The video is up now for Episode 5 of The Collection. When you have older siblings, their music taste can influence what you like and my brother, Gary, was a huge Kiss fan and that spawned me being one as well. From about 7-8 years old all the way til now at 55, I am still a Kiss fan.
This week is Part 2 of the Kiss on Vinyl series we have going now. We go from 1983’s Lick it Up all the way to 1997’s Carnival of Souls and everything in between. Find out which tour was my first Kiss concert, which album might be their worst and what 12″ singles and picture discs do I have. All that and more…
I hope you enjoy this episode which goes “live” right now…Monday night, March 18th at 8pm. Please do leave a comment and I promise I’ll address them as soon as I can! Don’t forget to click “Like” and “Subscribe”. Thanks for watching.
We are in the year 2004 and Bon Jovi has now been around for 20 Years at this point. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, they released a really cool box set of mostly unreleased tunes and a lot of little extras titled ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’. The Box Set is a collection of 50 songs spread over 4 CDs, 38 of which had never been released. The others were songs from soundtracks, remixes and/or B-Sides. This was a band dumping everything sitting by the wayside in to one set and I applaud them for that. Us diehard fans love this kind of stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, if you have the Japanese Edition, which i do, you get another CD of B-Sides and Japanese Bonus Tracks. That is another 10 songs.
This is a lot of music to absorb and we won’t be absorbing it all here. Nope. I’m going to go through each and every CD, track by track over 6 posts. We are on the first disc now which had a total of 12 tracks, 11 of which were previously unreleased. So let’s get started and dive into the music as that is why we are really here any way.
The opening track to the whole set is “Why Aren’t You Dead?” which was written and demoed for the ‘Keep the Faith’ album. The song didn’t make the cut because the band felt the song was more of where the bad had already been and not where the band’s sound was going. If you know that album, you understand why this didn’t make the cut. It is a great play on the line “If you can’t live without me, then why aren’t you dead” which is a cool line and probably a great country song. A band that was moving forward, easy to see why they left it off as it sounds too much like older Bon Jovi.
Next up is the only promo single released from the set for the song “The Radio Saved My Life Tonight”. The song was written on a piano and no sign of that piano on this version. Jon was very burnt out from the New Jersey record and tour and was becoming a little jaded. This song reflect a lot of those feelings. This is a really cool song and one of the better ones on the album. It sounds like old school Bon Jovi and it shows how great his writing was becoming. However, it would not have fit on ‘Keep the Faith’ either. Glad to see this one getting to finally see the light of day.
For My Sunday Song #404, Harrison has chosen “Run Like the Devil” by singer Tony Martin. The song is off Tony’s 2022 solo album, ‘Thorns’, which was his first solo album since 2005’s ‘Scream’. The song was written by Tony Martin and Scott McLellan who plays guitar on the song (and the album). The former Black Sabbath singer really brings the metal on this song and the album.
The song’s lyrics are dark and foreboding, while the music is heavy, and fast and little brighter. I am not sure the actual meaning behind it, but for me the song speaks of the evil that is always lurking and poking at you. You have to rise up, fly away and get away from it as fast as you can. Stay ahead of all the evil out there and do great things. If you make the wrong choices, it will hold you back and you will die, withering on the vine.
Musically, the song is really close to speed metal and it will crush your soul with the heaviness of it. Tony’s vocals soar at times as he races through the lyrics to keep up with that tempo. And he can still hit those crazy high notes. The drums are fast and frenzied and fabulous. Their bombastic strength is the driving force behind the song. Scott’s guitar work is lightning quick and he definitely shines on here as well, I mean just listen to that solo. The song is a super-heavy blistering track that shows how Tony is so good at what he does.
Welcome to Friday New Releases and are there some huge releases this week. Man, what a good week. For me, the biggest is the new solo album from Scott Stapp who I have become a big fan of as his solo albums are phenomenal!! But that isn’t all! Not even close. We get the brand new Black Crowes album, Justin Timberlake and Kasey Musgraves albums. I have a lot of listening to do now as that is 4 releases I am dying to stream and/or buy. Let me know what you want to hear this week or what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a great weekend.
Def Leppard had the biggest selling album of their career. A tour that lasted for 227 dates throughout the world and to commemorate that achievement, they released the final piece to the “Hysteria” puzzle with ‘In the Round, In Your Face’ (according to the back cover of the CD Video I have (or Laserdisc). I had picked this up when I purchased a Hysteria Tour Book from a guy in Hawaii. For some reason, he included this and was charging the same price as everybody else that was only selling a Tour Book. So, I had to jump on that. And what a cool piece it is even though I have no way of playing it. But I also had the VHS at one time, now I have the DVD collection that holds both ‘Historia’ and ‘In the Round, In Your Face’ all on one disc.
The video contains a full Def Leppard live show at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado and additional footage from shows at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, compiled from footage shot during the band’s 1987/1988 US Hysteria World Tour. Considering I was at at least one of those Atlanta shows, I could be in there somewhere (I never found myself) but it is cool to have this in the collection. I think most of this is from the Denver so the chances are slim you would find me at all in the Atlanta pieces. Apparently, the songs “Don’t Shoot Shotgun”, “Let It Go”, “Tear It Down” and “Travelin’ Band” were performed and recorded but did not make the VHS or DVD. I guess they were only budgeted for a certain amount of time on the release.
The video opens with the Lunar Mix of “Rocket” playing and some behind the scenes, pre-concert footage. We then get the Dirty Harry segment and Joe shouts out “I Said Welcome to My Show” and the guitars go nuts with riffs for “Stagefright”, one of the band’s best songs to open the show. But the curtain doesn’t drop. I remember when I saw the first of 3 shows on this tour, I thought something was wrong and the curtain didn’t fall for some reason. I then figured out they wait until after the first verse before dropping the curtain and then pandemonium set in as the crowd goes nuts and the band runs around all around the stage set up in the round so there are four front rows. They are in your face…wait, that is why they called the video that…I get it now!! Kidding, I knew that already.
The quickly race through the song and go in to “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)” from ‘Pyromania’. Now, let me get right on this topic before we go further. The setlist is made up basically songs from ‘Pyromania’ (7) and ‘Hysteria’ (6) with only one from the ‘High ‘N Dry’ and that is it. Nothing from the first album. I mean we are only 4 albums in so why nothing from ‘On Through the Night’…baffling. Soapbox done. After some boob flashes, a killer solo, they go in “Women”, the first from ‘Hysteria’ and the first single here in the States. Phil goes in to the opening riff after some clever remarks from Joe. It is strange seeing Phil with his shirt on and hair. Speaking of hair, Joe’s mullet might the best mullet ever. While watching, you realize these guys must be exhausted by the end because with four front rows, they are constantly moving around, except for Rick Allen who sits center stage (that revolves) and bangs those drums.
In 2014, Kiss was celebrating their 40th Anniversary. To celebrate they did a huge tour with none other than Def Leppard. I caught the show in Charlotte, North Carolina with Leppard opening and I will admit that Def Leppard blew Kiss off the stage, but that is another story. Kiss decided to celebrate with another Greatest Hits compilation titled ‘Kiss 40’. It was released on May 23, 2014 and contained one song from every Kiss release giving them 40 tracks…well, 36 tracks and they stuck 4 other tracks on their for good measure and put out on a 2 CD set.
In Japan only, there was another release of Kiss 40 that was only a single disc edition. It had only 20 tracks and a few different ones then you got on the 2 Disc Set. And for that reason you had to have both sets. And being a Japanese Edition, you also got an OBI strip but this one was bigger as it actually covered the entire back of the CD case as well. The set also included a booklet in both English and Japanese with the lyrics to the songs. There is a new song on the set called “Samurai Son” that was done with the Japanese girl band Momoiro Clover Z and as a result there is a little picture card of the band with Kiss. The last thing is the CD booklet itself which is full of bright, vivid color pictures of the band from throughout the years. It includes every member of the band.
The opening track is “Samurai Son (U.S. Mix)” with the band Momoiro Clover Z. This song sounds like nothing you have heard before with Kiss…well except for Paul’s vocals sound like Kiss. The drums are immense, Momoiro Clover Z does some of the backing vocals and even Gene joins in as well. It is a modern sounding rock song and I think it sounds really cool. Paul hasn’t sounded better, the Japanese sounding drums are cool and there is killer riff included. The song is worth the price of admission here easily.
This week we go we back to the very beginning for me when I fell in love with my first band…KISS!!! When you have older siblings, their music taste can influence what you like and my brother, Gary, was a huge Kiss fan and that spawned me bing one as well. From about 7-8 years old all the way til now at 55, I am still a Kiss fan.
We go through my Kiss albums on vinyl, but instead of doing all of them, we will go from the debut up until Creatures of the Night. We will save the rest for another show. I am still missing some of the more rare pieces, but I have a couple cool extras in this one.
I hope you enjoy this episode which goes “live” right now…Monday night, March 11th at 8pm. Please do leave a comment and I promise I’ll address them as soon as I can! Don’t forget to click “Like” and “Subscribe”. Thanks for watching.
We are in the year 2004 and Bon Jovi has now been around for 20 Years at this point. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, they released a really cool box set of mostly unreleased tunes and a lot of little extras. The Box Set is a collection of 50 songs spread over 4 CDs, 38 of which had never been released. The others were songs from soundtracks, remixes and/or B-Sides. This was a band dumping everything sitting by the wayside in to one set and I applaud them for that. Us diehard fans love this kind of stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, if you have the Japanese Edition, which i do, you get another CD of B-Sides and Japanese Bonus Tracks. That is another 10 songs.
The Box Set is titled ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ which is a play on the 1959 compilation of Elvis Presley’s album ‘50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ and you will see they copied the cover pretty well…
This is a lot of music to absorb and we won’t be absorbing it here. Nope. I’m going to go through each and every CD, track by track over 5 more posts. That is why this is Part 1 of 6. Here we are going to talk about what is included in the set. And as I mentioned, I have the Japanese Edition of the box set which comes with a lot of different things. Let’s take a look and see what we get…
For My Sunday Song #403, Harrison has chosen a song from one of his favorite singers, Blaze Bayley. The song is “1633” off his 2010 album, ‘Promise And Terror’. The song wasn’t a single, but is a main force to the album. Blaze wrote the song and is the lead singer. If you don’t know Blaze, he was on Wolfsbane and for short time, he was lead singer to Iron Maiden. If it wasn’t for Harrison, I don’t think I would’ve ever given Blaze much thought, but I have found a few things I like including this song.
The song appears to be about Galileo who believed in Copernicus’ theory that the earth was not the center of the universe and it in fact revolved around the Sun. In 1633, The Catholic Church condemned and put Galileo on trial for this viewpoint. According to the song, Galileo’s sight and abilities were given to him by God so how is it offensive to God. I love a song that educates as well as entertains.
The song starts off with a beast of a bass line and that bass line is the driving force of the whole song. The guitars are heavy and nasty and deliver a driving rhythm. Blaze’s vocals are solid and I like the way he handles that chorus. The song can be a little repetitive, but it doesn’t get bothersome. In fact, it makes it a little catchy and after a few listens, you are all in. The end brings the bass back hard and heavy and the guitars and drums become explosive. Blaze does just that and blazes through the lyrics, almost rapping to a point. Then more guitar work to take us out. A real beast of a song.
This week is going to be an awesome week. Why? Because the new Judas Priest album, ‘Invincible Shield’ is out. My Target Deluxe Edition is on its way and can’t wait to spin it!! I’m also waiting on the 50th Anniversary Alice Cooper ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ album. I might check out the Norah Jones release too. For a lot of other people, I am sure the Ariana Grande new one will be a popular choice. And there some George Lynch fans out there (not me) who will want the new The End Machine album. Let me know what you want to hear this week or what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Scott Stapp – Higher Power – (Napalm Records)
The Black Crowes – Happiness Bastards – (Silver Arrow Records)
Justin Timberlake – Everything I Thought It Was – (RCA Records)
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield – (Sony Music)
Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine – (Republic Records)
Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies (50th Anniversary) – (Warner Records)
2 Loud 2 Old Music 