Awhile back I had the pleasure of catching Steven Van Zandt & the Disciples of Soul at the fabulous Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio. Being a huge Springsteen fan and personal friend of Ricki C, I was always a fan of Miami Steve as well. Still, it wasn’t until I had tickets to go see him that I really dug into his solo career. Sure, I knew “Sun City” and some of that Southside Johnny stuff, but I had always sort of written it off as “a little too Jersey” for my Midwestern sensibilities.

Turns out I was wrong. Anyway, the record that COMPLETELY flew under my radar was Little Steven’s debut, Men Without Women, released back in my middle-school days.  When I mentioned this to rock n roll savant and Facebook legend Angelo Julius Palma he was aghast that I had never heard it. “That was our record of the year at Singing Dog’s in 1982. How could you have missed it?”

I suppose around that time I would have been more tuned into Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and any used Zeppelin records I could dig out of the bins on High Street. I didn’t even really like Bruce at that age either, so yeah, I would have tuned out Men Without Women. Truth be told, with my shy teenage demeanor, the title would have just been too depressing and prophetic to get real enthusiastic about. Better just to stick with records titled Number of the Beast and Screaming for Vengeance.

Anyway, yes, the record is amazing. Especially the track “Until the Good is Gone” which he performed that night at the Newport and it gave me chills. But as I was googling a live version on YouTube one late night I stumbled onto this clip of the song “Under the Gun” from the same record. Immediately I realized how much Little Steven had in common with Paul Stanley and that KISS had a song by the same name. The rabbit-hole opened wide and then I started pouring beers down my pie-hole and a TV Party broke out in my family room.

You might have noticed Jean Beauvoir and his crazy mohawk playing bass in the clip above. Did you know Jean and Paul Stanley were extra special friends around this time period and Jean co-wrote a number of songs with Paul, as well? He didn’t write “Under the Gun” but he did write the song after it on Animalize.

Anyway….here’s KISS doing the song “Under the Gun.”

Fun stuff eh? A couple more classics below…..

Miami Steve with a track that would have been strong on ANY Springsteen record.

Paul with a single power-pop song better than the entire Raspberries catalog. (opinions expressed here of the author and not Ricki C.)