Jeff Scott Soto – ‘LA Rocks Demo / Vinnie Vincent Demo 1988’ Bootleg (2008) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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I was scouring eBay for a few of the remaining Soto albums I don’t have, and sadly, none were for sale at the time. However, I cam across something I had never seen before. It was a bootleg of Jeff Scott Soto demos. And to top it off, it was actually signed by Jeff Scott Soto. The person I bought it from lives in Germany and his name was Stefan. It turns out, Stefan is the lead singer of the band Speed Limit (check them out, they are pretty cool) and he had opened for Soto on a tour and actually met Jeff and got him to sign the CD. I thought all that was pretty cool and I love having a story behind my purchase.

LA ROCKS DEMOS:

So, what is this CD? It is a bootleg, mostly of demos from Jeff’s early years with LA Rocks and with Vinnie Vincent. We never got any albums out of those two projects, but at least we have some demos. The first set of songs say they are from his band LA Rocks. Back in 1986, Aldy Damian approached Jeff about joining the band. Jeff was busy with his own band called L’amour at the time and so he wasn’t really interested in joining LA Rocks. However, he did agree to do a couple demos for them and they paid him, so how could he say no. After Jeff, turned it down, they went after James Christian and he agreed. James became known for his other band House of Lords later.

The project didn’t end up going anywhere and the band later on became known as something you are more familiar with as we have discussed them in this series and that is the band Eyes of which Jeff sang on a couple of their albums. It all comes around full circle in the end. These set of songs here under the LA Rock Demos section, are a mixture of LA Rocks and Eyes demos and some aren’t even either band. The tracks “Hands of Time” and “Heart of the Fire” were demos for songs used on the movie ‘Rich Girl’. The songs “For You”, “Till the End of Time” and “Nobody Said it was Easy” are all demos for the band Eyes. And the song “Hold On”, not really sure where that is from but maybe it is from LA Rocks.

Continue reading “Jeff Scott Soto – ‘LA Rocks Demo / Vinnie Vincent Demo 1988’ Bootleg (2008) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)” →

My Sunday Song – “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden

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For the last My Sunday Song #350 for the Chris Cornell 10 song set is “Black Hole Sun” by his band Soundgarden. The song is off their 1994 album Superunknown and went to #1 on the Mainstream Rock Chart in the U.S. The song has so many accolades including one of the Top 500 Songs of all time landing at #368. It didn’t go Gold in the U.S., but did in the UK, Australia and Italy. It is one of their most recognizable and amazing songs and was written by Chris Cornell.

The song was written by Chris mostly on a drive from the studio in Woodinville to Seattle which was about a 34-40 minute drive. Once he got home, he whistled it in to a dictaphone. The next more he got and wallah, a new song. The song was inspired by a story on the news, Chris doesn’t remember the story itself just the words Black Hole Sun which he thought would be a great title to the song. When he wrote the lyrics in about 15 minutes, there was no meaning, per se, behind them, basically it was him putting words together that painted this dark picture. From reading the lyrics, it sort of looks like a song about disillusionment and how the world has grown so dark and mean that no more honest men exist as everyone is eventually turned to the dark side.

Musically, the song is just as dark sounding at times with a grunge sound, but also a little psychedelic with a slight Beatles vibe to it. The chorus feels a little upbeat and a little sunnier, but when that chorus comes in it feels like a menacing dark sludge. Kim Thayil’s guitar tone on this is perfect for the song as it has some really cool moments with that solo lying under the grungy riff really plays nicely off each other. Cornell’s vocals on the chorus seem monotonous at times as they are trudging through the sludge of the music. His backing vocals are higher pitched and really give the song something a little extra. I was immediately engrossed in this song the first time I heard as there is so much going on. It is simply wonderful.

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Friday New Releases – March 3, 2023

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We are in to March already. Another year flying by, but not without leaving us some new music to hear each and every week. This week we have over 40 choices to choose from and hopefully there is something for you. I actually have a Country artist I’m eager to hear as my daughters (both of them) have introduced me to Morgan Wallen and his music and you know what, I like it!! So, he has another double album coming out today and it is on order and arriving, but it is actually a birthday present for my daughter, but I know I’ll get to borrow it when I want. But otherwise that is it for me. Now, something else exciting this week is De La Soul’s catalog is finally getting released on streaming services and digitally this week, so all you fans, go nuts. What do you want to hear this week? Let me know and let us know what we missed as well. Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weeekend!

  • 91zQ1fGh7nL._AC_UL640_FMwebp_QL65_  Morgan Wallen – One Thing at a Time – (Big Loud Records / Mercury Records)

And then all the rest…

  • 91MxexmhZzL._AC_UY218_  Macklemore – Ben – (Bendo, LLC)
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Scorpions – ‘Humanity: Hour 1’ (2007) – Album Review (The Scorpions Collection Series)

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For their 16th Studio album, Scorpions wanted to shake things up a bit. But before they could do that they needed to get a producer and that seemed like a daunting task. They had hoped to work with Dieter Dierks yet again, but that didn’t work out yet again due to contract issues. They brought a ton of producers to Germany to interview including Roy Thomas Baker, but the band wasn’t exactly pleased with those results. In the end they settled on two producers. They chose James Michael (lead singer of the band Sixx A.M.) and famed songwriter/producer Desmond Child. They each had their own specific expertise that was utilized on the production. James worked on the guitars, drums and bass while Desmond concentrated on the vocals.

So, Rudolf Schenker, Mathias Jabs, Pawel Maciwoda and James Kottak were in one studio with James while Klaus Meine was in another with Desmond. Desmond believes that if a singers vocals are in great shape, you will get a great performance so Desmond had Klaus basically take vocal lessons every day for an hour before they recorded the vocals. They brought in vocal coach to help Klaus warm up his vocals each and every day. The album is full of songwriters from outside the band as well, but the band still is on every song. You get Eric Bazilian (Hooters), Marty Frederiksen, Jason Paige, Russ Irwin, James Michael, Desmond Child and there are even more.

The band started recording in October 2006 and had about 30 songs and by the second recording process they had another 20 songs. The album was going to be a concept album that was developed by Desmond Child and futurist Liam Carl. It was based on a civil war between humans and robot, it is very apocalyptic in nature and at times very dark. Which is why a number of songs were thrown out because they were too dark. The album needed some more upbeat style songs and those were added, but they were all based around this concept and all tied together because the songs were about humanity. The album was called ‘Humanity: Hour 1′ and was released on May 14, 2007 in Europe and August 28, 2007 in the U.S. We were introduced to a very modern sounding Scorpions album, but at the same time, it still sounded like the Scorpions. All I know is that when I heard this album, I was back on board the Scorpions’ train and been riding it since. Sit back and get ready for the best Scorpions album in decades!!

A woman robot welcomes us to Humanity: Hour 1 as “Hour 1” is the start of the war. The earth-shattering drum beats, the Sabbathy guitar riffs and then Klaus comes in and sounds amazing as he introduces the reasons behind our downfall and that humans tried to play God with their machines causing all the problems we are now facing. It is a heavy, intense and rocking opening track. Very modern and very brutal and a solo that will rip your face off as the battle rages on. A killer opening track and one of their most aggressive tracks…ever!! And what is even cooler about this one is that the guest guitarist is none other than the mighty John 5.

Continue reading “Scorpions – ‘Humanity: Hour 1’ (2007) – Album Review (The Scorpions Collection Series)” →

1,000,000 Views and Counting

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On Sunday, February 26, 2023, 2 Loud 2 Old Music reached a milestone for the site. We finally reached 1,000,00 views on the site. It all started April 17, 2016 and only took just shy of 7 years to hit that mark. Now, at the pace we are going now, it should take less than 4 years for the next million.

What did we do to get to this point, well, we have written a lot of post. We are at 2,141 posts since we started and I am not sure why I keep saying we, because it is just me. Maybe the we is me, myself and I. We have done over 350 post of My Sunday Songs and Friday New Release posts which I have been doing since almost the beginning. We have done I think close to 1,000 album/single reviews, a bunch of The Original Vs The Cover posts and even a lot of Album Rankings. I never thought I would write this much and still have stuff to write about, but we’ve barely scratched the service at what is in the collection so there will be more to come.

The 10 most popular posts are as follows:

  1. New Release Page – over 25,700 views
  2. Maroon 5 – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 10,200 views
  3. Apple Music vs. Amazon Music Unlimited – over 9,400 views
  4. The Original vs The Cover: “The Sound of Silence” – over 9,100 views
  5. Whitesnake – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 8,200 views
  6. Ratt – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 8,200 views
  7. Poison – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 6,700 views
  8. Tuesday’s Memes – Christmas Music – over 6,200 views
  9. The Top 20 Ratt Songs – over 6,000 views
  10. Tuesday’s Memes – Rock & Roll – over 5,700 views

And if you wonder why I have done a lot of Album Rankings, well, they do make up 40% of the list so there is that reason. I stopped doing the Memes collections, but maybe I should bring that back…nah!

What I have really enjoyed doing over the last few years are artist series where I cover every album either in my collection or in their catalog. Definitely I’ve done all the studio albums for these bands so there are a lot of reviews up for these artists. I’ve done quite a few.

  • Ratt
  • Billy Idol
  • David Coverdale/Whitesnake
  • Kiss
  • Queen
  • Judas Priest
  • Aerosmith
  • Cheap Trick
  • Scorpions (only 3 more left to write)
  • Jeff Scott Soto (only 18 more to write) – And will be the most comprehensive reviews of Soto’s career anywhere on the web and I can almost guarantee that.

And the next one lined up is Bon Jovi which will start sometime either late Spring or early Summer.  Not sure where I will be going after that series.  

I think I am going to stop the You Pick It series as that doesn’t get a whole lot of participation. I think I have one more lined up to post for April’s selection and that will be it. I’m working on March’s right now.

Let me know if there is something you’d like to see me do on the site and maybe I’ll do it. I am planning to continue to show off things in the collection and write reviews on them and if I ever catch up and do it all, maybe I’ll stop at that time, but I think I still have a few more years left in me.  When we hit the 10 year mark, I’ll re-evaluate and see what is next, but for now, I am going to keep on doing what I’m doing.

Thank you to everyone that has come and stopped by the site and to those regular readers, thank you most of all. You are my motivation and reason to keep on going.  You know who you are.

Here’s to the next 1,000,000 views!!

February 2023 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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We had another good month here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music and the collection keeps growing, both the vinyl and the CD collection as well as now even the cassette collection. I found some more stuff to add to the ever growing Kiss collection, the Needtobreathe collection, the Matt Nathanson collection and even the Ratt and Whitesnake collections.

First thing that came in was something that was bought months ago, but the vinyl had been delayed. It finally arrived and it is the new Matt Nathanson album ‘Boston Accent’ which now completes my vinyl collection for Matt…well until he releases something else of course…

Then I bought a bunch of things this month from the internet including some new releases as well as filling out my The Poodles collection, Eclipse, Wig Wam and H.E.A.T. The Wig Wam can be counted as new too along with The Winery Dogs…

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W.E.T. – ‘Rise Up’ (2013) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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W.E.T. includes Robert Sall of the band Work of Art (The “W”); Erik Martensson of the band Eclipses (The “E”) and Jeff Scott Soto of the band Talisman (The “T”). All three bands are Swedish bands and all on Frontiers so it made it easy to bring these three guys together. They were originally going to be a one-off project, never tour and never do another album. Well, they did a small tour and here we are now reviewing their 2nd album, ‘Rise’. And this time, they are giving more credit to Robben Black and Magnus Henriksson as full time members. Both guys are also from the band Eclipse along with Erik.

The album came out on Frontiers Records since it was all Serafino Perugino’s idea anyway. It was released on February 22, 2013 and was actually produced by Mr. Erik Martennsson himself. Along with the songwriting, guitar playing, bass playing, keyboards, he was rather busy on this album. But Erik wasn’t alone on the songwriting as Robert Sal was heavily involved as well as Jeff Scott Soto and Magnus Henriksson. Come to think of it, everyone who did songwriting on the debut, pretty much contributed here as well. The sound on this album didn’t change, it is pure 80’s melodic rock or AOR if you want. Think Journey, Bon Jovi and the like and you pretty much have an idea of what this album will sound like.

The album opens with “Walk Away”, a lusciously sounding lick and then some heavy drums goes right in to a groove that brings it all together. Soto’s vocals are so smooth and slick you are transported to another era. With a hook that has you singing along as you ride down the rode with this beautiful melodic rock extravaganza.

Then we get the delicious “Learn to Live Again” which is a duet between Erik and Jeff and it is nothing short of delightful. You get more of the same hummable, singable magic as they figure, if it ain’t broke, why fix it. Jeff, again, sounds fantastic with his almost falsetto singing at times, and with this wicked riffs and a killer solo backing him up, it is more greatness.

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My Sunday Song – “Like a Stone” by Audioslave

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For My Sunday Song #339, we are going to discuss the song “Like a Stone” by Audioslave. The song is another off this debut self-titled 2002 album. The song was written by the everyone including Chris Cornell, Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk and Tom Morello (well, at least they all got credit for it). The song was the second single off the album and went to #1 on the Mainstream Rock Charts and made the Top 40 going to #31. Those chart positions helped it go Gold selling over 500,000 copies! The music video for this song has over 1 Billion Views!! That is crazy.

The song is about pondering the afterlife. How you can work so hard and be a good person and yet still go to hell anyway. Despite how well you treated others, how good you tried to be, it still wasn’t enough to save you. Because we all know what it takes to be saved, don’t we. It’s lyrics are so so sad and full of regret and really makes you wonder what was really going through Cornell’s mind when he wrote those lyrics. It was a dark place for sure.

The music matched that sadness as the guitar parts from Tom Morello had a tone that was so full of melancholy and at times it sounded like it was crying heartbreaking tears during that wicked guitar solo. That drum beat by Brad Wilk with Tim Commerford’s bass kept a groove that was as morose as it comes. All together it was as close to perfection as you can get with music matching the lyrics and vocal tone. Hauntingly beautiful I must say!

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GRAB A STACK OF ROCK…with Mike and the Mad Metal Man – Episode 15:  Welcome Jex Russell!

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Come check out the show tonight at 7pm. See what goodies we have to show off tonight!!

There has been a heck of a lot going on here lately.  We need reset the show back to basics, back to the original intent.  That always was just hanging out with no plan!  So that’s what we’re doing.  Showing off whatever music they have lying around will be Harrison, Tim Durling, John Snow, and new arrival Jex Russell!  You might be familiar with the Friendly Frenchman from his stints on Scotch on the Rocks and Tim’s Vinyl Confessions.  Tonight he’ll grab a stack of rack with us and have a good time doing it!

Friday February 24 at 7:00 P.M. E.S.T.  Enjoy on YouTube or on Facebook.

Friday New Releases – February 24, 2023

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Happy Friday! And any Friday with new releases should be a happy one, no doubt. This week we have around 50 new releases for you and a wide range of genres. There should be something for everyone this week and if not, well, I don’t know what else I can do for you. I only have one I’m really interested in hearing and that is Adam Lambert. He’s such an amazing singer and his stuff is usually quite interesting. I might dive in to a few others, but this is really what I’ll spin today (or stream since I don’t actually have a copy). Let me know what you want to hear this week and if we missed anything. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

  • 81geTubIvcL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Adam Lambert – High Drama – (More is More LLC / BMG Rights Mgmt)

And all the rest…

  • 71-8xQigeNL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Godsmack – Lighting Up the Sky – (BMG Rights Mgmt)
  • 81GlEkRFk0L._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Steel Panther – On the Prowl – (Steel Panther)
Continue reading “Friday New Releases – February 24, 2023” →