LOUDNESS will issue their planned live CD / DVD package entitled Live Loudest At The Budokan '91 on December 23rd in Japan. Recorded on May 31, 1991 in Tokyo, audio and video clips have surfaced over the years but according to Vescera, who offered BW&BK; an exclusive update, the material was never officially released as a full album. The tracklist is as follows:

Disc 1

'Down N' Dirty'

'Playin' Games'

'In The Mirror'

'Never Again'

'Crazy Night'

'So Lonely'

'Crazy Doctor'

'Loudness'

'Find A Way'

'Sleepless Night'

'Soldier Of Fortune'

'Slap In The Face' (bonus track)

Disc 2

'Love Toys'

'Take It Or Leave It'

'Never Again'

'Sleepless Night'

'Down N' Dirty'

'In The Mirror'

'You Shook Me'

Audio samples are available here. Click the links below for more details:

Live Loudest At The Budokan '91 CD

Live Loudest At The Budokan '91 CD / DVD

As previously reported, original Loudness frontman Minoru Niihara recently discussed a variety of subjects with BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai, including the passing of Loudness drummer Munetaka Higuchi last year (November 30th, 2008) and his new XYZ-A record Learn From Yesterday! Live For Today! Hope For Tomorrow!. A couple excerpts are available below:

On Loudness versus XYZ-A: "You can probably say that Loudness projects take priority. When I don’t have any Loudness projects I’m working on XYZ-A stuff. Loudness is more like an Akira Takasaki Band and he is pretty much in control, but in XYZ-A all the members are very active in the songwriting. Balance-wise, I think I’m always pouring the same amount of energy into the both bands. If we are talking about varieties of music, in XYZ-A we can try different types of music and we may have more fun because of that."

On the latest Loudness album: "The Everlasting turned out to be a very good album. As you know, we made it with all the recordings Munetaka had done, and it took time to edit those recordings, but writing music and recording went very smoothly. However, I had to stop in the middle of a song at times since I got very emotional remembering Munetaka. It was a very hard experience, needless to say. I hope we will never have to do this kind of recording again. It was too much."

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A review of XYZ-A's new album is available here. It can be purchased at this location.