Month: March 2020

March 2020 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Welcome to the March Edition of Purchases.  If you are new to the site, this is my monthly wrap-up of my vinyl and CD purchases since not everything I buy makes it on to the site.  Some of it does or already has or will in the future, but whose to say how long that will be.  So, I thought why not share the love of music and let you see what I have been adding to the collection.

First up is something that I ordered in February,  but didn’t make it until after the February post was written and I was too lazy to go back and update it.  If you read the Billy Idol Series there was one album I reviewed that I didn’t actually have the album on vinyl…yet.  Well that has changed.  It is the Record Store Day release of Billy Idol BFI Live which is a 3 LP set.  I think there were only 2000 released and I have 1,148.  The price has been around $75-100 and I couldn’t see spending that much.  I mean if it is was Kiss, no issues…sorry that is the way it is.  I finally found it for $40, used and in what looks like mint condition to me.  Here is it is.

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And then on the first weekend in March, Hardy Boy Records released a collection of Kiss albums he scored and there were so many that I did not have in my collection.  I got up to the store early as they opened at 10am, I was there a few minutes prior to that and there was only one other person waiting. Another gentleman showed up and we were after stuff in the Kiss collection. Luckily, we were really after different things.  Great Kiss stories were swapped and as another person had the Vault as well, we had some good discussions on that too.  It was a fun morning and I am happy to say, I scored a few things.  I would have been happy with only one item I didn’t have, instead I got 6…plus a promo Whitesnake single.

First up is the Kiss Collection.  I scored the following:

  • 12″ Single Picture Disc of “God Gave Rock & Roll To You II (from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey)
  • 12″ Single Picture Disk of “Reason to Live”
  • Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved
  • 12″ Single Promo of “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”
  • Bootleg – Kiss: The Tickler – (Lick it Up Show 1983 in Sweden)
  • Bootleg – Kiss: Wicked Lester and Progeny Demo Sessions

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And then one other thing I found was a 12″ Promo Single of the Whitesnake song “Is This Love”.  I will need to go add it to the David Coverdale Series.

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There is a website I use called MyPoints.com.  They send you emails, you click on them and get points, you buy stuff from vendors and go through their site, you get points and after awhile those points add up and you can cash them in for a gift card.  Ding!!  No brainer.  This is what the latest cash-in got me…Steve Vai’s ‘Passion & Warefare’…Awesome!!

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Then I realized I was still missing one Whitesnake Studio album.  I can’t finish the Coverdale Series without it.  It was The Purple Album.  And now I have it thanks to ebay and a cheap Deluxe Edition copy…$8.

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Unexpectedly, I was looking at Facebook and Lunchbox posted they were putting out two used Billy Idol bootlegs and so I got up the next morning and went and was able to grab them.  I won’t go into detail as I will talk about them in detail in later posts.

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Next up is a Def Leppard Release.  ‘The Early Years Box Set” which features a remaster of the first two albums, ‘On Through The Night’ and ‘High & Dry’ as well as some bonus material including a disk of B-Sides and rarities and two live shows.  The review has already been posted!

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And that is it.  I have a bad feeling April won’t be as abundant with the Covid-19 crap going on.  Amazon not sending vinyl or CDs for the short term and record stores closing.  It might be a month where nothing gets bought and what a sad month that will be.

Here is everything I bought in March.

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Thanks for stopping by…

My Sunday Song – “Dr. Feelgood” by Motley Crue

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For My Sunday Song #189, we are tackling one of the band’s signature songs, “Dr. Feelgood”.  The song is the title track of the 1989 album and the band’s first album sober!!  The band had some radio success as this hit #20 on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs and it did go to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, but their success was really MTV and those videos.  This one was played all the time!

Being newly sober, it was funny how many songs on the album were about drugs and OD’ing, but I guess that was still all Nikki and company knew.  This song is no different. It is about drug dealers…not one drug dealer all of them as Nikki has been quoted as saying that “every good drug addict always has more than one.”  The drug dealers gave Nikki his fix and they also gave him and Motley Crue a song to be remembered.

The song comes slamming in with Tommy’s drum beat that grabs hold and pulls you right in just like a good fix will do.  Mick lays down a nasty guitar riff that is instantly recognizable.  Already the addiction to the song is in full swing.  The lyrics written by Nikki and delivered by Vince who captures the essence of the song and he sounds fantastic hitting notes he only now wishes he could still hit.  Then Mick’s guitar solo comes in slow and dirty before he shreds the strings like the needles shred your arm.  It is junky filled rush of a song.

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Friday New Releases – March 27th

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What a crazy month March has been and thank good it is almost over.  If you are still home cooped up from this whole virus thing, then here are some new releases you can get to help pass the time as I am sure you will need it.  Some good stuff for me this week, but don’t know about you.  Hopefully and if so, let me know what you want to hear, buy or don’t care about.  Also, let me know what I might have missed that people should know about.  My choices are in blue.  Enjoy and have a great weekend!

  • 815RjVdY3AL._AC_UL115_  Pearl Jam – Gigaton – (Monkeywrench/Republic/UMG):  I was never a huge Pearl Jam fan, I’m not afraid to admit it.  But it doesn’t mean I don’t like them.  I heard the first song off this and I have to say it is pretty great.  I think I will try out the whole thing.  It is nice to see one of those 90’s Grunge bands still be kicking and Eddie is the only singer left and we are thankful for that.

  • 81RpqUX-rZL._SS500_  Tesla – Five Man London Jam (Live at Abbey Road Studios 6/12/19) – (Universal Music): Okay, Tesla had huge success with an acoustic album like 30 years ago.  Are they hoping to recapture that magic?  Who knows, but I will give it a listen like I do everything they put out.  Buying it?  We will have to wait and see.

Continue reading “Friday New Releases – March 27th” →

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 13 of 15 – The Best Songs of the Vault)

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I can’t believe I am done going through all the disks in detail.  It took 10 solid weeks to get through all 11 disks.  I read the entire Vault Book and researched more details online.  I dived into it like I have never done before for any release.  It was time consuming and it was a total and utter blast.

And to keep the fun going, I thought I would compile what I found to be the 20 Best Songs in The Vault.  There are a 164 songs in The Vault to go through.  I know you get 166, but one song is in there twice (oops on someone’s part) and the Bob Dylan 15 minute track with Gene at a writing session doesn’t really count.

To determine the songs, I picked all the songs that scored a 4 or 5 and placed them in a playlist.  That gave me around 60 songs to choose from.  From there I thought, if the song is just a demo of a Kiss song or a Gene Simmons song that was actually released, I want to exclude those as well.  In the end I think I started with about 30-34 songs.

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H.E.A.T. – ‘H.E.A.T. II’ – Album Review

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Swedish hard rock band H.E.A.T. are now on their sixth studio album simply titled ‘II’.  The band unapologetically deliver a melodic rock album that is a throwback to the 80’s hard rock scene while moving straight into the new decade of 2020. 

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They check off every box in a hard rock style I grew up with and loved…

  • Blistering guitar driven songs – “Dangerous Ground” √
  • Anthemic Rock songs – “Adrenaline” √
  • Beautiful Ballads – “Nothing to Say” √
  • Epic sounding songs – “We are Gods” √
  • Glorious melodic songs – “Heaven Must Have Won An Angel” √
  • Sexed up synths – “Rock Your Body” √

Continue reading “H.E.A.T. – ‘H.E.A.T. II’ – Album Review” →

Def Leppard – ‘The Early Years 78-81’ Box Set – Album Review

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To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the bands debut album, Def Leppard put together quite an impressive box set.  The debut album was ‘On Through the Night’ which arrived in 1980.  The band didn’t stop with that album to commemorate, they decided to cover the 4 years of major transition from the band.  They are gong back to their humble beginnings of 1978 and up through 1981 and the album ‘High & Dry”. The last album  before the band blew up in to major Rock Star status.  And man they were huge.

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This set is 5 CDs.  And they consist of the following:

  1. ‘On Through the Night’ (Remastered)
  2. ‘High ‘N Dry’ (Remastered)
  3. When the Walls Came Tumbling Down (Live at the New Theatre, Oxford – 1980)
  4. Too Many Jitterbugs (Rare and bonus tracks)
  5. Raw (Early BBC Recordings)

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It is over 4 1/2 hours of music.  And believe it or not, there are some things on here I did not have which is why I bought the whole set.  The packaging is pretty sweet.  The box it comes in looks like a box to hold a collection of 45’s and the front and back covers even show the wear of records being included which is a nice touch. The CD’s themselves come in a tri-fold cardboard folder that is pretty durable and it looks like this… Continue reading “Def Leppard – ‘The Early Years 78-81’ Box Set – Album Review” →

My Sunday Song – “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crue

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For My Sunday Song #188, we are going to pontificate on the greatness of Motley Crue’s song “Home Sweet Home”.  How great is it you ask?  So great that it got overplayed to death and now I am sick of it.  However, that doesn’t make it any less great.  The song is off the horrible album ‘Theatre of Pain’ which was released in 1985.  The song was released as a single and did nothing on the radio. On MTV, that is a different story.

The song is a ballad and is about the band’s life on the road.  After being out on the road for 18 months touring on the album ‘Shout at the Devil’, the band couldn’t wait to get home.  When they got home, they were so bored they started getting in to a lot of trouble, but they did write this song.  It was a song the record company didn’t want to release, but the band stuck to their guns and financed the video themselves.  The video showed the band on and off stage from several concerts and the less happy life of road life.  That video blew up on MTV, but the record company didn’t promote it on the radio so it flopped there and was never officially a hit.  This song helped prove that all metal bands at the time, better have a freaking ballad on their album if they want to succeed.

The song opens with Tommy Lee on piano and like every ballad has its slow moments and those power moments that picked up the volume and tempo.  It even includes a brilliant guitar solo by Mick Mars where he shreds the crap out of that guitar.  The song then ends as it began with Tommy on the piano and then Vince humming the song before fading out.  It was so popular for the band, that the last song they ever played when the broke up as band was “Home Sweet Home”.  Now, we know that it actually won’t be the last song they played live as they are back and about to Tour…again.

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Friday New Releases – March 20th

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Happy Friday and hope everyone is hanging in there with all the craziness in the world.  Despite the world’s events, there are some pretty decent releases.  I think there is something here you will find. I have a few I am interested in, but for those that love pop you’ve got The Weeknd, Conan Gray (my kids are thrilled) and Kelsea Ballerini.  But those aren’t for me even though I am sure that I will hear Conan without having a choice.  My choices are highlighted in Blue. Let me know what you see that you like or what I might have missed.  As always, thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!!

  • 91aBQXDZjQL._AC_UL115_  Def Leppard – The Early Years – (Virgin EMI / Mercury Records):  If you follow the site, you know I have no choice in buying this.  Why?  Because they are my favorite.  It is already bought and will be delivered this fine day.  It is a remaster of their first two albums, B-Sides & rarities, but the gem of this are the live shows from the early 80’s.  Pete Willis anyone!!!  Steve Clark!!!  Enough said!!  These are going to be AWESOME!!!  I guess that wasn’t enough said.

  • 91VspBjh2nL._SX522_  Adam Lambert – Velvet – (More is More LLC / Empire):  Adam’s vocals keep getting stronger.  With Queen, he is amazing.  His solo stuff a little hit and miss, but with that voice, I am willing to give it a listen.  It is very different from Queen so don’t expect anything like that except maybe the theatrics and drama.

Continue reading “Friday New Releases – March 20th” →

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 12 of 15 – The Bonus Disk)

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Welcome back to the Gene Simmons The Vault review.  We are now on the Bonus Disk and the final disk in the set.  Below are the rules I am trying to follow with each review.

I will try and keep some consistency between each disk.  I will go through each song and mention who wrote, who played on it and what I think about the song. I won’t go through all the stories as you should get the vault to get all the information.  I will grade each song (ranking 1 to 5, 5 being best) and then take an average of the grades for the score of the disk.  I know most of these are demos, so I won’t be taking quality of the sound in to play that much because I know what I am getting and I am more interested in the overall song.

At the end of all the reviews, we will average the score of each review and come up with an overall ‘The Vault’ score which I hope will be a fair representation of the whole package.  I am going to do my best to do one a week, but as I said before, life sometimes gets in the way so I am not going to promise one a week.  Plus, this is 11 disks to digest and that is a lot as I am also doing the David Coverdale Series at the same time.  That is a bunch of music to go through.

The songs aren’t in chronological order.  Gene states each disk is more of a mood or vibe.  The vibe of this one appears to be one of celebration.  Not with all the music being upbeat and party, no not at all.  But a celebration of Gene’s writing.  There are some of his earliest songs on here and Gene is giving us a taste of everything style he has done…almost.

Well, are you ready?  Then let’s get right to it.

The CD comes with one of Gene standing with The Vault.  Plain and simple, yet effective.

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Coverdale-Page – “Take Me For A Little While” – 12″ Single (The David Coverdale Series – Bonus Edition)

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Here is another Bonus Edition episode of the David Coverdale Series.  The last special find I made while in Paris of April 2019.  This 12″ Picture Disc of the Single for “Take Me For A Little While” from the album 1993 album ‘Coverdale-Page’.  I found this at a cool store called Rock & Roll Voltage and it was a cool little shop.  Ask him about Bootlegs as he has a ton…I bought 7 Kiss Bootlegs that day as well.

The picture on the A-Side is of David and Jimmy and is the cover photo for the article.  The B-Side is a cool picture of the ocean with a storm brewing and of course the Merge Sign.

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What was really cool about this Disc was the poster was still with it and in pretty awesome condition.  And it was a double-sided poster at that. The main picture is a full length of the boys…

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