Tag: Nashville

Kiss – Boxx (Vol. 1) (1993) – Album Review (The Kiss Bootleg Series)

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I have been doing a Kiss Bootleg Series for years. You get a review every time I add a new one to the collection. Well, after buying 38 Bootleg CDs from John Humphrey’s personal collection, I figured let’s jump right back in and do a whole lot of reviews on the Bootlegs. Oh, if you don’t know who John Humphrey is, you need to know he is a massive Kiss collector. And he is the drummer of the band Seether. John decided to sell off his entire collection…sort of…he kept all the vinyl (like 4,000 of them). He did it through an auction at Backstage Auctions and I had to have a piece of it…and I did wind up with some things.

This time around we have another Australian Bootleg which means it has a big “UNAUTHORIZED” across the cover. It is called Boxx (Vol. 1) and was released in 1993 by a label called Banana and distributed by Apple House Music. What is with the fruit references?? It’s packaging is identical to the Live Vol. 1 we did a few weeks back. Both were made in Australia. This time instead of tracks from one show we get them from two. One is Cleveland 1975 and the other is actually Nashville 1984 despite the cover saying ’85. Oops. It looks like songs 1-6 are from June 21, 1975 at the Cleveland Music Hall and was actually part of the King Biscuit Flower Hour Broadcast…which explains why it sounds so good. Tracks 7-13 are from January 11, 1984 show at Nashville Municipal Auditorium.

It starts off with what is called “Intro” so I was expecting a big “You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best…” opening, however, it was simply the intro to the song “Hotter Than Hell” as are only taking songs from the setlist here and not a full show. “Hotter Than Hell” really cooks. The guitars are smoking, the bass is steaming and the drums are explosive. Paul’s vocals are killer and it is hard to believe this is a bootleg. The go right into “Firehouse” like they do in the original full show. And it is more of the same awesomeness. You know how the song goes so no need discussing that, simply know this sounds like a band in their prime and hungry as hell.

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My Sunday Song – “Goodbye” by DarkHorse

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For My Sunday Song #414, we are going to go a little country with Paul Laine’s band called DarkHorse. The song is called “Goodbye” and is off the album called “Let It Ride” which was released in 2014, almost 25 years after his rock debut album. This is Paul’s first dive in to the Country genre and saw him head to down to Nashville and work with Steve Ohe. I don’t think the song was a single and the album didn’t do much in the charts here in the States, but it was a country album that country fans missed out on for sure.

The song is a love letter to the woman who left him for another man. He’s heartbroken and looking for closure but doesn’t know how to get that closure as she is gone and he hasn’t been album to properly say goodbye. He loved her so much that the fact she left has scarred him deeply. He wants to see her one more time even if it is just to say goodbye, but he can’t do that if he doesn’t know how why she left and if it isn’t truly over.

The song is a ballad and yes there is a country twang to it, but at its heart, the song is still a melodic rock love song. It has that 80’s rock, ballad sound with a few country guitars such as a slide and steel guitar. Paul’s vocals are so tender and heartbreakingly sad that the emotion from those lyrics oozes out. You can feel the pain he is feeling. His vocals never age and he can still hit these high notes that most artist would kill for. As far as ballads go, they don’t get much better than this. You will see it leans less country and more rock if you listen to the heart of the song.

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