By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

METAL CHURCH – THE DARK (1986)

Nearly four decades ago, the Metal Church album The Dark was my initial entry point with the band. Time has faded exactly how I came to first discover the album but all those passing years has not dimmed my love of their 2nd studio album.

In fact, each time I end up listening to it, I think my love and appreciation of The Dark only grows. The powerhouse lineup of David Wayne on vocals, Kurdt Vanderhoof and Craig Wells on guitar, bassist Duke Erickson and drummer Kirk Arrington slam their way through 10 absolutely electric numbers taking no prisoners and really only slowing the pace down a bit for one song that is still one of the band’s best tracks.

The album’s opening track “Ton of Bricks” is a monster song and is credited as being written by all five members of the band. I love the fade in as the song starts and then the drum lead-in as the song then blows up in full sonic attack mode. There’s a razor sharp fast and viciously delivered vocal turn from Wayne and the guitar work here is phenomenal. As Wayne proclaims “I’ll hit you with a ton of bricks”, you can see why I think this song should always open the band’s live shows and amply demonstrates just the kind of assaulting metal sound Metal Church brings to the table.

The song “Start the Fire” is keyed off a killer guitar line that runs throughout the song. Wayne’s vocals continue to be a perfect distillation of the vicious power he had going for him during this period.

In fact, when I first discovered the album, it was Wayne’s vocals that were the first thing I focused on. I’m a vocalist and lyric guy, so I hadn’t yet matured enough in my musical appreciation to get into songs as a whole. And I just loved the slice-your-throat nature of the vocals.

“I kill for no reason, my heart too stone cold”…the song “Method to Your Madness is a killer track (no pun intended). Fast paced with a cutting vocal line and this softer brief moment in the middle of the song that serves as great counterpoint to the rest of the song while still enhancing the track as a whole.

I mentioned that Metal Church had one song where they weren’t going on a full pedal to the floor rocking style. And that’s of course the song “Watch the Children Pray”. I know it gets described as their power ballad, but that is a woefully inexact term to apply to this song. That’s because while most “power ballads” dealt with themes of love or what have you, “Watch the Children Pray” doesn’t have any of that. As the song opens, the music establishes a feel that has long made me think of it as an opening of a gothic horror movie or book. And there’s certainly no love theme in the lyrics. While the main lyrical passages are a bit slower in delivery, it’s only a matter of degree because as a whole, the song is just freaking HEAVY throughout. I like the way Wayne’s vocals switch back and forth between the more gravelly attacking keen and the cleaner vocal that comes in at certain points to give the song a bit more of a dramatic feel. But still, this is not what I would truly consider a power ballad in the least.

You want an utterly under-appreciated song from Metal Church? I think you can take the Side One closing track “Over My Dead Body”. From the first notes of the song, it is just relentless. If you stood directly in front of a speaker stack as the band played this song, you’d come away feeling like you had been hit by 1,000 fists. The music’s pace never lets up as it continues to hit you with one sonic wave after another and the almost maniacal vocal turn from Wayne only further endears the song to me.

The 2nd side of the album opens with the album’s title cut is DEFINITELY a short version of a horror movie with Wayne embodying someone trapped in a house with some kind of demon. The vocals are just spit out while the hard charging music hits you in the gut. And the lyrics sure do conjure up some scary images in your mind as you listen. I mean, this is a pretty visual set of lyrics, no? – “When I opened up the door /And snapped on the switch /The room was filled with light / Then something black and very fast / Fled upon my sight / What I feared most as a child / Was the coming of the night / Now my horrors have become quite real /My nightmares breathe new life”.

Much like “Over My Dead Body”, the song “Psycho” is just a brutally fast assault. It might even be faster than “Over My Dead Body”. The band just keeps the attack on your senses coming from all five members of the band. And the vocal track is so stunningly evil, that of course I love it. That always makes me laugh considering my relative disdain for horror movies but I just love the song.

The subject matter of the song lyrics for The Dark album ranges widely but I liked the way Metal Church took the stuff going on with the country of Libya at the time the album was recorded and gave us yet another killer track with “Line of Death”. The music is yet another exploration of just how fast the band can go, until the mid-section when it takes a breath for a minute, yet maintains an absolute grip on the heavy side of the musical ledger. And then when that breath ends, the music and throat-ripping vocals rev right back up to punch you in the face again.

The song where I think I like the story in the lyrics the most might just be “Burial at Sea”. As the slow fade in gives way to a mind-numbing scream from David Wayne and the story of a doomed ship unfurls. It’s a master class in telling a story in short order. I love the music for this song and the guitar solo is amazing. There’s even a spotlight on the drums as the track gears up for its last lyrical verse that serves the song so perfectly.

The album closes with the song “Western Alliance” and it is another over the top fast paced number that seems to just explode from your speakers. The music seems to be its own beast as it hits your eardrums and Wayne’s vocals once again capture him in peak form as he just tears out his (and yours) throat from start to finish.

It is no secret that I’m a major fan of Metal Church. And I love all the eras of the band (marked by each different singer). But it started with this album and I have never shaken just how much this smoking slab of molten metal made me feel when I first listened to it. It’s a feeling I still get as I listened again in order to write this article. For me, the Metal Church album The Dark is one of the key building blocks for me becoming a heavy metal fan. 

NOTES OF INTEREST – The Dark is dedicated to Metallica’s bassist Cliff Burton. Burton had died a few days before the album had been released.

In support of the album, Metal Church opened Metallica’s Damage, Inc. tour which also had Anthrax as an opener. They would also tour with Megadeth, King Diamond and would open for Anthrax when they did their own tour. Sadly, while I’ve seen Metal Church three times in concert, I never saw this “classic” lineup live.

“Ton of Bricks” was used in the movie No Man’s Land.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

D.A.D. – NO FUEL LEFT FOR THE PILGRIMS (1989)

After two albums that were only released in Denmark and not internationally, the band D.A.D. broke through with their third album No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims. Not only did it give the band a profile outside of their native country, it got them played on MTV and touring the US.

While the band was still known as Disneyland After Dark when the album was released in Denmark, the band had to change the name to avoid getting sued by the Walt Disney Company once they started getting notice here in the States. After all, there’s nothing Disney likes more than suing people who can’t possibly defend themselves against the corporate behemoth.

Setting that aside, I bought this album when it came out solely on the strength of the first of the album’s two minor hits, “Sleeping My Day Away”. But a funny thing happened when I listened to the album. I just didn’t really like it all that much. In fact, since I first listened to it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the full album in the ensuing almost 36 years since. I pretty much remembered nothing about any of the other songs on the album.

And yet, the album was considered one of the best Hair Metal albums of all time by Rolling Stone in 2019. (Not that Rolling Stone has much credibility anymore but still.) Plus, any time the album came up in conversation, Roger from Purchase Street Records would rave about just how much he loved the album. So when I saw a copy of the album on his store shelves a couple weeks back, I decided it was time to give it another shot. I had completely dismissed the album and almost totally erased it from my memory, so what would I think of it now?

Well, I have to be honest here…I’m an idiot. Well, maybe not a COMPLETE idiot but after listening to No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims in the here and now, I have shake my head and for the most part wonder what was wrong with me back in 1989.

“Sleeping My Day Away” opens up the album and it still has that great hook and catchy chorus that made it break on MTV and with listeners back in the day. I did notice that I had a bit of a hard time fully understanding singer Jesper Binzer as the album and song got underway but I think that’s basically because I hadn’t listened to D.A.D. in so long.

As I said, I don’t really remember much about the rest of the album so it was almost like a totally brand new listening experience for me. So as I listened to the gritty and fast moving “Jihad”, I was just getting more and more amped up. The music was giving me a feeling of exhilaration. By the way, the album title comes from a lyric in this song.

On the song “Point of View”, not only did I like what I was hearing in the mid-to-uptempo song, but the lyrics are amazingly on point for how things are going in modern day. I doubt the band could’ve seen that coming but it does give them a bit more standing in my mind. The line I loved most was “See, I’d like to share your point of view / As long as it’s my view too”. Tell me that doesn’t sum up the majority of discourse these days, right?

There’s a heavy and deliberate thump to the otherwise hard charging track “Rim of Hell”. The song was the other minor hit from the release. The song has a cool sounding chorus and really landed well with me this time around.

Okay, while the song “ZCMI” certainly has an abundance of explosively charged energy coursing through it, for some reason it just fell flat for me. But as the first side of the album comes to a close the rocking “True Believer” gets the album back on track.

Before I talk about the 2nd side of No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims, I should note that despite the fact that I ended up not liking the album back in the day, I did see D.A.D. live in concert. They were opening for Badlands at the Living Room in Providence, RI. Sadly, there’s very little I remember about their set. Heck, I’m not even sure who I was with at the show. But the reason I do remember seeing them was because Badlands was fantastic and I got a great shot of their singer Ray Gillen that came out better than how I took it when the developer screwed up how the final photo turned out. As for D.A.D., the one thing I do remember is that during the Badlands set, I left the main floor because it was way too packed for me and I watched about half the set from the side of the stage. It was during that time that D.A.D. drummer (at the time) Peter L. Jensen came out to watch the show and he was standing next to me for a good part of that time.

As for the second side of the album, it opens with the song “Girl Nation”. It’s got a lively uptempo style and I found that I really quite enjoyed the song’s rhythm.

I wasn’t quite as taken with “Lords of the Atlas” but I liked the guitar playing on “Overmuch”. It has a pretty kicking rhythm and vibe to it. The same can be said for “Siamese Twin”, the guitar playing from Jacob Binzer really soars on the two songs and makes it that much more appealing.

The fiery soundtrack for the track “Wild Talk” was instantly appealing and I think it does another excellent job of showcasing all of the band members at once.

The album closes out with the song “Ill Will”. While it features plenty of fast moving parts, I got the feeling this song was really going for a very heavy in-your-face vibe at the same time. The vocals seem to be more intense with a bit of a growl and musically this one is quite the ass kicker. The guitar playing that ends the song is blazing and despite the song’s short length, D.A.D. packs quite the sonic punch to finish off the album.

Once again an album that got basically deleted from my memory comes back to bite me in the butt! While there’s still a couple of songs on the release that don’t really do anything for me, it’s clear that I’ve been missing out on all the great music No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims has been waiting for me to hear (again) all these decades later. I have a feeling I’m going to end up playing this one a lot in the days and weeks to come because man did my opinion of the album do a reversal. Who knows, it may even lead me into checking out more of what D.A.D. has to offer. And isn’t that what it is all about? I just really loved what I heard this time around.

NOTES OF INTEREST: D.A.D. is still together today and other than a change of drummers from Peter L. Jensen to Laust Sonne, the lineup of Jesper (vocals) and Jacob Binzer (guitar) and bassist Stig Pedersen has remained constant.

For a band that has always struck me as relatively obscure in comparison to other bands from the 80’s Metal Years, D.A.D. has released 13 studio albums, 3 live releases, 8 compilations and an EP. Their most recent album, Speed of Darkness was released in October 2024.

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and under-appreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

SAVATAGE – STREETS: A ROCK OPERA (1991)

“As darkness falls…so hard…”

With that line, the title track to the 6th studio album from my personal favorite band Savatage, begins to spin its yarn about D.T. Jesus, a New York rock star who rises from a drug dealer to the heights of the music profession, only to then experience another fall.

Like I said, Savatage is my favorite band. The fact that I’ve written about four of their albums already in The Cassette Chronicles would lend credence to that statement. But back in 1991, my fandom was still growing. I’d seen the band on the tour they did for the Gutter Ballet album where I’d gotten to meet four of the guys from the band. Add in that the show was great and my fandom was definitely ascending when Streets: A Rock Opera came out.

While singer Jon Oliva seems to hate the fact that “A Rock Opera” was added to the album title, I’ve always appreciated the extra dose of the dramatic that term added to the release.

The album opens with the “Streets” song. Much like how the album was based on a book that producer Paul O’Neill wrote for a Broadway play, the song serves as a kind of introductory overture for the rest of the album. With Jon Oliva providing his vocals over the music from guitarist Criss Oliva, bassist Johnny Lee Middleton and drummer Steve Wacholz, the track gets you keyed up for what’s to come.

The story gets underway in full with “Jesus Saves”. It introduces you to D.T. Jesus. He’s a drug dealer but he ends up becoming a big rock star…and falls prey to all the vices that would seem to entail. By the end of the song, his star has faded and he’s lost amongst the streets of New York, addled by drugs and on a slow road to nowhere or oblivion. The solo in this song is fantastic, Criss Oliva being on fire.

And that’s just in one song! The funny thing about this song in how I related to the song as someone listening to it. Like a lot of people I would sing along with the track. One day my mother heard me singing the chorus which includes the words “Jesus Saves”. She was a bit taken aback, thinking I was somehow having a religious awakening or something. She asked me, and I laughed as I told her that this particular Jesus was a New York drug dealer. Her response? “Don’t let your grandmother hear you saying that.”

As D.T.’s addictions continue to get the better of him, the song “Tonight He Grins Again” takes you inside the monkey on his back until the next track, entitled “Strange Reality”, shows him beginning to see what’s become of him and the resulting shock to his system. The way Jon Oliva’s vocals become strident without being overbearing is a deft touch as he brings this particular chapter to life.

The piano based ballad “A Little Too Far” has always struck a chord with me. The spare opening of the song with just the piano and what I think is a marvelously beautiful vocal performance from Jon. The song would seem to be showing us D.T. has he gets his act together, getting clear headed and taking a kind of inventory of what he’s done and what he’d like to do now. I also love the way the lyrics work in John Wayne, Captain Kirk and Spock in such an organic way that you can’t imagine any other persons being mentioned in their place.

The dual track “You’re Alive” / Sammy and Tex” has D.T. returning to the stage. “You’re Alive” is about his return to the stage and how everyone reacts to it. As for “Sammy and Tex”, that song whether taken as part of this great story or as a standalone song from the band’s catalog, I think it is one of my favorite songs from the band. It’s a full-tilt metallic assault on the senses with an amazing guitar run through from start to finish, a viciously ripping vocal turn and lyrics that show D.T.’s past coming back to haunt him…and hurt those around him. Just a monster track! I’ve spent all these years listening to the track in such a way that I can actually “see” the fight that is described in the lyrics and the results of said fight. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it is the lyrics of this song that creates a picture in my mind that sticks with me every time I hear the song.

The first side of Streets: A Rock Opera comes to an end with the showstopping epic “St. Patrick’s”. As D.T. reels from what’s happened, he faces a dilemma. Will he return to the drugs to hide away from his pain…or will he carry on and reclaim his life. And in this song, I guess you could say he sort of ends of having a conversation with a deity in a rather well known church. The first half of the song is geared more towards a slower and more deliberate delivery but you can feel the intensity ramping up as the song goes on and as the second half of the song kicks off…the heavier side of Savatage takes over for a bit before you get a coda of sorts and it is just Jon and a piano as the conversation comes to an end…and I love the last line, “Or give a call, explain it all…I’ll even leave the dime”.

The second side of the album kicks off with “Can You Hear Me Now”, the brief slower opening gives way to a far more intensely driven rock beat, fed by a pretty scorching drum track from Steve Wacholz. The tempo rises and falls for the rest of the track but the two styles blend superbly for an underrated gem of a track. The guitar playing is immense here as well.

D.T. has had his rise, then his fall. Then came his, if not second rise at least a bit of a redemption and now faced with the potential of losing it all again, he’s wandering the streets and we are left to wonder what path he will choose. On “New York City Don’t Mean Nothing”, the song actually feels like the city it mentions. I am not quite sure how better to describe it but that’s the way this particular track has always struck me. There’s something just intrinsically fantastic about how this song develops. You could say the same kind of thing for “Ghost in the Ruins” which has the same kind of gritty edge to it.

The song “If I Go Away” finds D.T. questioning if he should just disappear again, what he would leave behind or if anyone would really miss him. This is more of a power ballad track as the early part of the song which is keyed by the piano gives way to a bigger rock score for a lot of the song as well. And I love the way this song shows off the different vocal styles from Jon Oliva. You get the focused clear vocals in the “ballad” portion of the song but as the song’s tempo picks up, his vocals get more intense and a bit more of an edge or perhaps a rasp comes into play as well.

I like the contrasting styles of the next two songs. On “Agony and Ecstasy”, the tempo and full throttle metal soundtrack reminds you of the way “Sammy and Tex” sounded. But what I like about this one is how the lyrics are from the point of view of D.T.’s addiction calling out to him to return to the addiction’s embrace. It’s a fascinating way of telling this part of the story and it is also a superb track at the same time. Oh, and give a good listen to that guitar solo from Criss Oliva right before the song’s end. The counterpoint to that song is the follow up “Heal My Soul”. Soft and spare with a piano once again accompanying the vocals, it is an amazing song that always gets me a little choked up for what it means to the story.

The album comes to a close with the songs “Somewhere in Time” and “Believe”. The former track starts off a tad slower in pace but it ends up becoming more of a heavy rocker as the story winds down with D.T. finding a measure of peace and redemption from the trials he’s gone through. The song “Believe” has been a rather effective song not only for this album as the exclamation point to the album and story but a line from the song has been used in other material from the band, giving it an extended life of sorts. In fact, the entire set of lyrics for the song are chock full of great lines that really stick with you.

Streets: A Rock Opera may be a fictional story of a rock star’s self-driven ups and downs but for me, it is one of the statement showpiece albums for Savatage. It’s been nearly 34 years since it was released and it still manages to thrill, chill and stun me with its rather astonishing and unequaled delivery of some of the most amazing work I’ve not only heard from Savatage, but from any musical act that I listen to. It is quite simply one of my favorite musical works of all-time!

NOTES OF INTEREST: The CD version of the album has an essay that tells the story of D.T. Jesus and the Subway Messiahs (the band he led) and of D.T.’s life before, during and after his fame, rather than just relying on my own interpretation of the story here for you. 

While the storyline of the album does bear similarity to what was going on in singer Jon Oliva’s life around the same time, it is not about his life according to everything I’ve read online.

Streets: A Rock Opera has been reissued at least four times that I can confirm. The CD edition in 2002 has one bonus track, “Desiree”. I own a copy of that edition as well as my cassette. A funny side note to that CD is that the hype sticker and the track listing on the back of the CD both manage to mistakenly spell “acoustic” as “accoustic”.  The album was reissued again in 2011 with two different bonus tracks. The next reissue came in 2013 and it is sometimes referred to as “the director’s cut” of the album because they worked in narration for the album as well as the bonus track “Larry Elbows”.

By JAY ROBERTS

As this 8th year of The Cassette Chronicles comes to a close, it is time to once again look back at ten of the albums I wrote about in the series this year.

There were 24 new articles this year and I enjoyed writing about each album that the series covered. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to anyone that has been reading the series for any length of time. Heck, even if there’s an album I don’t care for too much, I think I usually have a good time writing about the reasons why it didn’t really resonate with me.

The great news is that thanks to the continued support of Jay and Katie from Limelight Magazine. The Cassette Chronicles will be returning for a 9th year in 2025. I’m not sure exactly when the first new piece will be up but it will be either January 2nd or January 9th.

I wanted to thank everyone who has read the articles this year. Whether you’ve gone directly to the site or clicked on a specific link on whatever website or social media page I’ve posted the articles on, your support for this series is greatly appreciate.

Here’s to another great year in 2025 but until that starts here’s the ten albums I’ve chosen (in no particular order) to spotlight for 2024.
See you next year!

(Please click on the cassette title to read the article)

1 – SAVATAGE – EDGE OF THORNS

2 – THE SCREAM – LET IT SCREAM

3 – SURVIVOR – CAUGHT IN THE GAME

4 – DEF LEPPARD – ON THROUGH THE NIGHT

5 – HEART – LITTLE QUEEN

6 – MELISSA ETHERIDGE – BRAVE AND CRAZY

7 – SUICIDAL TENDENCIES – LIGHTS…CAMERA…REVOLUTION

8 – BATON ROUGE – LIGHTS OUT ON THE PLAYGROUND

9 – MR. MISTER – WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

10 – IRON MAIDEN – SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and under-appreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

(WRITER’S NOTE: THIS IS THE LAST CASSETTE CHRONICLES ARTICLE OF 2024. THERE WILL BE A BEST OF 2024 PIECE COMING NEXT WEEK. I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE FOR CONTINUING TO READ THE SERIES AND I HOPE THAT YOU WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO BECAUSE THE SERIES WILL RETURN WITH NEW ARTICLES AT THE BEGINNING OF JANUARY 2025!)

GREAT WHITE – GREAT WHITE (1984)

I’m sure you will be shocked…shocked I say…to learn that I’ve never listened to Great White’s self-titled debut album before now. I’m a little surprised myself but I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a copy of this album (in any format) out in the wild before a recent excursion.

Now, that’s not to say I’m not at least somewhat familiar with some of the music from this album. In fact, two of the songs on Side One of the album are two of their better known songs even now.

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard both “Stick It” and “On Your Knees” both on the radio back in the day and through the greatest hits compilations I have in my collection. But before I talk about those songs, let’s pull back a little and talk about the tone or rather sound of this album.

When I was looking up information about the album, the one thing I noticed is that most articles describe Great White’s sound as being a lot more metal (aka heavier) than what we generally think about the band’s music. And while I do think the music leans more heavy and rocking than pretty much the rest of their catalog, singer Jack Russell’s voice still makes the music pretty identifiable as GREAT WHITE. He just has a readily identifiable sound so whether metal or blues rock is the musical style, Jack Russell still stands out.

This is the fifth Great White album I’ve written about overall but because I haven’t listened to it in full before, there was plenty to discover.

So now we can get back to those two songs I mentioned above. In regards to “Stick It”, the music is certainly in-your-face and so is the attitude the vocals project in the song. Particulary when Russell is intoning the song’s title. Being 1984 and metal developing a certain style that prevailed in the decade, the music also had a kind of echo to the production at times.

The song “On Your Knees” was co-written with Don Dokken and it is a hard-hitting straight forward rocker. I can definitely understand why it is still a well known track from Great White’s catalog.

Oh, and it is one of three tracks that originally appeared on the Out of the Night EP, even though the versions on Great White were fully new recordings.

The song “Out of the Night” itself opens up Side One and I noted pretty early on how fast and heavy it sounded. Definitely more of a metal track. But I tell you, despite what their record label and maybe other fans themselves might think, I thought this track was fantastic! Definitely showed the earlier style the band was employing at the time but it’s a darn good song no matter what.

For me, “Bad Boys” was OK. Solid rocker but of the five songs on the album’s first side, it is the one that left the least impression on me. 

But you know what song actually really surprised me and blew me away? It was the cover of The Who song “Substitute”. HOLY CRAP!  For me, I’ve been a fan of the many and varied songs from The Who that get played on the radio over and over again. But as surprising as this may be to some readers, I don’t actually own any of their catalog. And to the best of my knowledge I’ve never heard their original version of “Substitute”.  As I was listening to Great White’s quite masterful and rocking rendition, I was really getting into the song. I love the lyrics a lot but I thought Jack Russell did a fantastic job with his vocal performance as a whole. So much so that I actually find myself a bit fearful of looking up the original song on Youtube because I don’t want to spoil my feeling and/or love of this version.

For Side Two of the album, the song “Streetkiller” sure sounds like an 80s metal song title. But the song’s intro starts out establishing a moody almost eerie vibe. But as that intro ends, the music kicks in full burst and rocking pretty fast. I found myself getting into this track a lot.

But the song “No Better Than Hell” was a song that took more work to appreciate. It’s mostly got a mid-tempo delivery but the music seems like it was hushed a little, as if it wasn’t coming through the speakers in a full throated style. Maybe that was the planned method for establishing the feel of the song or something. But while the song does come off as interesting enough that I don’t hate it, I found that it wasn’t quite as intriguing as I might’ve hoped. 

On “Hold On”, Great White started out with a more subdued delivery of the song, picking up the pace a bit for the song’s choruse but by the end, the song was fully uptempo, albeit not quite as fast as a track like “Out of the Night” or anything. Okay song overall.

But the pacing picks up in full with the song “Nightmares”. It’s got a creepy sound to the guitar solo and just one of the tracks that does lend itself to that description of this album being a completely different sound than the rest of Great White’s discography.

That fast pacing continues on the album closing “Dead End” (which is the 3rd song re-recorded from the Out of the Night EP). It’s got a thunder and lightning delivery that I really found enjoyable and the vocals are delivered with Russell sounding at times as if he’s delivering the lines in a rapid fire manner. The band goes out a very high note with this song.

While there are of course definite differences between this first full-length Great White album and the slightly softer blues rock driven sound they adopted after it, I’d be remiss not to say that the band’s talent shines through with their songwriting and performances on the Great White  album. Sure it may not be perfect considering a couple of songs gave me pause but overall, this one turned out to be a very welcome surprise as I edge closer and closer to completing my Great White studio album collection.

I love Great White the band and Great White the album is the early primer on why that came to be. Check it out for yourself and I’m sure you’ll be as pleased as I ended up being.

NOTES OF INTEREST – The Great White debut album (which peaked at #144 on the Billboard album chart) was reissued on CD in 1999 with 5 cover songs included as bonus tracks. It was done by a French record label who re-titled the album as Stick It.

The four members of the lineup (singer Jack Russell, guitarist Mark Kendall, bassist Lorne Black and drummer Gary Holland are credited with writing the 9 original tracks on Great White. They shared writing credits with producer Michael Wagener on the song “No Better Than Hell” while the band’s manager Alan Niven provided backing vocals and got co-writing credits on two songs.

Gary Holland was a member of an earlier version of Dokken and was briefly a member of the band Sister which would eventually become W.A.S.P. He is credited with appearances on 2 Ozzy Osbourne releases and worked on albums by Twisted Sister, Autograph and Don Dokken as well.

Keyboardist Michael Lardie was not yet a member of the band but he is credited on this album as an assistant engineer and provided backing vocals. 

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

LIZZY BORDEN – TERROR RISING (1987)

While I knew that this Lizzy Borden EP existed, I didn’t realize that it came out in 1987 until I was looking up research information for this article. The reason that struck me is because 1987 was also the year that the band released what is considered their masterpiece album Visual Lies.

I would tend to agree with that assessment of that album. It was actually the first one I heard and bought from the band and it still ranks as one of my own personal favorites.

So realizing that the Terror Rising EP came out in the same year was a bit strange because the releases are so diametrically opposed. While Visual Lies has incredible songs and strong production, Terror Rising is mostly made up of cover songs, remixes and a live track. And to call the production sound rough is a bit of an understatement.

Three of the songs on this EP came from previous releases. Things get going with a remixed version of the song “Give ‘Em The Axe” from the 1984 EP of the same name (I’ve written about that one for this series by the way). This new version is fine but it isn’t like it really brings all the much in the way of “new” to the song.

What follows that track is a cover of the Jefferson Airplane song “White Rabbit”. Now, I’m not strictly beholden to the idea that the original of a song is always the best but I’ve heard the original version of this song a lot over the years. While I can’t claim to be a huge fan of Jefferson Airplane or anything, I can say that this particular huge hit of theirs does NOT lend itself well to being covered in a heavy metal style. So as you might imagine, I really didn’t care for this one.

The first side of the cassette closes out with a live rendition of the song “Rod of Iron”. The song comes from the 1985 album Love You To Pieces as well as the Give ‘Em The Axe EP. I wrote that I thought it was the lesser of the five songs on that EP and I can’t say that the live rendition did much to improve my assessment of the song. When and/or if I get around to writing about the Love You to Pieces album, I’ll be interested to learn if the inclusion of the song on that release is a re-record or the same version that appears on the EP.

The second side of the cassette kicks off with the song “American Metal” which appears on the Love You to Pieces album and remains a song I love no matter how rough it sounds production-wise. Definitely a memorable anthem track from the band.

As much as I wasn’t enthused about the cover of “White Rabbit”, I was actually more impressed with the cover of “Don’t Touch Me There” from The Tubes. Maybe because the lyrics referenced leather or something made this feel more like a song that would suited to be a metal cover. With singer Betsy from the band Bitch as a guest performer the track as a duet came off pretty cool sounding to me.

The closing two songs are the only original songs included on Terror Rising. They really don’t offer much in the way of a preview of what was to come later in 1987 on Visual Lies though. “Catch Your Death” was a hard driving rocker that I ended up liking well enough but the EP’s title track was a grave disappointment to me. Most of the song was more of a spoken word performance with singer Lizzy Borden having a back and forth battle of wits with a voice in “his head”. It certainly keys into the group’s sense of the theatrical but I wish it had been more of a straightforward musical performance.

Overall, while not so bad that I regret listening to it, I wasn’t totally sold on Terror Rising but I am still glad to have it in the collection as where Lizzy Borden the band was coming from with another release before they unleashed the Visual Lies album.

NOTES OF INTEREST: Joey Vera, who at the time was the bassist with Armored Saint, played on the final three tracks of the EP’s second side.

Guitarists Alex Nelson and Tony Matuzak are credited on two tracks apiece on Terror Rising. Nelson passed away in 2004 while Matuzak died in 2021.

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and under-appreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

HEART – LITTLE QUEEN (1977)

While I normally try to stick to the 80’s and 90’s when it comes to the albums I write about here in The Cassette Chronicles, I do occasionally branch out to other decades as well. 

This week’s trip to the late 1970s was inspired not by grabbing a tape out of the Big Box of Cassettes though. Instead, the choice of Heart’s 3rd album Little Queen was inspired by someone else writing about it.

In my other writing “job”, I review mystery novels. That has led to some friendships being struck up with a number of the writers whose books I read. One of them has a daughter who has surprisingly good (and old-school) taste in music. Recently she has been doing a series of posts on her own Facebook page and she did a post about Little Queen that I enjoyed. 

This led me to deciding to follow suit and write up a piece of my own. 

Fair or not, because there are a number of great songs on the album, I think the reason Little Queen is such a big cog in Heart’s success is because of the lead track “Barracuda”. Yes, I’m not exactly breaking new ground with that opinion but since it is the first track on the album, I figure I might as well get it out of the way first.

The song was written in outraged response to deceptive and disgusting marketing created by Heart’s first record label (I’ll let you look up the story for yourself). Funny how rage spurred such creativity, no? The song’s opening chugging riff is instantly identifiable, a masterpiece of what is now considered “classic rock”. Between the fiery music and Ann Wilson’s take-no-BS vocal performance, the idea that anyone could not love “Barracuda” seems just wrong to me. It is a tentpole rocker for the 1970s decade to me.

What makes the first side of Little Queen so interesting to me is the way “Barracuda” serves as an opening salvo and yet, the middle three tracks lean more towards a kind of softer rock singer-songwriter vibe for the most part.

Okay, “Love Alive” mainly gets that kind of tag for me for its intro, which is way more low-key than the intro for “Barracuda”. I like the way the guitar comes in after that intro and you can feel the build the song has going for it until it does finally burst into much more of a full on rocker type track.

“Sylvan Song” and “Dream of the Archer” are kind of a themed duology. With “Sylvan Song” you get an instrumental that starts with some ambient nature sounds before you get the guitar fading in. As the song continues the guitar work is fully at the forefront of the music and while I’m not always a fan of instrumentals myself, this one left me feeling quite entertained even with its just barely over two minute run time.

But when the song ends, it feeds directly and thematically into “Dream of the Archer”. While the song title would seem right at home as the title of a fantasy novel, I thought the music had a kind of cinematic flair to it. It’s definitely softer in both focus and delivery but when you combine the two tracks, it does make for an interesting listen.

And while those three tracks are not quite as aggressive in tone and delivery, the first side of Little Queen does have a straight up rocker in “Kick It Out” serving to close out the side and bookend it with “Barracuda”. The song’s ferocious delivery and hard driving rhythms helps the track live up to its title. And while it was wasn’t overly successful as the album’s third and final single release, the song is still a damn good slice of rock ‘n’ roll.

Before digging into the album’s 2nd side, I thought mentioning the album’s cover art was in order. Most of the time I see comments about the artwork, they are talking about how the band looks like they are at a renaissance fair or something. But for my money, I thought the art was closer to portraying the band as gyspies. I think it makes more sense given how much touring they were doing at the time. It, for lack of a better term, made them rock and roll gypsies.

The 2nd side of Little Queen opens up with the album’s title track. It has a mid-tempo pacing but thanks to the drum work of Michael DeRosier, it also has a bit of a stomp feel to it as well. While it failed to chart as a single, it is still a pretty good track that I’m always happy to hear when it occasionally pops up on the classic rock radio station I listen to.

If there’s a song that doesn’t truly catch fire for me on Little Queen, I would have to say that it is the track “Treat Me Well”. Written by guitarist Nancy Wilson, the low-key delivery might have something to do with why I don’t really find myself getting too into the song whenever I play the album.

That reticence goes away though when I get to the song “Say Hello”. It’s another mid-tempo track but this one has a nice rhythmic vibe to both the music and the way Ann Wilson delivers her vocal performance.

Meanwhile, the song “Cry To Me” has a slower and way more understated style. While it doesn’t blow me away, I do like the way this one was constructed. The album’s closing track “Go On Cry” does seem to go thematically with “Cry To Me”. It still manages to grab me though. The one thing I didn’t like was how long it seemed to take in the intro for the music to fade in and get the track fully underway.

While Little Queen may have just one stone cold classic track on it in terms of singles success, you’d be doing yourself a bit of disservice to simply dismiss the rest of the album. It’s chock full of some great songs that run the gamut of what you could expect from any rock band coming out of the 1970s. You get hard rocking tracks alongside songs that convey more of that singer-songwriter vibe to you. But what makes the album a winner in my book is how well it all works when you take in the album as a whole. Little Queen helped cement Heart’s status as rock royalty and even in the here and now of 2024, Ann and Nancy Wilson maintain that royal status.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Little Queen album has been certified triple platinum. When the album was reissued in 2004, the CD contained two bonus tracks. The first song “Too Long a Time” is actually an early version of what would become “Love Alive”. The second is a live recording of the band covering “Stairway to Heaven” from a 1978 show in Seattle, WA.

Because of various contract disputes and timing, when everything was said and done the first three Heart albums (Dreamboat Annie, Magazine and Little Queen) were all on the album chart at the same time.

What amazes me is that despite its status as one of the band’s signature songs, “Barracuda” peaked at only #11 on the singles chart when it was originally released.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

BATON ROUGE – LIGHTS OUT ON THE PLAYGROUND (1991)

It has been more than four years since I wrote about the Baton Rouge album Shake Your Soul so I figured it was about time that I got around to the group’s 2nd album.

Of course, I came to that realization after discovering that they had a 2nd album in the first place. Since Baton Rouge was a band that essentially slipped through the cracks for me back in the day, it should be no surprise that I really didn’t know much about their recording history even after writing about their first album. In fact, when I saw a copy of the cassette at a local record shop, I found myself wondering how I’d missed that they’d had that 2nd release. And that comes with initially knowing that information when I ended up writing about their debut album. Time may heal all wounds, but it also seems to make me forget things too.

Not counting the song “Desperate” which is a cover of the Babylon A.D. track, I’d never heard any of the material on this album so once again I get to approach the release as a totally new experience.

Since the first Baton Rouge album was a commercial flop, the band ended up on a new label for the 2nd album. And while it once again failed commercially, I was intrigued to discover what the album had to offer me.

First up was the song “Slave to the Rhythm” which had a great riff powering the song right from the start of the track. It helped fuel the fast pacing the song enjoys. The vocals from Kelly Keeling had a nice little extra bit of gravel mixed in and the big gang vocal during the chorus helps sell the song. I even found myself digging the guitar solo, even if it felt like it got cut short for some reason. I will say that I hated the abortive way the song ended though.

“Full Time Body” was another jacked up hard driving rocker that employed a similar creative construction as “Slave to the Rhythm” but I once again found myself drawn to the guitar playing, particularly the solo.

On “Tie You Up”, the song starts out a bit slower in tone, but after the first part of the opening lyrical stanza, the tempo explodes forth for the song’s chorus. Lyrically, the album title comes from a line in this song. That back-and-forth tempo switch settles in for the 2nd lyrical stanza as well. 

After these first three songs, I found myself thinking that if I had actually paid attention to Baton Rouge during the time of the album’s release, I probably would’ve liked them instead of only barely being aware of their very existence for so many years.

The band’s re-do / cover of Babylon A.D.’s “Desperate” is a bit of a mystery to me. Not for the performance which is good and I love the way the vocals come through. But the original version from Babylon A.D. was only two years old when Baton Rouge’s version was released. Was it really necessary to re-do this song? Also, in a bit of a coincidence, the song is the fourth track on both albums.

After the power ballad stylings of “Desperate”, the album picks the pace back up with the song “Tokyo Time”, a fast moving rocker that I felt did a nice job of delivering a jolt of energy to the proceedings. That faster pace continued on “Vampire Kiss”, which has such a great hook to it that I found myself kind of bopping along to the song as it played. I’d venture to say it is one of my favorite tracks on Lights Out on the Playground.

While the song has a ballad-like title, the song “The Price of Love” is actually a pretty entertaining rocker. The music offsets the vocal in a point-counterpoint style in the main lyrical passages. Weirdly, I found myself thinking the vocals were similar to what I might hear on a Survivor album when David Bickler was their frontman. Well, at least in parts. Maybe I’m just imagining things here. But it was cool to me. Of course, in the chorus the uptempo style meant you got that big gang vocal and you can’t help but feel carried along as the song blazes to its conclusion.

It is at this point that I realized how much I was enjoying the album in full. The song “Dreamin’ in Black and White” was another shot of pure energetic adrenaline. I was really digging this track as I listened to it. Of course, at the same time, I was kicking myself for not keeping on top of things back in 1991 so that I could’ve been enjoying the album since that time.

“Down by the Torchlight” is an uptempo song but it is not a blitzkrieg of fiery notes. Instead, there’s a slower burn feel to the music even as you get a solidly paced thump to go alongside of it. There’s a somewhat bluesier feel to the music and the vocal turn is impressive. However, the one drawback to the song is the lame way it peters out at the end.

Baton Rouge takes a step back a bit with “Light at the End of the Tunnel”. It’s got everything you’d expect from a power ballad from that time period. It’s decent enough overall, though I liked when the presentation was more intense musically a bit more myself.

The track “Tear Down the Walls” alternates the vocal delivery between a more measured tone in the main passages and a harder edge comes in the build up to the song’s chorus. And the chorus was definitely a full-throated roar. And that guitar solo was pretty cool too.

The album closes out with the song “Hotter Than Hell” which ends up eschewing the more overt 80s metal trappings for a more blues rock driven song. The music is intense but you definitely get that more of a slow burn to the delivery and tempo. It’s got a great groove that draws you in as a listener and lets you see a different side to the band. And vocals are incredible!

I know that in terms of commercial appeal that Baton Rouge was a rather big failure, but here I am more than thirty years later, enjoying the hell out of Lights Out on the Playground. It’s an album full of great material. And while it may be considered out of step with today’s rock and roll scene, back in the latter days of 80s metal heyday, this was some damn good music to hit the scene. I am glad that I FINALLY discovered this but I’m still kicking myself for taking so long to come around to this appreciation of Baton Rouge’s second album.

NOTES OF INTEREST – Producer Jack Ponti was once again heavily involved in the writing of the material for Baton Rouge. He had co-writing credits on pretty much every track on Lights Out on the Playground. And that includes the song “Desperate” which he wrote with Babylon A.D. singer Derek Davis and originally appeared on the self-titled debut album from Babylon A.D. Sadly, Ponti passed away on October 7th, 2024.

Ex-Keel guitarist Tony Palmucci replaced David Cremin in the band ahead of the recording of Lights Out on the Playground. He would go on to collaborate with Dee Snider on his solo projects.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

GREAT WHITE – …TWICE SHY (1989)

When I first decided that I was going to write about Great White albums in back-to-back articles, I was planning it as a tribute to singer Jack Russell. And while the first article (on the Once Bitten album) certainly came out that way, I think part of why I kept the plan to write about …Twice Shy this time around was because of the group’s manager Alan Niven.

The streaming service Paramount+ released a 3-part documentary back on September 17th, 2024 called Nothin’ But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of ’80s Hair Metal. While the documentary series had plenty of talking head appearances from people that were in bands back in the day, I thought it was Alan Niven who made the biggest impression for me. Because he didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about looking back at the 1980s decade with rose-colored glasses at all. He was witty and profane and didn’t hold back all that much it seemed. There were a couple times when I burst out laughing at something he said.

Take that and add in the fact that along with being the band’s manager, he also co-wrote and co-produced the album (with keyboardist Michael Lardie) and it seems fitting that writing about the album can be seen in part due to his involvement.

(By the way, Jack Russell was in the documentary as well. I’m not quite sure when his parts were filmed but of all the rockers featured in the series, he just looked and sounded awful. Seeing him like that reminds you of his passing and how it came about.)

The first thing I noticed when I was looking up information about the album is that the track listing online for the standard version includes the song “Wasted Rock Ranger” as the album’s closing track. Well, I don’t know what happened but the cassette copy of the album that I’ve had since it was originally released doesn’t have that song on the album. It ends after nine songs, not ten. I don’t know if that is a mistake online or not.

The …Twice Shy album featured three songs that were released as singles. And the first two ended up being the two most successful charting songs of the band’s career.

The 2nd single was the ballad “The Angel Song”. While I don’t think it has quite the staying power that the song “Save Your Love” does, it did end up hitting #30 on the singles chart. The piano-based ballad has a soft pedal delivery through the first part of the song. It combines quite nicely with a great vocal turn from Jack Russell. The song’s tempo picks up at the point of the guitar solo when the band comes in fully then. It’s a good song and in 1989 definitely fit the mold of the “power ballad”.

Of course, I mentioned “The Angel Song” first despite it being the 2nd single (and side One closing track” because anyone who was listening back in the day knows that the cover of Ian Hunter’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” became one of the biggest hits of the decade. It hit #5 on the singles chart and when I first heard it back then I really liked the song. It was quite a lively delivery and had that killer hook that drew you in. But like a lot of hits, it became less of a favored song for me because it was being played to death! Between radio play and MTV putting the video in rotation so heavily, I don’t mind saying that I ended up being sick of the song. In fact, it’s been a while since I listened to the …Twice Shy album and it is probably because I just didn’t want to listen to this song close out the album’s second side.

However, I will say that as I listened to the album in order to write about it, that deliberate distance I put between me and the album ended up allowing me to enjoy the song again for the first time in a while. I’m not going to be putting the song into a regular rotation or anything but I had that same initial thrill of hearing the song as I did back in 1989.

Going back to the first side of the album, the song “Move It” opens up the album and it is a pretty vibrant rocker that made me think of it as a driving kind of song…a road trip track if you will. That rocking vibe continued on “Heart the Hunter”, which pretty much bleeds in from “Move It” without that expected brief pause in between tracks.

Great White really brought the higher intensity rocking soundtrack to open up …Twice Shy as the album’s third track “Hiway Nights” doubled down on that road trip driving song feel and intent that I mentioned with “Move It”.

On the second side of the album, you get “Mista Bone” as the opening song. It’s a got a down and dirty kind of bluesy and grittier edge to it. It doesn’t quite go full throttle in terms of pacing but I have always liked the way the song (including Russell’s vocal) draws you into the song.

The guitar playing is pretty good throughout the album but I liked the way the song “Baby’s On Fire” was heavy on the guitar in the intro of the song and then kept those six-string fireworks going on throughout the rocker! Mark Kendall was on fire with this song.

“House of Broken Love”, which was about the break-ups Kendall and Russell were going through at the time, is a bluesy slow ballad that once again opens up musically when the band hits the guitar solo portion of the song.

For a more straight up ballad that keeps the slower and more dramatic presentation from start to finish, you get the song “She Only”. In all honesty, I kind of forgot about this song. I liked it when I listened to it for this piece but it you’d asked me to name all of the songs on the …Twice Shy album, I probably never would’ve been able to remember this one.

I was graduating from high school in 1989, so this album which was released a little more than a month before I was out of school was probably very important to me when it came out. I mean, it is filled with some great songs, whether my own personal favorites or the ones that Great White’s fan base have embraced at some of the band’s best work. Given that the ’80s metal movement was still at its peak during 1989, Great White gave fans a heck of an album to represent that time and era.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The …Twice Shy album went double platinum, officially recognized so in September 1989.  The Japan and UK editions of the album at the time included two bonus tracks. One of them is “Wasted Rock Ranger”, so I don’t know what’s going on with it being listed as a track on the standard version for the US edition. The other song was called “Bitches and Other Women” which is a medley of The Rolling Stones song “Bitch” and the Foreigner track “Women”. The 2005 Japanese remaster features the bonus track “Slow Ride”.

While he appeared in a video during the Once Bitten album promotional period, this album was the first to feature contributions from bassist Tony Montana. He is credited with co-writing the song “Mista Bone”.

The models featured on the …Twice Shy album art were Traci Martinson (who was on the Once Bitten album cover) and Bobbie Brown, who we all probably best remember for being in Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” video.

By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

GREAT WHITE – ONCE BITTEN (1987)

I’ve written about two Great White albums in the past (Shot in the Dark and Hooked) but I’ve kind of purposely avoided writing about the band’s two biggest albums. The reason I decided to tackle one of them now is to pay tribute to singer Jack Russell who passed away on August 7th, 2024 (RIP).

I’m not sure how many people were into Great White prior to this album but Once Bitten was definitely my entry point to the band. There were any number of mega-selling classic albums that came out in 1987 and while I love a lot of them, I would be remiss if I didn’t include Once Bitten as one of my favorites of that year.

The band’s 3rd studio album features nine songs on it and I would challenge anyone to name any song that is less than stellar in conception and execution. I’ve listened to the album a lot over the years but when I pulled this one out of one of my holders, I ended up realizing something I hadn’t noticed before.

For an era that seemed as if it was focusing on 4-minute songs that would get plenty of airplay, Great White had four songs that topped well over five minutes in length. And their big hit “Rock Me” was over seven minutes long!

But it isn’t like length was a problem here. Instead, it let the band have some room to establish themselves and/or establish a mood or atmosphere within some of the songs.

I was a little surprised that there were only two tracks officially released as singles. “Rock Me” which was on Side One of the album is still one of the band’s best known tracks. Even the edited version used for radio play was superb despite the cuts. Surprisingly enough, the song never cracked the Top 40 Singles chart. It actually peaked at #60. I don’t spend a lot of time looking that information up so I was a bit surprised the single didn’t do better.

The other single was, no surprise for the era, the band’s ballad “Save Your Love”, which was the closing song on Side Two. And yet, this one barely did much better on the singles chart for the band. This really amazes me that the two songs that are their best known songs weren’t technically “hits”.

Not that that affects how much I like either song. For “Rock Me”, even though it is best classified as a rocker track, it actually starts out rather understated and it has a real bluesy feel and undertone to the start of the track. In fact, the more rocking side of the track doesn’t really come in until the song’s chorus. But once it cuts loose, it is like a switch was thrown to give it an entirely new dynamic. And the guitar playing from Mark Kendall is phenomenal.

As for “Save Your Love”, it’s got everything you could want or expect from a power ballad of the 1980s era. Of course, one of the main reasons I still like the song is I carry the memory of the performance I saw when Great White played a show at the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts in Mansfield, MA.

When the song started, the lighters came out as was tradition back then, but Jack Russell’s performance on that night made the song something otherworldly. He was absolutely in the groove on that night and delivered a performance that got a rousing standing ovation when the song finished. I know Russell had numerous issues over the years but I will never forget that singular performance he gave that night. It was like a magic spell had been cast or something.

I mentioned the guitar playing from Mark Kendall a couple paragraphs back. And it should be noted that any number of the songs featured some incredible shredding on his part.

On Side One, the album opening song “Lady Red Light” has this fantastic opening riff that always manages to make me take notice when I play the album. The fast moving track feeds off Kendall’s guitar playing no doubt.

Another thing I noticed while preparing to write about the album is how the album tracks are so good AND so overlooked. Side One has “Gonna Getcha” which may not strike anyone’s fancy based off the song title alone but there’s such a great vibe and style to this track, I found myself somehow gaining a new appreciation for it.

The side closing “All Over Now” was a song that I thought might’ve been a single before I started researching information for this piece. I have a strong memory of it for some reason but I don’t know why. Or maybe it is because the song is just a full throttle rocker that finds all five members of Great White utterly locked in unison for the track.

On the second side of Once Bitten, Kendall’s playing once again comes to the forefront on the song “Mistreater”. There’s a bit of that bluesier feel in the song intro but that soon gives way to a hard driving and rocking rhythmic style. You can almost see Kendall’s facial expressions in your mind as he just wails on the guitar for this song.

Another one of the album tracks that is far more than you’d think is “Never Change Heart”. The difference for me this time is that I’ve loved this song all along. It is definitely one of my favorite songs on the album.

There’s a slow burn start to the song that grows into more of a hard rocking tempo. And there’s something about the way Jack Russell’s phrasing on the song’s chorus that tickles my fancy every time I hear it.

I was struck anew by the song “On The Edge” which is a pretty straight ahead rock song. As for “Fast Road”, that song sure lives up to the first half of its title. The musical performance has a relentlessly set pace from start to finish and you almost feel out of breath once it comes to an end.

I’ve only seen Great White that single time in concert and it is doubtful that I’ll ever see them again since they never seem to play the Northeast anymore (for reasons that are pretty obvious, I’m sure). But whenever I put on one of their albums, I am pleased with just how much well their music holds up. I have slowly built up my collection of their latter day albums recently and I’m looking forward to checking them out. But for my money, the Once Bitten album is the perfect way to demonstrate how good the band was in their heyday.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Once Bitten album peaked at #23 on the album charts when it was originally released. It would end up achieving platinum sales status. There are two different track listings for the UK and International versions of the album. The former drastically alters the release by using a number of songs that had been used for the Shot in the Dark album. The International version flips the running order a bit but with all the same songs as the US edition.

This was the first album where keyboardist/guitarist Michael Lardie was listed as an official member of the band. Meanwhile, this would be the last album to feature bassist Lorne Black. However, new bassist Tony Montana appeared in the video for “Save Your Love”, not Black.

Alan Niven, who co-produced and co-arranged the album with Michael Lardie and Mark Kendall, also co-wrote all of the songs except “Save Your Love”.