August 7, 1996

Julie, a very reliable Journey fan, claims that Columbia Records has stopped the production of both Steve Perry CD singles "Missing You" and "You Better Wait." Lately, I have noticed that most music stores are continually out of stock. Personally I think both CD singles are 100 times better than the actual album "For The Love Of Strange Medicine." So, if you plan to purchase the CD's start calling your local music stores NOW. Possibly check out some on-line music stores, although I think they might be out of stock too.

Jasparina and Tammy, members of the Journey Mailing List, are in the process of designing a database/list of Journey fans who are On-line called "Net Faces." The database will be posted to a new WWW page (separate from my Journey Tribute Page) and should be available for viewing shortly. "Net Faces" will give Journey fans a chance to find out more about each other such as finding other people who live in the same city.

August 9, 1996

The U.K. magazine, KERRANG (Aug 10, 1996), published a small paragraph on Journey's progress:

"Journey, the legendary AOR band, are currently finishing up their reunion album at Skywalker Sound Studios in San Francisco with producer Kevin Shirley. It will be released later this year by Columbia."

Previously Kevin Shirley co-engineered Rush's album "Counterparts", engineered Bon Jovi's single CD "Always", the "Melrose Place Soundtrack", produced Silverchair's album "Frogstomp" and mixed the recent album "Blue Cave" by "Hoodoo Guru".

The magazine Modern Drummer announced that Steve Smith and Vital Information will be performing on the following dates:

• August 19 - The Great American Music Hall (San Francisco)
• August 20 & 21 - Catalina Bar & Grill (Los Angeles)
• August 22 - The Bottom Line (New York)

August 13, 1996

Julie Ellin was able to locate Journey's new album release "Trial By Fire" at the On-line music store CDEUORPE. Their release date (possibly the pre-order date) is September 30. Also, others think this item is the Europeon version, which could explain why the price is very high.

There is a new Journey web site deciated to the fans, which is maintained by Jasparina. The web page contains the fan database and when completed, Net Faces.

August 14, 1996

At Sony Music On-line, Mark Jansen surprisingly found Journey listed under their up-coming promotional videos section. The name for the video is "When You Love A Woman". No other information is available about the video.

August 20, 1996

Last night at the Steve Smith / Vital Information performance, Steve announced that the first single "When You Love A Woman" will be a ballade and that the tour will begin before the end of the year. Thanks to Douglas Ingram and Jim Rudd for the information and photos of Steve and Ross.

August 21, 1996

Steve Perry announced (on the SPIN hotline 415-597-6633) that the new album is finished and should be released in October!!! Here's the entire recording, transcribed by Anthony Coyan.

"Well, the new Journey CD is finished. It's entitled "Trial by Fire". It has 15 brand new songs. And, uh, it's being transferred right now to CD, which is the mastering process and it should be out sometime around, we hope, October. And I'll keep you posted and uh, we'll talk again. Over and out, tired, toasty, and singed."

Russ Robertson located the release date (October 1) for Journey's new album in Billboard Online's upcoming U.S. release dates. Billboard also announced that Columbia plans to remaster previous Journey and Steve Perry CD's.

August 27, 1996

Sony Music finally updated their web page for Journey. It now says "The Journey Continues," with a link to a second page where you can leave your e-mail address, presumably so they can e-mail everyone when the page will be completed. Thanks to Chris Pezoulas, Phillip Cockrell, and those who posted on the mailing list, for informing me.

August 28, 1996

The Journey mailing list owner, Hunter Goatley, has announced that he is terminating the mailing list on Friday August 31. Thankfully several people are looking into how to continue the mailing list. If I hear anything else, I'll post it here. Until then, other resources to meet include the UseNet Newsgroup alt.music.journey, the Bulletin Board on American On-Line, and on IRC Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. eastern.

A new letter campaign has been started to encourage Irving Azoff (Journey's new manager) to reopen a fan club (Journey Force), which would hopefully be managed by Fan Asylum. To date, Fan Asylum has done their best to persuade Mr. Azoff to restart the fan club, but has yet to agree to restart one. Recently I have heard that the liner notes to the album are complete, but will not include a fan club address. Please write to Mr. Azoff, POLITELY, and express your views. Note: sorry, but I purposely removed his address.

August 29, 1996

Recently Greg Carpenter created a message board for Journey on RockNet. The message board allows web users to read, post, and reply to messages.

Check out the new Unofficial Neal Schon Home Page, maintained by Naoki Hamajima. It includes more photographs, plus a special page on Neal's guitar collection.

August 31, 1996

A Journey fan talked with a woman from Mr. Fletchers office (Journey's Product Manager for Columbia Marketing) and said the release date for the new album will be pushed back to October 22nd.

Mr. Azoff e-mail me yesterday and informed me that the mass faxing campaign won't help to reopen to the fan club, but "it will, however, insure that you get no co-operation from this office." I will write back to him and also try to call him personally.

Thankfully a mailing list member is in the process of moving and reopening the recently terminated list. This will, however, require a few days to setup and test the new system. If you are interested in joining the new mailing list, notify the new owner, Dan, at dstacy@tir.com. He has announced that the new list will only offer the 'digest' form, but could eventually expand to include individual posts. When the list finally opens I will post instructions on how to subscribe and any other important information.

Fan Asylum is selling all their remaining Steve Perry and Journey memorabilia. Here is the memorabilia list posted by Lora & Cyndy. They say there is very little remaining and its going fast.