Triumph- Stages

Remember the gatefold double album? It was a work of beauty with its numerous inserts and photos and was often a staple for live records. Well, other than the decreased sound quality, packaging is the biggest detriment to the cassette format. And never is this more obvious than when it comes to squeezing a double live album on to a single cassette.

I don't even know how long Triumph's Stages album is. My cassette deck won't rewind the thing all the way because the tape is so heavy. It reminds me of Iron Maiden's Live After Death, but unlike that record I didn't seek Stages out on vinyl. So few clues are given as to what this album is other than a live record that came out in 1985 and which includes two new studio tracks. Beyond the song titles we get a list of shout outs to people who assisted them on the road and some product endorsements, along with an exclusive merchandise offer. I'm so tempted to send away from my white crewneck Triumph Stages sweatshirt, but it requires that I sacrifice the one photo that comes with the insert so I can fill out the order form.

The tape has been rewound, largely by hand. The crowd is cheering. You can hear the opening keyboard riffs. And now it's clear the band has taken the stage. The crowd erupts. "San Diego please welcome from Toronto...(something inaudible) TRIUMPH!"

There's a lot of warpage going on here and it's doubtful that the tape will play all the way through. I must admit, part of me hopes it doesn't.

I don't know if I ever got through this whole tape. When I found it the tape had been played about halfway through. Something tells me that's about where I left it the first time I listened to it. I'm pretty sure I never made it to those two bonus cuts at the end of side two.

It's all pretty generic rock. "When the lights go down...it's time to light the fuse." You can almost hear the band writing this song and self-congratulating themselves for writing the perfect concert opener.

Ugh oh. There are pauses between the songs. That's always been a big no-no for me, even back in 1985. If I'm listening to a live album, give me the illusion of hearing a real show. Especially if you're going to make a double album that runs the length of a entire show out of it.

Why did I buy this album? I'm pretty sure it had to do with the song "Magic Power" and how passionately a girl in my theater class felt about it. I always liked the song too. It was a curiousity thing, and if a greatest hits album wasn't available, the next best way to really check out a band was the live album. Or so I thought. This album might have changed my mind about that approach.

Another Triumph memory happened after I got this live album. I was working at my first fast food job and one of my coworkers had just purchased Triumph's new album at the time, , and discovered that a previous Triumph album had been recorded on to the tape instead of the new one. I can't say I've ever heard of that happening since. I remember getting a kick out of it because I was pretty sure Triumph sucked by then, and I got sick of hearing the guy preach the virtues of Journey, whose Raised On Radio album came out around the same time.

"Here's a little folk song you might remember..." Nope. Sorry. Don't remember a song called "Hold On."

"Magic Power," now this is more like it, even it's slightly more warbled than I remember it. "I'm young, wild and I'm free, got the magic power of the music in me." Yeah, what kid wouldn't like that.

This has to be one of the crappiest sounding cassettes I've heard. I'm sure a lot of it can be attributed to 25 years of aging, but I also suspect it was never that good of a recording anyway.

Triumph. They still play second fiddle to their Canadian brethren Rush, or so I discovered on a recent trip to Winnipeg. I had no idea they were around at all, but they were all over the airwaves and apparently touring as well.

Just when I was starting to wonder how this thing could fill up so much tape we get to a song called "Rock And Roll Machine" which is filled with endless guitar wankery. Song lengths aren't printed, so I have no idea how long this has been going on, but it's hell. This must be where I shut if off after buying and playing it for the first time. I kind of remember buying it to listen to on a family vacation. And that's really saying something if you shut something off when traveling with your family.

I don't know why I torture myself like this. But then again, there's a lot of crap being produced today too. I can't say this is all that different. Genres change, crap persists.

"Druh Mer Selbo." I guess that's Canadian for drum solo. Zzzzzz.

"Spellbound." I remember this one. Although it sounded better in the memory banks.

I can't really comment on the bonus tracks. They were mindless rock, and after a not so blistering set from Triumph, my thoughts were drifting considerably.

W.A.S.P. - The Last Command

His name was Blackie Lawless. Part red headed stepchild of the LA metal underground and part Freddy Krueger, the stuff of nightmares for Senator's wives, concerned about the evils of rock and roll. Blackie paid his dues for over a decade, but he never surrendered. Finally when hair metal bands were all the rage he got signed by Capital records. Soon all of his rock and roll dreams would come true.

If there's any redeeming quality about Mr. Lawless it's the outrage that he caused Tipper Gore and the other Senator's wives with his bloody codpieces, chunks of meat and bones on stage, as well as his songs, one of which had the memorable title of "Animal (I F*ck Like A Beast)." While Alice Cooper's 1970's theatrics were meant to shock, they were also done with a nod and a wink to his audience. The guy had a sense of humor. Blackie Lawless and company just seem out to shock, and the whole thing comes off as incredibly juvenile. Hell, I even thought this at 13 years old when I was still playing Twisted Sister records.

Okay, so let's press play on this thing:

Here we are again with the Dolby notes. It takes quite a while to get a cassette to start playing. First the leader tape, then the Pentium-like greeting. More blank tape, and we're finally into the music.

Well, if you can call it that. The tape is playing this time, but it sure sounds like crap. Compared to mp3's I would think that tapes might even be superior in sound, but maybe not when they've been sitting in a trunk for this long.

I can't remember where I got this one. I always thought W.A.S.P. was a joke, so I know I didn't run out and buy it. I'm pretty sure I borrowed it from a friend. It may have been several years after it came out as a guilty pleasure. I did have a friend in college who used to love to crank them up once in a while when he was drinking. I don't know, but if anyone reading this can lay claim to The Last Command, I'll happily give it to you.

In 8th grade I sat down at my desk one day and saw "W.A.S.P." written on the chalkboard. It was a few minutes before class was to start and some kid in a jean jacket with Metallica and Iron Maiden patches on the back went up and wrote "sucks" under it. When class started the American History teacher was quite impressed, thinking that he was teaching a class well educated about White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and their role in our nation's history.

Rock and roll was seductive, but there was nothing remotely cool about W.A.S.P. for me. This wasn't David Lee Roth or even Vince Neil. I could have stood side by side with Tipper Gore and critiqued them for looking like a bunch of idiots. Sure Blackie Lawless seemed to make it his mission to try to out do even the most outrageous rockers with his stage theatrics and provocative song titles. He was repulsive, but more than anything he just looked like a dumb ass.

This music is about as bland as you can get. There's nothing memorable about it. The whole thing sounds like it was recorded with metal by the numbers production. Hundreds of other hair bands of the 80's adopted this same sound, and the bulk of them never learned to write a decent song along the way. While most of these songs don't stand a chance of getting stuck in my head, "Wild Child" is somewhat catchy, as is "Ballcrusher" with it's ridiculous lyrics:

Stole the rent and drank all my J.D.

She went and hijacked my brand new car

I say A.C. she says D.C.

The damned bitch is just too bizarre

Bye bye bye Ballcrusher

then later:

Before I go and leave her in the dust

I'm going to (lyric omitted in liner notes) her till she can't stand up

Nice guy, that Blackie. Around the time of this record I remember reading that he wanted to get into politics and maybe run for office someday. At the very end of the cassette insert's microscopic type he alludes to their song "Blind In Texas" by saying "Don't Drive Drunk...in Texas or anywhere else." So I guess he was already tackling the important issues.

Blackie and band sound like they're about to die. The tape is going to snap. They're dragging as badly as the Wilson sisters now that we're on side 2. I think it's the song "The Last Command." Yikes, and I thought backward masking was supposed to be scary.

And now the tape has stopped. I guess this is as far as I get. I have noticed that Heart and W.A.S.P., as unlikely of a match as it might seem, were in fact label mates. (Can you image the possibilities of a joint tour?) Both of these records were put out by Capital and have the "XDR" label on them: expanded dynamic range. Maybe this has something to do with the tape problems.

So I have to prematurely pull the plug on Blackie. Bye bye bye ballcrusher.