As Bun E. Carlos has pointed out more than once in interviews, the band changed one word from the import version of Budokan in order to be able to distinguish worldwide release after February of 1979. Every other aspect of the original album was kept in tact. Cheap Trick didn't want stores to continue selling the album at the exorbitant prices. If you scrub to about 15:00 of Rick and Robin's interview with "Redbeard" for the 40th anniversary of Dream Police, they talk about the push to release it. Robin is particularly adamant that Tom Werman and Epic thought the album was a "piece of shit."
At about 10:00, Robin mentions "JEM getting a hold of it"and Budokan becoming the best-selling import of all time.
What is "JEM?" If you are a fan from the '70s, you already know that JEM Records specialized in imports that were unavailable in the U.S. Marty Scott, like Trouser Press' Ira Robbins, Tom Werman, and Rick Nielsen was a huge Who fan. After going to England to purchase the band's Direct Hits album, Marty Scott realized there was a market for other such records. When I started what became American Standard, my goal was to debunk some of the many myths about Cheap Trick at Budokan for its 45th anniversary. I also pitched a book for Bloomsbury on the album for their 33 1/3 series. Their loss is your gain. By the way, at almost 53, I did see Star Wars in the theater. However, like Bloomsbury, I missed out with the Deluxe Finger basket from Diary Queen for the limited price of 99 cents. Also, check out Roller Coaster with the late George Seagal if you haven't. It's more of a thriller than a disaster movie, which you wouldn't guess from the title. As for the Bad News Bears sequel, you get William Devane but lose the original Engleberg.
Anyway, Marty Scott of JEM already dealt in "power pop" back in Plainfield, NJ. As he pointed out, he moved more albums from Cheap Trick's idols The Move than the band itself did.
Did Cheap Trick, Epic, Tom Werman, and pretty much everyone else think the album would be a piece of shit? Live albums were not seen as a way to break a band at that point. Marty worked out an agreement with Ron Alexenburg and Jim Tyrrell. The band itself wouldn't get the royalties they would get with an official release, but the mojo the album got launched them into the stratosphere.
You probably already know the name Ron Alexenburg. He was the head of Epic and would later become synonymous with Michael Jackson and Thriller. He's a member of the Long Island Music Hall of Fame and currently lives in California. The dominant theme in the history of Cheap Trick is the things they tried to be successful often failed and when they didn't try, things worked. As the often say about Budokan, if they knew what a hit it would become they would have tried harder. Of course, maybe that's why it worked to begin with. There are so many myths surrounding the album, from which shows it was derived from, to whether there were any touch ups, to whether they really wanted it released at all. Over the next month, I'll try to touch on some of them. I cover them in the book and think it's about as definitive account as we're likely to get. One of the most transparent Budokan legends is that "I Want You To Want Me" was added at the last moment to fill out the set. An example is the intro from Robin below:
My goal with this site is to include a lot of the interesting stuff I dug up while researching the book while still leaving enough out so you'll still buy it. I'm only half-kidding. Like Marty Scott, Jim Tyrrell is a name that doesn't appear in many accounts of Cheap Trick or Budokan. He headed up the Epic/Portrait/Associated Labels (E/P/A) team. This piece he wrote appeared in Record World on October 8, 1977. Cheap Trick released their first two albums that year, but were still sadly mentioned in the same breath as another Epic artist, Starcastle. That outfit was the personification of the prog-rock artifice that Cheap Trick sought to satirize. As Bun E. Carlos often says regarding the origin of the band's name (another oft-mythologized story), they did not want to have fucking lasers or capes. Incidentally, Cheap Trick did play a show with Starcastle on May 13, 1977. They actually had to open for them at the Circle Theatre in Indianapolis and Bun recalls them being just as milquetoast as feared.
Anyway, I'll post some more Budokan stuff next week. Jim Tyrrell, besides often going to shows barefoot, also appeared in this photo with Al Sharpton and the GOAT.
I'll leave you with two shots of Robin, Rick and Norio Nonaka, who passed away this summer. He appears in the Budokan! 30th anniversary DVD featurette. One thing never changes in any Budokan retelling is how surprised the band was by their initial reception in Japan, in addition to the album. The album was truly the result of those who believed the shows and the "souvenir record" could work. It remains the album that was never supposed to be from the little band that could. When Kirk Dyer screamed "ARE YOU READY?" no one could have been, especially Cheap Trick themselves.
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