While the chances of ever seeing the original VH line-up put aside their egos and assorted differences are beyond slim, it is impossible to argue how freakin’ monstrous this band was at the height of their career, before DLR became circus ringleader and wearer of ass-less chaps.

Exactly when VH reached their height is debatable. Was it the Women & Children First period, or just after VH II had come out? I personally feel that, while there is some remarkable material from both periods, nothing beats Van Halen when they were hungry and had something to prove. Thus, I’m unleashing some live cuts from late ‘77, when Van Halen was just beginning to take the Sunset Strip and the rest of the planet by storm.

Many have written off VH as the first hair metal band and, sure, they spawned a thousand knock-offs that came from all parts of the US and plugged up Hollywood throughout most of the 80’s. Personally, I have always thought that VH were more punk than a lot of people give them credit for being. David Lee Roth a punk rocker? Eddie Van Halen a punk guitarist?

Now, just hear me out.

Did any other band play more by their own rules than VH? From the very beginning, they were writing the template for what started out very punk, but, in the hands of imitators who could only approximate VH’s style, would become the embarrassingly cookie-cutter hair metal scene.

To this day, I will argue that VH’s first album is just as punk rock as that first Ramones album. Is it a crime that VH were a whole lot more fun to party with?

All tracks are available to DONATE TO CHARITY SLICE readers.

Track listing:

1. On Fire Rehearsal Instrumental
2. Voodoo Queen Rehearsal Instrumental
3. Atomic Punk Rehearsal Instrumental
4. Ain’t Talking Bout Love Full Band Rehearsal
5. On Fire Full Band Rehearsal

6. On Fire
7. Feel Your Love Tonight
8. Runnin’ With The Devil
9. Atomic Punk
10. Little Dreamer
11. Somebody Get Me A Doctor
12. Ice Cream Man
13. Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love
14. Eruption
15. D.O.A.
16. You Really Got Me

All 24 tracks from this Japan-only release will be available to CHARITY SLICE readers.

Stay tuned.

1981 may not seem to be the most memorable year in rock history, but, in hindsight, the ratio of great bands all occupying the Earth at the same time was pretty impressive. Perhaps the most singular collection of noteworthy “new wave” acts can be found on Urgh! A Music War, a movie that was comprised of performances from the likes of The Police, Devo, Oingo Boingo, Joan Jett, Pere Ubu and others.

The accompanying soundtrack album is amazingly solid and, despite the diversity on display here, not at all lacking in continuity.

The CD, long out-of-print, saw more than a few noteworthy acts dropped from the original 2-LP set, including stellar performances by Athletico Spizz (who contributed one of my personal fave tracks, “Where’s Captain Kirk?”), Toyah Wilcox, and UB40. It does a credible job, however, of collecting some of the best of punk, new wave, reggae, and synth-pop/techno acts of the time. All tracks listed below are available to DONATE TO CHARITY SLICE readers.

Track listing:

1. Driven To Tears - The Police
2. Back In Flesh - Wall Of Voodoo
3. Enola Gay - Orchestral Manoeuvres
4. Ain’t This The Life - Oingo Boingo
5. Respectable Street - XTC
6. We Got The Beat - Go Go’s
7. Total Eclipse - Klaus Nomi
8. Foolish I Know - Jools Holland
9. Ku Klux Klan - Steel Pulse
10. Uncontrollable Urge - Devo
11. Puppet, The - Echo & The Bunnymen
12. Tear It Up - The Cramps
13. Bad Reputation - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
14. Birdies - Pere Ubu
15. Down In The Park - Gary Numan
16. Shadow-line - The Fleshtones
17. He’d Send In The Army - Gang Of Four
18. Homicide - 999
19. Beyond And Back - X
20. Model Worker - Magazine
21. Sign Of The Cross - Skafish

I’ll never forget first hearing The Cult’s UK “Revolution” EP. I was instantly transfixed by the regal, yet organic sound of this band at a time when synth-pop and goth was Britain’s main export.

Granted, there were slight goth elements on the band’s Love album, from which “Revolution” was taken, but those who took the time to delve a little deeper found a band that drew upon psychedelic and blues influences.

By the time their next album, Electric, was released, the band all but disassociated themselves from the goth/dance rock tag and gone in a decidedly smarmy hard rock direction. Produced by Rick Rubin, Electric was the result of a band even more enamored by American rock & roll than U2 had been during their Rattle And Hum period.

While their next album, Sonic Temple, arguably continued their transformation into a top-flight heavy metal band, most agree that the band soon lost the plot. Subsequent albums meshed half-baked material with lackluster production and saw declining sales. The band then disbanded in the mid-90’s, only to reunite in 2000 to release Beyond Good And Evil for new label, Atlantic.

After once-again going their separate ways, singer Ian Astbury made more than a few eyebrows flinch skyward by joining Doors Of The 21st Century for a couple years of steady road work.

Thus, it was with some surprise that The Cult reformed and began a US tour this month. While their glory days may be long behind them, they made a couple truly solid albums that I list among my favorites of the time.

Here are some mp3’s from the first show on the tour.

Track listing:

Lil Devil
Sweet Soul Sister
Peace Dog
Revolution
Spiritwalker
Rise
Rain
Fire Woman
Wildflower
Edie
Electric Ocean

We all have our guilty pleasures, right? I know a guy in a death metal band who is a huge Carpenters fan. I like my 80’s music cheesy. I bought that Len record because I liked “Steal My Sunshine”, knowing full-well the album would suck. It sucked three times harder than that. I dig that OMC tune “How Bizarre”, but…oh, you get the point.

Anyhoo, Butch Walker is one of my less guilty pleasures. While his albums are usually pretty mixed affairs, I know he’s a talented dude and want to see him put one over the fence one of these days.

The following tracks (from a 2005 Japan tour and a 2003 hometown acoustic show) are available to DONATE TO CHARITY readers:

FULL BAND:
Radio Tokyo
Uncomfortably Numb
#1 Summer Jam
Last Flight Out
Mixtape
Best Thing You Never Had
Lights Out

ACOUSTIC:
Sober
Promise
Race Cars And Goth Rock
Diary Of A SF Valley Sexx Star
Mixtape
Don’t Move
Best Thing You Never Had
Cigarette Lighter Love Song
Freak Of The Week (with members of Marvelous 3)

Due to popular demand, the 2003 In Color tracks are being made available through March to all DONATE TO CHARITY SLICE readers.

To sweeten the pot, I am also making available three additional tracks from the same sessions to Charity Slicers:

I’m Losing You (the Lennon tune, 2003)
Fan Club (2003)
Loser (2003)

For those not in the know, before Butch Walker was the producer de jour that he is these days (producing and co-writing with artists from Midtown to Sevendust to Avril Lavigne), he was singer/guitarist for the Atlanta-based power trio, Marvelous 3. The band is most remembered for scoring a moderately successful Modern Rock radio hit in the mid-90’s with a tune called “Freak Of The Week”.

Prior to that, they had issued their second album, entitled HEY ALBUM!, on an indie label and garnered some hard-earned regional radio support that led to a major label bidding war. They then re-recorded the entire record, added two tracks, and then released this new version of HEY ALBUM! as their debut effort for Elektra.

Copies of the indie label version of the album have since become quite the collector’s item. I know this from personal experience, having sold two copies of this CD on eBay for a combined amount of nearly $300.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the promotional push for HEY ALBUM! is that Elektra released promo copies containing the indie version of the album to the press despite absolutely no intention of releasing this version. The brief bio contained in the liner notes for the CD stated:

“The ten songs on this sampler are NOT the actual versions on Marvelous 3’s HiFi/Elektra debut. Each song featured on the disc will appear on a newly recorded and mixed full-length album. In addition, there will be two new tracks not included here.”

Huh?

Needless to say, copies of the Elektra sampler containing the indie versions of the HEY ALBUM! tracks have also sold on eBay for quite the pretty penny.

Now, of course, all tracks from this hard-to-find release are available to DONATE TO CHARITY SLICE readers.

Track listing:

You’re So Yesterday
Freak Of The Week
Until You See
Let Me Go
Every Monday
Indie Queen
Lemonade
#27
I Just Wanna Go Home
Over Your Head
Fastboat
Cold As Hell
Mrs. Jackson

In homage to the band who penned the song from which this blog takes its name, we are making available the rough mixes of Cheap Trick’s 2003 studio re-recording of their legendary 1977 release, In Color (And In Black And White).

For anyone who has bothered paying attention, Cheap Trick have gone on-record quite often over the years as being dissatisfied with this particular album - most notably Tom Werman’s overly sterile production.

Compared to the dark and lacerating production on their self-titled debut effort, released only six months prior to In Color, the difference in sound is quite startling. But, truth be told, the suits at Epic wanted a radio friendly Cheap Trick and it was Werman’s sole responsibility to deliver, which, arguably, he did.

That the album failed to generate any interest at radio, or retail for that matter, is just another prime example of a typical label meddling in hopes of scoring big on the charts, only to achieve quite lackluster results (the album peaked at #73 on the Billboard album charts).

This is not to say that In Color was a bad album. Song-for-song, this is by far the best album Cheap Trick ever released: I Want You To Want Me (albeit in a remarkably neutered version that differs strikingly from the live version that became a worldwide smash hit), Southern Girls, Downed, Come On Come On, Oh Caroline, Clock Strikes Ten, etc. portray a songwriter in guitarist Rick Nielsen and band firing on all cylinders.

History, of course, tells us that this album was a huge hit in Japan and that the band released a live album from their whirlwind Japanese tour that reprised many of the very same tracks from In Color in splendid, high-octane glory. By doing so, they, for all intents and purposes, made In Color obsolete. Those who ran out and bought In Color after discovering the band via Live At Budokan were in for a rude awakening. The pristine production, wherein all instruments seemed to be noticably separated within the mix, lied in direct contrast to the bigger-than-life wall-of-sound that was Live At Budokan.

Thus, in 2003, Cheap Trick still felt the need to right the “wrong” that was In Color 1977 by re-recording the album with indie producer Steve Albini.

Did they accomplish what they set out to do? You be the judge.

Hello There
Big Eyes
Downed
I Want You To Want Me
You’re All Talk

(the following tracks are available to DONATE TO CHARITY SLICE readers:)

Oh Caroline
Clock Strikes Ten
Southern Girls
Come On Come On
So Good To See You
I Want You To Want Me (alternate version)
Can’t Hold On (2003 studio version)
Oh Caroline (alternate version)