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!!

 

 

Stats,Stats,Stats……

I thought it would be cool to post what the TOP 10 most read reviews so far this year that You my faithful readers have enjoyed the most!

Some Surprise’s Here As Well…Mr Books would be proud!

These rankings are from Jan 1st right thru to today!(July 10th)

As always thanks for reading….Totally appreciate it! Of course I may leave a comment or two about ….hope you do as well!

STICK IT IN YOUR EAR…..Most viewed Blogs in 2016!

1-Black Sabbath/Black Sabbath(1970)- No surprise really that it would be a Sabbath album as I reviewed all the Ozzy fronted Sab records in January as I was going to see Sabbath in Vancouver in February only for Ozzy to call in sick and the show was postponed!

2-Sloan/Live At Crocks N Rolls(April 7 2016)- First time seeing Sloan live and well I won’t be missing anymore Sloan Tbay Shows again.

3-Shout It Out Loud/The Story Of Kiss’ Destroyer-A well written book documenting the making of the Kiss album that many consider their best! Book was well researched by author James Campion and it was nice to receive props from him on my review!

4-Evilyn Strange/Evilution(2016)- Mike Ladano spearheaded a movement to review this EP by a newish band which I bunch of us undertook. Pretty decent Ep as well! Yes I paid for it out of my pocket!

5-Def Leppard/Hysteria(1987)- Lot’s of discussion about this one  and I enjoyed writing about Hysteria as well. Just recall back in the Summer of 88 this album was Everywhere….

6-Little Caesar/Brutally Honest …Live From Holland(2016)- This album is a Double Live Album and it’s just a raw live in your face recording of a band that has never given up! As an added plus iTunes had it for $4.99! What A Steal! Umm yeah..Great Cover!

7-Where Are They Now/Paul Laine- Once again a bunch of us Bloggers all picked an artist and posted about what there up to now. Paul Laine was my pick and its neat to see people are still checking out his stuff and that he’s still out there doing it!

8-Black Sabbath/Never Say Die(1978)- For many diehards of Sabbath this album is the weak link in an otherwise strong catalogue from Ozzy/Iommi and crew! Goes to show you that sometimes a Bands weakest work brings up the most discussion! I like this album so of course I gotta be different!

9-All My Favourite People Are Broken/Brent Jensen-Hey Mr Books here’s the 2nd entry of a Book in the Top 10! Brent has written three excellent Books which you all should check out! Plus he’s a cool guy as well!

All I’m Going To Say Here Is…GET THIS!

10-Metallica/March 10 1985(Los Angeles)- This is a live show that was included  in the Ride The Lightening Deluxe Edition. Say what you want about iTunes as at least I could just buy one show and not pay $65 for the rest!

There you have it Folks….Kinda cool to have a mix bag of stuff that you have read so far this year…

2 Books cracked the Top 10/ 1 Live Show/A couple of 2016 release’s/A double Sabbath entry and a Where Are They Now post!

Cool Stuff…

Thanks again for reading…..

Where Are They Now? /Paul Laine

So Bop The Blogger and Aaron asked around who wanted to do a Whatever Happened To Blog on various artists! I kinda kicked around the idea about doing one and well guess what? I joined the ranks and  after you read my stuff take some time and check out my fellow friends and their throwback artists! Here are the links….
https://keepsmealive.wordpress.com
http://mikeladano.com
https://nauticazinger.wordpress.com
https://1001albumsin10years.wordpress.com

Paul Laine is the dude I chose to yammer about! Surprise surprise he’s a Rock guy kinda…. Lemme tell ya’s all about it….

Paul Laine came out of Vancouver and released a real solid slab of AOR Hard Rock with his debut album called Stick It In Your Ear(released 1990)! Ha! Great title for a blog  also right? Right!

My interest in Laine came about by reading about his album in the now defunct Canadian Magazine titled M.E.A.T!  In the article the thing that jacked up my curiosity level was the fact that Laine scooped the Late Great Bruce Fairbairn to produce! Fairbairn man he produced all the biggie early 80s albums(Loverboy) mid 80s classics (Bon Jovi) late 80s masterpieces (Aerosmith) even into the 90s Rock  (Van Halen and Kiss). Fairbairn sadly passed away in 1999 but he left quite the catalogue of work behind and this being the reason I took a gamble on the Laine album as I knew if anything the production would be top-notch!

Laine even with Fairbairn in his back pocket still delivered a pretty decent bit of rock with the songs! Stick It In Your Ear  stands up on its own merit with the songs like We Are The Young,Dorianna, Break Down The Barricades and Is It Love amongst tracks from the 13 song debut.

When you watch the top video posted of Is It Love you will see the suits and ties of Laines record company tried to market him as a 1990 Bon Jovi and it kinda failed not due to the material mind you but the climate of music as right below Vancouver was Seattle and its filthy dirge grunge bubbling underneath ready to explode and Bam did it ever!

Is It Love and no it’s not that sap drip dry Is it Love version by C#*kSnake Er I mean Whitesnake this is power pomp rock done to a T! The money shot is the chorus and that is due not only by Laine as the writer but by Fairbairn weaving his magic at the recording console! You want hit…I will try to give you a hit kid!

Back to the video and its a hoot to watch check out the storyline and editing of it! Cut to band …cut to Dude and Hooker Chick,Hooker Chick hangs out with Boss Hog but Chick likes  Dude,Cut to Band, Cut to Boss Hog don’t like Dude,Boss Hog catches Chick And Dude  and now theirs trouble,Hooker Chick shoots Boss Hog and splits with Dude and Laine shows up at the end on the street after  Hooker Chick and Dude flea! Bandana Micheals and Poison would have slopped up over this concept back in 1990 but they made the Unskinny Bop Video instead…hahaha..

After 1990 Laine kinda disappeared for a bit  but in the early 90s he joined that cheese-mo American Act Danger Danger  and  stayed with them for 11 years! Atta boy Paul still doing what you’re doing …

Laine has even dabbled recently in a country rock outfit called Darkhorse and even has something brewin over at Frontier Records (home of all things AOR). Good on him man not giving up and ploughing forward and doing what he wants to do!

The second video posted is Laine recently in Australia playing some Melodic Rock Festival doing some of those tunes from Stick It In Your Ear and the fella looks and sounds good as his voice is still there! Trainwreck does not need apply here folks!

Thanks for reading!

Now scroll back to the top and click those links and enjoy some fine reads and writes from some Great Bloggers!