4 Years Ago (2017)

How many times do you hear the record label/RIAA people talk about the “music industry” suffering or hurting or getting back on its feet after piracy decimated it?

How many times do you hear the Publishing Rights Organisations talk about the “music industry” suffering or hurting or getting back on its feet after piracy decimated it?

What these “industry people” fail to understand is there is no industry, no economy, no market if there isn’t people who consume music. People obtaining content without purchasing is nothing new. People going to the rock and roll show and not owning a legitimate copy of an album is old news.

I still reckon streaming is priced too high. If it is priced lower, more people will convert to paying. It’s better to have 100 million people paying $5 a month than 50 million people paying $10 a month.

And as a consumer, don’t you love how 30 entertainment companies joined together in The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

Its business model is working with law enforcement to shut down pirate sites and services, file civil litigation, and forge new relationships with other content protection groups.

Funny how there is nothing about providing the people/consumers with what they want.

Funny how an alliance for Creativity is all about suppression and control.

The internet liberated the people and rich organizations want to censor it, control it, regulate it and suppress it.

All this Alliance wants to do is bring the internet under their control. And then, they would go back to delivering what once worked decades ago in a world that’s moved to on demand.

Want to get eradicate piracy?

Give the people what they want, how they want it and when they want it. Guess that’s too creative for the Alliance to tackle.

8 Years Ago (2013)

It was all Dee Snider this week.

I saw Dee Snider as the spokesperson for Metal music in the Eighties’. Apart from writing generational anthems, he could also string sentences together like no one else could, and this led him all the way to Washington.

“Reason To Kill” is from the excellent Widowmaker debut, “Blood and Bullets”, released in 1992.

So you used me
Then threw me away

This is an angry Dee Snider, and that anger is directed at Bob Krasnow, the head of Elektra Records and the person responsible for killing off the Desperado project.

Widowmaker didn’t have the same commercial success as Twisted Sister, however as a Dee Snider and Al Pitrelli fan, I loved the project and the combination of two talents.

After Widowmaker released Stand By For Pain in 1994, I was at a loss as to what was happening with Dee Snider. Information was hard to get. All of the music magazines wrote about Grunge, Alternative Rock and the rise of bands like Korn, White Zombie and so forth. Hard rock, heavy rock and heavy metal news was hard to come across, especially in Australia.

So imagine my surprise when I walked into an independent record store and came across “Never Let The Bastards Wear You Down”. This was in November, 2000 and the album had been out for about six months by then.

I really liked the whole CD package, the booklet and the back stories provided by Dee for each of the songs. It is those connections that fans look for.

“You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll” preceded “Stay Hungry” and it was this album that started to give the Twisted Sister machine some momentum.

So “Stay Hungry” comes out and it’s huge.

“We’re Not Gonna Take It” became the anthem for the teenagers of 1984.

We’ll fight the powers that be just
Don’t pick our destiny cause
You don’t know us, you don’t belong

Rising up against the life that our parents, our teachers, our employers want from us..

I really like “Come Out And Play”. I remember lying in bed, staring at the back album art, reading the lyrics and singing the songs as they played on the turntable.

“Come Out And Play” was released in 1985. By now Twisted Sister was on an album per year cycle since 1981.

Join our cavalcade
Enter the world you made

Joined em we did. But “The Fire Still Burns” is by far the best song on “Come Out and Play”.

“Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant)” is from “Love Is For Suckers” released in 1987. It was supposed to be the opening track on Dee Snider’s first solo album. Instead it was the opening track of the final Twisted Sister album.

Who the hell are they to say
What we can do and how we can play

Dee was always good at writing the anthem of the SMF’s vs the world.

It’s our rights they’re abusing,
It’s our right to fight back
So rally the troops and
Let’s start the attack

It’s the war cry against the censorship that was taking place against heavy metal music.

“Love Is For Suckers” had “Slippery When Wet” from Bon Jovi, “Girls Girls Girls” from Motley Crue, and Whitesnake 1987 to compete against. All of those albums were in the Billboard Top 10. “Look What the Cat Dragged In” from Poison was just outside the Top 10 at number 13.

Finally, bands are dysfunctional. They always have been and always will be.

Read “The Dirt” or “The Heroin Diaries” for how it was to be in Mötley Crüe.

Watch “The History of the Eagles” to hear the comment from Don Henley on the break up. He called it a “horrible relief”.

Dokken is the poster child for dysfunction.