Month: December 2021

Survivor – ‘High On You” – 45 Single

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For the past several months, we have been talking about singles that I found at this cool place called House of Vinyl down in Fernandina Beach, Florida. Well, this is not one of them. But it is from that same trip. I found this in a little antique store just down the road. I bought a lot of singles on that trip and I love them all.

“High on You” by Survivor was the second single of their album ‘Vital Signs’, which is the VERY FIRST CD I ever bought with my own money!! So that album holds a special place in my heart. The single was release in December 1984 and was written by the writing partners of Survivor, Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik. The song went to #8 on the Billboard charts and help the album go platinum and reach #16 on the Charts as well.

The song title had been sitting with Peterik since 1977 when we was at CBS Convention. At the show, Sly and the Family Stone was performing and Sly was so stoned that when he ran out on stage, he told everyone that he said “I want you to know people, I’m high on you”. (from Songfacts). That wasn’t the only thing he was high on. Survivor liked to jam a lot and the song itself came about from one of those jam sessions.

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Aerosmith – ‘Done With Mirrors’ (1985) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Something big happened to the band on Valentine’s Day 1984. But at the time, they didn’t realize how big. While the band was playing a show at Boston’s Orpheum Theater, they received two special guests to see the show. It was former band mates Joe Perry and Brad Whitford. When the five original band members got in a room together, the magic started bubbling again. And by June 1984, the original band was reunited and were now out on the road for the Back in the Saddle Tour which would keep them busy until January 1985. One big thing that helped was that Perry was now divorced from his wife who the band and all their wives hated. And she wasn’t a great influence on Joe either. However, the drug problems were not gone.

After the tour, it was time for the big Comeback album. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer…the boys were back together. They were now on a new label, Geffen, and the incredible producer, Ted Templeman was brought in to be behind the boards. This was supposed to be the album that brought Aerosmith back to the top, however, that didn’t happen.

Templeman was going for a rough and raw sound like the days of old for the band. He wanted to capture that tough, live sounding magic that they had on their earlier albums. He felt that was the sound everyone loved. A trick he used with the band was removing the “red light” in the studio that indicated the band was recording. He did this so the band wouldn’t get all stressed out when the light went. He wanted them loose and relaxed as he felt that would get the best sound. Hell, it worked for Van Halen. The problem was twofold, the band was still doing drugs and Ted was working in a studio he wasn’t familiar with so he never captured the sound he wanted. In fact, the band hates this album for that reason, especially Joey Kramer who thinks his drum sound sucks. And maybe it does. But this was my gateway in to the band. My first Aerosmith album I ever bought and as I result, I kinda like this one.

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My Sunday Song – “Rock of Life” by Rick Springfield

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For My Sunday Song #278, we are tackling the song “Rock of Life” by Rick Springfield off his 1988 album with the same name. It was written by Rick Springfield and a little piece of trivia for you, the bass player is American Idol’s own Randy Jackson. The song went to #22, but the album didn’t do that well. It charted at #55 and didn’t go Gold so Rick was starting to lose his mojo (not with me though).

The song was started back in 1985, but Rick was having trouble finishing it. He set it aside and after some time off the road with his new born, his life had really changed. A new baby really changed everything for him. They lyrics came flooding to him after that. The song is about the birth of his son and the impact that it had on him. He was now a dad and not just a rock singer and that can be a strange feeling. He wasn’t ready for the change and it I guess the song helped him cope with that.

Musically, the song was very different from his previous work. There were a lot of keyboard effects put in, Rick sings it in a higher register than he usually did. There were a lot of woo’s and hoo’s and it sounds like the 80’s and that might be why I like it, even today. It does rock out and it should with that title. But this being 1988, rock had changed and so this didn’t get the recognition I am sure he would’ve liked. All around was Def Leppard’s Hysteria, GNR’s Appetite and Whitesnake’s self titled album. There was really no place for Rick, but I didn’t care. He was my guilty pleasure back in the day. No longer as I am proudly able to say I like his stuff.

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You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in January?

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You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

  New Release – Neil Young & Crazy Horse – ‘Barn‘

  Never Heard Before – John Prine – ‘John Prine’

  Not My Normal Genre – Shania Twain – ‘Come On Over’

  From My Collection – Queensyrche – ‘Rage For Order’

  From My Collection – Triumph – ‘Allied Forces’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in January, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!

Kiss – The 8-Track Collection

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There is No New Release Post today as new releases dry up this time of the year. We will be back after the first of the year. In the meantime, enjoy…

If you follow this site, you know I’m a Kiss fan. I’m not too fanatical, but I do have a decent Vinyl collection starting up. I have all but maybe a few albums on vinyl, however, I haven’t started down the slippery slope of buying every version of an LP. That is a special kind of fan. If you follow this site, you also know that we are in a great blogging universe with a great set of fellow bloggers that we call “Community”. And that word is crucial for this post.

It all started a few years back when Mr. Books, Aaron at KeepsMeAlive, gifted a bunch of 8 Tracks to another friend Geoff at 1001AlbumsIn10Years. Geoff recently reached out to me and asked if I would like them. What Geoff knew was that I was big Kiss fan. What Geoff didn’t know that over the last year, every time I go in to an Antique Mall or a Record Store and they have 8 Tracks, I have been scouring them looking for Kiss 8-Tracks. To date, I have found ZERO!!!! Thanks to Geoff, I now have 6! And the official collecting of Kiss 8 Tracks has now begun!! In fact, I think I am going to go down a rabbit hole. I am going to try and collect all the 8 Tracks I can, all the cassettes and all the CDs. Why not have one of every format. I don’t think I am going to do to the reel-to-reel as that is uber expensive. When I post a picture of a Kiss album, I want that album to have each format in the picture. I think that would be a lot of fun! Let the hunting begin.

But first, let’s go through the 8-Tracks that Geoff sent. First up is “Hotter Than Hell”. Now, these are old and a little rough around the edges, but no ever though people would be collecting these things. When you look at the track listing you see the biggest problem with 8-Tracks. Look at the track listing for Program 1 and 2. The last song on 1 says “Watchin’ You” (Begin) and the first song on 2 is “Watchin’ You” (Cont.). This means the song faded out in Program 1 and then you hear a click and the song fades back in Program 2. It is AWFUL!! My brother made the comment to me that when he listens to Dynasty now, he expects certain songs to fade in and out and they don’t anymore.

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Cheap Trick – ‘Standing on the Edge’ (1985) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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I can’t believe we are already on the band’s 8th studio album. We are slap dab in the middle of the 80’s and Cheap Trick were still going, but I wouldn’t say they were still going strong. I say that because for this album, the band did something that hand’t done much of prior. They had a song doctor come in and help with the songwriting process. This was becoming very common back in the day. The song doctor was Mark Radice and he has 8 co-writes on the album which I feel is a little disappointing. Has the band lost its edge?

The line-up was consistent as we still have Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Bun E. Carlos and Jon Brant who is the newest member and he has some writing credits on this album as well. That part I like as it is great to see him now contributing to the creative aspect of the band. The band brought back a familiar face to produce the album, Jack Douglas. If you follow this site at all recently that name will sound familiar as not only has he produced prior Cheap Trick albums, he has also produced many of Aerosmith’s best albums which we have reviewed in the Aerosmith Collection Series we are also doing here at 2 Loud 2 Old. Big connection between the bands.

The band worked on the album during 1984 and 1985 and it finally saw its release on July 19, 1985. The album ended up not sounding like the album intended by Jack Douglas because he was unable to mix the album. Due to some legal complications he was having with another artist (Yoko Ono), he couldn’t mix it so Tony Platt was brought in. Tony didn’t have Jack’s vision of a harder, rawer sounding album, but instead went with the sound of the 80’s and added some keyboards and drum machines much to the dislike of Bun E. As a result, I think we get an album that doesn’t have the edge, the pizazz that we needed from Cheap Trick. The band ended up only releasing one single off the album and it didn’t even crack the Top 40. Cheap Trick were starting to be forgotten.

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Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music by Ted Templeman and Greg Renoff – Book Review

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I have been reading so many Rock Books lately, some great, some not so great. When I heard Ted Templeman was putting out a book. I got real excited. I knew he produced all those David Lee Roth era Van Halen albums and thought, this will be great to learn all the behind the scenes stuff on Van Halen. But what I got was so much more.

Ted goes back to the beginning and explains his family life and what type of music he was raised around and he was definitely immersed in to music his whole life. I learned a lot as I didn’t know about his band Harper’s Bizarre from the late 60’s and they had minor hits. It was those albums where he started to learn the craft of producing and would eventually would lead to an A&R job with Warner Bros. Records where he would spend the next 25-30 years of his life climbing the ranks of the business, but always producing.

Being in California he met everyone from around that 70’s scene. Really cool all the people he met and a couple massive icons he saw recording in the studio. When we was learning the ropes, some of his contacts let him come in to the studio to watch and learn and one occasion he was able to witness Frank Sinatra record and was awed at his professionalism and his indelible knack to hit the right note every time. Another icon was Elvis Presley and to the same effect. I can only imagine how cool that had to be to experience.

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Bon Jovi – “Lay Your Hands On Me” – 45 Single

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On my Summer vacation back in June, I found over 20 singles with the picture sleeve. I’ve been through a bunch of them so far and now we are tackling the Bon Jovi singles that I found. There were 5 Singles found and we kicked it off with the following:

Now it is time for the final single and it is also from ‘New Jersey’ with “Lay Your Hands On Me”. The opening track of the album and the fourth single which only went to #7 on the Billboard Charts and the band’s fourth Top 10 in a row for this album. The song was written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora and was inspired by a guitar riff by Richie rather than from a song title like they did a lot of the times.

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You Picked It! – Stryper -“Against the Law” – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! And this one wasn’t really that close. After the first five picks were one for each artist, the winner took the early lead and never looked back. The winner this month is Stryper and their album ‘Against the Law’ which was one that was in my collection. I will be honest, this winner surprised me as I didn’t think they really had a chance, but boy was I wrong. Here are the results.

  1. Stryper – ‘Against the Law’ – 7 votes
  2. David Bowie – ‘Let’s Dance’ – 5 votes
  3. The Band – ‘The Band’ – 3 votes
  4. Dusty Springfield – ‘Dusty in Memphis’ – 2 votes
  5. The Darkness – ‘Motorheart’ – 1 Vote

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

STRYPER – ‘AGAINST THE LAW’:

I remember when this album came out. It was a drastic change for the band. The Yellow and Black costumes they wore were gone and everything was black leather. The religious themes and any mention of God were gone. Stryper as we knew them were gone. Due to the constant criticism of from the religious critics, Stryper had grown weary of the music business and the Christian themes. They had become angry and a little resentful at the constant bashing. So, they threw religion to the side and went heavier and darker in both sound and lyrics.

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My Sunday Song – “Wide Awake” by Rick Springfield

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For My Sunday Song #277, we are going to dive in to the song “Wide Awake” by Rick Springfield. The song is off his 2012 album ‘Songs For the End of the World’. Sadly, I think the song and album went fairly unnoticed and its shame as Rick had been tearing it up for the last decade giving us tons of music and some really great tracks, including this one. The song was written by Rick Springfield and his writing partner on the album Matt Bissonette and they kept a common theme on the album so check it out and see what you think.

The song is really dark in its subject matter while at the same time optimistic and joyful. Rick was in a really dark place and stuck in a nightmare. He had been sleeping around on his wife and having more issues than you and I could probably handle. You can see in the lyrics he was insecure, lonley and doing things without even thinking of the consequences. Thanks to his true love, he eventually woke up the fact that he was being destructive and going down paths that he shouldn’t. She saved him and now he is wide awake and can enjoy life again the way it should be. He let the pressures and temptations get to him and she saved him.

The song is a hard rocking track, upbeat and quick tempo with an energy that is infectious and will get you moving. It is so quick you will have a hard time catching your breath. The drums are so powerful and machine gun style and there is a great guitar riff throughout that seems bouncy and joyful despite some dark topics. The “Wide Awake” theme is definitely captured in the power of the music. And let’s not forget Rick as he sings with such gusto and passion you feel like he is happy and enjoying things again. He sounds like the kid he once was.

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