four.  Combined with the room itself at Sound City, the drum sound you can capture is incredible.  The studio’s acoustics were not designed; it was a complete fluke.  It was originally a box factory that happens to sound magical.

As for that Neve console, it is of course entirely analog.  The one at Sound City was unique, considered the best sounding one. Rupert Neve tried to explain the electronics of it to Grohl in one of the movie’s more humourous scenes.  The very first song recorded on that board was “Crying in the Night”, by Buckingham Nicks.  This led directly to Mick Fleetwood hearing them while at the studio, and hiring not only the studio, but also Buckingham and Nicks!  Essentially, the modern Fleetwood Mac formed right there at Sound City. The studio’s success really began with Rumours.  Then, everyone wanted to record there.   As for Tom Petty?  It appears that Tom Petty pretty much spent his entire career at Sound City.  In fact one of the coolest scenes was an old behind the scenes video from the 1990’s.  Seeing Rick Rubin produce Tom Petty and being brutally honest was very interesting.

Rick Rubin to Tom Petty:  “Sounds like you’re aiming a little lower today than you should be.”

Along came the compact disc, and the infancy of digital recording.  Digital was the latest trend, and you could do new things with a computer that were harder to do on tape.  Sound City suffered during this time, as newer rival studios were on trend. Sound City was dead…but one album helped resuscitate it:  Nevermind.  Then came Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Slayer, Kyuss.  Analog tape and vintage equipment became popular again.  Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash recorded Unchained there with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  Nine Inch Nails combined the old with the new, by bring in their own computers to record on ProTools along with the Neve.

Unfortunately ProTools was heavy competition, and working with tape was so difficult by comparison, that Sound City finally shut its doors.  They just couldn’t pay the bills anymore, even after selling off their excess equipment.  Then Dave bought the board.  It is amazing to watch it taken apart, boxed up, reassembled and functioning in Seattle.  Regarding the sale of the board, Grohl says, “I think they knew that I wasn’t just going to bubble wrap it, and stick it in a warehouse.  I was gonna fuckin’ use it.  A lot.”

SOUND CITY_0001On November 2, 2011, reassembly of the board began at Dave’s Studio 606.  Then he invited all the original artists back to record a new album on it, produced by Butch Vig.  Regarding Stevie Nicks, in a memorable moment Vig says, “Fuckin’ A, that girl can sing!”  More artists arrive.  The Foo Fighters plus Rick Springfield create a monstrous sound together, a neat amalgam of their respective genres.  Lee Ving (Fear) is hilarious, and performs the fastest count-in of all time.  I discovered a new respect for Trent Reznor, a guy who uses the technology to create original sounds, but desires the warmth of tape.  It’s incredible to see him collaborate with Homme and Grohl.  It’s the sound of humans communicating with instruments.  And they wrote a pretty frickin’ cool song together.  Then, watching Paul McCartney writing “Cut Me Some Slack” with the surviving members of Nirvana is a moment that I’m glad was frozen in time.

Grohl:  “What can’t it always be this easy?”

McCartney:  “It is.”

The blu-ray bonus features include three additional performances: “From Can to Can’t”, “Your Wife is Calling”, “The Slowing Down”.  It was these bonus features that inspired Meat and I to add “Your Wife is Calling” (with Lee Ving) to our 2014 Sausagefest lists.  Our votes allowed the song to clock in at #64.  (The track was my #1.)

Sound City is a complete triumph of a music documentary.  It is the kind of music documentary designed for serious fans, not just passers-by.  I would welcome another movie directed by Dave Grohl with open arms.

5/5 stars

REVIEW: Nirvana – Icon (2010)

NIRVANA – Icon (2010 budget compilation)

The Icon series of compilations is mostly shit.  One of the stinkiest of the shit is Nirvana’s installment of Icon.  Where’s “Sliver”?  There’s not one song here from Bleach.  “About A Girl” is from the Unplugged CD and “You Know You’re Right” was a “new” song added to Nirvana’s first and only official greatest hits set, Nirvana.  In fact, every song here can be found on Nirvana.

Rather than bitch bitch bitch about how shitty this CD is, and how pissed Kurt would be to have his music released in configurations that nobody in the band authorized, I’d rather just rate it and change the subject.  Enjoy the following essay.

1/5 sharts

A Brief History of Kitchener, Ontario by Michael Ladano

DOWNTOWN KITCHENERKitchener, a city of 220,000 in southern Ontario, was settled around the year 1800 on lands by the Grand River.  The Crown gifted this land to the Six Nations, who sold it.  It was settled by loyalist German Mennonites from Pennsylvania, to escape religious persecution in the United States.   The Mennonites who settled here included families such as the Schneiders, Webers, and Ebys whose names can be found on streets and buildings all over town today.  They named the settlement Sand Hills, within the Township of Waterloo.

Land was converted to farms, and the Grand River enabled an early sawmill industry.  Streets such as the present day King Street were built, as were landmarks such as the Heuther Brewery, in the early 1800’s.   The town grew with waves of German immigrants, and in 1833 Sand Hills was renamed Berlin.

LORD KITCHENERIn 1856, Berlin was connected to railways, and industry grew.  In 1912, Berlin was declared a city.  During the First World War, anti-German sentiment in 1916 caused the town to be renamed Kitchener, after Lord Kitchener, a British war hero.  His famous face adorned many British recruitment posters.  The bust of Kaiser Wilhelm was thrown into Victoria Lake.

Although some still wish to rename the city Berlin, Kitchener today boasts strong industry, easy access to excellent post-secondary education, and a huge annual Oktoberfest honoring its German heritage.  It is known for its OHL hockey team the Rangers, and for spawning many NHL athletes.  It is also known as the birthplace of William Lyon McKenzie King, Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister and possibly the only one who regularly sought advice from a crystal ball.

Kitchener is also known for its music.  The annual Blues Festival is always popular.  Kitchener has also spawned such international musical artists as Rob Szabo, Helix and Kathryn Ladano, and world famous writers like Michael Ladano.

Come to Kitchener (only 100 km west of Toronto) in the summer to enjoy boating, hiking, biking, music festivals, and much more, including a large population of Miniature Schnauzers.  Don’t bother coming in the winter.

Part 222: Mr. Self Destruct

RECORD STORE TALES Part 222:  Mr. Self Destruct

In a previous chapter, I mentioned that in 1994, I had created our store’s very first online ads.  They were in colour, made in full glorious ANSI, and eye-catching.  We even had a flashing logo on screen!  I did this for free, because I was so passionate about the store.  And it was fun!  (Tip: One thing I had to learn was that if you do something for free once, it becomes expected later.)

The reactions were mostly positive.  One guy, a 14 year old kid who went by the online handle “Mr. Self Destruct” (I think his real name was Justin), posted a message that was a bit of a wake up call.

“The kind of things I look for,” he said, “like imported Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Itself singles, you can’t get at a mall store like the one that Mike works at.  You can only get those downtown, at the good stores.”

That burned!  So I decided to do something about it.

The boss had always told T-Rev and I to order stock that we thought the store needed.  We both took this to heart.  T-Rev for example made sure we stocked things like the new Guns N’ Roses single (“Sympathy for the Devil”) and several other up and coming titles.  Later on, Trevor made sure we stocked all the Oasis singles.  I took care of the Nine Inch Nails side.

GNRNIN_0001I ordered in “Sin”, Pretty Hate Machine, “Head Like A Hole”, Fixed, and Broken.  Fixed had just been deleted, we missed that one.  I ended up buying copies of “Sin” and Pretty Hate Machine for myself (we ordered 3 copies of each).  Unfortunately, it wasn’t like having a few of these titles in stock changed the fortunes of our store.  They sold all but immediately, but there was no sudden and dramatic jump in numbers.  Yet, by summer 1995 we had a much cooler selection.  I like to think we made a difference, albeit a small one, to music lovers.  We sure did try anyway.  It was more about just loving the job and store, and wanting to give 200%.

By that summer, we were even carrying live bootlegs.  The boss picked them up in Toronto, and he’d walk in with a box full of 20 or 30.  I remember T-Rev and I drooling all over them and the boss warning us that there would be no discount on these puppies!  (I didn’t need a discount to want them!)

This period circa 1995-1996, was probably my personal peak at the record store.  It was my peak time for happiness, for motivation, input, pride, and satisfaction.  It was a time of mutual respect, fellowship, and hard work.  I loved every day of it.

Our inventory now had some stuff that you couldn’t get at the cool downtown stores.  I still have some of the bootlegs that I bought:  bands like Guns N’ Roses (Covering ‘Em) and Nine Inch Nails (Woodstock 94).  There were lots more titles (such as the Pearl Jam edition of Covering ‘Em), and our boss would try to get multiple copies of the good ones, like Nine Inch Nails. We even started getting in Japanese imports!  I remember when we carried Hormoaning, by Nirvana, it was like $60 with taxes.  The one guy who bought it had to trade in most of the rest of his collection to buy it.  My buddy Aaron got the other copy.

I spread the word online, and a few of those people became customers.  Guess who was among them?  Mr. Self Destruct!

Part 219: Parental Advisory – Explicit Lyrics

Thanks to 80smetalman for the inspiration.

RECORD STORE TALES Part 219:  

Parental Advisory – Explicit Lyrics

Remember the PMRC? If you were around in the 1980’s you might. The Parents’ Music Resource Center was an organization cofounded by Tipper Gore. They caused a lot of grief for musicians and fans alike. The PMRC wanted albums to have ratings, much like a movie, and to restrict certain albums to certain age groups.

PARENTALBoth Dee Snider and Frank Zappa raked them over the coals in a Senate hearing, but much damage was done. The PARENTAL ADVISORY – EXPLICIT CONTENT logo has defaced many rock albums. Sometimes it’s just a sticker, but almost as often, it’s printed over the cover art.  Frank Zappa’s instrumental album Jazz From Hell was even stickered “explicit content” – an album that has no words at all!  Huge chains such as Walmart refused to carry many albums such as this, and this eventually led to the rise of “clean” and “dirty” versions of albums.  It was one way to get the records in the stores.  This way, grandma can buy little Johnny the “clean” version of Eminem for Christmas.

This had an impact on us, an independent chain, as well. In the senate hearing, Dee Snider advised that if a parent is concerned about the music their kids are listening to, “I think a parent could take it home, listen to it. And I do not think there are too many retail stores that would deny them the ability to return the album for something different.”

Dee was 100% right. That was the policy that we had. If a parent wasn’t happy with the lyrical content of their kid’s purchase, we had no problem returning it.  Even though there were times that I’d been yelled at for doing a refund instead of an exchange, we made exceptions when it came to explicit lyrical content.  In those cases we often offered a full refund, and normally getting a refund out of us was about as easy as Steve-O removing this snapping turtle from his ass.

Some parents used to get upset that I would knowingly sell an album with swearing on it to their kid. Now, to be clear, we wouldn’t sell 2 Pac to a 10 year old. We didn’t do that. We would tell the 10 year to come back with a parent, and they’d whine and leave. However when a kid is in their mid-teens, and it’s harder to tell their age (or if their parents have a pickle up their behinds), we’d sell them the disc. And that’s when some parents would get mad. “Isn’t it illegal to sell this to a kid?”

No, it wasn’t illegal, thankfully. I would have hated to live in a world where I couldn’t hear Twisted Sister until my 18th birthday. But I was smart enough to know fantasy from reality, and my parents were trusting enough to give me that much credit.

Once you give the parents a refund, they were always happy. You never know what a parent would be offended by. One guy refused to buy Nirvana for his son, because Kurt committed suicide. One parent refused to allow her kid to listen to “black music” such as Backstreet Boys. No shit.

WU

Very hard to tell just from this if it’s “clean” or “dirty”

For us, selling used CDs, I think the biggest problem was the “clean” and “dirty versions”. On some discs, it was nearly impossible to tell by the cover if it was censored or not, because often those kinds of stickers would be on the plastic shrinkwrap. Once the shrinkwrap was off, and the CD made it into a used shop like ours, the only way to tell would be to listen.

I spent a lot of time sampling Wu-Tang Clan albums to see if they were clean or dirty. Thankfully I knew where on the disc to check easily without spending too much time on it. We had to sell clean versions for less, because the majority didn’t want them. We had to exchange a lot of clean versions for something else too, when it wasn’t obvious by the packaging.

Looking back at the kind of music people used to get upset about, it seems hilariously blown out of proportion. I’ll end today’s tale with a quote from Dee Snider’s testimonial at the senate hearing:

“The PMRC has made public a list of 15, of what they feel are some of the most blatant songs lyrically. On this list is our song “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” upon which has been bestowed a “V” rating, indicating violent lyrical content.

”You will note from the lyrics before you that there is absolutely no violence of any type either sung about or implied anywhere in the song. Now, it strikes me that the PMRC may have confused our video presentation for this song with the song with the lyrics, with the meaning of the lyrics.

”It is no secret that the videos often depict story lines completely unrelated to the lyrics of the song they accompany. The video “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was simply meant to be a cartoon with human actors playing variations on the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote theme, Each stunt was selected from my extensive personal collection of cartoons.

”You will note when you watch the entire video that after each catastrophe our villain suffers through, in the next sequence he reappears unharmed by any previous attack, no worse for the wear.

”By the way, I am very pleased to note that the United Way of America has been granted a request to use portions of our “We’re Not Gonna Take It” video in a program they are producing on the subject of the changing American family. They asked for it because of its “light-hearted way of talking about communicating with teenagers.

“It is gratifying that an organization as respected as the United Way of America appreciates where we are coming from. I have included a copy of the United Way’s request as part of my written testimony. Thank you, United Way.”

Part 34: SPECIAL! “Bands That I Think Suck” FROM THE ARCHIVES!

I was cleaning out the closet two weeks ago.  I found a folder, full of old writing.  I found stuff that I had written with chums Danesh and Andy back in highschool.  But most interestingly, I found this.  This is not my first published work (that would be an article about turtles from grade 2 in the local newspaper).  This may be, however, my first published work along the lines of what I’m doing now.

Dating back to 1995, my second year at the store, I was already getting jaded!  This is my very first music article:  “Bands That I Think Suck”.  It was published in the University of Waterloo paper Scientific Notation as a comedy piece.  Thanks to Abbas Rizvi for doing so, wherever you are.

I still stand by most of this, but I have since grown to like Pink Floyd.  (See:  Part 28: The Boy Who Killed Pink Floyd). 

OK…ON WITH THE EMBARASSMENT!

Part 33: Special Orders

New CD special orders were something we did, but not frequently, because often the person wouldn’t pick the disc up. At one point in 1995/1996 though, we got this new distributer who had the most insane shit in his catalogue. Our own stock improved dramatically because of this. Suddenly we were carrying the Japanese import Hormoaning by Nirvana in our regular stock.  We were also getting in these UK-issued Iron Maiden imports with bonus discs of B-sides.  They are rare and highly coveted today.  Trevor and I oversaw the stocking of this stuff.  Trevor was made store manager of this first location in 1996, and I was given my own store a few months later.

For me personally these were the peak years, when Trevor and I had the most creative control over the store.  For example I remember we had a “forthcoming releases” board, that Trev and I updated every month.  As a joke, we always had Guns N’ Roses on the board as coming “in 6 months”.  This is because even back in 1996, the new GN’R album was constantly being announced and then delayed.

It came out for real in 2009.

We were also alble to use this new distributer to add to our own collections.  For myself, I ordered a complete set of the afforementioned Maiden collections, 10 albums altogether.  I also got all the new Maiden singles as they came out.  It was a great time to be a collector, and if Trev and I thought something was worth stocking, we had the freedom to do so.  We were starting to carry Oasis singles, where they had always avoided that kind of stock before.

Trevor had his finger on the pulse of what was coming out.  He tweaked onto Oasis very early.  He got me into it very quickly.  In a time when good new rock bands were few and far between, Oasis were a breath of fresh air to me.  For a change, a band inspired by the classics like the Beatles and Stones, not another punk or grunge band. 

One thing Trev and I tried to special order for ourselves, but never managed to get, were the Japanese imports of the first two Oasis discs.  They each contained bonus tracks:  “Sad Song”, and “Bonehead’s Bank Holiday” respectively, both great tracks.

Sometimes a customer would special order something, and you couldn’t wait to see it come in.  I remember a guy ordered Twisted Sister’s Live at Hammersmith, back in a time when it was absolutely impossible to find any Twisted Sister in any stores, let along a double live.  I couldn’t wait to check out the tracklisting.  My buddy Aaron special ordered the Sloan 2 CD edition of One Chord, but we failed to hook him up.  He bought it elsewhere.  No hard feelings Aaron.

I probably special ordered stuff for myself more than Trev did.  Trev had a saying:  “Don’t buy it new.  If you buy it new, it’ll come in used a week later.”  And he actually had a pretty good batting average with that saying.  I would say a good 75% of the time, when Trev or myself bought something new like a special order, we saw a used copy come in within the next 7 days.

It was almost like magic. 

Nowadays, there’s never a need to special order anything.  Amazon and eBay are both happy to do that for you.  New or used.  And the collection grows….

Part 18: Klassic Kwotes III

Without further adieu.

1. This one is painful.  We had a wreath on our store door, with the lights and all that.  There was a note taped to the door next to the wreath.  It was instructions for us.  It said:  “Please unplug the reith every night!”  R-E-I-T-H.

2. “Because I’m the Tattoo Man!  I get a discount at Sears, you know.”  Said to us by Snake the Tattoo Man, on why he deserved a discount.

3. “Kurt!  Stop that!”  Yelled by a young mother at her misbehaving son, while selling her ENTIRE Nirvana collection.

4. Q: “What happens when you put a CD in the microwave?”  A: You buy a new microwave.

5. “I was just trying to see how fast I could run…with a shovel…”  Said to me by a kid who walked in the store, stole our snow shovel, and walked out again.  (I got in shit, by the way, for chasing him down and getting the shovel back.)

6. “What you’re hearing right now is a roll.  You’ve heard of rock, right?  You’ve heard of rock and roll, right?  Well, this song is roll.  Can you hear it?  Can you hear that?  This is roll.  Not rock, and not rock and roll.  This is the first roll performed since 1966.”  Said to us by some dude while we were playing the current album by The Verve, Urban Hymns.  I still have no fucking idea what he was on about.  (If you know, please, comment below.)

7. “Do you have ze Queens?”  Said to me by a guy with a thick German accent, asking for Queen.

8. This one’s not a quote, per-se.  But this guy came in once wearing a T-shirt that said, “Does this cock in my mouth make me look gay?”  He was in the store with his mother!

9. “Can I work here for like, four hours, and you just pay me cash when I’m done?”  Said to me by a really really scary looking weirdo dude type guy.

10. “Can you please do me a favour.  I’d like you to call or write to Sony, and let them know that this DVD is not recorded in DTS.  It says it is on the box, but when I put it in the player, the DTS light doesn’t come on.  Can you please inform Sony about this?”  Sure.  Want me to pick up your laundry too?

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Part 1: The Beginning – “Run to the Hills”

 

RECORD STORE TALES PART 1:  The Beginning – “Run To The Hills”

I still remember the first time I heard Iron Maiden.

Maybe it’s this way for some when they remember the first time they heard the Beatles, or the Stones. Or for those younger, maybe it’s like the first time they heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Fake Plastic Trees”. The first time I heard “Run To The Hills” was monumental to me, but I didn’t realize yet what the massive impact would be.

It was Christmas of 1984. I was a mere 12 year old looking for musical direction.  I hadn’t been much interested in music prior to that.  I had albums by Quiet Riot and Styx, but my majority of my collection was John Williams’ movie soundtracks.

I really wasn’t interested in music yet. I had yet to dedicate myself to any particular style. At the same time that I would listen to Quiet Riot, I somehow also thought Billy Ocean was cool.

Well, the video for “Loverboy” was nifty….

I had always been kinda afraid of heavy metal bands.  Guys that wore spikes, like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden. Kiss literally scared me when I was buying my first comics (there were always ads for Kiss posters inside comic books), and I know I wasn’t the only one. The neighbor kid was scared to death of Gene Simmons spitting up blood. Bands like Maiden and Priest looked like a bunch of hooligans, definitely up to no good, definitely out to hurt people, including kids.

Boxing Day, Bob came over. It was tradition, every Boxing Day, Bob and I would get together and compare our Christmas scores. Bob scored a cassette tape called Masters Of Metal Volume 2 and I was given an Atari game called Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron.

In my basement, we sat down to play the video game. Our goal was to take the game as far as humanly possible, to see what happened when you shot down so many planes that the Atari didn’t have enough characters to display it anymore. (Incidentally, disappointingly, like most Atari games, it just starts counting up from zero again.) We sat there playing that game so long that Bob had to go home and eat lunch, then come back. But what he left behind while eating was Masters Of Metal.

“Run To The Hills” came on. Some people speak of moments of clarity: That was my moment. The music was fast, powerful, dramatic and melodic. The lyrics were cool and you could mostly sing along. Most importantly, the music and lyrics seemed to combine with the game experience. When Dickinson was singing “Run to the hills, run for your lives!” it meshed perfectly!  Too bad Aces High wasn’t out yet!

A moment like that could quickly pass into history and be forgotten for most people.  As the day wore on, I realized that I had found something. This music kicked ass!  I was brought up on movie soundtracks.  This stuff had the same drama, but with guitars!   This was even better than Quiet Riot and AC/DC, so I said at the time.

It didn’t end there of course. We played through Masters Of Metal, finding a few more diamonds. “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” By Judas Priest was definitely a close second to “Run To The Hills”. We were fixated on Accept’s “Balls To The Wall”.  We’d play it over and over again laughing hysterically at the lyrics.  But the song still rocked!  I can still remember when MuchMusic started the Power Hour, and they played that video.  There’s little Udo Dirkscheider, in his camo pants, and crew cut, rocking with these skinny German guys with long hair.  It was fucking hilarious!

We skipped (what we then thought was) the crap…Lee Aaron, Anvil, Triumph.  I grew into them later, particularly Triumph.  Something to do with double guitars, maybe.  I digress.  We always came back to Iron Maiden.  Always.

Bob would bring other tapes over as the months and years went by. W.A.S.P., Motley Crue, Black Sabbath. Now Bob’s a father of four who doesn’t listen to rock music anymore, which makes me sad in a way.  I’m not sad for him, because he’s got a great family and always has.  I’m more sad because I don’t think he can ever appreciate what impact our shared experiece of rocking out had on me.  Listening to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and the rest.  The was it, the beginning.