W.E.T. – ‘One Live – In Stockholm’ (2014) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

The band W.E.T. consisting of Robert Sall (Work of Art), Erik Martensson (Eclipse) and Jeff Scott Soto (Talisman) was originally going to be a one off project. However, the success of their debut and the fun had by the three main guys has turned in to a band. With two albums under their belt, the band hit the road and for only their second show ever as a band, it was captured in video and released as both a Live Double CD and a beautifully filmed DVD. What we get is ‘One Live – In Stockholm’!!

Recorded on January 17, 2013 at a really small club in Stockholm, Sweden called the Debaser Club and the reason behind the small venue is interesting. The guys only were expecting less than 100 people and so they figured a smaller venue would still look full on camera. What they got was hundreds of people and they had to delay the show by an hour to make sure everyone got in that wanted to (and hopefully legally could for fire codes and all). The band’s second album, ‘Rise Up’, hadn’t been released yet, but it was about too so the band had 2 full albums of material to now draw from plus they few in several surprises along the way. And to top it off, the CD version of the show has two bonus tracks of previously unreleased songs from the last album. Now, there is absolutely no reason a fan of this band wouldn’t want it. A live show on 2 CDs, two bonus studio tracks and a DVD of the show…DAMN!! What is not to like about this release.

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1,000,000 Views and Counting

On Sunday, February 26, 2023, 2 Loud 2 Old Music reached a milestone for the site. We finally reached 1,000,00 views on the site. It all started April 17, 2016 and only took just shy of 7 years to hit that mark. Now, at the pace we are going now, it should take less than 4 years for the next million.

What did we do to get to this point, well, we have written a lot of post. We are at 2,141 posts since we started and I am not sure why I keep saying we, because it is just me. Maybe the we is me, myself and I. We have done over 350 post of My Sunday Songs and Friday New Release posts which I have been doing since almost the beginning. We have done I think close to 1,000 album/single reviews, a bunch of The Original Vs The Cover posts and even a lot of Album Rankings. I never thought I would write this much and still have stuff to write about, but we’ve barely scratched the service at what is in the collection so there will be more to come.

The 10 most popular posts are as follows:

  1. New Release Page – over 25,700 views
  2. Maroon 5 – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 10,200 views
  3. Apple Music vs. Amazon Music Unlimited – over 9,400 views
  4. The Original vs The Cover: “The Sound of Silence” – over 9,100 views
  5. Whitesnake – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 8,200 views
  6. Ratt – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 8,200 views
  7. Poison – The Albums Ranked Worst to First – over 6,700 views
  8. Tuesday’s Memes – Christmas Music – over 6,200 views
  9. The Top 20 Ratt Songs – over 6,000 views
  10. Tuesday’s Memes – Rock & Roll – over 5,700 views

And if you wonder why I have done a lot of Album Rankings, well, they do make up 40% of the list so there is that reason. I stopped doing the Memes collections, but maybe I should bring that back…nah!

What I have really enjoyed doing over the last few years are artist series where I cover every album either in my collection or in their catalog. Definitely I’ve done all the studio albums for these bands so there are a lot of reviews up for these artists. I’ve done quite a few.

  • Ratt
  • Billy Idol
  • David Coverdale/Whitesnake
  • Kiss
  • Queen
  • Judas Priest
  • Aerosmith
  • Cheap Trick
  • Scorpions (only 3 more left to write)
  • Jeff Scott Soto (only 18 more to write) – And will be the most comprehensive reviews of Soto’s career anywhere on the web and I can almost guarantee that.

And the next one lined up is Bon Jovi which will start sometime either late Spring or early Summer.  Not sure where I will be going after that series.  

I think I am going to stop the You Pick It series as that doesn’t get a whole lot of participation. I think I have one more lined up to post for April’s selection and that will be it. I’m working on March’s right now.

Let me know if there is something you’d like to see me do on the site and maybe I’ll do it. I am planning to continue to show off things in the collection and write reviews on them and if I ever catch up and do it all, maybe I’ll stop at that time, but I think I still have a few more years left in me.  When we hit the 10 year mark, I’ll re-evaluate and see what is next, but for now, I am going to keep on doing what I’m doing.

Thank you to everyone that has come and stopped by the site and to those regular readers, thank you most of all. You are my motivation and reason to keep on going.  You know who you are.

Here’s to the next 1,000,000 views!!

January 2023 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

Last year flew by and now here we are in 2023 and already at our first month purchases wrap-up. It was a good start to the year if I do say so myself. I started a new collection, found some stuff for other collections I have, treated myself to an album I’ve been wanting for years and even found a Jeff Scott Soto CD that I didn’t even know existed. I would say that all makes for a solid month.

The month kicked off in full glory when 2nd & Charles kicked off the year with a buy 5 get 5 free sale on their CDs and so I pounced on it. Sadly, my memory sucks and one is one I already had, see if you can guess which one because it was in my November purchases as well.

If that wasn’t enough, later in the month I went by Repo Records here in Charlotte and found a handful of picture sleeve 45’s. I love the picture sleeves and so I bought about 9 this time around. Some great stuff to add to the collection…

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You Pick It! – What to Review in November?

You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple! Now, if you want to cast more than one vote, comment on the Twitter and Facebook post and you could get up to 3 votes on your favorite pick.

There are no longer rules for my selections.  I’m just picking albums in my collection. Well, I guess that is a rule. And maybe a theme on the five. This time they are all from the same genre I guess. And what are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

   White Lion – ‘Mane Attraction’

   Winger – ‘Pull’

    Cinderella – ‘Long Cold Winter’

   Poison – ‘Look What the Cat Dragged In’

   Night Ranger – ‘Man in Motion’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in November, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!

“Nothin’ But A Good Time: The Uncensored History of the ’80’s Hard Rock Explosion” by Tom Beaujour & Richard Bienstock – Book Review

It took me a long time to finally get to this book as I’ve had it a long while, but life kept getting in the way. When I was on vacation a few weeks back, I was bound and determined to finish this book and man was it a great read. The 80’s Hard Rock Explosion is the music scene I grew up with and is what I am most passionate about so this book was a no-brainer for me. This book was written by journalists Tom Beaujour who was co-founder of Revolver magazine and Richard Bienstock who was a senior editor for Guitar World magazine plus he has been published in Rolling Stone and New York Times. Both very accomplished writers.

These guys go back to the beginning even before the Sunset Strip music scene and we find out what was really happening and how things got started. The craziness, the sex, the drugs, the rock & roll all here in full uncensored glory. There are so many fascinating stories and I loved learning about the musical chairs between band members in the early days with Jake E. Lee jumping from one band to another, Warren DeMartini possibly playing with a band other than Ratt and just who was in Guns N Roses first and who wasn’t….it was so much to keep up with and a blast to read about. There are a cast of characters chapter showing all the people that were interviewed and quoted and it was 7 pages long. If they were part of the scene, they are in here from Steven Adler to Zakk Wylde and everything in between.

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Poison – “Nothin’ But A Good Time” – 7″ Single

While out at a new Record Store I found called Mad Jack’s, I picked up this sweet single from Poison’ album ‘Open Up and Say…Ahh!’. This is their first single off the album and it was called “Nothin’ But a Good Time”. It was released on April 6, 1988 and the song went all the way to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it was all over MTV. My version of the single is the standard U.S. version with “Look But You Can’t Touch” as the B-Side. It was in pristine condition considering it is over 30 years old. The B-Side for the single is also off the ‘Open Up and Say…Ahh!’ album and is called “Look But You Can’t Touch”.

The song was written back in their early days when they were living in a warehouse and they had no money. They would talk women in to buying them food and doing all sorts of things for them. I have also read it was about not needing to be depressed working a 9 to 5 job and just live in the moment and live it up. It is a very hedonistic lifestyle and that comes across in the song. They were rock stars living the dream, what more could you want.

Continue reading “Poison – “Nothin’ But A Good Time” – 7″ Single”

February 2022 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

February is over so it is time for our monthly round-up of what 2 Loud 2 Old Music got their hands on this month and it was another banner month. It all started with a trip to the antique mart called Sleepy Poets. My daughter loves that place and I don’t mind because there are records and I found a couple good ones. One was the only early Stryper album I was missing and the other was one of my mother’s favorite bands Air Supply so I had to buy it. I miss her a lot so it will be something in my collection that when I am really, really missing her I can pull out and play.

Then the following week, my daughter wanted to hit more antique shops as she loves to find old vintage clothes at not a too ridiculous of a price. The first place we hit in Mathews said it was an antique place, but really it was a record store and now I have another great place to go buy albums!! Yeah me!! I found some great vinyl, CDs, singles and cassettes…they had it all. First are the albums, which are an early pressing of Mariah Carey’s debut on vinyl and a Billy Idol 12″ Single of Mony Mony.

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2021 – A Year in Review at 2 Loud 2 Old Music – The Top 10 Posts of the Year!!

Last Saturday, I gave you a post of totally useless information with all the albums I listened to in 2021, so let’s do it again this Saturday. We are going to look back at what happened in 2021…no not in the world of music. But in the world of 2 Loud 2 Old Music, the website!! I know this is important stuff, I get how excited you must be so stop the YAWNING!!!

We had a another record year here at the site. We finally broke 1,000 followers and are now sitting at around 1,022. A small milestone for the site. It only took 5 years to get there. If that was enough we broke a record of views this year with over 272,000 views which is a 36% increase over the prior year. Next year, we are hoping to finally pass 300,000 views. See, real exciting stuff.

During the year we worked on a lot of Review Series. We finished the Kiss Review Series which had around 74 separate posts and took over 13 months to complete. We also started and finished the Judas Priest Series and the Queen Series which were both a lot of fun. We have started and are a good way through the Cheap Trick Collection Series and the Aerosmith Collection Series as I love doing these Series so I hope you do as well. It lets me go back and deep dive in to their albums and it also gives me a reason to go out and buy more albums. For 2022, we have the Jeff Scott Soto Series and I will go ahead and tell you when the Aerosmith Series ends, we will be jumping right in to the Scorpions Collection Series. A lot to look forward to next year!

What were to Top 10 Posts of the Year?

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November 2021 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

Can you believe there is only one more month in the year? It has flown by so fast. And here we are again with another month end wrap-up of the purchases we have made here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music. It was a pretty decent month and another month where CDs outweighed the vinyl. There should’ve been a couple more vinyl in here, but with all the delays in vinyl pressing I have 3 that have been bought that will now not show up until 2022!! Thanks Adele!!!

First up this month are a couple that came in at the end of October after I had done my post. First is the John 5 & The Creatures release ‘Sinner’ and this one is signed. It is an awesome album and it will be interesting to see where this lands on our year-end countdown.

The other item that I received was another stellar box set from Whitesnake. This time around it is the 25th Anniversary of the album ‘Restless Heart’. It is full of demos, remixes and the always cool Evolutions disc that walks you through the evolution of the songs. Sadly, there was no live show added but that is being picky.

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Alice Cooper – 2021 Fall Tour (Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheater, October 7, 2021) – Concert Review

Welcome to Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle!! That is how the show opened and what a nightmare it was, but in a good way. This was my second time seeing Alice as I saw him 3 years earlier, almost to the day and I am glad to be back to be terrified, freaked out and entertained by the legend himself. This time around, my daughter joined me as she figured if her mom liked the last show, maybe she will and I think she did, but more on that later.

As we were standing in line to get through the vaccine check (negative covid test check) and the metal detector, we noticed people wearing Nita Strauss T-Shirts. It was cool seeing people that were coming to the show to see her. If you don’t know her, she is “Hurricane” Nita Strauss and she is Alice Cooper’s lead guitar player (one of three), but she is the featured one that gets all the press because she is pretty freaking awesome!!

After watching Ace Frehley Open the show, the crowd was pumped and ready. We only had to wait just under 30 minutes to get the stage transferred over and turned in to this giant 2-Story castle and full of horrifying things. But what wasn’t horrifying, but electrifying was the setlist…take a look at what he has to offer this time around…

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