April 7 – Out Of The Blue, They Waltzed Off The Stage

A landmark day in what we’d now call “Americana” music some 46 years ago. The Band said “au revoir” so to speak with the release of the epic triple-LP The Last Waltz. Not only that, a couple of weeks later in 1978, an accompanying movie of the event, made by Martin Scorsese came out to very good reviews.

The album and movie were named for a concert they’d done about a year and a half earlier. The Band had impressed and inspired many fans and musicians in their run, but by 1976 they just didn’t seem to have “it” anymore, nor the desire to really keep trundling along as a single entity. But rather than just fade away, they decided to go out with a bang. On Thanksgiving Day, 1976, they played one last concert as a farewell- and what a farewell! They were booked into the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco and decided to host a huge Thanksgiving dinner for about 5000 friends and fans, and play their last show afterwards. If you’re thinking that the fact they hadn’t had a string of #1 singles and hadn’t been in the spotlight for about five years would deter other celebrities from showing up… think again. Among the musical guests there were Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Dr. John, and not surprisingly, Bob Dylan who they used to be the backing band for before they became famous in their own right.

The album went gold in the U.S and Canada, and hit the top 20 there as well as Germany and New Zealand. Oddly, it didn’t even hit the charts in Australia, proving how those two Southern hemisphere neighbors aren’t always on the same wavelength.

The album itself is deserving of a long post or two and has grown in critical stature through the years. In 2019, for instance, the Library of Congress honored it for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” However, for the day we’re going to look at just one bit of it, and an outlier too.

The majority of the two-hour plus record was recorded Nov. 25, ’76 at the concert, and consisted of familiar tunes – their own ones like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “The Shape I’m In” as well as songs made famous by their guests like Dr.John’s “Such a Night” and Neil Young’s “Helpless”. However, they did do an appendage. According to some reports, the next day they recorded a few tracks Robbie Robertson had written for it, including the “theme from the Last Waltz” and “Out of the Blue”. Oddly, even the book The Story of the Band doesn’t mention the song nor the recording session.

That little mellow and poignant tune was understated compared to some of their works but the little tune of tired but ongoing love, sung by Robertson, was a highlight from the album. And curiously, although obscure (it was released in North America as a b-side to the single “the Well”, it did become a hit…but only in Toronto. There, the top AM hit station, CHUM, turned it over and played “Out of the Blue” and it rose to #11. It was the last real chart success they’d experience anywhere for well over a decade, perhaps fitting since four of the five members were originally from southern Ontario not far from Toronto. Not a bad way to “waltz” off the stage.

November 20 – Turntable Talk 20 : Love ‘Em Live?

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! This is our 20^th round, for those keeping count. By now all our regular readers know how this goes, but for any new readers,first, welcome! And second, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month our topic is Like A Rolling Stone? Our very first topic here, nearly two years ago, was whether the Beatles were still relevant, so with the recent release of Hackney Diamonds, we thought why not look at the other huge act of the British Invasion – the Rolling Stones. Our guests were invited to share their thoughts on Mick Jagger and the lads.

Today, we go north to the shores of Lake Superior in Canada, and to Deke , from Deke’s Vinyl Reviews. We know he’s one of Canada’s premier commentators on hard rock and on the renewal of vinyl records, but do the Stones rock hard enough to get him rolling?

Thanks to Mr. Ruch for letting me spout off about The Rolling Stones. As Dave has mentioned, it’s crazy to think that they have been rolling for 60 years now. My first discovery of them was when I was the age of 14 back in ’81 when I saw my first ever Stones video on Casey Kasem’s Top 10 TV show that fall. The video was “Start Me Up” and that opening Keef riff grabbed me by the throat. I thought I would talk about a live album from Mick and the boys as this one that you’re about to read below to this day I still love! Thanks to Dave and for all of you bloggers out there!

Man! Do I ever love this album!

Recorded live back in 1981 when The Rolling Stones were touring all over the U.S.A and selling out stadium shows like no one’s business.

Still Life came out a year later in 1982 and I remember like it was yesterday when I heard it for the first time,

I was in Grade 11 headed for Soccer practice when a buddy named Joe Cassidy (RIP) picked up a few of us along the way and in the tape deck, Joe had Still Life cranked. Joe was nowhere the music fanatic I was but that day at that given time, I heard Still Life and was blown away and needed to get my own copy ASAP! (which I did).

This album is The Stones at their finest. I don’t think they have recorded a better live album in my opinion and maybe that’s due to the fact that this album dropped into my life then.

Still Life is loosey-goosey in the playing and that’s what makes this album so endearing. You hear the intro music being played and the roar of the crowd as the Stones hit the stage and launch into “Under My Thumb” . Keef and Ronnie Wood play off of each other. It’s basically like they are jamming in your basement. The only difference is 50,000 were watching them at the time. And how about Mick Jagger right before the second song in (“Let’s Spend The Night Together” ) telling the crowd “Have a few beers, smoke a few joints!” BADASS that Mick was, back in 81!

One of the real things is this is the Stones stripped down to the bare minimum as in players. There’s no backup singers and a bunch of people up on stage. It’s the Stones with Ian Stewart (piano) and Bobby Keys (sax).

The Stones express just keeps cranking along as they plow through “Shattered” and the really catchy and quickie “Twenty Flight Rock“ that clocks in at 1 minute 48 seconds! I can add, I love Charlie Watts shuffle-like playing on this tune.

‘Going To A Go-Go” was the single from this release and just like how the track before it (“Twenty Flight Rock”) is a cover.

These guys had the craft at making the song sound like their own. Not too many bands can do that. (Aerosmith would be another act knowing how to do that)

Side 2 kicks off with the quick hop of “Let Me Go”. Just a straight-ahead Stones track, followed by “Time Is On My Side” where you can hear Keef and his Marlboro whiskey-drenched backing vocal superbly backing up Mick.

”Just My Imagination” picks up the pace which in turn is followed by the biggie hit from 1981, ”Start Me Up”. What an opening riff and such a brilliant segue into Charlie’s drums, as he’s locked and loaded and in sync with bassist Bill Wyman. I love the slip’n’sloppy guitar playing of Ronnie and Keef on album closer, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. The Stones barrel their way at a rip’n’tear pace as Mick and company can see the finish line.

This is a fun listen. What’s more amazing is that out of the album’s ten tracks, four are covers! Ha, usually I would knock this, as The Stones had a huge catalog of tunes back then, but they get a pass as I mentioned due to the fact they can play covers and make ’em sound like their own.

Kinda funny that this album came out in 1982 the same year as Van Halen, who did a half-original/half-cover album and VH got ripped apart by the press for being lazy.

I guess that separates The Stones from Halen. The fans accepted The Stones and that lazy, hazy brilliance that they could ooze.

Lot’s of that on this one folks!

November 10 – Blue Road Was Paved In Platinum

In our other post today, we looked at one of Toronto’s best, and most beloved musicians. So why not keep with that theme and look at why it is a special day for perhaps the city’s best-loved band, Blue Rodeo. On this day in 2008, they added to their trophy room, so to speak, when the Blue Road release was certified double platinum as a DVD in Canada. What’s more surprising is that it was less than two weeks after it hit the stores!

Blue Road was a rather unusual release, in that in the original format, it included a live CD and a DVD of the performance plus some new songs in a documentary. Eventually it would be re-released in a version including an LP. What wasn’t unusual about it was its popularity; by this point in time they’d already had nine platinum albums in Canada, including their first live album, Just Like A Vacation.

The live part consisted of an 11 song acoustic set they’d played at their favorite hometown venue, Massey Hall, in February of that year. It included a few of their popular hits, such as a nine-minute version of “Five Days in May” to open it, “Try” and “Bad Timing” but also some lesser-known ones like “Blue House”, a new one, “Losing You” plus two covers – “Crying Over You” and “To Love Somebody.”

The latter is the well-known ’70s Bee Gees soft rock standard, but the former is obscure. “Crying Over You” – not to be confused with the Roy Orbison classic “Cryin’” – was written by James Intveld. He was in the Blasters and a prominent guy in the L.A. scene of the ’80s and ’90s; his brother was also a musician but one who had the misfortune of being in the Stone Canyon Band and dying in the plane crash that killed Ricky Nelson. A Texan singer, Rosie Flores, had recorded it first in the ’80s and then Intveld had done it himself on his first solo record, in the ’90s.

Allmusic raved about the package, giving it 4-stars and saying it managed to be “showcasing why they remain one of Canada’s most popular bands” with a “surreal documentary that chronicles the band jamming on brand new songs from Greg Keelor’s home” but “the CD accompaniment is worth the price of admission alone.” Perhaps unfortunately, fans wishing to find out that might have to get a copy; few of the clips from the set have made their way to You Tube for some reason.

Apparently the public agreed; getting a platinum album in less than two weeks is quite an achievement . Getting a platinum DVD that fast, astonishing. Music Canada no longer award them, since so few DVDs are actually sold these days, but having one go multi-platinum puts the band in elite company. Fittingly, one other Canadian band that has done that as well, even with a live set from Toronto moreover, was the other huge Canadian-only (or so it seemed) band of the ’80s on, the Tragically Hip.

September 30 – Black & White Night But Musical Gold

Few voices in rock were as good as his and fewer still comebacks were as impressive. And Roy Orbison got to experience that first-hand with a few hundred fans on this night in 1987, when he held a concert to look back on his career and promote his Greatest Hits album, which had come out recently. The album had a twist mind you, unlike most compilations, he’d re-recorded the songs for it. Roy was obviously missing being in the studio and on stage at that point, and was just beginning to work with the likely-unnamed band that had Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and George Harrison which became the Traveling Wilburys.

Orbison had long been one of the most distinctive voices in pop and rock. Bandmate-to-be Petty called him “probably the greatest singer in the world!” and later on Rolling Stone would rank him as the 13^th greatest. They suggested he’d “brought a new level of majesty and mystery to rock.” He was quite the songwriter too. He was one of rock’s earliest and biggest stars, beginning his career at age 20, in 1956. He quickly ran up a list of ten top 20 hit singles, culminating in the massive #1 song “Oh Pretty Woman”, in 1964. But as the British Invasion came about and tastes changed, his career quickly went downhill and by the ’70s he was a mere afterthought to pop music.

That began to change a little in the ’80s. Don McLean had a hit with a cover of Orbison’s “Crying” and then Van Halen put their rock spin on “(Oh) Pretty Woman”. A new generation began to find out about him. Earlier in ’87, he’d done a duet of “Crying” with k.d. lang which had been a #2 hit in Canada and gotten airplay around the world, and Roy had been in the second group of inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. What’s more, he was working on some new material after all those years – material which would see the light of day with the Wilbury’s and his last, sadly posthumous hurrah, the 1989 Mystery Girl record.

The concert was set, and he got Elvis Presley’s backing band from the ’70s, the TCB Band to back him for it. They were drummer Ronnie Tutt, bassist Jerry Scheff, guitarist James Burton and pianist Glen Hardin. And he invited a few friends to it, and they jumped at the opportunity. Not only was movie-maker David Lynch in the crowd, as were Patrick Swayze, Billy Idol and other celebrities, he had musicians including Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, J.D. Souther, k.d. lang and Bonnie Raitt join him. They added backing vocals and in the case of Costello and Springsteen, sometimes some guitar or keyboards as well. Evidently Costello and Orb were close, as the one song not his own that Roy played was Costello’s 1984 “The Comedians.”

He went through 17 others that night, including his best-known ones like “Only the Lonely”, “Blue Bayou” (a #1 hit in Australia for him in 1963 made into a big American hit by Linda Ronstadt in the ’70s), “Dream Baby”, “Running Scared” and of course, “Oh Pretty Woman.”

The reaction was enthusiastic, although it might be just a bit of an exaggeration to say “earth-shattering”… although hours after it ended, a strong earthquake hit L.A., damaged the room but thankfully not the equipment which was still in place there. That was because the show was being recorded, initially by Cinemax for a cable TV broadcast entitled Roy Orbison, Black & White Night (as it was filmed in black & white). Soon after it was put out for home video by HBO, released on VHS and Laserdiscs, and that in turn was released by an audio release on CD in 1988. Since then it’s also been made available on DVD and as an LP package.

The video version went platinum in Britain and a remarkable 11X that in Australia, seemingly a real hotspot for Roy fans and the album while not charting highly (except in New Zealand, where it did hit #!4) in time it did go gold in the U.S.

Unfortunately, Roy didn’t live long enough to see much of the success of his newer works. He died at 52 of a heart attack, five weeks before Mystery Girl could be released.

August 15 – Thursday In The Park May Have Felt Like 4th Of July

82 degrees and sunny – a nice day to spend in the park, and thousands of New Yorkers did just that 32 years ago. What better reason to play hookie from work on a Thursday afternoon than to see a hometown hero perform. Paul Simon held his Concert in the Park on this day in 1991. The free concert was reminiscent of the one he and Art Garfunkel had played ten years earlier, to a crowd numbering in the hundreds of thousands and enthusiastic reviews.

This time though, there’d be no Garfunkel. As the snubbed singer told the New York Times “dejectedly” the day before, “he hadn’t been asked to perform,” adding “my guess is would hurt his sense of stature.” Simon wouldn’t be alone on stage of course. While he played his guitar and sang, he was joined by a talented backing band consisting mostly of World Music stars, many of whom he’d used on his Graceland album, such as South African guitarist Ray Phiri and Brazilian drummer Cyro Baptista. No small surprise, as he was finishing up his tour for 1990’s Rhythm of the Saints, a World Music-influenced effort following his massively successful, African-sounding Graceland.

Once again, Simon managed to offer the concert for free (for people there; it was broadcast live on HBO for those who couldn’t attend) and drew a happy and large crowd, although how large is a matter of great debate. Like some politicians of late, Simon might have fudged the numbers upwards and claimed 600 000 people were there. Some critical journalists said only about 50 000 people could fit into the area of the park he used. Based on aerial photos, the truth was probably somewhere in between. No matter the exact tally, it was a huge crowd and Simon didn’t disappoint.

He played for nearly two hours, running through a set combining a number of songs on his recent album with many of his older hits and finishing with some of his best-loved Simon & Garfunkel ones. Starting with the little-known “The Obvious Child” he went into Graceland‘s “The Boy in the Bubble” before hitting his gold record chest for ones like “Kodachrome,” “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard”, “Graceland”, “Late in the Evening” and “Loves Me Like A Rock” before finishing up strong with “America,” “The Boxer”, “Cecilia” and “The Sounds of Silence.” Although he did change up a tune or two (like the “Africanized version” of “Cecilia”, as allmusic describe it), the tunes were well-accepted and the crowd pleased. As the L.A. Times put it, “it was clear from the audience’s reaction to the music of Simon’s celebrated Graceland period that Ladysmith Black Mombaza would have caused a bigger stir than Simon’s old partner.”

As good as the crowd reaction was, the aftermath wasn’t the commercial success the singer had hoped for. He put it out as the double-album Paul Simon’s Concert in the Park, on LP, cassette and CD as well as a video version on VHS and laserdisc. However, unlike the concert a decade earlier which became quite a hit as an album, this one peaked at just #74 on the album chart and the single, “Still Crazy After All These Years” was ignored entirely. So poorly did it do at the checkout that the label never bothered to re-release it on DVD, although curiously PBS recently did that themselves, offering it as a “reward” for donors.

Despite its poor showing sales-wise, it was regarded as a quite good listen. Allmusic gave it 4-stars, saying it was an “enjoyable and surprisingly cohesive career summation” and Simon’s biographer Chris Charlesworth declared it was “the album to have if you want only one Paul Simon album.” Which, we guess might be one more album of his than Art Garfunkel wants!

August 6 – CBGB Stars Say See Ya!

Adios amigos, we’re outta here! That’s what the Ramones were saying after finishing up their last concert ever, this night in 1996 at the Palace in Hollywood…nearly 22 years to the day after they first played a set at the famous CBGB in New York.

The Palace (now called the Avalon) is a famous 1500-seat theatre at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, perhaps a strange place for New York’s pre-eminent leather-jacketed punkers to call it quits. But who could blame them? After 22 years, 2263 concerts, going through nine different “Ramones” (only drummer/singer Joey and guitarist Johnny were constants) and rolling through 14 studio albums, and even more live ones, they were probably tired!  No matter though, after wrapping up touring with Lollapalooza that summer in support of their appropriately-titled Adios Amigo album, the Ramones did one last 32-song set and were joined by friends and fans. Although they never had a top 40 album nor single at home, they were undeniably among the most-influential of ’70s bands on both sides of the ocean. Among their friends in attendance were Lemmy from Motorhead, members of Rancid, Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder, who appeared with them on their take on the old Dave Clark Five song “Anyway You Want it.” The concert , full of their faves like “Pet Semetary” and “Rock’n’Roll High School” was put out on a CD (We’re Outta Here) afterwards. Given the band’s well-known trademark of short, fast songs, it’s no surprise the 32-song disc barely clocks in at an hour!

It was the last time the original lineup would play together although the four – Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy – did show up once in ’99 for an autograph-signing.

July 21 – A Decade After ‘The Wall’, It Fell

One of the important political milestones of the 20^th Century merged with one of the century’s important entertainment ones on this day in 1990. that was when Roger Waters staged a concert of The Wall on the site of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall of course had been the physical manifestation of the ideological concept of “the Iron Curtain” – a separation of the “West” from the communist Soviet regime. The concrete wall, about 11 feet tall in most spots was over 60 miles long and had over 300 East German (communist) guard towers along it. Erected in 1961, it divided the East and West sides of Berlin and aimed to keep the people in the communist/Soviet side from escaping to freedom in the West. Of course, it also divided the city, split up many families and led to at very least 200 people being killed trying to scale it and escape. However, by the late-’80s things were changing. Soviet satellite countries like Poland were rebelling and declaring independence from Moscow, the USSR was engaged in talks with the U.S., and in a famous 1987 speech by the western side of the wall, President Reagan urged the Russian leader along : “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

In 1989, signs began to emerge suggesting that might happen. By November of that year, the East Germans announced they’d open gates and their people could go back and forth and within a year, demolition had begun and the two Germanies were reunited politically. It was one of the major events of the entire century.

Musically of course, Pink Floyd’s The Wall was one of the highlights of the decade if not century. The 1980 (well, actually 1979 if you’re a trivia buff – it came out in the final days of that year) double-album of dystopian societies and dreams became one of the biggest-sellers of all-time (at least 30 million copies, even more impressive given its size and price at the time) and one of many fans’ favorites. By 1989 though, the two leaders of Floyd – Roger Waters and David Gilmour – were at each other’s throats, as much enemies as the U.S. and USSR had been. Legal battles had ended up with Gilmour (as well as the other members) retaining legal rights to the name “Pink Floyd” but Roger Waters having all rights to “The Wall”, since it was an album he wrote close to single-handedly. The album had launched a movie and a concert tour, but by the decade’s end, Waters didn’t plan on playing it live again.

“Indoors, it made no sense financially. It’s too expensive,” he told a journalist back then. “And as it’s partly an attack on the inherently greedy nature of stadium rock shows, it would be wrong to do it in stadiums. But,” he teased, “I might do it outdoors if they ever take that wall down in Berlin.”

Well, take down the wall they did, and Waters decided to follow through. Interestingly, it wasn’t the first rock concert at the Berlin Wall. David Bowie had performed on the Western side in ’87 (only days before Reagan’s speech) and Bruce Springsteen had been allowed to play on the Eastern side in ’88. The Communists thought it would show how accommodating they were; instead it seemed to just increase the desire of the youth there for freedom and a unified Germany.

For the Waters show, a huge stage right by the Bradenburg Gate was planned. First, as some of it would be on the “no man’s land” immediately adjacent to the wall, they had to have professionals scan for landmines. They actually turned up a wartime bunker no one knew about they figured Hitler might have used. When the all clear was given, construction began on the set which would include a 550′-long, 80′ high wall of styrofoam blocks. Most of it was built before the show, with the last few blocks added during it and Waters triumphantly tearing it down at the end.

Waters wanted a whole bevy of guest artists to take place. He got that although some (like Peter Gabriel) turned him down and Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker agreed but pulled out at the last moment. But he did entice the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Sinead O’Connor, three of four living members of The Band (Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson), Thomas Dolby, Van Morrison and more. Notably absent however were other members of Pink Floyd. Waters had joked “I might even let Dave (Gilmour) play guitar,” but that never happened and Gilmour says “he never asked us.”

They played through more or less the entire album The Wall, with a few staged acting bits such as a trial, and ended with “The Tide is Turning” , a Waters song from his Radio KAOS album. Among the highlights were “In the Flesh” by the Scorpions, Cyndi Lauper (with help from Thomas Dolby) doing “Another Brick in the Wall Part II”, Paul Carrack doing “Hey You”, Bryan Adams covering “Young Lust” and Waters with The Band and others running through an extended version of “Comfortably Numb” that had two dueling guitars in place of what would have been David Gilmour’s usual solo.

The show was in some ways a gigantic success. A minimum of 150 000 tickets were sold, with some reports saying double that. And physical opening of some more gates before the show allowed tens of thousands more to crowd in and take it in. It was by most measures the largest rock concert staged at the time. However, it wasn’t without glitches. As Spin pointed out at the time, “the sound wasn’t particularly good and in the beginning there were technical problems (which) forced the performers to stop a couple of times.” Amongst them was Sinead O’Connor’s performance of “Mother.” The sound system failed, causing her to stop and storm off, despite Waters urging her to lip-sync it to a recording. Meanwhile The Band played on seemingly unfazed. If you have a recorded version of the the show, the O’Connor song was taken from a soundcheck!

As well, Spin also pointed out that for the grandeur of the stage and size of the crowd, “we watched 90% of the action on TV”. Large video screens were built into the wall, and much of the actual music was being played behind the wall, out of view of the fans.

For all that, it was an event. It was shown on TV in 50 or more countries, and released on DVD and CD; the latter hitting the UK top 30, #12 in Canada and the top 10 in both Australia and New Zealand. Most of all, it showed how dreams can occasionally come true. What two years would have been a joke or a wild fantasy – a major British rock group playing a concert on top of the flattened Berlin Wall for fans of both sides – had become a reality.

Perhaps the change was best summed up by the Spin reviewer, who noted he went back the next day. “A couple of East German teenagers were enterprisingly bashing colored chunks out of the wall to sell to people like us.”

May 14 – Turntable Talk 14 : Kiss Brought Some Alive With Joy

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks once again to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, this is our 14^th instalment…if you’re wondering about past topics, I indexed the first dozen here. For any new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is Feels Like The First Time. No, no, we’re not going X-rated here, we’re talking about a different kind of first – the first album our guests ever bought.

Today we have Deke , from Deke’s Viny Reviews and More. Deke’s always enthusiastic especially about hard rock and vinyl releases. Has he always been? We’ll find out here:

Thanks to Dave for once again letting me participate with you all. It will come as no shocker, but my first album was KISS Alive II which was released in 1977 but I had not gotten it until sometime in early1978 when I was in Duluth, Minnesota and used my trip money to buy this album.

I was hooked and still am when it comes to anything Hard Rock. KISS had it down pat at the time. Since then I’ve been a fan for 45 years. They have gotten silly in regards to marketing, which I won’t get into but when it comes to reissuing their past albums with demos, live material, I’m still that guy that will go and get the updated versions.

KISS Alive II ,my original copy, is long gone. But about five years ago my daughter Lauren gifted me a reissue copy of Alive II and KISS themselves did the right thing by including the original booklet plus the stick-on tattoos that came with it. Seeing all that took me right back to ’78…

I thought I would talk about most of the songs on here as this was not only my introduction not only to KISS but to that crazy world of Hard Rock/Metal.

KISS growing up in the ’70s were huge. They were in all kinds of print press like Circus and Creem and even teeny bopper magazines like 16. So of course a pal of mine whose name was John Young had the KISS Originals (first three Kiss studio records packaged as a triple set) and when I saw the cover of the “Originals” I drooled. Who are these four Kabuki-like warriors with makeup?

Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter aka Demon, Starchild, Spaceman and Cat.

Let me talk about the songs from this double-vinyl that have basically brainwashed me since 1978!

“DETROIT ROCK CITY” Some Kiss guy announces “You wanted the best …..” we know the rest, right? We’re off and there’s the crowd roaring at the opening riff of “Detroit Rock City”. The crowd is jacked. I mean the audio of it. To this day when I listen to it I find the crowd too much even – if it’s a Kiss crowd (or the supposed sample KISS used by The Super Bowl ’77 crowd!) Who knows and I see what KISS is doing, they’re making it seem bigger and better and were louder than all you other acts out there. For me at age 11 going on 12 …it friggin’ worked.

“KING OF THE NIGHTIME WORLD” is launched and the KISS live chops (is it live?)… well for me at that time, they sound live and I’m blown away. Holy geez are Ace/Paul pulling down some dual leads at the end of this tune! Yeah they actually are…

“LADIES ROOM” Next to the Creatures Of The Night album (1982), I would have to say this is Gene Simmons best-sung record and it’s the live one. I mean check out the top left pick of Simmons (front cover) where he has all that blood and guck spewing out of his mouth! Man he’s a mess, but being 12 at the time you would have thought “Mom can I sleep tonight with the light on tonight ?”after looking at that pic.

“CALLING DR. LOVE” KISS sound like they know what they’re doing on this track. Better yet, Peter Criss pulls out the cowbell and by the time I got around to getting the studio albums, it’s evidently clear that these live versions are played at a fast clip compared to the studio offerings. Party stimulants were around I’m sure on that “Kiss Alive II Tour” of 1977.

“SHOCK ME” My favourite Kiss guy, Space Ace Frehley loads up (literally ) and blasts off with his lead vocal and guitar solo on “Shock Me”. It’s a great track and a bunch of mish-mashing notes make up his guitar solo and of course the guitar is smoking during it.

“HARD LUCK WOMAN” & “TOMORROW & TONIGHT”- Were both recorded in the studio and then the live crowd was slapped down in the background so KISS could fill up the live portion of the album without repeating tracks that were on the first Kiss Alive from two years earlier! I wonder what went through Simmons and Stanley’s heads at the time when they did this stunt! Yeah I know and you know what went through their heads, the answer was….$$$$$$$$$$$$ and more $$$$$$$$!

“I STOLE YOUR LOVE” Was this not the tour opener? Except for Alive II it’s the opening song on Side 3 ! Good straight ahead rocker track!

“BETH”- So Petey the cat man gets his limelight complete with prerecorded symphony . It’s his time to shine, while Gene And Paul count the $$$$ backstage and Ace… well I dunno…

“GOD OF THUNDER” Demon Gene, the lord of the wasteland, slams forward on this Sabbath-like stomp complete with Peter Criss drum solo which I thought at the time was the greatest drum solo… until I heard Neal Peart in 1981 totally mash his drum set on his solo on YYZ! Anyways Criss does his deal and we’re headed to the finish line with …

“SHOUT IT OUT LOUD” Gene and Paul want us to all “Shout it Out Loud!” You gotta have a party! This song we have all heard and the live portion album ends with Kiss telling us they love us!

So Kiss decides “Hey we got 15 minutes on side 4 lets get the yaya’s out ,so to speak and each guy does a studio tune well except Criss. Listen to Peter’s solo album from 1978 and this will explain to you the listener why there are no studio tracks of his on Alive II!

“AMERICAN MAN” Paulie struts himself and tells us he is an American Man! Ummm, is this really KISS playing on this? Bob Kulick supposedly played all the lead guitar on these tracks except for the Ace tune (coming up)

“LARGER THAN LIFE” It’s Simmons and it’s not a bad tune! I’ve heard better (“Radioactive”), heard worse (his whole Asshole solo album). It’s Gene circa ’77, ego included!

“ROCKET RIDE” This is why Ace is my fave Kiss guy until he split in 1982! He just rocks out this track. I mean does it get any better in the Frehley Hall Of Fame with lyrics like ” baby wants it fast baby wants a blast she wants a Rocket Ride!” ? Plus his solo is so sloppy it’s cool! Ace in ’77, you were the deal!

“ANY WAY YOU WANT IT” Cover tune and Stanley and crew rock it up but yeah its a cover!

In conclusion – Rewind, like I said to early ’79 and Alive II blew my 11-year old mind! Kiss laid down the law with a gimmick and it royally paid off, ’til the public got sick of Kiss and their deal in the early ’80s. Except for me. I still littered Gene and Paul’s pockets with dollars, not cents!

 

May 7 – Roxy’s Choice of High Road Seemed…Odd

If you’re Canadian you might remember this record from 40 years ago. If you’re not, it likely is long-forgotten even if you were a fan and somehow noticed it in the first place. Roxy Music were sitting at #5 on the Canadian album chart this day in 1983 with The High Road, an oddball release in every way.

Although released worldwide at the time, only Canucks seemed to embrace it. Canada were late to the Roxy party, but arrived en masse in 1982. While “Love is the Drug” had been a big hit for them in Canada in ’76 ( a while after it was in Roxy’s native UK),otherwise they had barely a cult following in the Great White North…until Avalon. Their lush ’82 album went multi-platinum and spent a solid month at #1 there. So perhaps it’s no surprise they’d love this live follow-up, although it seems odd that it really didn’t take off in Europe, where the band had been one of the biggest throughout the ’70s.Particularly because it was only the second live record they’d ever released, and came at the end of an entirely different era in their history than Viva, their first one did.

The High Road was more aptly described as an EP than a full album; it contained only four songs, though it ran almost half an hour. Of the four songs, only one was an actual Roxy Music one, “My Only Love”, off 1980’s Flesh + Blood. There was an almost Roxy one, “Can’t Let Go”, a song Bryan Ferry had released on a solo record in ’78. But the two songs that stood out and seemed the most popular were both cover songs – “Like a Hurricane” and “Jealous Guy.”

“Jealous Guy” was no surprise. They’d put it out as a single in 1981 as a tribute to John Lennon and while it was a #1 hit in Britain and Australia, it was all but unnoticed in North America. However, the slightly more robust and dynamic live version was a highlight, and usually encore, of their Avalon concerts. “Like a Hurricane” was a bit more of a surprise, a ’77 song by Neil Young that had become a regular when he performed “electric” sets. There’s no explanation that I can find of why Roxy liked the song and performed it, but their version worked and the passion of it seemed to fit singer Bryan Ferry like one of his tuxedo jackets.

The four-song release came out only on LP and cassette; it would seem to have never yet been put out on CD by itself, although fans can still get it that way as it was incorporated into a later live album, Heart Still Beating. There was also a video of it – VHS then later, DVD – but it was of another concert despite the same name and cover illustration. Odd. (By the way, the record was recorded at a Glasgow concert at the Apollo theatre there, a favorite haunt of at least one of our regular readers).

Allmusic rated it 3-stars but didn’t review it at all besides listing the songs and noting the band went on hiatus after it. The over-100 page special edition of Ultimate Music devoted to them barely mentions it, calling it “an odd affair… almost wilfully obscure.”

Obscure or not, it was a well-produced live record and gave a good peek at the band’s elegant yet energetic sound in the ’80s, with the trio being backed by five additional playing musicians (including Neil Hubbard on guitars and their frequent drummer who was never quite officially a member, Andy Newmark) and three backing singers.

The EP only got to #26 in the UK and a mediocre #67 in the U.S. but hit #13 in Australia and somehow hit it big in Canada, where both “Jealous Guy” and the Canadian-written “Like a Hurricane” found homes on rock and AC radio. Odd? Perhaps not.

April 25 – The Boss Overcomes A Quick Session To Make A Great Record

After over 30 years performing, 13 studio albums, several of them selling well into the millions and numerous world tours, it’s understandable that an artist might want to shake things up a little and not get too comfortable in a routine. And that’s just what Bruce Springsteen did this day in 2006 with the release of We Shall Overcome : The Seeger Sessions. It was a tribute to great folk singer/songwriter Pete Seeger, and shake things up for Bruce it did.

Seeger of course was a renowned folkie in the ’60s who made the old spiritual “We Shall Overcome” a popular rallying cry and wrote a number of hits for other artists like “Turn Turn Turn” and “If I Had A Hammer.” But he also sang many old traditional tunes, and that was the part of his career The Boss wanted to highlight.

The title track had actually been recorded for a 1997, multi-artist tribute to Seeger. Apparently he mentioned doing more and with some encouragement from his daughter, curiously enough, decided to make a full album. He and his wife Patti Scialfa (of his E Street Band) rounded up a number of local session musicians, who dubbed themselves the Sessions Band, including trumpeter Mark Pender who’d played on Max Weinberg’s Tonight Show Band and violinist Soozie Firschner. They got together for just two brief sessions and recorded live. Springsteen himself at times played mandolin, tambourine and organ besides his regular guitar.

The standard edition of it (a double LP or single CD) contained 13 songs often performed by Seeger, although surprisingly enough, not written by him (although a few had been modified from their original form by Pete). They included old chestnuts like “O Mary Don’t You Weep”, “Jacob’s Ladder”, “John Henry” and even “Froggie Went A-courtin’”. It also came out in some deluxe versions which included a DVD and a few extra tracks like “Buffalo Gals.”

You can be forgiven if you didn’t notice it when it came out; Columbia didn’t release any singles off it and hence radio more or less ignored it utterly. But reviewers didn’t, and by and large it got raves. The Guardian and Rolling Stone both graded it 4-stars, Pitchfork 8.5 out of 10; Entertainment Weekly an “A-”. Uncut called it “a great teeming flood of Americana…a powerful example of how songs reverberate through the years.” Pitchfork declared it “a boisterous, spirit-raising throwdown on which The Boss tackles the tangle of war, strife, poverty and unrest without sacrificing joy.” Although there were a few dissenting voices, like The Observer which deemed it “too corny.” Later on, allmusic graded it 4.5-stars noting how quickly it was made and that it “does indeed have an unmistakably loose feel” but was still “unique” because “he has never made a record that feels as alive as this.”

Perhaps the most important opinion was that of Pete Seeger himself. The singer who was 86 at the time called it “a great honor. He’s an extraordinary person as well as an extraordinary singer.”

As for the public, considering how odd it was compared to most of his releases and its lack of single, it did quite well. It reached #3 in the U.S., Canada and Britain and actually went to #1 in Italy. The album was certified gold in both the states and Canada and an impressive double-platinum in Ireland. What’s more, it won Bruce his 14th Grammy, this one for Best Traditional Folk Album… which surprisingly he’d won once before, for The Ghost of Tom Joad in 1997.