The Scrounger's Report

Apr. 01, 2001

The Bartering Scrounger's Report v.36

I mused about dumping the pile of CDs on my tradelist on Ebay, but
I just didn't feel like spending half a day scanning discs and
putting the auctions up, waiting a week, dealing with shipping,
etc., etc. So I packed 'em up and dumped 'em off (well, most of
'em anyway) at Casa de Inbred in Decatur. Yeah, I didn't get
nearly as much for them than if I'd put 'em on Ebay, but we're
talking 1/100th the hassle. Beats the heck out of just having
them collect dust (not like I was going to listen to the damned
things).

First, a couple of discs in a trade package from South America:

Shakra - S/T. 1997. Point Music.
   German hard rock, unfortunately not as good as "Moving Force".

Domain - Collection 86-92. 1999. Humbucker Music (Germany).
   Excellent stuff, especially the material from "Before the
   Storm". Melodic pomp AOR with lots keys.

Mennen - S/T. 1994. T&T Records (Germany).
   Project featuring Joss Mennen (Zinatra) on lead vox.
   A heavier edge for him, more hard rock than AOR, yet still
   melodic.

D.A.D. - Special. 1989. Megasong Publishing (Scandinavia).
   Not sure exactly what this is; seems to be a compilation of
   material from their first two albums "Call of the Wild" and
   "Draws a Circle". 14 tracks, including 3 previously unreleased
   (at least at that time they were unreleased).

OK, now the stuff from Casa de Inbred:

Slipknot - S/T. 2000. Roadrunner Records.
   20-track digipak. Industrial metal, fairly aggressive. It's
   interesting, I hear/read a lot of people slamming Slipknot
   while extolling Fear Factory, yet there's really not that
   much of a difference. Slipknot uses the same core, yet applies
   more industrial/rap at the expense of the techno elements.

Starz - Brightest Starz. 2000. Renaissance Records.
   Been wanting this for a while. Now that I've listened to it,
   I'm not sure why. :) They're "ok", but for some reason, they
   don't rock my world...

Forbidden - Twisted Into Form. 1990. Relativity Records.
   Melodic thrash. 'nuff said.

Therion - Lepaca Kliffoth. 1995. Nuclear Blast Records.
   Wow. Majorly different from the Therion I'm used to.
   The lead vocals are clean, but not very good. I almost
   prefer the death vox to this. Use of choirs is sparse.
   Instrumentally quite good.

David Lee Roth - Crazy From the Heat. 1985. Warner Brothers.
   4-track EP that I'd not seen floating around (you can't swing
   a dead cat without smacking one of the other DLR solo discs,
   but this one seems to be less common).

Iron Savior - Dark Assault. 2000. Noise Records.
   YUM! These guys cannot put out a bad effort. We'll see what
   happens now with Kai Hansen leaving the fold...

Solitude Aeturnus - Through the Darkest Hour. 1994. Pavement.
   A disc I should have gotten long ago. Many claim it is their
   best work (I'll agree that "Pain" is an absolute masterpiece),
   although I'll have to spend some time with it to see how it
   measures up to "Into the Depths of Sorrow" and "Beyond the
   Crimson Horizon"...

Nuclear Assault - Assault and Battery. 1997. Receiver Records.
   18-track greatest hits compilation from these thrashers.

Grand Prix - The First Album. 2000 (198?). Zoom Club (U.K.)
   Not bad. Bernie Shaw's vocals aren't too bad. How does 
   the disc with Robin McAuley compare?

Praying Mantis - Captured Alive in Tokyo City. 2000 (1996).
Zoom Club (U.K.).
   Excellent live performance recorded in 1995. It has Gary
   Barden on lead vox (hopefully at some point we'll see
   a live disc with O'Hora on lead vocals). Barden's vocals
   are the weak point, but still not bad...

And lastly, a disc that I initially thought was a mistake, but
evidently not. I got home and found out I already had this
CD (when you have 3500 discs, this inevitably happens at
some point), but lo and behold it's a different pressing
with different tracks. If someone has information about the
various versions of this disc, please speak up:

Whitesnake - Live...in the Heart of the City. 1980.

The version I already had was on Geffen Records (9 24168-2)
and has 7 tracks:

1. Come On (3:40)
2. Sweet Talker (4:16)
3. Walking in the Shadow of the Blues (5:01)
4. Love Hunter (10:53)
5. Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City (7:24)
6. Fool For Your Loving (4:45)
7. Take Me With You (6:39)

The CD I found yesterday is on Underdog Records (CA 97637) France.
The cover art is almost identical (the "Live...in the" wording 
is in orange instead of yellow, however), the back of the booklet
has b&w pictures of the band (on the Geffen pressing the back
of the booklet is simply a repeat of the picture on the tray
card), and the tray card on this one does not have any picture.

Moreover there are 10 tracks instead of 7, and "Take Me With
You" from the Geffen release is ommitted (so there are 4 songs
on this pressing not on the Geffen release). Also, on the 6 songs
that are on both pressings, the track times are all slightly
different:

 1. Come On (3:41)
 2. Sweet Talker (4:10)
 3. Walking in the Shadow of the Blues (4:49)
 4. Love Hunter (11:00)
 5. Fool For Your Loving (4:43)
 6. Ain't Gonna Cry No More (6:63)
 7. Ready 'n Willing (4:45)
 8. Might Just Take Your Life (4:55)
 9. Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City (6:39)
10. Mistreated (10:40)

Any clue what the [CENSORED] is up with these? Apparently
I'll have to keep 'em both in order to have all the tracks. :)

Till next time,

-Dan