Welcome back to Friday New Releases and we have our first BIG release of the year with the new Green Day album called ‘Saviors’. That is pretty much the only one I’m interested in hearing even though I haven’t cared too much for the last few releases but you never know. I also see that Jeremy Renner has a new album and honestly, didn’t know he sang. I thought he was only an actor. I’m a little intrigued. I’m sure it was heavily influenced by his accident so we will see. Other than that, that is it for me. Let me know what you want to hear or if we missed anything. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a great weekend.
On August 3rd, 1987, Def Leppard released their fourth studio album, ‘Hysteria’. Little did they know this ground breaking album would go on to sell over 25 million records, produce 7 hit singles and go to #1 on the Billboard Charts. The title track, “Hysteria”, is up next and this was the third single in the U.S. and the fourth in the UK. It was released in the U.S. in January 1988 and the UK in November 1987. The song went to #26 in the UK and to #10 on the U.S. Billboard Charts and no surprise as it was crafted to be a hit. Mutt Lange basically built this song one note at time.
“Hysteria” was written by the whole band including Steve Clark, Phil Collen, Rick Allen, Rick Savage and Joe Elliott as well as the producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange. I say that on every single we’ve talked about because the band decided to credit each member for all the songs. My version is the U.S. version from the Hysteria Singles Boxset, but the B-Side is the same for all version worldwide which was “Ride Into the Sun”.
I’ve seen something from Phil Collen that said the song might be about enlightenment. That moment is the hysteria that you feel. But the song feels like a basic love song. About falling in love so deep and how that intensity feels. He wants to be with her so badly and wants to know if she’s alone tonight and would like some company. He gets crazy when he’s around her and wants to be with her in the worst way. When he is with her, he feels the hysteria of being so close physically. The song is sexy, it is passionate, it is even a little sublime.
My love for bootlegs started with collecting Kiss Bootlegs and as you can see from the list at the bottom of this post, I have quite a few Kiss Bootlegs and as long as I keep finding them, the more I will buy. It is a never ending cycle as new Kiss bootlegs keep popping up all the time. This one I found over a Repo Records was released in 2022, but it is a re-issue of one that came out in 2012 and it is a little different than the others that I have. Most of my bootlegs are full shows, parts of one show or a collection of demos.
This one is different in that is a collection of live tracks from various shows and not one show in particular. That to me is odd. What is the purpose of this one? I can’t seem to find out. The timeframe of the shows range from 1974 up to 1978 so they are the peak years of the band. But it is still a strange collection.
What is not strange and rather cool is the packaging. The cover is a cool live shot of Gene as the Demon and the back cover is the Kiss Alive II photo of Gene with the blood all over his face. It is an awesome shot. The inner sleeve is a couple of cool band photos on bot sides. And the final piece is a cool colored vinyl in the color of purple. I don’t have too many purple discs, so very nice. The picture from the cover is on one side of the vinyl and the Kiss logo on the other, both with the Diamonds in the Dust title. I don’t have much info on this so let’s get to the music.
SIDE ONE:
The first track is “Room Service” which was taken from Fremd High School Gymnasium, Palatine, Illinois April 19, 1975 and it sounds like it was. It is very hollow sounding and not from a soundboard. It sounds like I am outside the gym getting refreshments and the sound is bleeding from the closed doors. Paul sounds good though.
Next up is the “Love Theme From Kiss” from the Bayou Theatre in Georgetown, Washington D.C. from March 25, 1974. You hear Paul say this is one we never perform live which is not true because they use to play it when it was called Acrobat. This is definitely an early version since it is 1974 and a month after the release of the debut album.
After it fades out we get “You’re Much Too Young” from Lafayette’s Music Room in Memphis, Tennessee on December 2, 1976. A song the band would never release, but I have several versions of it live. A really cool mostly instrumental piece with basically Gene saying “You’re Much Too Young” several times during the show. The band is jamming and Peter is killing it on the drums. An interesting cool piece that sees Ace ripping a cool solo and an all around killer track. The album jacket says The Lafayette show is from that same night as the next song “Strutter”, but at a different arena. Kiss are good, but I don’t think they are that good. That means the Lafayette show from “You’re Much Too Young” is probably from April 18, 1974. And I have that show down below in the Bootleg Series list. Just my guess.
Then we get a twofer with “Strutter and “Hard Luck Woman” back to back as they are from the same show at the Mid South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee on December 2, 1976….wait a freaking minute…”Strutter” just ended and so did Side one. Where the heck is “Hard Luck Woman”. I think I just got ripped off. And I did. The 2022 version is missing a couple songs that were on the 2012 release. Oh well. “Strutter” was pretty good though.
SIDE TWO:
Side Two kicks off with “Ladies in Waiting” which was played at the National Guard Armory in Rockford, Illinois on November 15, 1975. The sound is really rough, it sounds like it was taken from a tape that was taken from a tape and then taken from a tape again. It is muddied and almost unlistenable. I can make out Ace’s killer solo, but the vocals are tough to hear and so are the drums, but Gene’s bass is pretty loud. All simply horrible.
Next up is a group of shows from the same show starting with “Watching You”, then a Peter Criss drum solo and lastly “Flaming Youth”. These are taken from the Roosevelt Stadium show in Jersey City, New Jersey on July 10, 1976. The sound is really good on these tracks (compared to the others). Gene sounds menacing and you can hear Peter on backing vocals really well. Peter’s drum solo is typical Peter or I should say classic Peter. It sounds great, if not a little simple. He definitely is beating the crap out of the skins, but he’s doing it as well as Peter can. You can hear the crowd scream out a few things during it. He bangs the gong and then rips a drum roll before it fades out in to “Flaming Youth”, a personal favorite. Paul’s vocals sound so deep as the tape this taken from drags a little. Man, oh man.
For the last track, we get the classic Kiss song “Deuce”. This one is from the Roberts Municipal Stadium in Evansville, Indiana on January 23, 1978. Roberts Municipal Stadium what a boring name, I guess company’s didn’t fork out millions to sponsor stadiums yet. Anyway, on to the song. Paul introduces and says this isn’t one they’d done in a long time which surprises me. When the band kicks in the sound is horrible. I can’t make hardly any of it out. I can hear Gene, but it is distant and not all that clear. Man, it is hurting the ears the high pitch it is all coming out at. I hope this ends soon as my ear might actually be bleeding.
This is a very skippable bootleg except maybe real diehards. This one makes no sense being a collection of songs from various shows. The only real cool thing about it, other than the packaging, is the fact it isn’t the standard fair of songs. You get some deep cuts and thankfully no “Rock & Roll All Nite” as I could do without that one. The sound sucks at times and sometimes not, but overall this is not one I’ll pull out very often as I prefer to hear full shows. My Overall Score is a 2.0 out of 5.0 Stars and that is being generous. It gets points for great artwork and a cool Purple vinyl. I took one for the team on this one, but still glad it is in the collection because I didn’t have it. Thanks for hanging around.
I normally won’t buy a CD, DVD or anything that is strictly an interview disc. However, this was part of a set of Bon Jovi DVDs I bought and for the price of the 4 DVDs I wanted, I was okay having this thrown in. And this is a Bootleg DVD called ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Legends’ and as it says on the back cover, it is approximately 55 minutes of an interview with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora and those are both wrong. It is an interview with Jon Bon Jovi, but no Richie Sambora and it was only around 40 minutes. This isn’t some big history of the band, nothing like that. It is an interview of a snapshot in time of Jon Bon Jovi (not so much the band).
The DVD was released (unofficially) in 2002 and actually probably should have been reviewed right after everything related to the ‘New Jersey’ album is it took place shortly thereafter. The interview of Jon takes place in Montreal, Quebec around 1989 while Jon was working with Aldo Nova on his ‘Blood on the Bricks’ album which completely surprised me as I wasn’t expecting that. Especially when Aldo was also included in the interview with Jon and by Aldo was by himself. Interspersed between the interview questions, we were able to see some behind the scenes footage of the two working in the studio and getting to hear them working on some of the songs. We learn about when Aldo and Jon met and how Aldo also worked on Jon’s solo album from the ‘Young Guns 2’ movie. It was really cool and my favorite part of the whole interview.
For My Sunday Song #395, we are on Mike’s next Japanese Only selection and this time around it is by the Canadian band Storm Force and it is from their fantastic album ‘Age of Fear’. The song is the “Weight of the World” and although not a single, it should’ve been on the album. I have the album on CD and my copy is missing this one, although it is autographed by the band. And that band is guitarist Greg Fraser, who Ladano has interviewed before, singer Patrick Gagliardi, drummer Brian Hamilton and bassist Mike Berardelli. And for those that don’t know, Greg is the guitarist for a band called Brighton Rock as well. Another killer band.
The song appears to be about someone under a great deal of pressure. They keep getting hit with one thing after another and the weight of it all is waving heavy on their soul. It gets to be so much they are having anxiety attacks as they are having trouble breathing. It is becoming too much to handle, but yet people keeping coming at you. I am sure he is not alone with that feeling. Now, the song came out in January 2020 and a couple months later Covid lockdowns occurred and I have a feeling this song would’ve been relatable to millions of people during that time.
The song opens with a wicked bass line from Mike Berardelli before the band joins in. Patrick’s vocals are the final piece to the puzzle and let me tell you he slays this one. He really digs deep and you almost feel like he is feeling the weight of the world. He is really the highlight for me as his vocals have just enough grit and yet silky smooth at the same time. He sounds so rock & roll here. Simply killer. That doesn’t mean the rest of the band doesn’t kill it either because when you have their talent, they make it seem so effortlessly. The final piece to the puzzle is Fraser’s solo and man does he deliver a great piece that really ties the song together. Simply wonderful song that should’ve been on the album everywhere. Now, I have to go buy the Japanese Edition to get this one song. Thanks Mike!!
Mike reviewed the album on his site and he had this to say about the song…“A solid rocker, “Weight of the World” might express how some of us feel right now. “The weight of the world is tearing out the heart of me.” Ever felt that way?”
Welcome to the first Friday New Releases post of 2024. As you should know, the new releases start out slow at the beginning of the year, but they will pick up so don’t you worry your pretty little head over it. We have a handful of releases for you so hopefully you can find something to listen to this week. For me, I’m going to check out the Tracii Guns and Jack Russell release as that sounds like an interesting pairing and heck, the cover is enough to grab you anyway. Other than that, that is pretty much it for me. Let me know what you want to hear this week and what we may have missed.
Jack Russell & Tracii Guns – Medusa – (Frontiers Records)
On August 3rd, 1987, Def Leppard released their fourth studio album, ‘Hysteria’. Little did they know this ground breaking album would go on to sell over 25 million records, produce 7 hit singles and go to #1 on the Billboard Charts. “Pour Some Sugar On Me” is the band’s third single in the UK released on September 8, 1987. Here in the States, it was actually the fourth single released on April 16, 1988. The song would change the course of this album for the band and see their popularity rise to heights they had never seen before. The song was written by the band and producer Mutt Lange.
It was do or die time for the band. The album had been a hit and sold over 3 million copies before this song came on, but the album cost so much to make, that the band still hadn’t broken even. They needed to sell way more. They recorded a video with live footage for the song and when it hit MTV, the album started skyrocketing up the charts and selling millions of records. The song never made it to #1 as it peaked at #2 as Richard Marx’s song “Hold On To The Night” kept it from the top of the charts, but there was no denying this was their biggest hit every and their signature song.
Yes, the song is about sex, but it is it the energy of the song that make this one so good. The song was one of the last ones to be recorded as Mutt still didn’t feel they had that one massive song that was needed. There were to intros recorded for the song. The first had the opening line on the song as “Step inside, walk this way, you and me babe, hey hey!” while the single version opened with “Love is a like a Bomb”, and since this is the Single version that is what this one opened with and it is great. The B-Side for this album is another fantastic track with “Ring of Fire”.
My local record store, Noble Records, has exclusives vinyl releases for his store and I have been buying them all…well almost as I started late and I am missing the first three he issued. I have about 13 or 14 others though. And this is one of my favorites. It is an album by a band called Poobah and this is their debut release called “Let Me In”. But this is a special collectors edition as it is a 2 LP set with the original album on one LP and a ton of bonus tracks on the other LP. And it is all glorious. If you like early 70’s rock with a lot of distortion, wah wah pedals and some incredible drumming you are in for a treat. Any Sabbath fan, this would be right up your alley as well.
The original album was released in 1972 with founding members, Jim Gustafson on guitar and vocals, Phil Jones on bass and vocals, and Glenn Wiseman on drums and what a monster he is. The original album only has 6 tracks and they are impressive. The band was named after some girl from Jim’s high school that everyone feared. Poobah is weird nickname for a girl. The name makes me think of The Flintstones’ Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes. The cover art of the album was done by artist Jack Joyce and done in the style of American Underground Comix of the 1960’s. Jack had understood that Jim was a huge fan of comics so it inspired him to do this character throwing up in a toilet. Man, that is inspiration.
Then in 2010, the band signed a new deal with Ripple Records and the album was remixed and then on top of that they threw on 13 bonus tracks they had laying around that were recorded back in 1973. The band has seen a resurgence in popularity of the years with songs being in TV shows, critics loving them and seeing re-issues of the 2010 remixed album like this one from Noble Records. It is albums like this, I keep buying Dillon’s exclusives for his store because sometimes they are pure gold.
Bon Jovi wasted no time working on their 8th studio album, ‘Bounce’. They started writing while still on tour for their album, ‘Crush’. Then something happened in the world that would change it and strongly influence the album…the September 11th attacks on New York City. Since the boys were from New Jersey, this had a profound impact on the song writing. They started writing in the Summer of 2001 and it would really pick up after this event and by the end of 2001, they had around 25 songs written and demoed around 12. But by the end of the writing and recording, there was about 40 songs written over the span of a year. They used 12 for the album and several more for B-Sides and bonus tracks.
The band was still a four-piece with Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, David Bryan and Tico Torres. Of course, future member Hugh McDonald was there on bass like had been for awhile, but an old face came back to help on the album. Their good friend Desmond Child was back in and helping the band write some songs. They had more help on the songs with Swedish producer and writer Andreas Carlsson and Billy Falcon. As far as producing, Jon, Richie, Desmond and Andreas all had a hand, but most was done by Luke Ebbin who had a big hand in the new sound that started with “It’s My Life”.
The album finally saw the light of day on October 8, 2002 and went to #2 in the U.S., the UK and numerous other countries only going to #1 in the European album chart. And like had happened most of their career over the last decade, they were bigger in Europe than the U.S. They sold 500,000 copies in the U.S. going Gold while they sold over a million copies in Europe. They were still a massive global act as they inched closer to 20 years as a band. For me, this album was the start of the decline. I like this album and the next one, but a little more was taken away from with each passing one. But let’s see about this one first.
For My Sunday Song #394, we see Mike continue his Japanese Edition Bonus Tracks with “Return of the King” by Bruce Dickinson. The song is off his 1998 album ‘The Chemical Wedding’. The song was written by Bruce Dickinson and his Iron Maiden bandmate Adrian Smith. Now, don’t think you can only get this on a Japanese Edition as that is not the case anymore. It is on the Expanded Edition of the album and you can stream it on Apple Music and probably any streaming service and you should.
The song is partially about Stonehenge or maybe the Beltany Stone Circle as referenced by the Beltane Fires. It talks about how long it took to build and the mysteries behind it. It also talks about Uther Pendragon the legendary King of the Britons and father to King Arthur. This is one reason I’ve never listened to Bruce or Maiden as it makes you think and learn history. I just want to rock out.
However, the song does kick ass. Bruce’s vocals are really incredible as they soar to amazing heights and are perfectly suited fo heavy metal. He is one of the best in the business. The song to me feels more like Iron Maiden then I expected, to be honest. I figured this was a solo album, it would be his own thing, but I guess with Adrian also in on the writing, the Maiden connection makes sense. It is a is rocking track and some great guitar work and the drums are immense and powerful. A really cool song I will admit.
Green Day – Saviors – (Reprise Records)
Jeremy Renner – Love And Titanium – (Record Street Music)
Jack Russell & Tracii Guns – Medusa – (Frontiers Records)
Neal Morse – The Restoration: Joseph, Pt. 2 (Frontiers Records)
Jim Peterik & World Stage – Roots & Shoots, Vol. 1 – (Frontiers Records)
2 Loud 2 Old Music 