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Pumping Iron & Sweating Steel: The Best of the Iron City Houserockers | ||||
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Compilation album by | ||||
Released | 1992 | |||
Recorded | 1979–1984 | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 1:10:38 | |||
Label | Rhino Records | |||
Producer | Bill Inglot | |||
Iron City Houserockers chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [2] |
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide | [3] |
Pumping Iron & Sweating Steel: The Best of the Iron City Houserockers is a compilation album by the Iron City Houserockers. [4] Released in 1992 under Rhino Records, it was at the time the only Iron City Houserockers material available on compact disc (Love's So Tough and Have a Good Time but Get out Alive! would not be reissued on CD for another seven years after this compilation appeared).
The disc covers all four Iron City Houserockers albums from the late seventies and early eighties and places them in chronological order, with a few extra tracks thrown in. Tracks 1–5 were taken from Love's So Tough , with "School Days," a Chuck Berry cover, being an unreleased outtake from that album. Tracks 6–11 were taken from Have a Good Time but Get out Alive! , but with the single version of "Junior's Bar" which is an entirely different take than the album version. Tracks 12–15 were taken from Blood on the Bricks , tracks 16–17 from Cracking Under Pressure and "Goodbye Steeltown," a Joe Grushecky single released in August 1984 (after the band had broken up), was included as the final song. The songs were remastered for compact disc by Bill Inglot.
AllMusic called the collection "a generous compilation of the best of an underrated rock & roll band from the late '70s and early '80s." [1]
Punk-O-Rama is the title given to a series of ten compilation albums published by Epitaph Records. The first volume was released in 1994, the second in 1996, and the rest annually from 1998 to 2005. The albums included artists from Epitaph's roster as well as from its subsidiary label ANTI- and its partnership labels Hellcat Records and Burning Heart Records. In total the series included 257 songs contributed by 88 different artists.
A double album is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium. Recording artists often think of double albums as being a single piece artistically; however, there are exceptions, such as John Lennon's Some Time in New York City and OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below . Since the advent of the compact disc, albums are sometimes released with a bonus disc featuring additional material as a supplement to the main album, with live tracks, studio out-takes, cut songs, or older unreleased material. One innovation was the inclusion of a DVD of related material with a compact disc, such as video related to the album or DVD-Audio versions of the same recordings. Some such discs were also released on a two-sided format called DualDisc.
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape, or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records (78s) collected in a bound book resembling a photo album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl long-playing (LP) records played at 33+1⁄3 rpm.
Ellen Foley is an American singer and actress who has appeared on Broadway and television, where she co-starred in the hit NBC sitcom Night Court during its second season. In music, she has released five solo albums, but she is best known for her collaborations with rock singer Meat Loaf, particularly the 14× Platinum selling 1977 album Bat Out of Hell.
Minimal Compact is an Israeli rock band associated with the post-punk and indie rock movement of the 1980s.
The Iron City Houserockers were an American rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, led by the singer and guitarist Joe Grushecky, from 1976 to 1984.
Planet P Project is a pseudonym used by American rock musician Tony Carey for his science-fiction themed, progressive rock/space rock music. Carey has released six albums under the Planet P Project name: Planet P, Pink World (1984), Go Out Dancing, Part I (1931) (2004), Go Out Dancing, Part II (Levittown) (2008), Go Out Dancing, Part III (2009) and Steeltown (2013). Music videos for singles from the first albums received moderate to heavy airplay on MTV when originally released. Pink World was originally a two-record set, released on bright-pink-colored vinyl.
Greatest Hits is a compilation album by the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, initially released in February 1972.
"School Days" is a rock-and-roll song written and recorded by Chuck Berry and released by Chess Records as a single in March 1957 and on the LP After School Session two months later. It is one of his best-known songs and is often considered a rock-and-roll anthem.
"Light of Day", sometimes written as "(Just Around the Corner to the) Light of Day", is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and performed initially by Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox with their fictitious band The Barbusters in the 1987 film Light of Day. The song has since become a staple in Jett's concerts.
Mark Dodson is a British record producer and sound engineer, who mostly works with artists in the heavy metal genre. He is best known for producing albums by Anthrax, Judas Priest and Suicidal Tendencies.
Joe Grushecky is an American rock musician known for his work with the Iron City Houserockers in the late 1970s and early 1980s; with Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers since the late 1980s; and as a solo artist. After his days with the Iron City Houserockers, he continued to have moderate success, mainly in the Pittsburgh area.
Instant Karma: All-Time Greatest Hits, a three-disc compilation album of music recorded by John Lennon, is a budget release targeted for sale at warehouse-type stores such as Sam's Club and Costco. The album was released in 2002 by Timeless/Traditions Alive Music under license from Capitol/EMI Special Projects.
Love's So Tough is a studio album by the Iron City Houserockers. Released in 1979, the Iron City Houserocker's first album attempts to capture the presence of what was essentially a Pittsburgh bar band playing to a blue collar crowd every night. While Joe Grushecky's songwriting skills are clearly still developing, his potential is visible in cuts such as "Dance With Me" and "Heroes Are Hard to Find". The general sound of the album is reminiscent of a slightly "harder" Bruce Springsteen, and the heavy use of harmonica would be a distinguishing factor of the Houserockers for several albums to come.
Have a Good Time But Get Out Alive! is a studio album by the Iron City Houserockers. Although well-received critically, commercial success eluded the Iron City Houserockers outside of the rust belt. Among the strongest tracks are the title track, "Don't Let Them Push You Around", "We're Not Dead Yet", the two-part medley of "Old Man Bar" and Junior's Bar", and "Rock Ola" - Grushecky's first truly competent ballad.
Blood on the Bricks is a studio album by the Iron City Houserockers released in 1981. A more restrained album than their previous two efforts, the album was produced by Steve Cropper instead of hard rock producers as on Have a Good Time but Get out Alive!. Among the more popular songs on the album were the title track, along with "Saints and Sinners", and "Be My Friend" which includes a guitar riff in tribute to Van Morrison's "Here Comes the Night"; all of which still feature in Joe Grushecky's modern live performances. Like the band's previous two albums, Blood on the Bricks would be praised by critics but largely ignored by the public. Before their next album the band would change their name to simply "The Houserockers" in an attempt to achieve success outside of their native region.
Cracking Under Pressure is a 1983 studio album by the Iron City Houserockers. Cracking Under Pressure was the Iron City Houserockers' fourth and final album under the moniker and also their final album released under MCA. Veterans Ned E. Rankin and Marc Reisman had left the band and in their place was heavy keyboards and synthesizers, as was the style at the time. Also unlike previous albums, Cracking Under Pressure included several cover songs: "Loving Cup" by Earth Quake and "Hit the Road Jack" by Percy Mayfield. The songs "Angels", "Cracking Under Pressure", and "There'll Never be Enough Time" have appeared on several later compilations, most of the rest of this album is absent from later compilations and live shows. The band was dropped from MCA Records two days after the album was released, and six months after that - in June 1984 - the band broke up. When the band resurfaced in 1989, it would go by "Joe Grushecky & The Houserockers" - the name by which they still tour today.
True to the Blues: The Johnny Winter Story is a compilation album by blues rock guitarist and singer Johnny Winter. Comprising four CDs, and packaged as a box set, it contains songs selected from numerous albums – some recorded in the studio and some live – released over a 43-year period, from 1968 to 2011, as well as several previously unreleased tracks. The box set also includes a 50-page booklet of essays and photos. It was released by Legacy Recordings on February 25, 2014.
American Babylon is an album by Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers, released in 1995. Grushecky supported the album by playing some East Coast and Midwest shows with Bruce Springsteen, his producer.
At the BBC is a compilation album by English musician and singer-songwriter Joe Jackson, released by Spectrum Music on 26 January 2009.