Sweet Leaf

#1056: Spring Metal on the Other Side of Winter

RECORD STORE TALES #1056: Spring Metal on the Other Side of Winter

I think many people share my sentiment that this winter was absolutely brutal.

Since ages past, it has always been a celebration when the sun emerges warmly after a long, cold winter.  Memories flooding back.  So many memories.

1986.  On the back porch at the cottage, playing “Turbo Lover” and “Locked In”, freshly recorded in mono from MuchMusic, from the brand new Judas Priest album Turbo.   I was probably told to turn it down….

1987.  On my bike.  I had received The Final Countdown by Europe for Easter.  It was difficult for me to get into; different from what I was used to.  I remember cruising down Carson Ave on my bike with that album in my head.  Best track for me:  “Cherokee”.  I loved the keyboard hook and the chorus.

1988.  I was given Skyscraper by David Lee Roth for Easter.  It became a “warm weather album” that spring, played many times weekly in a Walkman while riding a bike or strolling through the neighbourhood looking for girls.  (Not that I ever found any.)  Memories of setting up my ghetto blaster on the front porch, with Skyscraper serenading the street.  That cassette wore out rapidly.  It was one my first CD re-buys a couple years down the road (spring ’91).

1989.  Trying to look cool, and practicing my guitar on the front patio for the world to see.  I was never any good, but I am sure that “Mary Had A Little Lamb” really delivered the spring-like vibes I was laying down.  In my earphones were things like New Jersey by Bon Jovi, House Of Lords’ self-titled debut, Quiet Riot’s latest with Paul Shortino on lead vocals.  Amazingly though, 1987’s Hysteria by Def Leppard was still in my Walkman.  The album had incredibly long legs.  I was hoping for one more single, which never came to be.  I picked “Love and Affection” as my favourite in ’89.  Then, I had some new buys!  We had just joined Columbia House.  I split the membership with my sister and picked up these treasures that rocked my whole spring:

  1. Leatherwolf – Leatherwolf
  2. Motley Crue – Girls, Girls, Girls
  3. Hurricane – Over the Edge
  4. Stryper – To Hell With the Devil
  5. Stryper – In God We Trust
  6. White Lion – Pride
  7. Sammy Hagar – VOA

Shortly after the first seven, I added Triumph Stages to the list, which carried on rocking me into the summer of 1989.  That year was one of the most critical in my life as a music fan, and the spring motherlode from Columbia House had a lot to do with it.

1990.  I was now working at the local grocery store, Zehrs.  Short-haired and geekier than ever, I was really getting in Black Sabbath.  Pushing the shopping carts in long lines, singing “Sweet Leaf”, but having no idea what it was about.  When I declared it as my favourite Black Sabbath song, people reacted strangely and I didn’t know why.  I guess they thought I was into the pot!  I thought the “Leaf” of the song was a girl named Leaf.

1991.  The end of highschool loomed…I felt very free.  Very excited about the future.  The future of hard rock.  Little did I know!  I was listening to a lot of the new Mr. Big that spring, an album called Lean Into It.  I thought they had really refined their sound.  I had also taken the dive into indi rock, and Raw M.E.A.T was absolutely one of my favourite CDs that spring.

Good place to end this trip down memory land:  happy memories, all of them!  I wonder what will be dominating the car stereo with the windows down this spring?

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#803: The Grocery Gang

A sequel to Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job

GETTING MORE TALE #803: The Grocery Gang

I started working at the grocery store in fall 1989.  While it was nice finally having a real job, it was immediately disruptive to my life.  I worked every Thursday, which meant that I was missing at least one Pepsi Power Hour every week.  If I pulled a Tuesday shift too, no Power Hours at all!  I had barely missed an episode in four years.  Now I was missing more than half of them.

That was a monumental shift.  I prided myself in keeping my fingers on the pulse of hard rock and heavy metal.  Keeping up with school work wasn’t hard.  Keeping up with music was!  I felt so out of touch with whatever the latest singles and new releases were.  The Power Hour was my main metal lifeline!

When a door closes, another opens.

I might have been missing the Power Hours* but like a see-saw, music swung back into balance.  Every work place introduces you to new people and new music.  The grocery store was like that as well, but those guys liked heavier music than I had been listening to at home.  Specifically I remember Metallica, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.  Those guys were not interested in Bon Jovi or Motley Crue, two groups I was really hot for in 1989.

There were three places I could be assigned to work at the grocery store:  Packing, parcel pickup, or cart collection.  That was the order of prestige involved.  Cart collection was considered the best assignment because you’d be out in the parking lot with a buddy collecting carts with no supervision.  It was a big parking lot so you could get lost and buy a soda at the convenience store for a minute or two on a regular day.  Parcel pickup was also cool because they had a tape deck down there you could listen to.  It was on that tape deck I heard a lot of my early Sabbath, Zeppelin and Metallica.  I wasn’t sure about Zeppelin yet.  They were telling me about this song “Moby Dick” that was a 10 minute long drum solo.**  And those guys didn’t care about Peter Criss’ drum work on “100,000” years.

I started absorbing the music.  There was one guy a few years older than me, Scott Gunning.  I went to school with his brother Todd.  I credit Scott for getting me into early Sabbath.  All I had was Born Again and Paranoid.  I’d never heard “Sweet Leaf”, “Black Sabbath”, “The Wizard”, “Supernaut”, “Changes” or anything else.  I decided to buy We Sold Our Soul for Rock ‘N’ Roll and it quickly because a favourite.   Bob Schipper also worked at the grocery store, in the bakery.  He was already over early Sabbath and seemed bemused that I had bought it.  He much preferred solo Ozzy.  But I was really into the Sabbath, much more than I expected.  “Sweet Leaf” took over during the spring of 1990.

As discussed in Getting More Tale #709: The Stuff, I had no idea what “Sweet Leaf” was actually about.  I also don’t know if Scott Gunning though I’d gone drug mad, so much did I love “Sweet Leaf”.  But there I was in the parking lot, collecting carts, and singing “I love you, sweet leaf”.

Packing groceries indoors was the usual job, however.  It was a rare treat to be on carts.  Indoors, all the packers raced to pack for the young cute cashiers.  There were only a couple of them.  Kathleen Fitzpatrick, with her jet black hair, was the newest and most popular.  She was really nice.  She’d drive me home in the winter so I didn’t have to walk.  But other guys with more seniority would make me go pack somewhere else with the older ladies.

In fact, one guy had only about six months seniority on me, but he sure used it.  He kicked me off Kathleen’s lane more than once!  The funny thing about this guy is that his older brother would later be the owner at the Record Store.  I would regale the Big Boss Man of the times his brother kicked me off any cute girl’s lane.

Since the grocery store was located in the local mall (the same one the Record Store would later occupy) I could go music shopping at the Zellers before my shift.  It was there I bought the compilation Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell, loaded to the gills with metal rarities like Ozzy doing “Purple Haze”, the only studio recording of that lineup with Geezer Butler on bass.  I still have that.  I also still have my copy of Back for the Attack by Dokken, that I paid a co-worker $10 for, because he was tired of it.

I left that job in the summer of 1990 with lots of cash and new music in my back pocket.  I was off to new adventures including a week in Alberta that also featured a ton of new music.  The grocery store was good to me but I never went back.  I wanted to focus on getting into the school I liked most (which I did) but I also got my Pepsi Power Hour back for another year.  (It was replaced by the inferior Power 30 in ’91.)   Still I met some great friends there like Scott, and, oh I almost forgot, bought my first Flying V guitar from a guy that worked in the bakery too!  I can’t deny that the grocery store had an unexpected but indelible effect on my musical history.

 

* No, I didn’t set my VCR to record the shows.  When I usually taped the Power Hour, I sat there with my finger on the record button, ready to grab every video I wanted.  I didn’t record entire shows.  I didn’t have a way of transferring one tape to another.  I preferred missing the show entirely, to recording it and not being able to keep the videos I wanted for my collection.  I’ve always been picky that way.  The result is the VHS Archives that you enjoyed in 2019.  

** Live version.

 

#709: The Stuff

GETTING MORE TALE #709: The Stuff

October 17 2018 was a day like any other day.  I got up, showered, went to work, worked, ate lunch, worked some more, and came home.  You might have had a similar day yourself.

I drove home with Cheap Trick in my ears (“If You Want My Love”, great pop rock) and it was a regular commute, just like any other.  Uneventful is good.  I exited the car into the cold air.  The chill has come, but as I walked towards the building, there was something new.  I smelled the Stuff.

The Stuff is legal in Canada now.  Cannabis, also known as marijuana, ganja, reefer, weed, pot, the electric lettuce…add your own to this list.  Where was I?  Legalisation.  The Justin Trudeau Liberals actually lived up to its campaign promise and the Stuff is now legal.  You can smoke it, you can grow it, and there are rules and regulations to go with it.  In the province of Ontario you can’t just walk into a store and buy it.  You have to order it online.  I heard they’re already sold out.  But it’s legal, is the point I’m making.  Somebody upstairs in the building was celebrating, and that’s fine.

My main point:  like many things, the world didn’t shift today.  I read worried nay-sayers asking questions like “Have they considered all the stoned pot heads driving during the winter while on the Stuff?”  Yes, that’s been considered.  Anybody stupid enough to drive while stoned was already doing it.  What’s one law when you can break two, I guess.  Life in Canada has gone on pretty much normally.  The mail came again.  It was all junk, again.  Gas is pretty much the same price as yesterday.  Same with milk.  Donald Trump tweeted stupid things.  Just a normal day in 2018.

There was one other minor difference today.  There was a mass email at work reminding everyone of the drug & liquor policies.  They haven’t changed though, it’s still basically “Don’t come to work drunk or stoned.”  Same as the day before.

Moving on, I like to think of all the songs I heard as a kid, loaded with references to the Stuff that I completely missed.  I was a pretty naive teenager, I guess, and I really didn’t have a clue!  “Sweet Leaf” by Black Sabbath?  I thought it was about a girl named Leaf.  Leaf isn’t a common name, but it’s a name.  “I love you Sweet Leaf, though you can’t hear.”  Hey, maybe she’s too far away to hear.  I didn’t know!  I swear to Christ almighty, believe me or not, I thought “Sweet Leaf” was about a girl.  Don’t forget Black Sabbath cassettes didn’t come with lyric sheets, so I was guessing at most of the words.  Same with “Flying High Again”.  No clue.

Early 1990, I was working at the grocery store at the mall with a guy named Scott Gunning.  I was obsessed with “Sweet Leaf” that spring.  I just got Sabbath’s We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll tape.  “Sweet Leaf” was one of many favourites, but I really loved that riff.  I thought the cough at the start was just an unrelated joke.  Scott, who was older and knew Black Sabbath, must have thought I was a complete stoner, how much I was talking about this song!  Meanwhile I wouldn’t have known the Stuff if it bit me on the nose!

As kids, we always preferred anti-drug songs to ones about getting high.  We were young, and we could relate to the “cleaner” lyrics of a band like Kiss.  “I don’t need to get wasted, it only brings me down.”  Clear cut and easy to understand.  Gene Simmons would be happy that his lyrics had a positive resonance with kids.

Here’s the irony:  Gene Simmons, who has always boasted that he’s only been high in a dentist’s chair, is now investing in Canadian weed companies.

Legalization is a good thing.  A lot of money is going to go right into the economy.  Hell, Mrs. LeBrain has had a prescription for a year and a half now.  Another irony:  she doesn’t take her meds.  She doesn’t like it.  And that’s another factor that people are forgetting.  There are going to be plenty of people who are going to legally try it for the first time, and they’re going to hate it.  They won’t like how it makes them paranoid, or lazy, or hungry, or whatever their reaction will be.  It’ won’t be like the nation will go pot-mad.

Even if it did, I’d rather be living here than down south.

 

REVIEW: Ozzy Osbourne – Speak of the Devil / Talk of the Devil (1983)

 

OZZY OSBOURNE – Speak of the Devil (1983 Epic)

After Randy Rhoads died, Ozzy really seemed to have gone into a tailspin. He just seems to have been completely miserable at the time and he really tries to bury the albums he made in this period. Speak Of The Devil, a live album featuring Brad Gillis (Night Ranger) on guitar, was not even included on Ozzy’s 2002 reissue program and went out of print.

Ozzy owed his label a live album, and had actually recorded one too (Randy Rhoads Tribute).  With fresh wounds from the loss of Randy, Ozzy didn’t want to do a live album at all.    So a compromise instead; Speak of the Devil (Talk of the Devil overseas) consisted entirely of Black Sabbath songs.  At the same time, Sabbath was releasing their own double live album, Live Evil.  This direct competition poured fuel over an already volatile feud.

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL_0003I always hate to compare Ozzy’s versions of Sabbath songs with the originals. Ozzy’s have always sounded different because of the guitar players he’s chosen to use over the years. These Gillis versions are about as authentic as Ozzy’s been, until the fortuitous discovery of Zakk Wylde five years later.  Gillis is a flashier player than Iommi, but without Randy’s intricate classical bent.

You absolutely cannot argue with the track list (from the Ritz, in New York). This is Sabbath boiled down to its black core. These are the desert island songs, and I love that “Never Say Die” and “Symptom of the Universe” were included.  Through the classics, Ozzy sounds tremendously drunk.  Colossally smashed, not quite completely out of his fucking head yet, but close.  Still lucid, not yet totally annihilated.  His voice takes on an angry shade when he starts reminiscing about the the groupies at the old Fillmore East (“The Wizard”).  (Sounds like a naughty word was awkwardly edited of out this ramble, too.)

I do love a moment when, just before breaking into the aforementioned “Wizard”, Ozzy says to somebody (a roadie?) “Hey, what’s happenin’ man?”

The vocals sound like they’ve been sweetened in the studio.  They’ve been double tracked, or manipulated to have that effect.  I’m normally not a fan of that kind of thing, but it’s still a great listen.  There’s some annoying feedback at points…it doesn’t bother me too much, hell, when I first heard this album (on cassette) in 1991, I couldn’t even hear the feedback, for the shitty fidelity of cassette tape.  I’m sure Ozzy considers the album to be sonically embarrassing, that seems to be his modus operandi.

Of note, “Sweet Leaf” did not manage to make the original CD release, but has been restored to this version, its CD debut.  It was on the original cassette version, a cassette-and-LP-only “bonus track” at the time.  (Aaron, that means you gotta buy remastered or LP.)

Band lineup: Osbourne/Gillis/Sarzo/Aldridge/Airey.

4.5/5 stars

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL_0004

 

REVIEW: Fight – Mutations (1994)

Part 2 of a miniseries on Rob Halford’s solo career!  If you missed Part 1, War of Words, then click here.

FIGHT – Mutations (1994 Epic collector’s edition, 2008 Metal God Entertainment reissue)

Released in late 1994, Mutations (subtitled “collector’s edition“, which really means nothing) was a live/remix CD to follow War of Words.  I seem to remember this being marketed as some sort of “extended EP” or some kind of not-album, which again is kind of meaningless.  The original release was 45 minutes, a full length album by most measures.

Live Fight!  Shame it was only four songs, as they absolutely kick ass.  Rob Halford was still in peak voice in 1994, and every high scream is present on opener “Into the Pit”.  Fight as a live band were less stiff than on the first album.  They were no less precise, and each song is just as ferocious as its album counterpart.  On “Nailed to the Gun”, bassist Jay Jay does the low death metal growls while Rob howls like a mad dog.

I was surprised that Rob put “Freewheel Burning” on the album, as he seemed to be trying to distance himself from his past at this time.  Its the only Priest song and I don’t think they played many Priest songs on the tour at all (but I know they did cover Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf”).  Surprisingly it’s here that Rob’s voice falters, struggling with the demanding song.  He redeems himself on the bluesy single “Little Crazy”.

I enjoy hearing live recordings from bands with two distinct lead guitar players trading off.  Russ Parrish and Brian Tilse were both very different stylistically, and the contrast is awesome.    The pace is aggressive, and these guys keep chugging on.  (Note:  Russ Parrish is not credited on this album.  He had left the band by the time of release, but there is no question that he did play on all these tracks.  Why he was not credited is a mystery, but he does appear on the remastered version cover art.)

FIGHT_0008I believe I am well on record as not being a fan of remixes in general.  There are exceptions but so many remixes add techno-crapola that often serves to reduce the songs to repetitive mockeries of themselves.  On a track like “War of Words” , they remove Scott Travis’ drums from sections, and replace him electronic beats.  At the time I thought, “Why would you want to replace Scott Travis with a drum machine?”  Today, it still bugs me.  But hey, those who doubted the sincerity of Rob’s industrial work with Trent Reznor in Two should remember these remixes!

FIGHT_0006I’ll be honest, I struggle getting through the remix side in one sitting.  There are some cool moments, such as the chance to hear isolated instruments and solos.  “Vicious” is an example of a remix that works for me.  It’s weird, it has an opera singer and dance beats added, but it’s pretty heavy and cool.   But in general, the Fight songs were simple and repetitive to begin with.  Making them simpler and more repetitive didn’t work for me.  Sure, I own some Nine Inch Nails albums, but this sound isn’t where my heart lies.

Goodie-goodie-gosh, Mutations was reissued as part of the Into the Pit box set, with two bonus tracks.  And these bonus tracks are (you guessed it) remixes.   More versions of “Kill It” and “War of Words”.  At least the “Culture of Corruption Mix” of “War of Words” is about half as long as the regular “Bloody Tongue Mix”.

Incidentally, why do remixes always have cliche sounding names?  “Bloody Tongue Mix”!  Raahhrr!  Why not…”Toothpaste Mix”.  Something original.  I think remixers should strive to be more original in the naming of their work.  Something nobody’s used yet.  “I’m Rob Halford and I Endorsed This Mix Mix”.

2/5 stars