Van Halen

Part 95: Pierced and Scarred

RECORD STORE TALES Part 95: Pierced and Scarred

When you walk into a CD store today, you might see all sorts of colourful characters.  Maybe you’ll see a mohawk, purple hair, piercings and tattoos.  Something about the music scene attracts that sort of style, and young folks in CD stores often emulate their rock star heroes.

Well, not in our store!

When I first started in ’94, the rules were clear:  No weird hair colours, no piercings (not even ears, on men), no visible tattoos.  In a music store.

The rationale behind this was that we were a mall music store – we catered to mall rats who listened to Nine Inch Nails, but also to grannies looking for the new Anne Murray.  We couldn’t scare off the old ladies with an earring.  It all came down to personality really.  The man who called the shots and paid the bills as well as the paycheques didn’t like earrings on men.  He was a pretty clean cut, physically fit, unpierced chap and earrings on men were the opposite of his vision for a record store.

I know.  I know how weird that sounds, for a music store, but rules are rules are rules.

Then in ’95, we hired a girl with a visible back tattoo, so the tattoo rule quietly went out the window.  Guys were still not allowed to have earrings.

In ’97, one of our guys spent the summer in England.  He returned in the fall with a nose ring.  He knew the policy and didn’t care.  The boss decided to bend the rule, since he had “already spent the money” to have the piercing done. This opened the door a crack.  Before too long we had girls with nose rings, guys with eyebrow rings and visible tattoos, and I decided to get my ears pierced.  I put up with a little grief over it (“Why would you want to do that to yourself?”) but the policy was no longer in effect.  We were finally starting to catch up with the rest of the world in general, and music stores specifically!  Our new policy stated that facial piercings were allowed as long as they were not “excessive”.  “Excessive” was never defined, but it was understood that a couple were OK.

I decided I wanted a lip piercing, and later on a nose piercing.  I became very active in the body modification community, making friends in tattoo shops.  (Some of those friends are LeBrain readers today.)  I never went hog wild.  To date I only have two tattoos, and one earring left.  However as I went from my 20’s to my 30’s, working in a music store, I was able to explore different looks.

By 2004, there was a rollback of the piercing policy.  Sales had been slumping thanks to downloading, and changes were made.

While girls were still allowed to keep their nose rings, guys were not.  I was given direct instructions to remove my lip and nose piercings, immediately.  I protested.  “What about our policy?  The policy states that facial piercings are allowed as long as we don’t go into excess, and I only have two, which is less than others.”

The response was, “I know.  The policy was a mistake.  We’re changing the policy back, effective immediately.”

Our Niagara Falls store owner, Lemon Kurri Klopek, was very active in his local tattoo community, and even a tattoo shop overseas, which enabled him to tour there with his band, the Legendary Klopeks.  He sent some reading material written by Shannon Larratt my way, on why allowing piercings in the work place is good for morale and good for a unique store image.  I left these reading materials for my boss, who “filed” them.  I don’t know if he read them or not.  My piercings grew in.

In the long run, this policy change was a good thing.  Don’t get me wrong – it did nothing to fix sales slumps.  It did nothing to herd in old ladies by the gaggle, to purchase Anne Murray discs.  It did succeed in making me ask questions.  One question was, “Since I can’t have the piercings anymore, why don’t I just look for a normal 9-5 job?” The piercings were already out, it only made sense to make a new resume and make some serious life changes.

REVIEW: KISS – Alive III (1993)

Part 31 of my series of Kiss reviews, leading up to the release of Monster!

KISS – Alive III (1993)

I like Alive III, but I don’t think any fan can say it’s as good or better than I or II.  How could it be?  Artificial or not, Kiss Alive! is one of the greatest live albums of all time.  Alive II was a contender.  Alive III simply could not live up to either.

If it didn’t sell well, I don’t particularly blame Kiss.  It was the summer of “live albums”.  Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, and Iron Maiden all had double live discs out that summer, and that’s a lot of money to be spent by the devoted rock fan.

Although the first two Alives avoided song overlap, Alive III does contain some old Kiss songs that were previously played on one of the first two:

  • “Deuce”
  • “Detroit Rock City”
  • “Rock And Roll All Night”
  • “Watchin’ You” (given a funkier touch here by Bruce)

Everything else is a more recent vintage, and rightfully so. Kiss hadn’t done a live album in 16 years at this point, so there were lots of new songs to play. “Creatures Of The Night” had been a setlist staple for ten years at this point.

Performance wise, this is really good. With Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer in the band, Kiss had evolved to a sleeker machine. The songs were played much more expertly, and not as loose. A critic would use the word “mechanically” but it’s just different, and a matter of taste. Bruce Kulick at this point was not playing his solos with as much 80’s trickery, and was now much more suited to playing Ace Frehley’s songs. Eric Singer seemed to master a nice middle ground between Peter Criss and Eric Carr’s styles.  He is in fact my favourite Kiss drummer because of his creativity on the kit.

All songs are sung by Gene and Paul, although Eric sings very nice backups.  There is one instrumental, Bruce Kulick’s guitar showcase on the “Star Spangled Banner”, never recorded by Kiss in studio form!

On the negative side, I don’t like the production, once again by Eddie Kramer who also helmed the first two.  It sounds too polished.  The audience sounds artificial, pasted on.  When Paul raps, the audience just screams through, there’s no reaction.

Interestingly, there are a total of five songs from Revenge (including the Japanese/vinyl bonus track “Take It Off”). That shows how strong the new material was, and why there aren’t more Kiss oldies.  It is a shame that today Kiss doesn’t sprinkle that much new material into setlists.

A point of trivia, at one point the inclusion of a brand new studio song called “Carnival Of Souls” was discussed. It was finally released a decade later on Gene’s solo album, Asshole.  So this is the time period from which that song originated.  Astute fans will recognize it as the title of an eventual studio album.

A Gene song was even selected as the first and only single:  “I Love It Loud”.  Personally I feel that even Eric Singer can’t play this song like Eric Carr did.  And it’s way too overplayed now.

Alive III is not as essential as the first two, but if you pick up the Alive Box, which is the route I stronly suggest you take, you’ll get them all (with the exception of the symphonic Alive).   Listening to I, II and III in a row will reveal growth and a strong catalogue of songs not immediately noticeable otherwise.

4/5 stars

With the long-awaited Alive III now behind them, Kiss began work on a number of new projects, including their own tribute album, a studio album to be called Head, and an acoustic “konvention” tour.  Check this space again for all that and more.

Part 56: Top Five Flops

This isn’t some definitive list or anything like that.  Just five memories that stand out among the others:  my Top Five Flops.

#5. The Rolling Stones – Bridges to Babylon.  I know this album didn’t sit well for a few people, but we just flat out ordered too many.  They started coming in used within days and before too long, we had so many used copies that they were starting to show up in bargain bins.  Never a good sign when you’re the so-called greatest rock and roll band on Earth.

#4. Van Halen – III.  Same deal.  We ordered 50 copies.  I don’t know why.  This one was going to be a flop even before it was released.  Gary Cherone had no marquee value whatsoever in 1998.  We ordered 50, we ended up selling (probably) 5.

#3.  Hole – Live Through This.  Yes, it was huge in 199x, but by the late 90’s, you would have been a fool to pay more than $5.99 for this stinker, such was the frequency of the trade-ins.

#2. Titanic – Soundtrack.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  One of the biggest soundtracks of all time.  Well, as soon as Celine put out her own album with “My Life Will Go On” on it, the trade-ins began.  At one point we were bundling it with DVDs and VHS tapes just to get it out of the store.

#1.  Spin Doctors – Turn It Upside Down.   I recall at one point we had something like 20 copies, used, in stock.  We couldn’t give it away even for $3.99.  I wouldn’t know from listening to it, but I am pretty sure that it sucks.   It sold so infrequently, that I would be willing to bet that there are still copies in the 10-15 year-old-range, sitting there unsold today.

Part 52: Air Guitar

RECORD STORE TALES Part 52:  Air Guitar

I can’t help it.  When a good song comes on, it’s an unconscious reaction:  I start strumming the chords in air guitar…beating the air drums…slappin’ da bass!  (Nobody plays air keyboards.)

Everybody around me was embarrassed to the nines.  But you can’t stop the rock!

I jumped on counters.  I even once jumped down on the floor and did the Angus Young spinny spinny thing.  When there were no customers.  Sometimes I had to jump right off the counter as a guy was coming in.

“Yeah…heh…just playing some air guitar…”

The first time I was ever caught playing air guitar at work, it was actually at my first job at the grocery store.  I was working in the parcel pickup area, and it was March break, about 11 in the morning, and it was dead down there.  So they get you to sweep up the area, clean it up real good.  And we had a tape deck down there.  Well, I started playing air-broom-guitar when one of the assistant managers walked in.  He just smiled.  Probably thought I was half out of my mind.

My air guitar at weddings is now legendary.  It is now tradition that I get down on the dance floor and do the Angus Young spinny-spinny during “You Shook Me All Night Long”.  Last time, I did it in a kilt.  Don’t worry, I didn’t wear the kilt “traditionally”.

Air guitar is an expression of one’s connection to the rock.  If the rock connects, then the air guitars come out.  Next thing you know, you’re doing Van Halen on the countertops, pretending it’s the “Hot For Teacher” video.  It happens!

 

Part 27: Store Play

Another suggestion from Tommy Morais, my Amazon rock buddy from the east!  He wants to read about glam rock bands, and Canadian bands!  I played a lot of each at the store, especially in the earliest days.  I’m gonna throw some prog and metal in here too.  Here’s some of my fondest memories.

LeBRAIN’S STORE-PLAY CLASSICS!

1996.  We had just opened our flagship store, and I was selected as manager.  This meant I’d be working alone for most of the day, and I could play what I wanted.  In the earliest days there were fewer rules.  The boss might make fun of me for playing Poison, but in the old days, he never told me to take it off as long as it was only once in a while.

I remember playing glam metal stuff like:

Poison – Native Tongue.  I enjoyed trying to turn kids onto music they’d like, but would never touch if they knew who it was.  It sometimes worked!  I think I sold one copy of Native Tongue that way, anyway.

Motley Crue – self titled.  This is in my top three Motley records of all time.  The one without Vince Neil.  A guy from the HMV store in Waterloo gave me props for playing it.  I once sold it to a guy who hated the latest Crue, Generation Swine.  I turned him onto self titled instead.  Instant fan.

David Lee Roth – Your Filthy Little Mouth.  I played this a shit-ton in the spring of 1995 too.  I don’t know why I like it so much, it’s so cheesey.  Dave does country!  Dave does reggae!  Dave does jazzy loungy stuff!  Dave does VH!  But Dave does write hilarious lyrics, and I did like that.

Van Halen – Any time, any where, any how.   But any time we had a copy of 1984?  Hell yeah!  And you couldn’t keep Best Of Volume I in stock for very long.  Certainly not if you played it.  The first year or two it was out, I probably sold it every time I played it!

Def Leppard – Slang.  Again, much like the Poison and Crue, I was trying to turn new kids onto these classic bands that had explored new directions.  Unfortunately, Slang sold like shit.  I think it was too different for the old fans, and too old for the new fans.

And now let’s talk about Prog rock.  Ashleigh used to call prog music “smart-guy rock”.   That’s one reason why I wanted to play it every shift we shared.  I was trying to show her I was a smart guy, see?

Marillion – Misplaced Childhood.  I played Marillion so frequently, that my co-workers Matty K and Ashleigh knew the words to some songs.  Unfortunately, they didn’t consider that a good thing.

Fish – Kettle of Fish.  See above!

Dream Theater – Images and Words.  This came in so rarely, that when it did you had to play it.  It always sold if you played it.  We had so many musicians and wanna be’s (like me) coming into the store, they inevitably would ask what the fuck is this?  This one kid, a drummer named Curtis, loved Dream Theater.  I sold him his first Dream Theater.  Do you know how cool that is, selling somebody their first Dream Theater?  Curtis is a fantastic musician.  He’s jammed with my sister, actually.

Rush – Moving Pictures.  Like nails on a chalkboard to the girls in the Operations staff.  Could not play this if they were in the city, let alone the store.  But my fuck, what an album.  I remember Tom put a sticker on it that said, “Best album of the 80’s!”.  I thought to myself, “Then I need to hear the whole thing!”  I had never heard “Vital Signs” before.  I am sure Matty K remembers to this day, “Everybody got to evelate from the norm”.

And speaking of Rush!  I did a lot of Canadian themes.  We had a 5 disc changer.  A lot of the time, I would specifically pick 5 Canadian artists to take up a shift.  You’d often hear:

Sloan – 4 Nights at the Palais Royale.  In my opinion one of the top five live albums of all time.  It is also my favourite Sloan album.

Stompin’ Tom Connors – Anything we had in the store would work, as he didn’t come in frequently.  Unfortunately, Stompin’ Tom didn’t fare too well for store play in Kitchener.  Nobody seems to like him in this town.

Rush – duh?

Triumph – ditto.

Kim Mitchell / Max Webster – Another artist our Operations people hated.  I did one entire 5 disc shuffle of nothing but Kim and Max.  Kim was playing in town that day so I was hoping to drum up some sales.  I failed to do so, but I did try.  I was told to remove the Kim and Max from the player.

Helix / Brian Vollmer – I’d play Helix when it was in, which was infrequent.  I remember playing the Brian Vollmer solo album for Kevin, one of the guys that ended up in my wedding party.  I played the song “Good Times Don’t Get Better Than This” in the store.  I thought he would enjoy it.  Unfortunately, he did not.  I believe the words he used were, “This is not good.”  Kevin, I kindly submit that I strongly disagree to this day.

Even more rarely though came the opportunity to play the early stuff, the stuff with Brent Doerner singing lead.  Once — just once — Breaking Loose and White Lace & Black Leather came in.  I’m kicking myself for not buying them.  But when they were in store, I played “Billy Oxygen” on repeat for about 20 minutes.

Oscar Peterson – I only had the opportunity to do that once though.

Voivod – self titled.  The first one with Newsted.  Metallica had come out with St. Anger and a lot of fans didn’t like it.  I tried to sell this, which was more traditionally prog metal like old Metallica.

Incidentally, at the same time,  I was training a new franchisee around that time.  He was amused by how excited I was that the album Angel Rat, by Voivod, had come in, with 3D glasses intact.  I explained that usually these would be missing, but the CD was mint!  And “Clouds In My House” sounded great in-store!

Voivod crosses the boundary from prog into metal (or is it vice versa?), but I certainly did play a lot of metal in the store.

Bruce Dickinson – Balls To Picasso.  I played this virtually every shift during the fall of 1994.  At the time, I thought “Tears of the Dragon” and “Change of Heart” were among the deepest songs I’d ever heard.  Yeah, well.

Iron Maiden – Brave New World.  I love this album.  Matty K knows every word of “Blood Brothers”.

G//Z/R – Plastic Planet.  Easily the heavist thing I have ever played in store.  Even I was uncomfortable!

sHeavy – The Electric Sleep.  Incidentally, the greatest Black Sabbath album that was not made by Black Sabbath.  Every time, people would ask, “Is this the new Ozzy?”  Every time.  You could put money on it.

Judas Priest – Turbo.  It was the only one I could get away with!

Man, those were good times!   I am sure I could write another dozen of these.  I mean, we played a lot of music.  From Esquivel to Brushy One-String to Pansy Division to Jaymz Bee & the Royal Jelly Orchestra, we tried and sampled everything.

REVIEW: VAN HALEN – “Right Now” cassette single

VAN HALEN – “Right Now” (1992 cassette single, Warner)

“Right Now”, the cassette single version, – featuring two non-album versions of the title track.

side one:

  1. Right Now (single mix)
  2. Man on a Mission (album version)

side two:

  1. Right Now (edit)
  2. Man on a Mission (album version)

There are two interesting things about this cassette.  First, I’ve never encountered that “Right Now” remix on any other format.  No CD, no vinyl, nothing that has a longer lifespan than a cassette.  Cassettes are not that durable.  I want to get this thing burned to CD as soon as possible.   Second, the remix is actually quite cool.  It features an organ solo instead of guitar, and you won’t hear this version anywhere else.  Any serious fan of Edward Van Halen would be interested in hearing it.

I find it a little odd that the b-side “Man on a Mission” appears twice.  Shame about that, as I consider it easily one of the worst songs on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. 

3/5 stars.  A neat little-known oddity.

REVIEW: Van Halen – 3 (1998 collector’s tin)

Welcome back to the second installment of our Van Halen two-parter review.  Last time we talked about the Can’t Stop Loving You singles.  Today, we’ll be discussing the controversial Van Halen 3, with a special emphasis on this neat but overpriced collector’s tin.

Van Halen – 3 (collectors’ tin 1998)

In this day and age, bands always release different editions of albums, to jack up the price and hopefully also sell multiple versions to the same buyer.  Today we get bonus tracks, entire bonus CDs, or a DVD to get us to pay a higher price.  In 1998, at least with this Van Halen album, we got nothing of the sort.  We got paper, plastic, and tin, but no extra content.  It is bonus content that gets me to pay the higher price, normally.  Throw on exclusive music and the collector in me salivates.

Before we get into all that, let’s talk about Van Halen 3, the album.

Fact: Van Halen shot themselves in the foot when they went through the whole Sammy-quit-now-Dave-is-back-no-he-isn’t thing. I remember watching the MTV Awards in 1996, and thinking that Dave being back in Van Halen was about the best thing that had ever happened.   And then when I found out that Gary Cherone was lead singer?  Hoping for the best, fearing for the worst.

I’d been following Cherone for years, and his touch on Extreme’s III Sides To Every Story was absolutely sublime.  But even though both Extreme and Van Halen had a penchant for flashy solos and the odd ballad, it just didn’t seem like the right match.  Cherone was a spiritual and political lyricist, nothing like the party animal of Hagar nor the ringmaster of Roth.

Van Halen 3 was as complex and mature as you could have hoped, which is fine, but it also sounds decidingly unlike the band Van Halen. And vocally, something is wrong. Listening to this album, Cherone is not singing in his old style. He’s shrieking, pushing his voice to the breaking point, and sounding unfortunately a lot like Sammy Hagar, confusing the fans even more. On top of that, when I played the album I noticed right away that something didn’t sound right with the band itself. Turns out, I was right — Michael Anthony only played on three tracks. The rest was all Eddie on bass and backing vocals.

Van Halen 3 (still don’t really get the name) is a semi-triumph for the band, in certain senses. It is long, mature, diverse, progressive, and paradoxically it is also similar to 1984, soundwise. It has a similar coldness…like a chill was in the room where you can hear Eddie’s amp humming away. “From Afar” is so spare and epic, one can only wonder what would have happened if it was on 1984.  Elsewhere, Eddie’s warm synth has returned on tracks such as “Once”.  The guitars have that warm-amp fuzz to them that you just can’t fake with pro-tools.

Yet it is only a semi-triumph. As much as I want to like this album, I have to admit, these don’t sound like finished songs. Aside from my “highlight” songs (below) a lot of the tunes sound like they’re only half finished. As if Van Halen were songwriting amatures, and this is an overindulgent and underplanned demo tape. Eddie’s guitarwork is great, as always, but much of the time it sounds like he’s just jamming with himself. While this is fantastic to listen to from a technique point of view, you’re not humming the riffs an hour later, like you can every time you listen to Fair Warning or even Unlawful.

My highlights (not including instrumentals):
“Without You”
“One I Want”
“From Afar”
“Once”

Other songs, like “Ballot or the Bullet” just barely hang together.

The album especially stumbles when Eddie takes his first lead vocal on the smoky barroom ballad “How Many Say I”. The song is no good and Eddie can’t sing lead.

The best song, and the most Van Halen-like, wasn’t even on the album. “That’s Why I Love You” appeared on early promos, and should have been the single, but was dropped by Warners in a monumental error of judgement. If it had appeared, and if it was the first single, the fate of this album would definitely have been different. Track it down. You’ll see what I mean.

The tin itself is nice.  It has the Van Halen 3 cannonball guy printed on it, the VH “globe” logo printed on the back.   Incidentally, the CD inside is unique.  The regular retail edition did not have the checker pattern or the “circus” Van Halen logo.  If you’re buying one of these used make sure you’re getting the correct CD with your tin.  Also make sure it’s not scratched.  It is stored in a paper sleeve prone to this.

         

Inside are a pick (a pink one?) with VH logo, a 3 sticker, and numerous pieces of slotted card paper with pictures on them  Some pictures are of the band, and some with just a “3” theme.  The band photos are pretty cool.  It almost looks as if Van Halen were a real band at the time!  Some of these paper cards have lyrics and liner notes too.

The slotted paper cards have instructions that you can assemble them in a number of unique ways.  Never having done this before, I took this review as the opportunity to try it.  Fun??  No, not really.

Rating:

3/5 stars for the album

2/5 stars for the tin

Coda: 

I thought while we’re at it, let’s also take a look at the “Without You” promo CD single.  It contains a 4:57 edit (album version is 6:28 so a significant edit version).  It is mostly notable for its packaging:  A clear red case, giant puffy 3 sticker stuck to it, and a Van Halen logo sticker in the upper right corner.  The CD is designed to look like a 3″ single.  Definitely worth tracking down for collectors who love unique looking discs.

     

REVIEW: Van Halen – “Can’t Stop Loving You” (2 CD with tin)

You lucky, lucky boys and girls!  Another double feature review?  And this time it’s all Van Halen?  Today, you get Part One – Can’t Stop Loving You!

REVIEW:  Van Halen – Can’t Stop Loving You (parts I & II, inc. collector’s tin.)

In the 90’s, CD singles were a big deal especially in Europe.  Probably due to quirks of the British chart rules which limits a single to 4 songs, bands often doubled up by releasing double singles with each part sold separately.  There were also cases of triple singles, or singles with exclusive tracks on the vinyl versions, in order to get you, the consumer, to buy it more than once therefore charting it higher.

Can’t Stop Loving You by Van Halen was released this way, but without all the bonus tracks that really made it worthwhile.  Instead, you could get a collector’s tin to store both discs in.

Part I of the single (w022cd) came in a standard jewel case and the following b-sides.

  • 2. Crossing Over (non-LP track, Japanese bonus track for Balance)
  • 3. Right Now (live)
  • 4. Man on a Mission (live)

The case has no indication of a second disc being available.  The two live songs are from the album Live: Right here, right now.  The bonus track “Crossing Over” is incredible, and well worth hunting down for any Van Hagar fan.  This thumper is apparently based on music that Edward had written years earlier, and was finished off by Sammy’s haunting lyrics about journeying to the great beyond.  Lyrically it hits the spot, and musically, it cascades atmospherically.  It has a lot of bass, runs very slowly, but is unique in the Van Hagar canon, there is nothing else like it.  It fits the darker, mellow vibe of some of Balance‘s more thoughtful moments.

Part II (wo288cdx)  is only worth buying for the tin itself.  There are no exclusive bonus tracks to be had on this disc.  The tin is your standard CD tin, with the Van Halen “globe”-style logo embossed onto the front.  There’s a helpful (upside down) sticker on the front advertizing that you can also buy the other CD and store it in this case.  There is a foam insert inside to help protect your CD.  The back of the tin has a large sticker with notes and pictures, and a tracklist for the other CD as well — this is handy if you do end up storing them together.

Bonus tracks are as follows.  Once again all bonus tracks are simply lifted from the live album.  The A-side is the standard album version of “Can’t Stop Loving You”, which is also the same as the first CD.

  • 2. Best of Both Worlds (live)
  • 3. When It’s Love (live)
  • 4. One Way To Rock (live)

Rating:

For part one, a solid 4/5 stars for the excellent bonus track “Crossing Over”

For part two, a dismal 2/5 stars.  It’s only there to look at really.

 

Tune in again in a couple days, when we finish this review off with one more RARE VAN HALEN collector’s tin…

Part 12: The Pepsi Power Hour

RECORD STORE TALES Part 12:  The Pepsi Power Hour

I’m going to take you back in time a bit.  Back to a time before the record store….

I remember back to the 80’s and early 90’s when MuchMusic was king. Back when there was no Jersey Shore and they played actual music videos.  There was no internet at that time, so you had to go to the store to buy your music (more often than not, on cassette). To hear new bands, you watched videos on Much and listened to the radio. There was no YouTube.

There was this frickin’ awesome show on Much back in the day — you remember it. It was originally only on once a week (Thursdays at 4 if I recall) and was hosted by one John “J.D.” Roberts. Yeah, the CNN guy. After he left, the hosting slot rotated between Michael Williams, Steve Anthony, Erica Ehm and Laurie Brown and then finally the late Dan Gallagher. Despite his long hair, Dan didn’t know a lot about metal — he didn’t know how to pronounce “Anthrax” and had never heard of Ratt. But that show was by far the best way to hear new metal back in the day.

That show was THE POWER HOUR.

It was so popular that they eventually had two a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4, which was awesome for me since by 1989 I was working every Thursday at Zehrs.  I could still catch one a week, usually.

I remember tuning in, VCR at the ready to check out all the new videos and catch onto the newest bands. There was this band called Leatherwolf that I found via Hit Parader magazine and first heard on the Power Hour. I loved that band. There was another band called Sword from Montreal. Psycho Circus. Faith No More. Skid Row. Armored Saint. Testament. You could always count on the Power Hour to have Helix on. That show rocked.

They had some of the best interviews as well.  Usually they’d have someone come in and co-host for an hour.  They had everybody from Gene Simmons to Brian Vollmer to Lemmy.  In depth stuff too, at times.

Then in 1990 something else cool happened. I discovered a magazine called M.E.A.T (the periods were for no reason at all, just to look cool like W.A.S.P. but eventually they decided it stood for “Metal Events Around Toronto”). M.E.A.T was awesome because it was monthly, free, and had in depth articles clearly written by knowledgable fans. There was no magazine with that kind of deep coverage. Even Slash loved M.E.A.T, at a time when Guns hated rock magazines! I loved M.E.A.T so much I eventually sent them $10 to subscribe to a free magazine.  I did this on a yearly basis.

I discovered a whole bunch of great bands via that magazine. I Mother Earth, Slash Puppet, Russian Blue, Jesus Christ, not to mention they were way ahead of the curve on alternative. They had a Nirvana concert review back in 1989. They got behind Soundgarden way before they were cool. And you could count on them hanging onto the oldies. They’d put an indi band from Toronto on the cover one month, and put Black Sabbath on the cover the next month.  Next issue they’d have an in-depth interview with Kim Mitchell.  They’d talk about bands that nobody else did.

Their CD reviews were my bible! My music hunting was probably 90% based on their reviews, especially since by then the Power Hour had changed into the 5 day weekly Power 30 hosted by Teresa Roncon, and sucked.  The started playing too much thrash and grunge and never gave the old bands a shot anymore.

Things have changed so much now. I never get into new bands anymore, back then I used to just eat them up. I guess new bands just don’t interest me anymore. I like my old time rock and roll. I did buy the new Sheepdogs, twice.  The last new band I got totally and 100% excited about was The Darkness, and that was, what…2003?

Yet I can’t get into these new metal bands. The music sounds so sterile to my aging ears. The rock has lost its balls. The album I have been most excited about in 2012 was the new Van Halen — a band that is approaching 40 years old. But my God does it rock.  Kiss and Black Sabbath both have new records coming out, and I’m excited about them, but I could two shits about the new Nickelback.

In a lot of ways, it’s a better time for music now.  With eBay and Amazon I’ve managed to fill nearly every gap in my music collection.  There are some bands that I now have complete sets of, and others that I am achingly close.  I’m missing 4 Maiden EP’s and 1 Deep Purple import, for example.  Back in the 80’s you didn’t have access to this.  You didn’t even have access to an accurate and complete discography.  It wasn’t until the internet that this kind of information was even available.

Aside from that, today kind of sucks for music.  Sure, it’s easier to find new bands now, but we did OK in the 80’s.  M.E.A.T turned me on to lots of bands, and they were always giving away sampler cassettes.  Much played all the new videos by all the  metal bands at least once, basically.  You had to work a little harder, but we only appreciated the music more.  It wasn’t disposable.

And there were a lot more new bands around that just plain rocked!

REVIEW: Chickenfoot III

CHICKENFOOT – Chickenfoot III (2011)

When you have talents like these four guys (Sammy and Mike – ex VH, The Satchman, and Chad from the Chilis) then you better hope for a giant leap forwards on the crucial second album. Chickenfoot deliver, with their trademark sense of humour intact but tempered with a new seriousness.

Satriani fans will be in nirvana, as he really strecthes out a lot more than album #1. Some of his tones and fills here are more akin to things we hear on his solo albums. Imagine that with a kickass band behind it.

Sammy and Mike’s vocals blend beautifully once again, bringing to mind vintage Van Hagar. It is incredible to me that Sammy Hagar as a singer has remained this powerful after so many years. Has any lead vocalist ever aged as well as Sammy Hagar? Paul Rodgers maybe?

Lastly Chad Smith — I know that Kenny Aranoff will be incredible on tour, there is no doubt of Kenny’s skill. But Chad Smith really kicks some serious butt on this album. Just listening to the snare hits, I ask myself how many broken sticks and drum heads were tallied up in the studio.

Highlights are every single song, but one I keep coming back to is “Different Devil”, a joyful romp through the countryside with the top down. There are no bad songs on this album. The closest we get is “Three And A Half Letters” which is mostly delivered in a tiring spoken-word vocal. The lyrics are poignant enough, letters from people seriously down on their luck, with Sammy screaming “I need a job!” during the choruses. Indeed, Sammy is rarely this polical.

“Big Foot”, the first single, stomps through the forest relentlessly, but it actually seems to be about a car. “Got ‘Houses Of The Holy’ on the box, got it all cranked up cause, yeah! that shit rocks!” sings Sammy back in celebratory mode.

Fans of album #1 will remember that album’s cool gimmick, the heat-sensitive packaging. This time Chickenfoot go 3D. I have the classic rock Fan Pack edition which came with 3D glasses among other goodies.  Some of these goodies included a set of five guitar picks, and a keychain/bottle opener.  Some people consider this kind of stuff junk, and it kind of is, but I think collectors who dig guitar picks will want this.

                                          

There’s also a full colour 132 page magazine with interviews and all sorts of goodness to read and look at.

Bonus tracks: Be aware of the following bonus tracks out there!

Live versions of “Down The Drain” and “Oh Yeah” are included in my Fan Pack. These tracks are taken from the live Chickenfoot DVD (Get Your Buzz On), but this is their first release in audio format.  This is the only place you can get these two tracks.

I don’t know where to get it yet, but some versions of the album come with a “hidden” song called “No Change”. I have heard it, and “No Change” is an angry political rocker with a simply storming riff. The buzz on fan boards has it listed as the best track on the album! You decide.

Now, I do want to say one thing:  Sammy Hagar should shut his mouth about Van Halen.  I’m sick of hearing him give them backhanded compliments and stuff in the press.  It’s obvious he’s bitter, but he shouldn’t be.  He made a great album.  He should get out there, tour his ass off, but shut the hell up.

5/5 stars.