Tag: Promo

Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss, Neal Grusky – ’24th of June: Alive ‘N Kissing’ (1995) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Back on June 24th, of probably 1995 (I think) at a place called Kühners Landhaus in Kissing, Germany, a group of musicians and friends gathered together for a small promotional show. Those four friends were Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss and Neal Grusky. That short little show was released as Promo and limited to only 500 copies by Long Island Records and released sometime in 1995. I’ve been wanting this one for quite a long time and finally bit the bullet and bought it as it wasn’t too expensive, but is on the pricier side of things.

It is a very relaxed show and the guys have a lot of fun with it but when the music plays, it is all business and all perfection. They are in front of a very polite and yet receptive crowd and they whip through 6 tracks with Jeff on vocals for 5 and Michael Voss on 1 track. They are joined by Mike Foerster to help out on acoustic guitar as this is an all acoustic set. No drums, simply guitars and vocals. An intimate setting and the guys doing what they do best.

The CD opens with Gary Schutt calling for Jeff to come to the stage so they can start the show. When Jeff does finally arrive, they kick in to a beautiful rendition of Jeff’s band Takara’s song “Restless Heart”. The original version is a power ballad with some great keyboards and a big chorus. Here, it is stripped down to its bare essence with Jeff giving such a stellar rendition. There is no explosive moments like in the regular version, it is reserved and even more emotive than the original. Jeff sounds amazing and sounds as good or even better than the studio version. Simply stunning.

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Kiss – ‘HoriPro Music Publishing Collection: Disc 1’ (2007) – Promo CD (The Kiss Review Series)

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In my hunt for Kiss compilations, I came across this single disc cd from 2007 that was actually a promo CD of a larger collection that had 8 CDs, only one of which was Kiss. The info on it is as follows:

KISS/VARIOUS Horipro Music Publishing Collection (2007 US promotional only 120-track 8-CD album set issued by the music publishing arm of the Horipro Entertainment Group to illustrate the diversity of their song catalogue, comprising four various artist compilations of hit country songs and classic rock songs, individual discs dedicated to the ‘Emerald Forest’ subsidiary, Jerry Reed and REO Speedwagon, plus a 13-track Kiss collection exclusive to this set. Custom printed discs and full colour picture sleeves, housed in a card picture slipcase with 16-page booklet including artist biographies).

I do not have the whole set, but only the Kiss CD that I picked up on Discogs. I would love to grab the whole set one day, but for now, I’m happy with the Kiss CD at the very least…which is all I really wanted anyway. It is a simple collection with 13 tracks and the inside album sheet had the songs listed and where they wound up on the Billboard Charts and the year. However, not all the songs charted. A very simple set with nothing else included and heck, it didn’t even have the normal Kiss Logo. But it did have a great selection of tracks.

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Billy Idol – “Shock To The System” (1993) – Promo CD w/ Floppy Disk (The Billy Idol Series)

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Billy Idol became fascinated with technology and the cyberpunk movement of the early 90’s.  He saw how the advancement could be used to make music and in fact, ‘Cyberpunk’ was one of the first albums to use ProTools for almost the entire recording of the album. He felt the use of the computers allowed him to do things faster and he felt it gave the whole feel of a garage band.  I don’t know about that last part, but it was the very early stages of how albums and music would be recorded down the road. ‘Cyberpunk’ is the result of all these technological advances and it was an album way ahead of the times. How far ahead?

Well, when he released the single for “Shock to the System” he sent out the promo copies that contained a 3 1/2″ Floppy Disk.  MP3’s eat your heart out.  The disc housed pictures, bios and all the things you now see issued in todays electronic press kits (EPK).  He was also was one of the first albums to actually have an email address in the booklet that came with the album (don’t try it, it though as it no longer works). I finally found a pristine copy of the Promo and now I have the 3 1/2″ Floppy Disk as well. This is now one of the coolest pieces in my collection.

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Bon Jovi – ‘Inside Out’ (2012) – DVD Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)

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Only the band’s second live album, ‘Inside Out’, was released on November 27, 2012. It was not one show though, it was spread across 3 epic venues as the back of the box states. The songs are from the 25th Anniversary show at Madison Square Garden, the Hometown opening night at New Meadowlands Stadium and then from the Historic 12 night run at London’s O2 Arena. 12 nights…damn!! Usually, I would hate something that wasn’t all one show, but this works. If I’m not mistaken, this is only available on iTunes. Well, that is unless you are able to find the Australian promo of the actual video…which I do. And that is what we are reviewing here, the DVD and not the iTunes version.

The DVD is a promo as it says on the back of the box and on the disc itself, “not for sale”. The video is the actual screening from the theatrical release and it does something cool. We get 14 tracks from the 3 venues and what they do at times during the songs is switch to split screen and show shots of them performing the song from the other arena or arenas in some cases. An interesting way of doing things and it makes it fun to watch. It is 75 minutes of pure Bon Jovi live energy.

The show kicks off with one of my favorite tracks, “Blood on Blood”, from ‘New Jersey’. It feels untouched as you can here the little wobbles and cracks in Jon’s voice like a good live show should have. The song might not have the same grit live as it does on the studio version, but they do put their all in to it. “Lost Highway” sees Jon dripping wet with sweat and when they show the split screens, he is perfectly dry in those which tells me one song was played early in the set and the other later.

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Matt Nathanson – ‘Plus E.P.’ – Album Review

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In my quest for Matt Nathanson music I don’t have, I found another E.P. in my hunts. This one is called ‘Plus’ and was a promotional CD and released on October 14, 2003 which is the same date as his 2003 album ‘Beneath the Fireworks’. That album is the one I feel where Matt was finding his voice as both a singer and a songwriter. It is from this point on that his writing develop and went to another level. The stories were so much better and his vocals were hitting on another level. This is also around the time I started to discover his music and it would suck me in.

There were 3 songs on this album and all were recorded live and done acoustically. Two of the songs were off the album ‘Beneath the Fireworks’ and was from his debut album ‘Please’ from 1993 which was a collection of songs he wrote in high school and college. Lets go through the songs, shall we.

The first song is “Lucky Boy” which was off the album ‘Beneath the Fireworks’ but originally was off his 1999 album ‘Still Waiting for Spring’. It was recorded live on August 20, 2003 at Ned’s Studio. Now I don’t know who Ned is but apparently he has a studio. The song was written by Matt Nathanson and Mark Weinberg and is done acoustically like I mentioned earlier. It features Matt Fish on Cello which is a really cool acoustic element to add. The song is about a friendship where the boy wanted more and was always there for her to comfort her at every turn. She treated him like a rug and walked all over him. He feels it is a cruel world, but he was still lucky to be with her and in her presence despite it never going anywhere he wanted it to go.

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Cinderella – “Shelter Me (Le 11 Février 1991 A La Cigale)” – 7″ Single Promo

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The 2nd 7″ Single I found was for the band Cinderella for the song “Shelter Me” which was the first single off their 1990 album ‘Heartbreak Station’. The song was written by Tom Keifer and actually broke the Top 40 in the U.S. going to #36 and #5 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock stations. The B-Side of the single is also from the album and is the deep cut “Long Gone Bad”.

My version is pretty cool…at least I think it is. It is a French Promo but it wasn’t just promoting the album, it was promoting the upcoming show in Paris on February 11, 1991 at the La Cagila which ia a theater at 120, boulevard de Rochechouart near Place Pigalle, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. That is what the (Le 11 Février 1991 A La Cigale) was referencing on the front of the single. The place was built back in 1887 so it has lots of history. Like I said, I think this is a cool piece.

A-SIDE:

“Shelter Me” took the band back to their roots pulling influence from both the Stones and Aerosmith with the bluesy rock. Just listen to that Stones Boogie in the song and you will know what I mean. Keifer’s raspy vocals add so much grit and then throw in Tom and Jeff Labar’s steel guitar work and you have a great track. There is even some honky tonk piano, some saxophone and I swear I hear a mouth harp (or whatever that twangy sound is). You get both a guitar solo and a saxophone solo, what more could you want. It is a down home good time song.

B-SIDE:

The B-Side is “Love Gone Bad” and is a very deep cut on the ‘Heartbreak Station’ album. It was also written solely by Tom Keifer but that is to be expected. This song leads more to the rock then the blues even though there is still a lot of blues in it. Fred Coury is slamming the skins and Tom’s vocals are on the harder edge of things as he screams a lot more on this one and with the raspy vocals you get that rock side to his vocals. The guitar work by him and Labar is stellar as usual. You get more saxophone and piano from Jay Davidson, organ work by Ken Hensley and some background vocals from Eric Troyer. Another stellar track from the band.

And that is it for this single, the last of the 3 from the Charlotte Record Show is up next week. Thanks for stopping by and hanging with us.

Cheap Trick – “Ghost Town” (1988) – CD Promotional Single (The Cheap Trick Collection Series – Bonus Edition)

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We have another Bonus Edition to the Cheap Trick Collection Series. Since it is “The Collection” Series, we are going through stuff in my collection obviously. This next piece I found at Noble Records in Mathews, NC ( look him up) and is something I problem wouldn’t normally buy, but it was inexpensive and sealed and a promo so I had to. And yes, it is still sealed as I don’t want to open it as it is the album track with no other edits or songs so I am good leaving it as is.

The Single came out in October of 1988 and since it was October, I guess they went with the Halloween theme. Well, that and the fact is the song has “Ghost” in the name. As you can see from the CD below, there are Black Cats and Pumpkins pictured on the disc. Pretty cool marketing trick. As you can also see, there is no booklet or cover to the disc. As a result, the cover picture on the post is actually from the 7″ Single release. This is a promo as noted on the back with “Demonstration – Not For Sale” clearly labeled.

“Ghost Town” was written by Rick and the great Diane Warren which gives us a connection to the Aerosmith Series we are doing (although we aren’t to that part in the Aerosmith Series). Diane Warren was brought in to co-write and song doctor songs with the band who were very upset at this idea and they let it be known they were. The song was written though back in 1981 by Rick, but it had gone relatively unfinished. Diane helped him finish it. The song did hit the Top 40 landing at #33 but it wasn’t as successful as the two previous singles.

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