RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#405: Brett-Lore (Excerpts)
All artwork created by: Various denizens of Grand River Collegiate Institute, circa 1989-1991.
Brett-Lore
#405: Brett-Lore (Excerpts)
transformers
#389: LeBrain Trivia Facts!
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#389: LeBrain Trivia Facts!
Time to get to know your host here a little better. Here are 10 facts I bet you didn’t know about LeBrain.
1. I don’t wear a watch. I was sick of them always breaking, plus I don’t find them comfortable. When I worked at the Record Store, I would take off my watch at the beginning of every shift and put it on again afterwards.
2. When I was really really young, I didn’t know the difference between a guitar and a bass, until somebody told me a bass only has four strings and therefore four tuning pegs. Until that time, I had assumed Michael Anthony was actually Eddie Van Halen, because he looked cooler to me!
3. My very earliest exposure to rock music was through a couple TV shows – The Flintstones, and the Hilarious House of Frightenstein! Frightenstein featured a character called “The Wolfman”, based on Wolfman Jack…but a wolfman! He would spin Rolling Stones and Kinks singles.
4. My first musical idol was John Williams. I loved his movie soundtracks and played them until they skipped. Star Wars and Indiana Jones were awesome, but his best was the 2 LP set of The Empire Strikes Back, which was loaded with photos.
5. After John Williams came Johnny Cash, my very first concert at age 12.
6. I have been given a speeding ticket a total of three times over 24 years of clean driving.
7. I come from a musical family, but I can’t really play anything.
8. I make stop motion Transformers movies using my toy collection. I have never released any of them, even though I think I did better in one weekend with $0 than Michael Bay did in a year with a $Zillion dollars.
9. Much like everyone who grew up in the 1980’s, I owned Thriller by Michael Jackson and Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen, on cassette.
10. My last name has been misspelled for about the last 100 years. Can you guess how it was originally spelled?
The two videos I chose for this post have a specific common element. Can you name it?
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GALLERY: So long, 2014! Hello, new Transformers!
Here are some new sh*te photies to start your new year right!
How did you spend your New Year’s Eve? I spent it unconventionally, for me. While Mrs. LeBrain snuck in some early evening Bingo, I went down to City Hall with my buddy Jason and his family. Apparently, there was going to be a toy show and sale / 80’s retro night going on. One of my favourite Transformers vendors in the whole wide world, B&K Collectibles, was going to be there!
There were a ton of people there. Also present was the DeLorean from Back to the Future, and K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. Although I didn’t stick around to see him, Todd Bridges from 80’s sitcom Diff’rent Strokes was also on hand last night. Yee-haw.
After the toy show I got Jen at Bingo and we headed home to watch the Leafs barely beat the Bruins. I fell asleep well before midnight.
But…toys!
My two scores: Transformers Masterpiece Smokescreen. Similar to, but different from, Masterpiece Prowl. I also snagged some snazzy new missiles for my Prowl figure, from third party company Before and After. The kit includes the “Omega Launch” weapons which snap over Prowl’s normally teeny ones, and a decal sheet which I have not yet applied (if I do).
HAPPY 2015!
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GALLERY: Christmas Phase Two (Christmas Day)
Disclaimer (1537!): meat and music content ahead!
It has been an incredibly busy week here at Chez LeBrain. They tell me it’s Saturday. I’ve lost all track of time. The first week of my holidays are gone! I have a feeling that the next week will be filled with lots of music….
After our annual family Christmas Eve dinner/gathering, we re-convened for Christmas Day. My Grandma’s 90th Christmas was also her first since breaking her leg in the summertime. She did awesome! Another amazing Christmas, all finished. Hard to believe.
On to the good stuff!
First up: the fun stuff. Some Kiss dolls. Is it Ace and Peter? Or is it Tommy and Eric? Who knows! A Kiss keychain to boot. Got some Transformers too. Should I open up the rare Treadshot figure? Or no? I can’t decide! Jen also bought me a Transformers pen with a light in it that acts like a Bat signal…but it’s a Bee signal!
Some assorted goodies…
That Fart game looks interesting.
Finally got the game Risk: Legacy. Interesting twist on this one. It must always be played by the same group of players. Changes you make to the game are permanent. What you do in game 1 may come back to haunt you in game 6. Cards and the board itself are modified permanently as you go. Most elements of the game are completely secret until you reach the point where you can break seals on additional instructions. Cool eh?
Lastly, the music! Here we go.
The first five Zep remasters! Holy Zep overload! These are all doubles. Queen Live at the Rainbow ’74 — also a double. Dio live in ’93, another double. Several CD/DVD sets: Bon Jovi New Jersey deluxe (yes!!) with 2 CDs and a DVD. Journey’s Escape Tour CD + DVD set. (Listening that one right now, actually.) Whitesnake Live in ’94 is another CD + DVD set. Then some new music: Foo Fighters and AC/DC’s Rock Or Bust! I really like the packaging on the AC/DC disc. Can’t wait to hear it.
Last but certainly not least: ZZ Top’s The Complete Studio Albums 1970-1990. 10 CDs, baby! As if all that Zeppelin wasn’t enough, now this! Thank you, Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom, for this one! I only had one of these albums before, which is Eliminator. Some of these discs are available separately with bonus tracks, but that’s OK: this box set is the only place you can get several of these Top albums in their original mix. Remember in the 80’s when they remixed and re-released the Top back catalogue? Those 80’s mixes have persisted on CD for a long time. This box set represents the first time you could listen to albums like Rio Grande Mud in their original form on CD. I like that very much.
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#349: Christmas Eve
Every year at this time I take a break from posting to spend a little more time relaxing with my family. Enjoy this final post before Christmas, and I’ll see you all again soon in a couple of days! Feliz Navidad!
RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale
#349: Christmas Eve
So here we are once again, Christmas Eve. When I was a kid, you were my favourite day of the entire year. It’s hard not to get excited about you, today in 2014. Christmas Eve, you were the center of everything, 30 years ago! Such a short but exciting day. Inevitably, relatives would start handing us colourfully wrapped boxes, the best ones saved for last. Then the ritual of steps: Shake the box. Give the card a cursory read and give it a toss. Rip the paper. Peer inside. 30 years ago, there would have been Star Wars figures inside. Perhaps my Jabba the Hutt gift set. An Atari game, possibly. I wasn’t into music that much until about 1985, when Kiss really opened my eyes.
Around that time, Christmas Eve changed a little bit, but only in a subtle way. Instead of racing downstairs to play our new Atari games, we would race upstairs to play our new cassette tapes! Some Helix, Kiss, or Twisted Sister would have been among the music received back then. We also would have received our fair share of GI Joe and Transformers toys. I remember the year I got the GI Joe Hovercraft from “Santa”! Oh boy. My dad won’t let me forget that one. I woke up at 1 in the morning to play with it. Yeah, the parents weren’t overly thrilled to be woken up by the noise at that hour. I just couldn’t stay asleep! Having a younger sister meant the whole Santa thing went on longer than its normal sell-by date, but I wasn’t complaining. It was a lot of fun.
I’m sure tonight won’t be that different. If I’m lucky, I will receive a CD or two from somebody who loves me. I won’t race anywhere to go and listen to it right away, but it will be just as appreciated. After I got older, got a job, and started buying people gifts with my own money, I’ve realized that it’s the giving that is so much more fun. I cannot wait to see the look on people’s faces, especially when forced to open my elaborately disguised surprises. That’s what I get a kick out of the most now.
This year, I wish each one of you all the best, and indeed a Merry, Merry Christmas. Whether you celebrate it or not, have a good day, eh? Be safe. Please drink responsibly, and please call a cab if you have been drinking. But that’s enough serious talk. I’ll leave you with one of my favourite Christmas videos (still unreleased on CD to this day), and some links to past Christmas posts. Enjoy! Ho ho ho!
Winger’s cool traditional / funky version of “Silent Night”!
RECORD STORE TALES:
- Part 0: A Few Words for Days Gone By… – More about the kind of toys we had back in ’84.
- Part 150: Smells Like Presents – Just a quick funny one.
- Part 255: ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas – Christmas Eve at the Record Store.
- Part 252: By Your Side – A cool gift!
- Part 266: This sort of thing ain’t my bag, baby! – An awkward gift!
- Part 320: End of the Line – The final Christmas, when I quit the store!
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GALLERY: Alice Cooper vs. the Decepticons
In Getting More Tale #347.5: Days of Christmas Past, you may recall our good buddy Aaron sent me another Mystery Aaron Mail (M.A.M.) parcel. It finally arrived, several days behind schedule, but safe and sound which is the main thing. With Aaron’s encouraging “Give’r!” I tore into the packaging, to discover the treasure seen below.
Raise the Dead – Live From Wacken is Alice Cooper’s latest offering, one I had been excited to get! One thing you have to credit Alice Cooper with is changing up his setlist tour after tour. No two tours offer the same highlights, hits and surprises. At a glance, I can see this 2 CD/1 Blu-ray set contains the following interesting choices: “House of Fire” from 1989’s Trash, “Caffeine” from the recent Welcome 2 My Nightmare, the favourite “Department of Youth” from the original 1975 Nightmare, and oldies-but-goodies “Killer”, “Dwight Fry” and “Go To Hell”. This is rounded out by numerous covers, perhaps from Alice’s soon-to-be-unleashed covers album? “Break On Through” outta be good.
Finally this is Alice’s last release with Orianthi on guitar, who has since split to play with Richie Sambora. I’m glad she has been captured live in concert in hi-def on Blu-ray. Thank you, Aaron, for this gift! The 2 CD format means that I can listen to it in the car, and the Blu-ray gives me Orianthi in 1080i hi-def, according to the specs! There’s also a 20 minute interview and 5.1 surround mix. Gonna be a rockin’ Christmas if this is any indication!
This last set of pictures is a Christmas gift to myself, from myself! I ordered this guy back on November 11, and he only just arrived today. His name is Ratbat, and he is the Decepticon fuel auditor. In the Marvel comics series, Ratbat emerged as a bureaucrat on Cybertron who eventually came to Earth and took leadership of the Decepticons, a title he held for 11 issues of the series. For this reason, and for the reason that he transforms into a cassette, he is always high on my collecting priority list. I have a Masterpiece edition Soundwave figure, and I had five of his cassettes. All but Ratbat. Ratbat was only available with a special black Masterpiece Soundwave figure called Soundblaster. Although I would love to, I can’t afford to buy the same toy over again in a different colour just to get Ratbat. So I figured I’d never get one.
My buddy Jason then suggested I check out some the sellers on eBay, selling KO (knock-off) Ratbat figures. Knock-off figures are exactly what the sound like. Somebody copied the mold and made their own figures. Some are shit quality. Some are much better. Ratbat is one of the figures. There are two flaws in the paint of the cassette, but I’ve bought official Hasbro and Takara items new out of the package with similar flaws, so I can’t that’s particularly troublesome. There was also a teeny tiny extra bit of plastic in the jetpack assembly that I had to lightly shave down in order to transform nice and straight. Again, this can happen with a KO toy, but it can also happen with official Hasbro toys too. Ratbat (KO) came with no box, but did come with a microcassette case, and only cost me $20 plus shipping from China. MP13B Masterpiece Soundblaster, the official Takara release including Ratbat, is “on sale” right now at Big Bad Toy Store for $129.99, plus shipping. I think I made a good choice. Here’s Ratbat with Soundwave and all his cassette buddies!
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#330: A Journey of Journaling (RSTs MkII: Getting More Tale)
RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale
#330: A Journey of Journaling
Just because I left my old job at the Record Store didn’t mean I stopped journaling. It did slow down, but it’s interesting to review them today, having just completed the Record Store Tales. It’s fascinating to me how positive they are (in general) compared to the ones only 18 months prior. It’s also interesting how even over a year after leaving that place, certain people continued to terrify me. Even though the person I’ll call “the office bully” had no power over me anymore, I was still in the grips in fear at the mere thought. I’m seeing journal entries about this person haunting my thoughts over a year after my last encounter, and I’m reading words like “terror”. I didn’t realize how I’d been affected by the whole thing. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. It took years for me to really put it all together, and I’m still doing that.
My journals after the store are pretty bland by comparison to the ones before. There are still some pretty funny ones, such as a review of the movie Transformers (2007) that is so stupidly positive that there is no way I will post it here, not even for comedic value! I would simply lose all credibility, so forget it. I remember dragging Jen out to see that stupid thing.
Of the journals I’ve re-discovered, one in particular jumped out at me as a great one to post first.
I won’t share the whole thing in its entirety as it includes a private email, but the first paragraph is pretty cool. I had made a video on Youtube back then regarding the passing of Mark St. John. I don’t have the video anymore, but it was pretty heartfelt and apparently others must have got that out of the video as well. This journal preserved an email that I received from a cousin of Mark:
Date: 2007/04/07 05:17
I just got the most amazing email in regards to my youtube video (below) [now gone] about Mark St. John of Kiss:
“Thank you so much for your tribute to Mark. He was my cousin. Mom called to tell me the bad news. She said Aunt Terry said to look him up online to see all the posts etc. on different sites. It was really cool of you to make your RIP video. [content edited] Thanks again for what you said….he will be greatly missed.”
Stuff like that video, I just threw it together. It was a first take with no edits. But apparently it really touched Mark’s cousin. This was yet another stepping stone in my realization that I should be online, talking about music. I think that was a good decision.
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Gallery: Other Stuff I Collect That Isn’t Music
Gallery: LeBrain Birthday Bonanza (including Food Porn)
First up to bat, my good buddy Aaron, (who as you all know loooooooves Mastodon) decided to rectify the situation that I didn’t yet have their latest album Once More ‘Round the Sun. Which I can tell you, is awesome. Mastodon have a lot of what I liked best in metal, and this album lives up to the hype. I’m really into track 6, “Asleep in the Deep”, which has a very cool chiming Voivod-esque riff.
Proceedings got off to an unofficial start yesterday at noon. We do a monthly lunch out at work regularly, and this one fell on the Friday before my birthday. My co-workers bought me lunch at Beertown, which was very very good. Above, some beer & cheddar soup, as well as some lovely truffled sweet potato fries. I also had some battered calimari.
Jen and her mom always gets me the best T-shirts. Above, two Big Bang Theory T’s, the infamous Walter White, and a spiffy Led Zeppelin swearshirt that will definitely be worn to next year’s Sausagefest.
They also bought me Transformers. FansToys are making some absolutely astounding G1 Masterpiece-class Dinobots right now. Scoria aka Slag is a beautiful, heavy figure. He looks great next to MP Grimlock and MP Prime. If you like Grimlock, you will love this figure. Thank you to Jen’s mom for this amazing figure. I will definitely be getting Swoop. Jen also got me the new Generations Skrapnel/Shrapnel and Reflector, which I also like a lot, for a Scout-class figure.
We went to Mother’s Pizza for dinner tonight. Thanks Dad! I had the small “Grandmother’s”. It tasted a lot like I remember it tasting almost 30 years ago. It had lots of olives and mushrooms, which I topped with double cheese.
Neil DeGrasse-Tyson’s Cosmos on Blu-ray is an absolute treat. Thanks Jen. I hope you don’t mind watching the whole series, over again with me! She also picked up Paul Stanley‘s Face the Music, which I hear is a great read! And who doesn’t like jellybeans?
Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes. It was a great, laid back day!
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Gallery: Christmas Haul 2013
Music, movies, and books! I’ve been very occupied these last couple days.
I get the Guiness’ Book of World Records, and the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not books every year. I imagine my surprise when I discovered a friend of ours in both books! Apparently, Sweet Pepper Klopek holds the world record for “Most Baking Sheets Buckled Over the Head for One Minute.” This is a guy who has been on my living room couch! Lemon Kurri says:
“He’s in there a couple times. Most mouse traps sprung on a tongue in 1 min too.”
Lemon Kurri & Sweet Pepper
mikeladano.com 