GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man Episode 73: A Mighty Wind Appreciation, with Dan Chartrand, Uncle Meat & Johnny Metal
In 2003, Christopher Guest unveiled his third improv comedy movie, following Waiting For Guffman (1996) and Best In Show (2000). While each film has its focus (a small town play; a dog show), it was 2003’s A Mighty Wind that “tapped” into the spirit of music that made Guest a fan favourite in the first place. This time it’s folk music!
The Folksmen are a fictional folk band that actually opened for Guest’s “other” band, Spinal Tap. Ironically, all three members are the same: Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. Together with Mitch & Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara) and the New Main Street Singers (Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Parker Posey, Paul Dooley et. al.), the bands have reunited for a big folk show in New York City. As he often does, Fred Willard stole the show in this film.
This hilarious comedy boasts an incredible soundtrack of originals and one cover (“Start Me Up”), and tonight I’ll be joined again by Dan Chartrand and Uncle Meat to discuss it. With them will be John “Johnny Metal” Clauser, who has wanted to do this topic with us for some time now.
You might not be as family with A Mighty Wind as you were with This Is Spinal Tap, but you won’t regret spending an hour with us tonight. It may not be heavy metal, but good music is good music, and this soundtrack is loaded with great songs. Join us tonight!
Friday October 4 at 8:00 P.M. E.S.T. / 9:00 P.M. Atlantic. Enjoy onYouTube or on Facebook!
A huge thank you to Marco D’Auria of the Contrarians, Dan Chartrand of Off the Charts, and the near-legendary Uncle Meat for comprising our expert panel tonight. The subject was Spinal Tap, the band and the music. It may be fair to call Dan a “superfan”, as he had some Spinal Tap rarities that I don’t. Dan provided some cool physical product, including CDs and LPs of This is Spinal Tap, Break Like the Wind, and he even unfolded his Back From the Dead CD packaging to show us what it looks like when it’s a little paper stage set.
Taking a cue from another big Spinal Tap fan, Peter Kerr, I stole a tactic from Rock Daydream Nation and did some discussion questions in rounds. Here’s what we tackled:
Were you ever in the blissful unawareness that Spinal Tap was a fake band? Or were you always in on the joke?
Evaluate the musicianship of Tap.
Pick a favourite song from the soundtrack.
Pick a favourite song from Break Like the Wind.
And a quick discussion of Back from the Dead.
Along the way we discussed the history of Tap, both real and fictional. We had a look at the DVD for the Return of Spinal Tap, and had a chat on that subject. I peppered the panel with trivia throughout the night. We had an insightful discussion about talent, and the three actors who played the central characters: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer. We speculated on director Rob Reiner’s role in the songwriting, and technical aspects of the writing and playing. Did Harry Shearer play fretless bass on “Break Like the Wind”? I don’t know, but we do know he can play upright bass thanks to his role in A Mighty Wind. In short, the music and movie were given as much appraisal and analysis as we could do in an hour.
Meanwhile in the comments, Pete Jones provided quote after quote after quote, from a variety of Tap interviews and performances. Thank you Peter! And thank you to everyone who watched and joined in.
I started the show with a quick unboxing, from Australia’s Ash Geisler, who has been a huge supporter of the show. Thanks again Ash for watching, and for sending me this awesome package. I guarantee some of them will be getting a review.
One topic I didn’t get to mention on the show, but did come up among the viewers: Spinal Tap II is coming to theaters in 2025. How do you feel about this? Let us know in the comments. I for one don’t think it’s necessary or a good idea. The cameo-laden cast seems gimmicky, but Rob Reiner is back is the director’s chair.
Thanks for watching, and if you didn’t, the link is below. This is one I’ll be watching over again.
NEXT WEEK: A Mighty Wind with Dan Chartrand, John Clauser & Uncle Meat!
GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man Episode 72: 40 Years of Spinal Tap: The Music with Marco D’Auria, Dan Chartrand and Uncle Meat
Tonight we’re gonna rock ya, tonight!
Formed as the Thamesmen in 1964, Nigel Tufnel and David St. Hubbins scored a hit with the single “Gimmie Some Money” / “Cups and Cakes”. The band soon employed bassist Derek Smalls. After a name change to Spinal Tap, the band wandered through progressive rock, jazz fusion, funk, reggae, hard rock, and heavy metal. In 1984 they became a household name with the release of the documentary film by Marty DiBergi, called This Is Spinal Tap. It is hard to believe it has been 40 years since that film brought Tap to the silver screen.
Tonight, Contrarians Marco D’Auria and new face Dan Chartrand will join Uncle Meat and I, as we Tap into the history of this great band’s music.
From rock and roll (“Gimme Some Money”) to hippie flower power (“Listen to What the Flower People Say”, “Rainy Day Sun”) to heavy metal (“Stonehenge”), few bands have struggled to find a direction like Spinal Tap has. Now with DiBergi back on board, the band are primed to release a new documentary film on their more recent exploits. Our panel tonight will try to avoid talking about the drama (puppet shows, air force bases, girlfriends) and focus on the music. And what music it is! Nigel Tufnel is one of the most critically acclaimed guitar players in the world, not just for volume but also for pioneering the art of double his guitar solos with voice. David St. Hubbins is such a legendary lead singer, that Ronnie James Dio wouldn’t allow him to sing lead on Hear N’ Aid’s “Stars” for fear of breaking the board. And Derek Smalls? His solo album Smalls Change proves he’s not a one-trick moustached pony.
Join us tonight, and Tap into the music of Spinal Tap.
Friday September 27 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T. / 8:00 P.M. Atlantic. Enjoy onYouTube or on Facebook!
The birthdays keep coming, relentlessly as the tides, but Jex Russell ensured that this one was special and different indeed.
This birthday, I was joined by Jex, John Clauser and Tim Durling for a fun Friday afternoon that turned quite epic by the end. Before that surprise unfolded, we took a look at my new shelving and a large chunk at my CD collection. We discussed favourite birthday memories and a movie in its 40th anniversary this year: The Last Starfighter. (This led into a side discussion on Howard the Duck.)
Jen joined us for gifts at the halfway point of the show. She gifted me with two new releases and one deluxe live album. You’ll have to watch the show and see! (Clue: royal rodents and the Phoenix lights.)
As a finale, Jex unveiled his surprise. With the assistance of Tim Durling, it was like an episode of “This Is Your Life”, or a Cameo with all my favourite people. Jex’s presentation included friends both famous and infamous. There was even an acoustic version of the Grab A Stack of Rock theme song performed by Johnny Metal himself. Thank you, John!
Here is Jex’s presentation:
By the end of it, I was flattered and honoured, and maybe my eyes were a little wet. I’m not crying, you’re crying. All my reactions to the kind words and surprise guests are live and unfiltered.
I’m the guy who usually has all the words. I don’t have any this time. If a picture is worth 1000 words, just watch my face.
Thank you everyone for everything. Here’s to another year.
The Jexter Bunny brought an early Easter surprise this year. Unbeknownst to me, Jex Russell and Uncle Meat had conspired to surprise me with Meat’s first live appearance on Grab A Stack of Rock since 2022! The topic: Top Five Albums from our birth years! The presence of Uncle Meat enabled us to do albums from three consecutive decades.
Uncle Meat drew 1969
I had lucky 1972
Jex had a rocking 1985
Additionally, Metal Roger sent in a thrashing guest list covering 1988, while Harrison Kopp submitted a Blaze-heavy list spanning 1998-2000. Because he’s our unicorn.
We looked at a variety of vinyl releases, CDs, and box sets. I brought multiple copies of mine. The genres ran from doomy to thrashy, Beatles to Black Sabbath, soul, progressive rock, and beyond. We had a great discussion on a classic album cover, and went in-depth on a Deep Purple album that was just reissued this week for its 50th anniversary. Meanwhile, I had a nice 40th anniversary edition of that album to show off.
One of my picks from 1972 enabled me to rewind to an old clip from my earliest YouTube days, featuring Uncle Meat. The irony is I picked this clips days ago and certainly not before I knew he was showing up live on the show! Jex really slammed it out of the ball park with this surprise. And Jex knows I don’t really like surprises! Thank you Jex Russell for setting up this epic and surprising reunion. Long overdue. The man who essentially inspired this show to exist in the first place is beloved here, and I will always love him. Thanks for doing this Meat Man.
Finally, Jex…Jex Jex Jex! When I took my headphones off for 30 seconds to change my shirt, you happened to take to a shot at my former chesty co-host from last year’s Good Friday show. Well played, sir. Well played.
Next week is a re-run of the last two Mike and Aaron Go to Toronto trips, with brand new content with Mike and Aaron in the present day. Hope you enjoy this week and next week’s shows!
RECORD STORE TALES #1092: Grab A Stack of Rock (Recap 2) A recap of all our shows to date as we gear up for the first anniversary
It has been a heck of a year…but it has been a year already! Grab A Stack of Rock debuted with no name, on October 28, 2022. It was an impromptu decision to go live, and fortunately Harrison and Uncle Meat were on board. This week, we are celebrating one year of Grab A Stack, with a special list show and special guests. More on that later.
Coming off the biggest show we ever did, Show #10, which has over 1200 views currently, we decided to get nerdy next!
Show #11, Jan 13 2023, saw Rob Daniels, Tim Durling, and Kevin “Buried On Mars” Simister beamed down with Harrison and I to talk Star Trek! It was Kevin’s first time with the new format, and he really brought the Trek. Tim and I were both in uniform, and Harrison had some cool MAD Magazines to show. This was a really fun episode to do, even though that uniform isn’t very comfortable! Soundtracks, books, action figures and much more were shown!
Show #12, Jan 20 2023 was the debut of Dr. Kathryn, and what a debut it was! This was a Karate Kid / Cobra Kai talk, with Rob Daniels and Harrison Kopp. Dr. Kathryn blew everyone away with her expertise on the subject, while showing off some cool stuff including a video from actor Sean Kanan. The stories that night were absolutely incredible. Any fan of Cobra Kai needs to check out this chat!
Show #13, Jan 27 2023 was a brainchild of Tim Durling: Reissue record labels! You know that Tim is a format head, and one of his passions is comparing different printings of albums. Many record labels make their fortunes on reissues. Rock Candy, La-La-Land, Sony Legacy, and so on. We took a good look at some cool things from our collections. Rob Daniels and Harrison Kopp were on hand once again!
Show #14, Feb 3 2023 was MarriedandHeels episode 2.
I took a couple weeks off, but did some informal mini-episodes (un-numbered) while I rested and recuperated after several weeks without a break.
Feb 11 2023 featuring the debut of Jen on Grab A Stack of Rock! I wanted to get her more involved within her abilities. She can’t look at a screen for very long without feeling some effects from it. In this short episode, we unboxed my Marvel Legends T’Challa (Black Panther) figure, just for fun. Jen was a natural! This was a test stream to see how it would work with two of us on one computer, and it worked great!
Feb 19 2023 was another fun mini-episode. I had just received the excellent cassette, Landings, by Grace Scheele. An instrumental concept cassette (cassette!) about the moon landing, Grace hand-packaged each one in aluminium foil. I had to unbox it live, and I had to have her on hand when I did it. Thanks for coming to hang with me, Grace! People, check out this episode and see what love and care looks like when it goes into a physical product.
Show #15, Feb 24 2023 was monumentally important, for it featured a new guest that would have a huge impact on Grab A Stack of Rock. This was the foreshadowing of a new era, because Jex Russell (or the “Friendly Frenchman” as I called him back then) came on board for the first time. Nice to meet ya! We had John T. Snow back on, for the first time since 2022. Tim and Harrison also returned for this musical gathering of fans.
Show #16, March 3 2023 was MarriedandHeels episode 3, with Harrison Kopp.
March 10…now, that was a night. I had my guests lined up. Jex and Harrison were coming back to do a test stream. Streamyard added a new feature, allowing guests to stream the show to their own social media. About 30 minutes before showtime, I barfed. 10 minutes later, I barfed again and cancelled the show! I barfed seven more times that night and drank about four large things of Gatorade.
Show #16.5, March 24 2023, was not an official episode. We did the test stream, successfully! John Snow, Rob Daniels, Jex Russell and MarriedandHeels joined in. We unboxed some Japanese imports, and we covered Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Kiss, Star Wars, and more. Most importantly, we successfully streamed to the guys’ Facebook pages for the first time.
March 31 was a week off. Why? Because apparently when we went live on March 24, I had Covid! You certainly could not tell! Watch that episode and tell me if I look like a guy with Covid. The following morning, I felt tired and scratchy, so I tested myself. Yep: positive! While I never really got sick (just tired), Jen sure got it bad. I was negative the following week, and back at work.
Show #17, April 7 2023, was the final MarriedandHeels episode, with Jex Russell.
Though her shows were excellent for views, I didn’t pick up new readers or viewers. It was a failed experiment, like putting a big round peg in a little square hole. At least I tried.
I took April 14 off so I could do an excellent discussion on the Neurotic Outsiders, with Grant Arthur, on his show Grant’s Rock Warehouse. We also opened the cottage that weekend, meaning the first ever front porch shows on Grab A Stack of Rock were about to happen! Following this, we took April 21 off.
Show #18, April 28 2023 was the cottage show I had been waiting all year to do! It was another simple one: new arrivals. Kevin the Mars Man was back, as was John T. Snow and Harrison Kopp. Thankfully those guys carried the show, because I was checked out that night. And everything came to a head the following Friday.
Show #19, May 5 2023, was supposed to be Metallica with Kevin, Tim and Harrison. I was going to show off my Black box, but the show was cancelled last minute when drama finally exploded into its inevitable conclusion. The “heels era” was over, and we were about to get serious about music.
Show #19, May 12 2023, was the first of the new era! New life was breathed into the show on this day. My planned co-host (see above) crapped out and didn’t show up, but thankfully Jex Russell did! I also invited Grace Scheele back on, because we did a demo of her cassette! I had a whole box full of treasures that I picked up from Max the Axe’s garage sale, including a Kenwood tape deck. Grace’s cassette sounded awesome on it. Additionally, this was a test of a new time slot: 3:00 PM on Friday afternoons in the summer. To my utter disbelief, views were high! The show went on for two whole hours, as I spun classic Max the Axe videos. It was a fantastic show, and the time slot worked. I was worried I could not get enough viewers on Friday afternoons. I was wrong…very gladly wrong! From this point forward, most cottage shows would be in the afternoon, and Jex would co-host them. I called it the “no more heels tour of 2023”, and it was off to a hell of a start. We even had a chipmunk sighting on camera!
May 17, 2023 happened when I received the new Van Halen Right here, right now live album on vinyl. I had taken the afternoon off work, and I thought, why not go live? Dare I say why not? It was a mini-episode unboxing, and it too was a success despite the fact that most of you should have been working!
Show #20, May 19 2023, was another first for the show: our first star interview! Spencer “Spenny” Rice of Kenny Vs. Spenny fame agreed to talk wresting, and talk we did! Co-host Marco D’Auria really rocked this one, with his encyclopedic knowledge of so many eras of wresting. Spenny may have been the star, but Marco was the star! All I could do was sit back and enjoy! Thank you Spencer Rice for doing this, and thank you Marco for killing it. It was an honour for me to share the screen with you.
RECORD STORE TALES #1066: Sausagefest Intro by Jeff Woods
Jeff Woods is a radio personality known for The Legends of Classic Rock, and the Records and Rockstars Podcast. Mr. Woods was kind enough to record a sketch for our Sausagefesting adventures, and you won’t believe what the guys got him to say.
Three cheers for Jeff Woods, a good sport and a great human.
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.
“Ask Harrison” questions this time were asked by Lana (via Tee Bone) and our newest castmember, an actual Instagram influencer with 200,000 followers who discovered our Led Zeppelin list episode earlier this year, became a fan, and wanted to be a part of our little show herself! Please give her a big welcome.
Next week I’ll be doing a taping with Grant Arthur from Grant’s Rock Warehaus, but we’ll be back again soon. Thanks for watching!
GRAB A STACK OF ROCK With Mike and the Mad Metal Man
Episode 1: Dio – Dreamers Never Die review with Uncle Meat
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!
mikeladano.com 