My blog on HubPages.com - Reviews of Music, Movies, etc.

Fat Freddy wrote:

^^ all of the early S.W. catalog has been reissued over the past few years, cplhicks -- go git'em!

As a Christian Metal enthusiast (and intrepid defender!), I can say this is a good time to be alive.

I'm off from work this week so I'm trying to dig into my backlog of half finished entries and push em out. 
First one: a dive into my ancient cassette stash uncovered this hilarious Christian ministry tape from 1987, hosted by anti-rock evangelists Dan and Steve Peters.


https://hubpages.com/entertainment/The-Peters-Brothers-Interview-Stryper-Whose-Side-Are-They-On-Review

...#2: a belated review of the new Queensryche album, The Verdict.


https://hubpages.com/entertainment/Queensryche-The-Verdict-Album-Review

I think The Verdict is the strongest with Todd, I don't find any filler songs.

First new entry in a couple of weeks:

So hey, it only took me three decades to accept the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen.



https://spinditty.com/genres/Reconsidering-Van-Hagar

Man, you ducked out before they came on at MoR '88?? You missed a hell of a show! Well, at least from other accounts I've heard.

Here's my own rundown of the Hagar era (I love talking about this era):

-5150: my gym/walking/jogging/exercise album. See, I've figured out that one thing I love above all else in music is a tightly-written song. 5150 is FULL of them. Ed's Steinberger guitar on Get Up is some of the craziest guitar wizardry I've ever heard (the strings on the guitar keep their pitch as the whammy bar is used, an insane concept that hasn't seen much action otherwise). Dreams is such a soaring power ballad and a refreshing dollop of emotional sincerity for the band. Sam's delivery is really dynamic on 5150 and has to be his best performance. It's a phenomenal record that I happen to enjoy more than 1984 (even though I'm still more partial to the Roth era). A solid A.

-Live without a Net: This one counts, and I'd argue that it deserves a place on CD as an official live album, but the DVD works too. A far more palatable document than Live Right Here Right Now, this is one crazy concert and it shows with the audience. You can tell how excited everyone is with this new incarnation of VH. Sammy is a purely unhinged frontman, climbing the catwalk, performing extreme feats of cardio while maintaining sustain and pitch, and even taking some spotlight from Ed's guitar to his own (he's really not too shabby). I'm still a little annoyed that he was able to bring his own songs over for virtually every tour since they DON'T FREAKING FIT (Eagles Fly? WTF?), but at least it's only a couple tracks. Oh and Ed is a smoldering god in this video. Hoping that someday we see this concert in HD. A+!

-OU812: Okay so you hit the nail on the head about the production, it is rather crummy, especially without Mike's bass. Even worse is Sam's party lyrics--they were rather childish on 5150 but at least fit the mood; here they just come across as obnoxious. I think what really kills this album is the opener. Mine all Mine is an overlong maze of pretension without an exit point. It's a truly weird tune that sets things in motion the wrong way, especially considering the second track to follow the weirdness up with is a ballad (a DAMN good ballad, at least). Add to that the Little Feat cover--the most boring thing they had done up to that point--and the meandering nonsense of Source of Infection, it all adds up to a rather incomplete and shallow piece of junk. There are moments--I still find Feels so Good to be an uplifting, if dated (dat organ!), joint--but it all gets drowned in half-assed songwriting. C+

-FUCK: So this was my first VH album I ever bought. Cassette, somewhere around 1994 I think. It still smokes to this day and deserves way more recognition. Finally we have Ed ditching most of his experimental pretensions and going for the throat with a definitive hard rock sound. The darker mix on this album is just neat, big enough to fill Roman colosseums with amazing separation and fluidity. The only weak track would have to be The Dream is Over. It's rather depressing and sounds more like a leftover soundcheck jam. Otherwise, tracks like Runaround and Poundcake are sheer headbangers, and I'll never forget the first time I heard the great and moving "Right Now." Their commercial peak, and sad to say the end of VH as I saw it. The beginning of the end, I suppose. A-

-Live Right Here Right Now: Recorded at the Selland Arena in my hometown of Fresno! This is a really silly live record that has mostly tracks from FUCK and sounds re-recorded to hell and back. Seriously, it's not too hard to hear the studio involvement here. I dug it a lot as a kid and it works as background noise but is largely meh. I've always called the video version of this the greatest music video ever shot. It really is just that--a slickly overshot mish-mash of two performances edited together. Interestingly enough this was an era where it was considered fancy to shoot live gigs like music videos--similar to Ozzy's Live and Loud and another one by Bon Jovi that came out right after New Jersey, wardrobes change abruptly between shots and the damn cameras refuse to stay still. It's a very ADD experience, but still holds some entertainment value thanks to Sammy's UNBELIEVABLE skin-tight pants--gross!. I do love their performance of Won't Get Fooled Again here. B-

-Balance: This sucker came out on my birthday, but it was sadly the worst birthday present I think I ever received. Sorry everyone but I'm not a fan of this gloom 'n doom album. Almost every song sounds waaaay too serious, and when they do try to pick up the vibe on tracks like Amsterdam it doesn't work because we're already depressed! Plus the snappier tracks sound forced. You could hear how much the band was starting to drift through here. In fact the only song I really care for is Feelin', a power ballad that totally closes the book on this chapter on the band. It's interesting to listen to for that reason alone. It's like Hagar is saying, "I'm fucking done with this." What a rough time for these guys, and it shows in the most melancholy ways in Balance. Side note: The other defining moment here is Doin' Time, where we have Ed wanting to be all mad scientist again by dropping random shit in a piano for near two minutes and calling it a solo. So much for returning to a straight sound on FUCK. Things were really going haywire at this point. D

And of course there's Humans Beings, the drone strike of a song that took out the band for good. It's okay, I guess, along with Respect the Wind, but oddly enough I hated Balance so much by that point that my interest in new VH had been waning. Even when I saw Twister in the theater I was surprised that I didn't get all excited when those tunes queued up. To me FUCK was the last album Van Hagar ever released, and Balance was nothing but a Baluchitherium in the room.

Sorry for the rambling here but I do love talking Van Halen. Another killer write-up, Keith!

Quote :

Man, you ducked out before they came on at MoR '88?? You missed a hell of a show!

I never said I was a smart kid. Of course, now I wish I could reach back in time and smack my younger self!

I actually enjoy OU812 more then 5150, little less poppy and I even like Mine All Mine, a little different but for me it works. Only song I don't like is the cover which comes across as uninspired.

I also enjoy Balance and find it funny you don't like the lyrics on OU812 and then don't like when they get serious on Balance. Meh, opinions.

Dark Horseman wrote:

I also enjoy Balance and find it funny you don't like the lyrics on OU812 and then don't like when they get serious on Balance. Meh, opinions.

LOL They both have terrible lyrics! But seriously Sammy's lyrics have always irked me to some degree.

The whole Sammy-fronted VH irks me; to me it sounds like a band just looking to churn out top 40 hits.  It all sounds the same; to me it sounds like cookie-cutter, formulaic crap with no musical soul.   I like Sammy Solo and VH w/o Sammy much better but good grief I hate Van Hagar!

It's a new installment of "Forgotten Hard Rock Albums!"


The Ramones' "Halfway to Sanity" is one of those albums that gets no love except from the obsessive, gotta-have-everything fan boys like me.

https://hubpages.com/entertainment/Forgotten-Hard-Rock-Albums-Ramones-Halfway-To-Sanity

...and another new one! (I'm off from work this week so I'm gonna try to bang out a few more)...

"Forgotten Hard Rock Albums" looks back at "Van Halen III," the lone VH album to feature Gary Cherone (formerly of Extreme) on vocals.


https://hubpages.com/entertainment/Forgotten-Hard-Rock-Albums-Van-Halen-III

Nailed it. Too many of the songs overstay their welcome.

How about doing one for Godzilla - King Of the Monsters?

I'd love to hear your impressions of it. Opinions seem to be all over the place.

tohostudios wrote:

How about doing one for Godzilla - King Of the Monsters?

I'd love to hear your impressions of it.  Opinions seem to be all over the place.

Haven't seen it yet, but it's on the never ending list... I'll get to it eventually, haha.

Anyway, new entry: kicking off the Halloween season with a look back at the Misfits' "Walk Among Us."



https://hubpages.com/entertainment/Misfits-Walk-Among-Us-Album-Review

Trivia Question: Know what movie that album cover is from?
(I was disappointed your review didn't reference it; that's a classic monster).

tohostudios wrote:

Trivia Question:  Know what movie that album cover is from?
(I was disappointed your review didn't reference it; that's a classic monster).

According to my good friend Dr. Wik E.Pedia, it's a collage of images from two movies:

Quote :

The cover for Walk Among Us features flying saucers from the 1956 film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, as well as the "Rat-Bat-Spider" creature from the 1959 film The Angry Red Planet.

Boo!

You had to look it up. A B-movie nerd like you should know that the rat-spider is from Angry Red Planet; it's absolutely the only thing anyone who has ever seen that otherwise terrible film remembers about it.

tohostudios wrote:

Boo!

You had to look it up.  A B-movie nerd like you should know that the rat-spider is from Angry Red Planet; it's absolutely the only thing anyone who has ever seen that otherwise terrible film remembers about it.

(shrug) I've always been more of a '70s-'80s movie guy (occasionally dipping back to the 60s)...I'm not very well versed in 50s stuff.

Fat Freddy wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Boo!

You had to look it up.  A B-movie nerd like you should know that the rat-spider is from Angry Red Planet; it's absolutely the only thing anyone who has ever seen that otherwise terrible film remembers about it.

(shrug) I've always been more of a '70s-'80s movie guy (occasionally dipping back to the 60s)...I'm not very well versed in 50s stuff.

But this is a CLASSIC:


For one thing, how do these idiots not see a giant rat body over their heads when they decide to hack off a "tree limb"?

I'm burnin' off a couple of vacation days from work this week, and the weather's crappy... so I'm finishing off a few new HubPage thingies. (stay tuned for another one later today, if all goes according to plan)...

Following up on my Halfway to Sanity review from a few weeks ago, here's another mid-career Ramones album that was totally ignored by everyone except ultra-fanboys like me:



https://hubpages.com/entertainment/Forgotten-Hard-Rock-Albums-Ramones-Animal-Boy

Those post "essential 8" Ramones albums are so fun to me. Definitely not in the same category as their first chunk of albums, but they are just good fun rock n' roll. Halfway to Sanity is my favorite of the batch and I also love Acid Eaters.

When I first bought Acid Eaters way back when, I didn't realize they were all covers. The fact that a few of the songs were obvious covers didn't mean anything since they cover stuff all the time. As usual, they do the originals Ramonesy justice.

Forgot to post this one the other day.
It might seem weird to file a Metallica release under "Forgotten Hard Rock Albums," but in my case at least, I totally forgot I owned this CD until fairly recently!



https://spinditty.com/genres/Metallica-Beyond-Magnetic-EP-Review

Been sick as a dog the past few days so I've had time to noodle around on a few classic album reviews...


https://spinditty.com/genres/Savatage-Streets-A-Rock-Opera-Review


https://spinditty.com/genres/Overkill-From-the-Underground-and-Below-Review


https://spinditty.com/genres/Savatage-Dead-Winter-Dead-Album-Review

I enjoy DWD more then Streets though Ghost In the Ruins is one killer song. Still listen to these semi regularly.