Tag: For You

Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss, Neal Grusky – ’24th of June: Alive ‘N Kissing’ (1995) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Back on June 24th, of probably 1995 (I think) at a place called Kühners Landhaus in Kissing, Germany, a group of musicians and friends gathered together for a small promotional show. Those four friends were Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss and Neal Grusky. That short little show was released as Promo and limited to only 500 copies by Long Island Records and released sometime in 1995. I’ve been wanting this one for quite a long time and finally bit the bullet and bought it as it wasn’t too expensive, but is on the pricier side of things.

It is a very relaxed show and the guys have a lot of fun with it but when the music plays, it is all business and all perfection. They are in front of a very polite and yet receptive crowd and they whip through 6 tracks with Jeff on vocals for 5 and Michael Voss on 1 track. They are joined by Mike Foerster to help out on acoustic guitar as this is an all acoustic set. No drums, simply guitars and vocals. An intimate setting and the guys doing what they do best.

The CD opens with Gary Schutt calling for Jeff to come to the stage so they can start the show. When Jeff does finally arrive, they kick in to a beautiful rendition of Jeff’s band Takara’s song “Restless Heart”. The original version is a power ballad with some great keyboards and a big chorus. Here, it is stripped down to its bare essence with Jeff giving such a stellar rendition. There is no explosive moments like in the regular version, it is reserved and even more emotive than the original. Jeff sounds amazing and sounds as good or even better than the studio version. Simply stunning.

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Jon Bongiovi – ‘The Power Station Sessions (1980-1983)’ (2001) – Album Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)

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Before there was a band called Bon Jovi, there was a young man, named Jon Bongiovi, who worked as a janitor at a recording studio called The Power Station which was located in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. During his time as janitor, he’d be allowed to use the studio when it wasn’t in use. The years were 1980-1983 and this release is a collection of all these unreleased songs from that time period in his life prior to becoming Jon Bon Jovi and fronting one of the biggest bands in the world.

But wait…let’s go back a ways. Jon could play both guitar and piano and at 13 started playing gigs with his very first band called Raze. When he was 16, he met a curly haired dude named David Bryan and they would start a band called Atlantic City Expressway. David would leave that band to go to Med School…but that didn’t work out as he felt music was his path. So that band didn’t go anywhere and while still south of 20, he had another band called Jon Bongiovi and the Wild Ones. Again, nothing. So by 1980, he started yet another band called Rest and they actually got to open for a hero of Jon’s, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Dukes. During the 80’s he spent time at his cousin’s studio and recorded the song “Runaway”…yeah, that song. He shopped it around, but little notice. And we will end that story there as we will talk further about how that song changed things for him later.

This album was released by Tony Bongiovi who is Jon’s father’s first cousin…what does that make him to Jon? I have no freaking idea…maybe second cousin. Tony, I believe, owned the studio and was the producer of these songs we have before us. The album has been released several times and is not an official Bon Jovi or Jon Bon Jovi release so I am sure Jon wasn’t overly thrilled with it seeing the light of day. The first release was in 1998 and was only 10 songs. The second release was 1999 and suddenly was up to 14 tracks. My version, however, was released September 18, 2001 and was the third iteration of the songs and this time around there are a whopping 20 tracks. That is a lot of music. And when you hear it, you will hear a very young Jon with songs that were a sign of the times and a Jon whose voice hadn’t really found…well…his voice or style. The songs aren’t great…but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a fun and interesting listen to see how it all began.

“Who Said it Would Last Forever” kicks things off with an opening piano, an infectious groove, some nice guitar work and energized vocals by Mr. Bongiovi. A high energy rocker that shows a singer with a lot of promise as the chorus is catchy and you can see something there that was ready to explode.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘LA Rocks Demo / Vinnie Vincent Demo 1988’ Bootleg (2008) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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I was scouring eBay for a few of the remaining Soto albums I don’t have, and sadly, none were for sale at the time. However, I cam across something I had never seen before. It was a bootleg of Jeff Scott Soto demos. And to top it off, it was actually signed by Jeff Scott Soto. The person I bought it from lives in Germany and his name was Stefan. It turns out, Stefan is the lead singer of the band Speed Limit (check them out, they are pretty cool) and he had opened for Soto on a tour and actually met Jeff and got him to sign the CD. I thought all that was pretty cool and I love having a story behind my purchase.

LA ROCKS DEMOS:

So, what is this CD? It is a bootleg, mostly of demos from Jeff’s early years with LA Rocks and with Vinnie Vincent. We never got any albums out of those two projects, but at least we have some demos. The first set of songs say they are from his band LA Rocks. Back in 1986, Aldy Damian approached Jeff about joining the band. Jeff was busy with his own band called L’amour at the time and so he wasn’t really interested in joining LA Rocks. However, he did agree to do a couple demos for them and they paid him, so how could he say no. After Jeff, turned it down, they went after James Christian and he agreed. James became known for his other band House of Lords later.

The project didn’t end up going anywhere and the band later on became known as something you are more familiar with as we have discussed them in this series and that is the band Eyes of which Jeff sang on a couple of their albums. It all comes around full circle in the end. These set of songs here under the LA Rock Demos section, are a mixture of LA Rocks and Eyes demos and some aren’t even either band. The tracks “Hands of Time” and “Heart of the Fire” were demos for songs used on the movie ‘Rich Girl’. The songs “For You”, “Till the End of Time” and “Nobody Said it was Easy” are all demos for the band Eyes. And the song “Hold On”, not really sure where that is from but maybe it is from LA Rocks.

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