Alright…You Picked It! And here it is. The one you picked was Frank Zappa’s ‘Hot Rats’. The votes were as follows:
Thanks to all for participating. The September choices will be up on Saturday!
Continue reading “You Picked It! – Frank Zappa – ‘Hot Rats’ – Album Review”
Kiss were flying high. Their popularity was growing by leaps and bounds and so much so that they were voted the most popular band in the U.S. beating the likes of some other famous bands maybe you’ve heard of them…Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. Nah, I didn’t think so. They appeared in their first comic book, “Howard the Duck #12: “Mind-Mush!” (May 1977)’ and later that year they had their own comic book with “A Marvel Comics Super Special #1: A Marvel Comics Super Special!: Kiss (1977). For this, they used their own blood to mix in with the ink. They were becoming the merchandising kings they are still today.
With that popularity needs to come new music and 6 months after the release of ‘Rock And Roll Over’, the band was back in the studio to record their 6th studio album. The band brought back Eddie Kramer to produce and man the boards in hopes to maintain the direction that ‘Rock And Roll Over’ was taking them. And on June 30, 1977, the album came out and immediately went platinum with sales over 1 million.
The album became the first studio album to feature all 4 band members singing a song as Mr. Ace Frehley finally sang a song and what a beast of song it was. And another interesting fact, this is the last album to feature Peter Criss on all the songs. What does that mean? That means that the next two studio albums (not including the solo albums), Peter doesn’t play all the drums, in fact, very few of them. All this despite the fact he is prominently featured on the cover of the album and still tours. We will touch more on that fact in future posts. The band was still in tact with Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. That still wouldn’t change for a couple years. Continue reading “Kiss – ‘Love Gun’ (1977) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)”
After the massive success of ‘Destroyer’, the band was riding high. Now the hard part, following up a massive album. Despite the success of the prior album, there were many fans who didn’t like the direction Kiss was going. They felt the rawness of the band was missing. It was that rawness they loved. They weren’t alone, Ace and Peter felt the same way. They did not want to repeat what Ezrin had done, but Gene and Paul didn’t want to completely throw it away either.
So, Eddie Kramer was brought back in to produce. They camped out at the Star Theater in Nanuet, New York i hopes to have a live feel for the album to make sure they capture the true essence of the band. And whether or not they did is still up for discussion. You get a mixed bag of thoughts on the production of this album, I will just say I think it is one of their most consistent albums they have done and we will get in to the meat of it later.
Continue reading “Kiss – ‘Rock And Roll Over’ (1976) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)”
Do you remember Krokus? I certainly do. Krokus was the biggest selling Swiss band ever until the band Gotthard came along, but that is another post. For now, the focus is Krokus…hey, that rhymed!! Back in 1983, Krokus was starting to make some headway in the US. Their sound was heavy and sounded a lot like AC/DC. Then on April 25, 1983, they released the album ‘Headhunter’. They took that heavy AC/DC sound and when up another notch as they were louder and way heavier than they had ever been before.
All of that was due to producer Tom Allom (hey, I think that rhymes too! – man, I am on roll). Tom is a producer and a sound engineer who had worked with Black Sabbath and Judas Priest so the man knew his metal and he took that expertise and gave Krokus their biggest selling and most successful album to date. And man, did it rock. The use of the twin guitars, the awesome sound of the double bass drum and man the singer could lay down some killer vocals on the chorus. It is everything you could want. And on a side note for you Def Leppard fans, Tom was producer on their debut ‘On Through the Night’.
Continue reading “Krokus – ‘Headhunter’ (1983) – Album Review”
There is nothing better than artist that delivers a surprise and Matt Nathanson did just that. On Wednesday of last week, he made an announcement that he was dropping a live album and you could pre-order it on vinyl or many bundles on Thursday at Noon EST. So, I set a reminder on my calendar and when 12:00pm hit, I was on the site and the album was ordered. And to make it even better, you were sent an email and able to download the album immediately in a digital version. And to make it even better than better, you got a deluxe edition with another 36 tracks. That was over 3 hours of music…hell yeah!!! And the album would drop to the general public on Friday so I got to hear it day before everyone else (except those other fans that ordered).
The main standard album is mostly an actual show that was recorded on his 2019 tour called the “Song Wheel” Extravaganza Tour at the legendary Paradise Rock Club in his hometown of Boston, MASS. What was really cool about this tour is that it was an acoustic show with just Matt and his friend Aaron. And another really cool aspect is the tour included a big wheel called the Song Wheel. There were a ton of songs around the wheel and he would spin it several times during the show and let the wheel decide what song would be played next. This is exciting because basically each show he played would be different than the show prior. That is almost unheard of in today’s technical and choreographed lighting shows where every bit of the show is timed out to the precise moment leaving no room for improv which Matt is an utter master at doing.
Continue reading “Matt Nathanson – ‘Live in Paradise: Boston’ – Album Review”
In the last two weeks, I have talked about special Kiss albums or singles in my Big Box of Vinyl and that continues one more time. This time in my big box of vinyl there was one more special Kiss album. Now I bring you ‘The Originals’. This was released on July 21st, 1976 which actually turns out to be 44 years ago just two days ago! Why didn’t I schedule this for Tuesday…who knows. Sometimes I am stupid.
‘The Originals’, as noted on the album cover, are “the albums that touched off a Rock & Roll explosion.” It was a special edition re-release of the albums ‘Kiss’, ‘Hotter Than Hell’ and “Dressed to Kill” in one package. With the overwhelming success of the live album ‘Kiss Alive!’ and ‘Destroyer’, Casablanca Records wanted to take advantage of that success and re-release the albums in one glorious package.
The album comes with a 16-page history booklet, a color Kiss Army sticker, and a sheet of six trading cards. It looks something like this…
Continue reading “Kiss – ‘The Originals’ (1976) – Bonus Edition (The Kiss Review Series)”
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…
What are the 5 albums you ask? Funny you should ask because I have those right here…note: I tried to throw in some non-obvious choices to make things a little more interesting.
New Release – Michael Grant & The Assassins – ‘Always the Villain’
Never Heard Before – Frank Zappa – ‘Hot Rats’
Not My Normal Genre – Eminem – ‘The Marshall Mathers LP’
From My Collection – Pat Travers Band – ‘Crash and Burn’
From My Collection – Damn Yankees – ‘Damn Yankees’
Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in August, 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!!
Welcome back to the Kiss Review Series. Today we are doing another bonus edition. As I am going through the band’s releases, I am going to throw in different items from my collection that aren’t part of the band’s normal album releases. Singles, promos or whatever I can come up with.
Since we just talked ‘Destroyer’ in the last album review, these last two posts are specifically related to that album. The first was the 45 Single of the song “Flaming Youth”. This one is a Special Promo promoting their Tour in support of ‘Destroyer’. Now, I am cheating here again as I wrote a review on this years ago, so I am redoing it here so it is now a part of the Kiss Review Series. I hope you like it.
In the further adventures of my box full of vinyl, there was yet another Kiss collectible included that I cherish deeply. It was a 33 1/3 Vinyl Single in support of their tour for the 1976 Destroyer Tour. I believe the album was released to radio stations for promo and not available for resale. I actually know it was not available for resale because it says it on the Label of the album.
The album jacket actually says “Not For Resale”, but has been removed from my cover…very strange. The person that removed it was very careful and didn’t cut fully through the front cover…see below.
Alright…You Picked It! And here it is. The one you picked was Max Webster – ‘Universal Juveniles’. The votes were as follows:
Thanks to all for participating. The August choices will be up on Saturday!
I obtained this record when my brother-in-law, Jimmy, let me have his collection as it was just sitting in storage. The prize of that collection was definitely all the Rush albums. This album was also in there and I will be honest with you, I had no idea who Max Webster was. Well, first it isn’t a person, it is a band name with no one named Max Webster in the band. Yeah, I had no idea.
Continue reading “YOU PICKED IT! – Max Webster – ‘Universal Juveniles’ – Album Review”
With the success of ‘Alive!’, Kiss was saved and in turn, so was their record label Casablanca. With that new success, the band signed a brand new contract with Casablanca after the band’s manager had threatened to walk. This time though, Kiss was only given a two album deal which really isn’t a very long contract in those times and showed that maybe the label didn’t have much faith the band would have continued success.
While the band was touring the album ‘Alive!’, they started rehearsing for the new album. Their success was able to land them a high-end producer in the likes of Bob Ezrin. His success with Alice Cooper had garnered him some notoriety and was going to take Kiss in a whole new direction. Thankfully, the band was still in tact with Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, Ace Frehley and Gene Simmons.
Continue reading “Kiss – ‘Destroyer’ (1976) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)”
2 Loud 2 Old Music 