great band. all the bands named were great, the harder or weirder bands from that late 80's/early 90's period were fantastic
I saw them as the opener for Great White and Tesla at the County Center in White Plains NY, and Jake E. Lee had a cast on his leg and he still played so well I thought Badlands blew Great White off the stage! Tesla was pretty damn good though, right after releasing The Great Radio Controversy.
I loved it too! I taped it from my older brother's cd and listened to it in my walkman over and over. I never did buy an original copy of that, I think I'll see what I can find on Ebay.....
the bands first 2 albums are great. 2nd is wasted in America. they actually are released in order of best to worst lol so of course the 3rd is a step down from the 2nd
I like the first album but I'm more of a fan of the 2nd album. I felt the 2nd album had a little more variety. It just wasn't amps and guitars turned up to 11 and caterwauling vocals.
I think Jeff Martin suited their style much better than Eric Singer. His drumming on Voodoo Highway is phenomenal.
By 1993 - I was deep into Black Crowes music so the 2nd album suited that part of me just fine. It's still a patchy album for me as is the first album for that matter. I think I liked the production on the 2nd album over the first. The production on the 2nd was more 'real' sounding and not manufactured. The 1st album had the big drum sound and was sorta typical of its time period.
The love I have for the first Bandlands album is equally proportioned the let down that was Voodoo Highway. I haven't revisited it in a long time but Voodoo always felt tired too me. The spark was gone.
"Voodoo Highway" is one of my most cherished albums of all time. Still play my 1991 cassette of it all of the time...On the tape decks in the house...bookshelf stereo in the garage...On the walkmans when I'm walking through town....On my portable stereo at work.....I have 5 backup copies of it, too, after seeing copies in the cutouts....."In a Dream" on that album brings me to tears every time with Ray's heartfelt singing and Jake's dobro.
I saw this tour too in September of 1989, and I agree about them and Tesla blowing away Great White. Badlands was one of those bands that you said: "What If?" Just too bad that things happened the way they did.
Preface: Rhett, know you I like you. Comment: Ain’t nothing wrong with loud guitars and over the top vocals if done right.
A great year for hard rock, other ones I like a lot: - Bonham / The Disregard of Timekeeping - Treat / Organized Crime - Saraya S/T - The Cult / Sonic Temple - FM / Tough It Out - Strangeways / Walk In The Fire - Bad English S/T - Lee Aaron / Bodyrock - Extreme S/T - TNT / Intuition - Enuff Z'Nuff S/T - Giant / Last of the Runaways - XYZ S/T Add in Badlands and Blue Murder. I have more albums from 89 than any other year.
Still have that one on VHS. Wish they had released it on DVD with more live songs. "High Wire" from that same show came out on one of those Hard 'n' Heavy compilation videos:
Interesting article from Greg about his time in Badlands and Red Dragon Cartel. Interview with former Badlands and Red Dragon Cartel bassist Greg Chaisson – Sleaze Roxx
In the article I link above Greg states that '99% of the material on the first album, Jake brought in. We might have changed a little bit by adding some of our own parts. For example, Eric [Singer] wrote the drum part to “Devil’s Stomp” which I don’t think anyone but a drummer could write that drum part!'
Your right......I would have loved to see how they would have sounded with her. (her father wrote "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" amongst others.....maybe not one for Badlands to cover though)
