THE DARKNESS – “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” (2003 Warner CD single)
The Darkness wins when it comes to Christmas songs. Not content to rock up a classic, or write a crappy original, they did something that very few artists do: They wrote an original Christmas tune as good as any of their prior singles. For that reason, I heartily recommend “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” to discerning rock fans everywhere. If you can’t find or don’t want the single, you can still get the track on the UK best-of compilation The Platinum Collection.
Even though the guitars are thicker than a good ol’ bowl of Thin Lizzy pudding, there is no mistaking this for anything but a Christmas song. It is a joyous rock re-imagining of a Christmas carol, with the unmistakable Justin Hawkins falsetto. It is incredibly difficult not to smile. A suitably joyous music video was made for this song, featuring the band opening gifts from each other such as a double-neck guitar.
“You know those guitars that are like, double guitars?”
The B-side is a non-album track called “I Love You 5 Times”. This slow ballad features Justin teasing like a purring cat, stuttering, and joking around. It’s not one of their most outstanding songs, and wouldn’t make my own Darkness mix tape. It is however a non-album Darkness song with a typically great guitar solo, so not completely a throw-away. The A-side is the reason to get this single.
RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale #344: Childhood Recording Sessions
When we were kids in the 1980’s, pre-internet, pre-downloading, the only avenue we had to share music with each other was taping. If a friend had an album you wanted, you could try to record it. For example my next door neighbor George had all the Kiss albums, on LP. All he was missing was The Elder. What Kiss albums I didn’t own myself (which was most of them) I gradually taped one by one from George. I’d write down the song titles and make a cassette cover. When George wrote down the songs, I couldn’t always read them. When he did get The Elder in ’86, he made a copy for me. For a little while, I thought Kiss had a song on it called “Escape from the Ish”.
One Sunday afternoon in ’85 I went over to his place with a 60 minute tape, intending to record Unmasked. George dusted off the LP, dropped the needle and hit “record”. At the same time, he also decided to play bass along to the whole album. Somehow, his bass bled through to the tape recorder.
I didn’t find an original copy of Unmasked for two more years. Until that time, all I had to listen to was my taped copy, complete with George’s bass “overdubbed” on top of Gene’s! If I think back and remember really hard, I can still hear in my mind how George kept playing through the song fade outs!
Other recording sessions were far more elaborate. When George acquired Kiss’ Animalize Live Uncensored on VHS tape, he brought it over along with his own VCR, so we could dub a copy, VCR to VCR. On other occasions I would bring our VCR over to my best friend Bob’s place, and record there. My parents hated it when I disconnected the VCR! My dad always seemed to fear we’d never get it hooked up properly again! Or that we’d lose the controller, or worse, break it. But then, if we were recording at my house, my dad would always walk in and mock the bands. “What’s wrong with that man?” my dad said of Bruce Dickinson. “He keeps on screaming as if he’s in terrible pain!”
Copying music improved greatly in the 1990’s. The durability of the blank tapes improved, and dubbing from CD was infinitely better than recording tape to tape. Because of the improvements in quality, the cassettes we dubbed in the 90’s are still playable. Still, there is no comparison in sound to a CD. Finally in 2001, I purchased my first CD burner, enabling me to create the best possible sounding copies of music.
None of those improvements in technology, nor the advent of the CD-R, swayed me from owning an original CD or LP. I may have had a burned copy of the Sultans of Ping F.C., but there’s nothing better than an original. Somebody could send me a CD rip of some amazing rare bonus tracks by bands I like, which is great…but not as great as owning the original.
Why?
I don’t really know. Certainly I have plenty of friends from every age group who are content not to own any CDs. They don’t need to own it in order to listen on an iPod. That’s not good enough for me. I want the whole experience. I want the cover art (on paper, not a computer screen), I want the liner notes. I want to file the new CD on my shelves in the right order, and then gaze upon my collection of a given artist. I like to handle the artwork, the CD, and take a hard squint at the pictures. It’s hard to explain. I can justify it by saying CD just sounds better than an mp3. And as good as CD gets, sometimes vinyl can sound even better.
Even though I don’t need them anymore, I miss the old days of the Sunday recording sessions. I miss the social aspects of friends gathering in somebody’s basement or living room to share and discuss and enjoy music (all of which I later bought, anyway). I miss that feeling of heading home with some new music to listen to, right out of a friend’s collection. But I don’t miss having only enough money to buy blank tapes, instead of originals. I’m much happier now with my collection of well loved physical, original music.
RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale #343: Tyler and LeBrain episode 3 – The French Invasion
Please welcome Sebastien to Getting More Tale. Seb is a Sausagefester who also happens to play drums, produce, and own a recording studio. Today we discuss the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, and modern music.
GUNS N’ ROSES – Live in Paradise City (2011 Access All Areas DVD, from a television broadcast source)
Rock In Rio 4, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 2, 2011.Guns N’ Roses headlining the final night.
Paddington Rose
Rio loves Guns N’ Roses! Always did, still do. It’s pouring rain, but the fans are present and accounted for. Good thing they are able to see the huge stage through three massive video screens, otherwise I don’t know how they’d tell one member from another. Well, Axl’s blinding yellow Paddington Bear coat makes him easy enough to see.
“Chinese Democracy” opens the set, with bassist Tommy Stinson handling the backup vocals on the chorus. Ron Thal’s playing a double neck (the top one is fretless) and is rocking the samurai hair. The solo is played by DJ Ashba, with Thal handling the outro shredding. “Good evening! Good morning!” says Axl after the first song, before asking, “Do you know where the fuck you are?” Of course that means “Jungle” is next. Axl’s voice just sounds shredded, as he struggles high and thin through the hard notes, no grit left intact. Once in a while the old Axl wails, but he was really off in Rio.
THAL-1138
One thing about Guns N’ Roses new vs. old: The old band looked unified in image. All of them looked like Hollywood dirtbags. In this band, you have the glam looking DJ Ashba, Frank Ferrer who looks like a trucker, Axl with his pimpstache, and a guy in a Stormtrooper helmet. Admittedly though, Tommy Stinson looks the part as the punk rock bass player, and he also fills Duff’s role as backup singer.
“It’s So Easy” is up third, top loading the setlist with some serious Appetite heavy hitters. Ashba doesn’t quite nail the solo, but the band are as tight as the originals. Keyboardist Dizzy Reed looks weird as hell just hitting a tamborine to this sledgehammer tune. As for rhythm guitarist Richard Fortus (a dead ringer for Izzy Stradlin), he seems to literally attack his instrument with every strum; looks more like he’s punching them! Another Appetite classic, “Mr. Brownstone” follows. It is here that I miss Slash for the first time. His playing on “Brownstone” was always so greasy; so perfect. Ashba’s playing is a bit too sophisticated.
Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal
A bloated looking Axl is accompanied by Ron Thal for the opening to “Sorry”, a slow grinder from Chinese Democracy. This changes the pace of the set. The song fails to connect. It’s more expressive live, but not interesting enough. Time to pee. Axl then introduces Richard Fortus on guitar who plays some blazing fast licks. It makes me wonder why the hell this guy doesn’t play more leads. He’s insanely fast. This turns into a bit of a band jam, including the James Bond theme. That strategically merges into “Live and Let Die”, the McCartney original of which was of course the theme of the same titled Bond movie. The stage has flame throwers blasting, and the crowd goes wild. Axl’s changed out of the raincoat, now sporting black leather and doing his trademark spinny-spinny dance.
Frank Ferrer
After a brief pause, Frank Ferrer begins the familiar drum beat that opens “Rocket Queen”. The fans know it and scream in anticipation. Unfortunately Axl’s thin voice fails to impress. Fortus does impress, handling the slide guitar solo himself. “This I Love” is the next song, and the first ballad of the evening. Axl struggles a bit with the vocal before he finds his stride part way in. The dual keyboard concept can be best heard here. Dizzy plays the piano, while second keyboardist Chris Pitman plays the orchestral arrangement. But let’s face it: “This I Love” will never replace “November Rain” or “Estranged” as a concert favourite. It fills that same epic ballad role, but it just ain’t classic.
DJ Ashba
DJ Ashba takes the opening lead guitar on the next Guns N’ Roses jam. I don’t recognize the tune, but it sounds like another soundtrack piece. I’ve heard some journalists complain that Guns play too many solos from band members that nobody cares about. They couldn’t be more wrong. These players are good; very very good. These instrumental sections, apart from giving Axl a chance to rest his voice, are a showcase for the guys in the band that, like it or not, happen to be Guns N’ Roses. The fans in Rio treat the members as if they were the originals.
So once again, Jones, what was briefly yours is now mine.
Ashba breaks into the “Sweet Child O’ Mine” intro, and the fans lose their collective minds. Rose dons a tan fedora, now looking a bit like René Belloq. Thal nails that unforgettable wah-wah solo, no mean feat. But then it’s time for “Estranged”, and Axl just can’t find the key. He pulls it together on the first verse, but this isn’t an easy song. It does eventually fall into place with the help of some epic soloing.
I would say that the song “Better” from Chinese Democracy is well overdue in the set. While undoubtedly modern sounding, I think it’s one of the best tunes. It gives the band a chance to play around with a different kind of heavy. Bumblefoot Thal plays the fast shreddy guitar part and does backing vocals.
Axl then introduces the band, aside from Bumblefoot and Ashba:
Chris “Mothergoose” Pitman
Frank “Thunderchucker” Ferrer (“I can never say that last name right. It’s like Ferarri, only different.” — Axl)
Mr. Richard Fortus (no nickname)
Mr. Tommy Stinson (also no nickname)
Mr. Dizzy Reed (I guess his nickname is Dizzy?)
This leads into a Dizzy piano segue on The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly”, as an intro to “Street of Dreams”. I had made no secret of my love for this song. I first heard it back in 2001, when Guns played Rio that year. It was known as “The Blues” at the time. It’s a concise version of the “epic Guns ballad” and it stands up on its own. Then it’s time for “You Could Be Mine”. Ferrer impressively nails the drum intro, and Thal plays the opening guitar moans on his fretless neck. This great version is followed by Axl sitting at the piano himself, for…you got it…”November Rain”. There are some sour moments, not least of which is Axl forgetting some of the words!
Bumblefoot
Finally it’s time for one of my favourite moments of the set: Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal’s rendition of the “Pink Panther” theme (Henry Mancini) on double neck guitar. It’s familiar melodies like this that keep the solo spots interesting to fans who don’t know the players all that well. It’s easier for them to swallow. It’s not like Axl is leaving the stage for some guy to go wheedle-wheedle-wheedle for four and a half minutes. Guns give you quality for your time.
“Pink Panther” turns into a space age blues jam and back again, merging into “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”. Axl sings this annoyingly nasal. I will take this moment to point out the irritating habit of the camera to focus on a guitar player who is not the current soloist. It’s Ashba playing these solos, but half the time the camera is on Fortus, as if they are not sure who is playing, so they guess. Fortus does get to blaze a solo at the end, thankfully with the camera on him. Axl playfully quotes Elmer Fudd: “Be vewy vewy quiet! I’m hunting wabbits!” Why, I don’t know. Maybe he was watching cartoons on the plane. It’s as good an answer as any.
The main set closes with “Nightrain”, bringing it all back full circle to Appetite again. In a cool moment, Ashba walks (with security personnel by his side) through a barricaded and secured pathway within the crowd. “Nightrain” is a strong finish for a band that plays as long and hard as Guns N’ Roses play. And soon they’re back on stage, acoustic guitars in hand, to play “Patience”. The quiet tune is all but drowned out by thousands of screaming Brazilians, but even they cannot drown out “Paradise City”. It’s a natural epic closer, and it’s perfectly awesome, right up until Axl leaves the stage…then the video and audio abruptly fade and that’s the end! Was the broadcast cut off? I don’t know, but the end jam is cut out, as is the final bow. That’s it that’s all.
Shoddy. You can tell it’s not an official release.
RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale #342: All in a Day’s Drive
Friday November 21, 2014 was a pretty nice day weather wise. There was no precipitation and the skies were clear. If you’re going to pick a day to make a drive down the 401, you couldn’t have picked a better one. Jen needed to see a doctor at the hospital in Mississauga, so off we went. [Note: don’t worry, she’s fine. This is regarding her epilepsy.] I brought music and reading materials, and kept a log of the rock:
9 am: Depart Kitchener for Brampton. Playing in the car: Deep Purple – Smoke on my Mega-Mix, a bootleg compilation CD of remixes and live tracks.
10 am: Pick up Jen’s mom in Brampton [she spent the weekend with us]. Depart for Mississauga. Playing on car stereo: Van Halen – 5150. As a “bonus track”, I tacked on the live version of “Why Can’t This Be Love” (from the music video) to the end of the playlist. Jen’s comment: “The singing on this is… (pause)…really not as good as the regular version.” She’s right.
6:30 pm: Finally arrive home after 2 1/2 hour crawl along Highway 401! The whole way was brake light city. Just a tedious, slow drive. There was no reason for it. From what I could tell, it was all caused by commuters that didn’t know how to properly merge. When somebody leaves you 5 or 6 car lengths space to merge in, take it. Don’t race further ahead to see if you can get in front of that transport truck and that guy in the Hyundai. Car music: Van Halen – Fair Warning, Diver Down, and A Different Kind of Truth. Yes, that means Jen and her mom heard a LOT of Van Halen today. And that’s fucking cool.
I will be live on the Craig Fee Show on 107.5 Dave FM this afternoon 12/01/14, around 5:20 pm Ontario time, to discuss one of the tracks included on this album. Listen live by clicking right hereto stream!
Van Halen’s first “greatest hits” compilation was historic in its fallout. The band had talked for years about putting out a “best of” set, with one disc of Dave and one disc of Sammy. That never happened but the concept continued to be discussed in the Van Halen camp, with Sammy Hagar adamantly against it. When Hagar’s friend and Van Halen’s manager Ed Lefler passed away, he was replaced by Canadian Ray Danniels, who was also handling Rush, Extreme, and King’s X. Hagar and Danniels never quite saw eye to eye and when push came to shove, Hagar refused to participate in the recording of new music for the compilation. The Van Halen camp considered this to be highly hypocritical of Sammy, since he had done just that for his own solo “greatest hits” CD, Unboxed (1994). All of this led to a tense telephone standoff with Eddie Van Halen himself, the revelation that Ed had already started working on new songs with former singer David Lee Roth, and Hagar quitting the band. (On top of all that, and unbeknownst to Hagar or Roth, was that was Van Halen were also eyeballing Gary Cherone, who Ray Danniels brought in from one of his other bands, Extreme. They had even recorded some test tracks with Mitch Malloy who ultimately turned the gig down.)
When Best Of Volume I was finally released in fall of 1996, there was so much confusion in the air that many fans really had no idea who was in Van Halen or what the hell was going on. At the Record Store, I had one guy come in and return this on the day of release, October 22, 1996.
“Yeah, I want to return this CD,” he said. “I already have these songs.”
What?! You couldn’t tell that from the title Best Of Volume I?
That’s indicative of the confusion in fandom. This guy had assumed, like many people, that Van Halen had a brand new album of songs out with David Lee Roth singing.
Another common urban myth was that there was such a thing as Best Of Volume II. People would constantly ask if we had it, when it was coming out, and sometimes even insist they had seen it before in stores. When asked when Best Of Volume II was coming out again and again, I started answering “18 years”, because that’s how long it took for them to come out with Volume I.
T-Rev wrote up a quickie review for our store newsletter. He praised the remastering job, but bemoaned that only one song was included from Van Halen II, and that there wasn’t enough Dave in general. I would agree. At the very least, a song like “Can’t Stop Loving You” should have been ditched for something else like “Everybody Wants Some!!” However, to put this into context, in 1996 that was one of Van Halen’s most recent hit singles, just over a year old. The rest of the album takes tracks from each studio record (sans Diver Down which Eddie doesn’t speak too highly of). The most notable omissions were “Hot For Teacher” (only available on the Japanese release of Best Of) and “Love Walks In” (which I can do without). Presumably there would have been more tracks on a Volume II, which never materialized. (18 years my arse!)
To me, the hits part of this disc is just preamble. The reason fans went out and bought this CD was the return of David Lee Roth on the two new singles. Nobody cared about the hits they already had. Indeed, as implied by T-Rev’s review, most of us didn’t really agree with most of the hits selected.
They stuck “Can’t Get This Stuff No More” and “Me Wise Magic”, the first new songs by the original Van Halen in over a decade, at the tail end of the CD. As fans, we were elated to hear new music that clearly hearkened back to the pre-synth, pre-1984 sound of Van Halen. Dave’s voice was lower and less powerful, but no less expressive. His delivery is pure gleeful Dave, even on these darker songs. His lyrics (which according to Roth, Eddie didn’t like) are as Diamond Dave as ever. As far as guitar goes, Eddie’s letting it, basing both songs purely on riffage. This was a pretty cool about-face from the too-commercial sounds of Balance.
Neither song was really single-worthy, but they would have made solid album cuts, had this incarnation of Van Halen continued to make an album. Of course, that didn’t happen. Best Of Volume I is, thus far, the only place you can buy them. And that means if you love original Van Halen, you need to buy this album.
For Van Hagar fans, there was the excellent newbie “Humans Being”, with its angry modern verses and bright shiny chorus. I’ve always liked the song, because of the chorus and Eddie’s guitar. The verses, not so much, but as a song it holds together as something different for Van Halen. In some ways it pointed the way forward to Van Halen 3. This is the only ‘Halen album where you can get “Humans Being”, saving you from having to buy the terrible Twister soundtrack.
(Missing is a track called “Respect The Wind” billed by Eddie & Alex Van Halen from the same soundtrack. It’s not really that good, and it’s not billed as Van Halen the band, so seek as per your own needs. Presumably, “Respect the Wind” was from the batch of music that they were working on while Sammy refused to record. See KeepsMeAlive for a review of the Twister soundtrack CD.)
Roth mentioned in his autobiography Crazy From the Heat that he hated the cover art and booklet for this. It looked devoid and sucked dry of all life. I would agree. A music video was planned but nixed. The concept was the trio of Michael Anthony and Eddie & Alex Van Halen playing on a stage, with a big screen behind them of Dave singing. Insulted, Roth refused to do it.
Of interest, if you’re lucky enough to own a first pressing of this CD, you might have a mini-rarity. There was a version with an error on it. You may own a very rare alternate mix of “Runnin’ With the Devil”, released by mistake, where the verses, chorus and solos were arranged in a different order than that of the originally released album version. Take a listen and see if you’re one of the few. That version was quickly discontinued and corrected.*
3.5/5 stars. Despite the brevity, this album doesn’t overstay the party.
*My friend at 107.5 Dave FM, Craig Fee, had this to add about the “error” mix of “Runnin’ With the Devil”:
You just solved a huge mystery for me. Something that has been bugging me for YEARS.
When I first moved here, I was listening to Dave FM one day. I heard this fucked up version of “Runnin’ With The Devil” with the “whoooooo whooooooo” part at the end edited out. I mentioned it, but Darryl didn’t do anything about it. 5 years later, we are still playing this version. It sounded like a bad edit made by an overzealous producer who was trying to do something to the song.
Until this post, I had no idea why somebody would butcher the song like that. Now I know why. The majority of the big ‘hits’ were dubbed from that CD.
I have the version I bought the day it was released. I listened to it twice. I have no idea if it’s the edited version.
Craig advised me to load both versions (Best Of and Van Halen I) into Audacity and sync them. I did and I could see right away visually that they did not match up. I hit “play” and everything was synced until around 1:15. Then, as Craig puts it, “all hell breaks loose” and the two versions completely deviate. So apparently I do have both.
The only modification I made to the tracks was to reduce the version from Van Halen in volume by 7%, so they were roughly the same.
Ahh, Adrenalize. I remember first buying it on that cold spring day in 1992, and noticing right away, “Where are the riffs?” After Steve Clark died, Def Leppard lost the guy who wrote some of their best riffs, and I miss him. His absence is most palpable on the album that the band had just started working on when he died.
I was always willing to cut Def Leppard some slack on Adrenalize. I remember sitting by the radio with my sister waiting for the premiere of “Let’s Get Rocked”. “It sounds the same as Hysteria,” she said. I responded, “Well, it had that part with the violins,” but my sister accurately observed that they were only in a section to parody classical music. If you’re going to enjoy Adrenalize, you have to remember that it was recorded by 4/5 of a band, gutted of their riff writer and performer. 4/5 of a band following the biggest hard rock album of all time isn’t going to reproduce their best work, and we knew that.
Indeed, “Let’s Get Rocked” is pretty limp. The main thing was just getting Def Leppard back. Getting them back on the radio was a bonus. “Heaven Is” was a better song, but it could have been a Bryan Adams outtake. Sure it has a catchy melody and lush Leppard vocal part, but it doesn’t really rock. The lyrics won’t be winning any awards: “Heaven is a girl that I got to have, she makes me feel better when I’m feeling bad.”
Worse is “Make Love Like A Man”, which is a chorus that I do not want to sing and shout along to. I give Phil Collen points for the experimentation of putting in a “cockney rhyming rap”, but it’s not enough to save the song. This sounds like a hard rock version of a Shania Twain hit or something. The first bonafide Def Leppard classic on Adrenalize is a friggin’ ballad, called “Tonight”. This one finally captures the magic. It’s perfect top to bottom, a classy tune that could have fit on Hysteria.
“White Lightning”, a “Gods of War” remake essentially, is a tribute to the fallen Clark. “White lightning” refers to one of the substances that took him down, but it can also refer to Clark’s appearance on stage, with that big white Gibson guitar throwing shapes. It’s an apt tribute, and a kick in the ass that this album desperately needed.
The second bonafide classic here is side two’s opener, “Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)”. If you don’t count this slow pop rock song as a ballad, then it’s definitely close, but that chorus kills! So do the delicate guitar layers, all done by Phil Collen. It’s too bad this song had such a weird video, and that it was released as a single so late. It could have been massive. It’s worth pointing out that both “Stand Up” and “Tonight” were co-written with Steve Clark before he died, which is perhaps why both have memorable guitar parts.
“Personal Property” is one of the harder rock song, but unfortunately it blows. Another ballad with the agonizing title of “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad” was a hit, but it’s inferior to the other two. “I Wanna Touch U” is catchy and cute, but not hard enough.
That leaves us at the final song, “Tear It Down”, which is a re-recorded version of a B-side from “Animal” (1987). The B-side version is better. Predictably, the Adrenalize re-recorded track doesn’t rock nearly as hard. In one of those “shoulda woulda coulda” moments, maybe Def Leppard should have just polished up the B-side and put it on the album.
Adrenalize went to #1, and millions of copies were sold, so if you’re a Def Leppard fan, you probably knew all that. So what about this deluxe edition?
This reissue, part of a series of Universal deluxe editions including Hysteria and Pyromania, is a very welcome addition to anybody’s Leppard collection due to the quality of the bonus material. The sound has also been improved significantly enough to warrant an upgrade. As expected with a deluxe such as this, the packaging and liner notes are perfect, including many tales that even the most diehard of Leppard fans have never heard before.
Bonus tracks abound. They include the four live tracks from Leppard’s very rare club tour EP (Live: In the Clubs, in Your Face, 1992), as well as two of the three acoustic sessions with Hothouse Flowers (covers of “Little Wing” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, replete with piano and tin whistle). (The third Hothouse Flowers track, an original called “From the Inside”, was released in remixed form on the next Def Leppard album Retro-Active.) These are some of the first tracks recorded to feature Clark’s replacement, Vivian Campbell.
There are two takes of “Tonight”, one being a stunning 1993 acoustic take, and the other being a 1988 demo with (yes!) Steve Clark. The original version of “Two Steps Behind” (before Michael Kamen added the strings) and a live track with Brian May (“Now I’m Here”) from the Freddy Mercury tribute concert are two more rare highlights. The set is rounded out with two live B-Sides also released on the In The Round – In Your Face home video, from Denver in 1988. These Denver tracks are here because they were originally released in audio format as Adrenalize B-sides.
But so much material is missing! The 34 empty minutes available on CD one of this set could have housed many more missing treasures. The Hysteria and Pyromania reissues really packed on the bonus material, Hysteria in particular, which included virtually every rare bonus track and B-side. Adrenalize is missing quite a few: “Only After Dark”, “Miss You In A Heartbeat”, “Action”, “From The Inside” and “She’s Too Tough”. All of these were originally available on long out of print singles, and are excluded here. Why? I can only guess because they are available in remixed form on the Retro-Active CD. However, the Hysteria reissue that came out earlier did not exclude similar tracks. This leaves the original mixes of these Adrenalize B-sides frustratingly unavailable to collectors.
This deluxe edition of Adrenalize is such a mixed bag. On one hand they have given us some truly rare material such as that 1988 demo of “Tonight”, but on the other they have shorted us original mixes of many key Def Leppard B-sides from this era. I am certain most if not all would have fit. I find this dissapointing and frustrating.
Today’s subect: Continuing our Nickelback discussion, Tyler and I turn to a controversial comparison: Do Nickelback and Monster Truck sound the same? Listen to what we have to say, and leave your thoughts in the comments. Enjoy.
*NOTE: I got the name of the Fu Manchu song and album wrong. It’s “Saturn III” from The Action Is Go.
In the late 80’s, after the robotic Priest…Live! and the false start that was Ram It Down, a lot of metal fans wrote off Judas Priest as a vital metal band.
They were a tad premature.
Perhaps it was Halford inking a few too many tattoos into his noggin, perhaps it was the long overdue departure of Dave Holland on drums, or maybe they were just pissed off. The band had spent the summer of 1990 defending themselves in the United States against accusations of murder. Not directly, but through “backwards messages” supposedly embedded on the ancient Stained Class album.* It was a show trial designed to blame bad parenting on someone else. But the band triumphed, and came back meaner and angrier than ever before.
Having written songs with a drum machine, Priest now needed a new drummer. They selected Scott Travis of Racer X, the band that also spawned Paul Gilbert among others. Travis, an American, was on board and the band bunked down in the studio with veteran producer Chris Tsangarides. What resulted from this potent mix was the best record they’d done since at least Defenders, if not far earlier. Decks had been cleared, the band meant business. Travis threw down the double bass, a thrash metal sound previously unexplored by Judas Priest. While looking forward, the album also distilled the sounds of Priest over the last 10 years. It put the turntable from 33 1/3 all the way up to 45 rpm.
This is over-the-top metal, shiny and mean. Halford’s screaming higher and harder than any time before, almost to the point of caricature, but not quite. This chrome plated beast blew away all reasonable expectations. Tipton and Downing still thought they were interesting enough guitar players to do lead break credits on every album, but it’s a touch I like. Tipton is the more experimental one and Downing the fast and reckless one. As a combo it works; the solos are interesting, adrenaline packed and suitable to the songs.
The production is loud and clear; at the time I felt this was one of the best produced metal albums I’d ever heard. The drums are so loud and clear that it hurts. Travis is doing some serious steppin’ on the double bass. To steal a phrase from Halford, this is “primo thrash metal”. More accurately, speed metal.
Almost every song is worthy. Only a few fall flat. Painkiller was more about the overall direction than individual songs, Yes, the lyrics are cartoony, but “Nightcrawler” takes it too far and is too repetitive with a spoken word section that should have been chopped. Also embarassing is “Metal Meltdown”, a speed metal blaster that tries but fails to be as dramatic as “Painkiller” itself. On the positive side are the incendiary title track (still classic today), the ballad “A Touch of Evil”, and the riff-by-riff metal of “Leather Rebel”, “Hell Patrol” and “All Guns Blazing”. You wouldn’t expect an album like Painkiller to have a lot of melody, but some of these tracks may surprise you.
Bonus tracks are the out-of-place “Living Bad Dreams” (a ballad which spoils the record) and an inferior live cut of “Leather Rebel”.
Still, quite the album!. It really gets the blood pumping, even today. I wish it came with a DVD with the insane video of the title track. Check that out if you want to have a sweat. A mighty if imperfect return.
4.5/5 stars
* The song in question, “Better By You, Better Than Me”, was pointedly re-released as a B-side on Priest’s next single, “Painkiller”.
This is one of the best boxed sets that I own. Of course, it’s not a complete collection of rarities. Such a thing does not exist, the Lizzy catalogue is so labyrinthine with EP’s, singles, and Phil’s solo projects. It takes a scholar just to keep it all straight. This set however does include a very generous slice of rarities, including one rare exclusive. It also includes pretty much every Lizzy hit and album cut you could want. Everything from my own obscure favourites (“Hollywood”, “The Sun Goes Down”) to the biggest hits (“Jailbreak”, “The Boys are Back in Town”) are on here.
The set is divided into four discs, each one reflecting a phase of Thin Lizzy. From the Eric Bell power trio years (was “power trio” even a phrase back then?) to the final Phil single “Nineteen” (famously covered by Bad 4 Good), there is no era of the band overlooked. The liner notes are also excellent, with lots of photos and text, and detailed credits.
The rarities and B-sides are pure gold. It’s also important to remember that in Lizzy’s day, non-album singles were the norm. Many of those singles are crucial tracks. “Randolph’s Tango”, with its intricate flamenco solo, is one. The storming “Little Darling” is another necessity. I love the reggae of “Half Caste”. How hard it must have been being Phil Lynott growing up. “The boy ain’t black, the boy is brown,” goes the painful lyric. “Sitamoia” (written by Brian Downey) is a ferocious tornado as only Lizzy could do. “Sugar Blues” is a live jam blast, featuring the underrated Snowy White doing what he does best: the blues.
Most of the B-sides and rare tracks have since been released on the various Thin Lizzy deluxe editions. Not necessarily in these versions though. One track you won’t find on a deluxe edition is “Song For Jimi”, originally from a magazine flexi-disc. This track features a reunited original Thin Lizzy with Eric Bell, recording in 1981!
With complete honesty, there isn’t one single track I would have changed on this set. I think of all my favourites (Lizzy, solo, and otherwise) and check to see if they’re on here. “Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed”? Check. “Massacre”? Check. “The Rocker”? Check. “King’s Call”? Check. “Fool’s Gold”? Check. “Romeo And The Lonely Girl”? Check. “Dancing In The Moonlight”? Check. In fact the only thing I can think of that’s missing is the posthumous “Dedication”, but it’s arguable that it doesn’t belong, since it has a sort of early 90’s sound and was finished by Gorham and Downey on their own.
I wish Thin Lizzy became as big a name as some of their contemporaries, such as Zeppelin, Aerosmith, or Purple. They certainly had the musical chops, they had a multitude of influences and variety of sounds (all Lizzy though), and of course they had the unequaled lyrical talents of Phil Lynott. A poet like Lynott will never come again. Let’s celebrate his life, even though it’s too late for him to celebrate with us.
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