Marco, Tim and I had a blast taking a deep dive into Kiss’ Creatures of the Night album, box set, and tour! Marco presented a collection of four Kiss bootlegs from the Creatures era. Tim brought the vinyl and cassettes. He even had a related 8-track tape. I dove deep into the Kiss box set: the book, the goodies, the music, the stories and the packaging! (For those asking me for a box set review, this is pretty much it!) Additionally, Uncle Meat stopped by with his memories of seeing the Creatures tour at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Finally, “Ask Harrison” returned with two of the best questions for my Aussie co-host yet. Harrison doesn’t have much in the way of Kiss but did present some interesting stuff in terms of Slade, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, and more.
As I was leaving for work on Friday morning, I thought to myself, “You know, I wonder if Harrison or anybody would feel like going live tonight. Just shoot the shit for an hour. It might be a fun way to be social on a Friday night and it only has to be an hour.”
I messaged Harrison in Australia just as he was tucking in for the night, and he graciously agreed to get up early and join me for an impromptu live stream. Setting his alarm clock, Harrison prepared for our first live show since July!
While the LeBrain Train is no more, we can still enjoy some past shows. This one was special as it was the very first show on the Streamyard platform, 8/14/2020. At the end we had six guests. I called it “the shape of things to come”, and I was right about that! Things only got bigger and better. Not that this show wasn’t big on its own, as you can read below in my original text.
I am sure I will miss the LeBrain Train eventually, but you just don’t get this kind of interaction anymore, where I could snap my fingers and suddenly we have six people on the screen. A moment in history, not to come again.
Enjoy!
History was made Friday night!
For the first time ever, Deke and I have shared the screen with Mr. Books himself, Aaron from the KMA. The subject this week: Top 11 Canadian albums of all time. An absolutely epic discussion unfolded with so many different genres being touched upon. As remarkable as the lists were (five in total), it’s also quite astounding when we talked about all the albums we left out!
Lists submitted by:
Deke
Mr. Books
LeBrain
Darr
Dr. Kathryn Ladano
With Deke coming in from Lake Superior, Aaron from Georgian Bay, and myself on the shore of Lake Huron, we had three massive bodies of water covered. What should we call ourselves? The Great Lakes Consortium?
For a look at the shape of streams to come, check out the end of the video. We brought in Uncle Meat, Rob Daniels from Visions in Sound, and Kevin/Buried On Mars. While six at a time is a lot, it sure was fun to see everybody together for the first time!
I can’t help but take a little bit of pride in all this. My very first live stream was March 20, the week lockdown began. Eager to make connections with others in isolation, I hit that “live” button on my Facebook app just to see what would happen. It ended up being a lot of fun and it so happened that others liked it too. A few weeks later, we figured out how to get Uncle Meat to co-host and he came up with the now infamous “Nigel Tufnel Top Ten” format.
But there were limitations, because we had to use a Facebook phone app if I wanted to have a co-host. This reduced the scope of awesome people available to share the screen with me. Finally Kevin directed me to Streamyard which solved numerous problems. After months of trying to figure out how to stream to Facebook (where my audience is) without having to use Facebook, Streamyard worked. For the first time after many months of trying, Aaron has finally co-hosted a show. A milestone! So yeah, I’m proud of myself and proud of the awesome friends who have co-hosted along the way. We made something here that is catching on with people. I owe Meat a huge debt for being the first co-host and coming up with the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten concept.
Look at the first stream below, and look where we are now. We’ve come a long way.
The MVP tonight was Kevin from Canadian Grooves for going superdeeeeeep with his Tenacious D picks! “I am not worthy!” said Meat. Indeed Kevin did dig deep into the obscure for his excellent list. Between the three of us, you will find a terrific balance of deep cuts and mainstream hits. All of which, you should check out!
Thank you boys for a great show tonight! If all goes according to plan I’ll be going live again next Friday for another Show & Tell episode!
The LeBrain Train: 2000 Words or More with Mike & Friends
Episode 110 – Nigel Tufnel Top Ten-acious D Tracks
This is just a “tribute”! Well, no, not really. But it will be great fun regardless. Thank Uncle Meat, as he arranged this week’s episode and guest himself. Tonight, Meat and Kevin from Canadian Grooves are joining me to talk about the notoriously tenacious comedy-rock duo of Jack Black and Kyle Gass. The greatest band in the world? Perhaps — which is why we’re doing Top 11 lists of this band’s greatest songs.
The duo met in 1986 and started playing gigs 1994, with their name a reference to the basketball term “tenacious defence”. Their demo led to the short lived TV series, befriending Dave Grohl, and eventually their debut album in 2001. It’s been pure legend since!
Sourcing tunes from their four albums, many singles, HBO TV show and more, you can count of lots of laughs tonight. As usual, you’ll want to catch this live!
A wonderful social gathering tonight with some rapid-fire action! Robert Daniels stepped up to the plate at short notice to talk music, movies and TV. We were joined by Harrison the Mad Metal Man, and Uncle Meat for some quiz fun. It was an impromptu night of loose and entertaining chatter among friends.
Topics discussed:
Star Trek: Picard, The Original Series, and Animated
And a random quiz of 11 questions that included audience participation answers!
Tons of fun!
We also played a bunch of music including the debut of a track called “Bones ‘N’ Clothes” by Plasticine, featuring Rob Szabo and Steve Strongman. This song was very well received by our viewing audience and will definitely be heard again.
It was my pleasure to honour the man who got the ball rolling for us back in the very beginning: Robert Daniels from Visions In Sound. Because he inspired the LeBrain Train in the first place, I decided to share this anniversary special with him!
Not only did we surprise Rob with a brand new Tee Bone Erickson song called “A Vision In Sound”, but we also brought in his long time friend Erik Woods to enjoy the tribute.
Pre-show viewers got to see a really cool gift unboxed from Aaron, Mr. KeepsMeAlive himself!
Show highlights included clips, although you may be well advised to skip the middle one, “The Author Reads: Record Store Tales Part 7, A Shitty Story”. Lots of gratitude to Uncle Meat who was the center of several clips we played. Added bonus: a vintage video and story from the Meat Man!
Thanks for watching! If you didn’t, don’t hesitate to see it below. Another big thanks to Marco the Contrarian for sharing the show with the Contrarians Patreons.
A huge thank you to my co-host Harrison the Mad Metal Man, and my guests Tim Durling, Brian Richards, and Uncle Meat! Being awash in the love and admiration of my friends is a really special thing, and I thank you for making my 10 Year Anniversary show perfect. I was worried tonight’s show would be a little narcissistic. Perhaps it is, but it did my soul a lot of good. I feel energised to keep writing.
Highlights of tonight:
Some fascinating Tim Durling talk about rare 8-tracks and his book Unspooled. Tim’s book features a previously unreleased EXCLUSIVE chapter of Record Store Tales, only available by buying Unspooled. (Copies still available.)
Brian Richards reviewing the new KISS official bootleg CD.
Brian also showed off his Top Five Metal Compilations.
We revealed the true identity of one-time commenter “nolongeracustomer“.
Top Five Record Store Tales from Lana – a list I appreciated so much.
Top Five lists from Harrison and I – Reviews, and Meat posts.
The return of the Nigel Tufnel Top Ten – special lists from Harrison and Mike.
Thanks to my guests, my co-host and my friends who made this all the wonderful experience that it has been. I appreciate you all.
mikeladano.com 