Newsletter Issue #3 - June 1997
Welcome to the third "unofficial" Cheap
Trick newsletter. There's some great news, about the album release (at last) and Europe
tour news, and attached is an interview I had (shared with Mike Hayes) with Rick and Bun E
in London at the end of May, for readers of this newsletter ctinterview97.htm. And look out in June/July for an
interview they did for the satellite TV channel VH-1 (UK) for their "Ten of the
Best" programme. Enjoy !
New album news. The new album is titled CHEAP TRICK, and was released in Japan in February
and the US late in April, and the scheduled UK release date is 30 June. It features 11 new
songs. Track listing is - Anytime, Hard to Tell, Carnival Game, Shelter, You Let a Lotta
People Down, Baby No More, Yeah Yeah, Say Goodbye, Wrong All Along, Eight Miles Low and It
All Comes Back to You. The Japanese release also features the two tracks from the Sub Pop
vinyl single, Baby Talk and Brontosaurus. Dubbed by Rick Nielsen as "The first album
in the second half of our career", CHEAP TRICK (the album) is already exploding in
the States, where the band are being hailed as being on better form than ever before.
Those of you who have bought an import copy will appreciate how good (in my opinion) this
album is. And for those of you who have not, you are in for a treat in June . For
collectors, the Japanese CD has a different cover to the US release, and includes the song
lyrics as most Japanese releases do, though the US/European releases do not .
The first single from the album is Say Goodbye. Because of the earlier release dates,
Japan will shortly be getting its second single release, Carnival Game. Say Goodbye is
scheduled for UK release on 23 June. The Sub Pop single was released in the UK on 24 Feb,
and should still be available at around £4.
For those who've seen little of the bands video output, the compilation video "Every
Trick in the Book" was rereleased on 17 March in Britain. First released in late
1990, and unavailable for the past 5-6 years, it features videos from Budokan 1978 through
to Can't Stop Falling Into Love from 1990. Its released on the Sony budget Direction
label. and is well priced at around £6-7. I do not know if it has also been re-released
in Europe.
The North American tour continues. The band played the US West Coast in the latter half of
March, and Canada late March and early in April. I was lucky enough to catch the show in
Las Vegas on 24 March. The band were as ebullient and impressive as ever, and the new
material sounds great played live. They continue on the road, supporting the Stone Temple
Pilots in the US until June. Also a few dates with ZZ Top. The band hope to undertake a
large scale tour of Europe, hopefully from Sept or Oct, which may include England
Scotland, Ireland (Dublin ?), Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Sweden etc as well as
Eastern Europe. Note that no firm plans have yet been finalised, but watch out for
announcements in the music press. And I hope to bring you details when I get them.
Release of the Cheap Trick tribute album "Cheap Shots" is confirmed for August
in the US, though I have no news on European release.
To remind you that Trick International is the official Fan Service, based in New York.
Write to Trick International, PO Box 7118, FDR Station, New York, NY 10150, USA. A wide
range of merchandise can be ordered from Trickstuff, 630 S Whitney Way, # 150, Madison, WI
53711, USA. For an order form, please write to Trick International or Trickstuff.
On the Internet, the official Cheap Trick home site can be found at
http://users.aol.com/melkel/ It contains latest news, merchandise information etc, as well
as a full discography. There are also a number of unofficial CT sites (try searching for
"Cheap Trick" in a search engine such as Alta Vista, WebCrawler, Yahoo etc, to
find these sites), plus a flourishing Usenet "newsgroup" at
alt.music.cheap-trick.
I hope you've found this issue informative. Please send an sae (UK) or IRC (Europe) for
the next issue sometime in the summer, or as soon as I have more news for you. And enjoy
the new album when you get it !
