Tag: KISS

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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March 2020 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Welcome to the March Edition of Purchases.  If you are new to the site, this is my monthly wrap-up of my vinyl and CD purchases since not everything I buy makes it on to the site.  Some of it does or already has or will in the future, but whose to say how long that will be.  So, I thought why not share the love of music and let you see what I have been adding to the collection.

First up is something that I ordered in February,  but didn’t make it until after the February post was written and I was too lazy to go back and update it.  If you read the Billy Idol Series there was one album I reviewed that I didn’t actually have the album on vinyl…yet.  Well that has changed.  It is the Record Store Day release of Billy Idol BFI Live which is a 3 LP set.  I think there were only 2000 released and I have 1,148.  The price has been around $75-100 and I couldn’t see spending that much.  I mean if it is was Kiss, no issues…sorry that is the way it is.  I finally found it for $40, used and in what looks like mint condition to me.  Here is it is.

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And then on the first weekend in March, Hardy Boy Records released a collection of Kiss albums he scored and there were so many that I did not have in my collection.  I got up to the store early as they opened at 10am, I was there a few minutes prior to that and there was only one other person waiting. Another gentleman showed up and we were after stuff in the Kiss collection. Luckily, we were really after different things.  Great Kiss stories were swapped and as another person had the Vault as well, we had some good discussions on that too.  It was a fun morning and I am happy to say, I scored a few things.  I would have been happy with only one item I didn’t have, instead I got 6…plus a promo Whitesnake single.

First up is the Kiss Collection.  I scored the following:

  • 12″ Single Picture Disc of “God Gave Rock & Roll To You II (from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey)
  • 12″ Single Picture Disk of “Reason to Live”
  • Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved
  • 12″ Single Promo of “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”
  • Bootleg – Kiss: The Tickler – (Lick it Up Show 1983 in Sweden)
  • Bootleg – Kiss: Wicked Lester and Progeny Demo Sessions

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And then one other thing I found was a 12″ Promo Single of the Whitesnake song “Is This Love”.  I will need to go add it to the David Coverdale Series.

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There is a website I use called MyPoints.com.  They send you emails, you click on them and get points, you buy stuff from vendors and go through their site, you get points and after awhile those points add up and you can cash them in for a gift card.  Ding!!  No brainer.  This is what the latest cash-in got me…Steve Vai’s ‘Passion & Warefare’…Awesome!!

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Then I realized I was still missing one Whitesnake Studio album.  I can’t finish the Coverdale Series without it.  It was The Purple Album.  And now I have it thanks to ebay and a cheap Deluxe Edition copy…$8.

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Unexpectedly, I was looking at Facebook and Lunchbox posted they were putting out two used Billy Idol bootlegs and so I got up the next morning and went and was able to grab them.  I won’t go into detail as I will talk about them in detail in later posts.

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Next up is a Def Leppard Release.  ‘The Early Years Box Set” which features a remaster of the first two albums, ‘On Through The Night’ and ‘High & Dry’ as well as some bonus material including a disk of B-Sides and rarities and two live shows.  The review has already been posted!

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And that is it.  I have a bad feeling April won’t be as abundant with the Covid-19 crap going on.  Amazon not sending vinyl or CDs for the short term and record stores closing.  It might be a month where nothing gets bought and what a sad month that will be.

Here is everything I bought in March.

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Thanks for stopping by…

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 5 of 15 – Disk 4)

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Welcome back to the Gene Simmons The Vault review.  We are now on Disk 4.  Below are the rules I am trying to follow with each review.

I will try and keep some consistency between each disk.  I will go through each song and mention who wrote, who played on it and what I think about the song. I won’t go through all the stories as you should get the vault to get all the information.  I will grade each song (ranking 1 to 5, 5 being best) and then take an average of the grades for the score of the disk.  I know most of these are demos, so I won’t be taking quality of the sound in to play that much because I know what I am getting and I am more interested in the overall song.

At the end of all the reviews, we will average the score of each review and come up with an overall ‘The Vault’ score which I hope will be a fair representation of the whole package.  I am going to do my best to do one a week, but as I said before, life sometimes gets in the way so I am not going to promise one a week.  Plus, this is 11 disks to digest and that is a lot as I am also doing the David Coverdale Series at the same time.  That is a bunch of music to go through.

The songs aren’t in chronological order.  Gene states they are more of a mood or vibe.  The Fourth Disk are songs again that are mostly demos of Kiss songs and Gene’s solo songs. So I guess it is a Kiss vibe then.  It rocks out and it goes chill.

Well, are you ready?  Then let’s get right to it.

Disk 4 comes on a page filled with old Kiss concert phots and has Gene spitting fire…

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Continue reading “Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 5 of 15 – Disk 4)” →

Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 1 of 15 – The Grand Opening)

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I have actually been wanting this since the day it was announced back at the end of 2017 or early 2018, I can’t remember.  However, at the time, the price was the hinderance.  Then at the beginning of 2019, they offered a less pricey Vault that didn’t include the Gene Simmons Vault Experience.  You only received The Vault.  Still, I didn’t pull the trigger.  I always thought, if it ever a hit a certain price, I would pull the trigger.  Lo and behold almost two years later, there was Black Friday Sale and it hit that price. It didn’t take much convincing then, I pulled the trigger!  Bang!!

And to make it even better, 2 days before Christmas it arrived!!  And if you didn’t know, my birthday is Christmas…so it was a Big Early Present to myself!!  My kids poked fun at me because I have been chomping at the bit for it to arrive.  Two weeks after ordering, I had heard nothing, not a word.  I emailed the company and asked if I would get a tracking number and they replied back pretty quick with a tracking number.  The item shipped 4 days earlier and I didn’t know.  I checked that tracking often, to an obsessive level as I wanted my Vault.  I guess they weren’t going to send it until I said something. I am glad I got, because it did calm me down…a little.

On day of arrival, I received box 2 of 2 first.  A smaller box that I figured contained the contents of the vault, but it only contained the book and the CDs which if I am going to get a box early, at least it was that box. And if I didn’t have that tracking number I would have freaked not knowing it was shipped in two boxes.  I would have also been freaked if I received the Vault first with no book or CDs inside!!  Tracking number told me that so it wasn’t unexpected.  About 4 hours later, I received The Vault itself.  In a massive box inside another box…

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Continue reading “Gene Simmons – ‘The Vault’ – Album Review (Part 1 of 15 – The Grand Opening)” →

December Purchases (& Gifts) – Vinyl (2019)

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First off, December is a little light compared to the last two months of purchases  December was a more normal month of purchases mainly because it is the month for Christmas and my Birthday.  For that reason, I have to leave things for people to buy for me as gifts.

The month started out actually on Black Friday and yes, I know that is November. The problem is I couldn’t get these purchases into last months post due to timing issues and Thanksgiving and all.  I am sure you won’t mind.

Record Store Black Friday was on November 29th and I got up bright and early to pick up are few things and I got exactly what I was going for and nothing more…I stuck to the plan for once.

First up is the RSD Exclusive Release of Pearl Jam’s MTV Unplugged and you saw that one already at THIS POST!!!!

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Continue reading “December Purchases (& Gifts) – Vinyl (2019)” →

The Top 20 Songs of Kiss (The Non-Makeup Years)

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Thanks to the Kiss Box Set Series I reviewed and most especially, Disc Four (which covers the 80’s), I have been on a Non Make-Up Era Kiss fix of late..  I have been playing all the albums and I am even getting Greg Prato’s book “Take It Off: Kiss Truly Unmasked” for Christmas (Review in January 2020).  So, I figured why not do a list of my favorite Kiss songs from that time and here we are.  I am going to cover the albums from ‘Lick it Up’ in 1983 to ‘Carnival of Souls’ in 1997 and although I included the cover to “Thrashes, Smashes & Hits’ on the post header picture, there are no songs from it as the two new songs are really, really bad.

So, why wait any longer.  Here are what I say are the Top 20 Songs of Kiss (The Non-Makeup Era)…

#20 – “Master & Slave” off ‘Carnival of Souls’ (1997)

I had to have one song from ‘Carnival of Souls’ which is not a good album, but there was one song I did like and that is “Master & Slave”.  It was written by Paul Stanley, Bruce Kulick and Curtis Coumo.  When you hear it, it is not normal Kiss.  This is dark, brooding and completely centered in the Grunge era (which was a couple years too late).  I liked the biting guitar work from Bruce and it is something completely different.

#19 – “Thou Shalt Not” off ‘Revenge’ (1992)

I really like a lot of Gene’s songs and there are quite a few on here despite Paul still leading the pack.  The ‘Revenge’ album was a return to glory for Gene as he seemed lost for a few years.  This is Gene, plain and simple.  It is heavy and sounds evil which is just what the doctor ordered.  The guitar solo is just as menacing as the rest of the song (good job Bruce).

Continue reading “The Top 20 Songs of Kiss (The Non-Makeup Years)” →

Kiss – The Box Set (Disc Five 1992-1999) – Album Review (Part 6 of 6)

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Welcome back to final review in the series which is Part 6 of the 6 Part series. We have already talked about the Box Set and its packaging in Part 1 and we have covered Disc 1 and Disc 2 in the set.  For those, we got about 20 unreleased tracks between those two.  Quite impressive.  For Disc Three, we only get 3 unreleased tracks and Disc Four we only get 2 unreleased tracks and for the final disc, Disc 5, we only get 3 previously unreleased tracks.  As a result, I will also talk about the other songs on here to make it a fair representation.

For Disc 5, we only have 3 studio albums and some live albums to include on this set and not everything was great.  As far as studio it is the fantastic ‘Revenge’, the lack of direction ‘Carnival of Souls’ and the reunion album ‘Pschyo Circus’ which not everyone played on so not really a reunion, but that is another discussion.  You also get tracks from the MTV Unplugged album, The Detroit Rock City Soundtrack and some unreleased tracks.  Here are the songs and I love how Eric Carr in Fox Makeup is the background!!

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First up on the disc are four songs from the album ‘Revenge’ which is an album that saw Gene get comfortable in his skin again and gave us one of their heaviest albums since Creatures.  It was fantastic.  Out of the four songs, we get the demo of “Domino” which was written by Gene in 1991 for the ‘Revenge’ album.  The demo is pretty close to the original song with some minor changes as the solo in the album version is played at a different key than the demo.  It is a cool piece to the collection.

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The next batch of four songs is from the MTV unplugged album. The first three tracks are with Eric Singer and Bruce and the last song, “Nothin’ to Lose” has Ace and Peter on it.   I think all four tracks are great as is that whole album.  With so few albums to pull from on this set, we are getting a lot of songs for each album which is part of the drag on this disc.

Next we get two tracks from the album ‘Carnival of Souls’ and to say this isn’t a good album is almost an understatement.  There are some good songs from the album such as “Master and Slave”, but the songs chosen for this release are not my favorites.  These don’t sound like Kiss songs to me.

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Then we get four songs from ‘Psycho Circus’ and none are demos or anything rare.  The song choices are fine it is just like I said earlier, four songs from one release is a lot and it would have been nice to have more unreleased stuff on this disc.

There is one cool song on here from an album I didn’t have which is the Detroit Rock City Movie Soundtrack.  The song is “Nothing Can Keep Me From You”.  I believe the song played through the end credits and was actually written by Diane Warren and not by Kiss.  I enjoyed the track and this is the perfect set for songs like this to be on.

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Then we get one of the most famous unreleased tracks, a song called “It’s My Life”.  This song is one of the best on the disc and did you know Kiss played this live for the first time on the Kiss Kruise IX which was a month ago.  The song dates back to around the time of ‘The Elder’ and was never fully finished.  I believe it has all the original band members on this track was supposed to be on Psycho Circus, but as you know, didn’t make it.

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The last two tracks are both live.  The first one is “Shout it Out Live” from a show in 1996 and on ‘The Greatest Kiss’ album.  And then a previously unreleased version of “Rock & Roll All Nite” because that was what we needed (yeah, no!).  It was from 1999 and was later released on the ‘Alive! The Millennium Concert’ in 2006. For me, not much a great win as an unreleased track.

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This disc had a few highlights for me with “It’s My Life”, “Nothing Can Keep Me From You” and “Domino”, but outside of that it was underwhelmed.  There were too many songs from each disc and the Carnival of Song choices kind of sucked. I don’t ever need another version of “Rock & Roll All Nite”…I mean who does.  I am going to only give it a 3.0 out of 5.0 Stars as a result.  The 3.0 is generous, but I do love “It’s My Life”.

And now that we have all the scores from all 6 reviews, we need to tally up the whole Box Set and come up with an overall score.  Here were the scores:

  • Overall Packaging – 5.0 out of 5.0
  • Disc One – 5.0 out of 5.0
  • Disc Two – 4.5 out of 5.0
  • Disc Three – 3.5 out of 5.0
  • Disc Four – 4.0 out of 5.0
  • Disc Five – 3.0 out of 5.0

  • Overall Average Score – 4.2 out of 5.0 Stars

Check it out and let me know what you think. If you want to go back and read them all, click on the links below:

The 6 Part Series:

    1. Part One – The UnBoxing
    2. Part Two – Disc One: 1966-1975
    3. Part Three – Disc Two: 1975-1977
    4. Part Four – Disc Three: 1976-1982
    5. Part Five – Disc Four: 1983-1992
    6. Part Six – Disc Five: 1992-1999

And that is the end!!  I hope you enjoyed this 6 Part Series of The Box Set!