April Scores!

Snowman rules when he posts all his findings in one month. So this morning when I saw John’s post I thought, “Well maybe todays the day I nick John’s idea and run with it, for this month anyway!”

So here’s my findings for the month… Who knows folks I may do this again or it may be a one shot deal!

I was on the hunt for Motley Crue’s Too Fast For Love on vinyl for months at a decent price. About 6 months ago I left my email contact info at Encore Records (Kitchener) as they would notify me if a vinyl copy came in and earlier this month I received that email. Ordered it that morning and Mark at Encore shipped it out that day. Great service.

Watching Thursday Night Record Club with my pal Brent Jensen can be hazardous to my wallet. One episode featured Brent and Alex Huards breakdown of The Black Crowes “Southern Harmony” record. Even though they both rated it a 6/10 I still ordered it from Amazon at a decent price as this was another one of those “must get’s” Love this album and still respect them for actually playing Tbay back in 93 on this tour even though Rich Robinson in a printed article labelled Tbay as a “BumF**K Town” bahaha… One more thing  that I dig is the front/back cover where you have 4 of the Crowes looking well, let’s say a cross between goth and drugged out while Gorman looks like a lawyer! Man I miss 1992/1993!

Found a sealed 180 gram( at one of the few used shops here in town) of one of my favourite KISS studio albums “Rock N Roll Over” which was sealed for $20 and is an upgrade to my original copy.

For myself streaming is a great try before you buy feature and that was the deal in buying my first ever GHOST release on vinyl ( I have purchased the last few straight from itunes). Tobias Forge is a great singer/songwriter. “Impera” is a great rock record as is the packaging which includes a 28 page book.

Andy Curran has released the very excellent “Envy of Non record which has been 4 years in the making. I ordered this online from the E.O.N web store and it was easy peasy.  There will be a chat with Mr. Curran at some point!

I was very fortunate a few weeks back to have book writing machine Martin Popoff hop on Scotch On The Rocks and chat about Judas Priest. I was missing the two books that Martin had written about The Metal Gods but I very quickly rectified that situation by scooping these two books direct from Martin.

I grabbed a couple of T Shirts as well. Casablanca Records, Atlantic Records and a knock off Creatures of The Night Tour Tee from 1983. There are not enough Tee shirts with Vinnie Vincent’s picture on them in Tbay!

One of the most important albums that I have been waiting for is the 5LP set 40th Anniversary Box set of RUSH’s “Moving Pictures”. I preordered this back in February from RUSH’s Backstage Club as they had it for a great price (cheaper than AMAZON) and with free shipping. Unlike the KISS Online shop which was a headache in getting my stuff dealing with the RUSH webstore was way better. They sent out emails keeping me in the loop on when it was coming and also to make sure I received it! That is great business!

Martin Popoff Live Tonight on Scotch On The Rocks!

Tonight live at 6pm I’m joined by Canadian Book author Martin Popoff who is a wizard at cranking out books that are fantastic additions to your Rock Book Library.

One of Martin’s latest books is on Judas Priest which is a visual biography and I can honestly say its fast becoming one of my favs that Martin has  ever written and published.

Get the lowdown on this book and join me on my Youtube page which is of course Scotch On The Rocks.

See ya soon!

 

Judas Priest: A Visual Biography by Martin Popoff (2022)

Martin Popoff has put together a fantastic visual biography on Judas Priest .

Spread out over 225 pages in a hard cover coffee table like format, Martin has pulled out all the stops in this stunning visual of the Metal Gods from Birmingham England.

By the way, this band has been going for 53 years!

“A Visual Biography” starts from the origins of Priest in the  late 60’s all the way up to October 2021 and all points in between!

By that I mean Martin has covered all eras of Priest. The Ripper Owens era is covered as is Halford’s band Fight even KK Downing’s new unit (with Ripper on vocals) KK’s Priest is in this book!

More value, bang for the buck…

I have to add the layout of this book is stellar. The book has a ton of album adds, ticket stubs,45 rpm singles as well as facts written about each album and each tour.

Since “Point of Entry” is one of my favourite Priest albums, here are pics so you can see for yourself the detail that Martin has put into each chapter year by year.

Here’s some more for ya!

What else that is really cool is each live shot is dated from where the picture was taken like the “Point of Entry Tour” from Maryland back in 1981.

Being a Canuck, I had to feature a shot taken from Maple Leaf Gardens during the “World Vengeance Tour” stop in Toronto.

Special thanks to all the photographers that contributed there fine live shot’s of Priest throughout not only the years but the decades as well.

In closing….

My favourite era of Priest is from ’79 through to ’87 and this book is worth the money for that time period alone which is a great flashback.

Better yet…. I can officially announce here at the blog that Martin will be hoping on “Scotch On The Rocks” Wednesday April 20th at 6pm EST. We are going to throw it down in regards to “Judas Priest: A Visual Biography”.

Check out Martins website by clicking below for ordering info and check out all of Mr. Popoff’s books as well!

http://www.martinpopoff.com/html/bookslist.html

 

Book Review: Iron Maiden: ‘Where Eagles Dare’-Martin Popoff (2019)

Martin Popoff has once again delivered to the masses another excellent book stuffed on all things, Iron Maiden!

288 pages that basically features the whole Maiden era from 1980 to 1988. Here in Canada, these were Maiden’s heyday years in the Great White North. Each album from the self-titled in 1980 through to 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son attained  Double Platinum status in sales with 1982’s The Number of the Beast achieving Triple Platinum in Canada!

Martin digs into past interviews with all the Maiden guys throughout the years even Maiden Manager Rod Smallwood has some quotes in this book along with album artist Derek Riggs

Martin does his homework with each book that I have purchased off of him throughout the years. I believe I own about 12 Popoff books written. (Martin has done about 85 books!)

I have said in my other Popoff book reviews that if the bands themselves aren’t putting these out themselves this is the closet thing to an actual biography as Martin has interviewed all the parties involved!

Every Maiden album released in the 1980s is featured with its own chapter with a song by song breakdown of each tune with Popoff spinning his own thoughts on each track.  Martin dives into these albums and even he admits in the book that he had found a new appreciation of 1986s  Somewhere in Time!

That’s ok, Martin. It took me about 33 years to really appreciate Alexender The Great as well from that album!

Not only are the 80’s featured but Martin goes on in great detail about the various Maiden Lineup Changes pre 1980 which segues right into the whole 80s period!

The book also features some great live Maiden pics from Martin himself. Some great photos from there 1981 Killers Tour from Toronto as well as some other great shots of Maiden throughout the decade! Amazing shots that Martin took of Maiden back in 1984! All in color, as well!

It’s a great read. Period!

The cool thing about Martins book is that you can be the biggest fan of that band that Martins writes about but still find out some interesting tidbits about that specific band and in this case, it’s Maiden that I even didn’t know!

I can probably spill the beans in case your wondering that Mr. Popoff will indeed write another Maiden book chronicling the 90’s decade and I think a third Maiden book for everything after the 90s!

If your a Maiden fanatic(like me) this book is worth the money as I love Martins way of writing which is like if he was in front of you and you were both shooting the shit about Metal in general over some suds!

But if you are just getting into Maiden, this is a great book to get caught up on on the timelines of Maidens career!

Support Independent Authors like Martin! Tell him deKe’s sent ya!

 

 

Top 10 Posts @ Stick IT In Your Ear (2016)

For fun here are my Top 10 Blogs that were published and read most by you through out 2016!

In 2016 I Posted 120 Reviews! What’s crazier is back in 2015 I posted 180 Reviews! …. WHUT??!

I Thank All Of You!

Here we go….

1-Toque- Thanks to Toque Guitarist Cory Churko for taking the time to read my review of Toque. Not long after my review was posted  on the Toque FaceCrack page but also on Todd Kerns and Brent Fitz’s Facecrack/Twitter Pages! Thanks guys and on Fitz’s page some Drum Guy named Eric Singer gave the Toque Review a Thumbs up! Ha…..

2-Rock The Fort Day 2…The Cult/Cinderfella……-Kudos to whoever the promoter was for this show as they brought in a mix of Canadian and American Acts over Two days! Day 2 was awesome and The Cult and Cinderfella( Tom Keifer) delivered Knock Out Performances along with all the other acts that day. Thunder Bay Rocked well…I Rocked!

3-Black Sabbath/Black Sabbath (1970)- In wild anticipation of going to see Sabbath in Vancouver this past February I decided in January to review all 8 Ozzy Sabbath albums from the debut to Never Say Die. Course I get to Vancity Ozzy calls in sick and it’s a no go but fret not still had a blast with my good friends Metal Todd and his wife Nicole!

4-SLOAN/Live @ Crocks N Rolls/April 7th 2016- This was my first time catching Sloan and I was blown away at how talented these cats are at delivering a high-octane Rock Set! Plus the swap around of the instruments between the Sloan dudes just proves how good they are at everything! I will never miss another Thunder Bay Sloan show ever again!

5-Metal Heart: Aiming High With Accept- The first of 3 Book (That’s Right Mr Books!)entries in my Top 10 and Martin Popoff makes it a real good read considering I’m not the biggest Accept fan out there. But I do like a good read on Bands that haven’t had much written about them especially in Book Format! Support Martin People. Not to many writers out there that will take the time and effort to write these kinds of books!

6-KISS Rocks Vegas(2016)- Course those Old Buzzards Demon and Starchild would make it here. Rocks Vegas is the audio version I reviewed (thanks to Mikey Ladano for hooking me up) and along with Singer The Cat and SpaceMan Thayer deliver a rip roaring cool batch of tracks that sound like they didn’t monkey around at all with them in the studio! Kiss I Salute You!

7-Shout It Out Loud/The Story Of KISS’s Destroyer- Book Number 2 in the Year end Top 10 is a great read about the making of Kiss’s Destroyer album from 1976. Very thorough research by James Campion uncovers a ton of facts that I didn’t even know and I’ve been listening to Kiss for almost 40 years!

8-Def Leppard/Hysteria(1987)- This was a fun one to write about as how many bands can release a whole bunch of singles(6) which is basically Side  1 of Hysteria! Huge album sold lots and still resonates with a  ton of people out there in Blogsphere and Beyond!

9-All My Favourite People Are Broken/Brent Jensen- Brent Jensen is not only a real solid guy but a great writer who has written 3 Wickedly Excellent Reads(No Sleep Til Sudbury/Left Over People and All My Favourite People Are Broken) Brent writes books with a flair and a style that is hilarious with great stories about his Journeys  growing up to making and meeting people(Famous and not so famous) and wrapping it all up in his Books! Do take the time to check out his stuff…Worth The Cash!

9th Place Tie-Where Are They Now? /Paul Laine- A bunch of us Bloggers picked different artists and did a Where Are They Now post. I picked Paul Laine as he released back in 1990 the criminally underrated Stick It In Your Ear album from 1990. Paul is still out there making music in 2016.

10-Little Caesar/Brutally Honest… Live From Holland(2016)-
Had no idea that Lead Vocalist Ron Young was leading this pack of these L.A Rocker dudes until I came across his Facecrack page. Wowzers give it up for Caesar as they are still touring and putting out product! Case in point with this Double Live Album recorded in Holland. I purchased it off iTunes for $4.99! 21  songs for under 5 Bucks! Proving that you can just put out music and not charge a ton of cash! Brutally Honest is Live from the soundboard and is a fantastic In Your Face album! Highly Recommended!

10th Place Tie-Tragically Hipped Out At Crocks….- Was first posted in November of 2014 but when Gord Downie announced his illness this past May  a lot of us Bloggers did a post on how or where there music impacted us. I decided to repost this as myself and my Best Friend Tbone caught The Hip in February of 1988 in a small Bar here in Thunder Bay! Must have been 20 people at the show as there was a huge snowstorm and I’m sure 2000 people say they were at the show now! Haha…..

Some other Posts that just fell out of the Top 10 were…Monster Truck /Sittin Heavy(2016)……Swords And Tequila/ RIOT’S Classic First Decade(Book)…..Black Sabbath/Never Say Die(1978)…..RATT/Reach For The Sky(1988)….Hip Review: Aug 5, 2016, MTS Centre, Winnipeg(Written By Tbone)

Once again …

Thanks!!

 

 

Metal Heart: Aiming High With Accept

Book Review…….

If you read my recent book review on Martin Popoff’s excellent Riot book(Swords And Tequila/ Riot’s Classic  First Decade) you will recall that I had stated  that Martin writes on bands that normally would not get books written about them.

Accept is one of those bands that Martin has tackled and I will be totally honest with you all. I am not a huge Accept fan! Sure back in the mid 1980s I owned Restless And Wild/Balls To The Wall/Metal Heart but when I heard Russian Roulette for some reason it did not register with me. I just could not get into it for some crazy reason. Even so I still  bought Eat The Heat as well!(more on that one later)

When I seen on Martins website that he had written a book about Accept I was Intrigued as they did not get much press back in day sure Hit Parader would feature them maybe Circus but my curiosity factor was raised so I ordered it at http://www.martinpopoff.com

I should mention in regards to my other reviews of Martins Books is that he writes as a fan and it totally comes across in his book’s by the first 7-8 pages has Martin explaining the actual dates  when he purchased each Accept album(date,prices with whom he was hanging out with at the time ) If that doesn’t constitute a Fan what does?

Like The Riot book Martin pulls out all the stops. Talks to all the main guys in Accept. Udo Dirkschneider/Wolf Hoffman/Peter Baltes/Stefan Schwarzmann/Jorg Fisher/Mark Tornillo.

Another interesting person in the Accept story is Gaby Hoffman (Wolf’s Wife) was Accept’s Manager since 1981 and contributed lyrical idea’s and cover concepts for a ton of years but she went under the pseudonym as Deaffey which I recall seeing that name on the Accept albums back than. Never would have known that it was a woman running the show and naming albums Balls To The Wall and contributing lyrics to songs like Fast As A Shark/London Leatherboys/Midnight Mover.

Martin also has once again added a ton of add’s for various albums and even a section of coloured pics from Accept’s 1984 tour when Udo was decked out in his camouflage gear. Even the cover of this book reminds me of Judas Priest with the Flying V’s as I guess they took a page from Priest in the dual lead guitars/stage presence 101 when they opened for JP back in 1981!

Each album goes under Martins Metal Microscope as his diagnosis each album with commentary which makes for a total worthy read. Basically once I dug into the book I could not put it down.

The success of the Balls To The Wall album in 1983-84 is interesting as they toured with all the heavyweights backs than.(KISS & Iron Maiden) They were kept on the straight and narrow by Deaffey and management not to get messed up in the Party Treats of the day. Tight Leash the Boys were kept on I guess you could say!

Martin also goes into detail how even though we both consider Metal Heart (1985) a top-notch Accept record. For some reason though it never really caught on which was surprising as it featured some great tracks like Midnight Mover(Accept didn’t care for it!) Too High To Get It Right / Screaming For A Love Bite/Metal Heart.

Course like so many bands the wheels start coming off of Accept after the release of Russian Roulette(1986) and as the album didn’t catch on here in North America internal strife was brewing and out goes Lead Singer Udo.

Now here’s where I really got into the book for that matter as it’s always fascinated me on how a Lead Singer change can either propel a band to the next level or disintegrate a band into a huge mess of dysfunction and chaos.

Unfortunately  Accept slammed head first into dysfunction( record company politics wanting to Americanize there sound with a new singer) and chaos (keep reading)with the release in 1989 of  the Eat The Heat album with a New  American Lead Singer  named David Reece.

I  bought Eat The Heat at the time of its release on cassette tape and it was a massive change in direction. Songs were  Melodic Lite Metal. The production by Dieter Dierks ( who manned a few other albums by Accept and made his name by producing a ton of Scorpions albums in the 80s) was weak. Had a few good things but generally was a sub par release to put it nicely! Even with this album being the Sore Thumb in the catalogue of Accept music Martin still gives it a bunch of pages just like the bigger albums in Accept’s career!( he doesn’t play favourites!)

Martin talks to Reece and the rest of the guys on what went down on the Eat The Heat album and the backstage fight(hello chaos) between Peter Baltes and Reece which led to the singer  getting fired as well as the tour getting canned.  Accept folded up shop for a few years!

Of course like so many bands they can only simmer for so long and back comes Udo for a few albums and tours( two reunions with Udo) before issues once again rise and Accept once again goes into hiatus that is until they come across another American Singer named Mark Tornillo  and have released some recent works (Blood OF Nations/Stalingrad/Blind Rage)  as Martin champions  their cause as great albums and another fact that Martin points out is that Tornillo handles all the lyrics pretty much now.

Aiming High is another fine read from Martin! For a casual Accept fan like myself it was a real interesting read and every section had a ton of written stuff that I had no idea what went on in the inner sanctums of Accept(Well researched!)

To be quite frank I was about to order Martin’s Book on Ted Nugent but for some reason I clicked and ordered the Accept book but fret not Friends I will get the Nuge book and like I always say…

Do support our local Canadian Writers and click Martin’s link above.

Love /Hate….Blackout In The Red Room

“So Ya woke up blind….Its Parteeee Time!”

That’s Jizzy Pearl lead singer of Love/Hate singing that, not me but I tell Ya you want a solid kick in the ass to get your day going look no further than this two and half minute sonic blitz!

Love/Hate is the band and I’ll tell Ya Martin Popoff who wrote the excellent Hair Metal Book which i reviewed here..https://superdekes.wordpress.com/2015/01/31/rock-101-hair-metal-by-martin-popoff/ Loves these guys …don’t believe me? You ask Martin!

So Love/ Hate is the name and cool stage names are the game…so Ya got like I already mentioned Jizzy Pearl on Vocal,Jon E Love guitarist,drummer Joey Gold and bass guy Skid(Rose) no shit!

Blackout In The Red Room was the debut album from these dudes and it was a slice of good o fashioned street rock! The production was raw sounding like as if they plugged in and pushed record! The album had some other good songs on it like Why Do you Think The Call It Dope and Rock Queen!

Blackout In The Red Room the song just destroys your senses I mean its like a punch to the face and it’s off and running with complimentary  cymbal smashes and the chorus is gold  while  Jizzys voice sounds like a cross between Stephen Pearcy of Ratt fame and Tom Keifer of Cinderalla after like if both Tom and Stephen swallowed a 6 pack of Gillette Razor Blades and washed it down with some good OL Jack!

Think about it no one sounded like this guy back in 1990 as the main sellers of the time had a slick vocal delivery while Jizzy had that old school whisky drenched voice which wasn’t the mainstream kind of deal. Of course in later years Jizzy would front bands like LA Guns,Ratt and currently Quiet Riot! So There Ya be….

Of course they followed this up with Wasted America which my younger brother Todd dug but I never really heard it to be honest but from what I read its was pretty good….

Blackout,just crank this F*^ker! Crank It loud!

 

Hair Metal by Martin Popoff

The cover of this classic Book! Bravo Mr Popoff!

Paul Stanley is pointing at you Sarca!

 

Good OL Skid Row for Aaron(haha) and a add for VH’s F.U.C.K album for the Erickson bros!

A classic Y&T cover for Jon over in Sweden!

The Coop for Mr Ladano!

Martin Popoff if you don’t know the story is a Canadian rock writer of various rock books and also is one of the top dog writers at brave words (music on line site).

Martin knows the deal with all genres of music and man does he  hit the nail on the head with Hair Metal!

All of you that have been reading my babbling on and on about things rock here know that I grew up in the 80s(I was born in 67) so hard rock was a very huge part in my life as I bought everything under the sun whether it was vinyl(cassettess sometimes) and a ton of printed media. (Creem,Circus,Hit Parader,Faces,Rip Magazine,Metallion,Rolling Stone,Kerrang) I loved to read and still do and wowzers when I seen that Martin was doing a book on Hair Metal….Ummmmmmm….SOLD!

So for Xmas on my wish list was “Hair Metal” and my super duper cool wife delivered the ultimate rock 80s rock book into my hands !

Martin starts the book from the 1950s with the first ever can of Aqua Net being produced(awesome) to Sept 24 1991 when Nirvana released Nevermind and sank many a 80s act in one fell swoooop!

Martin takes no shortcuts and lays out this beauty of a book decade by decade, year by year  like a scrap book with tons of pics/adds/ticket stubs you name it Martin has gone to great detail to satisfy all the sticklers (like ME!) that would find sumthin missing! I’m happy to report Nothing is missing at all!

The real cool thing is Martin jams the book with interview quotes  with everyone he has interviewed over the years! You want Dokken quotes? Check! You want Sammy Hagar quotes ? Double Check! You want more quotes from guys like Beau Hill( producer for Ratt/Warrant ) ? Triple Check! It’s all here ! In a one stop read!

Since I dumped all my magazines years ago into the landfill site here in Tbay  thanks to Martin for bringing back a ton of memories With this book!

Like I wrote in my review of Brent Jensens awesome Left Over People book review,do yourself a favour and support our homegrown guys like Brent,Martin and Sean Kelly who know how to put the rock into the book!

Tell EM Deke sent Ya!