RECORD STORE TALES Part 152: Carnival of Lost Souls
The Year: 1996
The Place: Dr. Disc, Hamilton Ontario
The Guilty Party: Me
Remember when the original Kiss reunited back in ’96? It was a huge deal. Everybody was talking about it. What very few people were talking about was the studio album that the previous Kiss lineup (with Eric Singer and Bruce Kulick) had completed prior to the reunion. That album, Carnival of Souls, was shelved to avoid confusion.
It was, however, leaked. Or, at least most of it was. It revealed a new, grungier Kiss ready to take on the likes of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. Not a bad album in fact, and some songs such as “Hate” and “In My Head” were downright vicious. A buddy of mine, Len Labelle, hooked me up with a poor-sounding cassette. It was better than nothing.
Both Gene and Paul pooh-poohed the idea of a release. You’d read things like, “We don’t know when it’s coming out,” or “We have no plans to release it right now.” But I was digging that tape and I wanted a CD, dammit!
T-Rev, Tom and myself were at a record show in Hamilton, and we stopped at a local Dr. Disc. I went over to the Kiss section. I saw two discs, both at $30 staring me in the face: the ultra rare Japanese import Chikara, a greatest hits album, and a bootleg copy of Carnival of Souls…
I had a limited budget and could only buy one. I chose Carnival of Souls. I’ve never seen a copy of Chikara again. And Kiss officially issued Carnival 9 months later, rendering my bootleg obselete. I can’t give it away, today.
It was a bad call, Ripley! Bad call!
So what about this bootleg that I bought? Well, it has a few notable features.
The title is wrong. The title on the bootleg is Carnival of Lost Souls.
The wrong lineup is on the front and back covers. They show the original Kiss, in makeup.
Even though it says it’s “the complete 11 track version” on the front cover, Carnival of Souls has 12 tracks. Missing is “I Walk Alone”, the lone Bruce Kulick lead vocal.
The songs are in the wrong order, and most have the wrong titles.
For example:
“Hate” = “Hate (Is What I Am)”
“Master & Slave” = “Tell Me”
“Rain” = “I Think It’s Gonna Rain (Down On Me)”
“It Never Goes Away” = “It Never Ends”
“In the Mirror” = “(Take A Look) In the Mirror”
“I Confess” = “You Confess”
At best, this is now just a weird oddity that sits in my closet, unlistened to, unwanted, unloved, for the rest of eternity. There’s $30 I’ll never get back again. Yeah, like I said, it was a bad call!
RECORD STORE TALES Part 145: Cassettes Part I – T-Rev’s Tapes
I’m sure this comes as no surprise, but back in the day, us Record Store Dudes were expert mix tape makers. I’ve been making mix tapes since I got my first dual cassette deck, back in 1985. It was a Sanyo. Thanks mom & dad.
I made all sorts of mix tapes. I made mixes of whatever tunes I was into at the time. I made mix tapes for girls that I liked, sneaking in the odd commercial Judas Priest tune like “Parental Guidance” in order to sway them to the dark side. I made greatest hits tapes. I distinctly remember an Ace Frehley greatest hits tape I made, 90 minutes. The first 5 songs were classic Kiss hits that he sang. The next 5 were from his first solo album. Then on side two, 5 songs from Frehley’s Comet and 5 from Second Sighting. I also made a Kiss hits tape from the post-Double Platinum period, basically all the singles from Dynasty through to Asylum.
When I first met T-Rev almost a decade later (1994), I had met a kindred spirit. He was doing the same thing! He made hits mixes for Guns N’ Roses. The Four Horsemen. Van Halen. And so on and so forth. But in a lot of ways, he had taken it to the next level.
Trevor had an artistic ability above and beyond me, he was really really good at art. That’s why we used to get him to make all our store signage. So it probably should have been no surprise to me that he put equal effort into his cover art. He did a beautiful job on the Guns and Van Halen mixes!
Somehow these ended up in my possession. I don’t even remember how anymore, but here they are. It looks to me like not only did T-Rev did awesome cover art, but he numbered all his mixes and must have had a numerical filing system. The Guns mix appears to be a Part II, and is #34 in his library. Van Halen must have followed shortly behind at #38. I also ended up with an early mix of his, number #14, called What De Hell!!
I’m really glad that I found these! It brings back a lot of memories of the early days at the record store. There was no such thing as blank CD’s yet, and even if there was, T-Rev didn’t have a computer to burn one on yet. Tapes were our canvas, and they even had a longer running time than a CD. 90 minutes was our standard, but you could even go as high as 100 without losing too much sound quality.
Not that there was much sound quality!
Thanks for loaning these to me T-Rev! If you still have something to play them on, I’ll send ’em back to ya if you want them!
For the first time in a long time, there was this vibe of, “new Maiden? Meh.”
I recall seeing this listed in our distributor’s catalogue and ordering one for myself. We didn’t even order it in for the store. Think about that! The catalog had the title listed as Vartual Xi, which made me wonder what the hell I was buying.
Virtual XI is the 11’th studio album by Iron Maiden. It is the second with Blaze Bayley on lead vocals and second to be co-produced by Nigel Green. It is also the second to feature cover art by Melvyn Grant, this time an improvement on his Fear of the Dark work (but only barely).
You’ll notice the Iron Maiden logo was changed — the jagged bits lopped off! It is this logo that Maiden used almost exclusively going forward. I prefer the original.
I was living with T-Rev when the album came out, early ’98, and both of us were heavily into the Nintendo 64 classic Goldeneye. One Saturday night when he was out working his second job at the Waterloo Inn, I stayed home with Virtual XI, Goldeneye, and enough junk food to last the weekend. I was set. And my feelings on Virtual XI largely go back to that night and the great fun it was to play the Statue Park level whilst rocking out to “When Two Worlds Collide”.
As highly as I rate the two Blaze albums, I will be the first to admit that he was the wrong singer for this band. His voice lacks the range. As I argued in my review for The X Factor, I think Blaze’s voice suited the mid-90’s and the darker tones that Maiden were taking. I remember cranking Best of the Beast in my store, Dickinson wailing away, and two kids laughing. Context is important! In the 90’s, tastes had drifted and so had Maiden. And don’t lie to me — you owned one of these five albums: Ten, Nevermind, Superunknown, Purple or Dirt. I know you did!
I personally enjoy the dreadfully-titled Virtual XI. I bet Steve Harris wishes he could take that title back. It is not as strong as the powerfully dark X Factor album. This is Iron Maiden trying to relax a little more, be more comfortable in their new sound, and trying to lighten up a bit after an entire album of dark thoughts and suicidal tendencies. Witness “The Angel And The Gambler” which is as close to a good-time rocker as Iron Maiden get. Its problem (and the problem with a few songs on the album) is length: At 10 minutes, it’s not an epic, it’s too repetitive. I could also do without Steve’s boppy keyboard line.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The album kicks off with “Futureal”, a short fast rocker akin to “Man On The Edge” or “Be Quick Or Be Dead”, but with plenty of melody to spare. Harris wrote this one with Blaze.
Up next is “The Angel And the Gambler” which I guess Steve was hoping would sound like 70’s UFO or something like that. A classic Davey guitar solo keeps it in Maiden territory. It had a good video, very Star Wars cantina, funny with dated CG! The video however doesn’t do much to make Blaze Bayley’s case as a frontman.
Then, back to the darkness that marked the last album. “Lightning Strikes Twice” is a decent song with quiet verses and a powerful chorus. It takes a while to build unfortunately, since it’s only 5 minutes long.
Side one ended with “The Clansman”, continuing the Maiden tradition of basing songs on movies and historical events! This was the epic of the album, and one that they performed into the Dance of Death tour. You’ll be chanting, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” by the end. This one sounds very traditional Iron Maiden, especially the fast parts.
Side two kicked off with a personal favourite, “When Two Worlds Collide”. Here’s Maiden’s take on the whole Deep Impact/Armageddon thing:
Now I can’t believe its true
and I don’t know what to do
For the hundredth time
I check the declination
Now the fear starts to grow
even my computer shows
There are no errors in the calculations
Kinda cheesy, kinda nerdy-cool at the same time. Have you ever seen the word “declination” in a heavy metal lyric before? This is the first and only collaboration between Steve, Blaze and Dave Murray.
Another dark and moody one is up next, “The Educated Fool”, another one I like quite a bit due to its delicate guitars. At this point Maiden were no longer trying to simply assault you aurally, now they were introduced in a smoother sounding guitar sound. But the song does kick in soon. There’s a line reflecting some of Steve’s personal inner pain, “I want to see my father beyond.”
This is followed by “Don’t Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger”. These songs are good tunes, but by this time we’ve already had several dark and moody ones with repeated choruses. The repetition was getting a bit much. Even the previous song, “The Educated Fool” suffers from repetitive chorus syndrome.
Last up is the closer “Como Estais Amigos”, translated as “How are you my friends”. It was written by Blaze and Janick. This one has an epic vibe to it as well, with its anthemic chorus of “No more tears, no more tears. If we live for a hundred years, amigo no more tears.” It is as if Maiden are saying, “We have been through some rough patches but better times are up ahead.” And yes, Maiden really did go through rough times, Steve Harris in particular.
And that is it, a mere 8 songs. Brevity this time unlike the previous two albums. No B-sides were recorded, either. The only B-sides were live. Let’s have a look at ’em!
“The Angel And the Gambler” was released in two parts, one with cover art by Derek Riggs, one from the forthcoming new Maiden video game, Ed Hunter. They wisely included a single edit on the second one. The B-sides were live takes of “Blood On the World’s Hands” and “The Aftermath”, which if you recall are two of the songs I ranked poorly on The X Factor.
“Futureal” was the second single, with more Ed Hunter cover art. Inside, a poster featuring Derek Riggs’ far superior artwork. The live tracks were were “Man On the Edge” (another one I’m not fond of) and “The Evil That Men Do”, from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son! This is one of the few official versions available of Blaze doing a Bruce song. My take? His “Come on! Come on! Come on!” intro fails to inspire me, but the band is playing it fast and great. Vocally this one is well suited to Blaze’s voice. He does an excellent job. (He does screw up the lyrics in the same place that Bruce used to, too!) It was recorded in 1995, which makes sense. Everything I’ve heard from that tour sounds great. Everything I’ve heard from the Virtual XI tour, however…
I think after this album the vibe was generally one of “Who cares what Maiden do next?” I still would have loyally bought it. I had just given up on the idea of Maiden being a huge band that mattered again. I didn’t expect albums that would impact me the way that Piece of Mind or Powerslave or even The X Factor did. Maiden seemed to be coasting, at a time that Bruce Dickinson was forging forward with superior solo albums. In general though, it seemed metal was done, Maiden pretty much with it, and all that was left were unremarkable studio albums and tours.
“It’s alright to say things will only get better. You haven’t lost your brand new sweater.”
RECORD STORE TALES PART 135: Back In A Tracksuit
Way, way back, in Part 15, I talked about a band called the Sultans Of Ping F.C. (F.C. stands for Football Club.)
Their album, Casual Sex in the Cineplex, was discovered in-store by T-Rev and quickly spread to the rest of us. It was Irish punk rock with hilarious lyrics!
My brother knows Karl Marx
He met him eating mushrooms in the public park
He said ‘What do you think of my manifesto?’
I like your manifesto, put it to the testo – (“Where’s Me Jumper?”)
That album spread line fungus among us. One problem: there was just one copy in the entire chain of stores. And all of us wanted it. So, the CD went on hold into a “store play” pile. Anybody could listen to it on their shift, but it stayed in the store. That arrangement lasted a few months.
But T-Rev remembers this much more clearly than I do. I’ll let him take over:
Here is the official “Sultans Of Ping F.C.” story! We stumbled across this album, as Mike has said, completely by happenstance, put it on, laughed our heads off…history was made!
So, none of us wanted to put it “on the floor” for sale, fearing it would be gone forever, so I put it in my “pile” and there it sat for probably 3-4 months. Other staff members would listen to it (even when I was off) and just put it back in my pile at the end of the night. They didn’t want me to buy it either, as that would mean it would leave the store and enter my collection…which meant we couldn’t listen to it at the store (obviously), and I enjoyed the laugh occasionally. So it kind of became a sort of “store copy”.
One day, the boss came in and it was playing. He hated the album from the get-go (as he got a taste of it shortly after we discovered it) and he made a comment about it still being here in my “pile” and said “if you are not going to buy it, then put it out for sale!” so I did, reluctantly (thinking it would never sell anyway, and i’d be able to snag it later “unnoticed”). That same day, just before shift change, Matty came in and perused the new arrivals (as he often did prior to starting his shift). He found the “Sultans” in said area and looks at me and says “You’re not buying this? Fuck, I will!!”…and the boss sold it to him right in front of me.
That’s the last time I have ever seen an actual copy of that album (although I have a downloaded copy of it now) – not the same!
“Back In A Tracksuit”…”Two Pints of Raza”…”Where’s Me Jumper?”…”Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass”…all great tunes, funny yet insanely catchy and quirky!
I remember that we could barely understand the words, and “Indeed You Are” sounded to us a hell of a lot like “Konnichiwa”!
I know that Trevor did once locate a CD single from the Sultans. Was it “Japanese Girls”? Trevor adds:
I have 2 CD singles as well!!
Coincidentally, I have EVERY OTHER Sultans album except Casual Sex…
I have never seen an actual physical copy of Casual Sex again either. A guy in Ireland burned me a copy and mailed it to me, but the sound’s not that great, and the speed sounds a little off.
Still, great songs. Anybody got a copy? You could have a bidding war between me and T-Rev!
The Bargain Bin was where we sold our overstock — discs we had three or more copies of — at $5.99 per disc. Which was cheap by 1996 prices. New discs went from $16.99 to $24.99 at the time.
I think it was Trev who made the sign for the Bargain Bin. Trevor was the resident sign-maker because he had some artistic ability, where my boss couldn’t read my handwriting let alone my signs. It was originally called the “Bin O’ Bargains”. It was a big red sign, and it looked something like this:
Bin ‘O Bargains. But yet 90% of customers couldn’t read it. They would always say, “What’s in your Bin Bargains?”
“Bin Bargains”? That doesn’t even make sense!
The Bin O’ Bargains, as mentioned, was a hodgepodge of overstock. Any type of music was fair game, from Alan Jackson to Hammer to Lionel Richie to Hole to the Pumpkins. $5.99 each. We later lowered this, but at the start everything in there was basically the same price. We figured, that was simplest.
Simple to us, but not to everyone else. The Bin O’ Bargains created many questions and problems for both customers and staff! I mentioned that it was for stuff we had three or more copies of. That’s an oversimplification of things, but there were also things that we’d NEVER throw in the bargain bin. For example, if by some weird coincidence, we had four copies of a Queen album: Staff would think maybe, “OK, that’s plenty of copies, I’ll put this copy of The Miracle in the Bin.”
Nooooo! No no nononono!
Queen, Metallica, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Lightfoot, …doesn’t matter how many copies we have or what we paid for them. You never, ever, ever bargain bin bands like that. If we happened to have a bunch of used copies, that’s just pure chance!
You’d also never throw a greatest hits CD in there, because they were good sellers.
Err…except those cheapie greatest hits discs that you can get new at the grocery store for around $5.
Try teaching all that to a highschool kid who just wants to work at a record store to be cool. We ended up selling all kinds of stuff for $5.99, by mistake, instead of stockpiling it. I remember once a kid handed me a copy of Metallica’s Black Album that he found in the bin at $5.99. Lucky kid! That CD never should have been in there, since it was a regular easy sale at full price. (It doesn’t matter what you think of that album, it was huge, people wanted it all the time.)
So, there was that. There was always the confusing aspect that since our Bargain Bin was overstock, you’d find the same album on our regular shelves for $11.99. So people would logically ask:
“This copy is $5.99, and this copy is $11.99. Is that because one is scratched more?”
Oooh. Hated that question. It required a set response that both stated our quality policy (all discs are guaranteed and scratch free) and a quick explanation of overstock. People were often confused and who could blame them?
After you explained the Bin O’ Bargains to them, they’d hold up the $5.99 copy. “So…I should buy this one, right?”
Yes. Yes you should.
Since the bargain bin was a hodgepodge, we just threw stuff in there — nothing was alphabetized. Which caused us problems with lazy customers who didn’t want to flip through the treasures within.
“The other day you had Bryan Adams in here. Can you help me find him?”
ARGH! Why didn’t you buy him the other day? Yeah, I’ll help you find him. Flip flip flip. Flip flip flip. Flip flip flip. I could flip the whole bin in around 5-10 minutes, but still…tedious.
We did brisk business out of the bin. The markup was decent and we might have sold 20 out of there each day. Some people used it to take chances on new music, others to pick up long-ignored albums. It just boggled my mind how many people complained about such a great deal!
“I can’t search through this bin…it’s completely random! I’m not wasting my time.”
“Can you give me a deal if I buy 5?”
We also had this frequent buyer card like a buy-10-get-one-free type of card, but it specifically said, “Not applicable with any other special deals.” The Bin O’ Bargains was already a special deal, so we weren’t allowed to stamp the card with it. Which pissed people off. Which made me wonder, “What are you complaining about? You’re already getting a CD for a quarter of its regular price.”
When the Bin O’ Bargain was full to the brim, and sales were slow, we’d have a Bargain Bin sale. Something like buy two from the bin, get one free. We were still making money and stuff cleared out of there quickly. It was one good way to get rid of all those Lionel Richie Louder Than Words discs.
But don’t worry, the Bin would fill up again in short order. There were always people looking to get rid of their Lionel Richie.
Trevor’s in the habit of texting me whenever he sees something that I may want. Which is more often than I can afford, as it happens, so I have to pick and choose! I just received another box of goodies from T-Rev last week. Inside I found the contents below:
Gotta love picture discs eh? I’ll never play that Ozzy EP (all songs are also on his Prince of Darkness box set) but it sure looks cool. (Look at Jake E. Lee! Oh, Jake.) Didn’t even know it existed. That Grim Reaper one, I’d never seen the album cover before. Never even knew what it looked like! Sure love that title track though. And I’m well on record for loving the Rage For Order LP by Queensryche!
Also in the box was a rare 12″ single by Kim Mitchell. You know, the guy who teased your brains with Max Webster, and then your taste buds with “Go For Soda”.
Trev and I are both Kim and Max fans, but undoubtedly he’s the bigger fan than I am. So it was with utmost gratitude that I accept this record: “Go For Soda (Syphon Remix)” / “Love Ties”. This was from his own personal collection. As far as I know, neither of us have seen another copy. I spoke to my buddy, that guy Craig Fee who works at that radio station Dave FM, and he’d never heard of it, let alone encountered it in his vast travels.
Anyway, Trev found this one, back in the record store days! I don’t know when or where but maybe he’ll pop in with his remembrances! But this is the kind of thing we lived for. Finding something rare, cool, and previously unknown.
There’s no credit for who did the remix, essentially an extended version. The song has a different intro and is beefed up from 3:26 to 4:59. It’s a UK import, from Bronze records. Mitchell’s stuff is released by Anthem over here in North America. Bronze released Motorhead and Girlschool records in the 1970’s, I wonder if they commissioned this remix themselves.
So thanks Trev for another treasure. This is the kind of thing that Trev was prone to finding. I recall he had an etched Megadeth picture disc, and he also somehow scored me a double Bon Jovi 12″ single with 3 rare live tracks.
Must be the keen eye of a skilled Record Store Guy! I salute you sir.
Not really part of my series of Iron Maiden reviews.
There are a few Iron Maiden musical items that I’ll probably never own. I know I won’t own all the singles, but that’s OK — The First Ten Years set, and the first 10 albums with bonus discs takes care of those songs. There are rarer things to be discussed. As I pause between Live After Death and Somewhere In Time in my review series, this is a good time to talk about a couple items.
IRON MAIDEN – Live!! +one (EP, 1980 Japan, 1984 Greece reissue)
This four song EP was released in Japan shortly after the “Women In Uniform” single came out. It contains two songs from that single: the title track, and the live version of “Phantom of the Opera” from the Marquee.
It also contains two live songs not available anywhere else: “Sanctuary” and “Drifter” from the same Marquee show. They’re awesome of course, if you’ve heard the early live Di’Anno stuff that I talked about in my Maiden reviews, then you can imagine these are just as good. Di’Anno does his “yo, yo yo yo” thing on “Drifter”.
I have seen them go for around $100 on eBay. This is definitely on my current “Holy Grail” list.
4/5 stars
IRON MAIDEN – Best of the Beast (1996 four-LP box set)
For this, I’m going to take a moment and slide into a Record Store Tale because this is one of those moments that I wish I could change!
RECORD STORE TALES PART 123: Missing Maidens!
Trevor and I frequented record shows several times a year. On one such excursion, we were in a Dr. Disc store. It was in Hamilton, Ontario. That same visit, the same Dr. Disc store even had Chikara, a rare Japanese Kiss compilation, on CD. But I passed on that, and I passed on the vinyl edition of Best of the Beast, too….
You know those high shelves where they put the expensive items? And you have to ask someone to get it down for you? And they’d go to the back room and get a step ladder? That’s where Best of the Beast was.
Back then, information about such sets wasn’t readily available. I didn’t know it existed until I saw it. If I did, I would have known that the vinyl version had an exclusive live cut of “Revelations”… not the live version from Live After Death! This wasn’t immediately obvious from the back cover. It is only today that I know this!
The vinyl version had plenty more music as well, including album cuts such as “Where Eagles Dare” and “The Prisoner”. It also had the only official re-release of The Soundhouse Tapes ever, since the original 5000. I had that bootleg copy of The Soundhouse Tapes and More so I deemed this to be a less essential purchase. Especially for the $200 that Dr. Disc was asking. But it was sealed, mint, brand new.
I recently saw one in questionable shape on eBay for $240. Some joker on Amazon is asking $900 for sealed copies right now.
So, right now, odds do not seem to be in my favour of lightning striking twice. I don’t know if I will ever have another chance to own this at a decent price in good condition. Alas. I wish I could turn back time!
As a movie buff I was glad when one of our stores decided to carry VHS tapes! My movie collection grew massively at the time. I had access to lots of cool items, in widescreen format. I bought virtually everything that we saw come in, if it was in widescreen format. The staff, T-Rev in particular, knew to keep an eye out for widescreen movies for me. This opened up a whole new retail world for us, for now we had customers that were not interested in music at all, just movies. Of course movie knowledge now came into play, especially when customers would ask a question like, “Do you have that John Wayne movie where he’s after the outlaw guys?”
In 1998 or 1999, I bought my first DVD player. We started carrying DVDs at that time as well. That was exciting too. A lot of people had been asking about them.
When they were still big, you could expect to pay $8.99 to $11.99 for a used VHS tape. $5.99 if it was a cheapie bin special. For DVDs, you might expect to pay $16.99 to $19.99 for a used one. That was in the beginning, prices dropped quickly and within five years, DVDs were almost as cheap as CDs! We even had laserdiscs, on the rare occasion that they came in. They were giant. If you don’t remember what I’m talking about, here’s a size comparison to a CD.
We learned right away though that handling DVDs was not the same as handling CDs! Maybe the plastic they were made of was softer, because they scratched so much more easily than a CD, and the scratches were so much harder to remove. This trouble was doubled with the 2-sided DVD discs.
Fixing a scratched double sided DVD was very, very difficult. You could spend 5 minutes buffing the scratches out of one side, only to find that handling the disc put more scratches in the other side. They were very tricky, and a lot of the DVD discs that we sold in the early days looked terrible, for that reason. They would work fine on most players (most), but looked cloudy and streaky. And a lot of our DVD customers were really, really picky.
Eventually the 2-sided discs became a lot less common. In the meantime, we had to set up display spaces for DVDs, figured out how to store the discs themselves behind the counter without damaging them, and so on. Even slight handling or dust could create problems. Dusting the DVDs could often make them look worse, as the wiping left slight but visible scratches.
At first the selection was pretty poor. Sony were giving away a number of titles for free with their players, so we had a lot of copies of Sphere, and The Negotiator. Trade-ins started after a few months. We started seeing box sets, before they were really common, Criterion Editions, all kinds of stuff. It happened quick, our stock grew and grew….
…And so did my own personal collection! Ain’t it the way?
I was sitting here, trying to think of some new content to write. Then it hit me: T-Rev Appreciation Day!
RECORD STORE TALES PART 120: T-Rev Appreciation Day!
T-Rev, a past contributor here at LeBrain’s Blog, is a man whom I owe a lot. Not only is he one of the best buds I’ve ever had (sniff) but he’s also responsible for getting me so damn many of my treasures. Directly responsible. Like, I’m not talking about stuff like, “Mike, you really need to buy some Oasis, Max Webster, and Steve Earle. Oh, and while you’re at it, the second Four Horsemen album is awesome!”
He did, in fact, turn me onto all four of those things. But I’m talking more about the kind of situation where a combination of his eagle eyes, musical knowledge, and friendship scored me some discs!
Here’s two:
QUEENSRYCHE – Road To Promised Landaka ARRIVED!
This 1995 promo CD is a neat little greatest hits, going chronologically from the first EP to the Promised Land album! The only exclusive track is a radio edit of “Damaged” but Trevor saw this one and gave me a call. He knew I loved Queensryche, especially since I was going to see them with Tom that summer.
DIAMOND HEAD – Lightning To The Nations (original mix!)
T-Rev and I were both Metallica fans, and were both aware that they had covered numerous Diamond Head songs. This, like the Queensryche disc, came into Trevor’s store. While I wouldn’t fault him for snagging this one for himself, he deemed it slightly out of the scope of his core collection. I’m glad he did, because this disc rocks! And this is the original “Lars Ulrich approved” mix of the album, ripped straight from the LP. Most CD editions were remixed, and the master tapes are now lost. So this is a real treat and hopefully I’ll get around to reviewing it. 15 tracks, from the album itself plus B-sides and so on.
I raise a glass to Trevor, surely one of the finest Record Store Dudes to ever grace a cash register! My memories, and my collection, would be poorer without you.
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