Richie Sambora – Stranger In This Town
When this came out, a mate purchased the cassette and I dubbed it off him. At that point in time, I had taped a few interviews from Sambora and the music video for “Ballad Of Youth” on VHS tapes.
I purchased the CD many years later.
And it’s a great snapshot of an artist trying to find himself as a solo artist, unsure of what the future holds.
Ratt – Invasion Of Your Privacy / Iron Maiden – The Number Of The Beast
I couldn’t be bothered to write the full album title, so I called it “666”.
“Live After Death” was my first exposure to Maiden, and eventually I would get the back catalogue, first as copies from a copy and eventually the real albums.
For Ratt, they became a video clip band for a long time, and if someone had an album that they wanted to share, then I would dub it.
But in this case, the Ratt fan I had in my local, was a culture locker up. He didn’t want to share.
Lucky for me, my cousin Mega, always had excess funds that he used on metal and rock music purchases. But unfortunate for Mega, the excess funds didn’t come from his hard work, it came from his Dad’s hard work, who didn’t trust banks, so he kept the cash at home and Mega found the stash and started spending it, bit by bit, until his Dad did a stocktake and found $700 missing. Mega had some serious bruising for about 6 weeks.
That to me sums up the heavy metal lifestyle.
Racer X – Second Heat / Racer X – Street Lethal
While the band was a great drawcard on the LA club circuit, the major labels didn’t come knocking. Paul Gilbert was losing interest in the band and the other members focused their anger on vocalist Jeff Martin. So it was no surprise that the band dissolved. But what came after was so much better.
Paul Gilbert teamed up with Billy Sheehan and formed Mr Big and got his major label deal.
John Alderete and Bruce Bouillet teamed up with John Corabi and formed The Scream, released an excellent debut album, only to lose their small indie deal after Corabi joined Motley Crue. John Alderete would end up on a major deal with “The Mars Volta” many years later but Bruce Bouillet never got his major label deal.
Jeff Martin replaced Eric Singer on drums in Badlands even though he was the vocalist for Racer X and was on a major label for the “Voodoo Highway” album.
Scott Travis joined Judas Priest for the excellent “Painkiller” album and got his major label deal.
Sometimes, the pieces don’t fit and in Racer X’s case, it didn’t really work out, but when they were free to fly, all the members proved to be valuable additions to other bands.
destroyerofharmony 