Community! With this website, I have discovered that there are a lot of people out there that love to talk music. That group of bloggers/writers that I have met have made me feel at home and I’ve found a real sense of Community among them. One person in particular seems to epitomize that feeling of Community above all others. That would be Aaron over at KeepsMeAlive. He has sent me something before and this one was completely out of the blue. He apparently was strolling through a store and saw this thing all by himself and felt it needed a good home.
What he found was the Funko Pop! of Billy Idol. Aaron knew I was a Billy fan because of the Billy Idol Series I did a couple years ago (and because he sent me a Generation X album as well a couple years back too!!. He might be one of the nicest guys in the world (at least in North America anyway). Aaron is in Canada and I’m in the U.S. so I know this took some effort to get it shipped across the border (especially in this Covid World). It was much appreciated. So, Thank You Aaron!! You found Billy Idol a good home.
Def Leppard released their album ‘Adrenalize’ on March 31, 1992 to massive success. The album sold 4 million copies and went to #1 in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and in Swtitzerland. It spawned 6 singles and in a time when 80’s Rock was dying out, somehow, Def Leppard still succeeded.
It was the first album without Steve Clark on guitar and would be the first tour without him as well. The tour kicked off with a club show in Dublin, Ireland on April 15, 1992 and was the first with Vivian Campbell on guitar. It was also a warm-up for the massive Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert on April 20, 1992 which would see Def Leppard perform to over 70,000 people and technically introduce the world to Vivian Campbell. It was a rip roaring success. The tour then officially started on May 19, 1992 in Madrid, Spain and would last the rest of 1992 and not end until September 1993.
Some of the opening acts were Ugly Kid Joe, Thunder and Terrorvision (who I know nothing about). It was a massive success as usual as the performed In the Round again and as you’d expect, I did catch the show on November 24, 1992 at the Omni in Atlanta, Ga.
Welcome to the first round of purchases for 2022. Yes, I know, it never seems to end…my wife and wallet keep telling me that, but I don’t listen…obviously. And this week was another stellar month and a few really good deals as well…at least I think so. The first set of purchases were from gift cards left over from Christmas that I hadn’t spent and it was tough to decide. First I went with a vinyl I had been wanting for awhile and finding an original vinyl pressing was going to be expense so I went withe re-issue from Music on Vinyl for Extreme!!
The other items I picked up on those gift cards were the studio albums I was missing for Robbie Williams…I figured no time better than to complete that collection so I did. There were four left and here they are… Now I just need to the rare stuff that I am missing…challenge accepted!!
It has been awhile since we’ve gone through a Tour Book and this time around, we have a three set series on Def Leppard Tour Books. Only 3 because that is all I have at this time. And we are kicking it off with the band’s biggest tour, Hysteria. The Tour ran from 1987-1988 and I saw it 3 times. Yep, three times. Twice in Atlanta, one of which I won on a Radio call-in show, and once in Chattanooga, TN because we had to see them again.
Looking back, what was great about these shows is that I got to see Steve Clark play as he passed a few years later. The band was Joe Elliott, Rick Allen, Rick Savage, Steve Clark and Phil Collen and the album Hysteria was their biggest selling album of all time going Diamond with well over 12 million copies. It spawned an impressive 7 singles and they were the biggest band in the world at that time. They are still one of my favorite bands of all time and why I didn’t buy a tour book back then is beyond me…probably because I was a broke high school student…we will go with that. So, here is the book in all its glory…
The cover is above as the header and if you notice the triangle cut out. When you open it, you get to see the same concert shot wrapped by the Hysteria album cover.
Unlike a lot of Tour books, we don’t get an individual band member page talking about each member. Basically every page has all the members as it is a band…
This next page give us a little history on the band from the release of the ‘Hysteria’ album up to the 1988 leg of the tour. It is a nice long essay that is a must read.
More and more band shots…
This next one has a little flap on the right side…
And when folded out, changes the picture to this…
Now we are to the page where the band thanks the road crew. This time they take it a step further and give you pictures of the road crew which I think is an awesome touch!!
And lastly is the Merch page and one last band photo…
Oh yeah, can’t forge the back cover…
And that is everything. I hope you enjoyed the walk through the book and we have two more Tour Books to go through over the next couple weeks. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Thanks for hanging around.
Here is a list of all the Tour Books we have reviewed over the years. Links are provided so you can go see some history.
Welcome to the final Monthly Purchase review of 2021. Sit back because we are going out with a bang!! Not only did I score some major vinyl and CDs in my hunts, but my Christmas/Birthday presents were a lot as well. I am not going to waste anymore time and we will just jump right in.
First up this month is an RSD release that I didn’t get until after the Black Friday RSD. It is the latest Aerosmith release and will be final review in The Aerosmith Collection Series. It is the very first live recording of the band…
Then my daughter and I found out that one our digging holes was going out of business. Manifest Disc closed its doors and before they did, we hit them up for some of their deep discount deals. My daughter did some damage in the DVD section and I did some in the CDs and one vinyl. The CDs are hodge podge of stuff some of it I was hoping to find vinyl, but I have given up hope so I just bought the CDs since they were dirt cheap.
For this edition of The Original vs. The Cover, we are discussing the song “Hanging on the Telephone” originally performed by the band The Nerves. We are going to do two different covers with the first and most famous being that from Blondie and the other cover is from Def Leppard. The song was written by Jack Lee of the band The Nerves back in the 1976 and was released on their debut E.P. The song never charted and the band was short lived as they didn’t do much after that.
Blondie heard the song while sitting in a taxi in Japan. The song was given to them by Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the band The Gun Club and they popped in to listen to while in that cab. They really liked it and decided to record it. Blondie reached out to Jake Lee for permission to record it and since Jake was facing financial ruin it was a very easy decision. The answer was yes and Jake made a little money that was much needed.
The song is about a man that sounds quite obsessed with the woman he is or was seeing. He keeps calling her and calling her and calling her so he can hear her voice again. The woman’s mother says she can’t see him any more it sounds like and that seems to make him quite angry and he won’t stop trying to get in touch with her. Very stalkerish if you ask me. I think someone might need a restraining order in place. Still no denying it is a fun song.
My favorite era of music is the so called, 80’s Hair Metal scene. Of course, back then it was just rock and didn’t yet have a label, but that was the music for me. I know a lot about that era and the bands so any time I can get my hands on a book about that time, I am all over it. I took a chance on this one called ‘The Spectacular Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Hair Metal by Christopher Hilton. The book had a 4.4 rating so I thought I would give it a shot.
The book goes chronologically through each year of the scene and goes all the way up to 2019/20. When it gets to the 90’s and 2000’s, the chapters start to cover more than one year as it would be too much. I was expecting some great stories and maybe interviews from people of that era and from those involved in the scene, but that is not what I got at all. The author went through and talked mostly about the biggest bands of the era including Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Poison, L.A. Guns, Faster Pussycat and the like and he went through each album and the best songs on the album. At the end of each year he ranked the best album. Honestly, it felt like I was either reading wikipedia or maybe even something I would have written with my limited knowledge of these bands. It was rather pedestrian.
The stories about the bands were the same old stories we’ve heard all the time, there was really nothing new at all. No interviews, no real thought provoking insight, no real meat at all. He always focused on the biggest bands and seldom if ever brought up bands that were lesser known that were completely overlooked. The only good thing is he did follow the music in to the 90’s (and he mentioned Paul Laine of Danger Danger) and how the bands changed their sound and style and then went in to the 2000’s where the 80’s Rock scene saw a major resurgence. He even went as far a talking about the new bands in the 21st Century that have taken up the 80’s glam scene and how a lot of them come from Europe, especially Scandinavia. A good list of bands to check out. Most of them I already knew about, but for newbie’s that part is worth checking out.
We are now half way through the year, man, that is so hard to believe. Before we know it, the year will be over 2022 will be upon us, but for that, let us see what June had in store for 2 Loud 2 Old Music. The month started off with my youngest daughter and I doing some thrift store shopping. I didn’t expect to be buying any music there, but lo and behold, they actually had some CDs for $1 a piece so I grabbed a few (or more). I got Seal, Jonny Lang, Eric Clapton and David Lanz…
I also picked up a couple of Cheap Trick albums. I had a gift card to Amazon from MyPoints.com and so I picked up Special One on CD and then their latest album finally arrived a month after it was released…it must have been lost In Another World for a little while…
After a year since the release of The Collection Volume 1, Def Leppard released Volume 2. It wasn’t until 2 years later that we finally received Volume 3. I believe the delay was due to the Covid-19 virus so I will forgive them for the delay. And as I did with the first two in the collection, I bought the Vinyl edition. And this was one was crucial to do that because these albums were not available on vinyl so it was even more of a must have buy. You can read those reviews here… click on The Collection Volume 1 and The Collection Volume 2. As I normally do with these box sets, I focus mostly on the packaging and the bonus material as the main albums we all know and love or we wouldn’t be buying this set. I want to know if we are getting a bang for our buck on the whole package.
Look at all the albums and songs you are getting. There are 3 Studio albums and 3 albums of bonus material and there a total of 9 LPs in the set as 3 of the albums are double LPs. It is heavy and chock full of great tunes that will give you hours and hours of fun. I always save the sticker that is on the plastic wrapping and this time is no different. Here is a summary of the box set.
I was out and about in Florida this pat Summer and while on vacation, I hit up a record a store in the city I as visiting. I mean, who doesn’t do that. While their, I found this picture disc of Def Leppard except it was an interview disc, and I don’t like to collect interview disc. For some strange reason, I still bought it. Last week, I talked about the Radio Promo Interview disc from Queensryche that was a vinyl with the answers from the band and the radio was sent the questions they should ask. That way the artist/band didn’t have to call in or even visit all radio stations. Plus, it made the radio station sound like they were asking the questions.
This type of disc is actually the whole interview and I don’t know if this is anything that was sent to radios or not. It might only be as simple as a bootlegger putting out product because this does not in any way, shape or form look like an official release. Reality is that these are a little pointless and not sure why you would collect these other than you are a completist for a band and need anything and everything with their name on it.
This disc original came in a cardboard sleeve where you could see the picture on one side and the back was actually a list of all the releases this company that made the vinyl actually had that you could buy. However, my copy does not have this cardboard sleeve and was only included in a clear plastic cover.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 