Hidden Treasures - They Still Got It!!

[Scott]

Sometimes us Classic Rock fans get stuck in a time warp, we wrap up our musical lives in the past. But many of heroes are still recording and releasing high quality rock and roll. Are we still listening? One of my favorite things about CRB is the New Music we present each week. You don't have to like it, but isn't it great that somewhere on the inter-webs someone is still championing new music from Classic Rock artists? So that's why this list was put together. I simply wanted to remind you that there's still some great music being written and recorded.


Here are 4 songs from fairly recent albums and Classic Rock artists that maybe you missed out on...


This playlist is sort of a Two-fer, I'll give you two progressive artists and two from the Heavy Rock genre. What do you think, do they still got it? Enjoy!


PLAYLIST --> http://www.podsnack.com/CA69EFD9E8C/a1jax0as

	John Elefante and Mastedon Revolution of Mind 2010 1 - Revolution of Mind His career began in earnest when he auditioned as the new lead singer and keyboardist for Kansas, in 1981. That year, the band was one of the top-grossing concert acts in the world, and Elefante had never been in a band apart from his family. Although several of the top vocalists of the day applied for the job Elefante received the part. Elefante sang the lead vocals and performed keyboards on two Kansas albums. He was also a major songwriting contributor (along with lead guitarist / keyboardist / songwriter Kerry Livgren). On 1982's Vinyl Confessions, he co-wrote and sang the No. 4 Billboard Mainstream Rock hit, "Play the Game Tonight". The next year, on the following album, Drastic Measures, he wrote the early MTV favorite, "Fight Fire with Fire", which remains the band's highest charting single at No. 3. In 1985, "Young and Innocent" appeared on the soundtrack to St. Elmo's Fire and was credited to "Elefante" as a collaborative effort by brothers John and Dino Elefante. At the dawn of 2010, Elefante had produced and/or performed on more than 100 major label albums. The Elefante brotherhood had endured, and the two brothers had together achieved considerable artistic and commercial success. Elefante realized, though, that he was still a songwriter at heart. In 2010, Big3 Records re-released 3 as Elefante's Revolution of Mind. His latest studio album, On My Way to the Sun, released in May 2013, reunited Elefante with former Kansas bandmate Rich Williams and current Kansas violinist David Ragsdale.
	Spocks Beard X 2010 2 - Edge of the In Between Alan Morse came up with the name after a particularly wild party, where he remarked to his brother, Neal, "It's almost as if we were in an alternate universe, like that one episode of Star Trek where Spock had a beard. Wouldn't that be a cool name for a band? Spock's Beard." Following the release of Snow in 2002, Neal Morse left the band for a solo career. On 23 July 2009, the band's website announced that most of the material for a new album had been written, and that their tenth album was to be released independently rather than through a record label. Adopting an approach similar to that taken by the band Marillion, Spock's Beard had decided to take pre-orders of the CD before entering the recording studio, to support the production costs. The band expected the album to be released first as a limited edition of 5000 CDs to those who pre-ordered the album, and then available on general release a month later. That album, X, was released in June 2010. On 22 April 2015, the band announced that their 12th album, The Oblivion Particle, would be released in August 2015.
	Krokus HooDoo 2010 3 - In My Blood In 1982 Krokus recorded One Vice at a Time, which featured the hits, "Long Stick Goes Boom," and the Guess Who cover, "American Woman". Chris von Rohr described the album at the time as "the album AC/DC never made". The comparisons actually cast doubt on the creativity of the band. Nevertheless, Krokus became increasingly popular in Europe and began to receive attention and success in the United States. 1983's Headhunter was awarded Platinum album status in the United States and hit number 28 in the 1983 Billboard album charts. The album was Krokus' most successful album to date, both commercially and critically. 1984 saw the band move in a more commercial direction with The Blitz. Though a commercial success, the album was panned critically. After an intense period of recording and touring for much of the 1980s the band went on hiatus at the end of 1988. On April 20, 2008, the classic lineup of Chris von Rohr, Fernando von Arb, Freddy Steady, Mark Kohler and Marc Storace had reunited and on March 3, 2010, they released Hoodoo. Krokus released their seventeenth studio album Dirty Dynamite on February 22, 2013. In April/May 2015 the band returned to tour some dates in the United States, where they had not performed since 2005.
	Accept Blood of the Nations 2010 4 - Pandemic The band released I'm a Rebel in 1980. The title track originally was written for AC/DC and recorded by the band but never released. In 1981 Breaker was released. Restless and Wild was then released in 1982. It saw an evolution in the band's sound, incorporating characteristics defining the genre dubbed speed metal. Accept's next release was 1983's Balls to the Wall. The album was more conceptual. A world tour followed in 1984, including the Monsters of Rock festival. Metal Heart was released in 1985. Produced by Scorpions producer Dieter Dierks, it presented the band's creative peak. Accept toured the world supporting the album, and documented the live shows with the live mini-album Kaizoku-Ban. The follow up, Russian Roulette, was released in 1986. In 1987, Udo Dirkschneider decided to embark on a solo career. Supporting this decision, the songwriting team in Accept wrote his entire solo album, released in 1987 as Animal House under the band moniker U.D.O. Their comeback album, Objection Overruled, was released in 1993 and was a qualified success in Europe and the USA. A world tour followed, and another album, entitled Death Row, was released in 1994. On May 14, 2009, Udo Dirkschneider officially announced that he would not be participating in the rumoured Accept reunion. A new album was written and recorded with Andy Sneap (of Megadeth, BLAZE, Exodus, Testament, Arch Enemy and Onslaught fame) as producer. Titled Blood of the Nations, it was the first original Accept album in fourteen years. Their thirteenth studio album entitled Stalingrad was released in April 2012. Accept released their fourteenth studio album Blind Rage on July 18, 2014.

Why all the songs on this playlist ended up being from 2010 is a mystery to me, it was nto planned, but turned out to be a happy accident IMO...

[Jon]

I believe I strongly recommended the Mastedon album a couple years ago? Who knows. It is a fantastic album, don't know if it's really in a "have they lost it" category since it's different from Kansas.

Spock's Beard is fine, but compared to the other bands/artists, they haven't been around as long.

The Krokus song is ok, still doesn't beat "Headhunter". Nothing they do will. At least this is better than a lot of the stuff they put out post-"Headhunter".

Yeah, Accept has still "got it". Shouldn't have worked out with the new singer, but it has. Imagine that.

[Scott]

I did purchase the Mastedon album solely because of your recommendation. ... you have cost me a small fortune lately with your Stones recommendations as well... but I went off script a tad and added Emotional Rescue to the mix, found that I like it best so far. ...

[Jon]

Emotional Rescue isn't bad, it does bring back a lot of memories to me, especially with the title cut. But compared to a lot of their other albums, it's a bit lacking even though it's still enjoyable.  

[Niels (Mod)]

J.E. & MASTEDON - I like Kansas, but only once in a while. I don't own a Kansas-album, but have heard a couple of albums incl. a double best off at Spotify. This one is okay in a kind of 80's kind of way. It's pretty clear to me, that you love this kind of american pop-rock, Scott. It's just an okay listening experince for me, nothing special. Yeah, well, he's still got it, I suppose.

SPOCKS BEARD - Yeah, it was this album in a NMC 5 years ago, that made me aware of this band. I loved it at first listen, and went out to buy it and a Porcupine Tree-album, because these "new" Prog-bands now had my full attention. Later in the same year, I think. I bought Neal Morse's "Testimony 2", which I probably wouldn't had known excisted if not for knowing this album, so all in all that NMC was probably the most important for me ever. This is still a good album, better than the one coming after, but only slightly. The singer on this album sounds to me, like he's not REALLY a singer, but a musician filling out the space. I look forward to the new album, but after listening to the new song recently, I'm not convisted it will be that great. I CERTAINLY hope, they still got it.

KROKUS - Ah, Krokus!! I "found" Krokus in 1981, when I was looking for new bands/albums, and thought that "Harware" was pretty decent. "One Wice At The Time" was the very first "new" album, I bought in 1982, and it wasn't as good as "Harware", and I simply lost interest. I did buy "Headhunter", but it bored the hell out of me, and never bought another Krokus-album. I know you guys looooove "Headhunter", but I don't. Krokus is a b-version of Bon Scott-fronted AC/DC, and this track doesn't convince me otherwise. They NEVER had it!!

ACCEPT - Another band, I "found" in 1981 (I say found, because my mates at the time, started to buy albums by those bands, after I played those albums), and "Breaker" is still a good album. "Restless & Wild" still has got the two best Accept-tracks (the title-track and "Princess of the dawn"), and they made a couple of good albums the following years (which remind me: It's been a while, since I heard "Metal Heart"-the album. AOTW?). The last album by them, that I bought was "Russian Roulette" from 1986, and I didn't like that one, and moved on musically, as did Udo. This band always had an excellent "guitar-sound", and still kind of has, but even though I didn't really like the sound of Udo's voice (I was a fan because of the guitar-sound), there's no Accept without Udo imo. I've moved on musically but they obviously haven't. I don't care about this ......music....nowadays. No, they don't have it.

[RJhog (Admin)]

No chance for Metal Heart as AOTW...I don't own it.

[RJhog (Admin)]

Let's see:

Elephant - This is immediately nice.  It's got a great melody and the vocals are quite good too.  It has a simple, yet effective and cool solo.  I dig the melodicness (pretty sure that's not a word) of this track and the best thing is that it's not cheesy.  Some modern melodic rock tends to be cheesy.  I can't say I'm familiar with this guy, but I have heard of him. I wanna say you featured him somewhere else, maybe in NMC, and I liked what I heard there as well.  

Mr. Spock - I was expecting prog, but through the first two choruses there hasn't been any (despite that fact, it's been very enjoyable to this point).  Now it changes up a bit and turns proggy.  The guitar solo is schizophrenic but nice.  I'd say the vocals are good, but I am partial to Ted Leonard's vocals in the current lineup.  I think it's the keyboards here, but this band just reminds me of Styx, and that's a good thing.  Add the keyboards and Leonard's vocals and they really remind me of Styx.  I have already pre-ordered the new album and I'm looking forward to it.  I'm interested to see if it can give Neal Morse's current album a run for my number one prog album of the year.

Kroakass - Never been a fan of this band.  The AC/DC vibe is very apparent.  He said "back street rhythm".  I thought it was "back seat rhythm" at first.  Anyway, it's a decent enough song, but I can live without it.

Decline - I can take or leave Accept.  Matter of fact, I have this album.  They remind me again of AC/DC, but I think they sound heavier.  This song has a terrific guitar solo.  My favorite thing about it is that it is old school metal, they aren't consumed with the distraction of double bass drumming.  

If I were to rank these, I'd go with:

1. Spock's Beard

2. Elefante

3. Accept

4. Krokus

If I were compiling my own list, I might choose:

1. One Way Street (Rick Springfield)

2. Save Me Now (Billy Idol)

3. So Long China (Winger)

4. As Is (Van Halen)

[Scott]

Krokus gets no love...   ... oh well, I really love the band and their new stuff is very good (to me).  I'll make a deal with you, no more Smitherweenies for no more Kroakass?