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.

TED NUGENT – PENETRATOR (1984)

The recent passing of vocalist Brian Howe made me want to seek out the one bit of his discography that I had never heard before. This was an idea easier said than done however. The Ted Nugent album Penetrator was Howe’s first US gig and judging by what I’ve read online, this album is not looked upon all that fondly by the press or Ted Nugent’s fanbase. Making matters worse, when I tried to find a CD edition of the album online, it seemed I would have to give up an arm or a leg to afford the asking prices.

But the day was saved by my friend Roger. He arranged to drop off his cassette copy of the album in my mailbox (social distancing, don’t you know) so that I could listen to it.

I know you might wonder why I’ve never heard this album before now. Much like a lot of what I’m going to write about this release, I find myself going a bit against the grain when it comes to Ted Nugent. The truth of the matter is, I wouldn’t say that I’m all that much of a fan. Sure, I like the stuff you hear on the radio like “Stranglehold”, “Free For All”, “Wango Tango” and “Cat Scratch Fever”. I even liked the title track to the Little Miss Dangerous album. But I’ve never once felt the need to buy any of his solo music. In fact, the only material I own that features Ted Nugent are the two Damn Yankees albums.

The fact that I’m a huge fan of Brian Howe’s voice compelled me to finally listen to this album and while the research I did for this article suggests that it isn’t all that good and suffers from trying to sound like everything else coming out in the mid 1980’s and not quite getting there, I found that I kind of liked the Penetrator album. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that feeling though. So often I hate stuff other people like and then when everyone is hating on something, it turns out that I like it. I guess that’s just a bit of my contrarian nature coming through.

I will admit that the album does sound a little dated. It is pretty easy to realize that it was released in the 1980’s. It has “that” sound which marks the era. But from the start, there’s a wildly reckless energy to a lot of the songs.

That sense of the energetic starts right at the top with “Tied Up In Love”. Given Nugent’s predilection for sex, it is no surprise that most of the material could be seen as having plenty of double entendres. But the smoking hot guitar and Howe’s vocals keep this song rocking from start to finish.

The first four songs on Side One of the album are all pretty fast-paced. I really liked the solo on “(Where Do You) Draw The Line” but I thought the keyboards through the song off a bit. That song was written by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, which made me chuckle to think of the guy who sings balladry like “Heaven” having one of his compositions performed by the Motor City Madman. I also liked the solo in the expressively up-tempo “Don’t You Want My Love”. Say whatever you want about Ted Nugent, the man can shred his butt off on the guitar.

I think my favorite song on Side One might just be the rocker “Knockin’ At Your Door” which was written by Andy Fraser, the bassist for Free. I don’t know what it was but this was just a really cool track to me.

The closing song on the first side features a slightly slower pace as they seem to be going for a bigger sense of the dramatic. The keyboards (from Billy Squier’s Alan St. Jon) heavily influence the song here.

Brian Howe’s vocals graced the tracks on Side One, but when you flip the tape over you are immediately hit in the face as Ted himself once again steps up to the mike. You might tend to forget that you are listening to a Ted Nugent album when it is someone else singing the lyrics. But then Ted’s vocals kick in and you remember it’s “Uncle Ted’s” world and we’re all just witnesses to it.

While the Side Two opener “Thunder Thighs” pushes right against the line that marks when a song crosses over into a comedic self-parody, the maniacal guitar playing and ballsy vocal take elevate this song into a kind of interesting full-blown rocker. There is absolutely no sense of subtlety here but I have to admit that as the song played through, I didn’t care.

I did care more about the song “Blame It On The Night” though. Brian Howe was back on vocals for this song but it didn’t quite work for me because I thought the track could’ve done without the keyboards in the mix. That could just be me, but I thought it held the song back from reaching for what could’ve made it a potentially better song.

I loved the down and dirty grind of “No Man’s Land” and the self-congratulatory nature of the blazing “Lean Mean R&R Machine”. Both of the songs are flat out rockers and I thought they came out pretty damn fantastic.

And in a bit of a reversal, there was some restraint and subtlety on the album’s closing song “Take Me Home”. It is the only song that could legitimately be considered a ballad. While the tempo does increase a bit during the course of the song, it really does surprise that you. The funny thing is I went looking for the official lyrics only to find that none of the online lyric websites seems to have them. A few of them simply say “We’re sorry but the artist has decided not to disclose the lyrics for this song”. I don’t know if there’s some kind of story behind that decision or not but given the lyrics that are online for some of Nugent’s other songs, it was a bit amusing.

My entire reason for wanting to hear this album was because Brian Howe sang the majority of the songs on it. As I stated when I wrote about the Bad Company album Holy Water, I’m a huge fan of his voice. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect to find when I started listening to Penetrator given my less than full-throated support for Ted Nugent’s career. I know that the prevailing opinion about this album seems to veer towards being overwhelmingly negative, but Howe’s vocals and the fantastic music from Ted and company gave me a different opinion.

After listening to this album, even with it’s hiccups, I found the album to be surprisingly enjoyable. You could’ve probably knocked me over with a feather when I realized that fact. Now if I can just find myself a copy of my own that doesn’t require me to sell off a body part to afford it.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The album and the tour for it were the beginning and end of Brian Howe’s time with Ted Nugent. According to Howe’s Wikipedia page, a dispute over the lack of writing credits on the album (The song “Tied Up In Love” is specified) and financial matters led to his departure.

The drums on Penetrator were performed by Billy Squier drummer Bobby Chouinard who also played with Cher, Alice Cooper and Peter Wolf amongst his credits. Peter Wolf is credited on the Penetrator album as providing percussion and sequencing. The artwork was done by noted fantasy artist Boris Vallejo.

While I’ve never seen Ted Nugent in a solo concert, I did see him live as a part of Damn Yankees when they toured for their self-titled debut album. I remember being pretty impressed by his playing then. I wrote about that album for a previous article in The Cassette Chronicles series.

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.

WRITER’S NOTE: On May 6th, 2020, singer Brian Howe died as the result of a heart attack. I woke up that morning to discover the news and it hit me like a gut punch. I just loved his voice and the job he did fronting Bad Company between 1986 – 1994. While the band has virtually wiped out Howe’s time with them from their official history, the four studio albums he recorded with them are among the finest melodic rock albums one could hope to hear.

Howe was a pretty darn good songwriter, managing to come up with any number of hard driving rock numbers, the heart-rending ballad and every song style in between. Hell, the guy even co-wrote the lyrics for the song “I’ll Get Even” on Megadeth’s Cryptic Writings album!

The 2010 solo album Circus Bar is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard and it was among my favorites of the year upon its release. You can check out what I wrote about that album HERE.

The death of Brian Howe is a huge loss to his family and friends. The loss to those of us who are fans of his music is markedly different of course, but no less a profound sadness. I can only hope that anyone who hasn’t heard his work before now will soon discover that Howe’s voice was one of the great highlights of rock and roll.

BAD COMPANY – HOLY WATER (1990)

Depending on who you ask, opinions vary about the best of the four studio albums that Bad Company recorded with Brian Howe as the group’s lead singer. A lot of people will say it is Dangerous Age and it would be hard to argue with that choice. It’s a great album and I love it a lot myself.

But if I’m the one making the call, I have to go with Holy Water. The album was the most successful release in terms of sales (it went platinum) during the Howe era and I pretty much consider it their masterwork for this part of their history.

There are thirteen songs on the album and there isn’t a bad one in the lot. As I was listening to the album ahead of writing this piece, I even got to get a new perspective on a trio of the “album track” songs. They didn’t get the airplay as a single release but I got to enjoy them anew as songs that give the album the depth of quality it has.

The first side of the album wastes no time in kicking off things in a rocking fashion with the title track. It bursts out of your speakers and really grabs your attention. It’s the kind of declarative statement that makes you sit up and take notice. As I was researching some information about the album online, I saw that when the “Holy Water” song was released as a single, it became the #1 rock track for a couple of weeks. I’ve listened to this album a lot since it was released but as I listened to the track again, I could definitely recall how I felt when I would hear it playing on the radio as I would listen to 94 HJY out of Providence, Rhode Island.

That song was followed up by “Walk Through Fire” which became a Top 40 single for the band. It’s another pure rocker that gets the blood flowing through your veins. The band had a huge hit with the power ballad “If You Needed Somebody”, which made it into the Top 20. While it does have what would be considered the standard requirements for a song of its nature, I can listen to that track over and over and not get bored with it.

While the remaining three songs on the first side of the album weren’t released as singles, they still give you plenty of bang for your buck. “Stranger Stranger” has an amazing riff that runs through the song. The song rocks but with a slyly seductive groove to it.

The Mick Ralphs-written song “Lay Your Love On Me” closes out the first side with a driving tempo. However, the most surprising discovery for me was actually rediscovering the song “Fearless”. It’s a blast of pure hard rock rhythm that is so surprisingly effective that I found myself singing along to the lyrics.

There’s been a lot of talk over the years about what led to the split and acrimony between Brian Howe and both Simon Kirke and Mick Ralphs. A lot of that talk centers around the songwriting for the band. However, I don’t see how the credits for this album could be such a breaking point for the band. Brian Howe co-wrote seven of the Holy Water‘s thirteen songs. Meanwhile, Simon Kirke wrote one song on his own and co-wrote another. Mick Ralphs had “Lay Your Love On Me” on his own and co-wrote three other songs.

But regardless of who wrote what, I have never been able to understand why the band grew apart. I mean, the album is full of great material. Yes, it is a dramatically different sound than the classic rock origins of the band. But as a confirmed fan of the more melodic rock stylings, this album is one of the highlights of that genre.

If you can’t take my word for, then just flip the album over to side two and check out songs like “With You In A Heartbeat”, “I Don’t Care” and “Never Too Late”. While the album is chock full of great straight up rockers, it closes on a decidedly more mellow note. Simon Kirke sings lead and plays the acoustic guitar on “100 Miles”. It’s a decidedly upbeat song and it kind of gives you a preview of the direction of his songwriting would go on the solo albums he did in 2011 (Filling The Void) and 2017 (All Because of You).

Much like “Fearless”, the songs “Dead of the Night” and “I Can’t Live Without You” became moments of re-discovery for me as I listened to the album. They are both hard rocking numbers with explosively melodic choruses heightened by a big backing vocal sound. Once again, I found myself singing along to these tracks.

I’m a fan of storytelling, whether it be in a book or through song. And the opening song on side two feeds my love of story. “Boys Cry Tough” was a monstrously successful song on the rock charts (it went to #3) even without being released as an official single. The story of Bobby and Mary has a clearly defined narrative. As a listener, you become involved in the storyline. It’s a prime example of how to tell a story through song and when you add in the fantastic music that backs up Brian Howe’s superb vocal performance on the song, you have the showcase track of Holy Water.

While it may have taken the death of Brian Howe to get me to write about this album for The Cassette Chronicles, what matters most is that I get to share my love of the album with people. This year marks the 30th anniversary of it’s release and for my money the Holy Water album is one of the finest albums I have in my collection.

NOTES OF INTEREST: Terry Thomas produced Holy Water but he was deeply involved in all aspects of the recording as well. He co-wrote eleven of the songs and played guitar and keyboards (the cassette liner notes list it as Hammond organ) and added backing vocals as well. He and Brian Howe had worked together on Howe’s 1997 solo album Tangled In Blue and he was also the producer for the Bad Company albums Dangerous Age and Here Comes Trouble.

Brian Howe re-recorded the song “Holy Water” for his Circus Bar album but gave it a significant re-do for an entirely different spin on the track. I love the original song as I said, but if you hear the new version he did, you’ll be shocked to discover how powerful it is.

I have only seen Bad Company in concert once but it was with Brian Howe on vocals. It was during the tour for the Dangerous Age album. I can still remember the T-shirt I bought when I saw them play the Orpheum Theatre in Boston. They had Winger as their opening act.

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.

ACCEPT – RESTLESS AND WILD (1983)

When it comes to opinions about German metallers Accept and their music, it does seem to be that a lot of the time, people kind of just start with their best known song “Balls To The Wall” (from the album of the same name). The stuff that comes before tends to be at least a little bit forgotten for some reason.

It is a considerably strange notion considering how many songs the band came up with prior the “Balls To The Wall” track that are still thought of as classic tracks to this day. I’d written about the band’s self-titled debut album in a previous article in this series. However, I thought it might be time to get around to writing a little bit about one of the other Accept albums I have in the Big Box of Cassettes.

Released in the US in 1983, the Restless and Wild album is the immediate predecessor to the Balls To The Wall album. It wastes little time in blowing the doors off your expectations with the song “Fast As A Shark”. Considered one of the earliest and best examples of “speed metal”, this bull in a china shop kind of song continually throttles the listener with an intensely relentless pace.

The title track is another classic track for the band. In fact, the first four songs (including “Ahead of the Pack” and “Shake Your Heads”) are all some of the band’s finest early work. It is songs like these that make a deep dive into the band’s discography a great treasure hunt for any metal fan. As I was listening anew to “Shake Your Heads”, I was struck by the slight similarity in the lyrics to Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)”. Not the exact lyrics per se but the similarity in the celebration of fan reaction to metal music in general. Given that both songs were released in 1983, it just struck me as a great potentially unrealized coincidence.

But for me, the band kind of lost the plot a little bit after those first four songs. While there is a bit more artistic depth in the songwriting to “Neon Nights” (not a cover of the Black Sabbath song), it just was kind of mediocre to me. When you flip the cassette over to Side Two, that sense of the mediocre continues with “Get Ready”. “Demon’s Night” and “Don’t Go Stealing My Soul Away” are decent enough rockers but I don’t think they’d be spotlighted as amongst the best the band has to offer.

I had listened to the CD version of the album back in the middle of 2019 and thought “Flash Rockin’ Man” was a little bit of a mis-step too. But when I listened to the album for this article, I actually found myself enjoying it more than I did in the past. There’s a driving sense of urgency to the music that made the song a bit more catchy to my ears this time around.

The album closes with “Princess Of The Dawn”. The song has a kind of claustrophic feel to it. The song is one of the better known songs from the album. I like it, as it definitely highlights the band’s increased songwriting craft. But the thoroughly abrupt way the track ends will leave you wondering what the hell they were thinking. It doesn’t feel like the track had reached its natural endpoint but rather someone had shut off the recording machines at the most inopportune of times.

I’ve long considered myself an Accept fan. However, like a lot of people I first became aware of them because of the “Balls To The Wall” song. In my defense though, I didn’t just stop there. That song served as the catalyst for me as I’ve done many a deep dive into the band’s entire catalog. I own most of their albums and there are so many gems to check out. I was actually going through my music collection a few weeks back and I spent most of a day pulling out all the Accept material I own and found myself with a sense of renewal as I went through the albums in chronological order.

Accept has earned their place in metal history and while I found at least a couple of tracks on Restless and Wild to be decidedly problematic for my tastes, you can bet your ass that when you listen to this album, you will come to understand just how important the album is in the evolution of the band’s career.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Restless and Wild album has two different covers. The version that was originally released in Europe in 1982 has a photo of two guitars on fire. When the album was released in the US and UK in 1983, that album art had been replaced by a live shot of the band. I own the band shot on cassette and I have a CD version of the album that features the guitars aflame.

The guitar work on the album has a bit of a story to it. Accept had hired guitarist Jan Koemmet before they recorded Restless and Wild. However, his tenure with the band was very short and he didn’t play a note on the album. The album’s liner notes list Herman Frank as part of the lineup, but while he was the replacement for Koemmet, he didn’t actually play on the album either. Instead, Wolf Hoffman was responsible for all the guitar tracks.

In 2018, I saw Udo Dirkscheider (under the band name ‘Dirkschneider’) performing a full set of Accept songs with his U.D.O. band. They played “Princess Of The Dawn” and “Fast As A Shark” from the Restless And Wild album during the set.

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.

QUIET RIOT – QUIET RIOT (1988)

In 1983, Quiet Riot rose to the top of the metal world on the basis of their Metal Health album. They were, so to speak, the “kings of the world”. Great things seemed to lay ahead for them.

By 1988, the metal world had pretty much passed them by. The decade where metal ruled the world had pretty much left the band in the dust. This would be due in large part to the fans moving on from them and other bands sick and tired of listening to vocalist Kevin DuBrow badmouth them in the press.

But 1988 also saw the other members of Quiet Riot firing of Kevin DuBrow from his own band and the hiring of former Rough Cutt vocalist Paul Shortino. This lineup switch brought about a very different sound for the band on the Quiet Riot album. Gone was the bombastic metal explosiveness. Instead, when you listen to this album, you find that this is more of a bluesy hard rock sound for the band.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’d long moved on from Quiet Riot at this point. I vaguely recall seeing a video that I think came from this album and when I heard the music in 1988, I found myself thinking, “What the hell is this?” and never bothered to check out the album itself. It was deciding to write this article that brought about my first time listening to the release.

And I’ve got to say that I was pretty surprised to find myself really liking a lot of what they had to offer here. Yes, the sound is completely different and those who only want “Cum On Feel The Noize” are sure to never give this album its due.

The song “Stay With Me Tonight” was the single released and it leads off Side One. I can’t say that this was the song I saw the video for, but it does seem likely that it was. I may not have thought much of it three decades ago but as I listened to it now, it was a pretty effective song. Yes, time changes and so did my opinion.

I wasn’t crazy about how the production sound on Shortino’s vocals were done on “Callin’ The Shots”. They were overproduced and made it sound kind of fake and poorly edited together or something. The song “Run To You” really drives home that bluesy sound with it’s slow burn tempo. However, the addition of a big backing vocal part on the chorus threw the song’s balance off for me.

But then Side One closes out with a couple of really solid rockers. “I’m Fallin'” is a damn good song but the band really cuts loose on the song “King of the Hill” which has a pretty vibrant sound and vibe to it even now. By the way, the latter song was co-written by former Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin.

With the addition of Shortino to the lineup, he was pretty involved with the songwriting along with drummer Frankie Banali, guitarist Carlos Cavazo and producer Spencer Proffer. While there were other contributors along the way, this was the main grouping of songwriters for the album. However, with change being the only sure thing when it comes to the Quiet Riot lineup, Shortino was not the only new addition to the group’s lineup. Chuck Wright had left the band and they replaced him with Sean McNabb.

The second side of the album features a brief instrumental called “Lunar Obsession”. It is less than two minutes long and sadly, it just felt out of place to me and it really didn’t seem to need to be included.

Other than that, Side 2 ROCKED! Songs like “The Joker” and “Empty Promises” were electrifying, just pure burn rockers. The band was on fire with “In A Rush”, a song that saw the pacing match the title but in a good way.

The power ballad influence was felt most strongly with the song “Don’t Wanna Be Your Fool”. It starts off as you might expect with a slow but steady tempo. But it gradually gets stronger and faster. By the end of the song it is more of a straight ahead rocker and you kind of forget the ballad like beginning.

In 1988, the lyrics for “Coppin’ A Feel” might’ve raised an eye or two but most likely would’ve been overlooked for the most part. These days, the lyrics are slightly more problematic. Still, as a whole the song is just a killer.

I was looking up the album online and while this one did seem to do slightly better than the QR III album, it was still seen as a big disappointment. I guess I can understand that if we were still in 1988. But in the here and now, I really have to say that despite a couple of speed bump tracks the Quiet Riot album is actually a damn fine piece of work. It may be unappreciated by the majority of metal fans, but you can count me in as one who will tout the positives from this album from this point forward.

NOTES OF INTEREST: Drummer Frankie Banali is the one mainstay of the group to this day. Currently, he’s battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and just recently a GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay for his medical bills.

Quiet Riot split up after touring for this album. There was a live release coinciding with the tour for the album called ’89 Live In Japan. There’s been some confusion about the true name of this album as well. It is the second album from the band to be self-titled. It has apparently also been called QR IV. Meanwhile, Paul Shortino has said the title is just QR.

This was the only studio album that Paul Shortino recorded with the band. He’s gone on to play in variety of bands including King Kobra and Appice. He’s also got his own band, Shortino. If the global health crisis that is going on at the time of this article’s publication doesn’t cancel it, Shortino (the band) will be part of the first day lineup at the New England Rock Fest in Chicopee, MA on Friday August 14th , 2020 and feature ex-Dio guitarist Rowan Robertson in the lineup.

Sean McNabb has had a prolific music career following his time with Quiet Riot. He’s played with House of Lords, XYZ and Dokken. He was also with Great White for three separate stints including recording the Can’t Get There From Here album, my personal favorite Great White album. He’s also done acting work including appearing on the Sons of Anarchy and Mayans M.C. TV series.