Happy Saturday, folks. Hope you’re having a rocking weekend.
I have been working diligently on a new series of reviews. I’m very excited to bring you this next artist. But can you guess who it is, just by the haircuts below? Leave your guess in the comments and prove who knows their rock!
Hmmmm?
FEEL – This (1994 Feel)
Russian Blue followed their critically acclaimed demo tapes with a full length CD, but perhaps it was the long wait that killed their chances. Between 1991 and 1994, the entire musical landscape had turned itself upside down. A name change was in order to suit the new climate, and after using the name Deadmoon for a little while, they settled on Feel. Simple: one word, one syllable, and trendy. Would they be able to maintain a level of quality over a full-length CD?
Almost. There is very little dead weight on Feel This.
“I Become You” is brutalizing, menacing, grooving detuned grunge. The presence of the bass is felt on this heavy recording. What Feel had that was different from other bands was the Axl-like screech of frontman Jo E. Donner. Indeed, when Donner multi-tracks his high voice with his lower register, the overall feeling is very Axl. Donner bellows forcefully, blowing out the speakers but not without help. Guitarist Richard Gauci and drummer Mike Willerding were capable of playing challenging rock. The drum patterns are busy and and Gauci is able to both shred like a hero, and also create the kind of noise that you needed to do in the 90’s. The band were between bassists. Robo was no longer in the band, so there are a couple session players on the CD.
Several smouldering tracks in a row occupy the first half of the album. “What You Made of Me”, “Wild Eye” and the lengthy “Brotherhood” all boast heavy guitar and vocal hooks. Wimps need not apply; Feel go for the throat even with a slower tempo. The songs sound well thought out, with attention given to every shriek and guitar noise manipulation. The bass grooves are absolutely key to all of this. Rumbling and shaking like a good Soundgarden line, they deliver the bass chills that fans of such sounds love. But was it all too similar to the chilly winds that had blown in from Seattle? Feel had been growing heavier and groovier on the demo tapes already, so I believe this to be a natural evolution that happened independently from the Seattle scene. Witness other Canadian bands such as I Mother Earth, who also evolved on their own into something that fit into that 90’s box.
The centerpiece of the album has to be “I Am Your Mind”. Long with a droning, irresistible chorus and cool lyrics — what’s not to like? This tune takes only one listen to bore its way deep into your medial temporal lobe. Building dramatically, every guitar hook will sink in hard, only for Donner to hit everything home with his powerful larynx. Everything is perfect — a song of this quality could easily have been on Badmotorfinger or Superunknown. Hyperbole? I don’t think so.
The second half of the CD has fewer highlights. After being slammed in the face with so much heaviness, Feel were wise to put on an acoustic number next. “Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong” is good, and shows off the band’s Zeppelin influences especially in the vocals. It’s just that Feel unplugged doesn’t have the kick that Feel does fully electrified. On the other hand, another listener might say it’s the best track. The first skipper is “Under My Wing”, too slow and boring. Not enough Sabbathy slow, just stuck in the wrong gear. Back to the groove is the killer “Drip Sweet Blood”. Making use of trendy 90’s vocal distortion, Donner blows the speakers especially around the 3:15 mark with another hair-raising bellow — just awesome. “Stand on Walls” sounds something like a Skid Row outtake. It’s nothing outstanding, but it’s only 3:38. Closing the disc is “All”, which was formerly known as “Black” on the second Russian Blue demo. The psychedelic intro from the demo was axed, tightening up the song and amplifying its power. Alternating from soft to loud, “All” kind of does have it all, at least for 1994.
Feel could have got themselves off to a great career with This as a debut album. Unfortunately I think by 1994 it was already too late.
3.5/5 stars
GETTING MORE TALE #446: SLOW DOWN!
Since March 2012, LeBrain has been bringing you the rock on a daily basis.
I’ve been writing about music for a long time. Over the years, I accumulated an immense catalogue of music reviews. I saved them up, and gradually expanded and polished them up for publishing here at mikeladano.com. On top of that, I also had an incredible stock of Record Store Tales to post. Some of these had been gathering dust for well over a decade. Including new content I’ve stirred into the mix, it took over three years to burn through all the old reviews and stories. I am now dry. I had a few movie reviews left in the hopper, but these are abandoned now, because this is (mostly) about the rock.
It’s much easier for me to revise and expand an old review, than it is to write a new one. It’s actually an enjoyable process for me to revisit and fix up an old writing. You’d be hard-pressed to tell an old polished up review from a brand-new one unless I pointed it out. The huge amount of stuff that I had built up to publish enabled me to post content every day. In fact, in my old “theme song” video I boasted that mikeladano.com was “updated daily!”
I can no longer keep going at that pace. It’s just not possible; not if I want to maintain a level of quality. Listening to music takes time, articulating thoughts into words takes more time, and adding the photos, videos and anecdotes takes even more time. I love writing about music and sharing my music collection with you. I can’t deny that this hobby is hard work, albeit a labour of love.
So, without any shame, I am now announcing that the pace of new content here is slowing down. I don’t plan on using a schedule, but you can count on new reviews and stories here about one every other day. I hope you continue to read and enjoy. This will hopefully enable me to spend more time posting and responding to comments.
Music is an important part of my life, and yours too, I’ll wager, or you wouldn’t be reading this. Coming home from work every day and sitting down to review music because I “have to”, to keep up the pace, isn’t what I wanted to do. I don’t want to work on reviews because I “have to” maintain an inhuman pace. You might not have noticed but I feel the more recent reviews I’ve written have been rushed. I think the quality may have suffered in favour of quantity.
No longer. You can count on the same brand of music reviews, the same kind of stories, and the odd “WTF” here and there…just not on a daily basis. I’m taking tomorrow off!
Shit. I guess this means I need a new theme song video.
See?? The work never ends!
“There were stories about what happened.”
“It’s true…all of it. The dark side…the Jedi…they’re real.”
DIO – Strange Highways (1994 Reprise)
Black Sabbath had a very acrimonious split with Ronnie James Dio in 1993. Sabbath were asked to open for Ozzy Osbourne at his “farewell” concerts in Costa Mesa. At the end there was to be an original Sabbath mini-reunion. Ronnie James Dio outright refused to perform and left the band immediately afterwards. Sabbath were forced to get Rob Halford, not so far away in Pheonix, to fill in (the first of two times he would have to do so in Black Sabbath, the second time due to an Ozzy illness). Halford did so admirably under the circumstances. After the show, drummer Vinnie Appice joined Ronnie in a new version of Dio.
The new Dio lineup was a four-piece for the first time since album #1. On bass, Jeff Pilson (ex-Dokken), also helping out with keyboards and backing vocals. Pilson was always capable of singing the high parts in Dokken songs, and with Dio he adds a little bit of melodic accent by harmonizing with Ronnie. On guitar, controversially so, was Tracy G (Griljalva) from the band WWIII, which had also included Appice at one point. Dio described his mood as “pissed off” during this period and it certainly came out in the heaviest Dio album yet.
The thing with Tracy G was that he had an abrasive, atonal drony guitar sound, although certainly fitting to the new angry Dio sound. It was very different from the slick neo-classical bent that guys such as Vivian Campbell added to their solos. It was a brutally heavy and edgy change that should have earned Ronnie some credit rather than criticism. “Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost” opens the album on a speed metal approach, showing off the new guitar player. Tracy G was like the mad man’s scientist heavy metal guitar player crossed with Steve Stevens from Billy Idol’s band. If you want to check out what Tracy G did within Dio, just crank up “Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost”.
Admittedly, a whole album of Tracy G’s razor blade guitars can make one weary, but fortunately Dio albums are usually varied in song tempo and style. “Firehead”, the second track is a slow metal groove that suits Dio well. Arguably, the Dio lineup with Pilson on bass is more adept at this Sabbathy path than any other. Pilson has always been one for the low end, and his bass has an elastic thud that is similar, but different from ex-Dio bassist Jimmy Bain. Slower and heavier still is the title track “Strange Highways”. Ronnie has always stated that he liked to hear the space between the instruments, and that’s “Strange Highways”. This really was a great lineup for the band.
“Hollywood Black” is based on a lyric that Ronnie wrote for the sessions of Black Sabbath’s Dehumanizer album. Maybe it’s even the same melody; the original has never been leaked. This is a strong mid-tempo slog; the most mainstream Dio song yet in this collection. Side closer “Evilution” (love that title) is even better; nastier and snippy.
I have a funny story about this song. I bought the cassette while out on a road trip with my buddy Peter, who was always a much bigger Ozzy fan than Dio. We put the tape in the car deck. The words at the end of the song baffled us both, but it was a case of mis-heard lyrics! On Peter’s overdriven, bass-heavy car system, we heard the closing words as:
“Hello, good night, it’s me,
I’m open again,
Come back, come in, goodbye,
Wear clothes!”
The actual final line is “We’re closed.” If you play the song and pay attention…you can hear it too, can’t you? “WEAR CLOTHES!” Misheard lyrics…or hidden message?
As if there was any question from the first side of the album that Ronnie was in a bad mood lately, then “Pain” should settle. “Take the water and wash your face with pain!” Or, “Take the hammer and pound yourself with pain!” My favourite, “Bury my bones on the moon, if they ever should find me it would be too soon.” It was hard to find Ronnie’s usual positivity in some of these words. But listen to that one floor tom hit at 2:00 in! Holy drums, Batman! I love that one hit, it’s my favourite part of the song, which is actually pretty good.
“One Foot in the Grave” is a lot more upbeat than you’d expect by the title and it too is pretty decent. Notice these songs are not “great” — they are just shy of whatever quality makes a song great. Then “Give Her the Gun” is the Dio power ballad, but thematically it too stark and real for some tastes. Child abuse, gun rights? In a Dio song? All power to the man for speaking his mind, but even the most ardent supporter must concede that this is an unusually blunt song for him.
Onto “Blood From a Stone”, back to metaphors once again, and back to blazing hot Tracy G shreddery. Back to insuppressible Pilson bass. There are some 80’s-isms in some of the guitar licks, but blink and you’ll miss ’em. Then, rock out to “Here’s to You”, which sounds like a blazing hot celebration of the rock, or the “masters of the universe”, or something. But according to Ronnie, “The wheel goes ’round, so here’s to you!” Sounds like by this point in the record, Ronnie has worked out whatever bitterness he had left seething in his system. Finally “Bring Down the Rain” ends the album on a very Dio note, with all the majesty and power he can inject into a closing song. It’s just heavier than before. “Put out the flame”, sings Ronnie, his leathery lungs never more impassioned nor powered.
Perhaps Dio still had much anger left in him after all, since the next album was the aptly-titled Angry Machines. But that’s another review.
Strange Highways in a good album bordering on great — but not quite.
3.5/5 stars
GETTING MORE TALE #445: An Orgasm For the Brain
The Boss at the Record Store used to have a little office in the back of one of our stores. The walls seemed paper-thin. You could figure out what he was doing back there from the sounds, especially when he had a cold. His sneezes were epic. They were monolithic in scale, and sounded like they were a tremendous relief each time.
“AHHHHHHHHH-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Woo!” Something like that.
One afternoon, he was having a particularly active bout of the sneezes, and the frequency and strength of them combined were impossible to ignore. One of my customers noticed and chuckled.
“Sounds like that guy is having a good time back there,” said the man.
I know the feeling a good, refreshing sneeze too. “Yeah,” I replied. “He’s had a cold all week but he’s really good at sneezing.”
“No, seriously,” the man persisted. “A sneeze is like an orgasm for your brain. That guy back there is basically having a whole bunch of brain orgasms right now.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I answered, “Wow. I did not know that!”
“You learn something every day!” said the man, who went on to do his music shopping.
Is there any truth to this? Or is this just one of those wild tales that customers used to tell me?
The folks over at livescience have the answer. “This myth isn’t worth the price of a tissue,” they say, but also add, “Connections do exist, however.”
For one, a sneeze may release endorphins. However, “Although supporting literature remains sparse, cases have been reported of men and women who sneeze when sexually aroused. Doctors suspect that the phenomenon might arise from a case of crossed wires in the autonomic nervous system, which regulates a number of automatic functions in the body, including “waking up” the genitals during arousal. The nose, like the genitals, contains erectile tissue.”
I was not aware of that. As my old customer said, you learn something new every day!
GLUELEG – Heroic Doses (1994 Page Publications)
Any band that can handle an instrument as beastly as the Chapman Stick is worth listening to at least once. Glueleg, from Toronto Ontario, were once such band. They boasted not only the Stick but also a horn section with sax and trumpet. If that wasn’t enough to garner them some local praise, a few people turned their heads when they hooked up with James Stewart (cousin of The Cult’s Jamie Stewart) to produce their first CD, Heroic Doses. Prior Glueleg releases were cassettes…CD was the big time.
The title track was the first single/video, and entered rotation on MuchMusic and several rave reviews. Guitar player Ruben Huizenga sings this immediately infectious track. The hypnotic vocals, the punchy horns, the Stick, that low-as-fuck rib-busting riff…this track is perfect in every way. “Heroic Doses” nails it completely and there is no wonder that it garnered some serious attention. The end result of this was a record deal with EMI, but nobody can accuse Glueleg of being commercial on “Heroic Doses” even so.
“Pollo” (“Chicken”) is rapped and sung by Stick player Carlos Alonzo. He has an interesting voice, able to do a rap in a Beastie-like style but with his own spin. He can also sing quite well. He also sings “Mister Pink”, another manic groove. The horns deliver consistent punctuation, and that Stick just thumps. “Lilies” has a droney riff/groove combo that stoner rock bands today love to utilize. “Spiderman” is an original, an instrumental, but it certainly recalls the classic cartoon theme. Glueleg songs don’t tend to adhere to convention song structures. They have more in common with Mr. Bungle than the Chili Peppers, but much more accessible. Their songs have the complexity and chops of Bungle, but are direct. There are also grunge elements, a-la Alice in Chains.
The sonics of this album are really quite good even today. The Stick has a snap to it, and the horns have depth. Having two singers enabled them to play different styles of songs even within the confines of what Glueleg were doing. “Dust” is a dirge, for example. Then the next track “Pampa De Chooch” is completely different, at times almost sounding like Kyuss with horns. “Park Alien” might be Zappa-esque progressive jazz. “I Saw You Joja” is then something else again. Perhaps there’s a lack of focus, or maybe it’s just that Glueleg were so bursting full of ideas, but some songs come off as scattershot.
Biggest surprise of the album: the closing track “Red”, the King Crimson instrumental. What a drum tour de force performance this is, by Christian Simpson. Simpson is no slouch; he later went on to play with Saga for several years, as well as David Usher and Edwin.
I like all of it. Heroic Doses is one of those discs that are indicative of their times, and has nostalgia value, but also plenty of musical chops to keep you busy. If the songs had been tightened up a bit more I think you’d have a serious classic here. Unfortunately there are some songs that are just not quite there.
3.25/5 stars
WHITESNAKE – The Purple Album (2015 Frontiers, Japanese & deluxe editions)
One old school buddy of mine, Rob Vuckovich, was a huge David Coverdale fan back in the 1980’s, but mostly a Deep Purple fan. He took great pride in telling me that he went to see Whitesnake on the 1987 tour. He held aloft a sign that said “PLAY PURPLE”. David reportedly acknowledged his sign by saying, “We’re not doing any of that!” What changed?
Jon Lord’s dying wish to his friend David Coverdale was to somehow reform Deep Purple MkIII. “Life’s too short and too precious to hold any animosities,” learned David after Lord’s passing. He reached out to Candace Night, wife of Ritchie Blackmore, and eventually spoke to the Man in Black about a Lord-less reunion. Blackmore was intrigued and David started working on updated arrangements for the tunes. He didn’t want to sing them in the same way that he did in his 20’s. The situation with Ritchie didn’t work out, but David did not want the work he had gone to on the new arrangements to go to waste. He approached his band and asked them what they thought about a Deep Purple covers album. The response was instant. Joel Hoekstra (guitar) in particular was pumped.
The result is The Purple Album. Sourced from Coverdale’s three albums with Deep Purple (Burn, Stormbringer, and Comes Taste the Band), 15 songs were selected. It’s hard to argue with the selection, either. There are chances taken. “Holy Man” is a damn hard song to sing, and it was originally performed by Glenn Hughes, not David. And four, count ’em, four songs (on the deluxe) from Come Taste the Band, perhaps the most underrated album in the Purple canon.
The sound is “Snaked up” as David says, which means modern guitars and technical shredding. To his credit, David really let his band play instead of copying Deep Purple. Joel Hoekstra is a hell of a guitarist, able to shred. He has brought some soul back to Whitesnake that I felt was missing from their two studio albums with Doug Aldrich. Other songs are stripped down, such as the now-acoustic “Sail Away”. This song is dedicated to Jon Lord and it’s certainly among the best songs on The Purple Album. It’s very “live” in the studio.
Is it necessary? Hell no, but David’s entitled to do what he wants. Nobody else is keeping these songs alive except for Glenn Hughes now and then. Jon Lord would be delighted with the quality of it, but he would surely be saddened that Deep Purple MkIII has never reunited. Since that was indeed the case, David and Whitesnake worked very hard on plenty of new parts and licks for their own arrangements. Reb Beach sings many of the Glenn Hughes lead vocal parts (quite well), and finally Whitesnake feels like a real band again. It’s odd that it happened on a Deep Purple cover album, but the band sound like a real band, on album for the first time in ages. Hopefully the injection of passionate young blood in Hoekstra and new bassist Michael Devin will result in new music some day.
The deluxe edition of The Purple Album comes with two bonus tracks and a loaded DVD. “Lady Luck” and “Comin’ Home” from Come Taste the Band are actually two of the best selections. It’s rare that bonus tracks are album highlights, but just because these songs are not as world-renowned as “Burn” does not mean they are not as good. They’re awesome. “Comin’ Home” is very different from the original, having a new and very Whitesnake (circa Slide It In) riff installed.
Japan usually get exclusive bonus tracks and this time it’s a different mix of “Soldier of Fortune”. The reason for the alternate mix (according to the documentary DVD, which we’ll get to) is that David was somewhat torn on which version he liked best. The original concept was a straight acoustic version, with just David’s voice and an acoustic guitar — one guitar, like in Deep Purple. That version didn’t make the album. In a last minute decision, David chose to record bass and other embellishments, and that is what you hear on the standard album. The lucky fans in Japan (or those who wish to shell out for an import!) get the original concept as a bonus track. Delightful.
The bonus DVD is a nice treat, for the 30-minute “Behind the Scenes” feature. It’s great to see the band get so much face time, talking about their love of Deep Purple. Things like this aid in your appreciation of the final album. Observations: Reb Beach does a hilarious Coverdale impression. Tommy Aldridge is still an unstoppable beast of a drummer, even today. Indeed, the new Whitesnake lineup comes across as an inspired band. It is a brand new era for Whitesnake, according to David. He is happier with their sound than he has been in years.
Then there’s the fluff, the Whitesnake EPK (electronic press kit) which is just a condensed version of the main feature. Added to this are four music videos. It’s almost amusing that Whitesnake made music videos today, but again the band get a lot of face time and that’s cool. In the music videos, it really seems like Whitesnake are a band regardless of the lineup changes. The videos are glossy, a little cheesy, but a nice little add-on.
The original rating for this album was going to be 3/5 stars. Cover albums just can’t be judged by the same yardstick as an album of original material. Having seen and heard how much passion and work Whitesnake put into The Purple Album, I’ve grown to appreciate it more. Therefore:
3.5/5 stars
GETTING MORE TALE #444: “Can I Listen to This?”
In the early 1990’s, the CD store in which I worked was just an ordinary music store that sold new product in a mall. Later on, we did the switch to used discs which was the smartest move the owner could have done. He was able to control his own cost of goods sold.
Switching to 99% used stock attracted customers to the better prices. Before too long, the used selection was better too, because we would see many deleted and rare titles that you couldn’t buy new anymore. Ebay didn’t exist yet. It was hard to find those titles on CD. Another benefit to the switch was the ability for customers to sample music before they bought it. It was harder before.
In the earliest days, if a customer wanted to hear something, we had to crack open the disc and play it on the store player. We didn’t even have a re-sealing device. The way around this was to carefully (carefully!) cut the cellophane off the CD case, along the spine of the disc. Carefully (carefully!) slide the disc out of the cellophane. When done, you can carefully (carefully!) slide the disc back into the cellophane, and “seal” it up with a piece of strategically placed Scotch tape. This did the trick well enough for us. We made due.
The annoying thing wasn’t the fact that we had to crack open a disc for people to listen to. The real irritant was that we didn’t have anything for them to listen to it on, except the store CD player. If a customer came up and said, “Can I listen to this?” it meant stopping whatever you were playing, and putting in their disc.
This happened one Saturday afternoon, sometime in the spring of ’95. Radiohead had just released The Bends, and we only carried three copies to start. A guy came in curious what it was like. The Bends may be critically acclaimed by fans worldwide, but that spring afternoon in 1995, it did absolutely nothing for me*. Skipping from one track to the next, then back, at the customer’s command, I hated what I heard. To my ears it sounded too mellow and I was ready for a nap. It was definitely not what I wanted to hear while I was trying to work. To date I still don’t own The Bends. This guy stood there listening for half an hour before declining to buy it. It was annoying for both myself, and the other customers, to have to listen to this disc skipping from track to track at the guy’s hand signals or nods.
But we didn’t have anything else, and we were customer service oriented, so what are you to do? You listen to (rather, skip back and forth through) The Bends.
A year later I was managing a bigger store, with the 99% used format. We had a store player, plus several other units hooked up to headphones. With an entire store of used stuff to listen to, and a pair of headphones to do it with, it was a vast improvement over the old way. Once again the owner had a great idea. Even though there is no question they were a huge popular feature for our stores, the “listening stations” as we called them were still ripe for abuse. Customers would make you run around retrieving 20 (or 30 or 40) discs to listen to, only to buy none. They’d complain about the sound quality. The headphones were constantly busting due to overuse and abuse.
“These headphones suck. I can’t hear the nuances in the music.” That was a real complaint. Since there wasn’t much I could do about it, I explained that the listening stations were there just so you could hear a song and decide if you liked it or not. Not much thought was given to hearing the nuances. But this guy insisted he couldn’t tell if he liked a song without the “nuances”, so no sale was made.
Other folks would want to listen to an entire CD – the whole thing! – to make sure it didn’t skip before they bought it. Even though we offered a guarantee.
Even though we had gone through the effort and expense of providing these listening stations, there are some people you can never please. More than one fellow (yes, it was only guys) asked to listen to something, only to complain, “No, I don’t want to hear it on those headphones. I want to hear it on the big speakers!” Yeah, but nobody else in the store wants to.
Music fans: Although you can now listen to almost anything you want in the comfort of your own home, please, if you want to use the listening stations at a CD store, don’t be a douche!
*I do have Kid A in my collection. I love Kid A.
Concluding an in-depth review of the Bon Jovi New Jersey Super Deluxe edition. Previous reading:
BON JOVI – New Jersey (2014 Universal Super Deluxe edition, part 2)
Of all the Bon Jovi albums, New Jersey certainly deserved the Super Deluxe treatment. New Jersey‘s promotional cycle included two VHS releases, both present on this DVD: The old Wayne Isham tour documentary Access All Area, and New Jersey: The Videos. Isham was responsible for virtually every cool larger-than-life video Bon Jovi made. In 1988, trendy grainy black and white footage was all the rage, and so Access All Areas, where we will begin, has an over-abundance of it.
In a piece of incidental pre-show rehearsal footage, Richie Sambora sings “Purple Rain”, proving who the talent in the band always was. It is nice though to see everybody in the band hanging out, having a good time, and seeming like genuine friends. As for the audience, it’s amusing to see the giant hair from the perspective of today.
The sound of “Bang” by Russian metal band Gorky Park indicates we’re off to the Soviet Union. Bon Jovi were pioneering in being one of the only hard rock bands to play behind the Iron Curtain (they were officially sanctioned by the government), and this part of the show is certainly the most interesting. Bon Jovi even have a ten-man blues jam with the Russian band, building bridges at the end of the Cold War. The blues is universal. This visit leads to the massive Moscow Music Peace Festival, which I had on tape from MTV, and wore completely out. (Not shown: the backstage moment when Tommy Lee rips the shirt off Bon Jovi manager Doc McGhee’s back, for allegedly upstaging Motley Crue by using fireworks in Bon Jovi’s show, against prior agreement. It’s a long he-said she-said story involving McGhee who was managing both Motley and Bon Jovi at the time. Motley felt McGhee had prioritized Bon Jovi, and fired him immediately after.)
The boys have a blast in the warmth of Rio de Janeiro, quite a contrast with snowy Moscow. In Tokyo they are chased by a swarm of screaming girls. Through it all, even though they’ve been on the road forever and can’t wait to get home, they maintain themselves with a lot of joking around. Fortunately Isham captured this endearing footage. The live rehearsal stuff is also excellent, up close and in the faces of the band.
In a very cool moment backstage at Wembley, Bon Jovi, Cinderella and the Scorpions work on covers together for a big jam. “Travelling Band”…holy shit, is that Elton John on piano? Sure looks like it. Rick Allen, Brian May, Lita Ford! “I am the happiest kid on Earth!” shouts an excited David Bryan. Another gig features Bon Jovi with the late comedian Sam Kinison on “Wild Thing”. At Tower Records, they are threatened with arrest by the riot squad if they perform, so naturally Jon and Richie break out the acoustics and do “Ride Cowboy Ride”. In swoop the fuzz, who had nothing to worry about. Alec John Such’s birthday is celebrated in West Berlin, where they visit the wall. (In a shivery moment, Jon is eyeballed by an East German soldier on the other side.) Their cover of “The Boys Are Back in Town” is performed, and Jon takes a chip out of the wall.
Jimmy Page is present at a three hour charity gig at Hammersmith, and they jam on “Train Kept a Rolling”. (Best moment: when Jon sings a Steven Tyler “wha-ga-ga-ga” in it near the end, just like Tyler did in Aerosmith’s version.) It’s clear that even then Jon was the boss — he alone makes the setlist, and says if something goes wrong he’ll call the shots. He comments he has “never been so nervous.” Bad Company’s “Shooting Star” is a duet with Richie Sambora, who had been playing it long before Bon Jovi formed. It’s a stunning version and it’s hard to imagine Bon Jovi ever doing anything this big again, both in terms of success and quality.
Australia! “Bon Jovi: We go everywhere, but we live nowhere!” says Sambora. “Love For Sale” is played at HMV for swarms of long-hairs both male and female (but mostly female). Sam Cooke’s “Having a Party” is another incredible cover selection, and you have to give Jon credit for that. The final show is a big multi-gig stand in Guadalajara, Mexico that almost never happened due to “politics” (money) and a riot! The first gig is postponed to the next day forcing Bon Jovi to play a double-header starting at 11 am! “We should go on stage in riot gear,” jokes (?) Jon. (They don’t.)
Access All Areas was a good rock doc for the time. It feels whitewashed and scrubbed clean of blemishes, but that was music in general in the late 80’s. The real pleasure is getting to see the other band members hanging out. Alec John Such seems a funny, talented guy with a great voice. David Bryan is clearly a lot more gifted than he gets to show off in the band.
The music videos (only mixed in stereo, unfortunately) are all you remember them to be: more mixtures of black & white, and colour footage, golly! Both versions of “Bad Medicine” are included. (More Sam Kinison!) There are funny interludes with the band in between the songs, joking around back stage. (Special guest: Skip Rope Skid Row’s Dave “Snake” Sabo.) “Me, if I wasn’t a musician, I’d be a drummer!” says Jon. Of the music videos, “I’ll Be There For You” and “Lay Your Hands On Me” are the coolest, just no-nonsense stage performance clips. “Blood on Blood”, which I’d never seen before, is a live version.
The DVD portion of this box set is a nice supplement, but you won’t be in a hurry to sit down and watch again. The black & white/colour back and forth is very tiring. Fortunately Bon Jovi seem(ed) like a nice bunch of guys from the neighborhood that have loads of talent, and fun to watch in any setting.
DVD: 3/5 stars
Bonus tracks: 4.5/5 stars
Album: 4.5/5 stars
Overall rating: 4/5 stars
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