Category: Pop Culture

Music Challenge #4 – Steve ‘n’ Seagulls – ‘Brothers in Farm’

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It is finally time for another music challenge.  Go and listen to an album based solely on the Band’s name, the album name or the album cover.  Let me know what you pick, why and what you thought about the album.

Here is my pick for the music challenge…The band is called Steve ‘n’ Seagulls.  The name of the band and that unusual album cover are why I picked this one for my music challenge.  The band name is a pun on the iconic actor (not really iconic) Steven Seagal.

They are a country band from Finland.  You read that correctly…they are from Finland and they are a country band.  I don’t know if I have ever heard of a Finnish country band. Wow! If you want proof, see below…

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KISS – Alive! – Released 41 Years Ago Today

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I was online and noticed that Kiss released their first live album back on this date in 1975. I figured I would do a little post that celebrated that fact.

This was the album that made me a huge Kiss fan even to this day.  The album finally brought to life the songs from their first 3 albums and made you feel you were part of the show.  I know there is a lot of controversy that this isn’t really a live album as they went into the studio and cleaned it up significantly, but I don’t care.  It had the feel of a live album and is still one of my favorite live albums even today.

I actually still have the vinyl release from 1975 (which is actually my brother’s album, but I have it and he doesn’t).

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Robert John “Mutt” Lange – Producer Extraordinaire

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Robert John “Mutt” Lange could quite possibly be one of the greatest music producers there has ever been.  He is personally responsible for some of the biggest selling albums of all time. He is the man behind the music, literally.

He started producing albums in the 70’s where he produced Graham Parker’s album ‘Heat Treatment’ and worked with the City Boys.  He also worked with the Boomtown Rats which gave him his first real breakout album was their 1978 album ‘A Tonic for the Troops”.

But the big break came with the success of his work with AC/DC.  He produced the 1979 album ‘Highway to Hell’ and then the 1980 classic ‘Back in Black’ which is the second largest selling album of all time at over 50 million albums.  ‘Back in Black’ was one of the albums I picked up just recently (read about it here).  He went to do another album for AC/DC in 1981, ‘For Those About To Rock We Salute You’.

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I Miss the B-Sides

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Do kids nowadays know what a B-Side is?  With today’s music environment, they no longer exist.  Now when a single is released, you just download that single.  There is no longer another song purchased along with the single.  That makes me sad.

I guess the so called Deluxe Edition of albums is like getting all your B-Sides at one time, but where is the fun in that. And are albums really “deluxe editions” if they don’t offer a non-deluxe edition?  I think that would just be called an album.

Some B-Sides went on to be as big as the A-Side of even bigger.  A couple examples would be with Kiss and Queen.  For Kiss, “Beth” was the B-Side on the single for “Detroit Rock City”.  A radio station added the song to their playlist and it went on to be Kiss’ biggest hit and reached #7 on the Billboard charts.  Queen had the same thing happen. The B-Side for “We Are the Champions” was “We Will Rock You”  The 2 songs now are played together and are 2 of the bands biggest and most played songs.

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Turntables & Vinyl #3 – Mother Lode

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I hit the mother lode last weekend while I was visiting family in Atlanta.  The conversation somehow ended up on Vinyl records and my sister-in-law mentioned she had some old albums laying around.  My brother found the box and in it were 4 albums on my wish list…Def Leppard’s ‘Pyromania’ and ‘Hysteria’; Whitesnake’s self-titled album and Bon Jovi’s ‘Slippery When Wet’.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  Of course, when I left their house, for some reason I left the Bon Jovi album there.  I will make sure to grab it next time I am down.  BTW, they were in phenomenal shape.

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Mood Music

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Music for me can impact my mood immensely.  When I am angry, I like to listen to heavy metal music and it tends to improve my mood.  My Road Rage Playlist gets played a lot when I am stuck in traffic.  When I am in a really good mood, I like to listen to upbeat pop music or go to my favorite hard rock music.  Both improve my mood even more.

At night before bed, I like to have music playing.  Some nights I just want to listen to instrumental music – no lyrics as I don’t want to think about anything.  I love to play The Piano Guys, 2 Cellos, Lindsey Stirling, or David Garrett.  Other nights I will do Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John 5 or other master guitar players.  And still others I will play either my 80’s playlist or 90’s playlist.  All relax me in different ways, but the end result is the same, I will fall asleep.

Music also makes you feel nostalgic and can take you back to a special time or place. When I hear the song “Panama” by Van Halen I think back to high school and when we took our senior trip to the Redneck Riviera, Panama City Beach, we would also crank up Whitesnake & Def Leppard.

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Her 1st Vinyl – Shawn Mendes ‘Handwritten’

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My 9 year old daughter was upset that my 12 year old daughter (at the time) got a vinyl album and she didn’t get one.  She kept asking me when she was going to get an album. She then when on to say that she wants the Shawn Mendes album.

I should have guessed as several weeks earlier, she was looking through one of her sister’s magazines and inside was a poster of Shawn Mendes and she went crazy.  She unfolded it and started kissing it!!!  It was so cute, but scary for me as well since now I realize she knows what boys are and that you kiss them!  As I was laughing at the sight of her kissing the poster on the outside, I was screaming on the inside.

Lo and behold, we were at the mall last weekend and what did we come across…Shawn Mendes’ album ‘Handwritten’.  I surprised her and told her I would buy it for her.  She was so excited.

I wanted to write this to document for her, the very first vinyl record she would own.  The cool part of it is the fact that it was a special edition Blue Vinyl.  It looks really cool and you can actually see through the album.  There is a mini poster of him inside, but I told her it need to stay in the album so it didn’t get messed up.  The other reason was I didn’t want her kissing all over it.

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Bret Michaels – “Repeat” Offender

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Bret Michaels with Poison is enjoyable.  The music is kind of mindless, like KISS, but a lot of fun.  Bret Michaels as a solo artist is a different story.  As a solo artist, Bret Michaels is a “Repeat” Offender!!  What do I mean by that?  Well, let me tell you.  Bret Michaels can not release a new album that doesn’t contain all original music.  He has to repeat songs from his days as lead singer of Poison or songs from his previous solo album.  At this point to me, it is so laughable and sad at the same time.

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It didn’t start out this way as his first 2 solo albums were pretty much all original/new material.  His first solo album in 1998 was ‘A Letter from Death Row’ which was the soundtrack to a movie he wrote, directed and starred in, believe it or not.  On a side note, I never saw the movie.  Here is the track listing:

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1987 – The Greatest Year in Music?

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Is 1987 the greatest year in music?  Well, probably not, but I am going to make an argument for it to be the greatest.  For me personally, 1987 was a great year.  I graduated high school and started college in that year.  I also had a fabulous Senior Trip with some of the best people in the world.  Life was really great at that time (fyi…life is really great now as well).

Musically, some of the greatest rock albums and pop albums were released during 1987.  After this list, you let me know if you think it wasn’t the greatest or at least one of the most memorable years in music.

614V+0U9a8L._AC_US160_Def Leppard – ‘Hysteria’:  This is one of my all time favorite albums.  It was released on August 3 and spawned 7 singles (that is right 7).  The album has gone on to sale over 25 million copies and has one of the most iconic rock songs of all time…”Pour Some Sugar On Me”.  Go to mikeladano.com and check out a great review on the album (Then look around at his site, great reviews and great stories).  With other hits like “Hysteria”, “Love Bites”, “Animal”, “Women” and “Rocket”, it is one of the greatest rock albums of all times.

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100th Blog Post – A look back

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This marks my 100th Blog Post since I started back on April 17, 2016.  I am so happy to make it to this milestone.  I wasn’t sure if I would stick with it for very long and I somehow have managed to keep posting.  Now I know I am just under 4 months and that isn’t very long, but I didn’t know if I would even make it that long.

It has been so much fun and I have met some very interesting people and been to some great and amazing blogs.  The people in the blog world have been wonderful and so supportive.  The struggle for me is to be able to visit everyone’s site and leave comments.  I am still new with the whole social aspect of the blogging world as I am not the most overly social person.  I feel this is the one (of many) areas I still need to keep working at to improve.

What has been a surprise for me is how many visitors I have had and the number of countries people have come from that have visited my site.  I already have had over 850 visitors and over 2,100 views from people in over 45 different countries.  I don’t know if that is a lot, but I think it is pretty cool.

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