Stairway to Eleven Episode #15: In the Year 1985

00:00:00There's a podcast that's sure all that rocks hard is gold. And they're climbing the stairway to 11. When they get to there they know the record stores are all closed. But online they can get what they came for.

00:00:30Oh, and they're streaming the Stairway to 11.

00:00:40Hello, and welcome to Stairway to 11. My name is George.

00:00:44This is John, and I'm TR.

00:00:48And this is episode 15, and this time we are revisiting another year for you.

00:00:56And this time it is 19,

00:00:5819,

00:00:591985.

00:01:02Hey,

00:01:02Smacks way to go.

00:01:04Actually,

00:01:05that was a bowling for soup song.

00:01:07Actually.

00:01:08You didn't glitch enough.

00:01:09Sorry.

00:01:10My bad.

00:01:10Yeah.

00:01:11You went a little further back there,

00:01:13John.

00:01:14Yeah.

00:01:15But yeah,

00:01:16so we're going to talk about 1985,

00:01:18which for us is really kind of the heyday of,

00:01:23of getting into music,

00:01:24at least for me.

00:01:25I mean,

00:01:26And maybe you guys are a little ahead of that. But for me, 1985 is smack dab in the middle of, oh my God, look at all this music out there. I need to discover. So. Your 1985 is probably for TR made like 1981. Okay. 1982. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably about right. I think so. Cause. But I was still pretty hepped up in 85 too. So. Of course. But I mean. There was plenty there. Yeah. No, George is talking about, you know. Yeah. Like really discovering.

00:01:55The explosion of music to your head. Absolutely. Yeah. So. In the year before Master of Puppets, the world was in turmoil. The world was waiting for a band. Yeah. Too bad it only lasted one more album. Says you. I was going to say, let's call Will and see what he does. Oh, yeah. I'm sure the conversation will turn to Cannibal Corpse pretty rapidly. Yeah. They were probably just getting into music.

00:02:27I mean when they were like late 80s I think when they got together

00:02:31I think so yeah yeah wow 1985 which is only 39 years ago yeah 10 years after our last episode or

00:02:42we're not the last actual episode but the last year episode we did which was 1975 and just so anyone knows we didn't agree on this we did a random number generator and we sort of agreed

00:02:55because we kept getting years that we were kind of like, all right, damn it. We already did 1975. Yeah, actually. Yeah, that is amazing that that actually did come up and we were like, no, we can't do that. We just did it. Yeah. And there were a couple of years. It's not that we didn't want to do. We're just kind of like. Not feeling it right now. Too close to 75. We want to do something with a little bit of space between it. So. Yep. 10 years was enough. All right. Who wants to get us started with a pick from 1985? Doesn't matter to me.

00:03:25I mean, I could go first. What's going to happen if one of, if TR myself goes first, we have to cross one off of our list. That could be. I'm holding that one out a little bit. And I've kind of was going to let you do that one, but, or one of them anyway. I don't mind. Why don't I go first? All right, do it. And I'll surprise you with what I go with first. I think I'm going to surprise you guys too. Ooh. Wow. We got a little cat fight brewing on the podcast. All right. So in 1985, for those of us who were,

00:03:55In our prime years, I think TR and I were pretty much peaking at that point in our lives at 17, right? We're so over right now. Yeah, we went down. Master puppets came out. We all went downhill. Yeah, George, you were still peaking. So 1985 was a strange time for those of us who were around back then because it was the MTV generation was in full blown out like sensory overload. It was on all our TVs for those of us who had it all the time. When the parents were at home,

00:04:25You had it on. Yeah. All day. And you watched the scene videos. You really couldn't get enough of it. Like, it was just, like, I had an insatiable appetite for that. It just, you knew that song. I mean, I even sent away for a pin. I sent a self-addressed stamp envelope to New York for my pin, and it came dented. I was pissed. Oh, man. But the reason I bring that up is because it was a total, I don't want to call it a culture shock, but it was a music shock of all these different genres and sub-genres all merging into one place.

00:04:56for a little while before it was rap back then, not hip hop yet. Before that kind of took over on MTV, there were still the metal days early on, and there were still the hard rock days. So my list kind of reflects some of that. It's all over the map. I mean, I'm crossing a lot of boundary for this time period, which is, that's what was going on. So just real quick, and see if you guys agree with me, back then listening to music was like going to a European festival. Meaning,

00:05:25You could have a metal band followed by a hard rock band followed by a hip hop band followed by a pop band. New wave. And it wouldn't matter to anyone who goes to the festival because you're there to see your band, but everyone's having a good time no matter what's playing. That was what radio was for us to some degree. Mainstream radio, not FM rock. And MTV was like that. Even the FM rock had a lot of diversity in terms of rock music, I would say. Yes.

00:05:55I'm from San Francisco, so we had like, and it'd be like, you know, if you're from Philadelphia, you have established hard rock radio stations that are famous. But, you know, mainstream FM just crossed the gamut. Now you would call that what? Classic rock or hit. It's 97. It's 97 in the city today. You know, that's, that was our day. So anyway, so my, this long winded beginning is just to say that, you know, we were listening.

00:06:24I was listening to a lot of different music from a lot of different genres. Whereas I think some younger listeners today might hone in on a genre they like and they kind of stay there. Not everyone. I think that's just because the way music is today, it's different than when we were younger. Things are different from when we were young. And that's not, it's not a knock. It's just, I think we were exposed differently to stuff back then. I had to walk uphill both ways to the music store. That's right.

00:06:54Let me tell you right now, when I turned the radio on, there was three feet of snow in my bedroom and I had to crawl to get to it. And I liked it. That's right. We liked it. And we liked it. The struggle was real. So that long-winded thing, I'm sure you guys had similar kind of experiences growing up in this era. And 85 was, like, for TR and I, we were two years from college. It was coming. You know, so there was a lot of stuff out.

00:07:24Here's a band I'm going to bring up that I did not listen to in 1985. I missed them back then. Oh, this is interesting. And I wish I hadn't. George, I believe you were in on this band early on. And I believe you prefer the album that came after this. We were just talking about this before you got on. So my number one, or my first pick tonight is Fate's Warning, The Spectre of the Dead. Told you he'd do it. Yep, I was coming on it.

00:07:54that I decided to leave for TR. And if he doesn't take it next, I'll snatch that little bad boy up. So I chose Fate's Warning. It's a metal album. But at this time, this type of metal was becoming big. Yeah. Albeit it was going to go down a different path than commercial metal, because this was at the time just considered metal. Today, it's considered progressive metal.

00:08:24power metal, heavy metal. I mean, it's got all these tags to it now, but back then it was just metal.

00:08:30Well, metal was a big category, right? I mean, there was a lot of things that people called metal back then, but now they're, like you said, there are more distinct sub-genres of that. I guess people kind of made the bins a little smaller, but yeah, you're right. Metal was a pretty big bin back then.

00:08:50And the reason why I say this was going a different direction, because you had bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, eventually, you know, Testament. But Anthrax, these were the bands, the metal bands, Aussie. Black Sabbath was kind of in a weird place. But these bands were ascending. They were getting big and they were becoming commercial. And then you had glam or hair metal, whatever you want to call it. That was starting to become big. And then you had these types of bands, which are all the bands that we talked about.

00:09:20about on the other podcasts, at least George and I do. And I know Jay likes some, and I know Marcus on like some of the newer bands that have this style. And that's this kind of unrelenting metal, you know, that, that isn't commercial. And I would put Fates Warning smack dab in the middle of that. And if you don't know who Fates Warning are, they are, like I said, they started out as a metal band, but they're more known as a progressive metal band out of Hartford, Connecticut. This was their second album to come out. It was the last

00:09:50with the original lineup before they started having changes. But it was the first album that they kind of got their own voice. Their first album was very maiden-esque. Twin guitars, a lot of twin solos. They had a high-pitched singer in John Arch, who some people hate and some people consider a god. And there's no in-betweens. There's no in-betweens there for that. If you get it, you get it. But this is, if you're looking for

00:10:20this kind of metal.

00:10:23You know, other U.S. metal or power metal bands like, oh, God, Omen is one of them.

00:10:30I think, George, you probably know Omen.

00:10:31Yep.

00:10:32Boy, I'm drawing a blank.

00:10:33Riot early on had a lot of this in them.

00:10:36Manila Road, these types of bands.

00:10:38Armored Saint, Jagd Panzer.

00:10:41So.

00:10:42Yeah, you know, I don't think I've told you this before, but in the early 90s when,

00:10:50you know grunge had started to take hold and metal was waning in popularity and so a lot of the new music coming out was grunge instead of metal except for you know like death metal was starting to take off but I hadn't gotten into that yet and so my epitome the album that I would hold up as and like use for looking for new music because I'm like I want something that sounds like

00:11:19The Guardian.

00:11:21Yep.

00:11:21The next album after this one.

00:11:23And that's what I would tell people.

00:11:24I like Fate's Warning, Awaken the Guardian.

00:11:27If you like that, then we can be friends.

00:11:30Yeah, and that's a great album to bring up because that album, I agree, is significantly better than Specter Within.

00:11:35Specter Within is awesome, but that's a Hallmark album.

00:11:38So if you want an idea of what this sounds like, think of early Queensryche, like The Warning.

00:11:46It's got that kind of vibe to it.

00:11:49Crimson Glory. If you know Crimson Glory, their first album, it's got that little bit of a vibe to it. So those are some... And Crimson Glory, I think, had some notoriety because they got some MTV play on those first two albums. Probably more of the... Which is funny. Probably more of the first album, even though I think the second album is significantly better. But... So, what is this album? I said, it's a metal album. It is. It's hard to describe. Now it's considered a progressive metal album, which it's intricate, it's aggressive, it's heavy,

00:12:18But it's melodic. It's complicated. And it makes you think. It's not singing about, check that chick out. You know? It's not a white snake quote-unquote song. It's not a Van Halen. I love Van Halen, but it's not a Van Halen song. You know? It's not singing about boozing and girls. It's singing about things that make you think. What did Jeff Tate compare or say about Queensryche? They were thinking man's metal. Didn't he say that at one point, I think? I would put Fate's Warning in that. And Fate's Warning is one of the godfathers.

00:12:48of the progressive metal movement. And not just the U.S., but they're one of the founding bands of that. True founding bands of it, not the bands that came before. So standout songs on this are The Apparition, Kyrie, is it Ellison? Yeah. I think. At least. Yeah, which was on a TV show, I believe. Is that right? Or in a movie, they used the song at that time. Those are great songs. Not my favorite off the album. My favorite are the super long songs because I'm a prog guy. All prog guys want.

00:13:21Long Song Dong Wong. Yes. They have to have Roman numerals in them, too. Yes. And subsets. Yeah. These are the John Holmes of Prague. You know, so but Pirates of Underground, Epitaph, two songs that I absolutely love. And I actually got to see Archmotheos, which is two of the band members that did a side thing years later, play a lot of these songs at one point. But very influential album because it led to a lot of

00:13:48other things that fall like george mentioned he mentioned waken the guardian that is

00:13:52considered it's a hallmark album it just it stands above so many albums during that period and it's

00:13:58somewhat forgotten because it came out in 1986 what happened in 1986 anyone master puppets rain and blood

00:14:05yeah peace cells yeah yeah see it's already dwarfed among the living you know yeah exactly the legacy

00:14:13The Big Four right there, yes. Just tons of huge metal albums at that point. So, wait, wasn't there a Maiden album that came out in that year? That would have been somewhere in time, yeah. Yeah, so. Wait a minute. Yeah. Anyway, so if you're a fan of, you know, even if you're a fan of Priest, I think you could appreciate this because there is some of that kind of riffage in some spots. You know, if you're a fan of Iron Maiden, I think you would dig this because Iron Maiden at this point was getting way more complicated.

00:14:43and their song structures. Queensryke, it has a little bit of all those bands influenced in Face Warning. The difference, darker, more complex, and more precise technicality, I think. Yeah, and a little less melodic, too. Different type of melody, I think. Not melody in the chorus, maybe melody in the guitar work, I think. Yeah, I was thinking more of the vocals. Yeah. You're not really getting the melodies that you would get in Queensryke or some

00:15:13of those other bands that you mentioned. The melody is going to be on the guitar playing. And let me tell you right now, you ain't singing along to these songs unless you're singing the Apparition where you're just like, oh, take me away. Take me away. I don't want to go. Yeah. Okay, fine. The Apparition you could sing along to. All right. Yeah, maybe. Just that one part. Yeah. Yeah. No, and then the chorus, you know. I don't want to know what's deep within. We've all done Take Me Away at least 50,000 times. So that's my first album. If you're looking for, it's not underground,

00:15:42but kind of second tier in terms of popularity, then this would definitely be a great place to go to discover non-commercial metal, which was starting to hit right about this time. And like George mentioned, death metal is just looming. It's just two years away. You know, before it truly blows up. I know Possessed came out in 85, right? But they were thrashy still a little bit. Yeah. Agreed. All right. So that's my first one.

00:16:12All right. Cool. Very nice. Very nice. Yes. What you got? All right. So, so I approached this. So John, I echo everything you're saying about, you know, the whole concept of the MTV generation, MTV really getting even more on its feet than it was like when it first started, it was pretty humble. Like they were playing videos, but it was just, Hey, look at this. There's videos of music. And it was like, Oh yeah, that's great.

00:16:42And they'd throw all these weird bands and a bunch of videos that were just strange. Do you remember the commercials, by the way, in the first two years? The commercials were like the song Frankenstein, and it was played to dudes driving in dune buggies in the desert. It was amazing. It was just like, this is amazing. This is incredible, yeah. And the funny thing is, you know, it blew up, and then it was like, oh, hey, we can make money off of this. And then it was, oh, we, you know,

00:17:11people are watching this. We really need to make these videos like way better than the garbage that we were putting on. And so it became a big thing. And it, you know, it was definitely like, okay, this is getting monetized and it's kind of unfortunate because, and that was really the beginning of the end. This is kind of, you know, obviously thriller had already happened and you already had all these movie directors getting into directing music videos, which was kind of unheard of.

00:17:41of at that time, because, you know, to do a music video was kind of beneath most of those guys. And, you know, it just became this whole big thing. And so in this period of time, you had, you started getting a lot of these kind of cool shows on it. Like they started doing 120 minutes and like some of these other things where they would kind of put some of the genres together and start playing some of those songs that might, might've been a little later, but maybe, you know, so I might not be right on it.

00:18:11But anyway, the videos were starting to get a little slicker. But they were still pretty, you know, humble in some cases. You know, you're still getting some goofy videos from some of these artists. And so it's still kind of like fish heads. Exactly. Do you remember fish heads? Fish heads. Eat them up. Yum. So yeah. So anyway, so I guess you could say that they're pretty much most of what I've talked about here.

00:18:41or most of what's on my list had some pretty strong play on MTV. And the album that I'm going to go with first. Oh, and oh, the other thing that I wanted to mention, you know, John started by saying that it was an album he didn't even listen to in 1985. And when I approached this, I went the opposite way. I went with albums that I listened to so much in 1985, like I almost wore them out.

00:19:11So even though there were probably there were a number of albums that I you know discovered later like Fate's Warning like John choose albums that I laid the crap out of in 1985. So all that being said the first album I'm going to pick and I'm waiting because the other album that I should have picked or will pick or who we'll see who comes up with it may come later but this album is the Outfield Play Deep.

00:19:41Wow.

00:19:42That's awesome.

00:19:43I love this album.

00:19:44I love this album so much that it's hard to even express how much I love this album.

00:19:51This album came out.

00:19:52I would have beat you up in 1985.

00:19:54Yeah, I'm sure you would have.

00:19:56Do you appreciate it now, George?

00:19:57Yes, I do.

00:19:58I'll redeem myself later, George.

00:20:01Because basically I would have hidden that album if you'd come up to me and I would have shown you the other album that I'm going to talk about later.

00:20:07Okay.

00:20:07The Hooters?

00:20:08No.

00:20:09So on this album, everybody knows the big songs. Say it isn't so, your love, every time you cry was big, all the love. Pretty much everything on this album got radio play, and it was so huge for the outfield. And they were a three-piece. They toured with, I think, a keyboard player and maybe, you know, another, you know, I don't know, like one or two extra folks. But it was primarily John Spinks was the main music writer. He was the main guitarist in the band.

00:20:38Tony Lewis played bass and sang. And then Alan Jackman was the drummer. And just these really melodic, catchy songs. And you can hear the influence of bands like the Beatles. It's just sunny, pop rock music. And it was just, I think 1985 was a time when, you know, you could still have fun. Fun was still a part of the landscape.

00:21:08And so yeah, this is my first pick. I just really love it. Nice. I want to listen to it now. I've never heard the whole thing. I've only heard the radio hits. So I'm like, I need to listen to this. Yeah, there's not a bad song on this album. So I have, it's not a gripe about the album. It's a gripe about the times. And I feel like this had some of that 80s produced sound. Am I correct?

00:21:38in that, because it's been a while since I've listened. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And that's deep. So now I, looking back on it, being, you know, that we were in high school back then, I look back on that fondly now, that sound, where people today who are younger might trash it. To me, there's so much nostalgia in that sound. And even though I still cringe a little bit, it could be an album that comes up that Tiara and I both love that I listened to again the other day. I was like, ugh.

00:22:08I just groan a little bit on certain parts. But I do miss that synthy sound. I'm not going to lie to you. I don't miss the synth bass. That I don't like. Yeah. But I do. And I don't like the Simmons electronic drums. How about a keytar? You know, keytar, if you tune it a certain way, can sound like, you know, anything you want it to sound like. That's right. But OK. Yeah, I thought this had a little bit of that. The loud banging drum was prominent at this point. Yeah.

00:22:38And a number of bands that just, I don't know, they just made it sound like an explosion every time the snare was hit. We talked about this. It started with Peter Gabriel III. That's where they came up with that sound. His snare drum. That's where it exploded from. Yeah, but it wasn't like that over the top, right? Like, to me, it wasn't. I don't know. Maybe it was. No, but the concept of the studio, how they did it in the studio. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, but they took it far too far. That was the problem. Just in the air tonight. That's pretty much where it blew up.

00:23:08Which I'm not gonna lie to you when I first heard that I was like this is badass. Yeah, darn right. So all right, cool choice. Okay, I'm going to go in a different direction. So this is like cue the record scratch the slamming of the brakes hide the women and children grab your fresh fruit and rotting vegetables. This is a band from John's old hometown of San Francisco.

00:23:38The Dead Kennedys.

00:23:40Oh, brother.

00:23:41That is how nice.

00:23:42And their penultimate album, Frankenchrist.

00:23:45Oh, yeah.

00:23:46I've been into The Dead Kennedys a lot lately.

00:23:48I mean, I've known them for decades, but I've just been into them, like, you know, with a focus lately.

00:23:56And while Frankenchrist is not my favorite album, Fresh Fruit and Rotting Vegetables, my spoiler hint hint there, is my favorite Dead Kennedys album.

00:24:04But this one came out in 1985. And it does have some interesting stories along with it. Aside from being their second to last album before hardcore punk imploded and died. Or at least certain bands and scenes did. But this album has two different controversies around it. First of all, the album cover. That's what I think it is. And second of all, the Shriners on the front. Yes. And then the internal artwork. So the less.

00:24:34Interesting controversy is the fact that the cover of the album shows four Shriners riding around with their little hats in these teeny little cars. And apparently this was an image that was run in a newspaper magazine, something like that, a few years prior. And they used this as their album cover. And the Shriners were not amused by being the cover of an album called Frank and Christ by a hardcore punk band. And so they sued.

00:25:03I'd be more worried about being seen in that little car.

00:25:05Yeah.

00:25:06It could be that too.

00:25:07They're just embarrassed.

00:25:09Yeah.

00:25:10But wait, there's more.

00:25:12Once you open the album up, there was some artwork by an artist you may have heard of by the name of H.R. Giger, known for Alien and every Giger.

00:25:25I don't know.

00:25:26Anyway, you know, his artwork was pretty crazy.

00:25:29He designed the alien for aliens. He

00:25:34has pretty much inspired anything

00:25:36by Thomas Gabriel

00:25:38Fisher from Celtic Frost

00:25:40through Trypticon in terms

00:25:42of album artwork. Emerson Lake and Palmer.

00:25:44Emerson Lake and Palmer, yep.

00:25:46And so his artwork

00:25:49included in this

00:25:50was a piece called Penis Landscape.

00:25:53That caught

00:25:54the attention of the Parents Music Resource

00:25:56Center, aka the PMRC.

00:25:58And so they also got hit with a an obscenity charge over this. So they sold a ton more records for it. Probably. Yeah. So, you know, Jello Biafra, kind of political, kind of strange fella. He's interesting. He's strange. He is. He is strange. Yes, he is very much so. But I like him. I stood next to him once at barbecue in Richmond, Virginia. He was.

00:26:28I don't know if he was playing I think he was like emceeing or something but anyway he was like standing there like signing autographs and talking to people and I walked up and stood next to him but I was not assertive enough to just be like hey dude so I just stood there next to him and looked at him and I was like shall we offer him but what is this guy what is he doing what is he doing in there wow anyway yeah dead Kennedy so that's I know you guys are not fans so I will not beat this dead horse

00:26:58I never got into them and I'm you know I'm from the Bay Area from San Francisco I was wondering as like Bay Area 80s you must have at least known something of them so just real quick if you don't know this if you're not familiar everyone always talked about the scene in LA which yes scene in LA was insane whether you like some of that music or not is irrelevant the scene was insane and then everyone talks about Seattle and the grunge scene but San Francisco gets

00:27:28lost that mix sometimes because all you hear is oh yeah the hippies man yeah if you're going to san francisco right

00:27:36and that's all everyone's it's like literally stops in 1967 when you talk about music but that city is

00:27:41loaded with so much it's almost got a history like new york where there's so many different

00:27:47styles of music that came out of the city for so many i mean people still don't would that they

00:27:52They don't realize CCR is from the Bay Area. They're not from Louisiana. Okay. What? The Duby Brothers are from the Bay Area? Yeah, they went to San Jose State, I believe. You know, there's another album from this year that also celebrates this area. And I know you're not a fan of that either, but that's Starship's Knee Deep in the Hoopla. We built this city. That's for you, Marcusan. We built this city. That's not cool, dude. That's not cool, dude. As a fan of Jefferson Air

00:28:24I'm not gonna lie I like some of the

00:28:26Jefferson Starship stuff before this

00:28:28alright come on they built that city

00:28:31they built it

00:28:32I still like modern times

00:28:34I like that album find your way back on it

00:28:36that song's badass

00:28:41what's unfortunate is

00:28:42our listeners can't see the look of

00:28:44disdain on John's face

00:28:46it's like George was saying that

00:28:48it was like it was

00:28:50Clint Eastwood's what did I just step in look

00:28:53Why do you gotta say that? Maybe you shouldn't have decorated your bar with my friend. Something from Unforgiven. Yeah. Wow. All right. So I like that pic though, George, because we picked three completely. We did 180s. Yeah. Twice. Each time. Yeah. I'm only 10. The third 180 wasn't even in the same direction as the first one. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not even like coming into your radius this episode. Let's go another 180.

00:29:22Degrees around the sun. Here we go. Oh, no. This is good. I mean, all my picks are good stuff. Whether you like them or not, it's on you, not me. All right. So am I going for a number two now? Certainly. All right. So my number two is somebody who, if I had to come up with my, can't do four and I can't do five, but I've had to do like my Mount Rushmore of musicians that meant a lot to me growing up.

00:29:52It'd have to be 10, obviously, because Neil Peart would be the first nine. No, he would not. Just the first eight. Come on. Let's be serious now. If I had to come up with 10 musicians, he would definitely be on there. I don't play guitar. I've always wanted to. I never did. But this guy wowed me the first time I heard him. And we unfortunately were robbed of his majority of his career because he died. So my number two is Stevie Ray Vaughan in Double Trouble.

00:30:22and the album is Soul to Soul. Yeah, I thought you might have that. Yeah, I was such a big Stevie Ray Vaughan fan. In high school, yeah, high school, I think that's where I first heard him. In high school and in college, absolutely loved him. I still remember where I was when I heard that he died, and I was devastated. There's very few musicians I've been, I didn't, you know, sleep and hug my pillow for a week and act depressed, but I was really devastated because I was really into him. He was a musician I really enjoyed. Yeah.

00:30:51I fortunately got to see him one time. But this was his third album that came out with Double Trouble. Now, I find this interesting that the band's called Double Trouble. I know that's a phrase. It doesn't mean two other people in the band. However, they were a three-piece until this album. And they added a keyboardist, Reese Wayans, I think is his name. So they were still Double Trouble with three extra musicians. So, you know, it's got a little bit of a band that Tiara and I are familiar with called Valiant Thor to it.

00:31:20It's not about being triple double. It's not about being. Yeah. At some point, I'll tell the value. I'll save the value of Thor story. Save it. I'll save it. But make sure you get your gut out. Get ready. I got to get hairy and sweaty. You got to get sweaty and get. Yeah. Bald spot beard. Anyway, this album came out. It was probably his most commercial of his. I guess he had four albums he released when he was alive. And a fifth one came out afterwards.

00:31:49words. This guy is crying. Yes. Oh, man. What an intro to an album. Anyway, I was a big blues fan, and I learned about a lot of other blues from C. Ray Vaughan because he covered a lot of blues, and that's what blues artists do. They cover each other. They do. That's it. It's accepted, and it's their take on the song, and it's a sign of respect. At least that's how I always viewed it, especially if you picked really obscure stuff.

00:32:17If you want to get into blues, listen to somebody like Steve Ray Vaughan and then go through the credits and say, who wrote this song? Or basically the first two or three Led Zeppelin albums. Skip by all the lawsuits and just look at who wrote the songs. Actually, just go listen to Willie Dixon. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It was Willie Dixon. Exactly. And then you branch out from there. But I don't know if you guys are familiar with this album, but it's blues rock. It's electric Texas blues. And if you're not familiar with his style,

00:32:47It's like Jimi Hendrix meets

00:32:51an old

00:32:53blues artist

00:32:54meets like Led Zeppelin. Now he doesn't

00:32:56sound anything like Led Zeppelin but the

00:32:58aggressiveness of some of those early

00:33:00Led Zeppelin songs like the

00:33:01It's like putting blues to the Immigrant song.

00:33:04He played with so much ferocity

00:33:05and so much fire.

00:33:07I mean he literally, he was

00:33:09as a good friend of mine

00:33:11TR knows this good friend

00:33:13my good friend Joe

00:33:15who's a guitar player. He used to always say, yeah, you want to know who's the gunslinger in your local neighborhood playing guitar. Steve Ray Vaughn was a gunslinger. He just was no holds barred when he played. And there's a reason why he's revered like he is. Whether you like blues or not, he's still considered one of the greatest guitarists ever to live. And who did he play with? Oh, that's right. His first album he ever was on was an actual pop album called Let's Dance by David Bowie. Yeah. And so,

00:33:44So that intro to Modern Love, that's one of his famous things he did. I don't know if he invented that, but I mean, he made that his one of his signatures. He does that incredible solo, Darren Let's Dance. And if you listen to the actual album version, you've got two of them. He does the kind of Asian feel to China Girl at the beginning. He captures that on his guitar. He just was amazing. And this album was important to me because I probably, I got into him with Couldn't Stand the Weather, the previous album, which came out in, I believe,

00:34:15But this is the one, albeit more commercial, that was getting more video play. Again, we talked about MTV. Some great songs on here. My song Change It was pretty big. It was on MTV all the time. You hear Look at Little Sister all the time on the radio, it seems. And those aren't even my favorite songs off the album. I mean, the opening instrumental, which is, it has lyrics. It just says soul to soul. That's the lyric. And that's just up yelling at the end of the song. But it's an instrumental called Say What. Life Without You is an amazing song. Ain't Gonna Give Up On Love.

00:34:44He covers a Hendrix song on there called Come On Part 3. He also covered that. I can't for the life of me remember who played it, but there's other great covers on the album. Super album. If you don't know anything about them, you should check them out, really. If you're interested in blues, he was big. He was on MTV. A blues guy was on MTV. Him and Robert Cray were on MTV all the time. They were blues guys.

00:35:14To think about that, you know, Michael Jackson and then Steve Ray Vaughn coming up right after that. It was crazy back then to think that's how our TV was. But yeah, that's my second album. Yeah, cool. All right. So I don't know where this fits in the stream of all the 180 degree turns we've taken. But this next album is a band actually that we've talked about, or that I've talked about in a previous episode. And this album is the Colts Love.

00:35:44Oh, yeah. And this is another album. I played the crap out of this album. And of course, this is before Electric, which I talked about at length in a previous episode when I completely fell in love even more with this band. But even prior to that, I got into this album first. And even though this album wasn't like what I was typically listening to,

00:36:14to in terms of rock because it was kind of jangly and kind of... It's gothic. Yeah, it's gothic, which was not my thing, but I really liked this album. So this has, you know, the biggest hit, of course, is She Sells Sanctuary. Everybody's, you know, by the She Shore and the She Shells. So everybody's pretty familiar with that.

00:36:44But there are a bunch of other songs on this album that I like. Nirvana kicks it off. Another song called Big Neon Glitter. The song Love, of course. Brother Wolf, Sister Moon, Rain, the Phoenix. Rain's awesome. Yeah, Rain's a great tune. Revolution. I was just going to say, that's another great song, yeah. And then Black Angel to wrap it up. And so, yeah, this was what got me into the cult. And at the time, you know, I went and

00:37:14And I actually started listening to their earlier stuff, which was even more goth, more almost punk. I mean, this band has completely transformed from when they were Southern Death Cult to what they became. And this was kind of a stop along the way. And I like this, you know, before Electric came out, I really liked this a lot more than what they had done earlier. Although I did like some of the earlier tracks. I like this a lot more.

00:37:45So, yeah, you know, the cult has always been, I've always liked the cult a lot. Not every album is great, but I felt like this was a really good one in 1985, and I listen to it all the time. Yeah, it's kind of part of the trifecta for them. Yeah, exactly. Electric and Sonic Temple. Yeah. And there's quite a difference between this and Sonic Temple. Oh, yeah. And it's only, what, four years difference, I think? Yeah, pretty much. 89.

00:38:14was when Sonic Temple came out, I think. I think so. Yeah. Wow. I love this album. You love love. I love love. I realized how stupid that was going to sound, so I just think, I love this album. I love. This is the kind of goth rock that I like, because it's more driving, it's more guitar-oriented, and the singing is, it's not as tragic, I guess is the best way to put it. Yeah.

00:38:44That's a great pick. Like I said, those three albums. And the album after, Sonic Temple's good, too. All right. So my next pick crosses the drink to London for the Irish folk punk band The Pogues. And their second album, Rum, Sodomy, and The Lash. Or, as we like to say, A Good Time on Metalhead's Podcast.

00:39:15I love this band. The Pogues, you know, I mean, and they launched a million soundalike bands. You know, the whole Celt punk thing, that all stems from the Pogues, as far as I'm concerned. Shane McGowan, if I'm saying that right, the infamous lead singer, passed away last year. Rum Sodomy and the Lash is the album that I tend to see the most when I'm in the record store, when I'm in the used bins, whatever. You see this, the artwork, you see it.

00:39:44I see it all the time and for good reason there's a couple of really good songs on here I mean they're all pretty good but dirty old town everybody probably knows that when you guys probably know dirty old town I've been to a dirty old town yes band played waltzing Matilda pair of brown eyes Sally McLennan the wildcats of Kilkenny Jesse James on and on I'm not like a massive pokes fan but I am a

00:40:15big Poges fan. I guess that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's not a band that I run around thinking about all the time. You're not a fanboy. Not obsessed, right? No, but they're one of those bands that as soon as you hear it, you're like, oh, hell yes, turn that up. And then you want to hear more. It's just kind of so out of the ordinary from at least most of what I listen to that it's kind of a treat. And they didn't put out that many albums. It's their second one, but they only had,

00:40:441, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 total. If I Should Fall From Grace with God was the next one in 88. That had some good stuff as well. That's got the Fairytale of New York. Most people know that one. For who knows what reason, they tend to play that at Christmas. I mean, I know it mentions Christmas, but it also talks about, you know, like beating each other up. It's not a very happy song. And, you know, they call each other some names that you don't normally want the children to hear. But, yeah, but anyway.

00:41:14The Pogues. Enough said. Nice. I see where George is going with his 65. It's not getting any. There's one sort of metal-ish thing, but yeah, we'll see. Oh, just do a metal. Come on. Oh, I'm going to summarize the year in metal later. I'm going to pick a George pick here coming up in a little bit. Interesting. I have a couple ideas of things that in my mind I was like, oh, TR's probably going to pick this one. Oh, John's probably going to pick that one.

00:41:45All right, let's see if you thought I was going to pick this one. All right. Oh, boy. Here we go. Oh, boys. This album is very good. I listened to it again for the first time in years. Why? Because I already hear half the songs on the radio all the time. So I don't have to listen to it, it seems. And that's not my radio station. That's when Jen plays her radio station on SiriusXM. However, I was actually into this album quite a bit. I was actually into the first two albums from this artist.

00:42:13And I actually went and saw him on this tour for this album. And I have an interesting story to tell about seeing him. But my third pick, I'm going to do another 180. So we did metal. We did blues. Why don't we do kind of pop rocks, kind of art rockish. How about jazz pop? Let's do Sting. Oh man, you stung. Wow. Yes. Man, this album is awesome.

00:42:42I did not see that coming. I didn't think you were a Sting fan. I like the sound a lot. This is especially the live album that followed after this. Oh, dude, don't get me started on that. That live album is outstanding. And I saw this tour at the Greek Theater. More to come on that. Flying in a Blue Turtle dream. The dream of blue turtles. Maybe he was flying in a blue turtle. I appreciate the Satch reference there, George. That would be a couple more years after this. Yeah, 87. Just a few. Just a few.

00:43:12Now, flying in a blue dream is 89, not 87. Oh, that's right. 87 was surfing. Surf with the alien. Yeah. Yes. I beg your pardon. Yeah. Surfing with a blue turtle in a dream. All right. Is that better? Surfing with a blue dream of the turtles. Yeah. An English turtle in a blue dream. Yes. So you're familiar with this album. All right. I'm going to mention two songs right off the bat. Trust me. You're familiar.

00:43:42this album. If you love someone, set them free. Or somebody. Yeah. Thank you for correcting. And the next one, maybe I'll just butcher this so you can correct me again. Okay, do it. Yes. Fortress Around Your Heart. Oh, yeah. You've heard these two songs. They've been played to death. There's a reason why. They're really good songs. Here's the reason. Especially Fortress Around Your Heart. These two songs actually are the continuation of The Police.

00:44:12from Synchronicity, as far as I'm concerned. They just, if you love somebody, is just jazzed up a little bit. Just a little, not much. But Fortress Around Your Heart could easily have been the follow-up to Synchronicity, easily. I don't think that's even a question. When you listen to that, you're like, hey, man, is that actually The Police? Because that kind of sounds like them a little bit. But it's not. But there's other great songs off this album, like Children's Crusade, which is amazing, Consider Me Gone,

00:44:42I mean, these are all great. Russians was a big song too at this time. They got a lot of play on MTV. It's just, it's even love is a seventh wave got some radio play as I recall. Yeah. And it's yes. Yeah. Because there were songs on this album that were reminiscent of the police, which that's one of them, which we remind you of one world, not three off. It goes to the machine. It had that vibe a little bit. It just was jazzed up a little more. And the musicianship on this album is in.

00:45:13I mean the band he put together for this he had Daryl Jones on bass who if you

00:45:18know who Daryl Jones is check out the Rolling Stones basses for the last what 30 years he's the guy who

00:45:25replaced Bill Wyman who's not an official member but he's there all the time and he's also played with Miles Davis you know Kenny Kirkland on keyboards huge jazz guy on the scene Branford Marcellus who I can't remember was his brother that was

00:45:42on the Arsenio Hall show? Which one was? One of the brothers did one of the late night shows, was the band conductor, band leader for one of those. I can't remember. He was on saxophone and clarinet, drums, Omar Hakeem, who's bad MF-er. I was a huge fan of his back then. Who did he play with? Just a few, you know, David Bowie, Chick or Sheik, you know, Miles Davis, Weather Report. I mean, this band he put together was insane.

00:46:12And I saw them live at the Greek Theater

00:46:14in Berkeley with my friend Matt Potter

00:46:17on that tour.

00:46:18And we got there kind of early.

00:46:20The place was buzzing because it was Sting.

00:46:23And the police had just, you know,

00:46:24I guess they had broken up at that point, hadn't they?

00:46:27Had they officially announced it?

00:46:29I couldn't remember.

00:46:30But it still was Sting from the police.

00:46:33And it was, those songs were big.

00:46:35And we're walking around the Greek Theater

00:46:37and we walked right into this guy,

00:46:39I smacked right into him. Oh, sorry, dude. It's Carlos Santana. Oh, wow. No BS. He's kind of short. Or maybe we were just tall. You are tall. But if you don't know this, don't dismiss this album because it's actually outside of those two big songs. There is a lot of good jazzy, jazzy pop for that matter, but just some really impeccable playing from some incredible musicians. And as TR kind of confirmed, the live album that followed,

00:47:09this from that tour is insane. Bring on the night. Yes. It's just so good. Incredible album. While it just to this day just rubs me raw that the songs are not in order and that they're just kind of placed, which was a typical thing they did with live shows up to through that point. It doesn't matter. It's good. All those rare B sides that nobody knew that the police had. He played in that tour. Like they have down so long is not his.

00:47:39song, but they covered it, I think, the police, didn't they? Isn't that on the compilation? I think it is. I have to look, but there's so many great songs on that that were police extra songs that showed up on the compilation that came out, which now is useless. It's been dwarfed by the new synchronicity 57 disc release that just came out. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. You didn't know about that? No. Six discs with like 57 outtakes and rare songs.

00:48:09and demos and playthroughs.

00:48:13Yeah, apparently it's badass.

00:48:16I mean, I haven't seen it yet.

00:48:17And I was like, can I just get the live show?

00:48:19I know, that's always the thing.

00:48:21They package this live show that everybody wants,

00:48:24and you've got to buy all the other stuff to get to it.

00:48:26But if there's a lot of outtakes and songs that were never released before,

00:48:30then I'd be down with it.

00:48:31It's just I don't want to pay $120 for six CDs.

00:48:35Right.

00:48:36Anyway.

00:48:37Yeah, this is a great pick, and you stole one. Sorry, I didn't mean to. That's okay. No, it's totally okay, because I knew there was going to be some of this. But yeah, I'm so with you on this album. I played the crap out of this album when it came out, and I remember at the time thinking, this was a really ballsy move for Sting to go in this direction at the time. I mean, obviously it worked out.

00:49:07But I'm sure like at the time he probably, you know, he could have had doubts, you know, am I, can I pull off like this jazzy album? You know, he definitely got the right guys to do it. But I just remember thinking to myself, wow, this is really, to me, it was an unexpected move from Sting to, to link up with these jazzy guys and put this album out and, and have it be like this kind of jazzy, cool.

00:49:37like thing that he doesn't sound like out of place doing. It sounds natural. Like the whole thing makes sense and it all kind of flows and it's just brilliant. The whole thing is great. And I just remember thinking to myself, you know, wow, who would have guessed like Sting would put like, you know, an album out that was kind of jazzy where he linked up with these jazz guys. It just seemed kind of surprising to me at that time, you know, coming out of the place.

00:50:07But I'm sure he just wanted a change of pace and something different. And I'm so glad that he did this. You know, he didn't take some really weird turn that, you know, just to be kind of contrarian to what he was doing. He ended up doing something that was really good. And yeah. And like you said, the Bring on the Night is so tremendous. Yeah, honestly, great live album. If you to listen to the police songs he does on that album, it almost sounds natural that they've been

00:50:37and jazzed up. I just, I can't even, I mean, when he opens up with Bring On The Night, well, on the album, it opens up with Bring On The Night, and it flows into when the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around. That version of that song alone is insane. But one of the other songs I was thinking of today is a song, Low Life, he does off that live album. Yeah, and that's, you're right, that was kind of a lesser known tune. I Burn For You is another, and another day, all those songs. Oh, man. Yeah. George, so you know, you hear us talk about live albums.

00:51:07If you've never heard that

00:51:08I'm looking at it right now

00:51:10I'm like

00:51:10How did I not even hear of it?

00:51:13Because he was doing his jazz thing

00:51:15I mean

00:51:15I knew when the album came out

00:51:17But not the live album

00:51:19But here's the thing that most people don't realize

00:51:21He doesn't play bass on the album

00:51:22And he doesn't play bass on that tour

00:51:24He plays guitar

00:51:26Not that's any

00:51:27Oh wow, check it out

00:51:28But Sting was never known for playing guitar

00:51:30It was always Andy Summers in the police

00:51:32Who was an insane player

00:51:35For what he

00:51:36For his style

00:51:36and for what he can do. Sting was always this thundering bass player. And now he's playing guitar. And which was kind of cool because he's not doing anything crazy on guitar. The rest of the band's being crazy. That's what's amazing about it. He's kind of taking a backseat musicianship wise on that album. Yeah. Which makes it even cooler. Yeah, which is even more amazing because when you think about what they were doing in the police, every one of them was trying to show up the other and

00:52:06be the big dude in the band and you know the just all the infighting and

00:52:11everything that was going on in that band that essentially destroyed it and then he you know

00:52:17checks his ego and gets these guys that are really amazing as musicians and just kind of lives in that space and kind of lets them go off and you know let them be themselves and let them you know shine and he lets it happen and it and to his you know credit i mean it makes

00:52:36the album even better.

00:52:38Yeah.

00:52:39And I will say, I only go one album more after that, and then I'm done.

00:52:43Well, I'm with you on that.

00:52:44I stopped with Nothing Like the Sun, and that's it.

00:52:46And I saw him on that tour, too.

00:52:47Oh, come on.

00:52:4810 Sumners, Dales is awesome.

00:52:50I could never get into that.

00:52:51I know it.

00:52:52It's my favorite Sting album.

00:52:54Is it?

00:52:55I mean, I know that.

00:52:55I just never really got into it.

00:52:57I probably should check it out, because I know there are some good songs on it, like Fields of Gold and stuff like that's cool.

00:53:01Well, I mean, there's the radio hits, but then there's stuff like Heavy Clouds, No Rain.

00:53:06St. Augustine in Hell. He had a good run because he had the Soul Cages before that, which got a lot of airplay. I should probably go back and check him out at some point. At that point, I moved on at 93. Okay, I could listen to that. I could listen to Satriani. Seriously. Oh, yeah. Dream Theater. I think I'll go listen to that. Oh, yeah. I'm glad to see that I stole that one because I wasn't sure.

00:53:36if anyone is going to have that. No, that's a good one, John. So be my guest. Steal something from me now. Is it time to steal? You can steal. All right. I mean, I got it. I got to do runners that right now. So second base is open, my friend. All right. Then I guess I'll have to go for it. So this next album, we've danced around it long enough. I might as well take it off the table since John took one of mine. And of course, it's Rush, Power Windows. Oh, no. What a smart.

00:54:07Yeah. I'm going to go get dinner. I'll be back in about 45 minutes. Y'all have fun. Yeah. There ain't that much to talk about here. So, yeah, I mean, okay. Obviously, this is really kind of when the keyboards take over. But I will say this, and this was kind of the beginning of the end for me in terms of, you know, some of the things that Rush became in the

00:54:36the latter period of their career or that mid to late period of their career where every song kind of was around five minutes and 35 minutes for five minutes and 35 seconds there was a lot of keyboard stuff going on getty kind of dialed his vocals back so he was kind of not really singing all that high anymore and he didn't really have the same earnestness that you heard when he was singing on stuff like you know the earlier album

00:55:06and permanent waves and moving pictures. He kind of became this, I don't know, contemporary adult singer that I just became disenchanted with what he was doing with his voice in the period that was kind of after this. On this album, though, he still kind of had a little edge to his voice, which I could appreciate. And there are a couple of songs on this album that I think may actually be the best,

00:55:36of vocals or lyrics and music examples for Rush. And the song that comes to mind is Territories because I feel like the vocals and the music to this, to Territories, was so well put together and so complemented each other. I just feel like that was a, for me, that was one of my favorite songs on the album. War for Territory.

00:56:05No? No. Most people know The Big Money, and as we've all talked about, there was a video for that on MTV that I'm sure many of us saw. Grand Designs, Manhattan Project, Marathon, Middletown Dreams, Emotion Detector, Mystic Rhythms, all of those songs. And I just, you know, I remember they actually played quite a few of those songs during the tours. I didn't really see them until the Hold Your Fire tour.

00:56:35They were still playing. It's only one album away. I know, but that was kind of cool to hear some of that stuff. So anyway, would this be one of my top Rush picks for albums? No. I'll always pick the earlier stuff before I would pick this. But I still like this album. I played this album like crazy when it came out.

00:57:05And so, you know, it's, you got to pick it as an album from 1985. And while it's not the best Rush album ever, I still like it a lot. I don't disagree. I like it too. This was the, I'm not going to call it the downfall, but this was the start of mediocrity for the band, I think. And while I do not like Hold Your Fire, I do like Presto more than you do. However, I do acknowledge their far cries. You like how I put that in there?

00:57:35Yeah, got that one. Far cry from their previous works. Yeah. And Roll the Bones has been sliding. I've been throwing snake eyes on that album for a little while now, too. Because that's only got a few songs on it that I like a lot. The rest I'm like, eh. Yeah. I like this album, but man, the abrasive synthy sounds on this, like during Territories when that huge, big hits you and then Alex comes in with his really,

00:58:05sharp guitar sounds after that which I was like a guitar solo during the synth era well um I but I agree I I do dislike how the synths ruin certain songs like Grand Designs I would like more if those synths didn't exist and they just he played bass the whole song I just I don't like them I can't stand it I'm not a fan of Middletown Dreams and Emotion Detector or whatever those two songs I just I skip past them all the time I don't like them but I will say Manhattan Project I don't

00:58:35That song's badass. Yeah, it is. It's great. The best song on the album, though, for me, for my money, Marathon, hands down. Yeah. To me, it's got aggressive Getty playing on bass. It's got actually some good guitar work. It's very atmospheric. The video during the show kind of sucked of the, you know, what is it? The laser pointer man running around. Right. And Mystic Rhythms is great. And I don't know if you remember this. Mystic Rhythms, the intro, the drum intro to that used to be, I think,

00:59:05the primetime with peter jennings i think that was the intro music for a while

00:59:11they used that oh is that right yeah so i agree with you it's a good album it's not a great album it's

00:59:16probably the middle of the pack for me for rush for the i don't count that feedback album is one of

00:59:21their albums that's a cover song so there are 19 albums i put it in the middle yeah just wish the

00:59:26synthy sound wasn't as abrasive as it is on the album but there's good songs overall you know but it's uh

00:59:34Prog rock, art rock, new wave album. It just is what it is. Hey guys, I'm back. I got a pizza. You want a slice? Oh, we're just on the second song. Oh, okay, okay. All right, I'm going to go back for breadsticks. Yeah, all right. We'll take care of it till then. Get some pizza knots while you're at it. Are you done? Yeah, that's it. All right, then. That long pause wasn't us getting more air to go in for another song. You never know. You never know. That's true.

01:00:03All right, let me tell you about another album you don't care about. Get out your hairspray, boys. But it's not that kind of hairspray. It's a little stranger. It's a little weirder. This is one of my all-time favorite bands. Not one of my all-time favorite albums by this band, but I do love this album. From New York, Twisted Sister and their fourth album, Come Out and Play.

01:00:34pretty much universally reviled by the world at large.

01:00:39Everybody.

01:00:40Come 1985, I was a massive Twisted Sister fan. Massive.

01:00:45This was like my favorite band until Metallica came along the year after.

01:00:49I mean, they were around until Master of Puppets came out the year after.

01:00:54And being that they were my favorite band, when Come Out and Play dropped, I was all over it.

01:01:01I begged to go to Kmart to buy the cassette. And I was a little, you know, turn the head and go. But I did love it. I even love Us for Suckers, their last album, which was supposed to be a Dee Snider solo album and is super commercial and weird, but also very good. So being that this came out in 1985, there was no way I couldn't not, no way I could not talk about this album. Yeah, it was not great.

01:01:31But it is great. This is one of those albums that you defend even though you know you're in a losing position because the timing of it for you was right. And so it's I don't care what anybody else thinks. I love this album because, you know, you've got the nostalgia. You've got the memories. It was the right time and place for this album. So I'm going to talk about a few of these songs. The album title and title track come out and play was based on a movie called The Warriors,

01:02:01which I've actually never seen. What? Yeah. It was a little before my time. You know, you have, you've had a TV for how many years now? I know. I've all, you know, and I've spent the last 39 years like going, I need to watch that movie. Oh my God. Come out and play. Oh my God. And the album starts out twisted sister, come out and play. And then from there, they move on to probably

01:02:31I would say definitely the biggest song on the album is a cover of the Shangri-La's leader of the pack. That's not a good sign. Yeah, I know, but it's a good version cover. It's a cover. Yeah. No, I said, is it a good cover by them? It is. I mean, obviously they switched the roles around because in the Shangri-La's versions, it's a woman singing about her boyfriend, the biker dude who runs off and dies in an accident. Whereas in this, Dee's talking about

01:03:01about his girlfriend who runs off of this best friend i don't know about that but she you know ends up dying and it's sad but i don't know it's catchy you want what we got kind of a caveman simple song it almost sounds like you want we got yeah sorry sounds like a jj french song could be but i like it it's catchy i believe in rock and roll i don't remember that one the fire still burns closes out the first side i like that one it's a little more

01:03:31I don't know. It's just not as commercial. Side two kicks off with another, I think it's a, definitely it's a cover. And there's a guest on this one, Alice Cooper, Be Cruel to Your School, which this was another single. So I don't know, maybe this was bigger than Leader of the Pack because it had Alice Cooper on it. I don't know. Play on words there for other songs. Yeah. And I don't know, maybe it isn't a cover. Maybe I thought it was a cover, but.

01:04:00It doesn't say that it's a cover. So maybe it was just a ha ha. They twisted this be cool to your school or whatever it was saying. Anyway, the next song is probably my favorite song on the album. It's called I Believe in You. Musically, it's not all that interesting, but the lyrics in this song have stuck with me all these years. It's a very supportive song. It's I Believe in You. It's like he's singing about when nobody else believes.

01:04:32I believe in you. And I've wanted to cover this song because it means a lot to me. It's a very good song with a good message. Out on the streets, eh, whatever. Looking out for number one, but stepping in number two. That's not part of it, but it's an okay song. Kill or be killed, eh, whatever. Last song, which is only a bonus track on the cassette and CD versions, which I had the cassette version, King of the Fools. I like that one.

01:05:00That's another relatable one for me. King of the fools. So, you know, I don't care what Dee Snider does. He does it. I'm going to listen to it because he's my man. I love Dee Snider and he's such a cool dude. And for my birthday last year, I think it was, my brother got me a cameo from Dee Snider. So I get this text message with a video from Dee Snider going, George, happy birthday, buddy.

01:05:30And I'm just like, ah! So that was just about the coolest thing ever. I mean, I have previously been slapped in the face with Dee Snider's hair as he head-banged on the stage, but this was even better. All right, I release you. All right. I want to rock. I don't know this one. I mean, obviously, I knew the three albums before this. Yes, and they are my favorite albums. You know, and obviously, I've seen the, maybe not obviously, but I did watch the documentary on them, which is very good. Yes, it is. I enjoyed that.

01:06:01And it's really more prehistory about the band. And that's something I think you should watch because they were, it's interesting, they have the same type of, although they were bigger commercially, but the same kind of trajectory of Zebra, where they were really big without a record or a record label behind them. And they were playing big places in New York at that time. And I always enjoyed that part where Dee Snider said, hey, man, we were playing 3,500 seat places.

01:06:30and we didn't even have a record out yet. And we were selling out. So they had those songs. And yet they couldn't get signed in New York. They had to go to England to get to put out a record. Exactly. Which made no sense. It made no sense how those bands, them and Zebra were so big early on with fans, but they couldn't get anything. And although Zebra was on Atlantic, I think for the first album, wasn't, I believe. Yeah. I'm not mistaken, which was a big deal back then because that was, you know, lights up and was on Atlantic for a while. But yeah, I don't know this one that way.

01:07:00Well, to be honest with you, I wasn't, I didn't stay hungry for this. Yeah, no, this was definitely the beginning of the end for them, but I still like everything they did. So I even liked the Christmas album. Yeah. This, I know nostalgia sounds cheesy to say, but it does go a long way for your music where you cut your teeth. I mean, it just does. There's no way around it. You can't hide from it. Yeah. And George, and we've talked about this before, like you said,

01:07:30said, an album hits you at the right time, at the right age, with the right music and the right kind of vibe and everything. And yeah, you'll stand with it to the death, even though it's, you know, it's not that great of an album. And, you know, in hindsight, you know, you start to see that as you, you know, mature and you listen to stuff and, but it doesn't matter, you know, and I've got albums just like that too, you know, that I love them, but.

01:08:00You know, looking at it, it's like, this is really, it's not that good, but you know what? I can't help myself. You know what that is, don't you, TR? You can't stop rock and roll. That's right. That's why. You can't stop rock and roll. That would be their second album. Oh, God, I have so many albums that, so you look yourself in the mirror and you're mouthing, but I like it, but then the image in the mirror,

01:08:30stops like a horror film and says, no, you don't. Yes, we all have albums like that. All right, back to you, John. Why don't I bring up one of those albums right now? Why don't you? Yeah, I don't care anyone says I like this album. Despite its super big 80s sound, and it was a loud album, especially in the drums. But I like this album because it featured two guys from another band.

01:09:01that you wouldn't think would be playing this type of music.

01:09:04Because it was kind of hard rock and pop.

01:09:08But they weren't doing hard rock in their other band.

01:09:11And then the drummer was all worldly for me.

01:09:13He was one of my influences at the time.

01:09:16But for all the bands that he's not super famous for.

01:09:21Anyway, so my number four pick is The Power Station.

01:09:26The Power Station.

01:09:28I love this album.

01:09:32You know, that intro, it's just now I'm just like, all right, I've heard this. Yes. They had two huge songs off the top. If you're not familiar with the band, The Power Station and their album, The Power Station, The Power Station features John Taylor and Andy Taylor of Duran Duran. And in 1984 into 1985, Duran Duran, I guess, was looking to change things up a little bit. So these two guys wanted to rock.

01:09:59They wanted to rock out a little more. So they went and formed the power station with Tony Thompson, who is a drummer from Chic, however you want to call them, and also play with David Boye. Oh, what album? Oh, yeah, Let's Dance. Jeez, everyone's on that Let's Dance album. But it also features a famous singer called Robert Palmer. So they formed this super group. And the other three guys from Duran Duran formed Arcadia, if you guys remember.

01:10:27Yeah.

01:10:27Which kind of ventured even more deeper into Duran Duran's sound, but a lot more atmospheric on that side.

01:10:36John Taylor and Indy Taylor, like I said, they wanted to rock.

01:10:39And they did.

01:10:40They brought the guitars out on this album big time because it's got heavy sounding guitars.

01:10:45Not something you would expect from Duran Duran.

01:10:48And you've all heard some like it.

01:10:52Get it on, bang a gong, their cover of that song.

01:10:55Everyone's heard those gajillion times because they're on the radio all the time. Those aren't the best songs the album in my opinion. There's other great songs on the album like Murderous is a great song. Second track on the album. I have a song called Harvest for the World which is a cover I believe from the Isley Brothers. If I'm not mistaken. Yep. Still in Your Heart is a great song. Communication. These are all cool tunes. I saw this tour. I saw them but it wasn't with Robert Palmer. That was kind of the bummer. It was Michael DeBarns I believe is his name who was a writer.

01:11:25at the time. And he wrote some songs you may have heard of. Remember Rod Stewart, Some Guys Have All the Luck? I remember that song. I believe he wrote that song. It's a total big 80s overproduced synth-y sounding, you know, all this noise and fake percussion sounds. And I still think it's freaking awesome because Andy Taylor is actually a much better guitar player than you might think. He's got some nice things going. John Taylor's definitely a better bass player than people give him credit for. He's actually very

01:11:56And Tony Thompson was the favorite of mono drums because he had just this big sound that's totally overproduced. But man, he could play with so much power. And at that time, I was into power drummers. You know, I was really into John Bonham, obviously Neil Peart, but he wasn't as much of a power player like John Bonham was. So I was really into that because I was like, goodness, can you really make that much sound, that much noise and still sound good? So I'm guessing.

01:12:25I don't know. You guys probably don't dig the power station. Probably tired of hearing them because they do play those two songs all the time. They're good songs. They are. I like me some Robert Palmer. Yeah, he's a great singer. Just a unique bluesy kind of English singer, which a different type of bluesy singer, though. Because when you think of English and blues, you're thinking of Eric Clapton or John Mayle, who unfortunately just passed away recently. You're thinking of that kind of stuff.

01:12:55He was different. He was more of a pop, poppy blues singer. Doctor, doctor, give me the news. I got a bad case of love in you. You know, hey, wow, let's watch. And these are all before the Addicted video came out or whatever it was. Addicted to Love. Oh, yeah. Which obviously is a very famous video for other reasons. But he had, he was, what was the Clue song he had?

01:13:25I can't think of it now. I'll have to look it up. He had a ton of videos on MTV2. Early videos, though. These were the cheesy campy ones, you know, where he's running over the little blocks. Do you remember the little blocks when we were kids and you had different letters on them in different colors? Do you remember those? The wooden blocks? Yeah. So I don't remember that video. Yeah. And there's a video where he's running. Of course, he's not actually on real wood blocks. You know, they kind of CGI did it from that time. Yeah, super close that, yeah. But yeah, I always, the tour was awesome. They were so good.

01:13:58I have to admit I have not listened to that album and I John based on what you've said I think I would like it I put that down on my list as well you know it's funny we do these podcasts and people find things to listen to so do we yeah I think if you want to hear Andy Taylor I mean you might probably remember an Andy Taylor did his solo stuff because that was all over MTV all the time too but if you want to hear him play

01:14:25Not Solo or Duran Duran. And he has some just heavy guitars. And now, granted, it's not heavy like metal itself, but for him, what he's doing. But the song Murderous is awesome. And again, it's super overproduced sounding. Yeah. But it is what it is for that time period. So. Right on. Good pick. Thank you. All right. If we're going to go in the super group route, I guess,

01:14:55I might as well follow suit and go with The Firm and their album, The Firm. And this featured Jimmy Page, Paul Rogers, Tony Franklin, and Chris Slade. And this is, I don't know, I played this album a lot. I like this album a lot. There's some pretty cool stuff on here that, you know, some of it you can tell what Paul Rogers brought to the group.

01:15:24and some of it you can tell what Jimmy Page brought to the group. The only misstep on this album is You've Lost That Love and Feeling. I didn't really need that cover on there. But there are a lot of cool songs. Closer. Closer is awesome. I love that tune. Radioactive. I think a lot of people remember that one. But my favorite of all is the last song, which is called Midnight Moonlight, which easily sounds like it could have been a Led Zeppelin song or something that Led Zeppelin

01:15:54would have done. Obviously, it doesn't sound like Led Zeppelin in terms of, you know, the singing or anything, but just like the guitar work and the journey it takes you on. Very cool. Satisfaction Guaranteed. I think people remember that song. I like the song Money Can't Buy. I think that's a really good one. Also, Together was kind of a cool. And so Tony Franklin played a fretless bass. So there's all kinds of fretless bass on this album.

01:16:24which kind of gives it a kind of a slinky kind of cool feel which was pretty different at the time because there weren't a lot of fretless bass players in rock music that i recall but yeah just the whole vibe of this album was pretty cool and hearing jimmy page kind of do something that sounded inspired was also pretty cool given you know zeppelin had broken up five years earlier and i don't know i don't really recall him doing a whole lot between that

01:16:54and this. He had the soundtrack to, was it City Lights? What was the movie he did his soundtrack for? Yeah, but I mean, you know, something that was a little more accessible or well-known. No, there's actually a few songs off that. He actually, I saw him play live. It's more than just the soundtrack. He actually had a couple decent songs off that. Yeah. But in terms of, you know, I guess popularity or kind of being out in front of the masses,

01:17:24you know this album kind of took them there and so anyway that that was one of the ones i always enjoyed they only lasted another album after this as i recall and that was it for the firm but i liked them i know the firm quite well i saw them on this tour at the cow palace i saw the power station at the cow palace hold on go through my life i saw all these bands that seemed like at the cow palace jay knows jay who was on the last episode knows about the cow palace because the cow palace is in the

01:17:54I will tell you I did like this album I was never more disappointed with an opening you know a first single from an album ever it's never been surpassed than radioactive because I remember MTV we've got the new firm with Jimmy Page I'm like oh my god new stuff from Jimmy Page and at the end of the song I was like what was that I did not see that coming yeah you know it's totally different he's got the double neck oh my god yeah we're grabbing each other

01:18:24watching it again we're like wait what yeah and the soul is like it's like what is he doing

01:18:33okay it's like wow this is really strange that's different yeah but i've come to like it more

01:18:40the good thing about this man is paul rogers who's one of the hands down greatest rock singers ever

01:18:46to live amen whether you like he just i don't know anyone that's not ever said that's been in the

01:18:52business. He's just was that good. He really was. He's all right now. He's not bad. He's still. Yeah. But the guy's what? Mid 70s? Yeah. Late 70s? You know. But at a time when it's during his peak, I don't care if you like bad company or not. The dude is badass. So that's a good pick tier. I didn't see that coming. That catches me by surprise a little bit. Surprise. Yeah. And like I said, I saw that tour. I was so excited to see that. So at the Calipat.

01:19:23And that was general admission. So I literally jammed up on the rail and got crushed for half the night. All right. My next album. One of my favorite artists of all time. I'm not even going to beat around the bush. This is Tom Waits in his third album. Ninth album, Rain Dogs. All right, Jen, I called it. I said George is picking Tom Waits. Oh, yeah. How could I not?

01:19:52What I meant to say by three was this is my third favorite Tom Waits album of all time. This is my 12th favorite Tom Waits album. It's a great album. You know, Tom Waits is someone that is an acquired taste. It's not something you're going to turn on the radio and go, ooh, Tom Waits. You're probably not going to hear him on there. Unless they play some of his stuff from like his first album where before he was a little weirder.

01:20:21He was more of a singer-songwriter on that first album. Hope I Don't Fall in Love With You and stuff like that. Old 55. But now, Rain Dogs, definitely a really cool album. He's got that scratchy voice and definitely weird avant jazz stuff going on. I don't know what to say other than you're probably not going to like this if you listen to it, but if you do, then you're really cool. Songs like Singapore, Clap Hands,

01:20:52Clap Hands. Jockey Full of Bourbon. Tango Till They're Sore. Big Black Mariah. Hang Down Your Head. Downtown Train. Actually, somebody covered that. Who covered that? Wait, you and I talked about this a while back. I remember this conversation about that. Oh, Rod Stewart did a cover of Downtown Train. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, Tom Waits wrote that. Oh, really? Yes, he did. So I'm not going to belabor this one too much.

01:21:21Tom Waits is an odd bird who does really cool, weird music. If you like cool, weird music, go listen to Tom Waits. Anything Tom Waits, but specifically Rain Dogs or his my favorite small change. Every time I hear a Tom Waits song, I always think he's three cigarette packs in. Oh, yeah. That's when he started singing that song. Right. He does a Waltzing Matilda. Waltzing Matilda. I mean, his voice is literally that rough.

01:21:51So possibly even more so

01:21:54Yeah I think so

01:21:56And he's just weird

01:21:58I love it

01:21:59So

01:21:59Yeah I knew you were gonna take that

01:22:01I'm

01:22:02I know some of his stuff

01:22:02But I'm not that familiar with him

01:22:04Yeah

01:22:04To be honest

01:22:05There's the first Nick Cave album

01:22:07Came out this year too

01:22:08But I'm not a big fan of the first Nick Cave album

01:22:10So I didn't put that on here

01:22:12But I love Nick Cave

01:22:13That's wild

01:22:15Wow you have quite the theme of

01:22:17Album so far George

01:22:19I know right

01:22:21Twisted Sister is the oddball in this. I know. Isn't that funny? All right, cool. I knew that was coming. Jen and I were talking earlier about it. I said, all right, I'm going to just go through the rate your music list because I think that album's rated pretty high for the year. And I said, all right, Tom Waits, that's a guarantee. I'm telling you right now it's going to be on his list. My next one was interchangeable with this one in terms of placement. And I'm wondering if you know the next one as well, but we'll see.

01:22:51I'm not the stairway to 11 clairvoyant.

01:22:55If you picked that one out, if you saw this one on the list, you had to have gone, oh yeah.

01:23:00But maybe you didn't see it and you just didn't.

01:23:02Maybe I didn't. Yeah, it's possible.

01:23:04All right. So my turn for my last one.

01:23:07All right. So it's 1985 and this was bound to happen.

01:23:10I saved this for last because I didn't want to throw it out first.

01:23:13And then, you know, I didn't know if someone was going to pick some of my albums.

01:23:16I wanted to make sure I got at least one of mine in.

01:23:19So not realizing I took two potentially I don't know maybe TR you didn't have

01:23:24Fates Warning on your list I'm not sure I did not or it was in my honorable mentions

01:23:28No all right that's not cool no that's good I'm glad so I'm guessing you guys I know TR does not particularly care for this band

01:23:38Epic Fail but that's okay and George I don't know if you like this band either and you not knowing also Epic Fail but that's okay

01:23:46So this album was hugely influential on me. And at this time when it came out, it's not my favorite album by this band. It's a smidge below, but it's not my favorite. Is it your third favorite? No, it's my second favorite. Okay. All right. Yeah. And it should come to no surprise to T.R. George. I don't think we've ever talked about this band before in the past, but my final pick is Marillia Misplaced Childhood.

01:24:17Incredibly influential for me. When I heard this for the first time, I was just like, blah, blah, blah, blah. Repeat that. Wow. If you don't know. So this has come up and I am drawing a blank as to who mentioned this to me in the Instagram messaging. Can be sure it wasn't me. George, he's from Ireland. He's a listener on the podcast. Thank you. I apologize, Derek. I could see the name.

01:24:46from our messaging, but I couldn't get it out of my mouth. He mentioned about me talking about this album. And I was like, yeah, those guys aren't going to go for that. This is when we were doing the albums. I said, yeah, they're going to be miserable. I mean, I would like to torture them, but I'm not in the mood to listen to them trash this album. So I'm glad I got saved for this, because this album is, I think, one of the great prog albums of the 80s, for that matter, of all time.

01:25:16It was called Neoprog, because that's what old fart, grumpy prog guys were calling prog from the 80s, because it didn't sound like their majestic golden era prog from the 70s. And really what they were saying was, is our bands that were so cool in the 70s sound like crap now in the 80s, so we're going to crap on your albums. Because let's be honest, Yes was not Yes anymore. Rush was not becoming, it was no longer Rush anymore.

01:25:46Genesis was certainly not Genesis anymore. Pink Floyd, I actually like Momentary Lapseries. I don't care what anybody says. Yeah, it's awesome. But they still were not Pink Floyd from the time. The Moody Blues were certainly not what they were from whenever they started in like 1932 or something. They seem like they've been around forever. Anyway, this is basically one song, although divided into 10 parts, is really just a song that's played in childhood.

01:26:16But you probably have heard the song Kaylee at some point if you're a prog rock fan. That song was actually very big. It was on MTV all the time. And they almost broke big after that song. They were close. And then the band imploded and they got a new singer. And my journey with them has been very spotty since then, unfortunately. But this album was just so important to me. When I heard it for the first time, I saw them. They actually came and played at the Fillmore

01:26:46and I stood right in front of Stephen Rothery, the guitarist, who had a very almost Pink Floyd-ish sound. And the way he played like David Gilmour, he doesn't sound like him, but his guitar came out like David Gilmour's guitar came out when he soloed. And the thing about Neoprog, which I absolutely hate that phrase, because it was still prog music. It's just Neoprog is trying to put a pejorative on the style, because it wasn't like the bands from the 70s. They were certainly way more prog than those bands were. The difference

01:27:19They might have had a little more pop aspect to some of their songs. And they had a lot of sense. A lot. And there's no doubt that Merlion did early on. But I don't care if you have a roadblock on Neoprog. If you want to check it out, this is the first album to go to first. You may not be your favorite if you get into this subgenre of prog, but it's outstanding. Like I said,

01:27:46The songs, Kaylee, Lavender, those are two very big songs that have a lot of airplay. But those aren't even, those are probably my least favorite songs on the album. I mean, the song Blind Curve, Childhood's End, Heart of Loathean, these are incredible songs fronted by the large, larger than life personality and larger than life person himself in size, Fesh. I can't say it. That's actually Fesh. I don't know how they say that in Scotland. It's pronounced fish, but they say it's slightly different over there. They say a lot, slightly different.

01:28:16over there. Not the band P-H-I-S-H. This fish was around before that fish. Yes. You know, and this fish doesn't like, all right, Hippie Jam Fest 2005. You know, that's not that fish. This is the prog fish that is drunk and he's, you know, reveling in his regret throughout the whole album, you know? Yes. So. Cue up Grendel, right? No. So the problem with the early Merlian stuff is it's derivative of Genesis. There's no doubt. 100%.

01:28:46The First Albums.

01:29:16You name it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Who does that? Anything? Oh, yeah. Derek Riggs. Yeah. Wow. I know. But he's done all the kind of modern maiden stuff. Yeah. So. Hmm. Okay. T.R., what you got? All right. So we're at the end here, and I wasn't sure how many we were actually going to do. We can do as many as we want. We write the rules. So. So. I'm going to.

01:29:46I actually had two more, but I'm going to actually have technically three, but this is a twofer. So I put two live albums together in this twofer. One is the Scorpions worldwide live. The other is Iron Maiden live after death. Oh yeah. So these two live albums really kind of, I mean, I know that some may disagree.

01:30:15I think Live After Death is the best live album all time hands down. I know John would disagree with that. I know he will too but I don't care it's my it's not the best it's my favorite let's put it that way. Yeah. I disagree. But yes. You can't disagree about it being my favorite. No. That's the best live album ever. That's why I changed it to favorite instead of best. Third favorite. It's my eighth favorite maiden live album. And trust me out of 50. That many. Yeah. A real live dead one and a dead one.

01:30:45Dead Live Real One. I don't know. I can't even keep track. This should remain dead. Yeah. So to me, I'm, while I appreciate the, was it the Donington album? Hammersmith. Peace Over Hammersmith. No, he's talking about Donington from 92. Oh, yeah. Bruce's last show. Or no, Adrian's last show. Yeah. Or no, he wasn't even in the band that. I think he just showed up in the encore. I take it back. Okay. Yeah. But anyway, to me, this is exemplary

01:31:15of both of these bands kind of almost at the height of their popularity. You could argue, you know, maybe Maiden was more popular. They've, you know, retained a certain level of popularity throughout their careers and continue to be highly popular today. At this time, you know, back in 85 or when this album came out, it was the 84 tour. You know, they probably couldn't have been bigger at that time. So live after death, Churchill's speech, Ace is High, Two Minutes to Midnight, The Trooper,

01:32:01But those last few songs are bonus tracks to the original release, though. It's not the same show. Yeah, no, I know. It's, yeah, they kind of mishmashed them a little together. But what an album, right? What a set of tracks from

01:32:16And then we look at the Scorpions, Worldwide Live, and we're talking six years after Tokyo Tapes, and it feels like a totally different band, right? And they are, because, I mean, no Uli, and they're really not playing any of the early stuff anymore for the most part. Yeah, so what are they doing? They're doing Countdown, Coming Home, Blackout, Bad Boys Running Wild, Loving You Sunday Morning, Make It Real, Big City Nights, Coast to Coast,

01:32:45Holiday, Still Loving You, Rock You Like a Hurricane, Can't Live Without You, Another Piece of Meat, Dynamite, The Zoo, No One Like You, Can't Get Enough Part 1, Six String Sting, and Can't Get Enough Part 2. So really two bands kind of at the height of their popularity playing their biggest hits. So I just had to kind of lump these together in a twofer here for live albums. We really didn't talk too much about live albums other than that Sting live album. But anyhow,

01:33:15That's my pick for this, a twofer. Nice. Both great albums. Yes, they are. The only reason I brought up about those extra bonus tracks is on the original release of Live After Death. It's only missing, I believe, two songs. One of which is the guitar solo. Right, the Lost for Words. I don't think that was, I think that was part of the London show. Okay. If I'm not mistaken with Murders in the Room work. However, they don't include the oncoming

01:33:45of Sanctuary, which you can get.

01:33:49But it always kind of burned me up.

01:33:52I was like, man, there's not that much more to add.

01:33:54You could have a complete show, which at that time bands didn't release.

01:33:57Not only did they not release complete shows, they didn't release them in order.

01:34:01And that show is actually in order of how it was played, minus what's missing from it.

01:34:06And then you got that.

01:34:07There's two bonus discs.

01:34:08There's one that has those three songs you mentioned, Lost for Words, which is a great version.

01:34:13There's no, what does it say?

01:34:15There's no vocals on this or whatever. He said, oh, bollocks, whatever. Lost for words. And he had storms off the stage. He goes, oh, like that. And then they kick in. And then there's the bonus disc from the remastered versions, which have all those other great songs that weren't played. Because that's from Long Beach. And that's where we got the scream for me Long Beach from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Became really famous at that time. Still famous. Okay. It is. That was the first time we had it on tape.

01:34:45It's the second best live Iron Maiden album of all time. Jay will agree with me. Beast over Hammersmith rules the world of Maiden live albums. The discography of Maiden live albums, which is a lot. Yeah. Okay, then. My last album. What could it be? From England. One of the early goth bands. I never heard of this band before.

01:35:15First and Last and Always, the Sisters of Mercy. Uh-huh. Called that one earlier today, too. Yeah. You didn't seem to indicate that. I didn't want to blow your thunder. You didn't have to say what it was, but you could have been, I have a guess. The girls are here today. Show me some mercy. Give it away like that, kind of. Yeah. So, all right. So, First and Last and Always, the first Sisters of Mercy album.

01:35:45Released in 1985, go figure. This is one of the greatest and one of my favorite goth bands of all time. I believe on one of the earlier episodes, I talked about the album after this one, Floodland, which is my favorite album by them. And this one's a little different. It's not as heavy. It's a little more jangly, a little more traditionally goth, perhaps. But it's got some classics on here. You know, the title track is good. Black Planet is good.

01:36:15Mary Ann is a big tune. They play that one live when I saw them not that long ago. But Walk Away is a good one. And my absolute favorite from this album, No Time to Cry. God, such a good song. You know, I got to see these guys after so many years, a year or two ago. And it was just a horrible disappointment because it sounded like garbage. But it was still cool to see them. What was the problem? Andrew.

01:36:45is not confident in his vocals.

01:36:48And so they're mixed really low and you can't really hear him.

01:36:53And the backup singer,

01:36:55the bass player was not mixed low in the mix.

01:36:59So he was basically singing the songs and he wasn't that good.

01:37:04I mean,

01:37:05you know,

01:37:05backup vocals,

01:37:06just kind of got a bark,

01:37:07you know,

01:37:08depending on the music and such.

01:37:10So,

01:37:11and the other thing was that they didn't have real lighting.

01:37:15either. The only lighting was ever like on the floor. So you couldn't really see them. It would like come up and illuminate them sort of, which is, I don't know, maybe it's a goth thing. Yeah. I was going to say, you know, that does sound kind of goth, right? Yeah. Like you can't really see them. They're like probably like in silhouette or whatever. Yeah. But you know, can't see him, can't hear him. Why am I here? Yeah. So it wasn't the best show, but it was at least nice to be able to see them.

01:37:45say, well, I saw him. And by them, I mean him, Andrew, and everybody else's, you know, replacement people as far as I know. But anyway, first album, Sisters of Mercy album means a lot to me. Not as much as the next one, but still great album. I guess I probably should have picked stuff that maybe more people would have liked so we could have conversations about it. But I'm just going to sit here and say my piece and then walk away. Hey, George, man, if it's your third favorite album, you know, just to do it, you know, go for it.

01:38:14This is my second favorite. No, wait. It's my third favorite Sisters of Mercy album. All right. Good. There's only three. Maybe we need to have a future episode of our third favorite album. Yeah. At some point, I'm going to have to bring in the Vision Thing album, which is their third and last album. So. Yeah, but I'm glad we didn't pick a lot of the usual suspects. I mean, I'm going to talk about a lot of usual suspects. I'm going to beat you to death with honorable mentions. Yeah, I've got quite a few myself here.

01:38:44All right. I only have two. Are we doing them now? Yeah, do it. All right. I only got two because maybe I have three. Let me see. I got three. I can't believe I can't make them quick. There's one. I can't believe you didn't mention. Maybe it's a, maybe it's a honorable. I was trying to pick stuff. I just didn't want to, I wanted to kind of bounce around the, the genre map, to be honest with you. So, and I knew that, you know, rush was going to be on at least two lists. I did not realize the sting was going to be

01:39:14All right, so real quick. My first one is a metal album. It's an insane metal album. And it is probably the first true ever, which you could consider a progressive metal album. I stand by this. I will fight to the death that this is the first one ever. I don't care. Anybody says it was not Queensryche. It was not Sabotage. Step aside bands. You got some cool stuff, but you are not the first progressive metal band ever. So my first honorable mention is Watchtower, Energetic Disassembly.

01:39:44That album is insane. Every band at that time, like Dream Theater, wanted to be Watchtower. They only put out two albums and an EP, and sadly, we were denied insaneness for a long time. But that album is just unreal. It's progressive metal and technical thrash metal all wrapped up in one big insanity bow. My next one, this is another neoprog band. This is IQ The Wake. They're from England. Same kind of trajectory as Marillion. I think the Marillion for this year,

01:40:14is much better than this one from IQ, but I do like this album, The Wake, a lot. It's good. And then an album that we talked about before, I did not want to bring it up unless I needed a safety save. I haven't mentioned it yet, but this album was absolutely massive, Tears for Fear, Songs for the Big Chair. That's the one I was waiting for. I mean, I was wondering, maybe since you covered it on a previous episode. I wanted to save it in case you guys were picking off my albums, like, what the hell's going on here? You know, like Vince Lombardi on the sidelines when the Packers are losing. What the hell is going on here?

01:40:44There's actually a bit of him saying that. It's really fun. So that's the last one. We've talked about that. You know, that's definitely a big player for the year. You guys have heard that. And there's tons of other ones, but they're not good albums. Like Rubber Plants album from this year is not great. Is it Shaken and Sturred or whatever it's called? I can't remember. But it had Little by Little, which is a cool tune. Yeah. But the rest of the album's kind of like, ugh. There's other ones. I don't want to mention them. There's some metal albums that George is going to mention.

01:41:13It's my number one favorite from this band. But I'll wait till George mentions it. I don't know that I will. Oh, wait. Oh, maybe it's that one. Yeah, you better. All right. CR, what you got? All right. So there's kind of a semi-long list here. My first honorable mention is Pete Townsend's White City, a novel. Excellent. I used to listen to that so much. I was never a big Who fan.

01:41:43and never even really a big pete townsend fan but i really like that album and the songs on all the songs on that album are really good is that what's that's what's give blood right yeah give blood brilliant blues face to face hiding out secondhand love that was that tune was just angry crashing by design which is another really good song i'm secure white city fighting and come to mama yeah i believe simon phillips is on drums on that album no let my love open the door that is not the

01:42:14Two albums before that or one album before that? Okay, so that's one. The next one up is one that I thought that George might mention and he might still, but I played the crap out of this album and I think you guys are all going to look, I can't wait for the side eye I'm going to get for this. Dokken, Under Lock and Key. Nah, that's alright. I like Dokken up through the album after this one. Yeah, and that's kind of like, this was,

01:42:43I think this was I mean I don't know to me like this was probably one of their best albums

01:42:51because it just all the songs were catchy and really good and Don Dockin really still sounded pretty decent

01:42:57this was their breakout album I'd say I'm not a hair metal guy but I like this album I like

01:43:03I like the previous album better yeah tooth and nail was very good yeah I would agree with that

01:43:09Those two are definitely good back-to-back albums. So now I'm going to go through a bunch of other songs that are all over the map. I'll start, though, with another metal album or semi-metal album, Hard Rock. And this has been mentioned by George previously as, I think, his favorite album, Dio's Sacred Heart. Yes, that was going to be coming up. That is my favorite Dio album. So I'm sorry to steal that from you, George, but that was on my list. Not my favorite Dio album, but certainly,

01:43:39You know, it's Dio. You gotta list it. Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms. I was waiting for you to. Yeah. That was one I thought you were gonna pick. So here's the thing about this album. I like the album. I can't stand Walk of Life. I just cannot stand that song. I love that song. Thank you, TR. That song pretty much ruined that album for me. Although, there's so much on that album. Like, all the kind of mellow songs. So far away, is that on there? Yeah, that's on there. But like, some of the songs,

01:44:09in the middle of the album that are just kind of often overlooked are the ones that I think I like the best. One World is one of my favorite songs off that album. And I think the what was the river song on that album? I can't remember. Across the River or something like that. But anyway, yeah, so Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. The next one is another hard right turn. Sade Promise. I am a sucker for Sade. I own every

01:44:39she's ever done. I love her so much. I heart her very much. So anyway, not her best album, but I pretty much like everything she's done. And that was her second album after her first, which had Smooth Operator and all that stuff on it. And then I got a twofer on Osric Tentacles because they released Earp Songs and Tantric Obstacles in 1985. Not their best albums, but I love it.

01:45:07I mean albums were they even officially released outside of tapes they were now they they released

01:45:12them later but yeah I mean where they were all cassette releases yeah you know gave out at shows or

01:45:16whatever but had to be part of that hippie commune to get them that's you couldn't shower for three weeks before you could be allowed to have I can't believe you dropped Earp songs on the podcast dude don't you know Osric tentacles I love those guys I've got like 19 Osric tentacle albums I know I like them I mean granted you only need

01:45:37That's true. It doesn't hurt to have them all. And that's another band I have everything by. And another right turn here, Run DMC, King of Rock. Word. These guys, I really liked Run DMC. The first couple albums they did, it was kind of novel at the time. I remember, you know, it's, wow, what's this rap stuff, you know? And these guys were just, I don't know. I really liked them a lot. And, you know, there was kind of a,

01:46:07They were badass, but they were also funny. They didn't take themselves too seriously. And I don't know. I just, I like their rhymes and the whole thing. Yeah. And then I want to just go through a quick list of honorable mentions that are not albums, but are singles. So 1985, what's more eighties than Miami vice and the Miami vice theme smugglers blues. And you belong to the city all came out in 1985.

01:46:37And those were huge. I always enjoyed all that music. Another song that was a soundtrack song, Hour of Love by Huey Lewis. Oh, yeah. It's one of my favorite songs by them. And then, of course, David Lee Roth, Crazy from the Heat EP came out with California Girls, Just a Gigolo and Coconut Grove. So those are the honorable mentions. And then I have a couple of shout outs.

01:47:07So I list these because I know I have friends that listen to this that will be like, dude, how can you forget this? And so I'm doing this just for them. So for my friend, Matt Higgins and Bill Parker, Weird Al, Dare to be Stupid. Oh, yeah. I saw that in 1985. And for my buddy, Bernie, Adam Bomb, Fatal Attraction. Don't know that one. Yeah. So Adam Bomb, A-D-A-M, Adam Bomb.

01:47:37Right. It was it's I don't know. It's like pretty straight ahead. Semi hair metal sounding. So anyway, if you want to check out a kind of hair metal style thing from 1985, Adam bomb fatal attraction. You turn me off at hair metal. Yeah, I know. It's not one of my favorites. I did that for Bernie. He loves it. Yeah. More to come. Oh, no. All right. So I'm going to break this up into three categories. First, we've just got

01:48:07the rock music stuff that hasn't been mentioned yet. John Fogerty's Centerfield, a little more baseball talk. Ooh, yeah. Yes, good album. Phil Collins, No Jacket Required. Sorry, but I had to do it. I'm shocked you didn't have that on your list, George. Yeah. Tom Petty, Southern Accents. Mm-hmm. Hearts Self-Titled. John Mellencamp's Scarecrow. In Excess Listen Like Thieves. Good album. ZZ Top's Afterburner. Yeah, how did you not have that TR on your list?

01:48:36That was the other one I thought he would have. It's just not one that, I don't know, that album did not do it for me. Sleep inside my sleeping bag. What's that mean, I wonder. I don't know. So then there's a couple, there's two hair metals and a classic, hard rock. The hard rock one, ACDC's Fly on the Wall, not their best album. Got a couple okay songs on it, though. It's okay. Motley Crue's Theater of Pain. At the time, I was confused when this came out that they turned hair metal at this point.

01:49:07But I still like some of the songs.

01:49:09You know, it's got Home Sweet Home, Smoking in the Boys Room,

01:49:12a couple others that are actually pretty good.

01:49:14And then one of my favorite hair metal bands of all time, Rat, Invasion of Your Privacy.

01:49:20Jay just mentioned this one on the Metalheads the other day.

01:49:22They're more, I know they get lumped in, but I'm with you guys.

01:49:27They're a little harder than just hair metal, I think.

01:49:29They're better.

01:49:30At least the first early stuff, the first few albums.

01:49:32Yeah, you know, it's not as poppy.

01:49:35His voice doesn't lend itself to Poppy. It's commercial. But it's, I don't know, it's different. What is his name? Warren Demartini, the guitarist? Yes. Very good. So damn good. Yeah, he was good. All right. So now I'm going to hit you with the heavy metal update. I've got 13 albums left. All the ones I didn't include because they're... Two metal. But also, this is probably what I was listening to the most at this time because this was right in my Death to False Metal and everything.

01:50:05else phase do it do it three of the four big four had albums this year anthrax had armed and

01:50:14dangerous which was my first anthrax album and is just incredible album madhouse armed and dangerous i can't even

01:50:22think of some of the other songs but great album slayer released hello waits yes my favorite slayer

01:50:30Yes. Not my favorite Slayer album, but a good Slayer album. Megadeth's Killing Is My Business. Is that the one you were talking about? Yeah. Jen asked me, I was going to put down the list. I was like, eh, it's not that good. No, I don't think it's all that great. It's not that good. But it's worth mentioning. Nice blueprint, but not there yet. One of my favorite metal albums of all time and my favorite album from this band, Exodus Bonded by Blood. Awesome.

01:51:00So good. Yeah.

01:51:02Bang a head against the stage and metal takes its place bonded by blood.

01:51:05Come on.

01:51:07All right.

01:51:08John might be a little surprised by this one,

01:51:10but this was my first album by this band.

01:51:13And I still love this album.

01:51:15And that is sabotage power of the night.

01:51:18Wow.

01:51:19Really?

01:51:20Yeah.

01:51:20I got that in the,

01:51:21you know,

01:51:22cheap bin.

01:51:23Yeah.

01:51:24It's good,

01:51:25but it's so slick sounding for their material at that time.

01:51:29Yeah.

01:51:30It's okay.

01:51:30I can't believe this band existed in 1985, but it did. And that's Korthon and Bathory with The Return. Wow. Jeez. So that was a pretty extreme album for 1985. Yeah, it was. Pre-death metal, first wave black metal. A little more on the commercial metal side, but I love this album nonetheless. Fear No Evil by Grim Reaper. Kind of a quirky metal band.

01:52:00Never quite got there do I don't think but

01:52:04Next up Lizzie Borden's Love You to Pieces

01:52:07Kind of got cheesy later on

01:52:09I don't know maybe it was cheesy now too

01:52:11But the first couple Lizzie Borden albums

01:52:13Up through Menace to Society

01:52:15And maybe the one after are pretty good

01:52:18Then there's the album

01:52:19That started it all supposedly

01:52:21But maybe not because they were thrash

01:52:24Possessed Seven Churches

01:52:26Also pretty darn heavy

01:52:28For 1985

01:52:29That's to be mentioned. Yes. Not as heavy, but Wasp's second album, The Last Command, when this came out, I mean the first album came out and then this album came out. I was just a massive Blackie Lawless Wasp fan and I still dig these tunes. Next we have the first full-length album from Celtic Frost to Megatherian, followed by Creator's Endless Pain, another stone-cold German class.

01:53:00And finally,

01:53:02Hyrax,

01:53:03Raging Violence,

01:53:04a band that a lot of people don't listen to,

01:53:06but they're still around today and they make good music and the early stuff's pretty cool.

01:53:11So nice.

01:53:13What did I miss?

01:53:14Actually,

01:53:14we all missed one,

01:53:16but it's not a metal album.

01:53:18That's my simple minds.

01:53:20Once upon a time.

01:53:21Oh,

01:53:22I might've skipped over it,

01:53:24but all right.

01:53:25You guys know alive and kicking.

01:53:26Yes.

01:53:27Once upon a time,

01:53:28Ghost Dancing, all the things she said, that was pretty big back then. I think there was the Talking Heads album out this year too, wasn't there? Which was when they were like really commercial, I think. Yeah. I remember seeing that on the list. And she said, or when she was, or whatever. That video kind of annoyed me because it was on all the time. Like all time. All right. Nope. Go. Oh, I was to say it was the album Little Creatures.

01:53:58Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. All right, well, that's our lists from 1985. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you found some stuff that you might want to check out. But wait, there's more. TR, you mentioned wanting to talk about shows. Yeah, so been to a bunch of shows lately, so I thought we'd talk about what kind of concerts we've been going to. None on my account, so. Okay, well then, yep, so.

01:54:28A couple of weeks ago, John and I went to, and Jen went to see Sammy Hagar in concert and down at Jiffy Lube. And before I talk about that, I'll talk about the opening act, which was Loverboy. Nice. Whom I have never seen live in concert. And I really enjoyed it. I thought they sounded really good. Mike Reno's voice sounded really good. The band sounded good. They rocked. They played all the hits that you would want to hear from them.

01:54:58Were they working for the weekend? Yeah. And I was loving every minute of it. So well played. Be careful. We're turning TR loose. Yeah. Be careful. It's right. The kid's hot tonight, man. I tell you. So it was surprising how many of those songs that I'd kind of forgotten about and then they launched into them and it's, oh yeah. So, so that was fun. And then of course, Hagar's show, which he's touring with Michael Anthony from Van Halen.

01:55:28Joe Satriani and then Jason Bonham on drums. And he's kind of paying homage to Van Halen, but also playing some of his own solo stuff. And of course, when you have three quarters of Chicken Foot, you got to at least play one of those songs, which they did. He played Bigfoot, which I've always liked the Chicken Foot albums. I kind of was disappointed they didn't play more since, you know, the Van Halen stuff that they played, I felt was really,

01:55:58because I haven't heard a lot of those songs in years. Like literally some of them I haven't heard since 1986. And it was just such a, it's kind of revelatory in a lot of ways for me because I had kind of forgotten a lot about that music. I mean, I, even though 5150 is a great album, I just for, I think I played it so much when it came out that I got burned out on it. And then I just,

01:56:28If I'm going to listen to Van Halen, I'm going to reach for fair warning or something. So listening to that stuff again, it was kind of a revelation like this stuff is really good. This is joyous. It's joyous. It's inspired. It's energetic. There's a great light that comes from it. And so it was a real celebration of that time frame and that music. And it was really great to hear stuff off of 5150, stuff off of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.

01:56:57Things that, you know, the big songs from that time that were really cool. And I forgot to mention that one of the guys on stage was Ray Thistlethwaite, which is Joe Satriani's keyboard player. And he does vocals and then played keyboards. So he rounded out the sound, which was really nice. And, you know, I thought the band sounded terrific. Hagar is what, 78 or somewhere around there?

01:57:2678. Yeah. And while he doesn't have all the highs anymore for him to sing the way he did and put that kind of energy out, I felt was really good. I thought it was a great show. I came away just really feeling, wow, I really need to kind of reevaluate some of that music and listen to it again. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. I will say that I was, I wasn't disappointed, but I wish he would have played more of his solo stuff because the tour is billed as the best of

01:57:56all worlds.

01:57:58And it was really,

01:58:00we're going to play a lot of Van Halen and then I'll throw a few of my songs in here,

01:58:03which was a little bit of a bummer because he played some of the songs I wanted to hear.

01:58:10Obviously.

01:58:10I mean,

01:58:11it was cool to hear him play heavy metal again.

01:58:13I,

01:58:13the very first show I ever saw where I was cut loose,

01:58:1713 years old at the cow palace again in 1982.

01:58:24I've mentioned this on the other podcast,

01:58:26with my friend Alex Mason. We actually went into the Cow Palace on our own at 13 for the Standing Hampton Tourney open with heavy metal. So it was cool to see that again. Man, I wish he would have played at least one or two songs from the 70s to kind of give it that whole best of all worlds. The Van Halen stuff was cool. Yeah, and he did play the Montrose tune. He did, which I was not surprised that he played that, but I was surprised that he played that, if that makes sense. Yeah. I can't believe he's

01:58:56He's playing Roth stuff. It's the same stuff that he's always played with Van Halen. When they were touring, they always played Jump, Panama, Ain't Talking About Love. Wow. And actually, you know, Michael Anthony sang most of Ain't Talking About Love anyway. Yeah. So those were common songs that he's always sang. And so I was kind of happy he just stuck to those if you're going to do those songs, which I would rather he didn't do them, to be honest with you.

01:59:25Maybe Do Ain't Talking About Love, so My Atlante could sing a song. Yeah. And then do some other stuff. I will say what I did really like is they only did two of the cheesy songs. Why Can't This Be Love? Which is like semi-cheesy. It's a good song. Yeah, but When It's Love, it's a cheese song. It's a love song. That's the only one they did. They didn't do Dreams. Yeah. I don't think he can hit the notes on Dreams anymore. And what's the other one off of 5150?

01:59:54That's a cheese city. It's another ballad-y type song. They stuck to a lot of the harder songs. Yeah. You know, which was kind of cool. I mean, it was cool to hear 5150 again. I mean, the very first time I ever saw Van Halen, which was not with David Lee Roth, it was with Sammy Hagar. I'll give you one guess where I saw him. I bet it was the Cow Pals. Cow Pals. Yes, it was. They opened with Good Enough. And so that, when they started with that again, I was like, oh, yeah, okay, cool. Yeah.

02:00:24The Second Time I saw them, which was not at the Cow Palace, it was at Candlestick Park from Monsters of Rock. They opened with Summer Nights. So it was, yeah. So they, it was cool because what did they do, Tiara, off of the Balance album? Oh, Seventh Seal? Yeah, Seventh Seal was cool to see. I mean, I was like, okay, yeah. So there, he called it a deep track and I guess it is, but I already knew it. But it was cool to see him do that because, again, they didn't necessarily have to play all the date for the most

02:00:57Yeah, I wasn't disappointed by that. Because I never really cared for a lot of what was on that album. That would have been cool to see Mind All Mine. That would have been cool. Wait, but wasn't that on For Unlawful? No. That's the opening track of O.E.2. Yeah, I would agree. That was probably one of the best tracks on that album. I know you don't like the last song, Sucker in a Three Piece, because you don't like the lyrics, but I always liked the music to that song. I always thought it was cool. Yeah, and I'd probably have to listen to some of that stuff and not listen to the lyrics, because

02:01:25Yeah, there's still a little bit. It's just wrecks it. It's stupid. Yeah, like some of that stuff is just terrible, like dumb. Yeah, so but it was cool. I enjoyed it. I had a good time. I know Jen really liked it. And she said to me during the show, she leaned close to me, says, now I know why you go to see Joe Satriano all the time. He's awesome. He killed it. Like, oh, man, he sounded so good. And he looked like he was having a good time up there. I think he just enjoys playing with Sam and Mike.

02:01:54Because, you know, I think those guys have a chemistry. And you could just tell everybody was having fun and they were having a good time up there. And that really shined through. So that was cool. Yeah. And my biggest cheer was when Joe Saturani did Satch Boogie off his Servant the Alien. That was cool. I cheered loudest for the non-Sami Hagar song. I'm glad he got a minute to do his own thing. So that was cool. Yeah, so very good show.

02:02:23And then shortly after that, I went up to Hershey, Pennsylvania with my buddy Matt, and we went and saw Def Leppard, Journey, and Steve Miller Band. Nice. And I actually had never seen Steve Miller or Def Leppard in concert. And first of all, Steve Miller is going to turn 80 years old this year. And he did a tremendous job. Like, he sounded great. He played great.

02:02:53His band was outstanding. And he played all, you know, the songs you would expect to hear. And George, you know, spoiler alert, he did play Abracadabra. You know, Steve Miller's on the new Eminem album where they do. Yes. So he talked about that. Yeah. It's like a messed up version of Abracadabra. Yeah. So he talked about, and I, you know, he actually dedicated this song to Eminem during the show because, and I know, so he said Eminem called him and asked him if like,

02:03:23He could use the song and he said, I want to hear what you're going to do with it. And he played it for him and he said, yeah, okay, that's cool, whatever. I'm good with that. And so he basically gave his blessing. And you have to know that gave him a bump, right? I don't know if they charged anything to do that, but obviously when... You got to pay royalties on it. You got to pay royalties for that, yeah. But anytime something like that happens, people are like, oh, what's the original song? And then they go back and they find that.

02:03:51And I'm sure it gives it a big boost. So I'm sure he was very pleased that a whole new generation of people might be finding out about him, even if I can't imagine anybody wouldn't know about him. But, you know. Yeah. I was actually listening to the Eminem album the other day. Don't ask me why. I was in a, hey, let's listen to something completely different. And that had just come out. And I was listening to the album. And I'm going, wow, this guy wants to offend everybody. And I think that's kind of the point of the album.

02:04:21He's trying to get himself canceled and kill off his slim shady persona, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. But he's playing this song. I think it, I forget which one it is. It might be Houdini. I don't know because I'm just making that association. I know there's a song called Houdini and making the association with the magic thing, but he's like playing it. And you know, the words aren't the same until the chorus, but like the music's going on. I'm like, man, it sounds like abracadabra. And then he's like, Abra, Abra. I was like,

02:04:51What? Because it's a much more offensive song than the original. I haven't heard it. It's really only the chorus. Okay. Okay. I'll have to check it out. So, yeah. So, Steve Miller was great. I'm really glad I got to see him because, you know, I don't know how much longer he's going to be doing this stuff. Although he looked good and he was, you know, he seemed like he was doing great up there. And then, of course, Journey. I'll tell you what. Neil Sean can still rip it, man. That guy.

02:05:21is just incredible on guitar.

02:05:23And he's in his 70s or just turned 70 and he's still tearing it up.

02:05:29And I like that, you know, the times that I've seen them, they pick, they sometimes pick kind of songs you wouldn't expect them to play or non-mainstream songs that they obviously play the mainstream songs.

02:05:40Don't get me wrong.

02:05:41But like they, they played like singles, like the Vision Quest soundtrack song, you know, Ask the Lonely.

02:05:47And then what's the other track that was on that?

02:05:49I can't recall right now.

02:05:50But anyway, you know, they played a couple of songs that like, aren't like their biggest hits by any stretch. The fans, it was like, you know, throwing something to the longtime fans. So that was kind of cool. They played Line of Fire in that set, didn't they? They did. And they actually, so they played Lights and then they did this extended jam in the middle. And during the solo, Neil Sean played parts of my hometown from HSAS, which I thought was super cool because most people probably had no idea, you know, what that was.

02:06:19Yeah. Which, you know, I love that album so much. And it's a shame, like, you know, that stuff goes unplayed, but not really, because he does break out some of that stuff in his solo, you know, stints when, you know, when he's playing some of these songs. So yeah, they were, and Arnell sounded really good. And just, you know, they were great. I mean, Journey, they're just, they've been around forever, and they've got so many great songs. And then Def Leppard came on, and they killed it too. And it was cool to see Vivian Campbell.

02:06:49I had never seen him you know I didn't you know I didn't see Dio back in the day when he was playing with them so I you know I didn't get the opportunity to see him then but it was cool to see those guys again I think I said this and when we did Pyromania when like we brought that up yep I've never you know been a really super big Def Leppard fan I'm familiar with all their songs you know because we all hear them on the radio and and certainly are familiar with everything that got huge after like hysteria and everything else

02:07:19But they sounded really good. And the vocals were all really good. And the guitars, everything, the show, the live, you know, the lights, the screens, everything was really impressive. So I'm glad I got to see them, too, because that was a band that I thought, you know, you know, I can't believe I never saw these guys, you know, like for that, some something didn't come up where I went to see them. So yeah, I still haven't seen them. Wow. Okay. You owe it to yourself because they do put on a really good show.

02:07:48And Joe Elliott sounded good. I was impressed. He still sounds great. That was good. And then just last night, I was in Wilmington, Delaware and saw a couple of sludge do me kind of bands. One called, so opening up was a band called Horse Burner, which I've always liked. And then the main act was Restless Spirit, which was also really good. I had not been all that familiar with Restless Spirit.

02:08:17I went mostly for Horse Burner, but Horse Burner, both of these bands just put out new albums. And Horse Burner's new album is kind of a departure from their previous albums that were kind of more kind of doomy, sludgy kind of stuff. And it's, I don't know, it just seems a lot more intricate and a lot more, I don't know, interesting. They've evolved. So anyway, there are new albums called A Voice of Storms.

02:08:46And then the Restless Spirit album is called After Image. And both of those bands put on a great show. It was a Tuesday night, so there weren't a lot of people there. But they did an awesome show. I enjoyed both of those. And then tomorrow, I'm going to see a band called Caspian down at 930 Club in D.C. And looking forward to that. I've been seeing them for many years. They're a post-rock band. Is that Caspian with a K? No. C. C. C. C-A-S-P-I-S.

02:09:16P-I-A-N. Okay. Not the one I'm thinking of. Post-Rock band and mostly instrumental. They do have a couple of songs with vocals, but not a lot. And so I'm looking forward to seeing them. They've been around for almost 20 years, I think. I think this is their 20th anniversary tour or something. So I'm looking forward to that. So a lot of shows on the docket. Not a whole lot in August, but pretty soon, I guess in September, John and I will be going down to Prague Power. Oh, yeah. Making the annual trip.

02:09:46Yeah.

02:09:47Number 21, I think for me.

02:09:51Hard to believe.

02:09:52Unbelievable.

02:09:53September, I've got the boss rescheduled from last year.

02:09:57Springsteen in Baltimore.

02:10:00I think it's Baltimore, DC.

02:10:02One of those.

02:10:03Okay.

02:10:04But I got a, I have a show also that I went to with on my own.

02:10:09So last week on Thursday, I drove down to Richmond and I went and saw this is metal.

02:10:15now, mind you, but it was proggy metal. How can you do that? Because it were two death metal bands. I went and saw Tumult and Horrendous down in Richmond. I did not go to Baltimore. Yeah, I kind of thought, I knew you were going to see this tour, but I didn't know where you would see them. As I told the bass player Alex from Horrendous, who we've had the pleasure of hanging out with a little bit over the years in different venues and different places, like a decibel.

02:10:45Metal Beer Fest. It's like, why did you come here? I was like, because it took me less time to drive to Richmond for my house, which is 100 miles away than it would for me to drive to Baltimore, which is 50 miles away. Traffic. Although, I don't, Richmond's pretty darn hard to get to. I mean, 95 is no, you know. That's because I took the express lanes past Fredericksburg from Virginia. So I knocked off 40 some miles and then the next 60 weren't too bad, believe it or not. And I

02:11:15I was going to take Friday off and I was like, the hell with this? And I got my butt up and in the car by seven. I made it back home. I was working by nine o'clock. Wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I worked, ended up working almost a full day because I was like, man, I'm not burning these hours. I need this because we're, I have a file that's due for work to your project. That's coming to an end in August. So I was like, well, I can get some time in. I mean, I got home in 90 minutes from Richmond. Wow. I, again, expressed,

02:11:46And it's summertime. Come on. If that was school year,

02:11:50that's taking me two and a half hours easily.

02:11:54So of course I also drove like 80 miles the whole way. Yeah.

02:11:58So a lot. And I was driving slow compared to everybody else. Yeah.

02:12:03No more, no shows. So the product power. Yeah.

02:12:08Pretty empty. Other than the boss,

02:12:10I only know of two shows for the rest of the year.

02:12:13One of those is iron maiden with TR.

02:12:15Yeah, you better. And the other one is Manowar in Brooklyn, New York with my friend Keith D. Nice. I got a bunch of shows in October. Yeah. Yeah, you and me are both hitting a few, right? Yeah. I don't have one of them on my calendar and I got to add it. Yeah. Damn it. We got the Beat Tour, Amorphous, and Opeth. When is Amorphous again? That's the fifth of

02:12:45October, Saturday.

02:12:47Oh my God.

02:12:48I'm doing two shows.

02:12:50Yeah.

02:12:50Two, two in a row.

02:12:51Hate that.

02:12:53Getting too old for that.

02:12:55Yeah.

02:12:55We're getting to be old.

02:12:56And these are like, you know, general mission type shows.

02:12:58Although no, the beat tour has seats.

02:13:00So that's good.

02:13:00Seats for all three shows.

02:13:02Dude.

02:13:02What are you talking about?

02:13:04Not amorphous.

02:13:05Oh yeah, that's right.

02:13:05We did.

02:13:06Yeah.

02:13:07I forgot.

02:13:07We got the VIP seats on the side there or whatever.

02:13:10How's that soundstage?

02:13:11Yeah.

02:13:12Yeah, soundstage. Thank God. That was pretty brutal. And then Opeth later in the month, and if you're an Opeth fan, they apparently are announcing the album on Friday and dropping a new song Friday. Oh. Okay. I was not tracking that. That's good. I think they released a new picture of themselves today, and they look like they're from the 1920s in the picture. They cleaned up, so I'm thinking that maybe this will be different.

02:13:42This will be their jazz big band album. Who knows? Michael will do whatever he wants, that's for sure. Yeah. So anyway, we deviated from the rock stuff a little bit there. It's all rock and roll. That's right. Still rock and roll to me. And we like it. Yep. Alrighty. Do we have anything else? I think that's it. Quite a bit. Yeah. There's a lot to chew on. All right. It's been another fun episode, guys. Yep. Thanks for being here.

02:14:12And we'll see you next time. Yeah. Hopefully our listeners, you find some albums you never thought of from 1985. 19. 19. 1985. All right. All right. Rock on. Peace. See ya.

02:14:52Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok