Been enjoying The Editors' prog videos and Rush festivals. I think this hair metal memory tops it because I am actually in a couple of the rapid camera pans dead front of center stage. Recognize, fools!
Soon as Viacom gets over itself and tightens its iron grip on dead intellectual property rentals, I'll hunt down my Win Ben $tein's Money loss appearance, and give all y'all a healthy (if unintentional) laugh.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Hammer Of The Power Ballads
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3 comments:
Memories!
Ah, the days when herds of mullets roamed free and wild across the land. Damned if Brian Wheat didn't sport one of the mightiest of all. The only close contender I can think of offhand is Lars Ulrich's from the ...AJFA days.
Tesla's music still holds up pretty well, but most of the 80s metal, whether it be of the aluminum or steel variety, from the B.N. era (before Nirvana) just drops my jaw when I hear it these days. The production, the cheesy lyrics, and god, dear god, the videos. Hell, I still have a ton of old RIP magazines tucked away somewhere, starting from mid-1990, and that first year, when poodle haircuts and big hoop earrings and tight spandex pants were still not yet seen as signs of mental illness, is still a real stunner of a trip down memory lane.
Even the heavier metal bands almost without fail adhered to what I think of as the Testament dress code - black shirt, black leather jacket, tight black jeans, maybe even a bullet belt...and big honking white tennis shoes (and let's not even bring up the old "watch me polish this knob" style of headbanging). I didn't realize how revolutionary Pantera was at the time until looking back at this golden age and seeing how many bands veered away from the Reign in Blood speed metal drumming and lawnmower-in-a-subway-car riffing towards Pantera's incredibly heavy bluesy groove and Anselmo's ragamuffin style of dress (and jesus, what a poster boy he's become, along with Ozzy, for Reasons To Stay Away From Drugs, Kids).
Anyway! I never got to appear in a video clip, but my brushes with fame include having Rex from Pantera try to toss me a cup of beer (after not quite being able to reach his hand to get pulled onstage) only to have a dipshit grab at it and upend it all over my head, and getting to shake hands and talk a bit with Pepper Keenan from C.O.C. at a show here ten days after Deliverance came out.
You're right, a lot of the music and videos are pretty embarrassing in retrospect, but we all had fun. It was practically impossible to not get laid at a Def Leppard show. That's always a good thing, aesthetic music arguments aside.
I actually have a bootleg Tesla CD that I got the entire band to autograph at a meet-and-greet in '92. Sadly, I'm especially proud of that achievement. Musically, I think Tesla holds up a little better because they wanted to be Led Zeppelin, and stuck with that aspiration. Lyrically, though, you never knew what you were in for -- always simple, sometimes effective, sometimes just simple.
Never got to see Pantera live, unfortunately. I like Dime's playing a lot; like Van Halen, more of a pattern player than tied to a particular scale. Just pick a pattern and make people believe it. Great tone, too. He was a lot of fun.
I like C.O.C., especially the Deliverance and Blind albums. Blind still just fucking kills me; it's like someone dialed in Black Sabbath Vol. 4 and ran with it. Awesome.
I have a few war stories of run-ins with various hair-metal glitterati, starting with hanging out with Winger backstage. I almost wish that some of the musicians I had run into were douchebags, just to have a better story, but they were all very cool people. I also had a friend at the time who was close with Eric Martin from Mr. Big, and our band had a few chances to hang out with those guys, mostly Eric and Paul Gilbert. Again, nice guys, who were just as bemused by their sudden success as many of us were.
I really thought Atlantic had a great hair-metal lineup in '89-'90 , as far as musicianship was concerned: Mr. Big, Saigon Kick, Enuff Z'Nuff, King's X. Even Rush had signed with them at about that time, and Atlantic sent them out on tour with Mr. Big as the opening act for the Presto tour, which was a really excellent show.
Fun stuff. I think we all explored our limitations as far as alcohol, sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 sums the whole thing up pretty well, just non-stop energy and debauchery.
The only douchebag musician story I have is secondhand; a friend's band opening up for Jackyl at a local club said they were quite the enormous pricks to them. Oh, but there is the Danzig knockout on YouTube I linked to in TBogg's last Random 10! An amazing example of seeing how the power of a cheap camcorder and the internet can ruin a carefully-crafted evil badass image in no time. I remember Peter Steele from Type O Negative relating that when they opened for Danzig, they were told to not speak to him backstage unless spoken to, and do not make eye contact, even. Ah, Glenn, the classic angry short guy.
Did you ever read the website Metal Sludge? It used to be pretty hilarious until a couple years ago, when the people running it fell out and Stevie Rachelle from Tuff came out as the brains behind it and started doing it himself. There's probably still plenty of good stuff in the archives.
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