It was laundry night, when my phone blew up. Uncle Meat was desperate to get a hold of me. He rang my phone twice and there was a text message to call him immediately. Of course, I was worried about my buddy. If he needed me, I’d be there.
The urgency was apparently musical in nature.
Max the Axe had just finished mixing the three songs that will make up a forthcoming punk EP. He finished that day…a full sweaty day at the studio that ended with “Thirsty and Miserable”, “Pygmy Blowdart” and “Oktoberfest Cheer” on a burned CD-R. The only way for Meat to hear these tracks, songs that he sings on, was convoluted. Max had to physically deliver the CDs to my house, and then I had to rip them to PC and email them to Uncle Meat. That’s how ass-backwards those two guys are with technology.
The bonus in this case is getting an early copy of the still-untitled punk EP, which I assure you, is a killer. But Max was so appreciative of my favour that he randomly gifted me this cool set of Twisted Sister guitar picks. 10 picks mounted on a paper matte, with a cool Twisted Sister picture. Ready for framing. Thank you Max!
What about the EP? “Thirsty and Miserable” is a Black Flag cover with inspiration from Lemmy Kilmister. It’s brilliant is all I can tell you. “Pygmy Blowdart” is an original (Meat stresses that he did not write the lyrics) that sounds like a Josh Homme hit. Finally “Oktoberfest Cheer” is a drunken, sloppy, very messy Kitchener-centric party song that could very well become a local anthem. Oktoberfest actually ended a couple weeks ago, but this song captures the boozy oom-pa-pa of our annual Bavarian celebration. “Don’t crush my smokes, and don’t spill my beer!” I think it’s brilliant in that lager-soaked punk rock tradition. I only heard an early mix, so I hope they take my advice when I say “more accordion”!
Enjoy a free preview of “Thirsty and Miserable” by Max the Axe featuring lead vocals by Eric “Uncle Meat” Litwiller!
“Ladies and gentlemen…Twisted mother fuckin’ Sister!” – Lemmy Kilmister
TWISTED SISTER – Live at the Marquee (2011 Rhino Handmade)
First of all, this thing is huge. There’s a CD in there somewhere.
You already know some of these recordings from the Big Hits and Nasty Cuts CD. In 2011, finally, after numerous B-sides and compilations, the entire legendary Marquee club show was made available on CD from the fine folks at Rhino Handmade. Coming in this beautiful (but fragile) cardboard die-cut cover, this was so long overdue. For a long long time people sank many dollars into collecting as many of these live versions as possible. Few collected all the released tracks, but now the entire show is available. That means you get all those B-sides plus a bunch of unreleased songs from the gig, including all the talking.
From Lemmy’s now legendary introduction to the final notes of “Feel So Fine”, this is Twisted Sister at their absolute heaviest. When I first heard five of these recordings as the “Nasty Cuts” on the Big Hits (1992) CD, they turned me off a bit. They were too heavy. Too fast. Too ragged. Too punk rock. Not what I was expecting from what I considered to be a pop rock band, back then. However, Dee’s rants made this so difficult to turn off! You never know what was going to come out of Dee’s mouth next.
Eventually I realized, this stuff is actually Twisted Sister at their absolute best! They are in their element and in their glory, playing these songs for the fans and also the haters in the crowd that night, whom Dee addresses frequently.
I’m sure the band won the haters over that night.
The recording is crisp, clear, and powerful. It is in your face. It feels like you are right there on that stage with the band. The mix is perfect. The guitars have good separation and the drums are recorded perfectly. The vocals are also clear and only slightly overpowered by the stampeding band.
Personal fave: “You Can’t Stop Rock And Roll”. The crowd had never heard this one before, being brand new and unreleased. Finally I am hearing a version of “You Can’t Stop Rock And Roll” that lives up to the song’s potential. The album version, as great as it is, isn’t as heavy as it was live. This, my friends, is Sister at their absolute best. I’m saying that without a trace of hyperbole. For me, this is it. This is Twisted Sister at their tightest, fastest, heaviest and inspired. The crowd eats it up.
Honorable Mention: “I Am (I’m Me)”, which comes close to the end of the set. Dee’s voice is off on a few notes, but this is rock and roll baby! I’d pay my life savings to be able to sing as well as Dee did that night! (note: my life savings are not much, but I’d pay ’em anyway.)
Dud: “Leader Of The Pack”. It’s just weird to hear it at a show this insane. It kinda slows things down a bit much (even though it’s so much heavier than the Ruff Cuts version).
“Twisted Sister…come out and play!” Happy anniversary to Come Out and Play released on this day 34 years ago.
TWISTED SISTER – Come Out and Play (1985 Atlantic LP & Spitfire CD remaster)
What was a band at the proverbial crossroads to do? Continue along the commercial path of the 3 million copy selling Stay Hungry? Or revert to the tried and true heavy-as-an-SMF sound of yore?
There was only one dissenting vote. Bassist Mark “The Animal” Mendoza felt that putting “Leader of the Pack” on the new album was a mistake. The other four voted “yes” but some grew to regret it. Both Dee Snider and J.J. French have since realized the error of their ways. Today, Come Out and Play is acknowledged as the beginning of the end, though it has its fans and some sturdy tracks to support it.
Twisted Sister recruited Scorpions producer Dieter Dierks and enlisted high profile guest stars like Alice Cooper, Billy Joel, Brian Setzer and Clarence Clemons. They were top-loaded onto a old-time rock and roller called “Be Chrool to Your Scuel”, and the gamble backfired immediately when MTV banned the music video for its zombies and ghouls. It’s an interesting track at least. You don’t hear a sax solo on a Twisted Sister song every day, nor the kind of plucking that Brian Setzer deals in.
“Leader of the Pack” was a failure as well, actually a re-recording of a track that debuted on the Ruff Cuts EP. The video (starring the then-hot Bobcat Goldthwaite) further painted Twisted Sister as a novelty band.
Tensions, especially between Mendoza and Snider, were amplified. The songs that sound like they were meant to be “hits” fall far short. The impression you get from “You Want What We Got” is that it was intended to be a specific kind of hit. Unfortunately it’s just a repetitive anthem. “Lookin’ Out for #1” is similarly filler, a song that never quite clicks.
Some tracks maintained a heavy rock presence. They include the anthem “I Believe In Rock and Roll”. It’s a manifesto for the PMRC generation; a decent attempt that just misses the mark. “Come Out and Play” features A.J. Pero nailing down a speedy beat, but the production of Dierks neutered the powerful drummer. Dierks introduced keyboards to some of the tracks, watering them down needlessly. “The Fire Still Burns” works better than some of the other songs, and despite the production you can hear A.J. is just crushing the kit. If the backing vocals sound unusually lush, that’s Don Dokken and Gary Holland. “Out on the Streets” trades the speed in for plaintive melodies, and is the better for it. Finally “Kill or Be Killed” does what it promises. Unbelievable that A.J. could play at such a relentless velocity, but he was an absolute beast.
Strangely, some of the best tracks are the ballads. Dark ballads. Ballads of depression, of loneliness, of alienation. “I Believe in You” is the first of two, bolstered by strong melodies and Dee Snider’s enviable pipes. The one that impresses the most is the CD and cassette bonus track “King of the Fools”. Although “Kill or Be Killed” ends the album just fine, this coda adds some substance. Sounding like a man destroyed, Dee sings the melancholy lyrics.
What kind of kingdom has no throne? No crown or castle do I own, I don’t have silver gold or jewels, Yet I’m the king, king of the fools.
It’s surprisingly thoughtful songwriting, complimenting the mournful melodies. Yet there is a defiant, powerful streak in the choruses.
King of the fools, Who are these people to cast stones? King of the fools, Better a fool than just a clone.
Dee Snider has always resonated with the underdogs, the bullied, the downtrodden. “King of the Fools” might be the most honest of all those songs. Some regal guitar melodies by J.J. French and Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda show that they were picking up what Dee was laying down.
Here’s the catch though. If you’re buying this album, you need “King of the Fools”. To get it, you’ll want the CD. But Come Out and Play might be most notable for the album cover you can only get on vinyl. Open up that manhole cover and out pops Dee Snider in all his…all his…rags.
Heeere’s Dee!
Do what I did. Get CD and LP, just for the cover. Everybody needs a pop-up Dee Snider.
TWISTED SISTER – Big Hits and Nasty Cuts (1992 Atlantic – Canadian CD)
When Twisted Sister split at the end of 1987, they went rather quietly into that goodnight. No big magazine articles, no solo projects incoming, not until 1992 when Dee Snider finally re-emerged with his new band Widowmaker. It was a quiet five years, broken only by the low key release of Twisted Sister’s first “greatest hits” compilation in March of that year.
Big Hits and Nasty Cuts was a compilation that both fans and band deserved. No careless cash grabs here. In 1992 it’s doubtful that Atlantic thought they’d be making much money off “I Wanna Rock”, one of the biggest cheerleaders of the obsolete generation. While Kurt Cobain cashed his biggest royalty cheque yet, J.J. French was writing the liner notes for this CD. (Mark “The Animal” Mendoza did the remastering with Ted Jensen.)
For the era, Big Hits and Nasty Cuts was one of the most fan-friendly, value-intensive CDs on the market. Even better for American fans, this time they got the bonus track! The album was split into two sides — the hits and the “nasty cuts”, all rare B-sides recorded at the Marquee club in England. Fortunately the entire show has since been issued by Rhino, but in 1992, very few fans had the original 12″ singles these songs were sourced from. Another rarity included was Twisted’s first single, “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” These were first releases for the CD format! Good thing too, because “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” is indelible as any of the hits.
The hits portion of the album isn’t quite predictable. Would you have expected the heavy metal uppercut “Under the Blade”? Or the raw “Shoot ‘Em Down”? Here they are, and thanks to the liner notes, you can find out why. (Oh fine, we’ll spoil one. “Under the Blade” was included because it’s been played at every Twisted show since it was written.) The three biggest hits are present and accounted for. “I Wanna Rock” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It” would be the two hits that everyone knows, and “The Price” is runner-up.
Also present: “I Am, I’m Me” and “The Kids Are Back” demonstrate Dee’s early knack for melodic songwriting, very punk-like in its simplicity especially when coupled with Twisted’s 4/4 rock. “You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll” also had to be here. Perhaps it’s Twisted’s best metal anthem. Finally “Be Chrool to Your Scuel” featuring Alice Cooper ends the hits side with the last one chronologically. (“Bad Boys of Rock and Roll” on the US version.) There’s no “Leader of the Pack” and no “Hot Love”. All hail the classic lineup: Dee Snider – lead vocals. J.J. French – guitar. Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda – guitar. Mark “The Animal” Mendoza – bass. The late, underappreciated A.J. Pero – drums. The lineup that set MTV on fire relied on catchy videos, yes, but the songs have survived equally well.
The nasty cuts may just be too heavy for the average listener. Recorded to 2-track tape, there’s no fixing the mixes here. The lengthy start to “What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)” includes Lemmy’s intro and plenty of noise. There is no overlap with any other songs on the CD. “Destroyer” grinds so hard it’s almost a parody of itself. “Tear It Loose” is out-of-control fast, blowing away the album version. The US got “Run For Your Life” right after “Tear It Loose”, another fast rendition once it kicks in. (In Canada, “Run For Your Life” was only on cassette.) The cover tunes “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll” and “Let the Good Times Roll/Feel So Fine” include plenty of crowd interplay. Just the thing to turn off Joe Average Listener, but amazing to hear the energy of the band and audience that night.
The live cuts really highlight, with 20/20 hindsight anyway, the power of A.J. Pero. The guy could really kill a drum kit, and his timekeeping is the cornerstone of what made Twisted Sister heavy.
Don’t buy this CD if you’re looking for a party CD. Buy it because you’re intrigued and want to learn more about a band who doesn’t get enough credit for being one of the world’s most dangerous. Buy it to check out the rarities and get a taste of what those in the know had in their collections back in 1983. Buy it because you’re going to get liner notes and photos of band members you never even heard of before. Buy it because this is a great compilation, done with loving care and value.
GETTING MORE TALE #785: Seasons End (Oh Deer) + BONUS Nutshell Review: El Camino – A Breaking Bad Movie + BONUS Star Wars – The Black Series 6″ figures “Abandoned” Video Reviews
“Be careful of the deer problem,” said my dad when I phoned him from Lucknow, about 20 or 30 minutes away from the cottage.
“Don’t worry, I’ll drive safe,” I reassured him in that voice that hardly reassured him.
“You know about the deer problem?” he asked to confirm.
No, but now I did. Funny thing; I’d been driving up to the lake by myself for over 20 years and never came close to hitting a deer. There are warning signs along all the major roads, some with flashing yellow lights. Turns out Thanksgiving 2019 was my first on-the-road deer sighting.
It got dark quick after Lucknow, and soon it was like pitch. I had been driving slower since the sun went down but it was Jen who saw the deer first. I slowed down carefully until he jumped away unto the brush. The guy behind me wasn’t paying attention and almost rear-ended me.
It’s so strange to review the dashcam footage afterwards. What felt like an eternal moment of tense surprise was really only seven seconds.*
Until that moment, we were wrapped deep in Iron Maiden. I played the first album, with Paul Di’Anno, and the bonus tracks for the full-on experience. This was music I’d been listening to for 35 years and under the weight of all that nostalgia, I immediately began singing along. I remember “Charlotte the Harlot” coming up just as we were detouring past a town called Dorking. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s funny. Once completed, we switched over to Piece of Mind. That’s the Maiden studio album that I have the longest deep relationship with. Every word was dancing on my tongue, even “Revelations”. But then again, I remember having that song memorised back in highschool. My friend Andy and I sang it back to a rap kid named Patrick Barnes who claimed that metal lyrics are just unintelligible noise and nonsense.
All this Maiden reminiscence led to the writing of a new future chapter of Getting More Tale called “Run 2 the Hills”, a direct sequel to Record Store Tales Part 1. Look for that one in the near future.
We had the near miss with the deer after both albums were complete, and I’d started on random tunes from Powerslave. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was the song playing when Bambi was spared by some good driving.
Upon arrival, I had get my Netflix fired up to watch El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. Nutshell review:
EL CAMINO: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019 Netflix)
I didn’t think I cared where Jesse Pinkman went at the end of Breaking Bad. Turns out, I cared enough to watch this well-written coda to a great TV series. Aaron Paul rules, equipped with very little dialogue and only his body language. Paul gives us a hard insight to the PTSD-infested survivor Pinkman. Every cameo you desire is in store via relevant flashbacks, fleshing out the original series a little bit. After a while, you, like Pinkman, are disoriented and can’t remember if you’re watching past or present.
4/5 stars
It was a little freaky when I finished the film, went on Twitter, and saw Bryan Cranston announced that Robert Forster had died, just after I watched his final film.
In the morning I wrote up the rough draft of my new Maiden chapter while it was all fresh in my head, but I otherwise accomplished very little, creatively speaking.
I tried, I really did try. When mom & dad stepped out of the house for a few minutes I thought I could squeeze in time for a Star Wars Black Series video review. You’ll see what happened. Something like this occurred any time I attempted to make a video. So what you see is what you get; I gave up!
Abandoned Reviews
For entertainment use only. Back off, fanboys!
Instead of using my creative juices for this one final weekend of the lake this season, I decided to pour it into cooking instead. I picked up three beautiful steaks and a pound of lobster tail. I made some garlic butter, clarified it, and put the tail on the grill. Everything was phenomenal. I felt like we ended the season right with these meals.
There was the traditional turkey dinner the following night too, stuffed with goodness, but I feel the lobster tail and the steaks really put a cap on the season.
The drive home was enabled by Twisted Sister’s Live at the Marquee and The Razors Edge by AC/DC. I don’t know how often I’ve played The Razors Edge in the car since it came out before I could drive. Could this have been the first time? I liked it better in the car than I do sitting at home. As for Twisted Sister, Live at the Marquee is by far their greatest live product. The raw heavy stage purity can’t be touched.
And now we are home, preparing for the arrival of winter routines and monotony. Hibernation begins. But spring will return again, and with it, so will the roadtrips, the steaks, and the sun.
Stay warm, my friends!
* It was just a young deer When you start having more frequent animal sightings in cottage country like this, it means they are being displaced from somewhere else. There has been a lot of building and development this year.
This public service announcement from Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider mostly likely aired on an episode of Toronto Rocks’ Midweek Metal Mania show, the prototype for the Power Hour. It’s probably from 1984 or 85. I don’t know its exact origin because this comes from one of the “Balasz Tapes” — stuff originally recorded by next door neighbour George and then taped by me in one of our childhood recording sessions.
It’s lower quality because it’s a tape of a tape, but I think it’s still pretty cool.
The one VHS tape I’m working on currently spans a period of recordings from about July 1986 to September 1987. This Hear N’ Aid special features a MuchMusic interview conducted by J.D. (John) Roberts. There’s lots of exclusive information in this valuable video, including a tidbit on bands who refused to be in the same project as Spinal Tap!
Making mix CDs was a lot of fun (and work). I used to make custom Christmas discs that didn’t suck, for my family and friends every year. Why did I stop? I ran out of good Christmas songs. Let’s face it: unless you’re one of “those” people, Christmas music is nails on a chalkboard. You can only take so much. If you’ve worked retail in the past (or present), you probably can’t take any at all!
2010’s Christmas CD is a good example of what I used to make. You’ll notice there’s no Trans-Siberian Orchestra on there. I used up all their best stuff on the previous instalments. I tried to avoid duplicating songs from previous years although Hawksley Workman’s Christmas album is so good that I made exceptions for him. Hawkley’s Almost A Full Moon is the best Christmas CD that I own, and probably the best one I’ve heard. I bought it twice. He reissued the album after only a year with two extra songs! I forgave him, because Almost A Full Moon is so warm and perfect.
What do you think of the Christmas 2010 CD? Would you have wanted a copy that year?
1. Bill Ward – “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. Yes, that Bill Ward! The Black Sabbath drummer did a spoken word recording of the classic Christmas poem, and I opened the CD with it. I can tell you that when we played the CD at dinner time, this track was a failure. Nobody paid attention.
2. Kathryn Ladano – “Jingle Bells”. I got their attention back by putting on a track by my sister. This instrumental version on bass clarinet is from her CD The Christmas Album. Of note, her Schnauzer Ali is credited for barks on “Jingle Bells”!
3. Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Billy F. Gibbons – “Run Rudolph Run”. This breakneck Christmas carol is done in the Motorhead style. I played it in the car for sis. “This is shit!” she proclaimed. “Why do these guys get to put out albums and not me?”
4. Marillion – “Let It Snow”. This drunken favourite is from 2007’s Somewhere Elf. The spirit is intoxicating, as I’m sure they were!
Found some booze in a flight case, And I’m afraid that we’re all shit-faced, So I guess that we’ll have to go, Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
5. David Bowie and Bing Crosby – “Little Drummer Boy / Peace on Earth”. This is the David Bowie song that your grandma likes. It’s just lovely. I didn’t own anything with this song on it, so I had to download. That’s why it didn’t appear until 2010!
6. Helix – “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”. Yes, it rocks, but not too hard! Helix covered Lennon for their Heavy Metal Christmas. Singer Brian Vollmer is trained in the Bel Canto technique and he’s more than capable of singing songs for your Christmas dinner in mind.
7. Extreme – “Christmas Time Again”. My mom always liked Extreme, or “Nick Strean” as she thought they were called. This isn’t the greatest Christmas song in the world, but it doesn’t suck.
8. Hawskley Workman – “3 Generations”. Told you there would be some Hawksley. This touching song is about three generations of women in the kitchen making Christmas dinner together.
9. Elvis Presley – “Blue Christmas”. I must have downloaded this one too. I am a bit of a sucker for Elvis. I included Joe Perry’s instrumental version on a previous CD.
10. The Beatles – “Christmas Time is Here Again”. Not one of their best songs, but it’s the Beatles so it had to be included eventually. This version comes from the 1995 CD single for “Free As a Bird”. Relatively few have heard it, and I thought that would get people’s ears perked up, but by this time, the wine was out….
11. Steve Vai – “Christmas Time is Here”. This is from the first Merry Axemas. It’s a lovely track and not too shreddy. Remember this song from the Charlie Brown Christmas special? Steve does it on guitar, of course!
12. Jethro Tull – “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman”. This funky flute version will get the toes tappin’. Hard to believe that this is from Tull’s final studio album in 2003, The Jethro Tull Christmas Album! It would have been nice to get one more, but Tull’s Christmas Album is a good one to have around. If you need to tolerate Christmas music, you may as well listen to Tull jamming it out.
13. Brian Vollmer – “The First Noel”. Helix’s Vollmer put out a rare charity album in 2005 called Raising the Roof on Mary Immaculate. “The First Noel” is one of the best tracks. Vollmer is the first artist to get two appearances on my CD.
14. Ted Nugent – “Deck the Halls”. Much like “Run Rudolph Run”, this one smokes! It’s a guitar instrumental at full speed. Grandma didn’t like this one.
15. Twisted Sister – “O Come All Ye Faithful”. I really don’t like the Twisted Christmas album. This song was a hit though, and since it’s virtually identical to “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, I can…errr…take it.
16. Cheap Trick – “Come On Christmas”. My sister was a huge Cheap Trick fan at one point. She had this song before I did. Essentially just a Cheap Trick pop rocker with Christmas lyrics. Sounds like classic Cheap Trick to me.
17. AC/DC – “Mistress For Christmas”. I put this song on as the joke it is. I like to remind people that AC/DC did have a Christmas song. “Jingle bells, Jingle bells, jingle all the day. I can’t wait to Christmas time, when I roll you in the hay.” Hey, it counts.
18. The Darkness – “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)“. In my review, I said, “Even though the guitars are thicker than a good ol’ bowl of Thin Lizzy pudding, there is no mistaking this for anything but a Christmas song. It is a joyous rock re-imagining of a Christmas carol, with the unmistakable Justin Hawkins falsetto.” Plus, sis likes The Darkness.
19. Jon Bon Jovi – “Please Come Home for Christmas”. I like this one. Fuck off.
20. Jimi Hendrix – “Little Drummer Boy/Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne”. From an EP called Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Jimi and band jammed out some impressive licks but the dinner party didn’t enjoy.
21. Jim Cuddy – “New Year’s Eve”. Cuddy’s solo debut All In Time is tremendous CD and comes highly recommended by this guy right here. It’s like listening to a Blue Rodeo album, but only the Jim songs. The sentimental “New Year’s Eve” is a lovely ballad that fits right in with the Christmas theme.
22. Bob & Doug McKenzie – “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. You gotta end with a classic. From 1981’s The Great White North comes the big Christmas hit. We used to hear this every single year on my mom’s old clock radio. We’d squeal with laughter trying to sing along. “A beer…in a tree…”
How would you rate this one? Trying to avoid overlap was previous instalments was my Achilles’ heel. I’d swap out a lot of the lesser songs for better ones, but it’s not bad. It’s listenable. It’ll do.
For the first 23 or 24 years of my life, Stanley Park Mall was my epicenter. If I said “Mom, I’m going to the mall!” she knew where I meant. It wasn’t the biggest mall, and certainly not the best. But it was my mall.
This very typical mall, on Ottawa Street in Kitchener, opened in 1969. It was nothing special. There was nowhere to buy music, until it expanded with a Zellers store circa 1973. As small children, we weren’t interested in music yet. Instead it was Zellers’ toy section that had us enthralled.
In 1977 my mother took me to Stanley Park to look for a birthday present for a neighbor named John Schipper, older brother of my best friend Bob. “Look mom! The movie we just saw!” I exclaimed as I laid eyes on my first Star Wars figures. My mom bought C3P0 for John, and R2D2 for me, so we could play together. Little did she know what she got me into, by buying my first Star Wars figure at that Zellers store. But to be fair, who could have known?
The mall also had a bank, and my dad soon transferred there as its manager. I used to feel like such a big shot, strolling into my dad’s office. He’d let us sit at his desk and play with his calculator and telephone. I can even remember helping him with spelling on an internal memo! Once, when my sister was sitting in his chair, she pushed the button for the silent alarm. “Hmmm, this doesn’t do anything,” she thought. After she left, the cops arrived in force to answer the alarm. My dad realised what happened too late!
With my dad working there, plus the Zellers store, it was our main destination for shopping or just being kids. It was walking distance from home. When I was old enough to cross streets by myself, my friends and I made regular trips on our bikes. The Little Short Stop store was our main hangout. We would buy candy, pop, chips, comic books, and Star Wars or Indiana Jones cards. I managed to get a full set of The Empire Strikes Back, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I got them slowly, pack by pack, and by trading with friends. There was a neighbor who had the one Indiana Jones card I still needed called “I Hate Snakes”. A trade was made and I completed my set. I wish I knew what happened to all the doubles and triples of those cards.
When I was older, that Little Short Stop was my store for amassing a huge collection of rock and wrestling magazines. Hit Parader was my main title and I had a complete set of every issue from 1987-1990.
The mall was also right close to our grade school. Many of my friends would “cut through” the mall as a short cut to get home. One fellow, Chris, tells me he was sometimes chased around by mall security. Naughty kid.
I remember there was a short-lived video store there. My dad refused to rent the Twisted Sister Stay Hungry video for me. He didn’t like the look of the “guy with the ham bone” on the front cover.
In 1987, something remarkable happened. Stanley Park Mall got its first actual record store: A&A Records and Tapes. Suddenly I had close access to all kinds of music, including 12” singles. I remember flipping through their Aerosmith and Europe singles, thinking “Woah, there are songs here I have never heard of.”
We still checked Zellers, but A&A became the place for us. In fact there were even A&A coupons on the back of every box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. $1.00 off tapes! We sure cashed in a lot of A&A coupons that year. I loved checking out their front charts too. Vinyl was still happening, and the front chart was a big huge display of records. Much larger and more eye catching than a CD chart. I remember rejoicing when Judas Priest’s Ram It Down was on it.
I have clear memories of Bob Schipper and I walking to the mall in early April of 1988 to pick up a new release. Two copies of course; one for each of us. Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was an album we had been looking forward to, and we both got it on that cold Saturday in April 1988. (It took a while to adjust to the new Maiden sound, but Bob’s immediate favourite was “Infinite Dreams”.)
In 1989 I got my first real job, and it was at that very mall. The grocery store Zehrs was my first pay cheque. I cut my hair short for that job and was teased for it at school. Not only that, but suddenly I also needed glasses! It was a pretty drastic image change. But it was a cool work experience. Not only was I working at Zehrs with my best friend Bob, but my dad was still working in the mall too. All three of us in one place!
I was pretty loyal to A&A during those years at the mall, but in 1990 they went under. The last thing I ever bought at an A&A (though a different location) was a CD of Steve Vai’s Flex-Able and some blank tapes.
Yet every cloud has a silver lining. A former employee of A&A Records at our mall location decided to open a business of his own. Guess who he went to for the Visa setup? My dad! Six months after A&A closed, he opened his own record store in that mall. The rest is history. The store that I now call “The Record Store” hired me on in July of 1994. And he’s still in business in 2018, albeit not in that mall anymore which suffered a slow and steady decline in the 90s.
There are no record stores in the mall anymore. Zellers went under, and Walmart took over. Their tiny little entertainment section is the only place to buy a CD. The bank is still there, and so is the grocery store, but my Little Short Shop is long gone. There isn’t much left. No Baskin Robbins, no 31 flavors. Bargain shops and discount stores have replaced all the places I used to frequent as a kid. Sad, but not unexpected.
The strange thing is, as much as the mall has changed, I still get a huge shot of nostalgia when I walk into that Walmart that used to be my Zellers. Like a déjà vu, suddenly I am hit with the memory of finding a rare GI Joe, or flipping through Judas Priest tapes. The mall I knew from long ago is no longer the same, but the memory remains.
TWISTED SISTER – A Twisted Christmas (2006 Razor & Tie)
One thing I love about Christmas time is the ability to knock out all these Christmas album reviews. I can only listen to this stuff seasonally, and I wouldn’t subject you to it otherwise. In my quest to Review Everything I Own and Then Some, we must occasionally delve into Christmas music.
Rock bands doing Christmas tunes is…well, I mean it worked out OK for Elvis, and then later on Twisted Sister and the guys from Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Each of those artists had success with Christmas music for good reasons, but I think Twisted Sister’s was purely the novelty value of it. The humour. The nudge-nudge-jokey-ness of it. It wasn’t that they made a Christmas album laden with integrity. It’s a joke album as the intro implies.
The album commences with Dee & company singing a traditional acoustic version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. They are then interrupted by someone saying “This isn’t Twisted Sister!” It then goes metal with a dash a punk. “Ho ho ho! Let’s go!”
The biggest joke is that, apparently, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was always just “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” in disguise. This was the big Christmas hit that put Twisted back in the spotlight, and it’s certainly the most enjoyable track on the CD.
Songs follow vague heavy metal blueprints. “White Christmas” is imbued with an Iron Maiden gallop and a couple chords from “SMF”. One thing is clear, and that is Dee Snider’s voice still has it. The guy is a hell of a singer, period. He’s joined by Lita Ford on “I’ll be Home for Christmas”, in the style of Twisted’s original epic ballad “The Price”. Unfortunately this one stinks like Christmas cheese that should have been thrown out last year. A shouty “Silver Bells” is done with a splash of AC/DC, but ends up sounding more like Poison. Bassist/producer Mark “The Animal” Mendoza has a pretty kickass bass solo, though.
Judas Priest’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin'” is the foundation of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, and it is at this point that you realise a whole album of this stuff is a bit too much. “Let It Snow” is given the doomy treatment, as an amalgam with Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave”. I suppose the doomy direction does go better with lines like “The weather outside is frightful”. Maybe Dee & company are on to something here, but I’m not too sure about the Sabbathy version of “Deck the Halls” with echoes of “War Pigs” and “Never Say Die”.
“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” is a little dull, and “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is too long, as it often is. The only version of “Twelve Days of Christmas” anyone needs for a novelty is Bob & Doug McKenzie’s classic. That’ll make your party pop a lot better than Twisted’s version.
Let’s check some boxes. Is this album:
Fun? ✓ (sometimes)
Heavy? ✓
Twisted? ✓
Creative? ✓
All well and good. But will you:
Listen to it more than once a year? ✘
Enjoy as much as something else you could have played instead? ✘
Be able to use more than one or two songs for your Christmas party? ✘
Ever really look forward to hearing it again? ✘
It is good that A Twisted Christmas brought the band the kind of success they deserved, but it is truly a shame that it is the final Twisted studio album. They were always considered a joke to the critics, they shouldn’t have gone out on vinyl as a joke.
mikeladano.com 
