Rock & Roll Hell 1983 & 2002 versions
Napalm Beach’s original Rock & Roll Hell studio recordings were engineered by Greg Sage in an “unfinished house” in Estacada, near Portland, Oregon summer of 1983. Napalm Beach (Chris and Sam) drove up from their new location in San Francisco to make the recordings which Sage would combine with some live recordings from a November 1983 to create the original cassette which was released in early 1984. Napalm Beach moved back to Portland in 1985. However, it appears they quickly became stuck in a quagmire they couldn’t escape. By 1998 Chris was homeless.
In 2002, while Chris was living homeless on the streets of San Francisco, Sage added the Live at the Met tracks and re-released the combined cassettes on a single CD for a total of 19 tracks which he sold from his Zeno Records website for a time. After Chris came to live with me in 2009, Sage sent two “royalty” checks to Portland for $75.00 each – one to Chris Newman, and one to drummer Sam Henry. Of course, as the songwriter, Chris should have received a larger share, but at that time he was just grateful that Sage had kept the masters, that Sage had not stolen his publishing rights, and he was grateful to be paid anything at all. Chris wrote to Sage, or asked me to write to him, requesting master tapes – in response, Sage sent a copy of the 2002 Rock & Roll Hell CD and after that, we distributed it ourselves. This is the version that is now available for streaming and digital downloads.
The skeleton art on the original cassette, according to Chris, was a little scene created by him and Sam using some small rubber skeletons they had procured from a fair or something.
Spot the difference between the original cassette art created by Chris and Sam, and the digitized version released by Sage 19 years later & guess why I decided to re-do the art entirely.
Original 1984 album can be heard and purchased here:
https://napalmbeach.bandcamp.com/album/rock-roll-hell
2002 version can be heard and purchased here:
https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Roll-Explicit-Napalm-Beach/dp/B0CLQTNHKS