Nothing beats a weekend off when Saturday and Sunday is a part of your weekly grind. We had planned to do a nice cookout in the backyard…..Christmas in July. We had the palm tree made of Xmas lights, the food, the Holiday music but our friends and family all had plans. We found out days in advance so we planned a slumber party for my daughter with her best friend. Basically, I hid upstairs in the music room.

Now you all may laugh but, in between episodes from BEVERLY HILLS 90210 Season 1 DVD, I listened to a lot of music. I pulled out a lot of Great White and it’s been a very long time since I listened to them since the fire.

• Great White – Back To The Rhythm (2007): The new album was just released this past Tuesday, I think it’s very good. I’ll have a review this week.
• Great White – Sail Away (1994): This is my favorite album by the band. It’s a nice slower bluesy acoutical record, not what you would expect from a Hard Rock band in ’94. Helped me through some tough times way back when.
• Great White – Can’t Get There From Here (1999): An excellent album that I will review soon as well. This was a “comeback” album but they never really left the party. They toured this record with Poison, Ratt, and LA Guns on Poison’s reunion tour in ’99.
• Great White – Once Bitten (1987): I wanted to go back and re-live high school with this one. Great memories.

Man cannot live on Great White alone so I had some more albums queued up:

• Angra – Fireworks (1998): Great Power/Progressive Metal band from Brazil. This was their fourth proper album (they had the E.P.s mixed in between releases) and it is my favorite. It’s also the last with André Matos on vocals.
• Angra – Aurora Consurgens (2006): The latest release by the band that I keep pushing aside for newer purchases.
• Stryper – The Roxx Regime Demos (2007): Just picked this up this past Tuesday with the new Great White. It’s the songs the band demoed as Roxx Regime that got them their label contract.
• Axe – Five (1997): Great AOR/Hard Rock and a major comeback.
• Axe – The Crown (2000): Another solid blend of AOR and Melodic Hard Rock, well worth checking out.

Notice how I broke up all those ‘A’ bands with an ‘S’? I also had some greatest hits CDs going:

• Ratt – Ratt’n'Roll ’81-’91 (1991)
• Dokken – The Very Best Of Dokken (1999)
• Twisted Sister – Big Hits & Nasty Cuts (1992)
• Journey – Greatest Hits (1988)

It was a loud weekend!