Friday New Releases – January 27, 2023

We already to the close of the first month of 2023 and it has been somewhat lackluster at times with new releases, but this week we have over 40 new releases for you so there should be something for you. I don’t really have any I am running out and buying, but maybe I’ll stream the Steve Vai one, but outside of that probably not. The Dokken release would be great if it had some new or unreleased songs on it, otherwise I have those albums already. Let me know what you want to hear this week or if we missed any releases. Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you all have a great weekend.

  • 91Es-rcmbpL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Steve Vai – Vai / Gash – (Favored Nations / Mascot Label Group)
  • 81h-6hTTyQL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Elle King – Come Get Your Wife – (RCA Records / Sony Music)
Continue reading “Friday New Releases – January 27, 2023”

My Sunday Song – “Auf Wiedersehen” by Cheap Trick

For My Sunday Song #319, we are discussing the song “Auf Wiedersehen” by Cheap Trick. The song is off their 1978 album ‘Heaven Tonight’ and but was not released as a single. Instead, it was the B-Side to their hit “Surrender”. The song was written by Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson and talks about a very serious subject matter.

The song is about suicide. And not the first on ‘Heaven Tonight” because the title song is also about suicide. “Auf Wiedersehen” is actually German for “Goodbye” which is appropriate. The lyrics also say goodbye in Spanish and Japanese. The lyrics give a nod to Bob Dylan’s song “All Along the Watchtower” with “You feel that life is a joke”. The song isn’t trying to talk the person out of committing suicide. It is simply saying goodbye in a not so kind way.

It is a pretty heavy song both lyrically and musically and is so upbeat and face paced that you can’t help but enjoy it despite its subject matter. The guitar riffs on this one by Nielsen are some of his best on the album. Robin attacks the vocals with an aggressive tone that is both abrasive and then he can turn it around and be kinda sweet. Towards the end, he seems batshit crazy and that he has completely lost it. It is a perfect combination of the rawness from the first album mixed with the power pop of the second.

Continue reading “My Sunday Song – “Auf Wiedersehen” by Cheap Trick”

Friday New Releases – September 17, 2021

Happy Friday!! You made it through another week so congratulations are in order! And as an award you have an abundance of new releases to pick through and hopefully something will catch you eye. We have the 2nd week in a row with over 50 albums to choose form. I also want to give a shout out to my beautiful wife and wish her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Today she is ??? I ain’t going to tell you her age, that would be rude!! Now back to the show, I am really excited about one and somewhat about others and I have highlighted all my choices in Blue. Let me know what you want to hear and what albums I may have missed as it does happen. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

  • 715uK7Xdr5L._SX522_  Billy Idol – The Roadside E.P. – (BFI Records / Dark Horse Records / BMG): I am so excited about this release as I have been a fan for a long time and I did a whole series of over 20 posts on his career. It was a blast. His new song “Bitter Taste” is actually amazing and I can’t wait to hear the rest. The only disappointing thing is it is an E.P. and only 4 songs, but I will take what I can get at this point. My autographed copy should be here soon.
  • 81cHmnu+D6S._SX522_  Daughtry – Dearly Beloved – (Dogtree Records): It has been 3 years since his last release but feels like longer. I like his style of rock as it is pretty damn catchy and he has some great choruses and I like that. I did get oversaturated with him, but I am ready for some more as I feel it has been longer than it has actually been. Here’s to hoping for a good album!!
Continue reading “Friday New Releases – September 17, 2021”

You Picked It! – The Traveling Wilburys – ‘Traveling Wilbury’s Volume 1’ – Album Review

Alright…You Picked It! And this one was really, really close. It was a tie most of the way through between Weezer’s ‘Van Weezer’ and The Traveling Wilburys ‘Traveling Wilburys Volume 1’. The winner, barely, was The Traveling Wilburys ‘Traveling Wilburys Volume 1’ which is one in my collection. The votes were as follows:

  1. The Traveling Wilburys – ‘Traveling Wilburys Volume 1’ – 7 votes
  2. Weezer – ‘Van Weezer’ – 6 votes
  3. John Lennon – ‘The Plastic Ono Band’ – 4 votes
  4. Fugees – ‘The Score’ – 2 votes
  5. The Beatles – ‘Rubber Soul’ – 1 Vote

Thanks to all for participating. The July choices will be up on Saturday!

THE TRAVELING WILBURYS – ‘TRAVELING WILBURYS VOLUME 1’

In what could quite possibly be the greatest supergroup of all time, The Traveling Wilburys is made up of some of the most iconic singers/musicians in the business. In 1988, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan joined forces and became the alter egos of The Traveling Wilburys – Nelson Wilbury (George), Lefty Wilbury (Roy), Charlie T. Wilbury Jr. (Tom), Otis Wilbury (Jeff) and Lucky Wilbury (Bob). And the band came about because George Harrison needed a B-Side for his 1987 album, ‘Cloud Nine’ and he had asked them to help and one thing lead to another and here we are.

Their debut album came out on October 25, 1988 to massive critical acclaim and even garnered them a Grammy nomination. Selling over 3 million copies it is said that it revived the careers of Petty and Dylan, but really! I don’t know if that is true as they had never really gone away. Regardless, it was cool moment in music history.

Continue reading “You Picked It! – The Traveling Wilburys – ‘Traveling Wilbury’s Volume 1’ – Album Review”

Friday New Releases – February 26, 2021

This is another big week as I have over 25 new releases for today. Unfortunately for me, there is only a couple I’m really interested in and they are marked in Blue. There has to be something you can find in this list that you want to spin. Let me know what tickles your funny bone. Also, let me know what new releases I missed because believe it or not, it has been known to happen. Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

  • 61yFSK+0uGL._SX522_  Alice Cooper – Detroit Stories – (Edel Germany / Earmusic): Alice is still going strong at around 73 years of age. This time around the album actually features all surviving members of the Original Alice Cooper Band. How cool is that!! I am sure this is going to be another guitar heavy masterpiece that only Alice can give us.
  • B1qx+KFwSPS._SX522_  The Black Crowes – Shake Your Money Maker (30th Anniversary Deluxe) – (Universal Music / American Music) – DIGITAL ONLY – The Deluxe Edition is not until March 19th on CD & Vinyl…This is the only other I am eager to hear. This is loaded full of unreleased material. The only bad news is that the CD & Vinyl Deluxed Editions aren’t coming for another month. I think I can make it!! It will be difficult, but I will survive.
Continue reading “Friday New Releases – February 26, 2021”

Friday New Releases – June 19th, 2020

Welcome back, you made it through another week and you should be proud as who knows what the world threw at us this week as each week it seems to be something worse than the last.  But at least the world is giving us some new music and that makes it all better.  There are a handful of new music I am looking forward to getting and those are marked in Blue. Let me know what you are interested in, if anything, and tell me what I missed.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

  • 81Lc7IrBXqL._SX522_  Whitesnake – The ROCK Album (2020 Remix) – (Saltburn / Rhino):  In the first of 3 albums in a new series by Whitesnake, the Rock album is a bunch of remixes of old songs with one new one I believe.  The other two will be out later in the year and in to next year are The Love Album and The Blues Album.  I am glad the Rock starts it all off.  This will finish up my David Coverdale Review series nicely until the other albums come out that is.

  • download-12  Switchfoot – Covers E.P. – (Fantasy Records / Concord):  Ah, I love me some Switchfoot and although not an album of new material, we get a small collection of cover songs.  At least these aren’t your standard fare. You get a cover from Frank Ocean, The Chainsmokers, Vampire Weekend and more.  Should be interesting.

Continue reading “Friday New Releases – June 19th, 2020”

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 15 of 15 – The Final Verdict)

We are finally to The End of the Road.  No, not the End of the Road Tour, but the end of our journey of Gene Simmons – The Vault!  We are on Part 15 of our 15 Part series.  We have spent numerous hours listening, reading, researching and writing up these posts and I have to say, it is the most fun I have had on this site maybe ever.  I wanted to deliver a very detailed breakdown of The Vault so maybe you would see whether or not it is worth buying.  For me, it was a no brainer, even though it took me two years to do it.  The price was finally right.

Let’s mention a little on the production of this album.  The production and mix were stellar.  They all had the same volume level and even the worst quality recording still sounded great.  They put a lot of time and effort in that and they hit it out of the park.

And I don’t want to forget to mention the people on this album.  I won’t go through all of them as you should read each review, but you get Ace Frehley, Bruce Kulick, Eric Carr, Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer, Bob Kulick and even Paul Stanley.  And then there is Bob Dylan, Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen, but that is only a small portion…you get members of Black & Blue, of Silent Rage and even someone from Steel Panther. You get some songwriters, producers that helped write some songs and even Katey Sagal from Married With Children does some background vocals.  It is so cool to see all the different people involved.  That was one of my favorite parts.

IMG_1624 Continue reading “Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 15 of 15 – The Final Verdict)”

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 14 of 15 – The Worst Songs of the Vault)

I can’t believe I am done going through all the disks in detail.  It took 10 solid weeks to get through all 11 disks.  I read the entire Vault Book and researched more details online.  I dived into it like I have never done before for any release.  It was time consuming and it was a total and utter blast.

And to keep the fun going, I thought I would compile what I found to be the 20 Worst Songs in The Vault.  There are a 164 songs in The Vault to go through.  I know you get 166, but one song is in there twice (oops on someone’s part) and the Bob Dylan 15 minute track with Gene at a writing session doesn’t really count.

To determine the songs, I picked all the songs that scored a 1 or 2 and placed them in a playlist.  That gave me around 40 songs to choose from.  From there, I played the playlist and easily determined some of the songs weren’t as bad as originally thought and some were worst or just as bad.  That made it easy to narrow down and it didn’t take me long to determine the 20 Worst Songs of The Vault.

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This time, no song was off limit.  If it was a Kiss song originally, it could be included in this list unlike The Best of where I excluded any demos of previous Kiss or Gene songs as that seemed unfair.  Not here.  If it sucked, it sucked…plain and simple.  Again, the order is subjective and could move around at any time depending on my mood, but generally speaking these songs didn’t cut the mustard.  Let’s get started. Continue reading “Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 14 of 15 – The Worst Songs of the Vault)”

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 7 of 15 – Disk 6)

Welcome back to the Gene Simmons The Vault review.  We are now on Disk 6.  Below are the rules I am trying to follow with each review.

I will try and keep some consistency between each disk.  I will go through each song and mention who wrote, who played on it and what I think about the song. I won’t go through all the stories as you should get the vault to get all the information.  I will grade each song (ranking 1 to 5, 5 being best) and then take an average of the grades for the score of the disk.  I know most of these are demos, so I won’t be taking quality of the sound in to play that much because I know what I am getting and I am more interested in the overall song.

At the end of all the reviews, we will average the score of each review and come up with an overall ‘The Vault’ score which I hope will be a fair representation of the whole package.  I am going to do my best to do one a week, but as I said before, life sometimes gets in the way so I am not going to promise one a week.  Plus, this is 11 disks to digest and that is a lot as I am also doing the David Coverdale Series at the same time.  That is a bunch of music to go through.

The songs aren’t in chronological order.  Gene states each disk is more of a mood or vibe.  The vibe of this one appears to be a little pop, a little R&B and nothing real rock like.  Plus, it is a lot of demos from the ‘Asshole’ album which isn’t a good thing.

Well, are you ready?  Then let’s get right to it.

The CD comes with a picture of Gene in front of a lot of Kiss memorabilia…

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Continue reading “Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 7 of 15 – Disk 6)”

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 6 of 15 – Disk 5)

Welcome back to the Gene Simmons The Vault review.  We are now on Disk 5.  Below are the rules I am trying to follow with each review.

I will try and keep some consistency between each disk.  I will go through each song and mention who wrote, who played on it and what I think about the song. I won’t go through all the stories as you should get the vault to get all the information.  I will grade each song (ranking 1 to 5, 5 being best) and then take an average of the grades for the score of the disk.  I know most of these are demos, so I won’t be taking quality of the sound in to play that much because I know what I am getting and I am more interested in the overall song.

At the end of all the reviews, we will average the score of each review and come up with an overall ‘The Vault’ score which I hope will be a fair representation of the whole package.  I am going to do my best to do one a week, but as I said before, life sometimes gets in the way so I am not going to promise one a week.  Plus, this is 11 disks to digest and that is a lot as I am also doing the David Coverdale Series at the same time.  That is a bunch of music to go through.

The songs aren’t in chronological order.  Gene states each disk is more of a mood or vibe.  The vibe of this one appears to be more mellow and a chill vibe full of love songs and heartache and most with a Beatles influence (or British band influence).  This is also the version with Gene and Bob Dylan in a writing session.

Well, are you ready?  Then let’s get right to it.

The CD comes with one cool photos as it is a picture of band before Kiss, Wicked Lester.  It is badass…

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Continue reading “Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 6 of 15 – Disk 5)”