Paul Stanley – ‘Live to Win’ (2006) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

We are now in to 2006 and Kiss hasn’t put out a studio album in 8 years. 8 YEARS!!! That is insane. I figure Paul was getting a little restless and decided it was time for the follow-up to the 1978 first solo album. Heck, Gene finally did a solo album back a few years, so why not Paul. ‘Live to Win’ was finished and released on October 24, 2006 and yes, I was a release day buyer for this one. Come on, its Paul, why would I not be.

Paul brought in a lot of people to help with this album and the usual suspects are there including his long time collaborator, Desmond Child. We also see Marti Frederiksen, Holly Knight and even John 5 plus a few other writers. I believe there is only one song Paul wrote by himself. As far as musicians on the album, you do get John 5 on a couple and you get Kiss alum Bruce Kulick on bass…wait…what??? Bruce on bass? I’m sorry, Bruce is a bad ass guitar player, why is he mitigated to only the bass. Seems like a waste. And lastly, I noticed Tommy Denander who has played on it seems hundreds of albums. The rest of the musicians I am going to guess are studio guys and all very talented because all studio musicians are amazing.

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Judas Priest – ‘British Steel’ (1980) – Album Review (The Complete Albums Collection Series)

Judas Priest had massive success with the live album ‘Unleashed in the East’ and now it was time to hit the studio again. However, this time they would lose their drummer yet again. Les Binks was not paid for his work on ‘Unleashed in the East’ and was slightly pissed and so he left the band forcing Priest to find their 7th drummer all thanks to manager Mike Dolan not paying Binks.

The band found a new drummer by the name of Dave Holland formerly of the band Trapeze. Dave would stay with the band all the way up to 1989 which will be the longest running drummer at that point in time. The band started recording in December 1979 at Startling Studios in London, but they weren’t feeling it. They ended up at Ringo Starr’s house where they finished the album by February 1980. The band was in awe recording at Ringo’s house because prior to Ringo owning the house, it was John Lennon’s house and they couldn’t believe they were in the same house as two former Beatles where a lot of history had been made.

The album saw its release on April 14, 1980 and they would see the album go to #34 in the US and #4 in the UK and the album would reach platinum status selling well over 1 Million copies. The album would go on to have 3 Singles and we would see the band keep to a more accessible sound they started doing with ‘Killing Machine’. Judas Priest was hitting it big and a Metal was becoming more mainstream thanks to albums like this. This was sort of the start of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBH).

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Alice Cooper – ‘Guilty/King of the Silver Screen Tour’ (1977) – Tour Program

In my crate digging, I keep running in to Tour Books and of course, I keep buying them because I think they are cool time capsules of a band. This time around, I found 2 Alice Cooper Tour Books. And these are vintage as they were both from the 70’s and they look it. The first one we have here is from Alice’s biggest and best album, ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’, from 1975. The next one up is the Tour Book for the Guilty Tour also known as King of the Silver Screen Tour which began on June 19, 1977 at Anaheim Stadium, Anaheim, California and ended on August 30, 1977 at McNichols Sports Arena, Denver, Colorado

The Band had a cast of characters and included the following host of people:

  • Alice Cooper
  • Steve Hunter – Guitar
  • Dick Wagner – Guitar
  • Prakash John – Bass
  • Fred Mandel – Keyboards
  • Whitey Glan – Drums

The tour was in support of the Lace and Whisky album and featured a stage set designed as a giant TV. The TV had slits in the screen where Cooper and his dancers jumped in and out along to filmed choreographed sequences during the songs. They even went so far as to have hilarious mock commercials screened in between some songs. When you go see Alice Cooper you definitely get a show!

The average set list on the tour was as follows:

  1. Under My Wheels
  2. Billion Dollar Babies
  3. I’m Eighteen
  4. Sick Things
  5. Is It My Body
  6. Devil’s Food
  7. The Black Widow
  8. You and Me
  9. Only Women Bleed
  10. Unfinished Sweet
  11. Escape
  12. I Love the Dead
  13. Go to Hell
  14. Wish You Were Here
  15. I Never Cry
  16. It’s Hot Tonight
  17. Lace and Whiskey
  18. King of the Silver Screen
  19. School’s Out (Encore)

Are you ready to see the pictures? Well of course you are…And remember this is Alice Cooper and that is what you get in these pictures…a lot of Alice…

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You Picked It! – Radiohead – ‘OK Computer’ – Album Review

Alright…You Picked It! And this one wasn’t really that close although The Fratellis gave Radiohead a run for their money for awhile, but in the end fell short. The winner was Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’ which I had never heard before. The votes were as follows:

  1. Radiohead – Ok Computer – 7 votes
  2. The Fratellis – ‘Half Drunk Under a Full Moon – 4 votes
  3. The Doors – ‘Morrison Hotel – 2 votes
  4. The Rolling Stones – ‘Sticky Fingers – 2 votes
  5. Parliament – ‘Mothership Connection’ – 1 Vote

Thanks to all for participating. The June choices will be up on Saturday!

RADIOHEAD – ‘OK COMPUTER’:

I will go ahead and put it out there that I am not a fan of Radiohead, but not listening to all their albums, it isn’t fair to say that I don’t like everything as I hadn’t heard everything. So I chose this as one of the “Never Heard Before Releases” and you guys picked it so it is time to see what all the fuss is about. ‘Ok Computer’ is the band’s third album and was released on May 21, 1997 and went all the to way #21 on the Billboard Charts and sold over 2 million copies in the U.S. alone.

The album was quite different from their previous records as it was very experimental for the band. The lyrics were not as personal and the sound saw them move away from their rock sound and go a little more eclectic or should I say electric as the band experimented with so many sounds and instruments and really pushed themselves stylistically and musically. Thom Yorke has described the inspiration of this album as Miles Davis’ album “Bitches Brew” which itself is so avant garde. This might not be the best album to start with if you are getting in to the band for the first time.

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My Sunday Song – “Suicide Blonde” by INXS

For My Sunday Song #248, we are tackling the song “Suicide Blonde” off the band’s 1990 album ‘X’. The follow-up album to the very successful ‘Kick’ saw the band willing to stretch themselves even more and push the limits. The first single off the album went to #9 in the U.S. and #11 in the U.K., but it did go to #1 in Canada…way to go Canucks!!. The song was written by Andrew Farriss and Michael Hutchence as usual as they were the primary writers for the band.

The song title was inspired by Kylie Minogue who was dating Michael at the time. She told him she was going to dye her hair “suicide blonde” for a movie and all that means was that was she was going to color her hair herself. Michael loved the saying and turned it in to this wonderful pop tune. The song is not about suicide so you can get that out of your mind quickly. The only I can figure is the song is about their relationship and let me tell you that was an odd pair has Michael was a little wild and Kylie’s image was pretty squeaky clean.

Musically, the song sees the band push a little more to the electronic sounds. There is a great blues harmonica that was played by Charlie Musselwhite, but he didn’t play it live for the song. He played it and then they sampled it through Andrew’s synthesizer. Jon Farriss’ drums took on a more electronic dance beat almost acid house style. I love the fearlessness they had in willing to try new things. Michael is amazing as usual and makes the song as exciting as the beat tells you it should be. I always want to get up and start dancing when I hear this one. And let me tell you, I can’t dance.

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Friday New Releases – May 14, 2021

The releases keep on coming and another solid week of new albums for you. Not as many as the prior weeks but still over 20 to choose from. My choices are highlighted in Blue as usual. What are you interested in listening to this week? Let me know in the comments and please add anything that I may have missed so everyone can know what else is out there. Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you have a fabulous weekend listening to music!!

  • 81M7TYdfCML._SS500_  Myles Kennedy – The Ides of March – (Napalm Records): Myles is probably the busiest man in the music business and somehow he still found time for a solo album. This is his second solo album and his first ‘Year of the Tiger” was absolutely brilliant. Of course, that makes this one have super high expectations. I have this ordered on a really cool green/white vinyl that was exclusive to his site so I can’t wait to see how it turned out. Plus it is autographed so that will make two albums of his I have autographed!!
  • 91ZiqomKJ5L._SX522_  Sunbomb – Evil and Divine – (Frontiers Records): I was just talking about Myles being the busiest man in the music industry…well, Michael Sweet might be tied in that category as he is constantly putting out new material. This time around Michael Sweet and Tracii Guns team up for their first album. The band is Sunbomb and is another in a long line of a pairings that Frontiers brings together. I am not a huge fan of this unless it turns in to a real band. We will see if this does, but I am sure this will be a one time thing, which is usually disappointing. I will hold judgement until I listen to it though.
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Kiss – ‘Alive! The Millennium Concert (2006) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

The 2000’s have seen Kiss release more live albums, greatest hits packages and box sets than Studio Albums. And this particular release has sat on the shelves for six years because one thing or another got in the way. The album was recorded on December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000 at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, Canada and consisted of the original band members of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. The original intention for this album was to be released as Kiss Alive! IV, but there was a problem and it got shelved because the record label, Mercury, was being gobbled up by Universal in a giant merger. Then a few years later, Universal agreed for Mercury to release it, but the band was working on the Symphony show which would become Kiss Alive IV. One thing after another kept pushing this release back. Thoughts were that it wasn’t a good show, but I think it was bad timing.

The album would see a release on November 21, 2006 when it was included on the box set Kiss Alive! 1975-2000. That box set included Alive!, Alive II and Alive III as well and since those have already been reviewed, I went with just reviewing the Millennium show as that did get a separate vinyl release of its own.

One of the cool things about this release is that there are three songs on here that had never been played by all 4 of the original members. You get “Heaven’s On Fire” and “Lick It Up” both from the non-makeup era that Peter and Ace were not on and you get “I Love It Loud” which Peter was not on and Ace was credited on the ‘Creatures of the Night’ album but reality proved he didn’t play on it. However, the opening track on here is “Psycho Circus” and Peter and Ace actually didn’t play on that song either even though it was the “Reunion” album.

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Queen – ‘Jazz’ (1978) – Album Review (The Studio Albums Series)

After the success of their album ‘News of the World’ and a very successful tour for that album, Queen quickly went back to work for the band’s seventh album, ‘Jazz’. They started recording the album in July 1978 in France and didn’t finish until October 1978. The album saw its release a month later on November 10, 1978 around a year after their last album. Upon its release, it wasn’t a critical darling, but the album did go to #2 in the UK and #6 in the US. The funny thing is that over the years, the critics have warmed up to this album and they usually rank it within the Top 5 Queen albums ever made. I don’t know about that, but we will see when I finally rank them at the end of the series.

The band is still Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon and that won’t change ever during these reviews as they are one of the few bands to not change their line-up during their studio album run. Not many bands can say that. We know after Freddie’s death, that will change, but it is really a touring band at that point, no more studio albums. Okay, we are getting a little sidetracked…by we, I mean me.

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Alice Cooper – ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’ Tour (1975) – Tour Program

In my crate digging, I keep running in to Tour Books and of course, I keep buying them because I think they are cool time capsules of a band. This time around, I found 2 Alice Cooper Tour Books. And these are vintage as they were both from the 70’s and they look it. The first one we have here is from Alice’s biggest and best album, ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’, from 1975. The Tour began on March 21, 1975, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, making its way across the States and even in to Europe where it ended on September 17 in Antwerp, Belgium.

The Band had a cast of characters and included the following host of people:

  • Alice Cooper
  • Steve Hunter – Guitar
  • Dick Wagner – Guitar
  • Prakash John – Bass
  • Jozef Chirowski – Keyboards
  • Whitey Glan – Drums
  • Vincent Price – Spider Voice
  • Sheryl Goddard – Ethyl
  • Robyn Blythe – Bat Woman
  • Gene Montoya – Voodoo Man
  • Uchi Sugiyama – Frog Man

Yes, it is a cast as Alice doesn’t just put on a concert, nope! He puts on a show. A creep show and this one is all about his nightmares. But the concert is always important and the set list, on average, looked something like this…

  1. Welcome to My Nightmare
  2. Years Ago
  3. No More Mr. Nice Guy
  4. Years Ago
  5. Billion Dollar Babies
  6. Years Ago
  7. I’m Eighteen
  8. Years Ago
  9. Some Folks
  10. Cold Ethyl
  11. Only Women Bleed
  12. Devil’s Food
  13. The Black Widow
  14. Steven
  15. Escape
  16. School’s Out
  17. Encore: Department of Youth
Continue reading “Alice Cooper – ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’ Tour (1975) – Tour Program”

Will Hoge – The Albums Ranked Worst to First

Can you fall in love with an album or an artist by hearing only one song?  The answer for me is a resounding YES!!  That happened to me many moons ago when I heard one of the coolest songs I have ever heard.  The song was “Not That Cool” by Will Hoge.  The song was about me.  He reached into my soul and wrote this song just for me.  Ok, he didn’t really, but it felt like it was.

Will Hoge has been described as Americana, Alt. Country with a Southern Rock flair and it fits him perfectly. He has a little pop, a little blues and if you need to compare him to other artists then go with John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen or even Bob Dylan. Will’s ability to tell a story that can be bleak at times and uplifting at others is a shot in the arm and shows the power that can be found in music.  His lyrics are an honest interpretation of what is going in America and at times a giant slap in the face.  His genius lies in the words as well as the music and it is that gritty voice that draws you in and makes you care about what he has to say.

I thought it was time to rank his albums from what I think is his worst to what I feel is his best. Remember, this is what I like as a fan…not as a critic. Critics get paid, I don’t. So, if you don’t agree with this order, that is great and I think happens with every band. It is all about your timing in to the artist and what you like. This for me, is what I like. I hope you enjoy. I did something a little different with Will and included his 3 Studio E.P’s. along with his Studio albums and jumps the count up to 13 albums to go through, so grab a beer and relax and enjoy!

THE WORST – THE AMERICA E.P. (2004):

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