The best of 2024 in rock and pop was on showcase this week on Grab A Stack of Rock. Tim Durling, Harrison Kopp and special surprise guest Uncle Meat brought their Top Fives and runners-up in this fun and action packed show.
What did you miss? Well, shirtless Jex for one. That one even scared off Peter Kerr, but did result in some pretty hilarious comments.
The comments section was lively, and if you want to catch Johnny Metal’s Top Five of 2024, his were in the comments section which I put on screen. Meanwhile, there was some minimal repetition, and actually less than I expected. Mr. Big, Deep Purple, Jon Anderson and Bruce Dickinson were among the artists who scored two hits on tonight’s lists. There was plenty of love for other artists’ new albums such of Opeth, Paul Di’Anno, Blaze Bayley (of course) and Arkells.
We also took a look at three books that I enjoyed in 2024 – two of them by Mr. Durling!
A fun, passionate and laugh-filled 90 minutes of music appreciation awaits you below.
See you December 31 at 9:00 PM EST for a drop in New Years Eve party!
Thank you to Jex Russell for helping me present this brand new “Faces” shirt from Grab A Stack of Rock! (Shirt pictured provided by Mike Semeniuk.) These have been popular, probably due to the handsome mugs on ’em! This new shirt features some popular guests. In order: Mike Slayen, Johnny Clauser, Peter Kerr, Jex Russell, Dr. Kathryn, Spenny Rice and Harrison Kopp.
Don’t forget, you can choose not just to support me, but the other wonderful creators in this community.
Tim’s Vinyl Confessions
2 Loud 2 Old Music
Visions In Sound
The Contrarians
Grab A Stack of Rock
Every shirt, sticker or coffee mug keeps us going. I say this factually.
Please give the video below a watch – trust me it’s worth it! – and consider supporting us on Teepublic.
A wise man once said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” MarriedandHeels declined to participate for her scheduled time slot. I booked this afternoon off for her. So, this week’s box of chocolates includes some sweet surprise guests! Jex Russell co-hosted, and harpist Grace Scheele dropped by for a bit to talk about her cassette tape Landings. The end result is one of my favourite shows! Top ten?
Max the Axe’s garage sale scores were the main focus of the show, with a second on cottage stories and musical memories. We told the previously unrevealed tale of Max’s carbon monoxide detector collection. We tributed the man himself with song after song, going over two hours!
Best of all: a first. A chipmunk visiting the show, captured on camera, live. Twice.
Addendum: Here’s the funny thing. MarriedandHeels was still welcome to appear on this show, and declined to show up. Why? Because she scheduled her own stripshow at the same time on OnlyFans. However, the gods disapproved, and she failed due to technical issues! She could have joined me, but karma and the universe worked together to spite her. Oh well! Hope she enjoyed her day at home alone, not making any money or having any fun with us.
Life is like a box of chocolates indeed! I say, eat on. The No More Heels tour of 2023 begins!
On April 28 2023, our co-host MarriedAndHeels went topless for the first time on her OnlyFans live stream. I’m disappointed that she went down that road, but her fans are happy. Jex and I decided to poke a little fun at her, all in good humour. I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot of topless jokes this summer.
Unfortunately MarriedAndHeels quit our show today, Cinco de Mayo 2023, to focus on her more profitable OnlyFans strip show. We are sad, but wish her well. You gotta do what you gotta do. We will always be grateful, even if we wish she was sticking around with us.
GETTING MORE TALE #494: I Think I’m Going Bald (a sequel to #488:Almost Cut My Hair)
A short while back, we took a look at popular hair styles in different genres of music. One hair style we ignored, because it really knows no boundaries, is the old fashioned bald head, or the “Jean-Luc” as the kids call it today.*
When I was a young fella discovering rawk at the dawn of the 1980’s, I hadn’t seen any bald rock stars that impressed me. Now my first musical love truly was John Williams, and he was bald. Hard rock at the beginning of the 80’s wasn’t like that. There was…a uniform. Unless you were Rob Halford, Paul Di’Anno or Udo Dirkschneider, part of that uniform was having long hair to thrash about.
The only bald rockers I had seen included one rare picture of Bob Kulick, brother of Bruce, and the bass player from Blotto. I didn’t like Blotto: they also had a short haired geek with thick rimmed glasses on guitar. So, by extension, I didn’t like bald heads in rock!
Then grunge came, and long hair was no longer a “thing”. Then, even worse, our mortal rock stars began aging! How was this possible? There was no time to consider the thought, as one by one, rock stars shaved their heads completely: Rob Halford, Kerry King, Scott Ian, Billy Corgan, Joe Satriani, hell even Billy fucking Joel has lost the curls and gone cue-ball!
There’s nothing wrong with the bald head, obviously I have learned this now. I myself have rocked the bald look on and off for about 15 years now. Most people don’t do it on and off, but I’ve been blessed with a full head of hair (thanks mom’s side of the family!), and I shave it for convenience and to look tougher than I already am. Seriously though, there’s nothing better than having a shower, jumping in your clothes and heading right to work without worrying about hair. There’s nothing better to beat the heat in the summer either.
Now, funny thing. My mom and my wife both think I am going actually bald. They tell me my hairline is receding. What they don’t know is that my hairline started receding at age 16. Then it stopped and never started receding again! I have the exact same hairline I had at 16, only nobody believes me, because at 16 I was trying to hide that by growing it out! It has not moved one centimetre since highschool, and that’s a fact, Jack!
This being summer time, I have shaved it all off once again. This is the closest you may ever see to a picture of “topless LeBrains” here.
Before
After
Who are your favourite bald rockers? Do you favour Sinead O’Connor for her fearless 80’s buzz cut? Do you call it a tie between Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel? There are so many epically talented bald rockers (not looking at you, Chris Daughtry) today that it truly is hard to choose.
* Not really, but a better name than the “Bieber” which was the name of an actual fucking hair cut.
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