Tag: Kuni

Jeff Scott Soto – ‘The Authorized Biography’ by Frank Tunney and Ronny Hahn’ (2014) – Book Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Back in December 2021 when I announced I was doing a Jeff Scott Soto Series, I got a lot of response on the picture of my collection. One such person contacted me on Facebook and offered to send me a hard back edition of a biography on Jeff Scott Soto, so I quickly thanked him and agreed. He quickly mailed out this glorious copy of the book. His name was Sundeep Pooni and that book has been a massive reference guide for my review series up to this point. So, a big thank you to Sundeep and his very generous gift!! From here on out in the review series, we are past the date of the book so none of the albums I’ll be reviewing from ere on out are in the book, so I am on my own.

Before we get to the next review, let’s go through this book. It was originally written by Ronny Hahn and it was written in German and only an electronic book. For the 30th Anniversary of Jeff’s career, it was released thanks to Frank Tunney who took the original book and added more chapters and re-organized the structure. It is now a hard back book and chock full of the details of his career that all hardcore fans love to know. The book is called “Authorized” so it has the blessing of the man himself and that is good enough for me.

The book starts off with the original foreward written by Ronny Zahn and then there is a great dedication to the late Marcel Jacobs who played with Jeff in several bands and was a very close personal friend. It was a terrible loss, but thankfully he left behind a great legacy of music. Afterwards you get a brief biography of Jeff’s very early life, but the rest of the book is all Jeff’s music career.

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My Sunday Song – “Memories of You” by Kuni

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For My Sunday Song #289, we are going deep with a cut called “Memories of You” from a band Jeff Scott Soto was in back in 1988 called Kuni. Soto was able to land a gig with the Japanese guitar virtuoso, Kuni, after his stint with Yngwie Malmsteen. The rest of the band included Mike Terrana on Drums, who played with Yngwie and Beau Nasty, as well as Douglas Taylor Baker on Bass, who also wound up playing with Beau Nasty. The album was called “Lookin’ For Action’ and that album had plenty of action on it.

The song is sad as our singer sits with a picture in his hand of a love gone wrong. They loved so deeply and he doesn’t understand what went wrong and why their love died. But it did and all he is stuck with is his memories. He is wondering if she feels the same way. Is she feeling the pain he is feeling. Is she missing him as much as he misses her. We don’t ever get the answer, just a beautiful song.

This is one of my favorite songs on the record (and there are a lot on this album), “Memories of You”, was written by Cary Sharef. It also might be Jeff’s best performance on the album. It is a power ballad or as close as you can get with Kuni, maybe a little heavier than what you’d expect for one, but works like one as the chorus is hooky and layered with tons of backing vocals. Soto shows off his range here and hits notes that will shatter glass. And don’t worry, every power ballad has a killer guitar solo and this one is no different. It starts off slow and then Kuni rips you a new one. He is a brilliant player and could shred with the best of them. This is also a big part of why I like this song.

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Kuni – ‘Lookin’ For Action’ (1988) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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After Jeff Scott Soto’s stint with Yngwie Malmsteen was over, Soto was able to land a gig with the Japanese guitar virtuoso, Kuni. The rest of the band included Mike Terrana on Drums, who played with Yngwie and Beau Nasty, as well as Douglas Taylor Baker on Bass, who also wound up playing with Beau Nasty. Behind the boards on this one is a name a lot of you should be familiar with due to the bands Vinnie Vincent Invasion and Slaughter. That is right, Dana Strum produced the album and I have to say the production work on here is fantastic.

The band was very popular in Japan and they even got to tour. One of the shows was recorded for TV so it makes wonder if there is a live album or bootleg of that show anywhere. I need to start looking for that.

The copy I have is actually a re-release from 2018 and has a couple live bonus tracks and who doesn’t love bonus tracks. All releases of this album are Japan only which means…yes…OBI strips and my copy is no different. You can see it a few pictures down. Also included is a fold out page that has an essay in Japanese and I have no idea what it says, but you see Vinnie Vincent’s name mentioned, Loudness, Yngwie and several other band names so I am guessing it is talking about the band members and where they came from plus tons of other great information that would be nice to read…if I read Japanese. The page also has the lyrics to the songs, in English, on both sides.

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COMING TO 2 LOUD 2 OLD MUSIC IN 2022 – THE JEFF SCOTT SOTO SERIES!!!

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Let the Countdown begin!!!

Starting January 3rd, 2022, we will kick off the EPIC series covering one of my favorite singers, Jeff Scott Soto!! We will go through his entire career from where it all began in 1984 with Panther all the way to his latest solo album that came out this past October called ‘Duets’. Wait, I know it started with a band called Threshold in 1983 (not to be confused with the prog metal band years later), but I can’t find anything on that band or album so it is starting with Panther for this series as I have that album.

No stone will be left unturned! Okay, that isn’t true as we are not going in to any compilations or tribute albums where he wasn’t the featured singer as this will only be albums that Jeff is the Lead Singer and not just appearing on one song as we would be here forever if that was the case. We will also have some great little bonus pieces with Singles and E.P.’s I happen to have in my collection and interesting one-off projects he has done. Heck, I even have a digital bootleg of when Jeff Scott Soto toured as the lead singer with Journey. And as you can see below, it is quite a collection…if I do say so myself…

There will be over 65 Posts in the Series, you read that right, 65!! And that is at least 65 because I am sure he will release 1 to 2 to maybe even 4 albums by the time I’m done. I expect this to take over a year to complete because this isn’t all I’m going to do. No, not at all. We will still finish up the series of Cheap Trick and Aerosmith that we are currently doing in 2022 and when those end I am sure new series will be added in as well. Quite possibly Bon Jovi, Scorpions, Van Halen, Ace Frehley, Poison or even Def Leppard. It won’t be all, just a couple of them, but I can’t decide which ones yet. But heck, I do already have an idea of which epic artist I want to tackle after Jeff, but that will be 2023 and it could be huge. We will announce it next year.

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October 2021 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Welcome to the next installment of Purchases as we run through the monthly purchases here at 2 Loud 2Old Music. And this was a good month…a really good one. This would be a quality month over quantity although the quantity was still there. The month started out with a visit to one of my favorite stores Noble Records. It was Dillion’s 2nd Anniversary as a Brick & Mortar store and he was putting out some holy grail items for sure. I’m not one of crowds at the moment so I knew it was going to be packed so I waiting until later in the day before I showed up. There was nothing I was really looking for so going early didn’t matter. I was there to show some support.

The first thing I found were some great 7″ Singles. 2 from Quiet Riot and one from David Bowie. I nice score for me and I will take it…

And there was still more. Now, I didn’t really find a whole lot. But I found something I had never seen before so I grabbed it. It was an alternate cover for the Scorpions debut, “Lonesome Crow”. And it is a cool cover. It turns out, this was a reissue of the album from 1982 or 1983 and it had came in a translucent brownish, yellowish, orangish color…wait…maybe it is gold. Who knows, but I know I loved the cover and sold!!!

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