Posts Tagged ‘Richie Sambora’

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Hotness from the O2

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Monsters and Critics has a photo gallery from the shows at the O2.

All I can say is how come we didn’t get that hot black leather shirt at the Wachovia Center back in March? Sheesh. Those pix hit all of my weaknesses when it comes to Jon. Black leather. Bare arms. Hairy chest. Floppy blond hair. Tight pants. That picture is almost as hot as my Keep the Faith poster. (Maybe even a little better–the KTF poster doesn’t have the chest on display.)

Plus, they’ve got a few good shots of Jon’s grin. The fourth shot of Jon in the gallery is great–I’m not sure what’s going on there, but it looks like he’s laughing. Makes me wish I knew what was getting that reaction. (So does the facial expression in the one where he’s holding up the guitar. He’s definitely looking at something-or someone.)

There’s also a picture of Jon and Richie playing their guitars that I just love. Those are classic Bon Jovi ‘solo faces’ on them both–Jon’s got the lip stuck out so far it’s blatantly visible in profile!

And the shot of Kid Rock sitting at the piano and sticking out his tongue is a great shot. Whoever got that one was definitely a good photographer–moments like that are tough to catch on film, but great when you do get them.

If you haven’t seen these already, they’re totally worth checking out.

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Richie sings Homebound Train!

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

I caught a video of Richie singing ‘Homebound Train’ in Seattle. If you’ve been reading some of my older posts, you know that for me, Richie forever owns ‘These Days’ after I heard him perform it at the Prudential Center back in 2007. (And above all else, it wasn’t ‘I’ll Be There For You’, which has to be one of the most tired songs in the Bon Jovi catalog.)

After seeing that video, I have to say that if I get to see Richie do ‘Homebound Train’ live when I get to see them, I think this song will be Richie’s too.

Richie was in fine voice when he did that song, and it was great. Like so many of the songs that Richie does on his own, he put that uniquely Richie blues spin on it. And Homebound Train is a song that works extremely well with that bluesy flair. Certainly better than ‘I’ll Be There For You’. I know that song is a Bon Jovi classic, but it doesn’t play to any of Richie’s strengths the way a song like ‘Homebound Train’ does.

It seems like Bon Jovi as a whole is putting a lot more effort into their set lists on this tour. Yes, they’re still covering the important bits, but by bringing out so much more of their back catalog and rotating it, it’s making us fans much happier and more excited. Now there’s a chance that I might get to hear some of my favorites–no matter how obscure.

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The Music Video Exposed: Wayne Isham

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

I caught an episode of The Music Video Exposed on VH1 Classic this weekend. That’s not one of the shows that I ordinarily go out of my way to watch. You can tell that I was still very young during the golden age of MTV–most music videos hold very little appeal to me, and they’re usually completely secondary to the song itself, as far as I’m concerned.

I caught the tail end of the episode dedicated to Wayne Isham. The name honestly meant nothing to me. I had conked out and was too tired to keep up with the game I had been playing on the Xbox, so I powered down and settled for watching VH1 Classic until the show I was waiting for came on.

As it turned out, I got lucky. Wayne Isham directed the video for Livin’ on a Prayer, and the Prayer video was one of the ones featured in his episode. There’s no profound insights here, but some interesting storytelling from Wayne Isham himself. I had always figured that the silhouette of the guy running through the curtain of sparks was deliberate–but that’s the director, abruptly realizing that he was parked in the middle of the shot. That may have been a complete accident, but I always thought that it worked.

As for the rest of it, there’s nothing really profound there, other than a few brief interview clips with Richie. He mostly talks about how Isham helped the band break big. Not sure when it was recorded. Judging by how Richie looked in the clips, it was probably fairly recent.

The other neat video included in the show was the video for Skid Row’s 18 and Life, another one of my favorite songs. Once again, nothing terribly profound, but at least on that one they got Sebastian Bach to show up. Bach’s comments were more interesting–he was remarking on how, even after all this time, he can watch the video for 18 and Life without getting embarrassed. He has a point–Isham did do a fantastic job on that video, and it really does stand the test of time better than many of the other videos from the same time period that tried to tell a story.

It was kind of neat, just tuning in randomly and getting the scoop (such as it was) on the videos to two of my favorite songs.

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Five songs I’d like to hear on the next tour

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

This is the other half of my posts in response to Jon’s announcement that they’d be playing more rarities and album tracks during the tour for The Circle. (The first part listed five songs that they could cut to make room in the set list.) Now I’m going to list out the five songs that I think Bon Jovi should play during the tour.

  1. Dry County
    I know. I’m grabbing for the low-hanging fruit here. Every real Bon Jovi fan wants this included in the band’s live performances. Why? Because it is really the best song that the band has ever created. It’s soaring, sweeping, epic and emotional. This song is really Bon Jovi at their best. No other band could have created Dry County. Plus, this song captures the themes of the current state of the economy and the middle class more than anything they wrote for The Circle.
  2. Living In Sin
    This song has been included in concerts far more often than Dry County and many other songs in the Bon Jovi catalog, and it was released as a single, so it’s not technically an album track or a rarity. However, it isn’t as well known as many of the other songs from New Jersey, and it is a personal favorite of mine–for a long time my favorite Bon Jovi song–and I have never heard it performed live.
  3. Dirty Little Secret
    One of the best balls-to-the-wall rock songs that Bon Jovi has written in the last ten years, and it’s a shame that it was never released in the US. (This should have been the lead single for Have A Nice Day.) Plus, this is true straight-up riff rock, and would be awesome live.
  4. Rosie
    If they’re going to let Richie sing lead on a song, why not have it be one of his own? I know this isn’t the most likely of scenarios (even if they did let Richie sing one of his own songs it would most likely be one of his singles) but Rosie is one of my favorites, and I would absolutely love to hear Richie sing this live.
  5. I Believe
    This was a great first track for Keep The Faith, and it would make an equally great live performance. The scream at the beginning can be easily eliminated without affecting the rest of the song, so that shouldn’t stop the band from performing it. This is Bon Jovi at their hope-filled, straight-up rock and roll best.

Honorable Mentions:
I didn’t list ‘Blood Money’ or ‘These Days’, because I have been lucky enough to hear both performed live during the Lost Highway tour, even though both were absolutely awesome and I would not object to their continued inclusion. Some of my other favorites, like ‘My Guitar Lies Bleeding in My Arms’ are too dark for good concert songs, or they are too obscure, like ‘Temptation’.

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Richie Sambora Way

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Richie has gotten a street in his hometown named after him. There’s even a pretty hot picture of Richie on the news article at the NPR site.

Richie got this honor after he helped refurbish the weight room at the high school and helped raise funds for a local girl with cancer.

It’s nice to see that Richie gets some credit for his charitable activities too. Usually Jon and the Soul Foundation suck up all of the screen time, but Richie is a nice guy too. He deserves some credit too. And it’s time that Richie got a street of his own. Jon already got one. (Well, I guess it was actually named after the band, but still. It’s cool that Richie has one too.)

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We Weren’t Born to Follow (Album Track)

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Fundamentally, this is the same as the already released single. (The review of the single version is here.) Most of the points that I already made there still hold true for this version.

The major difference between the two versions is the addition of the new guitar solo. Richie went back and recorded a new solo for the song after the initial bad reaction to the solo (or lack thereof) in the single version. I’m going to focus on the new solo for this review.

This new solo is more what we would have expected from a guitar player of Richie’s caliber. Before, the lead guitar was almost lost in a muddy, overproduced solo. In contrast, the solo from the album track practically sparkles. The rest of the song is a high-energy piece, and the new solo fits much better with the energetic nature of the rest of the track.

Plus, now that there is a well-defined lead guitar presence in the solo, Jon’s yell of ‘Guitar!’ right before doesn’t seem quite so out of place. On the album track, it now leads into something that is clearly identifiable as a guitar solo. It makes a whole lot more sense now.

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The Circle Review Begins

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Well, I finally got my hands on my copy of The Circle, and unfortunately my first reaction has been massive disappointment. I know I was setting myself up for it to some degree; I was hoping for the hard rock power of Bounce mixed with the solid ballad writing demonstrated on Lost Highway.

To start off with, Jon promised a hard rock sound on this album. But if you set it up next to Bounce, it falls quite a bit short. It’s really the same radio-friendly, pop-rock that the band delivered on Crush and Have a Nice Day. There are very few tracks on the disc that even remotely qualify as hard.

Also, I despise this type of packaging. Most of my storage that I have for CDs is designed for jewel cases, and not this new ‘environnmentally friendly’ type. The cardboard cases only fit into one of my CD racks, and it’s filling up rapidly. Also, I have a terrible time actually getting the discs out of the case without getting fingerprints on the front. It’s annoying. (If anyone has a brilliant method for how to get the disc out of this type of case, please leave a comment. I’m probably missing something really obvious here.)

Over the next 12 days, I’ll break down the album into individual tracks and review each one separately. That way I can analyze each song on its individual merits, and dive deeper into each one. It’ll also give me the space to separate each song from my first impression of it. I’ll do a final review of the overall album after the last track review.

I’ll give the album another listen tonight. That way I can give it my undivided attention, and hopefully notice more of the depth of the album and pay more attention to the lyrics.

Track List:

  1. We Weren’t Born to Follow
  2. When We Were Beautiful
  3. Work For The Working Man
  4. Superman Tonight
  5. Bullet
  6. Thorn in My Side
  7. Live Before You Die
  8. Brokenpromiseland
  9. Love’s The Only Rule
  10. Fast Cars
  11. Happy Now
  12. Learn to Love

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Get a Guitar Autographed by Richie Sambora

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

The animal rescue group Precious Paws will be auctioning off a guitar signed by Richie Sambora. (There’s a full list of the items that they will be auctioning at Tonic.)

Unfortunately the article doesn’t say whether it is a guitar that Richie has actually used. I know the money is going to a good cause, but I’d want a guitar that Richie actually used. Especially at the kind of prices that these auctions bring in.

If the guitars start to get pricey, I guess I could always bid on the autographed beer can from Joe Elliott.

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Access Hollywood / ‘Superman Tonight’ Reaction

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

Well, last night I stopped playing the Ghostbusters game on the Xbox and tuned in to actual television.

I caught the Access Hollywood segment at 7:30. I hadn’t heard much about it, and I had kind of figured that it was a promo more for the tour. I only have basic cable, so I had forgotten that When We Were Beautiful airs on Showtime tonight. (I’m pretty much figuring on waiting for the DVD on this.) I was totally not expecting to hear Richie’s issues rehashed again.

While I could have done without another discussion of Richie’s stint in rehab, the segment was otherwise pretty good. It’s definitely good to hear that Richie has got his life back on track and is looking to move on. He deserves to have a good family life like Jon has.

Also, I still think Jon needs to get some highlights. His hair had been looking better for awhile, like the ‘We Weren’t Born to Follow’ video. Now it looks like it’s back to being that unfortunate flat dark brown. He really needs to get some highlights put in, both because he looks better blond, and because they make it look more natural. The dark brown color just screams ‘dye job’.

I also caught the ‘Superman Tonight’ USA promo during White Collar. Unfortunately, I didn’t really enjoy the show. (I will probably give it another chance; I think when it’s in standard hour-show format and they have to be more concise, it won’t drag so much.) Also, I found the promo to really be too short for me to get any real feel for the song. At this point, I’m still kind of ambivalent about it; hopefully it winds up being a ‘grower’ or being better when heard in its entirety. I just feel I can’t really review it in any meaningful way without having access to more of the song.

(No, I didn’t get watch the video on Ausiello’s blog yesterday; I had my lunch cut short.)

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Richie’s Story in Chicken Soup for the Soul Book

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Richie Sambora’s story is to be included into a new “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book focusing on musicians. (You can check out the press release at Reuters.)

Unfortunately it also includes stories from the likes of Kanye West, Christina Aguilera, Melissa Etheridge and Paul Anka, all of whom qualify as resounding disincentives to buy the book, at least in my world. I don’t like any of them, some to a greater degree than others. Etheridge in particular is one of the people whose work is part of the reason that I hated music during my teenage years.

Plus, these books are really expensive, especially if I only want one story out of the whole thing. The list price for them is $14.95. (You can get them for $10.17 if you buy ‘em from Amazon, but that’s still expensive when I only want one story out of the whole book.)

It’s also supposed to include stories from Mick Jones and Joan Jett, whose stories I probably wouldn’t mind reading, but aren’t anything that I would particularly seek out, either.

Sorry Richie, but I’d rather drop my $15 on a used Xbox game at the Gamestop.

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