Sammy Hagar/V.O.A(1984)

Circus Magazine was the first time I had seen the name Sammy Hagar and that was back in 1982 for an advertisement for his current album at the time  Three Lock Box.

It wasn’t until the summer of 1984 when I had first seen Sam’s video for I Can’t Drive 55 on MuchMusic and I was sold. The song featured a crunchy guitar not overtaken by the keyboards and the video was fun as well with Sam blasting around in his Ferrari/Eluding the Cops/Being tossed in the Slammer and then busting out and there’s Sam in the cool car while the boys in his band follow him a truck! You know who’s cutting the cheque’s!

I was 16 and Sam was badass in a Hard Rock kind of way as it seems  Sammy wasn’t  taking his shit too serious by making a cool goofy video!

Off to  fetch my first Hagar record and that was Voice Of America or V.O.A for short!

Sammy already had a slew of solo albums under his belt as well as two Montrose albums so he had been in the game for a while!

Sam’s career by 84 was picking up steam and as well just a few  months later in Oct 1984 I caught Hagar headlining in Ladano’s favourite city Duluth Minnesota  with Krokus opening. Sammy delivered an exceptional live show to this day I still recall fondly..

Hagar Tunes…

“I Can’t Drive 55” (Sammy Hagar) – 4:12
“Swept Away” (Hagar) – 5:36
“Rock Is in My Blood” (Hagar) – 4:29
“Two Sides of Love” (Hagar) – 3:41
“Dick in the Dirt” (Hagar) – 4:19
“VOA” (Hagar) – 4:29
“Don’t Make Me Wait” (Hagar, Jesse Harms) – 4:06
“Burnin’ Down the City” (Hagar) – 5:32

There ya have it. 8 Hard Rockers with Don’t Make Me Wait being the bona-fide token Power Ballad but other wise a pretty kick ass album.

Sam nicked Ted Templeman for this album and Ted of course produced the 6 Roth Halen albums and just a short year later Wham Bam Ol Thank You Mam! Sam I Am becomes the new VH singer after Dave Roth gets the boot/quits ..yada yada…

Hagar’s Honcho’s…

Sammy Hagar – lead vocals, lead guitar
Gary Pihl – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Jesse Harms – keyboards, backing vocals
Bill Church – bass guitar, backing vocals
David Lauser – drums, backing vocals

The great thing   when I started buying Sam’s albums was that these guys  were his backing band for many years.  Sam remained loyal to them and it wasn’t like the Dave Coverdale  Whitesnake switch aroo member changes from album to album tour to tour it seemed which I got so sick and tired of.

V.O.A like I had mentioned blasts of with I Can’t Drive 55 and once Lauser rolls that snare intro it takes you the listener all of 5 seconds to know that the Production is going to be top-notch as well as the performances! Love this tune as 55 is just plain old fun Rawk! No Frills’s as Sam is smart as he buy’s into the don’t bore us get to the chorus philosophy and I’m ok with that as my attention span is short to begin with…

Swept Away is a Gem! Sam nails one out of the park with this track. Love the big power chord that  begin’s  the song and it shifts into a decent balance of keyboards and acoustic before Sam ramps it up on the chorus. Check out the Live 1984 audio clip I posted to hear it for your self….

Rock Is In My Blood lyrically is kinda silly but the music is slow with a bit of  hard rock thrown in to keep the music somewhat raunchy. It’s a decent track musically but after Swept Away Sam can be forgiven for writing some Dumbo Like Lyrics…. Sam must have found some of  Gene Simmons leftover Animalize lyrics lying around!

Sam and the boys deliver a real decent hard rock single written all over it track called Two Sides Of Love. Driven by keyboards and drums along with some ripping guitar Two Sides is a great fun summer time hard rock track. Love the pre chorus  that segues right into the catchy happy chorus. Great tune….Another video posted below…

Dick In The Dirt wins funniest song title in 1984..  Sam sings about a down on his luck dude named Richard  so come chorus time the lyrics go “She Knocked Dick In The Dirt” hahaha,,,that silly ol Red Rocker. The music is good as well and when I caught the VOA show this was the second track played that night….

The title track V.O.A is Sam rolling up with Rock Troops and they will kick anyones ass that is in the way! Sam even name drops the USSR as well and I remember reading back than interviews asking him about being political etc which was kinda funny because these lyrics are kinda just goofy words like Triumph wrote with there Allied Forces lyrics. No harm no foul right? But by Sam name dropping a country I guess he stirred someones coffee the wrong way…than again as with a lot of music back than it was probably a calculated move. I  bought into it!

Don’t Make Me Wait is the big power slobbery tune on this album and it’s not a bad track actually! Everyone was doing this back than and so it falls into that heap of song’s I can’t handle but some I can. Today I can’t though…

Burnin Down The City was a tune I kinda neglected as I would pick up the needle after the tune V.O.A and would move onto something else. Having said that it’s not a knock as this tune is a mid tempo end of the album rocker. Features Sammy yammering on about some-crazed ass dude Burning Down The City…Case in point… Here’s some lyrics ….

Every night he rocks this place
He burns the best, but never shows his face, oh, no.
Burns the walls, burns a truck,
Burns a trian, don’t give a fuck, no, no. 

Aren’t those lyrics classic? HAHAHA….

Still though a great revisit and you have to hand it to solo Sam as he was basically putting out album after album followed by tour after tour and building up the fan base. Plus writing all the tunes and such the dude no matter what you think of Sam he  has a great work ethic even though at times he get’s a little sloppy with the lyrics! But who cares I love Big Dumbo Rock  look at KISS’s 80’s output especially that Asylum album…haha….

My  next post will be the second ever album of Hagar’s I purchased on Monday Folk’s …A Double  Sam Shot….

Mas Tequila!

 

 

 

Santers/Guitar Alley(1984)

Santers being Rick Santers/Mark Santers & Rick Lazaroff for their third album hired Triumphs Rik Emmett to produce the album Guitar Alley. 

Guitar Alley  comes across at times comes  as a slicked up steroid shot of Foreigner in the sonic department! Rick does double duty here in the singing and guitar heroics on this album. His playing is fluid when you need a slick bunch of 80’s Hard Rock Riffs with an ear  towards an AOR Single Can’t Shake You fits the Bill to a T. When you want Guitar Hero action Black Magic does the trick nicely.

What I should also mention is the pretty decent cover of Free’s All Right Move where brother Mark plays some great drums while Lazaroff holds down the bottom end with the bass! Believe it or not I heard Santers version of All Right Now before I heard the original version!

For a power trio coming out of Toronto no one ever talks about these guys and its a shame really. These cats could play Rock!

Emmett does his part putting the guitar at the forefront of the mix. The  album actually still to this day sounds good. All 10 tracks are worth a spin.

Rainbow/Live Japan 1984

Thanks to MR HMO who so graciously got me a copy of this show!

So just before Ritchie Blackmore  ice’s Rainbow. He takes his cast of characters (Roger Glover/Joe Lynn Turner/Chuck Burgi and David Rosenthal)  and High Tails it to the infamous Budokan In Japan(back in 1984)  and plays  for one last time with this lineup before the $$$$$$ lured Ritchie and Roger back to Deep Purple where they ended up cutting the classic Perfect Strangers album which came out late that year.

Here’s the track list for the Last Hurrah For Rainbow…

1 Intro
2 Spotlight Kid
3 Miss Mistreated
4 I Surrender
5 Can’t Happen Here
6 Catch The Rainbow
7 Power / Keyboard Solo
8 Street Of Dreams
9 Fool For The Night
10 Difficult To Cure / Guitar Improvisation
11 Drum Solo / Blues
12 Stranded
13 Death Alley Driver
14 Fire Dance
15 Maybe Next Time
16 All Night Long
17 Lazy
18 Since You’ve Been Gone
19 Smoke On The Water

Basically you get 19 tracks and this album reeks of 80s Rock on a how a show was done back than. You want a Drum Solo? How about a Keyboard solo? How about Guitar Improvisation? Haha…I think that means Guitar Solo but hey it’s Ritchie and he is in my book is the King Of Improvisation!
My spin on Rainbow is the 80s version with Turner handling the mic is my favourite period of the band as this was when I first discovered them.  As Blackmore changed vocalists (Ronnie James Dio/Graham Bonnett) and my first discovery of Rainbow was 1982’s Fantastic Straight Behind The Eyes.  Ritchie amps up on this live album in the form of Death Alley Driver from SBTE’s. All bet’s are off as Ritchie basically rips his start apart and Joe delivers it vocally. Love this tune. Straight Ahead And Through My Noggin!

That video of Death Alley Driver is from the actual show that i’m reviewing and don’t you just love it when Joe throws the old quick fist at the camera at the 1 minute mark! I always laugh back than and today when I see this stuff when Rock Dudes try an act tough! The King Of Tough hands down is David Bryan in the Bon Jovi video Only The Lonely where David and his poodle perm rough up some chap in the video. HAHAHAHA….

Ok let’s get back on track. For all the Zaniness Blackmore Guitar Action he does  deliver along with Joe one of the best kinda Power Ballads in Street Of Dreams. It is a well written Piece of Rock where Burgi keeps his drums moving so the song does not Sap out! Neil Schon and his turned down amp could have used this song in Journey but then again this song would have been wimped out through the piano blender  by Jon Cain!

Blackmore hahaha….has to contain himself from cutting loose like the lunatic he is on guitar but he even though knows the deal! It’s 1984 and you gotta play the tunes like Street Of Dreams.

Of course like any Rainbow show Rich dips into his own back catalogue as well as he does a rocked up sped up jam of Since You’ve Been Gone  and a couple of Deep Purple classics in Lazy and Smoke On The Water.

This was the final show forever for this lineup which is a shame. From Rainbow Joe went/sang for Yngwie Malmsteem and I assume is still solo. Burgi and Rosenthal I think are in Billy Joel’s Band while of course Roger Glover (looking in the video here like an extra from the Miami Vice 80’S Cop Show) and Ritchie cashed in a huge payday later in 1984 when they both rejoined Deep Purple.

Course in 2016 long after Ritchie quit Deep Purple yet again and began dabbling with a ukulele and a flute in some Renaissance Act. (Blackmore’s Night) In 2016 Renaissance Ritchie kicked the ukulele and flute out found his Strat and Marshall and reformed Rainbow and played some shows with yet a whole new lineup with some Ol Geezers(Bass Player needs to get of out his Pajama’s and a new singer who looks quite young and sounds good)and have hit the circuit with more shows to come in 2017! If my memory is correct. Readers Mr 1537 and HMO have Tickets to see this show! Review please boy’s!

Kinda wished Ritchie would have pulled this lineup back out but hey it’s the Man In Blacks call!

This is a Great Live Show……

KISS/Animalize Live(Official Radio Broadcast) 1984

A Huge Round Of Applause For My Good Pal HMO Who  Came Through And Sent Me An Copy Of This Kiss Radio Broadcast from Dec 8th 1984! Today this post hits on well Dec 8th 2016!

KISS 1984 was on the  upswing after the Successful Non Makeup Bounce Back of Mr HMO’S fav Kiss record Lick It Up.  Gene and Paul after the 1983 into early 1984 Lick It Up Tour kicked Guitarist Vinnie Vincent to the curb and began auditioning guitarists and Mark St John (RIP) got the Golden Ticket and became the New Guitarist in Kiss and played some decent riffs on the Animalize album most notably on Thrills In The Night where St John tapped into all things 80s Metal Shredder Style and plays a wicked slick guitar solo….

Anyhoo St Johns arm went numb and he couldn’t play and Gene And Paul hired Bruce Kulick who along with Eric Carr went on the road to promote Animalize and with MTV ruling the airwaves a concert was recorded and edited (Ha) for broadcast which was also released on VHS.

I had a copy of this on VHS and its 80’s KISS! All gloss/ Stanley a mess in the wardrobe department and Gene with that Crazed Road Warrior like look with a Wig?? HMO! Can you confirm Gene’s use of the Wig here? He had his hair trimmed short for that acting role in Tom Sellecks Shatty Movie Runaway. 

Ramseeeeeeeeey! (Ged It?)

So Here’s Those Fun Loving Ding Dong’s KISS and me at the time (1984)taking my hard-earned allowance and making yet another Cash Donation to the Kiss Fund and just loving it back than and even now as it was great to hear this album in full!

90 Minutes of Unedited KISS and Hilarious Stanley Crowd Banter…Frigg Yeah ….

Let’s Do This!

The Tracks…..

1. “Detroit Rock City” Paul Stanley, Bob Ezrin
2. “Cold Gin” Ace Frehley
3. “Creatures of the Night” Stanley, Adam Mitchell
4. “Fits Like a Glove” Gene Simmons
5. “Heaven’s on Fire” Stanley, Desmond Child
6. “Thrills in the Night” Stanley, Jean Beauvoir
7. “Paul Stanley’s guitar solo”
8. “Under the Gun” Stanley, Eric Carr, Child
9. “War Machine” Simmons, Bryan Adams, Jim Vallance
10. “Eric Carr’s drum solo”
11. “Young and Wasted” Simmons, Vinnie Vincent
12. “Gene Simmons’ bass solo”
13. “I Love It Loud” Simmons, Vincent
14. “I Still Love You” Stanley, Vincent
15. “Love Gun” Stanley
16. “Lick It Up” Stanley, Vincent
17. “Black Diamond” Stanley
18. “Rock and Roll All Nite” Stanley, Simmons

Basically this Set List is KISS pushing 80s Product and I basically Licked It Up! Sorry Folks that was gross….

Track 7 is kinda disturbing as Paul Stanley plays a solo!??  No Ace Frehley…..No Vinnie Vincent and Paul is not going to let New Dude Bruce Kulick solo  so whats a Starchild do? He solo’s……His band his deal but Gah…. Great Rhythm Player but not a solo thingy….

Speaking of Paul someone posted all of his stage banter from this show into one 8 minute Video clip that’s on YouTube! This is pure 80s Arena C**K Rawk GOLD! It does not get any better than  this. Think about it for a second as Stanley uses up 8 Minutes of Kiss’s 90 Performing minutes to banter and toss down another 5 minutes with the guitar solo…hahaha…

Here ya go Folks….Starchild in the 80s…..

HA! It does not get any better than 80’s Stanley Raps……

The band itself when Paul isn’t doing his Stand Up Comedy Routine between tracks play these songs at Hyper Speed. The Tempos are all sped up which is very noticeable now and not so much back than as  I was just buying into what KISS was selling and KISS themselves were  trying to keep up to all the bands at the time that were coming at them and passing them in Record and Ticket Sales.

Watch Below as Demon and Paulie want you to dig em..84 Style!

Isn’t the Thrills In The Night live vid classic!? Hardly any camera time for new Guy Bruce and during the solo they show Paul in slow motion jumping from the ramps instead! Haha….I will give Paul a few bonus points for his Killer Sideburns…Those Burns Are Bad ASS! Love Gene’s somewhat aloofness. Gene looks stunned to me. Must have gotten notice before this performance that the Runaway Movie tanked quicker than Kiss’ Elder album….

So for KISS it was like “We will show these Bands how it’s done!” Perhaps at the time it was the way to go as KISS was a new band themselves so to speak. Getting new members and ditching the war paint.

I really dug this Live Flashback as it brings me back right to my youth  and by than KISS themselves were fast tracking to the age of 40….

If you’re a KISS fan and come across this show in any way/shape or form. Pick It Up as it’s a good Flashback from a Genre that we can discuss forever!

Geez theres a part of me that wants this era of Kiss  to come back. I think I have officially lost my  mind!

THANKS HMO…..!

Teenage Head/Endless Party (1984)

---

Yup 1984 and it was a ‘Endless Party’ especially for Tbone as his parents split to Camp for the summer and left Tbone to his own devices (how about another Teenage Head tune “Teenage Beer Drinking Party” inserted below ) NUFF Said!

Hamilton Ontario’s Teenage Head as you may recall a few months ago when I blogged about   how I first came across these guys and that was due to my Cool Sunday Church Going Dad! Atta Boy Donnie…words of wisdom from yours truly can be read here about Frantic City….

SONIC WAVES….Teenage Head/Frantic City

From there I got onboard with these guys! ‘Some Kinda Fu’n came out in 1983 and into 1984 came the live release Endless Party!

This was a basic Live Rock N Roll record! Jammed live in the  bars/clubs and it’s a pretty cool piece of Canadian Punk Live as how many Canadian Punk Bands actually achieved some decent status amongest Canadians? Yeah exactly.

A1 Picture My Face 3:12
A2 Let’s Go To Hawaii 3:27
A3 Next Time In Town 3:12
A4 Lucy Potato 4:14
A5 Tornado 3:45
A6 Disgusteen 6:43
B1 Cock In My Pocket 3:26
B2 Drivin’ Wild 4:22
B3 Kissin’ The Carpet 4:31
B4 Wild One 2:32
B5 Let’s Shake 4:01
B6 Top Down

Teenage Head featuring the Usual Suspects as in Frankie Venom RIP(vocals) Nick Stipanitz (drums) Gord Lewis(guitar) Steve Mahon(bass) are joined by second guitarist Dave Rave on Endless Party.

Ready Records (long since defunct) put this out and it’s not a slick sounding album in any regards. It’s  a little rough sounding and the songs for being a live album fade in and fade out.

Check out track 7(posted right below) I ain’t typing it you all can read it! This tune  is a cover tune originally done by  James Williamson(No relation! Ha!) from Iggy And The Stooges and this song is sooo friggin catchy as Mahon punches the bass and drives the song forward as the drums and guitars crash and mash…. Frankie at the end says ” our next single!” Ha! Silly Ol Punker’s! ( Mr Books is gonna love this tune!…)

‘Disgusteen’ is a song as well as soon as you hear it you know it’s them so much so that Ladanos home boys Sven Gali did a cover of this tune on there debut album(Under The Influence-1992) and even had Frankie show up and toss down some vocals!

‘Let’s Go To  Hawaii’ and ‘Tornado’  both gained some radio traction back in the day (as singles)  but  I always dug the  riff oriented stuff from these guys like ‘Drivin’ Wild’, and’Picture My Face’.

For all my  friends in the U.S.A that read this blog(many a thank you!)  Teenage Head back in 1983 did get get signed to M.C.A Records in the States and as Some Kinda Fun was just released guitarist Grod Lewis I believe broke  his arm and all U.S Tour Dates and radio momentum with the single Tornado was lost and the shows were cancelled….

‘Endless Party’ was basically the Party that ended it for Teenage Head  as a few years later Frankie quit and was replaced by Dave Rave…

 

 

SONIC WAVES….Autograph/Autograph

Huh! What!? Trust me I said that myself but back in 84 these L.A homeboys of David Lee Roth were the opening act on the Mighty Halens 1984 Tour! So there Ya go as far as my tie in with these guys!

Now say what you will ….

Steve Plunkett was the lead singer,rhythm guitar player and main songwriter and by golly he wrote for the most part a Pop Tart  kind of record and by that I mean there’s layers of sugary toppings sprinkled all over the place by new hot shot guitarist Steve Lynch (he no relation to Curious George Lynch from Dokken that rhymes with Rokken!) but these guys were pretty good for one record.

Tbone building up his cassette collection bought Autographs second album That’s The Stuff and I passed come to think of it Tbone never talked about it much either….hmmmm.

So Plunkett,Lynch,Randy Rand,Keni Richards,Steve Isham(RIP)for the most part put out something that when I listened to it recently didn’t make me barf!(that’s saying something!)

TURN IT UUUUUUUUUP!

SEND HER TO ME- Wowzers this track transports me back to 1984 with Send Her To Me. Right off the hop the guitars,drums,bass and are  mixed right up alongside Ishams keyboards. Holy crap it works this is a great track with a real great HOOK! Send Heeeeer To Meeeeee …Send Heeeeeeer To Meeeeeee sings Plunkett and he delivers a grand slam right off the top! First song in and a classic,verses,prechorus and chrous are mint! ……I have no problem saying that even today! You scoff at me …Ha click the video! You still scoffing ..well ok than……

TURN UP THE RADIO- ha….just watch the video posted! There’s really no other words to explain it! Hahahaha. This is the song that put Autograph on the rock map in records sold and them in print magazines like Hit Parader and Circus. Good on Plunkett writing a big hit single and I’m sure opening up for Van Halen certainly moved a few albums sold as well. Good for them! Basically there biggest single and after that no other singles would come close! I could be wrong and if i am forward your questions of concern to Tbone as he is owner of the proud second Autograph release That’s The Stuff!

NINETEEN AND NON STOP- power rocker and these guys are like if Honeymoon Suite back in 1984 powered down a bunch of speed and Jack down the musical chute!  The song begins with the chorus which is kinda cool and than shifts into blast mode! Autograph were big on the  backing vocals and Lynch plays a neat little nifty solo! Plunkett if anything has a unique voice and that may be the difference I hear between them and the Honeymoon Suite debut of 1984 as well! Oh yes of course the speed and Jack Daniels….

DEEP END- keyboard fuzzy intro and the band jacks it up and this is song about the bottom of the bottle! Can Ya relate? Going off the Deep End throw Ol Plunky a rope will Ya! He’s asking! Good mid tempo rock tune!

MY GIRLFRIENDS BOYFRIEND ISNT ME- I guess Keni the drummer dude counts this track in. Steve says he wants to tell us a story of well the title does say it all doesn’t it! This has the trappings of rock tune 1984 ….underground keys filling in the sound…drums plodding along and power chords,big vocals!

THRILL OF LOVE- Lynch starts off with his guitar and this song is another mid tempo rock track! Keys are upfront in this tune and this may have been a single or maybe not! Not bad track for the time!

FRIDAY- Lynch dials up a little neat picking at the beginning and Rand on his bass try’s to keep up! This is another straight simple rock track! Nothing fancy nothing technical just Autograph!

IN THE NIGHT- oh boy this is sucky 80s rock and man. Plunkett is following the game here in other words. He’s trying to write his own catchy pop hooks! For me though….this is musical turd rock! Skip!

ALL IM GONNA TAKE- Lynch starts off like he does on many tracks! This is a decent send off of the Autograph album. Just a simple forward rock track! Nuthin fancy …..

IN CONCLUSION- Plunkett,Lynch and Crew put out in 1984 a decent debut and for me well that was it for my purchases of anything Autograph but man I will say that 31 years later Send Her To Me is a real good rock track! For a debut though it should have warranted another purchase but Tbone took the plunge and well thanks man for doing that! (I still owe you)  seriously though Autograph ahhh who knows how big they coulda got and for my money I really dug Honeymoon Suite more( this style of Rock) but man The Suite did themselves no favour to me by doing that friggin Wave Babies song …..but in all,Honeymoon had way more consistency with there following albums  than Autograph had!