Starting Right Now!!! Come join myself and Grab A Stack of Rock’s Mike Ladano as we go through our CD Collection of Kiss Compilations and let me tell you, there are a lot to get through. We have comps from Japan, Canada, the UK, Spain and so many more. From Double Platinum to Kissworld: The Best of Kiss and everything in between.
So come check out the show as it will be live, February 17, 2025 at 8pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.
Monday Night at 8 pm, come join myself and Grab A Stack of Rock’s Mike Ladano as we go through our CD Collection of Kiss Compilations and let me tell you, there are a lot to get through. We have comps from Japan, Canada, the UK, Spain and so many more. From Double Platinum to Kissworld: The Best of Kiss and everything in between.
So come check out the show as it will be live, February 17, 2025 at 8pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.
Universal Music did not care about over saturation of an artist as they released a ton of Kiss Compilations and Canada received the brunt of them. This one was released in April 2008, I believe. It was part of the Green Series that Universal was releasing which had a number of bands. The Green Series means the packaging was all done with recycled paper and even used a plant based ink. Good on them for trying to save the earth, but with the shipping of the product and I am sure was wrapped in some sort of plastic, it was really all for naught. Plus, the cardboard digipak would tend to show wear and tear after awhile. However, the copy I received was in pretty darn good shape.
The album contains 15 tracks and really only covers the 70’s with the minor exception of “Lick It Up” from 1983. The rest is only from the original band members of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. With “Lick It Up”, you add Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent. Wait, this isn’t all entirely true as the song “Cold Gin” is live and is copyrighted from 2001. More on that later. There is a write-up in the booklet by Don Winkley giving a brief history of the band only going up to the reunion (and this was 2008 when released so I would say they missed some years). If you like the 70’s material, then at 15 tracks, not a bad comp…but not a great one either. A pure cash grab from the label. Let’s get to the music…
“Shout It Out Loud” was the first single off ‘Destroyer’ trying to capitalize off the success of the live version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” that was released previously. The title of the song comes from the Hollies song “We Want to Shout It Out Loud” which Wicked Lester demoed years earlier. The song is sung by both Paul and Gene and that chorus of “Shout it, Shout it, Shout It Out Loud” is pure rock gold.
Ace is finally on lead vocals with “Shock Me” and might be my favorite Ace song. The song is based off an incident that is well documented where Ace touched an ungrounded metal railing and had the life shocked out of him. No, he didn’t die, but he was thrown back a little. He continued the show with no feeling in his hand and I believe the show was December 12, 1976, at the Lakeland Civic Center in Lakeland, Florida. Ace having little confidence wanted Gene to sing and Gene, thankfully, talked Ace in to singing. Ace finally agreed and actually recorded the song lying down on the floor. I hope that method has changed. The song is utterly brilliant and the guitar work is some of Ace’s best. In fact, he does all the guitar work on this one, both lead and rhythm. This defines Ace Frehley in my book!!
Universal Music was spitting out Kiss Compilations like candy in the 2000’s. There are numerous ones to speak about (and we have been). This time around we get a Canada only release for a Compilation Series that spanned numerous artists. Of course, this one is on Kiss or why else would I be talking about it. This is a very generic series and with only 7 songs, very skippable…and I mean skippable unless you are certifiably insane like me and have to have everything! There are no liner notes and no thought was put in to this release at all. But since we are here, what songs are on it?
It kicks off with “Shout It Out Loud” which was the first single off ‘Destroyer’. It was trying to capitalize off the success of the live version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” that was released previously. The title of the song comes from the Hollies song “We Want to Shout It Out Loud” which Wicked Lester demoed years earlier. The song is sung by both Paul and Gene and that chorus of “Shout it, Shout it, Shout It Out Loud” is pure rock gold.
“I Was Made For Lovin’ You” was written by Paul Stanley, Vini Poncia and the great Desmond Child makes his first of many appears with the band. This is from ‘Dynasty’ and the story goes that Disco was really big at the time and the record company wanted the band to be a little more commercial. Paul thought any idiot could write a disco song and a bet was made and a few hours later, the song was written and Paul proved his point. The song went to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The band’s first show in this beautiful city since August 1992 for the Adrenalize Tour sees them at the Centre Molson in Montreal, Canada on September 15, 1996. A tour that ran from May 9th, 1996 through to April 27th, 1997 in support of their new album, at the time, ‘Slang’. No more ‘In the Round’, the band played on the traditional end stage set-up, but instead of 20,000 people, the place held anywhere from 5,000-9,000 people. No more massive shows, they were no doing a straight up rock show with less lights and less everything. A pure rock & roll show.
This show was broadcast on the radio in Montreal and southern Canada as well as across the U.S. And what we have here is a wonderful bootleg of that show across 2 CDs. A fun fact, a month later on October 23, 1996, the band would enter the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first band to play on three continents in a 24 hour period. That has nothing to do with this release, but figured why not throw that in for good measure. Back to the bootleg, this one sounds fantastic, there appear to be no errors in the track listing as far the titles are right, and the pictures are even of the era of the band. Finally, a bootleg with no mistakes.
Well, it was completely devoice of mistakes actually, the opening track “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)” actually fades in part way through the song. I am guessing someone forgot to hit “record” on the tape deck. Otherwise, the only issue. The song sounds great, but man, they are playing it at warp speed. They then go into a track from ‘High & Dry’ that doesn’t get played enough, “Another Hit And Run”. The guitar work is sensational on this one and has a great solo. Then we get “Animal” and then the ballad “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” which for me is one of the better songs on ‘Adrenalize’.
For My Sunday Song #376, we have another Deke’s choice and this time his good buddy Andy Curran and his song “No Tattoos”. He is of course Canadian as all songs this stretch are from Canadian artists. The song is off his 1990 debut album and was right towards the tail end of the hair metal era. Andy has reissued the album as a new box set and calling it ‘Whiskey & The Devil’. Andy is also bassist and co-lead vocalist for the band Coney Hatch, so check them out too.
“No Tattoos” is hard song to find info on. I don’t see any lyrics so I will do my best to describe the song. The song is simply about saying No to Tattoos. Okay, that wasn’t hard. You can tell by the chorus which says “No tattoos, gotta stay cool, my mama never raised no fool.” Clean skin baby!! Rockers love their tattoos so to come out and talk about not getting them is a brave thing. I’m surprised he wasn’t tied down and given one prison style!!
The song is a pure 80’s rocker, heavy guitars, heart pounding drums and anthemic sounding. Andy’s on vocals and he has a great rock & roll voice. Although that chorus is cheesy, It is still so much fun at the same time. And that guitar solo is great…it is short and sweet, but it really fits the song. Nothing earth shattering here, plain and simple, good time rock & roll and some times that is all you need!!
For My Sunday Song #374, we are on to Deke’s fourth choice which is another Toronto band and this one is called The Pursuit of Happiness. The song is “Hard to Laugh” which is the opening track of their debut album from 1988 called ‘Love Junk’ and it was a single. The album was produced by none other than Todd Rundgren so you know there is some massive talent here as Todd doesn’t just produce anyone.
The song was written by Moe Berg who is the guitarist & vocalist in the band. We also have Kris Abbott who also does guitar and vocals along with Dave Gilby on drums, Johnny Sinclair on bass and Leslie Stanwyck on vocals. The song is about the girlfriend of the guy in this story and she is so gorgeous with a killer body and everyone is wondering why he isn’t smiling from ear to ear all the time. Well, that is easy because she has been cheating on him and he finds it hard to laugh but he is torn up and destroyed.
The song is a great upbeat, power pop song. The song seems almost happy while the subject matter is far from it. There is a lot of humor in the lyrics too and his phrasing is great. Musically, it is simple yet effective as there is a power to it, a great drum beat and rhythm section, I like the guitar tone and it is an all around great tune. Moe’s vocals have a punk feel to it as there is some angst to it which I think adds to the subject matter of the song. He feels it.
Before we get into the album review, let me go into the story of how I came across Billy Raffoul. My wife and I went to see Needtobreathe in concert on August 21st, 2018 (CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW). Billy was the opening act of a triple bill. When we arrived he came storming on stage before we got to our seat. We didn’t mean to arrive then, traffic just sucked.
When I go to a show, I enjoy watching the opening acts and giving them the respect they deserve. Hey, you never know if they will be the next big thing. Watching Billy, I felt that he could be just that. While I was listening to him, I turned to my wife and told her that I loved his voice. It has this Jeff Buckley raspiness that was incredible. Imagine my surprise when I read his bio online, it actually mentions that same Buckley feel. Glad I wasn’t imagining things.
I can’t tell you the songs he sang as I had never heard of him before, but I do know he played Jimi Hendrix’s Fire. Hell, he is a lefty like Jimi and has that same upside down lefty guitar. I am sure he knows he could actually buy a left handed guitar!!
2 Loud 2 Old Music 