Tag: KISS

Kiss – ‘Kiss’ (1974) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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On February 18, 1974, the world received their first Kiss album, simply called ‘Kiss’.  But not many people took notice. It only sold around 70,000 copies at the time and quickly faded into existence.  But hold on, before we get in to the album, let’s go back to the first Kiss show one year earlier on January 30th, 1973.  For that show, the band didn’t really wear any make-up.  They had their name, but were just setting out and didn’t know who they were yet. They had the drag/glam look going for them, but the make-up progressed rather quickly.  Each member was discovering their personalities….The Demon (Gene), The Starchild (Paul), The Spaceman (Ace) and the Catman (Peter).  Over the next year, they would settle on who they were and so much more.  And who were they?  They were the following:

  • Paul Stanley – The Starchild
  • Gene Simmons – The Demon
  • Ace Frehley – The Spaceman
  • Peter Criss – The Catman

In early March, the band would finally decide on the make-up, then about a week later, they entered The Daisy in Amityville, NY with famed Led Zeppelin producer and recorded a five song demo.  The same 5 songs we talked about briefly on the Wicked Lester demo album from last week.

Then shortly after that, they were doing a showcase in the Summer and they meet a lad named Bill Aucoin who would become their manager and change their life forever.  But before they signed with Bill, they said he had 2 weeks to get them a record deal.  Not much time for anyone, but for Bill, he made it work.  The band would be the first band to sign with Neil Bogart’s Casablanca Record label on November 1st, 1973.  Quite a busy year.  And yes, I skipped so much, but this isn’t a history lesson, this is an album review.  So why don’t we get to that part now.

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Kiss – ‘Wicked Lester and Progeny Demo Sessions’ (Bootleg Series) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series )

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Welcome to the beginning of a new series on 2Loud2OldMusic.com.  We are finally tackling the entire Kiss catalog.  As you know, if you follow this site, Kiss is one of my favorite bands and I am amassing quite a vinyl collection.  I have done posts on Kiss over the years (a lot), but I haven’t tackled their main albums and in detail.  I figured, it was finally time to do so.  And what better way to kick it off then with the band right before Kiss was formed…Wicked Lester.  This review is a double review of sorts as this vinyl is a Bootleg and so it is part of my Bootleg Series with Kiss and it will also be the kickoff to the new series as this is where Kiss really began.

I haven’t done a full count, but I am guessing we will wind up with over 50 albums in this review as I will tackle as many Kiss albums as I can including Studio, Live, Greatest Hits, and anything else in my collection.  I will even venture off in to solo albums by the band members or other side projects they have.  It is going to be everything Kiss related.  I have a feeling this will take more than a year to complete, but I think I am up for the task. I hope you are too.  At the bottom of every post, there will be links to all the Kiss Reviews we have done in the past if you want to venture over and check them out.  I hope you enjoy…

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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!

Kiss – ‘They Only Come Out At Night’ (Bootleg Series) – Album Review

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In my quest for collecting Kiss Bootlegs for eery tour they have done, I found another fantastic addition to the collection.  My local record shop, Hardy Boy Records, has been a goldmine of late for Bootlegs. I have now bought four over the last few months and all for tours I didn’t have (or a collection of Wicked Lester demos – that is another story that will be told later).

The last 2 I bought were actually the same store, so I guess that statement was entirely true.  The difference was one was the North American Tour setlist (which will come in the next week or two) and this one is the European leg of that tour with an ever so slightly different setlist.

Before we get to the show and the music, let’s discuss the cover of the album.  This album is listed as “For Promotional Use Only” and is a really cheap production.  The album jacket is plain white cover with this paper picture of the band that wraps around the back. It is glued down and not going anywhere.  But the strange thing is the people on the cover.  Now, I get it this the Animalize Tour so you would expect Mark St. John to be on the cover, but there is a problem.  This is not one of the 3 shows that Mark actually played on.  This has Bruce Kulick playing before he was an official member which would come about two months later.

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The show is from October 26, 1984 at the Johanneshov Isstadion in Stockholm, Sweden on the first leg of the tour.  The recording if an audience recording actually sounds quite excellent.  Not much crowd noise and everyone sounds pretty clear with minor instances where the sound was off a little.  This was released a year later in 1985 by a group called Poverty Records at least that’s what it says on the album itself. Continue reading “Kiss – ‘They Only Come Out At Night’ (Bootleg Series) – Album Review” →

Kiss – ‘Barbarize’ (Bootleg Series) – Album Review

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In my quest for collecting Kiss Bootlegs for every tour they have done, I found another fantastic addition to the collection.  My local record shop, Hardy Boy Records, has been a goldmine of late for Bootlegs. I have now bought four over the last few months and all for tours I didn’t have (or a collection of Wicked Lester demos – that is another story that will be told later).

The last 2 I bought were actually at the same tour, so I guess that statement wasn’t entirely true.  The difference was one was the European Tour setlist (which will come in the next week or two) and this one is the North American leg of that tour with an ever so slightly different setlist.

Before we get in to where the show was and the music, lets first discus the cover as it is  pretty cool and what drew me to this one in the first place.  The cover is the same artwork as the Judas Priest album ‘Hero Hero’.  Thanks to Mike Ladano for pointing that out to me when I sent him a picture of the album and sure enough, he was right.

Continue reading “Kiss – ‘Barbarize’ (Bootleg Series) – Album Review” →

Kiss – Asylum World Tour – Tour Book

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I started 1985 with a Kiss concert (Animalize Tour) so I had to end it with a Kiss concert. This one was on December 31, 1985 and where else, but at the Omni.  This show was for the Asylum Tour this time. The opening act for this show was Black n Blue.  Gene had produced their album so no wonder they opened. Same line-up as the earlier show so nothing really new except the costumes were quite colorful and loud and looking back are quite hideous.

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This setlist was different in the sense that Rock and Roll All Nite was not the encore.  This encore was a big jam session with a lot of covers and I remember it being pretty cool.

  1. Detroit Rock City
  2. Fits Like a Glove
  3. Guitar Solo (Paul)
  4. Uh! All Night
  5. Cold Gin
  6. Under the Gun
  7. Guitar Solo (Bruce)
  8. I Still Love You
  9. Bass Solo
  10. I Love it Loud
  11. Tears Are Falling
  12. Drum Solo
  13. War Machine
  14. Love Gun
  15. Rock and Roll All Nite
  16. La Bamba (Encore)
  17. Whole Lotta Love (Encore)
  18. Heaven’s On Fire (Encore)
  19. Oh! Susanna (Encore)
  20. Won’t Get Fooled Again (Encore)
  21. Lick It Up (Encore)

And like the last show, I bought a Tour Book which I still have today and we are going to go through it right now.  Bruce finally gets his spotlight in the Tour Book as he wasn’t in the last one even though he performed.  It was still Mark St. John as the band didn’t have time to change it out or want to spend the money to do so.  I have him now and that is all that matters.

The first page, as always, is a list of all the albums they have released.  This page isn’t much different than the last tour book since it has only been one album.  Well, there is one big difference.  The ‘Creatures of the Night’ cover is different. It now has the band unmasked and Bruce was on the cover…wait…I don’t think he was on that album…but then again, neither was Ace and he was on the original cover.  I guess it is okay…not really!!

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April 2020 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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I can’t believe we are finally to end of April. The days get confusing as we have now been home for at least 6 weeks thanks to Covid-19 and the basic lockdown from the governments to help save our lives.  The month started out with Amazon saying they wouldn’t be delivering any albums as they aren’t “Essential”, what the hell do they know, it is essential to me.  And then the local record stores started shutting their doors which meant no crate digging for a long while.

Somehow, that didn’t stop. My crate digging was done virtually.  Amazon actually delivered music and some of my local record stores posted stuff on line and they would ship or you could go by their house or the store and pick it up.  And that is just what happened.  We learn and we adapt.  Human nature.

First up for the month was an E.P. by a fairly new artist I discovered as the opening act on the Needtobreathe tour. I got to meet him, but his debut E.P and get an autograph.  So when a new E.P. was announced, I was excited, but less so because I didn’t see a Vinyl option.  And then on the day of release, I saw on Amazon a vinyl option. And when I got it, I was pleasantly surprised as it was the E.P. plus all the singles & B-Sides he had released the prior year so I basically got a full album of material. I love little surprises like that.

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Kiss – Animalize World Tour 1984-85 – Tour Book

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On January 9th, 1985, I went to my 2nd Kiss concert which as the old arena called the Omni.  That arena is no longer around, but the memories I do still have.  The opening act was Krokus and they were great.  The tour was for the Animalize Tour and the lead guitarist on this one was supposed to be Mark St. John, but he was fired in December of the previous year.  Bruce Kulick took over duties for the remainder of the tour and for years later. I hate I didn’t get to see Mark. He is the only Kiss guitarist I have not seen live.

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The setlist for this show was below and not all too different from the Lick It Up Tour I saw before.

  1. Detroit Rock City
  2. Cold Gin
  3. Creatures of the Night
  4. Fits Like a Glove
  5. Heaven’s On Fire
  6. Guitar Solo
  7. Under the Gun
  8. War Machine
  9. Drum Solo
  10. Young & Wasted (Eric now on vocals)
  11. Bass Solo
  12. I Love it Loud
  13. I Still Love You
  14. Love Gun
  15. Black Diamond
  16. Oh! Susanna (Encore)
  17. Lick It Up (Encore)
  18. Rock and Roll All Nite (Encore)

Continue reading “Kiss – Animalize World Tour 1984-85 – Tour Book” →

Kiss – The Tickler (Bootleg Series) – Album Review

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A month ago, local record shop Hardy Boys Records bought a Kiss collection and offered up for sale. Everything was going to drop on that next Saturday at 10am. I got up, showered, dressed and headed out the door and arrive about 9:50 and luckily only one person was in line ahead of me.  Great conversations were had about our love for Kiss. I picked up 6 different Kiss pieces that were not in my collection one was this Bootleg called The Tickler.

‘The Tickler’ is an independent released bootleg of the bands concert from the Scandinavium which is in Gothenburg, Sweden.  The show was on the Lick It up Tour and dates to November 18, 1983.  It isn’t the full show as that show had 17 songs.  This one is only 8 songs and 2 solos including Gene Simmon’s bass solo and Vinnie Vincent’s guitar solo.

The bootleg is limited to 500 copies (no, it’s not numbered).  It has the green cover as there is one with a red cover floating around as well.  The packaging is very limited.  you get the horrible black & white photos on the front and back of the album jackets is blank.  The labels on the vinyl are pretty basic black with an A & B on each side and the name of the label, Roxy Records.  No special inserts or any bonus items.  Plain and simple.  My guess this came out in the 80’s.  Now the copy I bought was sealed, but to me that is a complete and utter waste.  I want to hear it, so I opened it and played it…SUE ME!!! Continue reading “Kiss – The Tickler (Bootleg Series) – Album Review” →

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 15 of 15 – The Final Verdict)

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We are finally to The End of the Road.  No, not the End of the Road Tour, but the end of our journey of Gene Simmons – The Vault!  We are on Part 15 of our 15 Part series.  We have spent numerous hours listening, reading, researching and writing up these posts and I have to say, it is the most fun I have had on this site maybe ever.  I wanted to deliver a very detailed breakdown of The Vault so maybe you would see whether or not it is worth buying.  For me, it was a no brainer, even though it took me two years to do it.  The price was finally right.

Let’s mention a little on the production of this album.  The production and mix were stellar.  They all had the same volume level and even the worst quality recording still sounded great.  They put a lot of time and effort in that and they hit it out of the park.

And I don’t want to forget to mention the people on this album.  I won’t go through all of them as you should read each review, but you get Ace Frehley, Bruce Kulick, Eric Carr, Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer, Bob Kulick and even Paul Stanley.  And then there is Bob Dylan, Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen, but that is only a small portion…you get members of Black & Blue, of Silent Rage and even someone from Steel Panther. You get some songwriters, producers that helped write some songs and even Katey Sagal from Married With Children does some background vocals.  It is so cool to see all the different people involved.  That was one of my favorite parts.

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