Various Artists - Rarities Row Vol. 4 (2026)

It's time for another dip into the vaults of Mike Solof, for volume 4 of his 'Rarities Row'.

 Track listing and info:

01 Underground (Demo)
Ben Folds - Fifty Five Vault

Fifty-Five Vault is a Ben Folds compilation album featuring 56 tracks, mostly 
unreleased live recordings and demos. It was released jointly with 'The Best 
Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective' as a digital-only album available via Folds' 
website. 

02 Wild West End (Demo)
Dire Straits - Originally published as The Honky Tonk Demos 2x7" Single 

Demos for Dire Straits' first album. Taken from the original silver pressed bootleg 
'Early demos' of demos for Dire Straits first album. On the 24 July 1977, Dire Straits recorded the now famous demo tapes of five songs: 'Wild West End', 'Sultans Of Swing', 'Down To The Waterline', 'Sacred Loving' (written by David Knopfler, never released afterwards) and 'Water Of Love'. In what was probably October 1977, they recorded 'Southbound Again', 'In The Gallery' and 'Six Blade Knife' for BBC Radio London. Finally, on the 9th of November 1977, demo tapes were made of 'Setting Me Up', 'Eastbound Train' and 'Real Girl'. Many of these songs reflected Mark's experiences in Newcastle, Leeds and London, and were to be 
featured on the first Dire Straits album the following year. The recordings on the
CD feature most of these demo songs, and a version of 'Setting Me Up' that is really different from the version that was later released on the first album. 

03 Girls just want to have fun (Demo)
Cyndi Lauper 1983

Robert Hazard never became a household name in the United States, but for a 
period there in the early 1980s, he was one of the biggest singers in all of 
Philadelphia. He sold 50,000 copies of his 1981 EP, 'Escalator Of Love', JUST IN 
PENNSYLVANIA ALONE. However, he never really broke out nationwide, although some 
guys that he was friends with did, with the band The Hooters having a moment there in the mid-1980s with their hit song 'And We Danced', and with a spot at Live Aid in the U.S. side concert of Live Aid (which was held, of course, in Philadelphia). The Hooters were formed by Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian, who met at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1970s. One of their classmates, who was in an early band with them, Baby Grand, was Rick Chertoff. Chertoff later became a record executive at Columbia Records where he signed The Hooters, but he also brought Hyman and Bazilian on board to work on the debut album of a young pop 
singer named Cyndi Lauper in 1983. Hyman co-wrote “Time After Time,” but Chertoff looked to Hazard for the main track off of the album. Hazard had recorded a tune called 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' in 1979, but never released it as a single, see here. Chertoff was a fan of the song at the time and when he was putting together songs for Lauper, he remembered the song and approached Hazard about it. 

Hazard recalled in 1986, “He knew about ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ for years. He always told me what a great song he thought it was. When he met Cyndi, it was a match made in heaven.” However, there was an early conflict when Lauper wanted a song-writing credit (and thus a cut of the publishing rights). Hazard recalled how he quickly shut that down, “I said, ‘Don’t do the song.’ It didn’t matter to me. She was an unknown.” Once that was settled, Hazard worked out the lyrics with Lauper, “I changed all the lyrics over the phone with her. Originally, it was from the guy’s point of view. We had to make a lot of gender changes. She took the first verse and second verse and switched them. Why, I have no idea. Melodically, it’s exactly the same.” He then complimented how Chertoff reworked the song, “It was straight rock ‘n’ roll. Rick Chertoff produced it and made it an ’80s kind of song, put in a lot of electronics. I love what he did with it.” 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun', of course, was a smash and became Lauper’s defining song for years.

04 The Way (Demo 2)
Ariana Grande - Yours Truly Sessions

'The Way' is a song by American singer Ariana Grande featuring American rapper Mac Miller. It was released on March 26, 2013 by Republic Records as the lead single from Grande's 2013 debut studio album, 'Yours Truly'. In January 2013, she met with producer Harmony Samuels, at which point he presented her with a demo of the song that featured the vocals of co-writer 
Jordin Sparks, whom the song was originally intended. The beat he had created for the single, samples Brenda Russell's 'A Little Bit of Love' either directly or indirectly, via Big Pun's 'Still Not A Player'. Grande immediately connected with the sound and asked Mac Miller to feature on the song with her, to which he responded, "Sounds like a hit to me". The song was recorded that same month, and caught the attention of Republic Records VP Charlie Walk when he heard it being played from Republic co-founder Monte Lipman's office. "It was 8:00 one night, and I heard a song coming from Monte's office through my wall. He called me down and I played a video, a DIY of Ariana Grande. We heard the song and I immediately made the 
decision to set it up and put the song out. 'The Way' received positive reviews from music critics for its 2000's R&B sound and Grande's vocals, which drew comparisons to those of 
Mariah Carey. The song became Grande's breakthrough hit and peaked at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, earning both Grande and Miller their first top-ten song on the chart. 

05 One (Demo Newly Remastered)
Metallica - 1987 And Justice For All… Super Deluxe Box Set and Limited gatefold 

 
'One' is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica, and released as the third and final single from the band's fourth studio album, '...And Justice For All' from 1988. Written by band members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, the song portrays a World War I soldier who is severely wounded - arms, legs and jaw blown off by a landmine, blind, deaf, and unable to speak or move - begging God to take his life. In the music video, attempting to communicate with the hospital staff he jolts in his bed, spelling SOS in Morse code. 'One' was written in November 1987 by Metallica's principal composers Hetfield and Ulrich, who recalled “I had been fiddling around with that B-G modulation for a long time. The idea for the opening 
came from a Venom song called 'Buried Alive'. The kick drum machine-gun part near the end wasn't written with the war lyrics in mind, it just came out that way. We started that album with 
Mike Clink as producer. He didn't work out so well, so we got Flemming to come over and save our asses.”

06 River (with French Horn ending) Blue Sessions
Joni Mitchell - 1971 Joni Archives Volume 4 and Joni at 50 Demos and Outtakes

'River' is a song by Canadian singer songwriter Joni Mitchell, from her 1971 album 'Blue'. Written on piano, it has become a standard for artists in many music styles, and has become popular as Christmas music. Although never released as a single, 'River' holds second place among Mitchell's songs most recorded by other artists. In 2021, it was ranked at No. 247 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Best Songs of All Time". James Taylor, who knows the song better than just about anybody aside from Mitchell, said in a 2006 interview with The Post that “I don’t know why it’s suddenly getting picked up as a Christmas song. But some things just become identified as seasonal songs, and this is now one of them.” At the time, Taylor had just released 'James Taylor At Christmas', which included “River” — a song he’d first heard decades earlier, when Mitchell played it at her home in Los Angeles in 1970, shortly after it was written. “Most Christmas songs are light and shallow, but ‘River’ is a sad song,” Taylor told The Post. “It starts with a description of a commercially produced version of Christmas in Los Angeles, then juxtaposes it with this frozen river, which says, ‘Christmas here is bringing me down.’ It only mentions Christmas in the first verse. Then it’s, ‘Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on’ - wanting to fall into this landscape that she remembers. It’s such a beautiful thing, to turn away from the commercial mayhem that Christmas becomes and just breathe in some pine needles. It’s a really blue song.” 

For her part, Mitchell told NPR in 2014 that the song is about “taking personal responsibility for the failure of a relationship. And my generation - you know, the ‘Me Generation’ - is known to be a Peter Pan, narcissistic generation, right?” she said. “So it’s really that aspect of our inability - you know, ‘I’m selfish and I’m sad.’ Right? “People think that’s confessional, but I’d say, in my generation, you think that that’s a unique personal statement? You know what I mean? It’s like, no wonder there’s so many covers of it!” Taylor, who performed “River” in front of Mitchell last month at a tribute concert to celebrate her 75th birthday, said the song is most likely autobiographical, given that “it starts with a girl from Canada watching them try to make Christmas on La Brea in Los Angeles.” But he told The Post in 2006 that he’d never actually discussed the meaning with Mitchell, with whom he was romantically involved in the early 1970s. “Do I want to know who she made cry, who she made say goodbye? Well, I haven’t asked her that question,” Taylor said. “That’s the only mystery in it: Who was it whose heart she broke?” With a laugh, he added: “There were a lot of us.”

Watch Behind The Song Episode 32: Joni Mitchell "River" here

08 Beth (Acoustic)
Kiss - Destroyer 1980 Super Deluxe Box Set

With the 45th anniversary super deluxe edition box set of KISS' historic 'Destroyer' album coming in November, the band has served up one of the many rarities that are included with the set by way of an acoustic mix of their hit ballad, 'Beth'. The track features lead vocals by drummer Peter Criss, who worked with producer Bob Ezrin on the song-writing component and, for the first time ever, fans can hear a different version of 'Beth', led by an acoustic guitar amid a host of familiar elements. The biggest difference here is that the sweeping, cinematic 
orchestration has been removed, letting the piano melodies occupy most of the space with some gentle acoustic strumming throughout. "For the new acoustic mix of 'Beth,' the original recorded acoustic guitar track was taken from the analog multitracks and has now been fully restored and mixed with the original piano, vocal and synthesizer tracks, adding a fresh yet familiar feel to this iconic recording". 'Beth' was originally released as the B-side to 'Detroit Rock City' in July 1976, but after radio DJs began flipping over the single to play the 
Peter Criss-sung ballad, the track was released on its own and became a Top 10 hit. None of the Kiss members, besides Criss, perform on the original version of the song, which features Criss backed by producer Bob Ezrin on piano, Dick Wagner on acoustic guitar and the New York Philharmonic orchestra.

09 Soldier In The Rain (live)
England Dan & John Ford Coley - Live In The Studio 1979

'Dowdy Ferry Road' is the fifth studio album by the pop rock duo England Dan & John Ford Coley. The album's single 'It's Sad To Belong' was a moderate pop hit and a #1 smash on the 
Adult Contemporary chart. A second hit from the LP, 'Gone Too Far', reached #23 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

10 The Friends Of Mr. Cairo (live)
Jon Anderson - (WNEW FM Broadcast The Convention Hall Asbury Park NJ 6th August 1982)

Jon and Vangelis made (more or less) four complete albums together, and this is arguably the standout. The title track is a marvellous love-letter to old Hollywood movies (most specifically, The Maltese Falcon) which nobody else could have written. Besides the wonderful voice-overs, Vangelis winds the music from mysterious thriller to out-and-out nostalgia, and Jon's vocals go right along with him. From the dramatic to the personal, and yet not so personal that the listener cannot go along. A mini-movie for the ears, and then the quiet reflection that follows.

11 Leather (Demo)
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes Demos

Tori Amos approached Atlantic Records in December 1990 with a 10-track demo tape. She recalled "Many of these songs are different from the released versions. Some are longer, some are mixed differently, many have different lyrics. Little did I know that ladies that work in the other entertainment industry would listen and dance to 'Leather' it around their poles. And people stop me all the time. Even very recently I was getting wine not far from here, and somebody said, “I teach pole dancing classes to your music, and 'Leather' was one of those songs". So I think there was a side to me that was trying to - in the shedding - to also really 
collect my shadow portions. And I would go visit them and take these sides that I had judged. And one side that had been very crucified was the sexual side that did not yet understand erotic spirituality, did not know how to bring this into being. Very far away - years away from this. Little did she know when she was writing 'Leather' that we would be years and years away from knowing how to integrate that.

12 Everybody’s World (live)
The Grays - 1993 Live Radio gig pre first (and only album)

The Grays were a short-lived rock band comprising singer/songwriters/multi-instrumentalists 
Jon Brion, Jason Falkner, Buddy Judge, and Dan McCarroll. They released only one album, the out-of-print but highly regarded 'Ro Sham Bo' in 1994 on Sony/Epic Records. The intention of the band was to be a democratic collective of musicians, rather than a hierarchical group with a leader and backing musicians. This was due in part to the group's dissatisfaction with being in a band - particularly Falkner who had just come out of a tumultuous period with the band Jellyfish. The band members would often swap instruments depending on the need of the individual song and would contribute to each other's songs. Despite glowing reviews from critics, 'Ro Sham Bo' was a commercial disappointment and was the only album released by the band. The album would later go out of print. In retrospect, Falkner reflects that the band was not truly a democratic collective as he felt he was the true leader of the group. This was due in part to the fact that the album's producer, Jack Joseph Puig, admitted to enjoying 
Falkner's tracks the most, giving him one more song than the others on the album. This created animosity amongst the members, specifically Brion, who was the first to leave the group. This coupled with the band's lack of commercial success led to their breakup shortly thereafter.

13 Tubular Bells Part One - Demo
Mike Oldfield - (Rough First Mix) (Original Demo Part One)

Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by the British musician Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the first album on Virgin Records. It comprises two mostly instrumental tracks. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments. In his 
flat in Tottenham in north London, Oldfield recorded demos of four tracks he had been composing in his head for some years, using the tape recorder, his guitar and bass, some toy percussion instruments, and a  Farfisa organ borrowed from  the Whole World keyboardist 

David Bedford. The demos had a longer piece he had provisionally titled 'Opus One'. Oldfield was inspired to write a long instrumental after hearing 'Septober Energy', the 1971 album by Centipede, He was also influenced by classical music, and by 'A Rainbow In Curved Air', the 1969 album by the experimental composer Terry Riley, on which Riley played all the instruments himself and used tape loops and overdubs to build up a long, repetitive piece of 
music. Late in 1971, Oldfield joined the band of Arthur Louis, who were recording demos at the Manor Studio. The studio was being constructed in the former squash court of an old manor house in Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire, which had recently been bought by the young entrepreneur Richard Branson and which was being turned into a residential recording facility run by his music production team of Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth. 

Oldfield was shy and socially awkward, but struck up a friendship with the producers after they heard his guitar playing. Oldfield asked Newman to listen to his demos, but they were in his Tottenham flat, so one of Louis' roadies drove Oldfield to London and back to retrieve them. Newman and Heyworth made a copy of the demos onto 4-track tape, and promised Oldfield that they would speak to Branson and his business partner Simon Draper about them. After the album was released, Newman said he preferred the demo versions: "They were complete melodies in themselves – with intros and fade-outs or ends. I liked them very much and was a little nonplussed when Mike strung them all together." Oldfield spent much of 1972 working with his old bandmates from the Whole World on their solo projects while trying to find a record label interested in his demos. Oldfield approached labels including EMI and CBS, but each rejected him, believing the piece was unmarketable without vocals. Increasingly frustrated and short of money, Oldfield heard that the Soviet Union paid musicians to give  public performances, and was at the point of looking through the telephone directory for the phone number of the Soviet embassy when Draper called him with an invitation to dinner with Branson on Branson's houseboat moored in London. 

Branson told Oldfield that he liked the demos, and wanted Oldfield to spend a week at the Manor recording 'Opus One'. 'Tubular Bells' was recorded on an Ampex 2-inch 16-track tape recorder with the Dolby noise-reduction system, which was the Manor's main recording equipment at the time. Oldfield had Virgin hire instruments including guitars, keyboards and percussion instruments, and has recounted differing stories over the years regarding the inclusion of the tubular bells; in 2001 he suggested that they were among the instruments he asked Branson to hire, but in 2013, he said that he saw them among the instruments being removed from the studios after John Cale had finished recording there, and asked for them to be left behind. Oldfield, Newman, and Heyworth spent their evenings drinking in a pub, after which they returned to the Manor and recorded through the night. Heyworth recalled several disasters, including one instance where half a day's work was accidentally erased. Final mixing was an involved process, with the faders operated by Oldfield, Newman, Heyworth, and two others simultaneously. 

They followed detailed tracking charts and the process was restarted if one person made even a slight mistake. Heyworth recalled difficulty in cutting the album due to vinyl's limited dynamic range, and insisted on heavy vinyl normally used for classical records. Oldfield played the majority of the instruments as a series of overdubs, which was an uncommon recording technique at the time. In total, 274 overdubs were made and an estimated two thousand "punch-ins", although Newman said "it was really only 70 or 80" in total. Despite various guitars being listed on the album sleeve, such as "speed guitars", "fuzz guitars" and "guitars sounding like bagpipes", the only electric guitar used on the album was a 1966 blonde Fender Telecaster which used to belong to Marc Bolan and to which Oldfield had added an extra Bill Lawrence pickup. The guitars were recorded via direct injection to the mixing desk. To create the "speed guitar" and "mandolin-like guitar" named in the sleeve notes, the tape was recorded at half speed. An actual mandolin was used only for the ending of 'Part Two'. Oldfield also used a custom effects unit, the Glorfindel box, to create the "fuzz guitars" and "bagpipe guitars" distortion. In 2011, Oldfield's Telecaster was sold for £6,500, and the money was donated to the mental health charity  SANE. 

According to the engineer Phil Newell, the bass guitar used on the album was one of his Fender Telecaster Basses. Oldfield recorded side one, known as 'Opus One' at the time, during his one allotted week at the Manor in November 1972. He was particularly interested in 

starting the piece with a repeating riff, and devised the opening piano sequence after experimenting with an idea for several minutes on Bedford's Farfisa organ. He wanted a slight variation on its 16/8 time signature by dropping the sixteenth beat, and chose the key of A minor as it was easy to play. Oldfield recorded the opening riff on a Steinway grand piano, but struggled to perform in time. Heyworth solved the problem by placing a microphone next to a 
metronome in another room and feeding it into Oldfield's headphones. The short honky-tonk piano section was included as a tribute to Oldfield's grandmother, who had played the  instrument in pubs before World War II. The staff and workers at the Manor made up the "nasal choir" that accompanies it. Oldfield had difficulty in producing a sound from the tubular bells, as he wanted a loud note from them but both the standard leather-covered and bare metal hammers did not produce the volume that he wanted. 

In the end, Newman obtained a heavier claw hammer and Oldfield used it to produce the desired sound intensity but cracked the bells in the process. The track closes with a segment featuring comedic rocker Vivian Stanshall, formerly of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, introducing each instrument being  played one by one. The idea originated when the band were due to use the Manor after Oldfield, and had arrived while he was still recording. Oldfield had liked the way Stanshall introduced the instruments one at a time on the Bonzos' song 'The Intro And The Outro' on 1967's Gorilla', and told Newman that he would like Stanshall to do the same. Newman agreed, but had to persuade the shy Oldfield to ask him if he would carry out the request. Stanshall readily agreed to the idea and is credited on the liner notes as "Master of Ceremonies", but Newman recalled that the job proved to be more difficult than anticipated, as Stanshall forgot the names of the instruments and introduced them at the wrong points. Oldfield wrote a list of the instruments in order, indicating where he should introduce them. The way in which he said "plus... tubular bells" inspired Oldfield to use it as the album's title.

Vinnie Vincent - Guitars From Hell (1991)

Vincent John Cusano, better known by his stage name Vinnie Vincent, was born on 6 August 1952, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and he picked up the guitar at an early age, being inspired by bluegrass and rock and roll. In 1980 he moved to Los Angeles, California where he became a staff songwriter for the television series 'Happy Days' and 'Joanie Loves Chachi', with many of the series songs being written on his acoustic guitar while sitting at the Cunninghams' kitchen table on the 'Happy Days' set. After being introduced to the band KISS by songwriter Adam Mitchell, Vincent was brought in as the replacement for guitarist Ace Frehley when he left the group, as his personality meshed well with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, thus enabling him to play lead guitar on six of the nine tracks on the 'Creatures Of The Night' album, as well as co-writing three. After a commercially disappointing Tenth Anniversary tour, that finished on a high at what ended up being the last "makeup" show in Brasil, Vincent returned to the studio with KISS to record the 'Lick It Up' album. His work was productive, yielding eight co-writes out of the ten songs on the album, but although he performed well live with KISS, he refused to sign an employment contract, which strained the relationship with Simmons/Stanley. This arose because of disputes over his role in the band and pay, and so consequently Vincent never formally became a member of the band. This ultimately led to him leaving after the North American leg of the 'Lick It Up' tour, where he was replaced by Mark St. John. Despite parting on bad terms, Vincent was later used by KISS as a songwriter on the 1992 album 'Revenge', but he soon fell out of favour with Simmons and Stanley, as they claimed that he again began pulling the same kind of crazy stuff that led to him leaving the band in the first place. After he left KISS, Vincent formed the Vinnie Vincent Invasion, and released a self-titled solo album in 1986 with Robert Fleischman on vocals, then followed it up in 1988 with 'All Systems Go', featuring Mark Slaughter on vocals and Dana Strum on bass. Demos for a third album were recorded, but this was never released due to the Enigma record label going bankrupt, but the eleven tracks saw Robert Fleischman return to the band in place of Mark Slaughter, who had gone on to form his own band Slaughter, taking bassist Dana Strum with him, and they were joined by Chris Lee on bass and Andre Labelle on drums. The album was originally to be titled 'Revenge', but Gene Simmons like the title and convinced Vincent to let him have it for the next KISS album, so it was renamed as 'Guitars From Hell', and with nine of the tracks having since surfaced, that's just enough for a storming 43-minute glam-metal shred-fest.  

Track listing

01 Rocks On Fire 
02 Nuke It
03 Shocker 
04 Invincible
05 Truth
06 Full Shredd 
07 Wild Child
08 Youngblood
09 Genesis

KISS - Nine Lives (1987)

In 1983, after nearly a decade of performing in their trademark make-up, KISS decided that it was time for a change,and they made the decision to abandon their make-up and costumes. The band officially appeared in public without make-up for the first time since its very early days on 18 September 1983, on an appearance on MTV, which coincided with the release of their 'Lick It Up' album. The tour to promote the new album and the unmasked band members began in Portugal, and it paid off as 'Lick It Up' became their first Gold record in three years, even though the tour was actually more sparsely attended than the previous one. Guitarist Vinnie Vincent had not got on with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley for a while, and so he left the band at the conclusion of the tour in March 1984, and was replaced by Mark St. John, a session player and guitar tutor. With St. John on board, KISS released the album 'Animalize' in 1984, resulting in their best-selling record in America during the decade, with over two million copies sold. However, St. John came down with reactive arthritis during rehearsals for the 'Animalize' tour, and only performed at a handful of shows before being dismissed from the band in December 1984, and being replaced by Bruce Kulick, the band's fourth lead guitarist in less than three years. With their most stable line-up for a while, the band released a series of Platinum albums, including 1985's 'Asylum', and 1987's 'Crazy Nights', with the latter being one of the band's most successful albums overseas. The single 'Crazy Crazy Nights' reached No. 4 on the UK singles chart, and was the band's highest-charting single in that country. While preparing songs for 'Crazy Nights', Simmons, Stanley and the band recorded demos of a number of songs which were eventually turned down for inclusion on the finished album, but these have subsequently leaked online, with there being enough of them from around 1987 to compile a companion album to 'Crazy Nights', which could have been issued the same year.  

Track listing

01 Sword And Stone ('Crazy Nights' out-take 1987)
02 Suspicious (demo 1987)
03 Time Traveler (demo 1987)
04 Dial L For Love (demo 1987)
05 Best Man For You (Paul Stanley demo 1987)
06 Promise The Moon (demo 1986)
07 Hunger For Love (Gene Simmons demo 1987)
08 Don't Let Go (Paul Stanley demo 1987)
09 Have Mercy  (demo 1987)
10 When Two Hearts Collide (Paul Stanley demo 1987)
11 Nine Lives (demo 1987)
12 Are You Always This Hot ('Crazy Nights' out-take 1987)

Gene Simmons - Alter Ego (1978)

In 2017 Gene Simmons released 'The Vault', which was a collection of his musical 'Alter-Ego', and contained 50 years of unreleased solo recordings created between 1966 and 2016 on 11 CDs, packaged in a hardcover coffee table book featuring 50,000 words and 160 pages of unseen photos, all housed in a 40lb deluxe safe made of metal and wood. It also features collectables available exclusively to the box set, including the first ever non-makeup Gene Simmons action figure and a two sided gold medallion. If you have a spare $1,500.00 then go for it, or you could choose to have have Simmons personally make the delivery to your home, for just $50,000.00. For those of us who don't have that kind of cash, I decided to extract some of the songs to make up an album which could have followed his 'Gene Simmons' release from 1978, where all four members of Kiss issued a solo album at the same time. There were a number of songs in 'The Vault' which dated from 1978 and which weren't on that album, so they were either recorded during, or just after, the sessions for 'Gene Simmons', and with the addition of three tracks recorded with Eddie and Alex Van Halen in 1977 (which I particularly wanted to include) there was exactly enough material for a 40-minute album. The sound quality is variable, but I've tried to make all the songs sound like they were recorded together, and listening to this collection you can't help but admit that the man knows a good hook when he hears it.   

Track listing

01 Got Love For Sale (with Eddie and Alex Van Halen)
02 Love By Invitation
03 Eat Your Heart Out
04 X Ray Eyes
05 Obnoxious
06 Tunnel Of Love (with Eddie and Alex Van Halen)
07 Just Begun To Fight
08 Mongoloid Man (with Joe Perry and Michael Desbarres)
09 Gypsy Eyes
10 Bad Bad Lovin'
11 Fourever
12 Christine Sixteen (with Eddie and Alex Van Halen)
13 It's Funny, But It Ain't No Joke


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Wicked Lester - Wicked Lester (1971)

Wicked Lester was a New York-based rock band, formed (as Rainbow) in 1970, and is most notable for including in their lineup bassist Gene Klein (later Gene Simmons) and rhythm guitarist Stanley Eisen (later Paul Stanley). In 1971 they changed their name to Wicked Lester, and after a chance meeting with Electric Lady Studios engineer Ron Johnsen, they were given the opportunity to record some demos. Johnsen, who produced the demo tape, shopped it around to a few labels with no success, but eventually the tape was screened by Epic Records, who purchased the masters and agreed to fund the recording of a full album. The entire recording process, which adhered to a haphazard schedule, took nearly a year to complete, not helped when Epic demanded the group fire guitarist Steve Coronel and replace him with Ron Leejack. When the finished album was presented to Epic's A&R director Don Ellis, he said that he hated it and was not going to release it, and the next day Wicked Lester manager Lew Linet requested and received the group's release from Epic Records. It was at this time that Klein and Eisen (now using the stage names Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley) decided that one of the reasons for Wicked Lester's lack of success was that they didn't have a singular musical vision, incorporating rock and roll, folk rock and pop, so they made the decision to start a new version of the group, and began auditioning for a drummer in the fall of 1972. After recruiting Peter Criss, they decided to concentrate more of the straightforward rock and roll, as well as theatrics, and after another name change, KISS was born. The Wicked Lester album was a mixture of original material and covers, showcasing the group's eclectic style, and three of the songs would later resurface on KISS albums with varying degrees of similarity. The only part of Wicked Lester's album to actually be released was the cover art, which was re-used for The Laughing Dogs' debut album in 1979. CBS Records, who owned the rights to the album, remixed it and planned to release it in late 1976 to capitalize on KISS's commercial popularity, but the band and Neil Bogart, the president of Casablanca Records, purchased the album from CBS for $137,500 and locked it in their vaults. Bootlegs have since leaked online and so we are now able to hear it and make up our own minds if we agree with Paul Stanley's opinion that it's 'eclectic crap'.  

Track listing

01 Love Her All I Can (Stanley)
02 Sweet Ophelia (Barry Mann/Gerry Goffin)
03 Keep Me Waiting (Stanley)
04 Simple Type (Simmons)
05 She (Coronel/Simmon)
06 Too Many Mondays (Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil)
07 What Happens in the Darkness (Tamy Lester Smith)
08 When the Bell Rings (Austin Roberts/Christopher Welch)
09 Molly (aka Some Other Guy) (Stanley)
10 (We Want To) Shout It Out Loud (The Hollies)
11 Long, Long Road (Stanley)

Wicked Lester was:
Paul Stanley - lead vocals, guitar
Gene Simmons - lead vocals, bass guitar
Ron Leejack - lead guitar, banjo
Brooke Ostrander - piano, horns
Tony Zarrella - drums & percussion

Suggested by 'The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald


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KISS - Snow Blind (1978)

In 1978, each of the individual members of KISS decided that they would record a solo album. Off they went and made their records, and they were then all released on the same day. KISS fans must have been estatic - it was just like the band had recorded a quadrupal album........until they listened to them. It was inevitable that the quality of the songs would be variable, and the general opinion is that the order they should be listened to is Ace, Paul, Gene, and lastly Peter (if at all)
This album is what Album Fixer imagined an actual 1978 KISS record might have sounded like if the band had brought their best songs to the table instead of recording them on their own, and if, like me, you haven't actually heard the solo albums, then as a KISS album it hangs together pretty well.

Track listing

01 Move On
02 Radioactive
03 New York Groove 
04 See You Tonite 
05 Ozone 
06 Tonight You Belong to Me 
07 Rip It Out 
08 Don't You Let Me Down 
09 Tunnel of Love 
10 Snow Blind 
11 Living in Sin 
12 It's Alright

This post is a requiem for the Album Fixer site, as I had managed to access some pages using the webcache option, and I'd saved them for future reference, but it appears that if they're not viewed after a certain period then they are deleted for good, and they've now all gone. Hopefully I've posted most of his better efforts. 

R.I.P.