4 Years Ago (2017)

There wasn’t much of anything during this period.

8 Years Ago (2013)

It was a busy week.

I found an old issue of Metal Edge in which Gerri Miller (RIP) did a track by track breakdown of the Motley Corabi album.

I did three separate posts on it. Parts 1 and 2 you can read here and here and Part 3 will be in next weeks post.

They should have called the band something else but that massive Elektra contract they signed when Vince was still in the band, demanded that the release be labeled as Motley Crue.

Gerri Miller is Metal Edge to me. Miller was on every story or on every interview that mattered.

For “POWER TO THE MUSIC”, Miller said that
this album opener started out as a repetitive detuned riff dreamed up by Nikki.

Who said the music’s dead in the streets?

Don’t know what they talk about.

Rock music was alive and well. Just because the labels abandoned it, it didn’t mean that the audience abandoned it. For the labels to kill rock and metal, they had to put a bullet in the head of every fan.

For “HOOLIGAN’S HOLIDAY”, it inItially started off as like a “Highway Star” cut recorded by Nikki and John at Nikki’s house. Tommy and Mick weren’t too keen it it. They then totally rewrote it—only the chorus and title are the same.

“POISON APPLES” was originally called “Hangin’ by a Thread.” Meanwhile Nikki was working on a possibility for his solo song with the title of “Poison Apples”.

“TILL DEATH DO US PART” is about pride and standing up for what you believe in. Nikki said it reminds him of “Danger” from the second album.

And I was still on a Bon Jovi listening kick, doing various posts to bring attention to certain songs or deep album cuts.

Check out the post as I discuss “Next 100 Years”, “I Could Make A Living Out Of Lovin’ You” and “Ain’t No Cure For Love” which is the best ZZ Top song not written by ZZ Top. It’s written by Richie Supa, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. Supa is known for his contributions to Aerosmith, plus Sambora used him for a lot of the “Undiscovered Soul” songs.

An interview that Danny Stag did in Guitar World was posted.

He talks about the Led Zep comparisons being blown out of proportion.

“Maybe some of the bad blood started when a journalist misquoted me.

This guy told Page that I claimed to never having heard Led Zeppelin. That’s obviously absurd and Jimmy would have a right to feel ticked off.”

The successful version of Kingdom Come called it quits in August 1989, so by the time the interview appeared in the September 1989 Guitar World issue, Kingdom Come was no more.

A selected transcript of Vito Bratta’s interview with Eddie Trunk was posted.

Here are a few selected quotes.

VITO BRATTA – so the record company’s saying we need another “Pride”.

I say, Ok, so what exactly does that mean?

The label goes we need the hit singles…

I go, “listen man, the songs we gave you on “Pride” weren’t hit singles written purposely to be hit singles. They were just songs that became hit singles and they were just songs we wrote. Now you’re telling me that I have to purposely write a hit single.

How do you do that?

How do you purposely write a hit single, I mean there are people out there that do that…

“Big Game” was a setback for the Label. It didn’t sell as many. The Label said wouldn’t it be great if we played at Wembley with Motley Crue and Skid Row.

Skid Row went on and they were just killing the place. And Motley Crue had a great show and here we are sandwiched in between. We realized, that night, on stage at Wembley that these songs from the “Big Game” album aren’t translating well in the live show.

Then we went back to the States and we told the record label, no more tours on this album. We are going to do the album that we want to do.

And they said well considering how the last album went, they said “go ahead”. They gave us unlimited funds. “Mane Attraction” was a half a million dollar record. They just said go and do everything that you want. Now the problem was that by the time it came out, that whole scene was over with.

C.C DeVille also featured with an old September 1989 interview.

When I go to bed at night I’m very hurt that people consider us a joke band. We concentrate on writing good pop songs.

John Sykes “Black Hearted Woman” got some musical analysis.

And “Cold Sweat” from Thin Lizzy which featured John Sykes was doing the rounds.

I did a post called “Persistence” and used Tommy Thayer as an example of persistence.

Nuno Bettencourt was also doing the rounds during this time. You can read about it here.

You can see a very heavy bias towards guitarists on this site.

And I was reading a lot of self development books so I wrote some posts on some of the concepts here and here.

Finally I was sharing my view that the album concept is gone and it needs a rethink to properly meet today’s expectations.

As long as people buy albums, the labels will still order their artists to create and release them. This is where the labels make most of their money. Even if the sales are anemic for some.