Cheap Trick – ‘Found All The Parts E.P.’ (1980) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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The 70’s were a huge decade for Cheap Trick. In just three short years, we were blessed with four studio albums and one of the greatest live albums of all time with ‘Cheap Trick at Budokan’. Not a bad run. Now we are in to the 80’s and this album was sort of a way to end the 70’s with a nice little bonus. The four-song E.P. was released on 10″ Vinyl and was part of Epic Records series called Nu-Disk, but that series was rather short-lived and I don’t know if I’ve found another album from that series.

If I remember correctly, it was believed that some of the songs on here were from a Cheap Trick album that was canned and never released, especially when more songs from this time frame were released as bonus tracks on other releases/compilations down the road. I believe there were 7 other tracks with all but 1 being released. However, I don’t think that was ever confirmed or denied. Most likely, they were working on an album and decided to shift gears in to a new direction which then became the album ‘All Shook Up’ which we will get to next time.

The album was released on June 2, 1980 and contained four tracks. Side 1 were both live songs (cough, cough, sort of) and side 2 were brand new studio tracks (thus the rumors mentioned above). I don’t see any chart information on them so not sure how well the E.P. did, but doesn’t matter to me as I love finding this kind of stuff.

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Stone Temple Pilots – ‘Tiny Music…Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop’ (25th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) – Album Review

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The band’s third album saw a dramatic change in their music. Gone was the grunge and rock sound of their first two albums and in its place was a more experimental sound that was a mix of glam and psychedelic, but still rooted in the STP vibe. The band rented a mansion in Santa Barbara, California where they holed up with producer Brendan O’Brien and on March 26, 1996, ‘Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop’ was born. And there is nothing “tiny” about it. It is huge in sound and in packaging. The album went all the way to #4 on the Billboard charts and spawned 3 #1 songs on the Mainstream Rock Charts. I would say it was fairly successful selling over 2 million copies in the U.S. alone.

And here we are 25 years later celebrating the album with a Super Deluxe Edition done in the same style as the first two albums ‘Core’ and ‘Purple’ which you can check out their Super Deluxe Editions by clicking on their album name. I have to say, they are great sets to have and I can’t wait for ‘No. 4’ as I hear there is some great stuff unreleased for that album.

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Bon Jovi – ‘Red Hot and 2 Parts Live’ E.P. – 12″ Single

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I love when I’m out digging and I find something I’ve never seen before and that happened yet again with this Bon Jovi release. It is a UK only release called ‘Red Hot and 2 Parts Live’ and is a 12″ Single. Okay, I’m not being honest when I say I haven’t seen it because my bud Mike Ladano wrote about it a few years ago, so I have seen pictures of it, but I have never seen it in the wild and now I have a copy. The reason for this special edition of the single is probably because this was actually the first Bon Jovi single released in the UK.

What we have here is a thing of beauty. It is a three song EP on stunning translucent red vinyl. It has two live tracks both recorded in Japan in 1985 and one remix of the song “Hardest Part is the Night” from 7800° Fahrenheit.

I have to say the sound quality is off-the-charts as it is loud. I had previously listened to an album prior to this release and when the E.P. played, it was so much louder I had to turn the volume down a little as it was too loud. I guess I shouldn’t admit that as it goes against the name of the site. Another thing is the beauty of the vinyl. I mean just look at it…

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Aerosmith – ‘Draw the Line’ (1977) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Drugs…Addict…What do these words describe? It is simple. They describe Aerosmith! Rock band certainly doesn’t describe them because at this point, drugs were way more important than being musicians as that was what they spent most of their time doing..drugs!

As a result of this massive drug problem, their manager, David Krebs, thought he needed to get them away from the drugs so he shipped the band to an old Convent in Armonk, New York. But what David didn’t take in to account that drug dealers are basically Grubhub, especially if your names are Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Place an order and they will deliver and that they did…in droves. So much so that Tyler and Perry were less involved in this album than any other. But it did give the rest of the band, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer more say in to what was going on with the album.

Producer, Jack Douglas, was back and did the best he could. The music is pretty straight-forward blues rock & roll and far less fancy stuff than prior albums. Heck, he was lucky to even finish recording the album with everyone still alive. The album took forever as they worked on it from June to October of 1977 as Joe and Steven were so drugged up all the time that they could only record in little increments of time. The album finally saw its release on December 9, 1977 and although the album did sell over 2 million copies (by 1996) and went to #11 on the Billboard Charts, it is still perceived as a lesser album than the prior two. It is also believed to be the beginning of the end as the tensions and drug use would eventually reach a breaking point.

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My Sunday Song – “Wasted” by Rick Springfield

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For My Sunday Song #271, we are going to do a 10 Song Set on Rick Springfield. There will be handful of old favorites, but most are going to be stuff you might be surprised by as he has been going strong for 40 years and his stuff after 2000 has been something. First up is “Wasted” from my favorite Springfield album called ‘Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance’ which came out on February 24, 2004 and it is freaking brilliant. This is one of my favorite tracks from the album. The song is not a single and the album did go to #8 on the Independent Charts, but the album went relatively unnoticed which is a crying shame.

The song is about a girl who is nothing but trouble. He felt that she could be the one to save him, but she was more interested in making every boy her boyfriend. She was pretty crazy and wild and liked to take a lot polaroids. He knows he needs to let her go as she is too much trouble but he is drawn to her and that wild side and passion. Will he ever learn and move on or keep chasing the flame? We don’t know. But the song seems to fit on the Acceptance part of the album. He has accepted the fact she is what she is and will never fully have her. Or is he in Denial? The whole album has songs that will fit one of those categories or multiple categories which is the beauty of this album.

There is one part in the lyrics that I find a little disturbing. Apparently the girl lost Rick’s toe ring…yes…you read that right…toe ring. Who the hell wears a toe ring? Do guys really do this? I didn’t know that was something. But for some reason it still works in the context of the song.

Musically, the song is a major rocker. It sounds very modern in its style and borders on metal at times as it goes back and forth between soft in the verses and heavy during the chorus. It is very dark in keeping with the lyrics and Rick sings with a passion and intensity that brings the lyrics to life and makes you feel his turmoil. The song, like the album, sees Rick stretch his wings and really push the boundaries of what you would expect a Springfield song/album to be like. This is a totally unexpected and amazing surprise.

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Friday New Releases – October 29, 2021

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Welcome to the last New Release Friday of October. This weekend is Halloween and what are the treats in store for you. There are around 50 releases this week so I would say that is a pretty nice treat for everyone. Two of the ones I have on order and will hopefully arrive soon so I can spin them and one is one I am sure I will hear because of my kids plus I am interested in hearing it anyway. My choices are in Bold. Let me know if the releases this week are a treat or a trick and let us know what else is out this week that I may have missed. Thanks, as always, for stopping by and I hope everyone has a frighteningly great weekend!!

  • 81ZlVjaHANL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Whitesnake – Restless Heart Super Deluxe Edition – (Rhino Records): One thing David Coverdale does well is how to put together a fantastic box set. He has hit it out of the park with ‘Slide it In’, ’87 and with Slip of the Tongue, now it is time for the next in the series, “Restless Heart”. This underrated album and often overlooked album gets the super deluxe treatment and you will get a remastering, unreleased and demos as well as a live show and it will all be amazing as usual! Mine is out for delivery and should be here today!!
  • 91-5WZba9NL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  John 5 & the Creatures – Sinner – (John 5 / Big Machine Label Group): John 5 is probably my favorite guitarist out there right now. Whether it is his solo work, his work with Rob Zombie or his noodling around on instagram, he is nothing short of amazing. I am sure we will get more rock, metal and bluegrass with this release like we do and I couldn’t be happier about that. I have a signed copy of this on its way to the house very soon. Can’t wait!!
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October 2021 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Welcome to the next installment of Purchases as we run through the monthly purchases here at 2 Loud 2Old Music. And this was a good month…a really good one. This would be a quality month over quantity although the quantity was still there. The month started out with a visit to one of my favorite stores Noble Records. It was Dillion’s 2nd Anniversary as a Brick & Mortar store and he was putting out some holy grail items for sure. I’m not one of crowds at the moment so I knew it was going to be packed so I waiting until later in the day before I showed up. There was nothing I was really looking for so going early didn’t matter. I was there to show some support.

The first thing I found were some great 7″ Singles. 2 from Quiet Riot and one from David Bowie. I nice score for me and I will take it…

And there was still more. Now, I didn’t really find a whole lot. But I found something I had never seen before so I grabbed it. It was an alternate cover for the Scorpions debut, “Lonesome Crow”. And it is a cool cover. It turns out, this was a reissue of the album from 1982 or 1983 and it had came in a translucent brownish, yellowish, orangish color…wait…maybe it is gold. Who knows, but I know I loved the cover and sold!!!

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Cheap Trick – ‘Dream Police’ (1979) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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The success of the live album, ‘Cheap Trick at Budokan’, kept delaying the release of the band’s fourth studio album, ‘Dream Police’. And that was a great problem to have. The band recorded the album during ’78 and was ready to be released, but the label thought since ‘Bodokan’ had been imported so much in to the US, why not release the live album domestically. And it certainly paid off. They cleaned up a few things in early ’79 and it finally got a released date on September 21, 1979 as Budokan was blowing up the charts. That momentum set the band up for what would become their biggest commercial album to date. Heck, it only took the album a few months to go platinum. The album spawned four singles across the globe and gave the band two Top 40 songs on the Billboard Charts. Yes sir, Cheap Trick had made it to the big time. An audience that wasn’t ready for them a few short years earlier was finally on board.

Cheap Trick brought back Tom Werner for a third time as producer and this time around, the band experimented with their sound and brought in new elements such as orchestration and even songs that were structured to be more complex and definitely longer tracks as one almost hits 10 minutes. This was a band that was not afraid to try new things and this time around, it paid off…big time!! Band members, Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos were ready to take on the world and now the world was ready for them.

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Van Halen – “When It’s Love” – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past Summer, I found a ton of 45 Singles with the Picture Sleeves at a place called House of Vinyl and I ended buying 7 Van Halen 45’s. And we’ve been through a few so far as seen below…

And now we are on final Van Halen single and we are still in to the Hagar Era. This was the second single off their second album with Sammy called ‘OU812’. The song is “When It’s Love” and it was the most popular song off the album. The song was released in June 1988 and went to #1 on the Mainstream Rock Chart as well as #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

My copy of the single is the standard U.S. version with the B-Side being “Cabo Wabo” which you wouldn’t know that from the back cover as it doesn’t say anywhere what the B-Side is. When I first saw it, I was hoping it was a promo with the same song on each side and one in mono and one in stereo, but I don’t if they actually had those still in 1988. Regardless, my copy is in pretty good shape and plays perfectly which is all that matters.

Now both tracks on the single are the LP versions and no single edits. As I’ve mentioned in the past reviews, Donn Landee’s name is on the Single write under the writers which is something Ted Templeman started back in the David Lee Roth era. Nice to see that trend continued here.

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Queensryche – ‘Empire’ Super Deluxe Edition – Box Set Review

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After the band’s revolutionary album ‘Operation: Mindcrime’, Queensryche delivered another masterpiece with the album ‘Empire’. The band is celebrating this album with a Super Deluxe Edition Box Set and it is full or wonderful things. You get 3 CDs, 1 DVD and a book all included in a wonderful and sturdy box. It looks like a lot of time was spent on the packaging. And if you look at the back cover, it tells you everything you are going to get, but maybe it is overstating things a little and I will get to that later.

Just look at all the stuff you get. You get a remastered album, ‘Concealed Empire – Bonus Tracks’, ‘Live at Hammersmith Odeon, London 11-14-90’ and a DVD called ‘Building Empires’. If that isn’t enough you get a hardback book with lot of wonderful goodies inside. Let’s not waste anytime and get right into it.

The 3 CDs / 1 DVD come housed in a cardboard foldout that houses each disc in a slot with the DVD getting its own packaging as well. And if you were smart, you would pull each disc out and place them in to their own jewel slim case so they don’t get scratched up…at least that is what Aaron would do over at keepsmealive.wordpress.com.

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