Cybernauts – ‘Live’ (2000) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

I am sure you have a few questions… Like, who are the Cybernauts? The Cybernauts are a Mick Ronson/David Bowie tribute band and they play all the hits they had together. David might have wrote the songs, but Mick was the guitarist and what a player he was and what life he gave those songs. And, why is this part of the Def Leppard series? Well, that is because two members of this cover band are none other then singer Joe Elliott and guitarists Phil Collen from Def Leppard. The rest of the Cybernauts are Trevor Bolder (bass) and Woody Woodmansey (drums) both from David Bowie’s band Spiders from Mars. Also, to round it out on keyboard is Dick Decent.

Trevor and Joe meet way back in 1983 and had been friends ever since. When Trevor was asked to put together a band for a Mick Ronson memorial service, he found out Joe and Phil were asked to play as well so they teamed up for the event and performed. A few years later they were asked to do it again, but this time they decided to actually do a small tour with the band and finish it at the Mick Ronson memorial show. Joe had the idea of recording the Dublin show and they did. That was August 7, 1997 in Dublin, Ireland at the Olympia Theatre. And three years later in 2000, the CD was released and only released in Japan.

My copy though was released in 2001 and was a 2 CD set with the original show, plus a 2nd CD of studio recordings. The E.P. was called The Further Adventures of the Cybernauts…which we will discuss later. For now, we will focus on disc 1, the live show they recorded which consisted of 18 tracks that will take you back to those critical years of David Bowie and Mick Ronson and you are reminded of what an amazing catalog the two had together.

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David Bowie – Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles ’74) – #RSD

One of my main goals on Record Store Day on April 22nd was to obtain a copy of the David Bowie album ‘Cracked Actor’.  Thankfully, I succeeded.  It fast became one of my favorite LPs I have in my ever growing collection.

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The year was 1974, David Bowie was king and touring supporting the Diamond Dog album. The album was recorded live at Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on September 5th, 1974.  The Theatre only sat around 5,000 so it was a nice intimate setting and quite small to what David was able to fill later in his career.

Let’s first talk about the packaging of the record.  It is a very nice, high quality, high glossed album cover.  So high glossed, I couldn’t avoid being seen in the cover as I was taking pictures.  I tried so many angles.

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Turntables & Vinyl #7 – Record Store Day – April 22, 2017

Today is the 10th Anniversary of Record Store Day.  My daughter and I didn’t get up too early to head down to our local record stores, but it was early for us on a Saturday.  We left the house around 8am to get to Lunchbox Records which was to open at 9am.  We knew it would be crowded, but we had NO IDEA!!!!

We arrived around 8:40am and the place was absolutely PACKED!!  The  line stretched around another building and turned and started going down the street.  There had to be over 200 people in line.  I am not a patient man, so this didn’t sit well with me.  I decided to head over to Repo Records as they would normally open at 10am and I would see what their line looked like.  Luckily it was just down the street about 5-8 minutes.

We arrived around 8:45-50 (I don’t remember exactly and it is really not key to the story).  The line was really good.  It had only about 40 people, so we figured we would wait it out.  It turns out they had just opened and were only letting a few people in at a time so we timed it perfectly.

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