Tag: Jeff Scott Soto

January 2021 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Welcome to the first Purchases post of 2021. After the crapload of items in December, I am so not going to be able to top that right out of the gate. This time, the focus is more on the CDs as I finally got back out to Manifest Discs which has a great used CD selection. I was able to get out by myself and take my time going through the racks. They have a deal where if you buy 2 you get 1 for a $1, so of course, I have to buy way more than 2. I ended up buying 11 and it worked out to <$5 per disc when it was all said and done.

The first batch is a band that doesn’t have much on vinyl as they are from the early 2000’s up to a few years ago so it is easier to go the CD route than the vinyl. That band is Lifehouse. I picked up 6 CDs. Now, I used to have all these before, but due to dumping the collection stupidly about 7-8 years ago, I didn’t have them anymore. Now I am going back and getting my favorite stuff again. Only need 1 more Lifehouse album.

The next couple of CDs are for a band, I never thought I’d like, but man, I really do. It is a rap rock band called Hollywood Undead. I picked up two CDs…again the vinyl is a mish-mash of do they or don’t they, but they do have CDs. These are their first two studio albums. I still have 6 more to go.

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Top Rock Albums of 2020

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2020 was probably the strangest year yet.  With the Covid virus running rampant, many new releases were either postponed until late in the year or we never saw the release at all.  There were a flurry of albums at the beginning of the year, then basically nothing for a few months until we got to the Fall and now there are too many to get through.  But there were some great releases and I am sure I missed a number of great albums and if you look around the web, there will be tons of Top Album lists you can get a pretty good idea of what you should check out in case you missed any of these.

This list will be my favorite “Rock” albums of the year.  All other types of music will be for another post tomorrow.  I am going to leave this one to my favorite genre.  It is a broad genre, but these are the albums that I consider to be ROCK!!

Also note, these are MY FAVORITES!!  These are not the most popular or trendy albums.  You won’t find the cool trendy bands, because they are usually here today gone tomorrow.  These are the albums that I connected with during the year and I kept coming back to again and again.  And without further adieu, here are the Top Rock Albums of 2020:

#10 – Storm Force – Age of Fear:

81HSuWcovgL._SY355_ Thanks to some fellow bloggers in the name of LeBrain and SuperDekes, I was introduced to this Canadian band that unapologetically brought us a classic 80’s rock album full of songs that rocked you out and songs that were actually relevant to the events going on in the world which is amazing considering this song came out prior to the Covid shutdowns.  I believe these guys can see the future and with music like this, I can see their future being very bright.  You need to hear the songs “Breathe”, “Because of You” and “Dirty Vegas because once you do, you will be caught in the Storm!!

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November 2020 Purchases – Vinyls & CDs

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October wasn’t even over before I bought more records, however, the October Purchase post was already done and I wasn’t about to go back and update, too much work. I wrote the post on the October Record Store Day and there was one album I didn’t get that I wanted (well there were two, but I didn’t get the second one). I did get it through another local record store. And when I went and picked it up on that Sunday, I saw another record I didn’t have that was in the new arrival used bin and it was sealed and less than $20 so I bought it.

The RSD record was from the Joe Elliott band Down ‘N Outz…I love the cover with the eerie clown and it almost looks 3D at this angle.

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Friday New Releases – November 6, 2020

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I can’t believe we are now in November and thankfully, the new releases keep on coming. This past week we had our Presidential Election and since I don’t do politics on this site, we will skip over that mess to say I am so happy no more political adds for quite awhile. Man, I was so sick of those things. It is so hard to chose a candidate because basically you are choosing the lesser of TWO EVILS!! One thing that is easy to choose is which releases I want to hear and those are marked in Blue. Let me know which ones you want to hear and what I may have missed so everyone can know about it. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

  • 81Qc-HPivML._SX522_  Jeff Scott Soto – Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) – (Frontiers Records): The man is a machine. He puts out so much music whether it is solo, his band SOTO, his band W.E.T. (new one coming in January) or his other band Sons of Apollo. And the cool things is everything is pure quality and his voice doesn’t falter. I have been collecting everything of his on CD and it is tough to keep up as there are probably 50-60 to try and buy. I’m probably only half way through. But this one will arrive today to add to that list.
  • A1wQQxC9YhL._SS500_  Whitesnake – Love Songs (2020 Remix) – (Rhino Records): A new Whitesnake…not really as it is a compilation. However, everything is remixed and at least 1 or 2 haven’t been released so it is a good kind of compilation. This is the 2nd release in the Red, White & Blue Series. We got White several months back, The Rock Album, and this is the Red one (Love Songs). Blue (The Blues) will be out around February/March (not yet announced though).
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October 2020 Purchases – Vinyls & CDs

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Is October already over!! Wow! The time is flying by now. Luckily for me, it was another stellar month for picking up so new stuff (most is old stuff new to me though). And I didn’t waste any time as right at the end of September after I wrote the September Purchases post, a few things came in the mail from Amazon within minutes and days of each other. First up was Ace Frehley’s Origins. Vol 2…and yes I have Vol 1…duh!!

Then Queen & Adam Lambert’s Live Around the World. I chose CD on this only because when I ordered it the vinyl wasn’t listed. It did come with a DVD of the shows as well. Since my daughter saw this tour a couple years ago, no brainer…

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July 2020 Purchases – Vinyl & CD

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Another month gone by and a lot more purchases.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my CD purchases have skyrocketed over the last few months.  I have been to a bunch of shops that have CDs and have them cheap so I can’t help myself.  However, this first batch of CDs is not from a shop. They are mostly from Amazon as my kids gave me an Amazon gift card for Father’s Day as they weren’t sure what I didn’t have (which is a valid point).  So with these cards I continued my Jeff Scott Soto Collection and picked up 6 more discs (okay, one was from ebay).

I picked up Jeff Scott Soto – “Essential Ballads”; Soul Sirkus – “World Play”, W.E.T. – “W.E.T.” and “Earthrage”, SOTO – “Orgami” which is the last of the SOTO collection, and Talisman – “Talisman”.  This brings me up to over 20+ now in the JSS collection and still about 20+ more to go.

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Next up, my wife wanted to run back to 2nd & Charles as she needed  some books and I of course wanted to tag along as they have a great used CD collection and I always find something interesting and this time was no different.  I picked up a Bootleg Robbie Williams 2 CD compilation from Japan.  It is called Sexed Up and it has been outlawed for sale by Discogs, but I saw one an eBay for about $30+.  I payed about $3.  It is an HDCD, whatever that means.

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But that wasn’t the only thing I bought from there as they had a sale where you buy 2, get one free.  I picked up 8 more discs including 2 more Robbie Williams CDs, 3 Oasis CDs, Ozzy’s Just Say Ozzy E.P., Candlebox’s “Lucy” and Jude Cole’s “I Don’t Know Why I Act This Way”.  Not a bad haul.

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And on the way home, my wife saw Noble Records and asked if I wanted to stop in, and of course I said yes.  She is so awesome!!  I did a little damage there as well. I picked up 2 more CDs – Cheap Trick’s “At Budokon: The Complete Concert” CD set and Thriving Ivory’s “Through Yourself & Back Again”.

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I did get vinyl while I was there as well. I picked up Deep Purple’s ‘Machine Head’ and ZZ Top’s “La Futura” because I saw the documentary on Netflix and needed this album as I didn’t have it as I’m now on a ZZ Top kick.

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The next thing that was purchased was neither vinyl nor CD.  I have started my new obsession, Kiss Tour Books and first up is this one…not going to talk about it as I already have a post coming in August going in full detail…

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And that is it…until next month

May 2020 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Welcome to the May Purchases review.  I was worried that there wouldn’t be much to discuss as all the Record stores were closed, Amazon mentioned they wouldn’t be delivering records, but all that started to end and the world started opening back up.  Now, I didn’t make as many purchases as usual and that is okay.  One purchase this month was rather large and has kept me busy.

First up for this month is another Kiss album.  Believe it or not, I haven’t bought them all yet. I am down to about 6 or 7 vinyls that I do not have and this month I picked up one of them.  The album is ‘Sonic Boom’ and I have been searching for this one for a while. If you find one of the original pressing, it is well over $100 as there were so few of them.  Thankfully, I finally discovered that there was a special release done by KissOnline a few years back and the price of those is so much better at around $30 (with shipping).  So, I grabbed a nice one unopened, green vinyl.  It is sweet!!

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Then a week or so later, I was snooping around on eBay and I found a seller that was selling a bunch of CDs by Jeff Scott Soto and I am a huge fan of his.  I used to have a bunch of his CDs,  but gave them away years ago when we moved from one state to another….Dumb move…the CD part, not the actual move.  I bought as much of his collection as my budget would allow.  It had 13 CDs, but there were actually 15 separate albums as some had 2 albums in one.  Do you want me to list them all??  Of course you do…

  • Talisman – Life
  • Talisman – 5 Out of 5
  • Talisman – Live at the Sweden Rock Festival
  • Talisman – Humanimal (2CD set)
  • Talisman – Cats & Dogs
  • Talisman – Truth
  • Jeff Scott Soto – Live at Firefest 2008
  • Jeff Scott Soto – Believe in Me E.P.
  • Jeff Scott Soto – Prism
  • Jeff Scott Soto – Love Parade
  • Human Clay – Human Clay
  • Human Clay U4ia
  • Soto – Inside the Vertigo
  • Soto – Divak

And there is another I picked up on Amazon, not pictured…Jeff Scott Soto – Retribution.  That is a lot of Jeff and sadly, only a small sampling of what he has done.  I am still missing 15-20 more that I want of his since he has more solo stuff, more Talisman stuff, more Soto, there is W.E.T., Eyes, Takara, Axel Rudi Pell and Sons of Apollo still waiting to be bought.

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And that is it.  Not much vinyl this month, but that is okay. I will make up for it in June I am sure when I go out and finally do some crate digging for some old vinyl.  Plus, I have some Def Leppard coming and a new Whitesnake that will be in my June collection as they are already pre-ordered.  Until next month!  Happy collecting!

Jeff Scott Soto – Artist Profile

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Below is one of the first post I ever did for this site and I haven’t updated since.  That was 4 years ago.  Jeff Scott Soto has released a ton of albums since then so I figured I needed to do an update on this post from 4/17/2016.  If I was to complete do this from scratch today, it wouldn’t look this pedestrian, but I will leave it is an just update some albums and song information. I have been on a big JSS kick lately so I want to spread the love….I hope you enjoy.

UPDATED POST:

The artist spotlight is on one of my favorite rock vocalists, Jeff Scott Soto. I came across his music thanks to a great website by Andrew McNiece – Melodicrock.com (go check it out). If you haven’t heard of Jeff, let me tell you a little about him.

Jeff has only been in a few bands – Yngwie Malemsteen’s Rising Force, Talisman, W.E.T., Sons of Apollo, SOTO, Soul Sirkus, Redlist, Eyes, Journey (yes, that Journey), Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Takara, Eyes, Axel Rudi Pell and I believe there are several others so yeah…only a few.

He also has made appearances on so many other albums (too numerous to list). Most recently he was on Joel Hoekstra’s 13 album “Dying to Live” which I thought was a great album. He was even in the fictional band Steel Dragon from the movie “Rock Star” with Mark Wahlberg. And lastly, he has had a great solo career.

I mentioned he was in Journey above. In 2006, Journey let their lead singer go, Steve Augeri, and picked up Jeff to finish the tour.  Jeff had worked withNeal Schon in the group Soul Sirkus which I will talk more about later. I was so excited with that announcement as after hearing his version of “Send Her My Love”, I knew he had the chops for it. Sadly, it didn’t last. After the tour they let him go and went with a different singer.

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Friday New Releases – May 24th

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Happy Friday.  It is a nice long weekend here in the States with Memorial Day coming on Monday and we get that extra day off to spend with family and remember those who have died serving and fighting for our country.  It is also the unofficial start of Summer break (although the kids still have two more weeks of school.  All I know is I get an extra day to listen to some music.  Not much out this week, but there are a couple I am eager to hear.  They are highlighted in Blue. Let me know what you want and if I missed anything. Thanks and have a great weekend.

  • 714mlGfPWtL._SS500_  SOTO – Origami – (InsideOut Music):  Jeff Scott Soto returns with one of his many bands.  This band is on their third album and the first two were heavy, solid rock band and almost metal.  It isn’t a solo album, it is a band.  These guys kick some major ass.  I have held off from listening to anything like I do on albums I want to hear as I like to take it all in at once.  It makes for a better listening experience.

  • 818qjjRsApL._SX522_  Stray Cats – 40 – (Surfdog):  The Stray Cats are Back!!!  And it is about time.  It has been well over 25 years since their last album and I couldn’t be more excited. I love that Rockabilly sound and we need a little of that now to shake things up as the music scene has gotten a little stale.  Welcome back boys!!!

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Friday New Releases – November 10th

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Welcome to another Friday New Releases and this week is a biggie.  Why?  Because Taylor is finally releasing her long awaited new album.  I put it at the top because it will be the most played album in our house (I have two girls that love her).  But don’t fret!  There is plenty of other releases for everyone.  I have a ton of rock records that I can’t wait to spin and they are highlighted in Blue.  I hope there is something for you.  Enjoy!

  • 61fam+0-OYL._AC_US218_  Taylor Swift – Reputation – (Big Machine): Get ready because the old Taylor is DEAD!!  This is a new Taylor Swift and from what I have heard so far, I would agree.  Taylor is reinventing herself now with each new release and I don’t see it as a bad thing.  At least for me, the new songs are more interesting than the prior songs.  I actually might like this new direction.  We will see as I will definitely hear it enough to become familiar with it.

  • 61qd3pEQ1nL._AC_US218_  Sweet & Lynch – Unified – (Frontiers Records):  Now here is where I will begin.  Michael Sweet & George Lynch were brought together by Frontiers Records as one of their special projects and usually they end up as a one time deal, thankfully, this one is not. We are now given a second release and they are touring.  Maybe this will last a little while.  I always need more rock & roll.

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