Motley Crue... A gateway Drug?

What Vince, where?

Do you know what's great about blogging? I can write about whatever I want without regard to current trends or be forced to wear a hat of criticism for material that I probably am too out of touch to understand and would, sub-consciously, compare to what fired me up about music in the first place.

I do stay somewhat current, but I afford myself the luxury of being current with what I choose to be current with. No force feeding pop culture for me, I decline to care about whoever has the dumbest neck tattoo and screams about some anti-whatever (politics, god, their broken home...etc.), and allow myself to be nerdy with my choices.

Alas, it was not always this way. A pre-teen Nago was as influential as anyone. Like so many an 11 year old, there was a gateway drug for me. I was aware of many styles and bands. I dabbled in AC/DC and Judas Priest. I had a strange fascination of Helix and Krokus, but the real drug that caught me, before Thrash ruled my world, was the one and only Motley Crue.

I know that each generation has their own version of what Crue meant to me at 11 years old, but there is still something about listening to the Shout at the Devil LP that is magical for me. I remember how big of a deal it was to see the video for Too Young To Fall in Love, and how these dudes were like super hero's to me then.

If you think about it, it's not that far of a stretch. A good gimmick was nothing new, Angus, Bowie, Kiss, Cooper and so on all had a gimmick 10+ years before the Crue hit my radar, Arthur Brown had his shtick years before that, and even before theatrics were in vogue, larger then life musicians must have had the same effect on the respective youths of their time. Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, even Clapton and Hendrix to a degree filled this void for many, I'm sure. They weren't human, they were super human, and treated like hero's. In hindsight, its kinda dumb to elevate someone who practiced his ass off in his bedroom to demi-god status, not that practice isn't important, or we shouldn't recognize achievements, but as a society we sometimes take it a little far...

I digress.

The first time I saw Tommy Lee throw rice at the old Chinese man in the TYTFIL video, he immediately became my hero. He was the best drummer ever because to me he was cool. I learned how to twirl a drumstick sorta like he does (a trick I can still pull off 30 years later), and learned some basic 4/4 drum patterns shortly after. Little did I know how disappointed I would be with this band just a few years later. I thought Girls Girls Girls was horrible, and I wont even begin to talk about how much I hated Doctor Feelgood, but by then I had long since graduated to Megadeth and the thrash movement.

Even later, I did not buy into, and have never heard, the self titled Corabi LP in it's entirety, same with Generation Swine and every subsequent release afterward. But secretly, even though I grew out of them, somewhere deep within me, I always rooted for the Crue. I have been embarrassed for Tommy on countless occasions. I have followed Nikki into songwriting endeavors, even saw him with Brides of Destruction. I have laughed at Vince over the years, mostly over his hit or miss singing, but also because of his stint as a fat guy on TV. And Mick? well, I respect that man. He is an unsung hero with a crazy back story, a crazy present story, and a sound that is literally all his own.

The Motley of today is not the Motley of yesterday. No one debates that. But I think that their ongoing success has something to do with the Motley image from 1984. I can't imagine that Tommy Lee is an influence on anyone these days. On his path to independence outside of Crue, he ruined a great drummer's legacy. "Drummer from Motley" is never the first thing I think of when Tommy is brought up, these days it's old wanna-be DJ, which is better then coke headed porno star, or reality TV flunkie, or shitty rap rocker... Pick your poison, Tommy will never be better then he was in '84 in the hearts and minds of millions.

The fact that I care at all to know anything about this dysfunctional group of weirdo's is a testament to the fact I will always hold them in a high regard. When I was 11, they were my gateway drug, MY band, my definition of cool to be grown out of, and for that, I make the following statement.

• Thank you for Too Fast For Love, an LP that is so burned into my DNA, that I can't listen to any one track without verbalizing the riff to the next track. 
• Thank you for making me memorize the words to In The Beginning and forcing me to write them on my book covers in middle school.
• Thank you for Home Sweet Home (and the girl who pulled up her shirt in the video).
• Thank you for Red Hot, the song that I still bring up in "Is Tommy a good drummer" arguments.
• Thank you for reverse power chords.

There are a hundred thank you's I could pen, but why? I think that my love for this band can remain mine without accolades or risking over doing it.

Mostly however, thank you for being the band that grabbed my attention first. I promise that it yielded good things. In case you care, I still have a Shout at the Devil tee in my drawer.

Nago

The great Hair Metal debacle.

It seems to me that over the last couple of years, the '80's hair metal bashing has somewhat subsided in popular culture. I dare say that I hear more and more of it's influence in modern rock, especially when discussing the "flavor of the day" bands like Asking Alexandra, who covered 2 Skid Row songs on the Life Gone Wild EP.

This is probably a natural progression, as just about all music nerds look back at the '70's disco craze with rose colored glasses these days, which was not even close to the case for a very long time after the "Disco Sucks" era of the early 80's.

Today, big Hair Metal festivals like Rocklahoma continue to prove that the genre is not forgotten. Poison still draws big numbers during their annual romps, and whether or not Bon Jovi admits it now, he was a Hair Metal king from 1984 through 1991. Same with Def Leppard and other bands that continue to draw (larger than club) crowds.

Beg your pardon miss, but you fancied those blokes as bloody wankers, didn't you? Cheerio!

Despite the fans, Hair Metal is still absolutely ignored and shunned by the elite rock media, hipsters and rock snobs abound. It is all residual damage from the implosion of a scene that was rampant with PG promises of a rockin' good time and dreamy fairy tale love. To them, Hair Metal's death was a mercy killing. As a rock snob myself, I partially lean that way these days.

I admit openly that I was caught up in this trend during it's heyday. Mostly because I became a pre-teen at the height of it (I turned 12 in 1986). However, Metal fans at the time were not as complex as today. I could like Motley and Metallica, and no one would bat an eye. Eventually Metal became something harder on the street level, and hair metal became all about the female fans.

With that in mind I can say that we as kids loved Thrash Metal (Megadeth), loved Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden) and liked Hair Metal (Dokken). It was not equal in value because we recognized cock rock for what it was. However the lines were not as clear as they are today in hindsight. Even the mighty Judas Priest fell victim to the trend.

Judas Priest in 1986



Somewhere along the way the Heavy definitely took a back seat to the Hair. Big corporate money began pumping out sub-par bands just to make a buck, which was sad. I did not understand it myself at the time. How anyone could call a band like Danger Danger "Metal" was beyond me. It was crappy pop music with a guitar solo.

By the early '90's, the trend became so diluted that it was hard to find anything heavy about it at all. My mind needed much more then the fluff of what Chest Hair Metal had to offer. Even the greats of the early '80's succumbed to the allure of big corporate ca$h.

Motley Crue 1983:

Motley Crue 1989:

It took 6 years to transform Motley from Hanoi Rocks evil little brother into Styx's sissy little cousin.
 

We all know the story from here: along comes Grunge and goodbye Hair. Heavy Metal retreated to the underground to lick it's wounds save the mighty Pantera from Texas. Pantera (themselves a reformed Hair band) showed metal fans the way, and no one looked back for many years. It was a time of expansion for the aging teens of the '80's, as all bets were officially off. I personally soaked up music like a sponge from all genres. I was always a metalhead, but it took me a few years to discover how good Metal had gotten from being underground (ie: Nevermore, Iced Earth etc...)

There again, the lines were not as clear at the time. Alice in Chains were a Metal band, right? Soundgarden sounded like Zep-Sabbath, and Cinderella became southern rock.

Nowadays I view it all with the wisdom of an old dude and the benefit of hindsight. I can separate the great Metal Cheese of the early 80's from the Marshmallow Fluff of the early '90's. I understand that Firehouse had as much to do with killing this genre as Grunge did. Somehow these dudes lost their way and ditched the devil for chest hair. For the record: Love of a Lifetime is a horrible song.

But I still scratch my head about how we went from this in 1980:

 

To this in 1990: 

It had something to do with LA and Aquanet, or so we are told.

Much of the popular music of that genre is still taboo to my ears, but when Ratt's Lay It Down shows up on my XM, I crank it. Same with anything off of Skid Row's Slave to Grind. I have never wavered in my love for Twisted Sister and if Dirty Look's Cool From the Wire were on my I-pod, I would play it right now.

In conclusion, I am finding that I am softening to parts of genre that I left for dead years ago. I can't promise that I will ever be able to not vomit when Danger Danger comes on the radio, but I will once again leave room in my playlist for Tom Keifer. If he can still write tunes, then why not?

 

More than nerds..... is all you have to do to make it real.

Currently Playing:

Michale Graves - Vagabond LP

Jason Newstead - Metal EP

CCR - Cosmo's Factory

Cancer Bats - Bat Sabbath/Bastards of Reality

A.D.H.D. and the Beatles: Part 2

Earliest coagulated memory of the Beatles for me? I almost hate to admit this, but although I had heard their music since the womb (my mother is an admitted Mop Top fan),  I can honestly say that Mork and Mindy had something to do with it.

That's right, Robin Williams and that Pam Dawber creep into my Beatles Fanboy memory...in the form of a montage. Yup, I can say with 80% confidence that there was a montage of Mork and Mindy done to the tune of "Yesterday" somewhere in the shows history. I was 6 to 8 years old when I saw it, but I knew it was the Beatles (through osmosis I guess).

I looked on YouTube and could not find the clip, which bums me out, but not enough to stop this blog. Enjoy the following anyway:

My second (and more palatable) encounter with Beatles fandom? I was barely 11 years old when I bought a compilation tape from Millcreek Mall McCory's bargain bin called "Beatles Hits Volume 2"(or some shit like that). I was with a foster family at the time, and my foster parents giggled at me for actually being interested in the Beatles. To be fair, I remember being infatuated by the fact that Paul McCartney wrote the song Helter Skelter, as I was a freshly minted Motley Crue poser at that time.

The cassette blew me away... Back in the USSR was the bomb for me back then. Unfortunately, I was also into Dokken, so take that for what it is worth... (and F-U 'cause Tooth and Nail owns, and George Lynch is a beast).

I bring all of this up because I am feeling especially connected to George Harrison today. Hare Krishna bitches....

I should be sleeping, but instead I am thinking about you....stupid Beatles.





Whatever happened to, the nerd that we once knew? Can we really live without each other?

You suck.........Live.

The following post is dedicated to all the bands that have, or have had, flaws in the live department (aka PA - premature amplification) and sucked an egg.

Before you get too defensive about your favorite band on this list, keep in mind that I have also played out a time or two, and I too have been guilty of sucketry (new word) once or twice in my own right...

I have also been to a few professional touring concerts and club shows (no idea on the count, it's in the hundreds easily). I used to tip back more than my share, so for a long time my opinion was somewhat flawed. Every concert rocks when you are into the band and LOADED, and every show sucks when you hate the band.

For this blog, I have decided to focus on the legendary suckyness.