Tag: Tommy Aldridge

‘Off the Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz’ by Rudy Sarzo – Book Review

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I have been reading a lot lately and I was able to get this book on my Kindle for the super low price of nothing so I thought, what the hell. I really like Rudy Sarzo, I like Ozzy, I like Randy Rhoda’s so why not check this out. The book was written by former Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne bassist, Rudy Sarzo and he chronicles his short time in Ozzy’s touring band the Blizzard of Ozz. This time period is that same time period as when Randy Rhoda’s was in the band and Rudy wanted to capture those moments and felt the story needed to be told. I have to say, I think he is right and I thoroughly enjoyed walking through in great detail, the tours he played on.

The book starts off the day Randy went up in the plane and would crash and end his short time on this planet. The story then immediately jumps back in time to right before Rudy was brought in to Ozzy’s band. Rudy had been in Quiet Riot for a short time with Randy and the band got famous in Japan, but not in the U.S. The group had stalled and Randy went and joined Ozzy’s band and Rudy joined a band called Private Army with his friend Frankie Banali. In the meantime, Ozzy’s debut solo album was released in 1980 and right before the band was to go on tour in 1981, Ozzy fired the drummer and bass player. Randy was still in the band. Tommy Aldridge was quickly brought in, but the band needed a bass player. Randy called Rudy and Rudy would go to Don Arden’s house (Sharon Osbourne’s day and Jet Records President) to meet Ozzy and Sharon and audition. Well, needless to say, things worked out or this book wouldn’t have been written.

Rudy chronicles the entire journey through the tour for Blizzard of Ozz and the Tour for Diary of a Madman. It feels like he kept a lot of notes about what happened at each show, but also, he had help. At the end of the Blizzard Tour, Sharon gave him a scrapbook of every show including newspaper clippings of the reviews of the shows. What is funny is the fact that a ton of these reviews would list the original band which was not Rudy or Tommy which goes to show the writers knew nothing about the band and didn’t even bother going to the show.

Continue reading “‘Off the Rails: Aboard the Crazy Train in the Blizzard of Ozz’ by Rudy Sarzo – Book Review” →

My Sunday Song – “Trouble is Your Middle Name” by Whitesnake

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For My Sunday Song #204, we are going after one of Whitesnake’s newest songs and hits of the ‘Flesh & Blood’ album called “Trouble Is Your Middle Name”.  The song was the second single off the album and when I heard it, it was the first time in years I had been excited about a Whitesnake song or album.

The song is about a girl.  What Whitesnake song isn’t in some way, shape or form. This is about being drawn in to a relationship where you know you shouldn’t, but you so want to despite all the bad that goes with it.  The attraction and desire are too much to not give it a try, yet since the girl is so much trouble, you know it isn’t going to end well.  And it doesn’t.  Not much to it really, but man the song just grabs you.

It grabs you because the music is some of the best the band has done in years.  David wrote this one with the great Joel Hoekstra who played with Night Ranger and he plays with Cher and TSO as well.  It is great to see David writing with him and Joel brings so much to the band.  The song opens with blast of sirens then David singing a verse and the song explodes to life.  The drum sound on here is so powerful and with Tommy Aldridge back on the kit, you get some of the best drum sounds you could want.

418460349584_500 Continue reading “My Sunday Song – “Trouble is Your Middle Name” by Whitesnake” →

Whitesnake – ‘Flesh & Blood’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

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After The Purple Tour, the band would continue and finally record a new album full of all new original Whitesnake songs.  This would be the first album of new material since ‘Forevermore’ back in 2011.  This would also be the first album that Joel Hoekstra gets to actually perform and play songs that he actually helped write and record and not be a Deep Purple cover band.

Speaking of writing, David likes to write with his star guitarists.  This time though, David really has 2 star guitarists that are both very capable and talented writers.  David has 3 songs written with Reb Beach and 4 written with Joel.  And to get even better, he has 2 written with both of them.  And to go even one step further, they all co-produced the album along with Michael McIntyre.

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‘Flesh & Blood’ was supposed to come out in early 2018, but was delayed in to the Summer of 2018 due to an illness with David. This is actually the 2nd time an illness had delayed an album. If you remember this happened back for the 1987 album and John Sykes almost staged a coup and move on with out David.  Yeah, and that didn’t end well for John. Continue reading “Whitesnake – ‘Flesh & Blood’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)” →

Whitesnake – ‘The Purple Tour (Live)’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

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We are now to the final Live album I will be reviewing for the band.  Since their reunion back in 2003, Whitesnake has overloaded the general public with Live albums.  Seven to be exact!!  Now, those seven do cover several eras of the band, but still Seven!!  The Purple Tour Live album is the latest and it covers an era of the band I have yet reviewed for a live album…the Joel Hoekstra era.  Yes, I define my eras by the lead guitarists.  I know Reb is still one of those guitarists, but this is Joel’s first.

And interesting note, do you know who the longest running member of Whitesnake is aside from David, of course?  That is right, it is Reb Beach.  He has been with the band for 18 years.  Then Tommy Aldridge would be a close second although his years were not consistent years like Reb, he was in and out 3 times.  The current line-up is as follows:

  • David Coverdale – vocals
  • Reb Beach – guitar
  • Joel Hoestra – guitar
  • Tommy Aldridge – drums
  • Michelle Luppi – keyboards
  • Michael Devin – bass

And it is a pretty solid line-up.

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Whitesnake – ‘The Purple Album’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

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After too many live albums released, the band finally decided to do another album.  Before that could happen, they needed a replacement guitarist as Doug Aldrich left the band on May 9th of 2014 after more than 10 years with the band.  One of the longest stretches of any guitarist.  I believe he left to go play with The Dead Daisies and do his own thing.

A replacement now needed to be found and it was about 3-4 months later that Joel Hoekstra was tagged as the replacement guitarist.  Joel had been playing with Night Ranger previously and he figured this was a higher profit (I mean higher profile) band and he is not wrong about that.  Joel is fantastic and he has his own solo stuff as well as playing with Cher and TSO for their Christmas Tours.  The rest of the line-up is as follows:

  • David Coverdale – vocals
  • Reb Beach – guitar
  • Tommy Aldridge – drums
  • Michael Devin – bass
  • Joel Hoekstra – guitar

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Now that the band was fully staffed again, a new album was in the works.  This time around, thankfully not a live album, but it was only a covers album.  Not just any covers album, no that had been done a million times, this one focused on only one band.  Deep Purple!  David decided he wanted to record a Deep Purple collection of the best songs from his era of that famous band.  The funny thing about this is that David tried so hard to not mention or play anything from Purple while being Whitesnake from the eaerly 90’s and back.  You never heard a song by Purple in the setlist.  That changed in the late 90’s when a song or two would show up.  Now, David wanted to pay tribute and an homage to that wonderful time in his life.  Continue reading “Whitesnake – ‘The Purple Album’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)” →

Whitesnake – ‘Live at Donington 1990: Monsters of Rock’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

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We are now in the year 2011 with Whitesnake and with that being said, let’s release a live album from 1990.  Sure, why not. David seems to be out of ideas as this is the third live album in 5 years and in another 2 years, he will release 2 more.  I have to admit, I am starting to get live album burnout.  But since this is a 1990 Live album and I haven’t reviewed a live album from this line-up, it makes the cut.

The show is from Donington Park on August 8th, 1990 at the Monsters of Rock Festival.  It is the final show in the ‘Liqour and Poker Tour’ in support of the ‘Slip of the Tongue’ album.  This show was also released on the ‘Slip of the Tongue’ 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition box set.  The CD is not the full show as it leaves out the solos, but the DVD has the full show on it.  So, I would recommend getting that deluxe edition because you get this show plus a whole lot more.

The band is headlining the festival, for the second time I believe.  The line-up of the band is pretty impressive…

  • David Coverdale
  • Steve Vai
  • Adrian Vandenberg
  • Rudy Sarzo
  • Tommy Aldridge

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The show is a full set even for a festival. They play 17 songs and this being 1990, there are no early Deep Purple songs as David refused to play them back then.  And if you want early Whitesnake, you only get “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City’ from the Snakebite EP (and is probably my favorite song of this show) and that is all.  The songs are from the 3 big albums in the 80’s – Slide it In, 1987 and Slip of the Tongue. Continue reading “Whitesnake – ‘Live at Donington 1990: Monsters of Rock’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)” →

Whitesnake – ‘Live…In the Shadow of the Blues’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

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In just 9 months after the release the live DVD…’Live…In The Still of The Night’, the band releases another live album.  Released on November 24th, 2006 is ‘Live…In The Shadow of the Blues’.  Surprisingly, this album never got an official release here in the U.S. and I am hurt by that, but I got over it.  This is the band’s third live album with the whole ‘Live…’ set up as the first was ‘Live…In the Heart of the City’ back in 1980.  However, it is the technically the fourth live album thanks to ‘Starkers in Tokyo’.

Now, I am a little baffled as to why release another live album so quickly after the DVD release.  It doesn’t really make any sense.  Especially since the band’s line-up is relatively unchanged with the exception of bass.  On bass for this set is Uriah Duffy and the last one was Marco Mendoza.  Otherwise, the players are the same…

  • David Coverdale – vocals
  • Doug Aldrich – guitar
  • Reb Beach – guitar
  • Tommy Aldridge – drums
  • Timothy Drury – keyboards

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Let’s talk about the positives with this set.  You do get 20 songs from various shows.  And most importantly, you do get 4 brand new songs written by David Coverdale with his new partner in crime, Doug Aldrich.  We will review those songs in detail, but before we get to those songs, let’s go through the live set a little. Continue reading “Whitesnake – ‘Live…In the Shadow of the Blues’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)” →

Whitesnake – ‘Live…In the Still of the Night’ – DVD Review (The David Coverdale Series)

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After David Coverdale’s solo album, ‘Into the Light’, in 2000.  Whitesnake layed dormant for another 2 years.  It was December of 2002 that David decided to reform Whitenake.  And what a band he put together.  It was Doug Aldrich and Reb Beach on guitar, Marco Mendozza on bass, Timothy Drury on keyboards and the mighty Tommy Aldridge on drums.

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The band toured for a couple years and in 2004, they recorded a show.  It was on October 20, 2004 at the Hammersmith Apollo in London that a video recording was made of the show.  The video, however, would not see the light of day for until February 2006.  I know because I remember when this came out as I received a very special copy.  Why was it special? I will tell you.

It is not special because it is the ‘Special Collector’s Edition’.  No.  It is special because I won it on some music website give away.  Sadly, I don’t remember what website, but I remember entering the contest, receiving an email that I won, and lastly receiving a parcel in the mail with the DVD set included. And it was this set that reignited my passion for David Coverdale and the rest is history. Continue reading “Whitesnake – ‘Live…In the Still of the Night’ – DVD Review (The David Coverdale Series)” →

Whitesnake – ‘Slip of the Tongue’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)

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After coming off the tour of the band’s biggest selling album, ‘Whitesnake’, it was time to record a new album.  But before that could happen, another guitarist left the fold.  Vivian Campbell left the band and it was reported as “Creative Differences”…whatever that means.  But it what it did mean, was more line-up issues for the band.

But that didn’t stop David from starting to write new songs.  He and his now creative partner, Adrian Vandenberg, set forth with writing the new album.  They actually wrote some of the album while on tour, but the bulk was crafter in David’s home in Lake Tahoe. I would think that wouldn’t be a bad place to hold up to write. The songs were all written by David and Adrian (except for one), but sadly, Adrian wouldn’t play on any of them.

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Adrian hurt his wrist and could not record.  He would need surgery for the issue and that put him out of commission for some time.  So, David needed to find a replacement to help with the album.  Now the replacement was to record, but it was also to replace Vivian.  He needed someone really strong and thankfully for us, he found one of the greatest guitar players ever to hold a 6 string.  It was the former Frank Zappa and former David Lee Roth guitarist Steve Vai. Steve brought a whole new style and sound to Whitesnake. Don’t expect Vai to play the blues, he had a texture and sound that was not what Whitesnake fans were used to, but we could accept it. Continue reading “Whitesnake – ‘Slip of the Tongue’ – Album Review (The David Coverdale Series)” →

Whitesnake – ‘Slip of the Tongue’ Super Deluxe Edition (30th Anniversary) – Album Review

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David Coverdale has really outdone himself with these Super Deluxe Editions Box Sets.  First was the ‘1987’ album, then an UnZipped Box Set, then ‘Slide It In’ and now we get the royal treatment on the 1989 album ‘Slip of the Tongue’.

This special edition consists of 6 CDs, 1 DVD, 1 Book, 1 Tour Program replica and 1 Album Cover Poster.  And it has over 100 tracks amongst all the discs.  Here is everything you get.

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Now of course that 100+ tracks is misleading and this set is truly for the ultimate fan.  Why?  Because the set repeats the songs a lot.  Because the set repeats the songs a lot.  Yes, I wrote that twice on purpose and yes, I did the same joke on ‘Slide It In’…because its true.

Continue reading “Whitesnake – ‘Slip of the Tongue’ Super Deluxe Edition (30th Anniversary) – Album Review” →