Category Archives: Influenced

Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, Unsung Heroes

The Riff That Outlived 80’s L.A Metal

I’ve never liked the term “hair metal.” It’s a label invented after the fact, mostly by record companies, journalists, and industry people who needed a tidy box to file a messy, competitive, and surprisingly diverse wave of rock music into something they could package and sell.

It reduces a whole era of players, many of them serious musicians with deep influences, from blues to Van Halen to classic rock, into a joke about appearance. The reality is they were all just playing rock music, each with their own tone, writing approach, and intent. The label flattens all of that into a stereotype, and once that happens, people stop listening properly.

There’s a moment right at the start of “Lay It Down” by Ratt where everything you’ve been told about “hair metal” quietly falls apart. Not in some dramatic, cinematic explosion, just a clean, surgical collapse. Because that opening riff from Warren DeMartini doesn’t sound like image. It sounds like intent.

You can hear it immediately if you’re paying attention. The low string isn’t just chugging, it’s anchoring. A pedal tone acting like a pulse under everything. On top of that, notes stretch out in ways that feel slightly uncomfortable, like your hands wouldn’t naturally fall there.

And then there’s the melody hiding inside the rhythm, not announced, not spotlighted, just woven in.

And yeah, you can trace the bloodline straight back to Eddie Van Halen. “Unchained” is sitting right there in the DNA.

You can fake your way through a lot of 80s material. Power chords, gain, energy, you’re in the ballpark. But this one doesn’t let you hide. The stretches are awkward. The timing breathes instead of sitting rigid. The muting has to be controlled or the whole thing turns to mush.

It feels effortless when you hear it. It feels impossible when you try to execute it properly.

And that’s why it keeps coming back up in guitarist conversations decades later, while a lot of its peers sit comfortably in nostalgia playlists. It isn’t just a memory trigger. It’s a benchmark.

Most riffs are written to be played in the moment. This one was written to outlive it.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, Unsung Heroes

Dave Meniketti, Y&T and the Fight For Your Life

There are bands that become brands. And then there are bands that become lifers.

Y&T belongs to the second category.

Which is why most people missed them. Because the culture trains you to chase explosions. First-week sales. But rock and roll was built by road dogs. Bands willing to drive through snowstorms to play to 200 people in a club that smelled like stale beer and wet denim.

That’s where Y&T came from.

Back in 1974, before the branding, before the anniversary tours, before nostalgia became an industry, the band was called “Yesterday & Today”, a name borrowed from The Beatles. And like every hard rock band clawing its way out of garages and bars, they looked half dangerous and half ridiculous. Long hair. Tight pants. Big amps. No guarantees.

Just volume and belief.

And here’s the thing younger audiences don’t fully understand about that era: There was no shortcut.

You built a following city by city. State by state. You played a city enough times that it stopped being a market and started feeling like home. Meniketti says anywhere within five hours of the Bay Area felt local to them.

That’s how careers were built before algorithms decided who deserved visibility. You earned it physically.

The road was the filter.

And if you survived long enough, eventually you ended up sharing stages with giants.

Dave Meniketti talks about touring Europe with AC/DC in 1982 on the “For Those About To Rock” tour like a man remembering the moment the scale of rock music fully revealed itself as a sea of leather and blue jeans.

Think about that image for a second. No phones in the air. No influencers backstage. No corporate activations.

Just identity.

People didn’t attend those shows to create content. They went because rock music was part of who they were.

And AC/DC… they weren’t just successful. They were undeniable. One of those bands that made every other group either rise or disappear.

For Y&T, that tour became validation. Timing met preparation.

Because history rewrites success as inevitability. But careers are timing mixed with survival. Miss the window by two years and the story changes completely.

Then there’s the other side of ‘80s hard rock.

The insanity.

Y&T toured with Mötley Crüe in 1985, and Meniketti tells a story about Crüe’s manager approaching them and saying:

“Keep some of your guys away from our band.”

Which is hilarious when you remember who he’s talking about.

Rock bands back then were unstable chemistry experiments with Marshall stacks.

And yet here’s what separates the survivors from the casualties:

Integrity.

That’s Meniketti’s word, not mine.

He says the secret is integrity with the live show, integrity with the fans, integrity in how they perform.

And that sounds simple until you realize how rare it is.

Most bands eventually start treating the audience like a pension fund. Same setlist. Same speeches. Same tired motions repeated under spotlights for people buying memories instead of experiences.

But fans know. We always know.

We can feel when a band still means it.

That’s why Y&T still draws people decades later. Not because they were the biggest band. Not because they had the most hits. But because they never stopped believing in the thing itself.

The songs. The stage. The connection. The volume.

People think longevity comes from preserving youth. It doesn’t. It comes from preserving purpose.

At the end of the interview, Meniketti says there’s no retirement plan. No exit strategy.

“We’re just going to keep going until we drop.”

That’s not a slogan.

That’s identity.

And reading that 2013 interview in 2026 changes everything.

The classic lineup was still part of the living. But time does what time always does. Since that interview, Y&T lost Phil Kennemore, Leonard Haze and Joey Alves, leaving Meniketti as the last surviving member of the classic era.

And yet the band never stopped.

Meniketti kept touring. Kept singing. Kept carrying the weight of the songs forward like they still mattered. And maybe that’s because to him they do.

And Meniketti kept creating. Acoustic records. Documentaries. Touring schedules that would exhaust musicians half his age. Not because he had to. Because stopping never seemed natural to him.

Sorry this was a large digression.

The post is about “Fight For Your Life” from Contagious (1987), the first record after the jump to Geffen, the moment Y&T stepped into the “big label” world where everything is supposed to get cleaner, bigger, more commercial… and somehow this track still feels dangerous.

The intro and main riff carry that unmistakable chromatic climb, there’s a clear lineage back to something like “Kashmir”, not in imitation but in DNA. That slow, ascending tension that feels like it’s dragging the whole song upward by force.

You can also hear echoes of “Too Late for Love” era Def Leppard in the emotional architecture of it, melodic, but never soft. Then the pre-chorus hits and it shifts gears entirely. It goes full NWOBHM, tight, aggressive, no excess fat, just pure tension waiting to snap.

And then the chorus opens up like it’s trying to break out of the studio walls. Vocally it sits comfortably in the same emotional lane as “Pyromania” era hooks, big, wide, unapologetically melodic without losing its edge.

And the solo doesn’t just arrive, it escalates. It keeps building, stacking layers of intensity until it feels like it’s running out of structural permission to continue, and then it pushes anyway.

Lyrically the core isn’t excess, it’s erosion.

“First the pleasure, then the pain”

Every lifecycle that feels like freedom eventually starts collecting interest.

“Dream a million dreams of gold”

Exposes the illusion engine, ambition reframed as control, when in reality it’s just momentum with no steering wheel attached.

“it goes on and on”

The real psychological trap; not the behavior itself, but the inability to mentally exit it while still inside it.

Nothing here is invented in isolation. Riffs borrowed from somewhere, reshaped through different hands, turned into something slightly new but emotionally familiar.

And when it hits right, like it does here, you stop caring where it came from. You just feel the voltage.

Crank it up.

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The Record I Almost Didn’t Buy and Couldn’t Escape: Marillion – Script For A Jester’s Tear

You don’t find Marillion. They find you.

Or more accurately, you hear about them sideways.

For me it wasn’t some critic, not some curated “essential albums” list. It was Dream Theater blowing up with “Images and Words”, and Mike Portnoy talking like a fan, not a technician. That’s the tell. When a virtuoso stops talking about chops and starts talking about feeling, you pay attention.

So I went digging. Early ’90s. Second-hand record store. Dust, cracked plastic CD cases, history stacked alphabetically.

And there it was: “Script for a Jester’s Tear”.

I’d seen it before. That cover lingered. You don’t forget it. The Jester, fragile, theatrical, cracked open emotionally. The kind of image that promises something deeper than hooks. Conceived by Fish, brought to life by Mark Wilkinson. Not decoration, invitation.

Still, I didn’t buy it the first time. Two bucks felt like a commitment when you’re chasing every other ’80s record you think you “need.” Funny how that works. You chase quantity until something forces you to sit still and actually feel.

This record does that.

It doesn’t care about your verse-chorus expectations. It doesn’t ask permission. It builds moods. It stretches. It circles back. It trusts you to stay.

And then there’s that middle section. Around the two-minute mark through four. That’s where the mask slips.

The structure shouldn’t work on paper, verse feel, then a lead break, then back again, but emotionally it locks in. Not because it’s clever. Because it’s honest. The music doesn’t resolve, it returns. Like memory. Like regret. Same place, slightly different weight.

And then the words hit:

So here I am once more in the playground of the broken hearts.

That’s not just a line. That’s a pattern. That’s someone recognizing they’ve been here before and still walked back in. No illusion of progress. Just awareness.

One more experience, one more entry in a diary, self-penned.

That’s the quiet brutality of self-reflection. Nobody else to blame. You wrote this chapter.

Yet another emotional suicide overdosed on sentiment and pride.

That’s the real tell. Not heartbreak. Ego. You didn’t just feel too much, you chose it. You leaned into it. Pride kept you there.

Too late to say I love you, too late to re-stage the play.

There’s no rewrite. No director’s cut. The window closed while you were thinking about it.

Abandoning the relics in my playground of yesterday.

That’s the only move left. Not victory. Not redemption. Just… leaving.

That’s why the playground imagery works. Swings. Roundabouts. Motion without progress. Up and down, but you end up where you started. And the line:

I’m losing on the swings, I’m losing on the roundabouts.

It cuts because it strips the illusion. There’s no winning version of this cycle.

And that’s the thing about this song. It doesn’t pretend resolution. Even “The game is over” doesn’t feel triumphant. It feels like someone finally putting the controller down because they’re tired of losing the same level.

The Jester’s tear? That’s the whole thesis. Not just sadness. Not just regret. It’s the awareness of both. The performance and the truth colliding. Smiling while something inside you caves in.

And then that quiet confession:

I never did write that love song, the words just never seemed to flow.

That’s the line that lingers. Because it’s not about writing. It’s about saying the thing when it mattered. And not doing it.

No guitar heroics fix that. No structure saves it. No time rewinds it.

That’s why this record sticks. It doesn’t overwhelm you with complexity, it traps you with recognition.

You’ve been in that playground.

You just didn’t have the words for it yet.

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Leaving The Emptiness: The Moment Evergrey Turned Outward

There’s a shift happening here, and it’s not subtle.

Evergrey have always lived in the tension. Melancholy wrapped in complexity. Songs that feel like they’re carrying emotional debt. But “Leaving The Emptiness” doesn’t just sit in that space, it pivots out of it.

When you look at the credits, Jacob Hansen, Tom Englund, and Vikram Shankar, you start to see the architecture behind the sound. This isn’t just a band writing inward anymore. This is a collaboration engineered for impact.

And Hansen… he’s the wildcard that isn’t supposed to be a wildcard.

This guy came up through Invocator, which tells you everything about his musical DNA. Precision. Aggression. Structure. Then he pivots into Pyramaze, melody, grandeur, hooks. And somewhere along the way, behind the desk, he becomes a sculptor of modern metal, shaping bands like Volbeat, Primal Fear, and Amaranthe into streamlined, digestible forces.

So when you hear that intro riff… it makes sense.

Because that riff isn’t “Evergrey” in the traditional sense. It’s not brooding, not buried in layers of progressive nuance. It’s immediate. It’s physical. It’s designed. You don’t think about it, you react to it.

It’s the kind of riff that lives in contradiction. Heavy enough to nod your head like you mean it. Melodic enough to hum five seconds later. Simple enough to remember. Polished enough to sell.

So what you’re hearing isn’t a betrayal of identity. It’s a recalibration.

Because in a landscape where progressive metal can disappear into its own reflection, this kind of track cuts through. It doesn’t ask for patience, it demands attention.

“I lost my keys to heal but I don’t know where”

That’s not just a lyric, that’s modern existence in one sentence.

Everyone’s looking for the fix, the unlock, the cheat code to feeling whole again, and no one knows where they left it. It’s not hidden, it’s misplaced. Big difference.

Because if it’s hidden, someone else has it. If it’s misplaced, it’s on you. That’s the weight.

“I’m here to find some ways to make this worth it”

That’s the grind. Not purpose handed down from above, constructed in real time. Trial and error. Most people are waiting for meaning to arrive. This line says: it doesn’t. You build it or you don’t have it.

“I’m leaving the emptiness behind”

That’s the declaration. Not subtle, not poetic in a cryptic way, just a line drawn in the sand. You either believe it or you don’t. And the power of it? It’s not in certainty. It’s in the attempt.

Then comes the solo. Not polite, not restrained. This is full-blown guitar hero territory. The kind of lead that doesn’t ask if it fits the song, it becomes the moment.

If this was 1987, these guys would be sharing cover space with Eddie Van Halen Vito Bratta and George Lynch, tabs printed, kids rewinding cassette tapes trying to catch every note.

The real question isn’t whether it’s good. It’s a reminder of what’s been missing.

“Architects Of A New Weave” is due on June 5, 2026. I was meant to see them in Sydney on May 1, but it was postponed to October due to travel issues.

And from hearing the first three pre-release singles, Evergrey aren’t just evolving, they’re repositioning. Moving from introspective architects of sorrow to something more immediate, more physical… maybe even more dangerous in a mainstream sense.

And that riff?

That’s the tell.

It’s not just catchy.

It’s intentional. Crank it.

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Nobody Rides For Free

There’s something unsettling about a band when they stop sounding like themselves… and somehow become more honest because of it.

That’s what “Nobody Rides for Free” feels like.

It doesn’t belong neatly anywhere. Not on an album. Not in the canon people casually reach for when they say Ratt. It lives off to the side, buried in the sunburnt chaos of “Point Break”, a film about adrenaline, identity, and the cost of chasing something you can’t hold onto.

Which is exactly what this song sounds like.

This wasn’t just another track.

It’s their first recording without Robbin Crosby, the muscle behind “Ratt ‘N’ Roll” and whether you think that absence directly shaped the song or not, you can feel the air change. The density is gone. The gloss is stripped back. What’s left is space… and in that space, something more dangerous creeps in.

Restraint.

Ratt were never about restraint.

They were about excess, hooks, attitude, swagger. The Sunset Strip distilled into sound. But here? The arrangement breathes. It doesn’t pile on. It withholds. The guitars don’t smother you, they stalk. Warren DeMartini plays like a guy who knows silence is a weapon.

And Stephen Pearcy doesn’t seduce here.

He warns.

That’s the shift most people miss.

This isn’t “come along for the ride.”

It’s “understand the cost before you even think about getting in.”

Even the DNA of the song hints at something different. You’ve got Steve Caton, a guy shaped by film and television, writing alongside Pearcy, DeMartini, and Juan Croucier. That matters. Because this song doesn’t just play, it frames. It feels like a scene. A tension arc. A moment where the character realizes the rules have changed and nobody bothered to tell them.

Then again, the large amounts offered to artists to submit soundtrack songs is a huge incentive.

And then you hit the title.

“Nobody rides for free”

Every choice has a cost. Every high comes with a tab you don’t see until later.

In life? It’s everything.

Relationships. Careers. Identity.

You think you’re getting away with something.

You’re not.

The bill just hasn’t arrived yet.

“In my dreams see I’m on TV / Get back exactly who I wanna be”

This is identity as performance.

Not discovery, construction.

It assumes the version of you in your head is already valid, already formed, already worthy, just waiting for recognition.

But reality doesn’t reward internal narratives. It rewards execution.

So there’s tension here: the dream self is controlled, admired, defined while the real self is blocked, frustrated, unproven.

And that gap?

That’s where most people stall out.

“I’m sick and tired of it getting in my way”

This is the line where ambition turns impatient.

“It” is never defined, which is the point.

“It” becomes: Other people, systems, limitations or, more uncomfortably… your own lack of progress

You either: remove the obstacle, or keep blaming it

Most people choose the second option because it protects the ego.

“Don’t stop to think ’cause I know where I stand”

This is pure momentum thinking. And it’s seductive as hell.

Because overthinking kills action, but not thinking at all kills direction.

“You’ve gotta pay to play”

This is the thesis. Strip everything else away, this is the operating system.

Nothing is free: not success, not freedom, not identity and not even escape

You pay in something: time, reputation, relationships or sanity

And here’s the uncomfortable truth most people avoid: you don’t get to choose if you pay. You only choose what you pay with.

That’s the real contract.

“You thought he could swim but I guess you were wrong / You sink to the depths of your misery”

This is where the fantasy collapses.

Someone bet on ability, maybe their own, maybe someone else’s, and lost.

And the wording matters: “Thought he could swim” is assumed competence. “Sink to the depths” is reality doesn’t negotiate.

This is what happens when self-perception isn’t matched by capacity.

And the world is ruthless about exposing that gap.

No warning. No soft landing. Just gravity.

Nobody Rides for Free isn’t a freedom anthem. It’s a cost-of-entry manifesto.

Wrapped in attitude, sure. Delivered like defiance. But underneath, it’s brutally transactional.

You want the life? Pay for it.

You think you’re ready? Prove it.

You believe your own hype? The fall is coming.

And that’s why it feels “un-Ratt-y.”

Because it’s not selling the dream.

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The Record Vault and Australian Method Series: AC/DC – High Voltage (Australian version)

You can almost hear the hum of fluorescent lights in every suburban garage where AC/DC began. No glamour. No myth. Just sweat, static, and the clank of an amplifier that sounded like it had been dropped down the stairs. But that was the point. They weren’t selling dreams, they were bottling defiance.

Australia’s still shaking off its colonial hangover. The cultural exports were imports: Beatles on the airwaves, Hollywood in the cinemas, the British accent of cool still echoing through every youth who wanted to be someone. Then a gang of scruffy kids plugged in, turned up, and said no.

That “no” became “High Voltage”.

It wasn’t just an album, it was an interruption. A distortion through the polite frequencies of a country too afraid to sound like itself. Angus in his schoolboy outfit, Bon with a sneer that smelled like whiskey and danger, these weren’t poses. They were weapons. They took the mundane, working-class energy of a thousand sticky-carpet pubs and turned it into electricity.

The riffs weren’t clever. They were necessary. Simple, repetitive, primal. Music that didn’t care what you thought of it, it only cared that you felt it. The kind of sound that doesn’t wait for permission to exist.

AC/DC didn’t need validation from London or Los Angeles. They built their empire on beer-stained stages, not industry handshakes. They weren’t trying to be global, they were trying to be alive. And that’s why the world eventually came to them.

When “High Voltage” dropped, it shocked a nation still tangled in its moral corset. Parents hated it. Radio hesitated. The press called it obscene. Good. That’s how you know it’s real. Every moral panic in history has started with the sound of youth refusing to behave.

And here’s the thing, Bon Scott wasn’t just singing about sex and sin. He was singing about freedom. About living with the volume stuck on eleven because the alternative was silence. He wasn’t poetic; he was truthful. In a world that worships polish, truth sounds dirty.

Fifty years later, they still haven’t diluted it. They didn’t need to reinvent themselves, because the formula wasn’t a formula, it was a philosophy. Do one thing, do it honestly, and never flinch.

That’s the real cultural revolution AC/DC started: not rebellion for its own sake, but the audacity to be unapologetically yourself. To take your flaws, your roots, your rough edges, and broadcast them like a lightning bolt across the sky.

Australia didn’t just gain a rock band that year, it gained a backbone.

And maybe that’s the lesson that keeps echoing: every era needs its “High Voltage” moment, that instant where you stop waiting for validation and start amplifying who you already are.

It’s not nostalgia. It’s a reminder.

You don’t need the world’s permission to make noise.

You just need an amp, a song, and the courage to flick the switch.

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Ross The Boss – Heyday: The Record That Refused to Belong Anywhere

Ross the Boss is gone.

Most people will stop the story at Manowar. Big sound, bigger mythology. Steel, leather, and volume turned into identity.

But that’s only half the truth.

Because in 1994, when rock was busy cannibalising itself into subgenres and scenes, Ross dropped “Heyday”. One album. No follow-up. No safety net. And now… not even on streaming.

Which makes it dangerous.

Because you can’t casually consume it. You have to commit to it.

Ross wrote a manifesto in the liner notes:

“When I started playing guitar, it didn’t matter what type of Rock ‘N’ Roll you played, it was all just called ROCK! It hadn’t yet become so segregated into so many labeled categories.

Now, after twelve allums, I find myself, once again, going against the grain of the “mainstream”, playing the music that I choose to – and just having a great time with it.

So whether the mainstream becomes the underground; or the underground becomes the mainstream, Heyday is going to ROCK!”

That’s not nostalgia. That’s defiance.

By ’94, rock had fractured into tribes, grunge, metal, alternative, punk revival and let’s not mention how many labels hard rock and metal went into, each one building fences to keep the others out.

And Ross? He walks straight through all of them.

Blues rock. NWOBHM. New York punk. Glam attitude.

No permission. No alignment.

If the world narrows, you widen.

This wasn’t a solo indulgence. This was a unit: Ross the Boss on guitar, Charlie Cayte on vocals, Richie Fazio on drums and Erik Boyd on bass.

Charlie Cayte is the ghost in this machine. One of those singers who should’ve been everywhere… but got caught in the wrong year.

Because by 1994, the industry had already decided what rock shouldn’t sound like.

Mine Tonight

It starts with a riff that doesn’t ask, doesn’t build, doesn’t tease, it arrives.

Immediate. Violent. Alive.

“Now I’m aware of mine, are you aware of yours?”

That line hits because most people aren’t.

They hesitate. They soften. They hide behind ambiguity.

This song doesn’t.

Know what you want. Say it. Most people never do, and that’s why they never get it.

Mother Mary

This should have been massive. Arena chorus. Built for thousands.

Instead, it got buried.

“Mother Mary did you make the people, or did we make you?”

That’s not rebellion, it’s interrogation.

We build belief systems, then kneel to them. Religion, careers, identities. We forget we created them in the first place.

“I’ve been prayin’ for so long, to someone I don’t know…”

That’s existential drift.

If you don’t choose your beliefs consciously, you’ll spend your life serving them unconsciously.

A Matter of Time

Blues creeps in. Not as a genre, as a truth.

“To wait for the right moment was my first mistake.”

There is no right moment.

There’s only the moment you either take, or lose.

“I was born too early, and you were born too late.”

Timing isn’t romantic. It’s ruthless.

Hesitation doesn’t protect you, it erases you.

Brown Eyed Girl

A Van Morrison classic, dragged through a louder, dirtier filter.

Less nostalgia. More movement.

It’s not trying to improve the original, it’s reclaiming it. Making it live in this band’s world.

And that’s the point of covers when they work: not tribute, transformation.

Private Hell

This is where the album turns inward.

“I built the inferno…”

That’s the line.

Because people love blaming the fire, but not building it.

“Now a key’s been handed down my way…”

Recognition is the key. Not escape.

The moment you admit you built the problem is the moment you gain the power to dismantle it.

Movin’ On

This one swings.

You can hear echoes of Van Halen swagger and AC/DC punch. It’s reckless, fast, borderline unhinged.

“When push comes to shove, I’m gone.”

That’s freedom, but also avoidance.

There’s a fine line between movement and escape.

Reinvention is powerful, but if you never stay, you never build anything that lasts.

The Letter

The emotional core channeling Hendrix and “Little Wing”.

No metaphor. No disguise.

“What’s done is done and it can’t be changed.”

That’s it.

No modern spin. No redemption arc baked in.

Then the dagger:

“If I could call back father time… things would be the same.”

That’s self-awareness at its most brutal.

It’s not about wishing for a redo. It’s about understanding you weren’t ready to choose differently.

Don’t chase second chances. Build the mindset that wouldn’t need one.

Pack of Lies

Anger, but focused.

“You’re the first to sign the card, but the last to write the check.”

That line lands in any era.

Performative virtue. Empty signalling. Talking big, doing nothing.

Integrity is measured in action, not alignment.

Search and Destroy

A cover of Iggy Pop, but stripped of subtlety and pushed into hard rock aggression.

It’s less art-punk, more street fight.

And it works, because the band commits fully. No irony. No distance.

Back Where I Belong

Back to that EVH stomping groove. Back to weight.

“No way to know what feels right until you give it a try.”

Simple. True. Rarely followed.

People want certainty before action. Life doesn’t work that way.

Experience is the only real teacher, and it charges upfront.

It’s not just a “lost album.”

It’s a contradiction: Too late for the scene it belonged to. Too early for the nostalgia cycle that would’ve saved it. Too honest to reshape itself for trends

So it disappeared.

But that’s also why it still works.

Because it’s not tied to anything external.

It’s tied to a mindset: Play what you believe. Say what you mean. Accept the consequences.

No compromise. I called it:

“A perfect slab of hard rock.”

And it is.

But underneath that? It’s a manual.

On desire. On belief. On regret. On consequence. On owning your life, even when you get it wrong.

Most albums chase relevance. Heyday rejected it. And that’s exactly why it still matters. If you find the CD at a used store, buy it.

Rest in peace, Ross the Boss.

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Why Critics Never Understood Big Game

There’s something almost adorable about old rock criticism when you look at it now. Not insightful. Not prophetic. Just… something.

The review of “Big Game” isn’t really about the music. It’s about positioning. It opens by framing factions at “Kerrang!” as if championing White Lion were some kind of cultural crime. That’s the tell. The verdict is written before the riffs are even considered.

This is the late-’80s critic dilemma: if it’s melodic, if it’s polished, if it dares to aim for arenas instead of alleyways, it must be shallow.

Meanwhile, the comparison to Guns N’ Roses floats through the piece like a purity test. As if grit is automatically depth. As if sneer equals substance. It’s a false binary that rock journalism loved to sell. You’re either dangerous or disposable. Pick a side.

But melody is not the enemy of meaning. Craft is not the opposite of authenticity.

The review leans hard into the “sheen” complaint. Arena gloss. Radio ambition. The kind of production that dares to sound expensive. Bands like Van Halen get name-checked like it’s an indictment. As if clarity and scale are somehow moral failings.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: polish is a decision. In that era, it was architectural. Choruses were built to lift bodies off concrete floors. Guitars were layered to widen emotional impact. That’s not emptiness. That’s intent.

Calling the album “candy floss” is easy. It sounds clever. It’s dismissive in a way that signals superiority.

But where’s the structural breakdown?

Where’s the analysis of chord movement, the dissection of lyrical framing, the conversation about guitar phrasing? There isn’t one. It’s vibe critique. Aesthetic judgment passed off as depth.

And here’s the part critics rarely admit: they’re playing status games too. In 1989, to defend melody-forward hard rock was to risk being seen as uncool. So you preemptively strike. You align yourself with danger. You contrast, you diminish, you posture. It reads less like a musical autopsy and more like someone trying to future-proof their reputation.

Meanwhile, the record just sits there. Unbothered.

Because albums aren’t think pieces. They’re time capsules. They capture aspiration. Big choruses. Wide guitars. Earnest hooks. The desire to connect with more than a hundred sweaty bodies in a club. You can dislike that ambition. But dismissing it because it doesn’t crawl through broken glass? That’s a taste preference, not a universal law.

What’s fascinating is how often history quietly corrects critics. Hooks outlive hot takes. Melodies survive think-pieces. People return to records not because they won debates, but because they felt something when the chorus hit.

You liking this album isn’t contrarian. It’s independent. It means you’re responding to what you hear, not what you were told you should hear. That’s rarer than it sounds.

Critics optimize for the moment. Records optimize for memory.

And memory has a much longer half-life.

P.S

Everybody remembers the mythology of the 80s guitar hero.

The fast fingers. The impossible bends. The solo that feels like a lightning strike. The moment where the guitarist steps forward and the rest of the band becomes scenery.

And on “Big Game”, Vito Bratta is absolutely doing that.

The problem is… guitar hero moments don’t sell millions in records.

Songs do.

That’s the tension at the heart of White Lion’s third album. It arrived after “Pride”, which wasn’t just successful, it was culturally successful. Because it had a crossover song. Not just a metal hit, but a song that escaped the genre gravity well.

“Wait” didn’t succeed because it had the most technical guitar playing. It succeeded because everything in the song lined up: the hook, the melody, the tension in the verses, the lift in the chorus, the MTV rotation. The solo wasn’t the point, it was the emotional payoff.

That’s the thing musicians often get wrong.

Players listen for moments.

Listeners remember songs.

On “Big Game”, Bratta is arguably playing at an even higher level. His phrasing is sophisticated. The tone is surgical. There is genius tucked all over the record, little harmonic turns, fluid legato runs, those violin-like vibrato bends he was famous for.

If you’re a guitarist, it’s a feast.

But the average listener isn’t grading technique. They’re asking a simpler question:

What’s the song I play again tomorrow?

And “Big Game” never quite lands that one undeniable, gravity-defying track. It has good songs. Solid songs. But not the song.

In pop history, the pattern repeats endlessly.

The audience isn’t looking for more complexity. They’re looking for connection.

Listen carefully to his playing and you’ll hear it: he’s not shredding randomly. His solos sing. They’re constructed like vocal lines.

But albums live or die by the three-minute emotional detonations at their center.

“Pride” had one.

“Big Game” had brilliance.

And history shows us which one sells more records.

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A to Z of Making It, Influenced, Music, My Stories

The Place Matters

There’s this myth that talent alone is enough.

That if you’re good, really good, the world will find you. That the algorithm will save you, or that destiny will somehow FedEx your big break to your doorstep.

It won’t.

Because the place matters.

Walt Disney learned that the hard way. Kansas City, 1921, his first studio, “Laugh-O-Gram” Films, goes under in less than two years. Not because he wasn’t good. Because Kansas City wasn’t where dreams went to multiply. It was a field where they went to die quietly.

But Walt didn’t. He sold short films to rich families by filming them and their children, one house at a time, camera by camera, dollar by dollar, until he had enough money for a train ticket to California.

That train was more than transport. It was transcendence.

Hollywood wasn’t just a place, it was a magnetic field, a vortex that pulled artists into its orbit.

Everyone who mattered eventually got pulled there or burned out resisting it. Because where there’s creative density, there’s ignition.

That’s how it’s always been.

Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin leaving Lafayette, Indiana, to crash on couches in Los Angeles, because no one becomes a legend in Lafayette. Duff McKagan ditching Seattle before it had a “scene” to speak of.

Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars getting together in a band happened because of the place, the town they gravitated to.

If they’d stayed in their hometowns, they’d be the guys at the local bar saying, “We almost made it.”

Metallica understood this too. They went against the current, moved from LA to San Francisco, chasing something grittier, heavier, more real. They traded glam for grit, and got Cliff Burton in the process. That wasn’t luck. That was geography colliding with intention.

Because the place isn’t just where you are, it’s who you meet, what you absorb, and what kind of fire burns in your bones at 3 a.m. when everyone else is asleep.

And now, in this era of disconnection, when your bedroom is your studio and your world fits in a laptop, we forget that physical gravity still exists.

That you can’t replicate the heat of 1980s Sunset Strip over a Zoom call. You can’t download the tension of standing in line outside the Whisky a Go Go with your demo in your pocket.

You can’t fake proximity.

The right place accelerates everything, your hunger, your heartbreak, your art. It forces you to rise to the noise, to fight for space in a city that doesn’t owe you anything. That’s what makes it real.

Because yes, the internet has leveled the playing field, but it’s also flattened the stakes. And the truth is, if you want to build something immortal, you still have to go where the energy lives.

Walt knew it.

Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr and Robert Alan Deal knew it becoming Nikki Sixx and Mick Mars in the process.

Axl knew it.

Metallica knew it.

The place matters.

And maybe that’s the lesson buried beneath the dust of every broken dream and every overhyped promise: you can’t separate the art from its ecosystem.

The cities hum with invisible frequencies, and if you tune yourself just right, you catch them.

Nashville’s still soaked in whiskey and heartbreak. Berlin still beats like an electronic heart that refuses to die. Melbourne, is where the misfits gather, guitars in hand, fighting not for fame but for proof they exist.

The coordinates change, but the principle doesn’t. Energy seeks energy. Creation needs collision. The universe doesn’t reward the comfortable; it rewards the ones who move. Because the place still matters, it always did, and it always will.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music

Sydney’s Biggest Live Secret (Revisited): Candy Harlots and the Album That Took Five Years Too Long

Scenes don’t fail because the music isn’t good enough.

They fail because time, management, and momentum never align at the same moment.

Candy Harlots are the textbook case.

By the time their debut album “Five Wicked Ways” finally landed in May 1992, the band that had ignited Sydney in the late ’80s barely resembled the one that earned the deal in the first place. And yet, against all logic, it still worked.

To understand why, you have to start where the fire actually began.

Candy Harlots formed in Sydney in 1987, originally built by guitarist Ron Barrett, drummer Tony Cardinal, vocalist Mark Easton, and bassist Nick Szentkuti. Guitarist Marc De Hugar joined soon after, still a teenager, but already operating well above his age.

Szentkuti didn’t last long. Scott Millard stepped in briefly, followed by Leeno Dee, whose arrival quietly changed the band’s internal chemistry. Dee didn’t just anchor the low end, he added another songwriter to a band already driven by Easton and Barrett. That matters later.

This version of Candy Harlots wasn’t just loud. It was theatrical, sexual, and confrontational. Roses, lollipops, balloons, foam, striptease intros, dry ice. Mark Easton didn’t “front” the band, he detonated it.

The Kardomah Café became home base. From there, the band spread outward, often overwhelming suburban venues that didn’t quite know what they’d booked. Some crowds loved it. Some venues didn’t invite them back. That tension fueled the myth.

At the same time, another band called Rags ’n’ Riches were moving through the same ecosystem, more melodic, less confrontational, built around Scott Ginn’s songwriting instincts and Phil Bowley’s feel-driven guitar work. Two bands, same scene, radically different approaches.

Both mattered.

By 1989, Candy Harlots were peaking live.

They opened for The Cult, Cheap Trick, D.A.D., Kings of the Sun, and The Angels. They partied and jammed with members of Skid Row and Mötley Crüe. Industry attention followed quickly.

In fact, Virgin Records offered them a deal after just three shows.

They didn’t take it.

Not because the band said no, but because their manager did. Worse still, their management contract prevented the band from signing without approval. By the time that deal evaporated, momentum had already taken a hit that never fully healed.

So they did what bands used to do: they pressed their own record.

“Red Hot Rocket” landed in April 1989 on Au Go Go Records. A thousand red-vinyl copies, packaged with custom knickers, sold out in under three hours. The song sounded exactly like the band looked: sleazy, melodic, funny, dangerous.

This was the moment they should have been locked into an album cycle.

They weren’t.

The follow-up single “Danger” arrived in May 1990, backed with “Wrap 2 Arms.” Written by Leeno Dee, it’s arguably the strongest thing the band ever released, big chorus, melodic spine, raw power intact.

It barely registered.

Then everything collapsed.

In October 1990, founding guitarist Ron Barrett died after an asthma attack. He was 26. The band lost not just a player, but its emotional center. No amount of gigging compensates for that.

From here on, Candy Harlots became a band reacting to loss instead of generating momentum.

After Barrett’s death, Peter Masi was recruited on guitar. But the changes didn’t stop there.

In February 1991, Marc De Hugar was replaced by Phil Bowley, a move that aligned musically, but carried deep personal consequences. De Hugar had been a key writer, a visible drawcard due to his age, and had already invested years of unpaid work while negotiating a record deal that was now moving forward without him.

A month later, after a final performance at the Kardomah Café, Mark Easton walked away.

At this point, only Tony Cardinal remained from the original formation.

Shortly after, Tony “Aiz” Lynch joined as vocalist, a cross between Sebastian Bach, David Lee Roth and Vince Neil, he was as bad as a bad boy could be.

By now, the disastrous management deal had expired.

And suddenly, Virgin Records came knocking again.

This time, the band signed.

Virgin-backed promotion changed everything.

The Lynch-fronted Candy Harlots received more media attention than the Easton era ever had. In 1991, “Danger” was re-recorded and re-released, and for many fans, this was their entry point. Cassette single. CD single. Real distribution.

A promotional release, “The Tease Tapes,” appeared with Hot Metal magazine, hyping an album scheduled for October 1991.

October came and went.

Instead, early 1992 delivered the “Foreplay” EP—three album tracks plus a Kinks cover. A tease, literally.

Finally, in May 1992, five years after the band formed, the debut album arrived:

“Five Wicked Ways”.

And here’s the inconvenient truth:

It was good.

Really good.

The album carried LA sleaze DNA, Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses, Ratt, Poison, but could pivot effortlessly into AC/DC, Kiss, Skid Row, even Dokken territory.

“Backstreet Boys” opens with pure AC/DC muscle, “Sister’s Crazy” updates the fallen-angel pop-metal trope, “Danger” finally gets its anthem moment, “Cheat On Me” leans punk-sleaze, “Where No One Dares” slows things down with genuinely strong guitar work.

“My Flame” rides a pulsing bass and bluesy swagger, “The Lady Shakes” kicks off with Cardinal’s drums before settling into a Bolan-esque groove.

“Wrap 2 Arms” resurrects Ron Barrett’s song, rightfully so “What Are We Fighting For”, penned by Lynch, is a late-album standout.

“Mercenary Baby” brings funk-rock tension, “The Other Side of Love” nods toward Dokken and “Devils Blues” closes things out acoustically.

Singles followed, “Sister’s Crazy,” “What Are We Fighting For”, with bonus tracks and covers, including AC/DC’s “Can I Sit Next To You Girl.”

For a debut album, it was shockingly complete.

And then it ended.

Not long after, Aiz Lynch was fired.

New singers arrived.

The band changed its name.

Momentum evaporated again.

And then it was over.

Candy Harlots didn’t miss success by inches.

They missed it by years.

Bad management decisions.

Delayed deals.

A death no band recovers from intact.

An album released after the cultural moment had already shifted.

And yet, “Five Wicked Ways” stands up.

That’s the part people forget.

The output is small. The story is messy. The timing was brutal.

But that record belongs in the same conversation as bands who “made it.”

Sydney didn’t lack talent.

It lacked alignment.

Some bands get immortalized.

Others become cautionary tales.

Candy Harlots were both.

And if you were there, if you remember the Kardomah, the radio static, the knickers in the single sleeve, the songs that should’ve been bigger, you already know:

This wasn’t a failure.

It was a delayed detonation.

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