A Rock Daydream Nation Panel Show! Tim Durling (Tim’s Vinyl Confessions/The Contrarians), Michael Ladano (Grab a Stack of Rock), Dan Chartrand (Off the Charts) and Peter Wicks (Wixxyleaks).
This one surprised me. These two ZZ Top albums are often considered a pair, with one superior and one inferior. Our panel provided some surprises and a lot of fun over this hour! I surprised myself and changed my mind a couple times. Check out the show!
Episode 162: Operation: Mindcrime III [Geoff Tate] Review/Rant with Tim Durling
Q: What do Geoff Tate and Helix have in common in 2026?
A: They both made their new studio albums frustratingly hard to buy physical copies of in Canada.
Tim Durling from Tim’s Vinyl Confessions is tonight’s guest host, and he’s gonna tell you all about it!
Geoff Tate won the performance rights to Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime I and II as part of the settlement made for the Queensryche band name. Tate has always taken pride in his rock opera epic, and so expanded the series to a trilogy with his new solo album. Interestingly enough, Operation: Mindcrime III is not a third part to the story. Instead, it is a re-telling of the first album, but from the perspective of the evil Dr. X.
Tim will tell us about each of the songs, and the experience of just trying to buy a copy in Canada. Get ready folks – for a price he’d do about anything, except mislead you about Operation: Mindcrime III. Is it any good, or is it the proverbial weak link in the trilogy? Find out tonight, on Grab A Stack of Rock with your host, Tim Durling!
Click above for the link to our streams.
Friday Sept 25 at 7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic. Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.
A few weeks ago, we interviewed Tim Durling on his new book On Record: The April Wine Album Review. Tim has also been doing Deep Dives on each album with guests from his book. On the episode for Animal Grace, Tim recruited both myself and Robert Lawson. It’s a great chat so have a watch – I will be posting my written review of the album tomorrow!
NOW on TVC!
Today on TVC, Tim Durling finally gives in to the alien force that is Angine de Poitrine! Joining him is superfan Mike Ladano, and music archivist Robert Lawson who recently saw AdP in concert. Yow!
What is it about Angine de Poitrine? At 333 years old (each), they have come to Earth to show us “Music 2”, the natural successor to “Music”. Many have decried the gimmick: whacky costumes, microtonal bass and guitar, loops and alien “vocals”. Is that enough to make someone play the album on repeat at work? Watch the episode and find out.
What we discovered is that all three of us have different levels of appreciation for Angine de Poitrine, but that there is something special and unique about this band. It goes beyond the quirks. Something about this bizarre music is catchy and contagious. It scratches an itch you didn’t know you had. Robert speaks of a concert vibe that he’d never witnessed before. Even Rufus agrees!
I for one welcome our new alien overlords.
Later today on TVC!
Episode 156: The April Wine Album Review with Tim Durling
Hot on the heels of his Fleetwood Mac and Night Ranger books, Tim is back! This time it’s with an April Wine Album Review, and it’s a good one. Durling tends to focus on artists that don’t already have books available. If you’ve ever wanted to get into April Wine, this is the book and this is the show!
Unlike last time with Fleetwood Mac, Mike will be hosting while Harrison has the day off. Cohosting, if schedules align, will be book contributor D’Arcy Briggs.
We also have, for the third week in a row, former Helix drummer Archie Gamble with a clip. This time he’s going to tell us about Jerry Mercer’s legendary drum solo.
It’s the Sign of the Gypsy Queen, you don’t have to check All Over Town. You can buy the book at your local Amazon. You too can be a Roller, or a Hard Rock Kid, Tonite! Check out the show as we quiz Mr. Durling on all things April Wine.
Friday August 14 at 7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic. Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.
GRAB A STACK OF ROCK bonus episode
This special bonus episode of 50 Years of Iron Maiden would not be possible without the efforts of Tim Durling of Tim’s Vinyl Confessions, who years ago informed us of a long-forgotten Iron Maiden cassette release from 1986. On TVC episode 351 (“Rare CDs”), during a portion where I was showing of my Iron Maiden First Ten Years box set, Tim told us of a cassette release exclusive to the A&A Records and Tapes chain in Canada. Mike has a long history with A&A, being something of a home base for him during his highschool years. Tim acquired and sent Mike the cassette of this odd release: Iron Maiden – Hot Metal, an A&A three track “sampler” exclusive, on Capitol Records.
In this episode we take a good look at this release, which featured a nice three-page foldout with lots to look at. The tape is clearly geared to new fans who are still buying Iron Maiden catalogue releases, as you’ll see when we dive deep into the innards of the tape. Priced at just 99 cents, the cassette is essentially a “cassingle” of the “Wasted Years” 12″, but with a twist. Join Mike and Harrison for a mini-episode suited to this mini-cassette!
Join us for some memories of A&A Records and Tapes (and Compact Discs!), and a close look at a really nice cassette release with quality music and content inside. Special thanks to Tim’s Vinyl Confessions for providing the video content from his episode providing background on the tape, and actually sending us a copy!
This special episode will run at a special time, see below and hope to see you in the comments.
Wednesday March 25 at 7:00 AM EST, 8:00 AM Atlantic. Enjoy on YouTube.
Past episodes:
Handy YouTube Playlist:
Top Five Album Closers – LeBrain Train Re-edited
This was a great episode! Originally run on October 15, 2021, the live stream was roughly two and a half hours long. Far too lengthy to watch in 2026, we have brought this episode down to a perfect hour. Where was Harrison that night? Active in the comments, and watch out for a memorable “Bleep!” comment from Uncle Meat to the Mad Metal Man!
On hand that night were Tim Durling from Tim’s Vinyl Confessions, and his fellow Contrarian, Marco D’Auria, along with original cast member Uncle Meat. The show was a sequel to Top Five Album Openers, two weeks prior. We decided to follow up with the Top Five Album Closers of All Time, and with the input of these fine panel members, this was an entertaining show that we are very proud of. The chat was brisk and informative. The lists (at bottom, if you don’t feel like watching, although you should!) were diverse and full of great closing songs that you may not have heard. It was a more challenging set of lists than Album Openers was, and there was very little crossover. Many excellent selections from the mainstream to the obscure. We also included a number of “bonus tracks” at the end: the runners-up that were just as exciting as the songs that made our lists.
Thanks Tim, Marco and Meat for helping to create a must-watch episode. Enjoy!
And guest list from Jake
Episode 138: Top Ten Songs of Queensrÿche
Raise ’em up! Uncle Meat wanted to count down the Top 10 songs from Queensrÿche, a band we have yet to tackle on Grab A Stack of Rock. So, we looked into the Eyes of a Stranger, placed Hand on Heart, and tried to shed some Nocturnal Light on these songs. But it wasn’t Just Us! Along for the ride is terrestrial DJ Tim Durling, and we will also have a guest list from Jake (Not From State Farm).
Spanning the EP all the way to Digital Noise Alliance, Queensrÿche have a lot of songs to sift through. For this special episode, Mike even went as far as to acquire a copy of Frequency Unknown, the album that Geoff Tate made before he lost the rights to the Queensrÿche name. (For added fun, this copy was gifted by Matthew Phillips, who had three remixed CDs sent to him by Cleopatra records. This is not the retail Billy Sherwood remix, but the rare mail order only version dubbed “we remix, you decide”.)
Even though Queensrÿche arguably had a “dark period” with some albums that didn’t ignite the fire in fans, they also had a strong comeback with Todd LaTorre on lead vocals. Will any Todd songs make the list tonight? We’ll be Breaking the Silence to reveal all!
Friday February 20 at 7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic. Enjoy on YouTube or Facebook.
Episode 136: Collecting Quirks of the Music Nerds
On tonight’s special episode of Grab A Stack of Rock, we welcome back special guest Tim Durling, for a controversial topic: collecting! Every collector has different “needs” and goals. For example, Harrison and I seek a physical copy of every officially released song, and versions of songs, by the bands we collect. Tim has different goals in mind. On deck for tonight’s discussion:
This is sure to be a wild discussion. Don’t miss it tonight!
Friday January 30 at 7:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM Atlantic. Enjoy on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter.
It has been 40 years since we lost Phil Lynott. To mark the occasion, Tim Durling recruited myself and John the Music Nut to meticulously document our Thin Lizzy CD collections on video, once and for all. While I clearly had the biggest collection (and size does indeed matter), I still need three box sets to “complete” my Lizzy CD collection.
Please join Tim, John and myself as we go through every album one by one, and discuss the history of Thin Lizzy from the beginning right to the John Sykes and Ricky Warwick eras of the band. We have physical CDs to marks several post-Lynott lineups, and loads of compilations and box sets too. A truly comprehensive episode, and probably the best single-episode overview on the Lizzy discography that you’ll find on YouTube. Enjoy!
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