Kiss – ‘End of the Road: In Allentown 2020’ – Blu-Ray Review (Bootleg Series)

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I was out a Record Show and I found a table that had a lot of Kiss memorabilia but nothing much I really wanted as I generally stick to the music. I did find something I didn’t realize existed and that was Kiss Blu-Ray Bootlegs. This guy was selling a lot of them. I came back to the table and looked again and decided, you know, I want to try it out. When he then offered that I could get two for $15, I jumped at the chance. $15 was worth the risk. So I grabbed one from the End of the Road tour and one from the 40th Anniversary Tour as I saw both those tours, just not these shows.

So, first up we are going to go the most recent which is the End of the Road Tour and this show was filmed at the PPL Center in Allentown, PA on February 4th, 2020 just a month before COVID shut the whole touring scene down. Kiss was a full year in to the tour at this point and in fine form.

I have to say the video quality is much better than I expected. It is supposed to be a Pro-Shot video and although some of the camera angles sucked at times as they got washed out with the colors in the lights, overall it was pretty cool. The shots from the front of the stage were perfectly clear and killer you still got some shots that were muted by the lights some blurriness as the cameras couldn’t focus fast enough. But for $7.50 a piece, pretty darn acceptable.

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Friday New Releases – January 14, 2022

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Welcome back to the Friday New Releases. This week sees a big jump in releases over last week with over 40 releases. I would say things are back in full swing!! A handful of big releases this week and a couple I am looking forward to hear and they are marked in Blue. Let me know what is out this week that excites you as I hope there is something for you. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

  • 71GZTqxu8qL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Skillet – Dominion – (Atlantic Recording / WEA): This Christian Rock band from Tennessee is now on their 11th Studio album and they have changed so much over the years it is crazy to think how far they’ve come. Lately thought it all seems the same so I am hoping we get something a little different with this one. We will see.
  • 715HK2Gkz5L._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Tony Martin – Thorns – (Dark Star Records): Former Black Sabbath singer is back with another solo album. It has been awhile since his last one so can’t wait to hear what he brings to the table this time around.

And then all the rest…

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The Original vs. The Cover – “With A Little Help From My Friends”

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For this episode of The Original vs. The Cover, we are going to discuss the incredible song “With A Little Help From My Friends” originally by The Beatles and most famously covered by Joe Cocker. The song for The Beatles was off their 1967 album ‘Sgt. Pepper & the Lonely Hearts Club Band’ and it was never released as a single until a re-issue of it in 1978. Joe Cocker’s version was off his 1968 album of the same name. His version went to #1 in the UK and only #68 in the US but is a signature song for him.

The song was written by the great writing duo of McCartney and Lennon and according to John Lennon, the song was mostly written by Paul with a little help from his friend. They wrote the song specifically for Ringo Starr who sings lead on the track. I found where the original working title of the song was called “Bad Finger Boogie” because Lennon played with only his middle finger on the piano as he hurt his forefinger. That title is said to have inspired the band Badfinger. Now, only believe this if you believe everything wikipedia tells you.

The song is said to be about drugs as even former U.S Vice Presidential candidate, Spiro Agnew, stated it was and wanted the song to be band. That claims is completely denied by the band. The song could be just about how no matter hard it gets, you can make it through it with the help of your friends. I mean John and Paul wrote the song for Ringo so that was helping their friend. Let’s get to the music.

THE BEATLES:

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Cheap Trick – ‘The Doctor’ (1986) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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After recording the fantastic track, “Mighty Wings” for the Top Gun Soundtrack, Cheap Trick headed in to the studio to record their next album. At the time, not knowing that song wasn’t written by the band, I had high hopes that their album would come out rocking like that song. Yeah, but it didn’t…AT ALL!! Thanks to the production by Tony Platt, Cheap Trick came out with an album that had no balls and sounded so dated with the massive keyboards that you threw your hands up in the air and said “what is this crap”. Yes, I am ruining this review by telling you the ending right away…that is how bad this album is to me.

The band was really fighting with their label as the label kept screaming more keyboards and the band, in the end, just threw up their hands and finished the album in 3 weeks. I don’t think they even realized at the time how weak and lame this would turn out to be. They probably had an idea as it was Tony Platt that mixed their last album after Jack Douglas had to back out due to legal problems with Yoko Ono (that is whole other story for another time). Tony turned their album. “Standing On the Edge” in to a wimpfest when it was supposed to be a rocker…at least that was Jack’s vision. Why would they expect anything different with this one.

The band line-up was unchanged from the prior as we still had Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Bun E. Carlos and Jon Brant. However, this would be the last album to feature Brant as the band’s next album would see the return of founding bass player Tom Petersson. And not a moment too soon. The album finally saw its release on November of 1986 and it didn’t do well at all. It peaked at #115 on the Billboard Charts and only had one U.S. single which didn’t even chart. That says all you need to know right there. The band had probably hit rock bottom at this point in their career which would make you think that after this, there was no where to go but up. We will see if that happens.

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Quiet Riot – “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” – 45 Single

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In my ever growing attempt at saving 7″ Singles from sitting all alone in Record Stores craving to spun again a turntable, I have found a couple from the band Quiet Riot that were eager to be adopted by yours truly. I found these two at the great Charlotte Record Store of Noble Records. He is always putting out great stuff and these two are no exception.

The first to discuss was “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” off their album ‘Metal Health’. This time we are going to discuss the other single I found, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” off their follow-up album to ‘Metal Health’ called ‘Condition Critical’. This was one of the singles from that album and it did moderately well but not breaking the Top 40 as it stalled out at #51. I think part of the problem was it was another cover song by the same band they became famous covering with “Cum on Feel the Noize”. Yep, another Slade cover. I think they dipped their pen too much in that inkwell.

My single copy is again nothing special. It is a standard US copy on Pasha label with the B-Side being “Bad Boy” off the same album. I do like the Pasha label with its blue color and the naked man running with a hole in his chest and a flower growing. Strange, but yet interesting.

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Yngwie Malmsteen’s ‘Rising Force’ (1984) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Jeff Scott Soto saw an ad that Yngwie was looking for a lead singer so he sent a tape in to Yngwie’s managment in hopes of getting the job. The songs were from an early band he was in called Kanan. Amazingly, he received a phone call from Yngwie’s manager, Jeff Scott Soto had an easy decision to make so he left Panther, since he wasn’t really a member in the band, to take part in what was supposed to be a side project for Yngwie Malmsteen. I say a side project because Yngwie was in the band Alcatrazz when this was being made, but for some strange reason, he thought Alcatrazz was his band and Graham Bonnet felt differently and fired Yngwie. I guess we now know whose band it was. I guess you could say Yngwie has an ego problem. You could say it is a large ego or you could say it is even gigantic, both would be right as he is notoriously famous for that giant ego.

I know this is a Jeff Scott Soto series and we will get to Jeff, but the album focus is really Yngwie as it is a mostly instrumental album and only two songs feature vocals and those vocals are both handled by Jeff Scott Soto. The album was recorded in 1984 and released late in that year during November 1984. Don’t let wikipedia fool you as the album was not released in March 1984. As Jeff Scott Soto has pointed out that would be impossible as he didn’t meet Yngwie until a little after March as he was still working with Panther at that time. This album did come out before the Panther album and as I said, should’ve been the start but Panther really is the start of the story for Jeff (or at least the story I’m telling).

The debut album from Yngwie Malmsteen was called ‘Rising Force’ and did quite well garnering a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. It is heavily influenced by classical music and is a showcase of the true talent of Yngwie’s guitar mastering. It has been classified as neoclassical metal and I think that is about right. I will admit, I am not a big Yngwie fan and the only reason I own this album is because it has Jeff Scott Soto, however, this is quite an amazing album as I think this is before Yngwie’s ego completely took over and ruined things for me with him. But enough about that. Let us get to the music.

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My Sunday Song – “Soul Divine” by Jeff Scott Soto

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For My Sunday Song #281, we are kicking off a 10 song set of Jeff Scott Soto. They won’t all be his solo work as they will cover his career and many bands. I figured since this past week we kicked off the Jeff Scott Soto Series here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music, why not continue that in to the My Sunday Song Series. First up is the song “Soul Divine” off his 2004 album ‘Lost in Translation’. The song was written by Jeff Scott Soto and Howie Simon who also played guitar and bass o the song. Glen Sobel played the drums.

“Soul Divine” is about regret. He treated his woman horribly and lost her. He now looks back and in his soul he knows he screwed it up. She was his light and yet he brought her so much pain and he didn’t realize what he did until she was gone and then he realized he had something really great. He has finally gotten to a point in his life where he realizes he was a little shit and feels really bad for it.

Musically, the song is a scorcher. It is heavy on the guitars from Mr. Simon who takes on bass duties as well which is also very prominent on the song. Glen Sobel’s drumming is rich and full force with a great driving beat and cool ass fills. It is a modern, melodic song that might be some of the best stuff Jeff has ever done. Howie’s opening riff is striking and almost singable and he also lays down a tasteful guitar solo that isn’t too boastful and fits the mood of the song. Jeff’s vocals are so masterful on this one. They soar, they are emotional, they are energetic and they are memorable. The chorus is catchy and his tones grab hold and pull you in and will have you singing along by the end. This one is a shining example of the soulful and smoothness of his voice as well. I figured, let’s kick it off with one of his best!!

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2021 – A Year in Review at 2 Loud 2 Old Music – The Top 10 Posts of the Year!!

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Last Saturday, I gave you a post of totally useless information with all the albums I listened to in 2021, so let’s do it again this Saturday. We are going to look back at what happened in 2021…no not in the world of music. But in the world of 2 Loud 2 Old Music, the website!! I know this is important stuff, I get how excited you must be so stop the YAWNING!!!

We had a another record year here at the site. We finally broke 1,000 followers and are now sitting at around 1,022. A small milestone for the site. It only took 5 years to get there. If that was enough we broke a record of views this year with over 272,000 views which is a 36% increase over the prior year. Next year, we are hoping to finally pass 300,000 views. See, real exciting stuff.

During the year we worked on a lot of Review Series. We finished the Kiss Review Series which had around 74 separate posts and took over 13 months to complete. We also started and finished the Judas Priest Series and the Queen Series which were both a lot of fun. We have started and are a good way through the Cheap Trick Collection Series and the Aerosmith Collection Series as I love doing these Series so I hope you do as well. It lets me go back and deep dive in to their albums and it also gives me a reason to go out and buy more albums. For 2022, we have the Jeff Scott Soto Series and I will go ahead and tell you when the Aerosmith Series ends, we will be jumping right in to the Scorpions Collection Series. A lot to look forward to next year!

What were to Top 10 Posts of the Year?

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Friday New Releases – January 7, 2022

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Welcome to the first Friday New Release post of 2022. It isn’t a big start, but a start nonetheless. This week there is nothing I need but maybe there is something in here for you. I might check out the Bowie release but that is all. Let me know if there is anything for you this week. If not, next week starts to get back to normal with a ton of releases and it doesn’t look like it is going to slow down anytime soon. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

  • 71d8lk3SMIL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  David Bowie – Toy  – (Rhino / Parlophone): This is the missing album from around 2000 that never got released. It is finally time to bring it to the masses. Based on the album cover, I’m a little freaked out as that is the scariest looking Bowie baby I have ever seen. I might have nightmares. Hopefully the music doesn’t give me nightmares. I am sure it won’t as it is Bowie!!

And all the rest…

  • 91SxTTrtHNL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  AmaLee – Rise of the Monarch – (Leegion Creative)
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Aerosmith – ‘Classics Live!’ (1986) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Back in 1984, Aerosmith reunited with Brad Whitford and Joe Perry and went out on tour to celebrate the reunion. That tour was the Back in the Saddle Tour. The band had been on Columbia Records, but jumped ship and signed with Geffen Records in hopes of getting back in the good graces of the buying public. They planned out and released their comeback album ‘Done With Mirrors’ with little fanfare at least that was until they were on the Run DMC cover of their song “Walk This Way”. That combination of Hip Hop and Rock joining together and being celebrated so much on MTV brought them back in to the limelight.

This new found fame was great for Columbia Records because the bands new deal with Geffen still allowed Columbia to release material they owned of the band, which was a lot. Columbia took full advantage of this opportunity and the first release was a live compilation called ‘Classics Live’ in April 1986. The songs were collected from live shows ranging from 1978 up to 1984 and there was a bonus track any Aerosmith had to have, an unreleased studio track.

Four of the tracks on here come from the February 14, 1984 show at the Orpheum in Boston, Massachusetts. This was a very important show for the band because in the audience was Joe Perry and Brad Whitford who were no loner in the band at this time. Of course, this mean Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay were on guitar. But that wasn’t the important thing about this show. This was the very beginning of the original band getting back together and would start the band’s climb back to stardom.

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