Marc Bolan & T.Rex - '74-'77 Tame My Tiger

I thought I was done with Marc but apparently not. This is the first of a two volume set covering the years 1974 through 1977. This volume covers the non-LP singles and B-sides. Volume two will cover the outtakes.

I've mentioned my dissatisfaction of this period of Marc but the singles, for the most part, fared better than the albums. I often refer to this time as Marc's "lost" period. He seemed to be chasing trends rather than setting them. Heck, Dreamy Lady b/w covers of Do You Wanna Dance? and Dock Of The Bay were credited to T.Rex Disco Party!

Many of the tracks prominently featured Gloria Jones as a co-lead singer or main backing vocalist and her organ is on display high in the mix. The last two tracks were credited to Big Carrot but were T.Rex songs with Gloria as the main or co-vocalist.

Side One
01 Satisfaction Pony
02 Dreamy Lady
03 Do You Wanna Dance?
04 Dock Of The Bay
05 London Boys
06 Laser Love
07 Life's An Elevator

Side Two
01 To Know You Is To Love You
02 City Port
03 Dandy In The Underworld
04 Tame My Tiger
05 Celebrate Summer
06 Big Carrot - Blackjack
07 Big Carrot - Squint Eye Mangle

Reality Notes

Aside from a few oddball covers and some questionable production choices, this is a pretty good collection. '74 - '76 saw Marc's popularity slip. He started an affair with Gloria before splitting from his wife June, culminating in the birth of his only child before his death in '77. He was also at his unhealthiest having gained weight and was drinking heavy. His albums from '74 and '75 certainly have some highlights but fail to stack up to his earlier works. Futuristic Dragon in '76 was better as was his health. '77s Dandy In The Underworld gave us the Marc we all knew and Loved.

I can't promise that the images I used for the covers are timeline correct. I chose them because I liked them. The pic used here looks more to be from '72 (you can usually tell from the hair) and I'm pretty sure the one I used for the next volume is from '73. Anyway, I wouldn't be the first to use an out of time frame image on a T.Rex cover. Anachronistic images on Bolan releases is almost a rite of passage.

Melancholia - Volume 15 - Praying

I still have a few of these to go yet.

In my senior year of high school I became a bit of a holy roller. While I wasn't one of those "in your face" fundamentalists it did affect my everyday life, including my music listening habits. I started buying more Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and less secular music.

This phase of my life only lasted about five years before moving on and exploring other religions but I discovered lots of music that I still listen to occasionally. While I still listened to a lot of rock and hard rock it now had a religious overlay.

This comp is focused more on the softer and worshipful tracks but came out of that period. Of the artists represented here there are some that I still listen to not because of the message but because I found them to be true song craftsmen. The one common trait among those are that most of them started out with some success in the secular industry. Many of these artists also appear on other Melancholia editions.

Obviously Bob Dylan falls into this category. Amy Grant, while best known as a CCM artist, dabbled for a while in the secular market with some success. Phil Keggy first tasted fame in the band Glass Harp which had a large fanbase and opened for acts like The Allman Brothers. Dion is of course of Dion and the Belmonts fame with early rock hits like Runaround Sue, The Wanderer and Abraham Martin and John. Brothers Terry and John Michael Talbot were the core of the 70s country rock band Mason Proffit who had at a few minor hits including Two Hangmen. Stryper was an unusual crossover act. paying their dues as a secular band then breaking through as a CCM act while still appealing to a large secular audience.

Larry Norman is still one of my favorite artists. Larry came out of the band People! who had a hit with the song I Love You. Larry is considered the a pioneer and godfather of Jesus music releasing his first album in 1969 on Capitol Records. What always struck me about Larry is that I never felt that his songs were just last weeks sermon set to music. His music had humor and honest lyrics. He sang about his life and loves as well as his beliefs. Even at his preachiest he always felt honest and genuine. Unfortunately his discography is a bit of a mess. Over the years when many of his albums were reissued they were remixed with many tracks changed with additional recording or even re-recorded which makes it hard to figure out his original intentions. There might be a Larry post sometime in the future.

Audio quality varies as there is an abundance of vinyl rips. Especially with the more obscure stuff. Enjoy.

01 Lamb - The Sacrifice Lamb
02 Bob Dylan - I Believe In You
03 Steve Camp - Farther and Higher
04 Amy Grant - All I Ever Have To Be
05 2nd chapter of Acts - I Fall In Love-Change
06 John Fischer - Beggar
07 Randy Stonehill - Find Your Way To Me
08 Phil Keaggy - What A Day
09 Dion - Only Jesus
10 Ray Hidlebrand - Didn't He
11 Stryper - All Of Me
12 Fireworks - Someone's Got a Hold of Me
13 Malcolm and Alwin - Tomorrow's News
14 Terry Talbot - Lamplighter
15 Petra - More Power to Ya
16 Marijohn - Where I'm Going
17 Chuck Girard - Think About What Jesus Said
18 David and the Giants - Noah
19 John Michael Talbot - Cast Down Your Cares
20 Larry Norman - UFO
21 Keith Green - Make My Life A Prayer To You

KISS - End of the Road - Not Live

I had other plans this week but this one needed to go up instead. This is part of my now ongoing Not Live series. This was thrown together at the last minute so there might be some volume matching issues. I'll do an update if needed.

Last week KISS played the first show of their End of the Road tour. I'm not going to get into any of the "debates" that the different fan factions are having. For me this is the time to be celebrating one of my favorite bands as they say good night one more time to their fans.

KISS was my first musical obsession. My brother brought home the first KISS album in 1976 and by the time Destroyer came out he had all of the back catalog. My first KISS LP purchase of my own was Love Gun in 1977. 1977 was also when we first saw them live on the Rock and Roll Over tour which still featured the Destroyer stage set and costumes.

I had originally planned on making studio versions of their first two live albums (might still post then in the future) but someone posted the setlist for the first show of the new tour online and I decided to recreate that instead. It's a great setlist full of classic KISS from all eras. While a little light on the non-makeup era and a bit heavy on tracks from the first album and Destroyer, really, in the end the only song I could do without is Beth. It will be interesting to see if the setlist changes throughout the three year tour. Enjoy.

01 Detroit Rock City
02 Shout It Out Loud
03 Deuce
04 Say Yeah
05 Heaven's On Fire
06 War Machine
07 Lick It Up
08 100,000 Years
09 God Of Thunder
10 Cold Gin
11 Psycho Circus
12 I Love It Loud
13 Hide Your Heart
14 Let Me Go Rock 'n' Roll
15 Love Gun
16 I was Made For Lovin' You
17 Black Diamond
18 Beth
19 Do You Love Me
20 Rock And Roll All Nite

Reality Notes

I took a couple of liberties with the song sources. I chose alternate sources for three songs. Detroit Rock City and Black Diamond are the Double Platinum mixes. Detroit Rock City is minus the intro/outro vignette. It's cool when you listen to the album as a whole but gets a bit annoying after repeated listens in a mixtape setting, just get to the song already. Black Diamond, which closes the first album, has an effect at the end of the tape slowly slowing down until it stops. This goes on for at least a full minute and like the vignettes on Detroit Rock City. can get frustrating on repeated listens. The Double Platinum version does not do this.

The last alternate version of a song is I Was Made For Loving You. For those of you that do not know, the original version from the Dynasty album was KISS' disco hit. In 2008 KISS released the album Jigoku-Retsuden, at first only in Japan, then later included as a bonus disc with Sonic Boom. The album consisted of 15 re-recorded classics. For the most part the re-recordings are faithful to the original but I Was Made For Loving You was done more in the style of how they were playing the song live. With tougher guitars and stripped of it's disco beat the song is much more listenable if not actually enjoyable.

I assembled the cover using elements from the KISS Online landing page announcing the tour.

REO Speedwagon - Not Live: You Get What You Play For

A while back I posted a Peter Frampton comp that recreated his Comes Alive! album using the studio versions. I was wondering if other live albums could be given the same treatment. Here is the first of those efforts.

In the 70s, double live albums were all the rage. For many artists, their live albums were their breakthrough moment when the general public took greater notice of them. Some breakthroughs had long lasting results pushing the band into the upper elite of rockdom, others were brief flashes of stardom that gave them their 15 minutes of fame before being sent back into near obscurity.

REO Speedwagon fell somewhere in between. Their live album gave them enough of a push to see them through at least two albums that would spawn several chart hits.The hits would slow down as they seemed to push their MOR ballads over their more snappier rock tracks. By the early 90s they were once again playing clubs and the festival circuit. They still tour and record but only the singer Kevin Cronin and keyboardist Neal Doughty are from the classic line-up and the keyboardist being the only founding member. Gary Richrath, the guitarist from the classic line-up who sparred many times with Cronin over creative control left the band in 1989 and passed away in 2015.

01 Like You Do
02 Lay Me Down
03 Any Kind Of Love
04 Being Kind (Can Hurt Someone Sometimes)
05 Keep Pushin'
06 (Only A) Summer Love
07 Son Of A Poor Man
08 (I Believe) Our Time Is Gonna Come
09 Flying Turkey Trot
10 157 Riverside Avenue
11 Ridin' The Storm Out
12 Music Man
13 Little Queenie
14 Golden Country
15 Roll With The Changes
16 Time For Me To Fly

Reality Notes

In the 70s it seemed everyone and their grandma released double live albums. Some were good, some were not so good and a few were amazing. REO's was good but I'm not sure about amazing. I think the downside of these albums is that if this was the band's breakthrough then the live versions of their songs become the definitive versions over the studio versions. This tends to minimize the importance of those studio albums that came before. Though the die hard fans will seek out anything and everything related to their favorite band the casual fan will stick with the live album or the greatest hits package.

Personally I prefer the studio over the stage. Even as a musician I prefer recording over performing. While I enjoy the immediacy and 'in the moment'-ness of performing live, the studio has an additional creative layer to it. Painting with sound as the cliche goes.

For REO, their live album was where it all came together. They had struggled through their six previous studio albums, riding out personnel changes that included three different singers. Kevin Cronin joined the band for their second album and quit while recording their third. His replacement lasted two more albums before Cronin rejoined them for the sixth album. The setlist for the album draws from four of the six studio albums. Completely ignoring albums four and five which Cronin had no input into, being recorded during the time he was away from the band.

So this comp features three different singers. Although the band has released some tracks from the third album that feature Cronin's voice before they were replaced I chose to stick with the officially released versions. As a bonus, similar to what I did with the Frampton comp, I included the hit songs from the follow up album.

I used the original album cover as a template for the cover I made. Turned out nice I think.