How I found God while listening to Def Leppard

I have re-written and simplified this post, and re-published it on a different blog.  Please go to the following link: 

http://mikespersonalopinions.blogspot.com/2016/07/how-i-found-god-in-def-leppard-song.html

Tyketto: Strength in Numbers (1994)

Well, here's this year's post. It seems like life has kind of just flown by, and I decided I needed to get back to my hobby of listening to music. The album for tonight is Strength in Numbers by Tyketto. I've been thinking about this album a bit lately and decided to dig it up from my mp3 archive.

I'll start with the nostalgia bit: I first became acquainted with Tyketto via a bootleg tape I got from my brother who got it from a friend of his. So when I found a new tape of this, their second album, at Starbound back in '94 I snapped it right up. I remember cranking it up on the beat up speakers I had mounted up on my bedroom wall. Then after High School I kind of forgot about it until the summer of '04 when I rediscovered it and listened to it while I would go running in the mornings. Since then it's been on and off of my playlist but it's always been a favorite.

For those who don't know who Tyketto is, you should. Tyketto is a fantastic east-coast hair band from the early '90s who put out their first album "Don't Come Easy" in 1990 to critical acclaim but it was a bit of a commercial disappointment so not as many people in the USA know about them. The rest of the story you can look up on Wikipedia and I won't waste my breath on a bio.

Strength in Numbers was their 2nd album, which was released in 1994 after a bit of a delay, on a different label from the first, and featured a different bass player. But the core members including Danny Vaughn on lead vocals and Brooke St James on guitar were still there, and the sound of this record is very much a continuation of their style from the first. The impression I get is this band sounds very confident, both in their playing and songwriting. There's an honesty in this album that was hard to find in the mid 90s when everyone was trying to compete with grunge, and I commend these guys for sticking to their guns and releasing a real rock record with no attempt to change their style, playing the music the way it should be played.

The opening title track of the album starts of energetically, with Vaughn's vocal delivery sounding like a cross between Jimi Jamison and a pack of snarling wolves. (Ok I admit it, I wrote this entry partly just so I could say that.) Maybe I'm unduly influenced by the cover art on that point. But the sound has a great balance between the very low bass, the guitar riffs, drums and vocals. The whole record has a very polished sound and it carries through all of the songs.

Track two- "Rescue me" is another up tempo song with more great guitar riffs and excellent backing vocals that really enhance the chorus. The use of backing vocals on this record really lends a fulness to the overall production, again, expertly placed like all the sound elements on this album.

Track three- "End of Summer Days" is a mid-tempo ballad that moves along nicely and provides a good example of the country-tinged rock sound that in my opinion should have been the natural direction that rock music ought to have taken in the 90s. The lyrics of this track bring to mind universal themes of longing for lost love and summertime home-town experiences that I find easy to relate to. Plus the beat of this song is easy to dance to, it could have been a real crossover hit.

"Catch My Fall" continues the laid back mid-tempo neo-country feel with heavier guitars and more of those fantastic backing vocals. The album then takes an unplugged turn with "The Last Sunset", a classic storytelling song that chronicles a man escaping and settling in Mexico, slowly revealing that he's a wanted bank robber, who finally gives up on running and enjoys one more sunset while waiting for the police to come.

While I don't have time to do a full track by track, and I can't personally endorse the lyrics on every single song (that's up to the individual listener when it comes to hard rock music) this album has a lot of good songs and no filler, musically.

Another of the highlights of this record for me is "Meet Me in the Night", which has one of those clean pop guitar picking riffs in the opening and a gradual buildup of sound that I personally love to listen to just for the way it sounds structurally.

Towards the end of the album comes "Inherit the Wind" which has a cool intro, a similar beat to "Rescue me" and again showcases Danny Vaughn's vocal delivery in a way similar to the opening track.

The final track of the album, a remix of "Standing Alone" from the first album featured some re-recorded guitars and vocals and added a nice touch to one of their best ballads which made for a very good single to re-introduce the band to casual listeners. This song has a lot of meaning for me and was one of the songs that helped me through some of the loneliest times in my life, and is part of the reason I still listen to this band while other heavy metal bands fell by the wayside.

Rumor has it that Tyketto is finally working on an all- new album after all these years and I'm really looking forward to it.

John Elefante: Corridors

The subject of tonight's post is the John Elefante album "Corridors". (Although at the rate I blog it might as well be this year's post. But I need to keep this up if only for the sake of being able to remember my password.)

Before I go any further I need to help get the word out that John Elefante has just put out his first album in 10 years, called "Revolution of Mind". It's actually a reunion of his old band Mastedon but due to confusion with a totally different band called Mastodon, it's been released in the U.S. under the name "John Elefante and Mastedon". But that's a new album, and I don't review new stuff here. So check back in about 15 years (ok maybe not that long) I haven't had a chance to buy that one yet (dang budget), though I've heard sound samples and it sounds excellent so far.

"Corridors", Elefante's 1998 album, was his second solo effort but is by no means sophmoric. John Elefante by that time had enjoyed a long and acclaimed career as a producer, particularly in the Christian market where he had worked with artists such as Petra. So of course the production on this album is top-notch. That pretty much applies to anything Elefante produces, and he's one of my heroes when it comes to audio production, up there with Tom Scholz and Aldo Nova.

The songwriting, while not quite as catchy to my ears as his 2000 follow-up Defying Gravity (which I actually got ahold of before this one), is a great listen, with good mid-tempo cuts throughout such as "Eyes of My Heart" and the title track "Corridors". The album also features an excellent ballad, "Where does our Love Go".

But the real gem of this album, and the one which I consider the centerpiece of the whole disc, is "Not Just Any Other Day". The song tells about crucifixion of Christ, making the point that people around Jerusalem in 33 AD were going about their business without realizing that the most important event in the history of mankind was taking place. How many times do we miss the most important things while going about our daily business?

Boston: Amanda

Once again I'm back after a long delay. Life gets busy and blogging can be hard to keep up with. But speaking of long delays, tonight's subject is the song "Amanda", the #1 hit single from Boston's 1986 album, Third Stage.

I had become acquainted with Boston through that album. For me, it was a well-worn tape borrowed from my older brother, with its amazing fold-out cassette cover art of a giant organ-powered spaceship in orbit, and the liner notes detailing how Tom Scholz created fantastic soundscapes with homemade equipment over a 6-year period while dealing with all sorts of problems in his basement studio.

Third Stage (and to a lesser extent the equally fantastic 1994 follow-up Walk On) really defines the sound of Boston for me, much more than their first two albums, and reflects a generation gap in Boston fans-- the first two albums had appealed to the youngest of the Baby Boomers, while most late Gen-Xers like me were either in diapers or too busy watching Sesame Street to pay attention to rock-and-roll during Boston's initial 70s heyday. So Third Stage was the Boston album for my generation.

"Amanda", along with many other songs, has a lot of meaning for me. In the summer of 2004, I started spending time with a beautiful young woman who had sat next to me in a religion course in college the year before. She had a sparkling, spunky personality, and was one of the sweetest, kindest people I had ever met. After I had called her a couple of times, she came up to me and flat-out asked me on a date, (I was rather shy and still am) and over the course of the next several dates I fell head-over heels for her. Suddenly, it was like someone had turned on a switch and I understood the meaning behind the words of this song. It perfectly detailed what I was feeling, the introspection, the worry and anticipation, and the overwhelming desire to tell her I was in love with her.

So I sat down with my guitar and my 4-track, and I recorded a terribly amateur rendition of this song, faking the chords as best I could in my own key, and replacing the name "Amanda" with the girl's name (which also started with an A). I packaged it up on a CD-R along with a few of my other recordings, and, after walking her home from watching the fireworks on the 4th of July, I gave it to her.

And, right then, she broke up with me.


The next day, we both got called to co-chair an important church committee for our student congregation. Talk about God micro-managing your life! To call it divine intervention is almost an understatement!

Several months later, after much soul-searching, with each of us dating other people and breaking each others' hearts, we got together for another date. And this time, I brought my guitar and sang it to her live. And this time, it worked.

That was over 4 years ago. This week, our daugher Amanda was born, weighing 5 lb 15 ounces.

Babe, feelin' the way I do
I don't wanna wait my whole life through
To say...
I'm in love with you.

Kerry Livgren- When Things Get Electric

I apologize it's been awhile since I've posted. Tonight I'm reviewing Kerry Livgren's 1995 album, When Things Get Electric. I made passing mention of this one in my previous post, since Darren Rogers sang lead with both Sundogs and Kerry Livgren. I didn't intend to review two closely-related albums in a row like this, but then the news broke on the web that Kerry had suffered a stroke last week. The word is out to all the fans that Kerry needs our prayers. But in addition to prayer, I decided the best way I could show some support for Kerry would be to also purchase more of his music, and buy a NEW copy, not used, so that he and his family actually get some of the revenue.

So I finally got off my butt, logged on to Amazon, and got this album. Here I am kicking myself for waiting 13 years to finally buy it after I first heard about it. I've got excuses up to the wazoo for buying one thing and not another, but I really should've got this one earlier.

I've got two other KL albums-- Seeds of Change (1979) and Prime Mover (1988). Both of those are very closely Kansas-related, since Kansas is of course my favorite band, and both contain a lot of material that was written during Kerry's tenure with that band.

This one, on the other hand, came out in the mid-90s, and being further removed in time from both Kansas and AD, is a pretty good example of a "pure Kerry" solo project. Of course, since Kerry was a principal songwriter in both those bands, similarities are inevitable in the music. I also found the occasional past/future echo of Kerry's old lineup of Kansas from the early '70s, which reformed as Proto-Kaw in the early 2000's .

When Things Get Electric begins with a slow introductory prelude that segues into the title track, which is a slow to mid-tempo rocker with a powerful rhythm section underscoring the equally powerful vocal track. For the longest time I thought that the signature line was "When things get electric, we're all gonna fry" (as quoted by someone on the Kansasfans.com forum) and assumed it was referring to the destruction of the wicked at the Second Coming. But apparently the line actually reads, "we're all gonna fly"-- so it's actually talking about the Rapture. I guess either one could happen on that day, depending on what side you find yourself on. I won't delve into the tricky subject of the exact timing of the Rapture vs. the Lord's appearing, since theological opinions vary pretty widely.

The next track, "Turn on the Lights", has the common CCM message of accepting Jesus and seeing the world in a new way. A very energetic song, with a good guitar riff that I wouldn't mind hearing a bit louder, but overall very fitting for the message.

"Two Thousand Down", a song contemplating the future and end times here at the dawn of the new millennium, has a sound reminiscent of "I'll Follow You" from Prime Mover, with a good, steady beat, and some eclectic instrumental breaks. The vocalist here does a great job, but I could also imagine Warren Ham or John Elefante sounding really good on this song.

"Smoke Is Rising" continues the lyrical end-times theme of the album, with an overall sound that reminds me of a couple of tracks that Kerry would later write for Proto-Kaw in '04, but here with a simpler, straightforward rock beat.

"Throw Me Down" deals introspectively with the subject of the internal battle between the natural and spiritual side. Here toward the end of the song there are a lot of good intricate keyboard riffs and fills in Kerry's usual style.

"One Dark world" is one of my favorite tracks on this album. I'm very familiar with this song already since it's featured on Kerry's soundtrack for the computer-animation video Odyssey into the Mind's Eye-- the best one of the series, by the way. My wife and son love to watch that DVD. So of course the images of planets and spaceships immediately pop into my head when this song comes on, but on this album it sounds much better than on the video. The words here deal with the vastness of the universe, and our separation from our heavenly home. Through the void we roam, and drift astray....

"No Holds Barred" pulls the listener straight back down to earth with an almost-heavy-metal sounding tune about the ongoing culture war, and the declining morals of our society. And we thought society was bad off in 1995, but I'm sure nobody could have imagined the kind of polarization and social turmoil in today's world of 2009.

"Sweet Child" has a message that hits home pretty hard for anyone like me who has children, of a father who wants the best for his children and, hopes the best for their future and the path they take. The beat, guitars, and layered vocals are a plus, and give an almost Journey-like vibe to the track.

"A Hero's Canticle" has a fantastic rock-anthem melody, at first listen bringing to mind the Canadian band Triumph, but without as heavy a dose of electric guitars. This is another one of my favorites, and I initially thought it was the opening track because I accidentally had the shuffle button on when I first played the album. But it's a great song no matter what its place on the tracklist.

Guitars are very heavily featured on the next track, however, as "Racing Away" opens with a riff that at times invokes Heart's "Barracuda", and a melody that occasionally reminds me of mid-80s Toto for some reason.

"Like A Whisper" features clever lyrics as always, and a groove carved out by an a bass line that sounds a bit like a fretless bass that may or may not be synth, and an unexpected violin solo that instantly brings to mind the sound of mid-90s Kansas.

The final track, "Xylon (the tree)" has a majestic sound that invokes some of Kerry's other work-- "Hopelessly Human" from Kansas' Point of Know Return and "Theophany" from Proto-Kaw's Before Became After-- both of which were fantastic closing tracks on their own respective albums. I could easily imagine either Steve Walsh or Lynn Meredith singing this track. The closing keyboard instrumentals on this song also seem to connect with some of the background music at the beginning of the Odyssey Into the Mind's Eye video.

This album is of course, filled with Kerry's signature songwriting, with intricate compositions, cool guitar riffs, thoughtful lyrics, and of course a Christian message. While Kerry has always had the image of one of those controversial CCM artists that shares his message through hard rock music, there are plenty like Stryper and Whitecross who rock harder and sound more controversial. In my opinion, Kerry strikes a good balance with a middle-of-the-road rock sound that doesn't overpower the message of the lyrics.

A blend of well-crafted lyrics, a positive Christian message, and excellent composition make this one of Kerry's best solo albums, and as I said, it's one I should have purchased a long time ago.
Let's all hope for Kerry's continued recovery so that he may "carry on" as a musician and an inspiration for all of us.

Sundogs: Wild Season

For those of you who weren't listening to rock radio in early 1997, Sundogs was a fantastic band fronted by Darren Rogers, who is probably best known as a vocalist on Kerry Livgren's When Things Get Electric.

Sundogs' debut album recieved a lot of airplay and attention, and the band seemed poised to break into success, but the tiny independent label they were signed to was ill-equipped to support the band's momentum. The label went under at the worst possible time, taking Sundogs with it and leaving a lot of brand-new fans scratching their heads and wondering where they went.

On top of that, the band was billed as "Alternative" at the time, but as everyone knows, in the mid-'90s no band could so much as get their foot in the door without calling themselves that. And the first 3 songs on this disc-- "Dyin'", "Veteran's Song", and "Bound to be Forgiven" pretty much fit the post-grunge mold of the time, with the typical syncopated beat and grungy distortion, though not quite as heavy and tuned-down as a lot of the contemporary stuff of the time. Track 4, "Kill the Pain", continues this pattern but with a funkier groove.

But then something strange happens: Starting with track 5, "Carries Me Away'", Sundogs ditches the "Alternative" disguise and shows its true colors as a genuine, real honest-to-goodness melodic rock band with some amazing vocal and guitar melodies to go with the lyrics. The transformation continues with the next track, "Like A River", a mid-tempo, more laid back tune that was probably the first cut off the album to get airplay, at least to my memory. This is followed up by "No Easy Way", an energetic rocker with a well-balanced blend of acoustic and electric guitars, thoughtful lyrics and powerful vocal delivery.

After that comes the absolute best song of the album, "Save My Soul". This is the one song that kept me searching for this album for a decade after it went out of print. All I had was a partial low-fi cassette recording of this song that I'd managed to get off the air, but that was enough and I knew I had to get the rest of it. The song is that good. It's one of those slow build-up songs that starts out simple and just keeps getting better as each instrument comes in.

"Save My Soul", along with "Like A River", brings back a lot of memories of my senior year in high school, particularly how I used to hear it in the car on the way to work.

The album is closed out with two more songs-- "Cold Love", a simple, short ballad, and "1000 Ships", a heavy-hitting mid-tempo meat-and-potatoes blues rocker that completes the set in a concert encore fashion that would have been gone down really well live.

Darren Rogers' vocals really shine on this disc, in the vein of Rik Emmett or Kevin Chalfant but a little more gritty.

The production is also very good, particularly the way acoustic and clean guitars were used liberally throughout. An internet search reveals that the album producer, Leif Mases, was also responsible for some other great albums such as Europe's Wings of Tomorrow.

The first 4 songs aside, this album was well worth the 10 years it took me to find it, and it was a terrible shame that Sundogs didn't get the chance they deserved. So here's yet another one for the "hidden gems" file.

Gordon Lightfoot: Summertime Dream

I'll say it up front, I'm a big fan of Gordon Lightfoot. I consider him to be one of the best folk singers of the '70s, and I wish I had more of his records. My Dad was a big Lightfoot fan as well, and I have assorted childhood memories of hearing the Gord's Gold compilation playing around the house and in the car.

But personally, I didn't get into Lightfoot's music until ca. 2004, when I heard The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on the radio and I remembered how Dad told me the story behind this song when I was little. The mysterious, sad lyrics and haunting guitar riff of the song stuck with me, and some time later I came across this album in the used section of the now-defunct Starbound Records in West Valley City, UT, and snatched it up when I saw that it contained the song.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was, of course, Lightfoot's biggest hit ever, and most people I know either love or hate this song. It's a modern interpretation of the old sailor's epic sea ballad; the kind of song that would be passed down through the generations containing the wisdom and warnings of the distant past. People foget that the Great Lakes really are vast inland seas, despite being freshwater, and their waters deserve the same kind of seafaring legends as the Mediterranean with its Iliad and Odyssey.

But of course this album isn't all Gitche-Gumee and the gales of November. In fact, most of it is consists of upbeat, catchy tunes, with infectious rhythms, memorable lyrics, and choruses with some fantastic vocal harmonies. The opening track, Race Among the Ruins, had all of these qualities and became an instant favorite the minute I put the needle to the record. Other similar, upbeat tracks on the album include I'd Do it Again and the title track Summertime Dream, These are nicely balanced out by slower tracks such as I'm Not Supposed to Care, the easy listening of Spanish Moss, and the rolling, road-music like sound of Never Too Close. The House You Live In continues the wisdom-and-warnings theme of Edmund Fitzgerald, with an almost identical rhythm and meter but a more positive underlying mood, while songs such as Protocol and the closing track Too Many Clues In This Room convey a sense of thoughtful, lyrical contemplation.

The cover art of the album features a simple black-and-white photo of Lightfoot printed in a sepia tone with a grainy, airbrushed look to it. On the back is a long, meandering train-of-thought poem full of rich imagery, perhaps composed of discarded lyrical fragments related to the album title.

Overall this is a very well-balanced album, composed of thoughtfully crafted songs. The production is also well-balanced and very clean, with no sign of sounding dated despite having been recorded over 30 years ago.