Tag: Def Leppard

Def Leppard – ‘On Through The Night’ (1980) – Album Review (the Def Leppard Collection Series)

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The Def Leppard E.P. from 1979, sold really well and saw the band’s popularity rise heavily in their home country of the U.K. The Union Jack was their friend, but that was soon about to change. With the release of their debut album, shouts were coming from the media that Def Leppard were sell-outs and trying to pander to the American public especially with a song called “Hello America” and the fact that they toured way more in the U.S. then they did anywhere else. As a result of those shouts, they were abused and heckled and bombarded with bottles of piss at the Reading Festival, but to be fair a lot of bands were abused during that festival.

Def Leppard were one of the first bands on this ride called the New Wave of British Heavy Metal which included the likes of Iron Maiden, Saxon, Tigers of Pan Tang and many more. Their sound was more raw, definitely more heavy and yet a little more polished then some of the other bands. There was no denying that this young gang of boys with an average age of 18, were ready to rock America and the World. The band consisted of singer Joe Elliott, guitarists Steve Clark and Pete Willis, bassist Rick Savage and the Thunder God himself, Rick Allen who was the tender age of 16 when the album came out.

The album was produced by Colonel Tom Allen who you might know from producing acts like Judas Priest and engineer on albums from Black Sabbath. He helped craft a really solid and exciting debut album which saw the light of day March 14, 1980. The album saw three singles with only 2 charting in the UK, but the album did sell over a million copies over time thanks to their big albums ‘Pyromania’ and ‘Hysteria’ I am sure. Through the success of the album and the touring, they band caught the eye of producer, Robert John “Mutt” Lange. The man saw something special and these young lads and would change their world forever.

I remember growing up and seeing this album in my brothers collection and I remember him seeing them live and telling me how great they were. So I grabbed this album and listened to it a lot. I had a strange fascination with it using it for two projects in school. One was a paper in English which I talked about the song “Wasted”. That paper sucked and I was lucky to walk away with a “C” when it probably deserved and “F”. The second was for Art Class when I drew the album cover. I still have the original album on vinyl and the cover is all marked up since I drew lines on it to help with my actual drawing. It is rough. Not the drawing, it looks great and is below…

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Girl – ‘Sheer Greed’ (1980) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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When planning the Def Leppard Collection Series, I thought it would be fun to include what I call Def Leppard Adjacent albums. That would be any side projects or bands the members of Leppard have been in that I have in my collection. First up is an interesting one in that it is the band Girl which features future Def Leppard guitarists, Phil Collen. What is cool about it for me is that Girl’s debut and Def Leppard’s debut albums came out one month apart in the year of 1980. It was a battle of two new British bands and we know who comes out on top. But which album was better? Before we get in to that, lets talk about the band.

The band was formed in 1979 by Phil Lewis, Phil Collen, Gerry Laffy, Jonathon Trevisick and Mark MeGary. Two names should be easily recognizable as we know Phil Collen from Leppard, but Phil Lewis went on to fame with a Sunset Strip band in 1987 called L.A. Guns. The band quickly replaced two members of the band as Trevsicik was out and Dave Gaynor was in on drums and then MeGary was out with Simon Laffy on bass and yes, Simon is Gerry’s brother.

The band quickly signed with Jet Records and in no time had an album out called ‘Sheer Greed’. The debut came out in January 1980…that is pretty fast after just forming in 1979. Not sure if they paid their dues as they didn’t spend years grinding it out in clubs to finally get a record deal. No, they got it right out of the gate…bam!

The New Wave of British Heavy Metal was sweeping the nation, but the androgynous glamminess of Girl was a little misunderstood, however they make a few waves, just nothing big you could surf off of. They weren’t metal, but they were hard enough with even a little punk side to them with some dashes of reggae thrown in for good measure. ‘Sheer Greed’ peaked at #33 and its debut single hit #50. They didn’t have massive success, but they made some waves. Many years after the band split, Phil Collen and Simon Laffy would be in another band together called Man Raze…we will get to it in due time.

The version of the album I have in my collection is a Gold Stamped Promo. It even has “Demonstration Not For Sale” on the vinyl label. It also still has the inner sleeve with the song lyrics. There is something about picking up a promo that I do love. Maybe because it was played by a Radio Station or whatever, but it is cool to know this was handed out by the record label to specific locations. Enough about that, let’s get to the music.

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Def Leppard – ‘First Strikes: 1978-1979’ (Bootleg – 2013) – Album Review (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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I do love bootlegs. They are a chance to hear a band’s live shows that were never released, a radio broadcast, old forgotten demos or whatever it may be. Bands hate them because they don’t get paid, however, diehard fans want them as they want to consume everything from their favorite bands. I own quite a few bootlegs for Def Leppard on CD, vinyl and DVD so we will go through a bunch, but first we will start with this one. It was released in 2013 and what is cool about this one it is a collection of various demos and rare albums from Def Leppard.

The first 3 songs, which were recorded a Fairview Studios in Hull, England back in November 1978, were actually released by the band. The songs “Ride Into the Sun”, “Getcha Rocks Off” and “The Overture” are taken from the band’s debut E.P. called ‘The Def Leppard E.P.’. We discussed that album in full detail on the first post in this series so we won’t repeat that story here. Back in 2013 when this bootleg was released, those three songs were extremely hard to find. There were only 1,000 copies or so of the first E.P. The band has since released them as a Record Store Day Release on a 12″ Single rather than the 7″ E.P. originally (The Def Leppard E.P. (1979/2017)). They have also re-released in the Box Set called The Early Years ’79-’81 (2020). Check those out as well.

The next batch of demos, songs 4-10, were recorded back at Fairview Studios during the Summer of 1979. These songs were never released, then in 1984, the bootleg called ‘First Strike’ was released without the permission of the band or management. Def Leppard sued to get the production stopped and they won. They even were paid royalties on what was sold. You can still find these on Discogs or ebay, but be prepared to pay through the roof on them as they are very rare. Someday I’ll get one.

What was great about these songs is that “Heat Street” and “See the Light” I don’t think I have seen the light of day yet, while “Glad I’m Alive” was on The Early Years Box Set. The other 4 songs were re-recorded for the debut album ‘On Through the Night’ which we will get to later. These demos were recorded live and are raw and fantastic.

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Def Leppard – ‘The Def Leppard’ E.P. (1979) – 7″ Single (The Def Leppard Collection Series)

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It all started way back in 1976 when Rick Savage, Tony Kenning and Pete Doubleday started a band called Atomic Mass. Savage & Doubleday were on guitar and Kenning on drums. They brought in Andy Nicholas on bass and lead vocals were handled by Nick Mackley. Andy would leave and Rick moved to bass while Pete Willis was brought in on guitar. The singer left to be replaced by multiple singers who came and went. It was a revolving door of musicians.

Finally, things started to take shape. Joe Elliott came in and auditioned at only 18, but to play guitar not sing. He had met Pete on a bus back in November 1977. While auditioning, I guess his guitar playing was only so-so as they felt he was better as the lead singer. Then finally the last missing piece was added in January 1978 with the late-great Steve Clark on guitar. At this point, there was still no Rick Allen.

Now, they needed a new band name and Joe suggested they go by Deaf Leopard. Thanks to Tony, they changed the spelling to be more in the style of Led Zeppelin and Tony thought it would look less punk.

The band went to record the E.P. Fairview Studios in Hull, England way back in November of 1978 and it was self-produced. However, right before the recording, Tony Kenning quit and they used drummer Frank Noon from a band that called themselves “The Next Band”.  Shortly thereafter, the band hired a 15 year old kid to be the drummer named Rick Allen. The E.P. only included three songs and was recorded by a band that was quite different than the band you know and love today.

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August 2023 Purchases – Vinyl, CD’s & More

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Another month comes to a close so it is time for another monthly wrap up of what landed in 2 Loud 2 Old Music’s collection this month and it was another decent month, if I do say so myself. It started off with a couple of new releases. First being the vinyl for the 2nd Mammoth WVH album and I like it as much as the first one…

And the second that item that came out the same time was the new album for Rick Springfield. 20 songs on one disc and it is classic Springfield and I have enjoyed it a lot as I do most of his albums.

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Coming Soon to 2 Loud 2 Old Music – The Def Leppard Collection Series

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We are to the final of the Big Collection Series I will be doing. It is DEF LEPPARD!!! This is the last large collection I have…well…in my collection. Will it be the final series? Probably not, but don’t expect any more to go to this size again. There is nothing else left that would even hold a candle to it. The only one’s bigger are Kiss and Jeff Scott Soto and we’ve finished those series. Bon Jovi is close, but we are currently doing that one as well. So, this is it for the Big Guns.

Coming September 7th, 2023, DEF LEPPARD!! We are going to go through the series in chronological order of the material, not necessarily the album release dates. My Buddy Mike Ladano did his Leppard Series that way, and honestly, I liked it. So the years of some of these releases might be more current, but all the songs on it aren’t. There might be some minor exceptions to that rule over time, but my series, my rules. I hope you are ready for it!

What will we be reviewing? I have that mapped out so let’s talk through it.

THE STUDIO ALBUMS:

And I didn’t realize I didn’t have the 2015 self-titled album on vinyl. I think I was waiting for The Collections, Volume 4 to come out, but maybe I need to go ahead and get it.

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July 2023 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs & More

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July was the month of local record stores. I spent a lot of time at a couple this month, Noble Records and Hardy Boys, both excellent local shops. First, we made a trip to Noble Records and I actually had a good trip for vinyl. Meaning I bought a handful not just one here and one there. I grabbed some I’ve been meaning to add to the collection and Tim Durling is to blame for 3 of them as he’s been talking about them a lot.

And if that wasn’t enough, I was scanning the cassettes and I found a ton of Kiss cassettes, those are hard to come by so I grabbed them even though they weren’t in the best shape. I didn’t care too much about that as I just wanted them in the collection. They needed a new home anyway, so why not…I adopted a bunch…

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June 2023 Purchases – Vinyl, CDs & More…

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Welcome to another monthly round-up of what we obtained here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music. It was another big month, but not quite like last month. The month started off with another Buy 5 Get 5 deal and ended with a trip to Los Angeles so it was a fun month here at the site.

First up was the 2nd & Charles Buy 5 Get 5 Free on Used CDs, so of course, I took advantage of that deal. Not a bad haul I must say…

And of course, we did get some new releases this month including Extreme, Neal Schon and my personal favorite, The Defiants!! I went the cheaper route of CDs for these mainly because Neal’s isn’t on vinyl and The Defiants isn’t available until September (pre-ordered).

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May 2023 Purchases – Vinyl, CDs & More

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If you had a 2 Loud 2 Old Music Mug, I’d tell you to sit back, fill it up with whatever you like and prepare yourself for what is to come. This was an interesting month and some incredible finds…for cheap!! And I mean cheap!! But before we get to the cheap stuff, let’s discuss what first showed up on our doorstep for May…well, it was actually April but it was the day I posted the April Purchases wrap-up so it missed that post. That is the boxset for the Whitesnake album ‘Good To Be Bad”…titled “Still…Good To Be Bad”. Another impressive boxset…or is it?…review to come.

And there was an album that came out months ago on CD and digital, but the album just showed up in May. It is for the lead singer of one of my favorite bands Needtobreathe. It is Bear Rinehart’s second solo album under the name Wilder Woods. It is different then NTB which it should be since he is the voice of NTB. If it sounded like NTB, it would be a NTB album…

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Friday New Releases – May 19, 2023

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Welcome to Friday New Releases. We have just shy of 50 releases for you this week and I am sure you will find something you like. If you not you can have your money back…wait…you didn’t pay me any money…so oh well. One of my favorite bands has a new one this week. Def Leppard has a symphony release of their old hits so I’m not overly excited, but I’ll still buy it and listen to it. We also have a new Ghost E.P. of cover songs and it’s Ghost, so give me more!! There is Michael Sweet and Georgy Lynch with another Sweet & Lynch release and you have Dave Matthews Band, Neal Schon, Brandy Clark, The Used and so much more. Check them out and tell me what you want to hear. And if there is something we missed, tell us in the comments so everyone knows. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great weekend!

  • 81dxH4mFTtL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Def Leppard – Drastic Symphonies – (EMI Recording / Bludgeon Riffola / Mercury Records)
  • 81RFiPOkz6L._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Ghost – Phantomime E.P. – (Loma Vista Recordings / Concord) – Digital May 18th, Vinyl May 19th
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