Category Archives: Classic Songs to Be Discovered

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

Dee Snider – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics – Never Let The Bastards Wear You Down

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.

The album title alone made a connection with me right away. First, it was a typical Dee statement. Second, I was getting treated like dirt at work and it wasn’t long after I purchased this album that I left that employer.

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. The first working title for this album was Diamonds In The Dust.

Call My Name was written by Dee for the Stay Hungry album. As Dee stated in the CD booklet, he was so desperate to be somebody. WASP even wrote a song called I Wanna Be Somebody.

Now it may take a lifetime,
It might even take ten
Maybe nobody knows me,
They all will in the end

The path to musical stardom is right there in those four lines. To be somebody could take a lifetime. It could ten years, it could take 5 years. Nothing happens overnight. That is the cold hard truth of the music business. Jay Jay French stated in an interview with website Rockpages.gr

when Twisted Sister started in the United States gasoline was 30 cents a gallon, a hotel room was 19$ a night, a truck rental was 25$ a month, and you made 100$ a night! Now, gas in the US is 4$ a gallon, you truck rental is 400$ a week, your hotel room is 200 a night, and not only you don’t get that 100, but you have to pay 100, and there is no record deal, so the bottom line is “DON’T GET INTO THE MUSIC BUISNESS”! Go become a lawyer, a doctor… you’re not going to make money! The rock star dream is over! It’s gone!

While I don’t agree with all the words that French said in that interview, one thing is certain; the rock start dream is far from over. Music was never about platinum records or gold records. That part is all a fall out of the corporatisation of music. Music is all about making a statement. Music is about getting across a point of view that connects with people. Twisted Sister made that statement with You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll, I Wanna Rock, The Price and We’re Not Gonna Take It.

Cry You A Rainbow was originally written for the Desperado record. It was written by Dee Snider and Bernie Torme. Dee wrote some great ballads in Twisted Sister. The Price and King Of The Fools are two that stand out.

However Calling For You and Blue For You from the Widowmaker Blood and Bullet album set a new standard for me. Joe Franco even called Widowmaker the best band he has ever played in.

Calling For You is written by Dee Snider and Bernie Torme. It was actually written during the Desperado era. It was recorded for the shelved Desperado album. Thank God, Dee persisted in getting this song released. It’s quality all round. As Dee once said. “I can go out on stage and do that song knowing that not one word, not one note is contrived. The feelings are genuine.”

The Snider/Pitrelli/Torme penned Blue For You is a perfect illustration of the blues. The bridge is the best part of the song. Dee is summoning all of the Robert Johnson crossroad spirits for that vocal line.

First you want me
Say you need me
Then you tell me I’m a fool
Then you love me
Then you leave me
Oh, you’re breaking all love’s rules
Well I know I’ll love again
But I’ll never love anyone more

Cry You A Rainbow is another ballad that is up there. I remember reading the lyrics before hearing the song and making a connection to Calling For You. Again, Dee made a connection.

Ooh, our love is strong
Is it stronger than the pain all around us
Things we never thought we’d see
Ten thousand kinds of misery

Relationships are fragile. They could be heading full steam ahead and then something happens that changes everything. Most break up. The ones that don’t come out of it, changed and stronger. I have been married for sixteen years and I have three kids. Our love was stronger than the pain all around us.

Hardcore – Producer Tom Werman has gone on record stating that Dee doesn’t like to give credit to anyone else but himself. So how does Werman explain the song Hardcore. This is Dee, giving credit to Lemmy Kilmeister from Motorhead.

The power chord is all he needs
Kill or be killed his only creed
While death is certain, life is not
So he strikes while the iron’s hot

I love the Kill or Be Killed reference in this song.

Our Voice Will Be Heard is another Stay Hungry off cut. To plagiarise Dee, “another angry, young rocker anthem I’ve written over the years.” It’s about standing up and believing in yourself.

We are the people, we are the one
We’ve got the numbers, we’ll have the fun
Raise your fist in the air, show them all that you dare
And they’ll know, yes they’ll know

Our voice will be heard

You can tell that Dee went back to this song as a reference point when he was writing Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant). That is what artists do. They go back to their own body of work, twist it, rewrite it and make it better.

Isn’t It Time was originally written for the Desperado record. It was one of the first songs written by Dee and Torme. As Dee mentions in the booklet, “when Bernie and I started writing together, we had no band, no record contract, no band name and no real direction. As we worked together, a theme (albeit a Western one) started to come through. This is a great pop metal tune that didn’t fit into what became the Desperado sound.”

The song Desperado was meant to be the theme song of the Desperado project, instead it is seen as an epitaph of a dark period in Dee’s life.

Now just look how much you gave
The people that you tried to save
They don’t even wanna talk to you
And when you see just what you are
A desecrated fallen star
A bad man with something to prove

When I read the lyrics on the first verse, I immediately replaced the You with Dee. He is talking about himself. He is putting his emotions and feelings out there. It’s almost like Anakin’s fall to the dark side.

Desperado, how will the wind blow?
You’ve got the fire, it’s time to make a stand
Desperado, where did your love go?
Filled with desire, it’s time to tip your hand

When your life is going through a bad patch, everything around you bothers you. You start to argue with your loved ones, you feel that you have something to prove, so you lock yourself away even more. Then the desperation kicks in.

Better stop before you make a move
Think what you stand to lose
I know you’re mad because you were burned
But is there something that you’ve learned?

In the end, is it all worth it? In the end, is the path that a musician walks all worth it? That is the decision, we all need to make. When do you make a stand, when do you walk away, what have you learned and what do you stand to destroy? For any artist that wants to be somebody, Dee Snider has laid out the highs and lows for you in his songs.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music, My Stories

Dee Snider – Stay Hungry – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics

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. It was the You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll video clip that set the wheels in motion. It was the prequel of what was to come. The calm before the storm.

So Stay Hungry comes out and it’s huge. This is the period were the image of bands started to become bigger than the music. MTV was rising as a force to be reckoned with and Twisted Sister had the songs and the video clips/mini movies for this new market. Tom Werman was on deck to produce. He is also credited as a writer and arranger, however this has been disputed by Dee Snider. Tom Werman has even said in interviews that Dee could never deal with any credit given to anyone but him.

The band has also mentioned in interviews that they never liked the sound on Stay Hungry, however a stipulation from Tom Werman is that he always wants a member of the band in the control room during the mix, and an approval of the final mix by the band before the album was turned in to the label.

We’re Not Gonna Take It became the anthem for the teenagers of 1984. The clip featured actor Mark Metcalf, from the movie Animal House. If anyone has watched Animal House Metcalf plays the sadistic and military orientated Doug Neidermeyer. Both of the video clips (I Wanna Rock and We’re Not Gonna take It) have dialogue that references dialogue from the Animal House movie. The “Twisted Sister pin, on your uniform” and “you are all worthless and weak” appear in the movie and the Twisted Sister video clips. In Animal House, the Twisted Sister reference is for something else. A connection is made immediately with me.

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 authority. Rising up against the unwritten creed of Live, Work, Die. Rising up against the life that our parents, our teachers, our employers want from us. While other bands sang songs about reaching for the sky and all your dreams would come true, Twisted Sister brought it all back to reality. This is the street reality. The line is drawn, and we are saying, we are not going to take it anymore. Screw, reaching for the sky. All of that is fantasy rubbish. This is real. Making a stand right now.

I Wanna Rock is anthem number two for the disenchanted youth of the Eighties.

Turn the power up
I’ve waited for so long so I could hear my favourite song so, lets go!
GO! GO, GO, GO, GO, GO!

That is all we wanted to do. Turn it up, kick back, have a drink or two or three, have a smoke and enjoy.

I Wanna Rock, We’re Not Gonna Take It and Smokin In the Boys Room from Motley Crue, were in constant rotation on the music TV channels in Australia circa 1985. All three clips had the same theme and story to tell. All three clips are brilliant. All are produced by Tom Werman.

The Price

How long I have wanted
For this dream to come true

The Price is seen as the first Dee Snider solo piece. There are many songs about life on the road, and this is just another to add to that list. This is Dee’s take on touring Europe. It was written four months into that tour and by then Dee was getting homesick. He even wanted to re-record The Price with Widowmaker as he never believed that the song reached its full potential.

OH, it’s the price we gotta pay
And all the games we gotta play
Makes me wonder if it’s worth it to carry on

This is the part that no one tells you about. Life on the road, away from loved ones. This is the part where loneliness leads to addictions for many. This is the part where we question if it’s worth it to carry on. The people around you (like your band mates) are starting to get on your nerves. Are you prepared to pay the price?

S.M.F.

The best song on Stay Hungry by far. This song spoke to me. It connected on so many levels. Even in the metal and rock community, divisions existed. If someone liked Metallica, they hated people that liked Motley Crue, Ratt, Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Ozzy, Twisted Sister and so on. If someone like Slayer, they hated Metallica lovers. I liked all things metal and rock, however depending with which crowd I was hanging with, I could have been seen as a black sheep.

Black Sheep Of The Family
Nothing Like The Rest
Separate From The Others
Failing All Their Tests
Can’t They See You’re Different
So Hungry And So Lean
You’re A Walking Wonder
You’re A Metal Machine
Look And You’ll See
You’re A Lot Like Me

You’re An S.M.F.

In the end I am a music lover. I don’t believe in elitism. I don’t believe that to like Black Metal you need to worship Satan. I don’t believe that to like blues music, you need to have done it tough. I don’t believe that to like metalcore, you need to have a thousand tattoos and weird piercings. I don’t believe that to like glam rock, I need to wear lipstick and tease my hair. To me music is greater than the image.

And If They Think That We’re Sick
Then Sick Is What We’ll Be
Scream It Loud
Know What You Are Be Proud

A fitting end to it all. Be proud.

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Dee Snider – Come Out And Play – What Fo You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics

I really like Come Out And Play. I remember lying in bed, staring at the album back art, reading the lyrics and singing the songs as they played on the turntable. I remember the day I purchased the album, going into my parents room, finding my mums purse and taking $20 out to buy the album. The actual album was $10, so I knew that I was going to come back with two albums. Going through the hard rock/metal section, I decided on Twisted Sister, Come Out and Play and Motley Crue, Theatre Of Pain. When I came home, mum was far from impressed to find $20 missing. My dad, who I feared more, understood me. He was a musician as well.

Coming into the Come Out And Play period, Twisted Sister was coming off the Stay Hungry juggernaut.

The first big change was the producer. Gone was Tom Werman and in came Dieter Dierks. Tom Werman was the go to producer back then. He was achieving multi-platinum sales with the majority of his releases between 1983 and 1989. In addition, Werman also contributed unofficially to the songs arrangements and melodies. So in comes Dieter Dierks from Scorpions fame.

Come Out And Play was released in 1985. By now Twisted Sister was on an album per year cycle, with Ruff Cutts and the first independent release of Under The Blade coming out in 1981, then the major label release of Under The Blade in 1982, then You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll in 1983 and Stay Hungry in 1984. You can tell the band was starting to burn out. To lead off with Leader Of The Pack as the first single, was an act of desperation. It was seen as the band recycling the past. It failed.

Come Out And Play kicks off with bottles clashing together. It is an ode to one of my favourite movies, The Warriors. Instead of the chant, “Warriors, Come Out And Play”, we get “Twisted Sister, Come Out and Play”. Brilliant. The connection is made for me.

Join our cavalcade
Enter the world you made

The cavalcade is the SMF army of Twisted Sister. This is the Twisted Sister world, that we the fans made.

A place where fallacy
Becomes reality
We’ll spin you head around
We’re programmed to astound, stand by
Prepare to fly

Oh, welcome to our show
Oh, welcome to our life

Much in the same vein as other Twisted Sister anthems, this is all about the rock n roll show. The concert experience. The place where fallacy becomes reality. The place where the band does what we want them to do and that is to play, to put on a show. You can say that Dee already wrote this song, in What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You), however he did it better this time around and in my view even better with Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant). AJ Pero is the unsung hero in this song. The pedestrian riffs are balanced by the frenetic drumming and it works.

I Believe In Rock ‘N’ Roll

What a great tongue and cheek song. Dee merges the marriage oath (Do you take this music, to be your lawfully wedded rock, to have and hold in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, together until death comes to yourself?) with allegiance (I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the united states of rock, and to the point of view for which it stands, one music under one god, yes, even god loves rock ‘n’ roll, with liberty and justice for all lands) to come up with a new creed, “Belief In Rock N Roll.”

Every day
I work so hard
Every day
I’m dealt the cards
Every day
I’m told exactly what to do
Every day
I lose control
Every day
I rock ‘n’ roll
Every day
It’s gonna help to see me through

I believe in rock ‘n’ roll

Has life changed for the working class man since 1985? We still work hard every day, we still deal with the hand we are given, we still do what we are told to do and we still look forward to the weekend where we can rock n roll and relax. Praise the lord, I believe.

The Fire Still Burns

By far the best song on Come Out and Play and in my view, one of the best songs Dee Snider has written. Extreme Metal bands have even covered this song.

Get out of my way
I’m the hangman today
And the judge and jury

The victim and the punisher. The Yin and the yang. The constant battle we have in life. We are happy, and we are sad. We laugh and we cry. In the end, the ones that make it through have that fire that burns forever.

King Of The Fools is a bonus track on the CD version and on the Tape version. It is a classic.

Look around me all I see
Thousands of faces wanting me
How can I lead?
How can I rule?
When I’m the king of the fools

It’s almost like Dee is regretful at his fame. The song is a continuation from The Price, where Dee tries to capture life on the road and how it is a price he needs to pay for success. Of course, the prices is time away from family and loved ones. Doubt is everywhere. Conflict is everywhere. You want to be on the road, you want to play shows, yet you don’t want to be away from your family. You are travelling from town to town, with people that you realise you don’t really like anymore, however you can’t stop. The call of the road and music is too great to resist.

The outside world can’t understand
Just who we are or what I am
Well, we don’t want their life or rules
I’ll be the king, king of the fools

Again, it’s the us (the SMF’s) vs them (The Mainstream) mentality. It’s the expectations of society vs the dreams of youth. We have different viewpoints, we have different needs so we are seen as fools by the mainstream. If the mainstream sees us as fools, then Dee is our King.

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Dee Snider – Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant) – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics

Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant) is from Love Is For Suckers released 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.

Coming into the Love Is For Suckers period, Twisted Sister had released two defining albums in You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll and Stay Hungry. Both of those albums are produced by Tom Werman. They then used Dieter Dierks from Scorpions fame as the producer on Come Out And Play.

Tom Werman assisted the band in fleshing out the songs. Just listen to the demo’s on the Stay Hungry 25th Anniversary edition and you will hear half-finished songs. So Come Out and Play comes out and it doesn’t do as well as Stay Hungry.

Dee cops a lot of blame for the commercial failure of Come Out And Play. He was the one that wanted to use Leader of The Pack as the leadoff single. The songs on the album are all written by him.

In my view, the album didn’t flop. Come Out And Play showed Twisted Sister who their actual fans are. With Stay Hungry, you had two massive anthems that would pick up the casual swinging fan. With Come Out And Play you had the real fans coming back again. However, the tour had a lot of cancellations and half empty arenas. Put that down to more bad management decisions who over inflated the size of Twisted Sister’s fan base.

Rumour has it that Reb Beach, from Winger fame, played guitar on the Love Is For Suckers album. Beau Hill was tapped to produce the album. Beau would go on to produce albums by Winger and Warrant.

Who the hell are they to say
What we can do and how we can play
We got the numbers, yeah,
We got the might
We got the strength and
We got the right
We got the reason, yeah,
We got the night
So wake up the sleeping giant

Dee was always good at writing the anthem of the SMF’s vs the world. Wake Up The Sleeping Giant is no different. The WE in the song, is the fans, the black sheep, the ones that everyone was calling devil worshippers. I am surprised that Dee got pressured into releasing this album as a Twisted Sister album. From the exterior it looked like no one could pressure Dee to do what he doesn’t want to do.

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. Again it’s about the Rock N Roll show, where the disenchanted youth can go and let their hair down.

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.

From hearing Hot Love, you can tell that Dee was thinking of that hit pop metal single that all bands started to record.

In the end Love Is For Suckers has good songs that should be part of the Twisted Sister live set. Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant) is one of those songs.

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Dee Snider – Widowmaker – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics

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.

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. It is a far cry of the anthemic Stay Hungry era.

For those that don’t know, Snider teamed up with guitarist Bernie Torme (Ozzy/Ian Gillan), drummer Clive Burr (Iron Maiden) and bassist Mark Russell to form Desperado, his first project post Twisted Sister. The album Bloodied But Unbowed was shelved at the last minute by Bob Krasnow.

Songs like Hang Em High, Cry You A Rainbow, Calling For You, Gone Bad and Emaheevull would be released on other Dee Snider projects. Dee even had to buy back his own songs from Elektra in order to re do them in Widowmaker, which features the excellent Al Pitrelli on guitar.

Pitrelli was coming off a run of high profile gigs with Alice Cooper (as musical director, songwriter and touring guitarist), Great White (fill in guitarist) and Michael Bolton (backing band guitarist). Also he started to become an accomplished songwriter, contributing to Y&T and Alice Cooper albums. On top of that, he had people like Steve Vai, recommending him as an artist to work with.

Widowmaker also included former Twisted Sister drummer Joe Franco and bassist Marc Russell from Dee’s Desperado project. The band name was suggested by producer Ric Wake because he liked the Dee Snider song called “The Widowmaker”. Snider even contacted bassist Bob Daisley (Rainbow and Ozzy Osbourne), who played in the original Widowmaker, about using the name and got a “who cares if you use the name” reply. Rick Wake produced the album and that was an interesting choice as his experience at that time was purely pop artists like Taylor Dayne, Mariah Carey, Diana Ross and Sheena Easton.

So you used me
Then threw me away

That is the slogan of the Label Run Music Business. Actually it still is, especially to the ones who still chase major label gigs.

All my life it seems
Been spent building’ dreams
I knew would be broke by you

Think about the circumstances. Dee left Twisted Sister in 1987. He spent three years writing, demoing and recording the Desperado album, only to have it pulled from release in 1990. The band splintered apart and he was left in no man’s land. Three years out of the public eye in the music business is like a life time, and prior to Desperado, Dee spent his whole life building up Twisted Sister only to have that broken as well, by label and management pressure. Love Is For Suckers was always meant to be a Dee Snider solo release, however the powers that be had other ideas.

Dee was also upset with Atlantic when the label announced it was putting together a best-of Twisted Sister album, which was released a few months before the Widowmaker album. It was typical of the labels. Releasing music as best offs. The maths are simple. Zero Cost = Pure Profit.

Dee mentioned once in an interview, that he has grown musically and was into more heavy rock, and that he hoped, that the fans of Twisted Sister’s heyday had grown with him.

“You’ve got to remember that people who were fans in (Twisted Sister’s) heyday six or seven years ago were 16 then and are 23 now. The 12-year-olds are 18 or 19. Just as I’ve grown (musically), hopefully they have grown as well.”

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.

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A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Angeline

I like hard rock. It is the eighties child in me that I cannot escape. So I come across a band called Angeline. It is the Life: Volume 1 – EP. 4 songs to impress me. Impress me they did. So I dig a little deeper. There is an album called Disconnected that was released in 2011 and another album Confessions released in 2010.

So I want to know a bit about the band. They are from Sweden. Formed in 1987. Yep, you read that write. 26 years ago.

Initially the band was influenced by Bon Jovi, Europe, Iron Maiden and Queensryche. All bands that I like, hence the reason why the music from the band connected with me.

When the music scene changed, they reverted to a cover band. You need to do what you need to do. It’s not all about the glamour and the fame. There are highs and lows.

Promising line-up changes started to turn sour. You don’t get these kind of stories in the mainstream media. The band is still battling for recognition, 10 years after they formed. The sound also evolved to incorporate more blues. You see it takes time to find your true voice. It takes life and experiences to find that unique light of creation.

Death then came to a founding member. With inspiration lost, they reverted back to the cover band. Most bands break up. Most artists would have thrown in the towel by now. These guys are in it for the long haul. Music is their life. It is their companion. It is the air they breathe.

Then in 2004, friends of the dearly loved founding member, Sigge, who died due to heart complications made a short film about him called Sigge Stardust. This film started to get some traction at film festivals. This was the trigger that got the band to re-unite again.

You see, it was something totally different that started to bring some light to the band. It was a short movie. It was the bi-annual Sigge festival. It was the scholarship offered at the festival. It is not all about writing a song and making millions of dollars. Music is much more than that. Music is life. As Robb Flynn screams in Darkness Within,

Music My Saviour. Save Me.

The opening track Life has that AC/DC vibe in the verse that hooks me. Coming from Australia, AC/DC are gods here.

Time isn’t on our side. And Life, always seem to bring us down

How true is that statement? Time is never on our side. We are always saying, we have no time or if we had time. Life is not meant to be easy. If we could buy more time we would. It goes so quickly and then you realise you don’t have much time left.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Nikki Sixx – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics?

Nikki Sixx is one of the most active artists there is.  Apart from doing the Motley Crue shows, he does Sixx A.M., he does photography, he has a presence on social media and he does his radio show.  Somewhere in between he finds time to also be a family man.

A few days ago, his mother passed away, and from that tragedy, it got me to go back and listen to the music that Nikki Sixx has created.

Dancing On Glass (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls

Going way too fast
Gonna burn and crash
Valentine’s in London
Found me in the trash

I’m no puppet
I engrave my veins with style

It is the Mick Mars guitar riff that hooked me first, using the renowned devil tri-tone.  It’s rock ‘n’ evil and  it’s Nikki’s memoir to his heroin addiction.  Life Is Beautiful (2007) from The Heroin Diaries by Sixx A.M. goes a step better (plus the chorus line gives a nice nod to Duran’s Duran’s Come Undone).

 

There’s nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive

How true is that? We complain about our life, sometimes even wishing that we are dead and then when tragedy strikes, we realise how alive we really are.

Find Myself (1997) from Generation Swine and Heart Failure (2007) from The Heroin Diaries from Sixx A.M. explore the addictions of Nikki Sixx with lyrics like “I gotta find myself some drugs, I gotta find some liquid sunshine” and “I miss today I miss the past, I miss my veins ’cause they’ve collapsed.”

However the best song that captures Nikki’s addiction is Girl With Golden Eyes (2007) from The Heroin Diaries by Sixx A.M.

She speaks to me in Persian
Tells me that she loves me
The girl with golden eyes
And though I hardly know her
I let her in my veins
And trust her with my life

I love the heroin and girl romance analogy. Credit also goes to James Michael and DJ Ashba.

On With The Show (1981) from Too Fast For Love

Frankie died just the other night
Some say it was suicide

Nikki has gone on record to say that On With The Show is about him leaving his birth name behind and taking on the Nikki Sixx name.  The reference to Frankie is a reference to himself.

Dr Feelgood (1989) from Dr Feelgood

Cops on the corner always ignore
Somebody’s getting paid
Jimmy’s got it wired, law’s for hire
Got it made in the shade

It’s a movie scene. It paints a picture. It’s Scarface and Jimmy is Al Pacino. Music done right is timeless. Dr Feelgood is timeless and it is Nikki Sixx at his sober best for the first time. 

Primal Scream (1991) from Decade Of Decadence

Broke dick dog
My head slung low
Tail knocked in the dirt
Time and time of being told
Trash is all I’m worth

Primal Scream was rewritten again as Face Down In The Dirt (2008) from Saints Of Los Angeles. 

All I ever heard as a kid was “you’re born to lose”
All I ever wanted was a shot at breakin’ the rules

Stick To Your Guns (1981) from Too Fast For Love is the original Primal Scream. 

You got to stick to your guns
What’s right for you, ain’t right for everyone

What’s It Gonna Take (2008) from Saints Of Los Angeles

So we wrote another song cut a demo on a dime
They didn’t like the sound, we didn’t fit the times
The radio station said “it’s way too loud”

I really like the autobiographical nature of songs.  Down At The Whisky (2008) from Saints Of Los Angeles covers the same theme of the band trying to make it.

We slept all day in our clothes
That’s OK in hollywood
Another shot, another show
All night long at the whisky a-go-go

Poison Apples (1994) from Motley Crue

Took a Greyhound Bus down to Heartattack and Vine with a fistful of dreams and dimes
So far out didn’t know that I was in
Had a taste for a life of slime

When push came to shove, the music was the drug and the band always got to play
Sex, smack, rock, roll, mainline, overdose
Man, we lived it night and day

Poison Apples and Danger also tell the story of the band’s early days.

Danger (1983) from Shout At The Devil

So we took our dreams
Ran like hell
Lived our youth
From the wishing well
Me and the boys
Made a pack
To live or die
No turning back

Then the band finally gets signed and become slaves to the machine with a stiff middle finger raised at all authority.

Welcome To The Machine (2008) from Saints of Los Angeles

 

 

Welcome to the machine
Once it sucks you in you’ll never leave
Grind you up spit you out
After all you’re just a piece of meat
Welcome to the machine

Saints Of Los Angeles (2008) from Saints of Los Angeles

We are…we are the saints
We signed our life away
Doesn’t matter what you think
We’re gonna do it anyway
We are…we are the saints
One day you will confess
And Pray to the saints of Los Angeles.

Home Sweet Home (1985) from Theatre Of Pain

 

Just one more night
And I’m comin’ off this
Long & winding road

Every band that spends a lot of time on the road ends up writing a song about the road.  Bob Seger did it with Turn The Page, Bon Jovi did it with Wanted Dead or Alive, Motley Crue did it with Home Sweet Home and the unreleased track Rodeo from the Girls, Girls, Girls sessions.

Rodeo (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls

Another day, another night on stage
Lights go down, time to turn the page
Was this all I ever wanted to be
Six hundred miles, the highway calls
Another long day, now the hours get small
Riding out this rock n roll rodeo

No accolade to Nikki Sixx would be complete without reference to his favourite topic, SEX.

Girls, Girls, Girls (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls

I got the photos, a menage a trois

Ten Seconds To Love (1983) from Shout At The Devil

Bring a girlfriend
Maybe bring two I got my camera
Make a star outta you
Let’s inject it
Photograph it

It’s like Nikki new that Tommy Lee and Vince Neil would end up in their own sex tapes.  That’s what happens when you have keepsakes.

Punched In The Teeth By Love (2000) from New Tattoo

Construction work it’s silicone
Lights are on but no one’s home (wow)
She’s painted blue like a cartoon
Every man in town went on the honeymoon

I really like the cartoonish vibe in this song.  The lyrics are witty and funny.  Was Nikki referencing Pamela Anderson.

THEN comes the new Holy Bible, Nikki Sixx style.

Wild Side (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls is Save Our Souls part 2. 

Kneel down ye sinners, to
Streetwise religion
Greed’s been crowned the new King
Hollywood dream teens
Yesterday’s trash queens
Save the blessings for the final ring-
AMEN

Save Our Souls (1985) from Theatre of Pain

Black Angels laughing in the city streets
Street toys scream in pain and clench their teeth
The moonlight spot lights all the city crime
Got no religion, Laugh while they fight

Save our souls for the heavens
For a life so good it sure feels bad
Save our souls for the heavens
Save our souls for the promised land

Sure Feels Right (2011) from This Is Gonna Hurt by Sixx A.M.

I’m driving down Sunset Boulevard,
Sex Pistols on the radio in my car,
And I must be high,
I just saw Jesus walk by.

Again, a picture is painted with these four lines.  I can relate. I can’t even recall how many times I have seen Jesus look a likes among the homeless.  Oh My God covers this theme even better.

Oh My God (2011) from The Heroin Diaries by Sixx A.M.

And we sit in our highrise apartments and complain about things that don’t matter,
And we race through this life just to see who can die with as much as we can gather,
And a few blocks away a teenage mother plays Russian Roulette with her daughter,
Is this the best that we can do, is this the best that we can do.

We focus on all the wrong things.  Nikki even eluded to it, in his recent Facebook posts.

Thank you for all the supportive posts here and on Twitter about the passing of my Mom.Her and my grandfather Tom’s recent passing is a gentle reminder of how fragile time is and a not so gentle sledgehammer to the heart that non of us get out of this life alive.If your wasting time procrastinating on anything trust me when I say “You’ll be sorry”.

I waited too long after a rocky road with my mother to try and rebuild the broken fence’s.You can never get time back.We all make mistakes and that was mine…..Again,thank you because it reminds me reading your posts how much we’re all alike…….

And of course that post, reminded me of a song that was released by the Brides of Destruction.

Life (2004) from Here Comes The Brides by Brides of Destruction

This is life this is it
It’s not everything you want
It’s everything you get believe it
It’s not worth leaving
Yeah this is life once again
It’s been knocking at your door
You ought to let it in
Don’t waste it it’s time you faced it

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Brent Smith (Shinedown) – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics

Another week, another “What Do You Mean I Dont Write Good Lyrics” post.

This week, Brent Smith from Shinedown is under the microscope. For the first two records Leave A Whisper (2003) and Us and Them (2005) he was addicted to cocaine, OxyContin and alcohol. By the time The Sound of Madness (2008) came out, he was drinking a lot of alcohol. For some reason he reminds me of Nikki Sixx.

Burning Bright from Leave A Whisper (2003)

There’s nothing ever wrong but nothing’s ever right
Such a cruel contradiction

Such a cruel contradiction it is. We tell everyone that everything is okay, however it never is. It could be debt problems, work problems, gambling problems or something else.

Adrenaline from Amaryllis (2012)

Which way is up, when your high is low?
It’s time to find it are you ready to go?

How do we know how to go up when we have been down the whole time. When the time comes to go higher, are we ready to go? Do we want to go higher?

Cry For Help from The Sounds Of Madness (2008)

‘Cause when you lie like the devil himself
No angels gonna hear your Cry for help!

I have been friends with quite a few people like that. All they do is lie. With each lie, they dig their hole deeper. Then one day no one is going to give a shit about them anymore. The song Enemies from Amaryllis (2012) also has a similar lyrical theme. “You started something that you just couldn’t stop, You turned the ones that you love into the angriest mob, And their one last wish is that you pay for it, And there’s no way you’re getting out of this.”

Bully from Amaryllis (2012)

Seems I’ve crossed the line again
For being nothing more than who I am

This is how the metal / rock community was treated in the Eighties. Employers bullied us, teachers bullied, the police bullied us.

Atmosphere from Us and Them (2005)

Once I met a leader
Born from genocide
Once I knew a preacher
To his faith, he said goodbye

The lyrics are great in this song. It’s just about how messed up our world has become. A leader born from genocide, what a brilliant line. It brings up so many different meanings.

Second Chance from The Sound of Madness (2008)

Sometimes goodbye is a second chance

I have always seen goodbye as one door closing and a million other doors opening.

Sound of Madness from The Sound of Madness (2008)

Somehow I’m still here, to explain,
That the darkest hour never comes in the night

The darkest hour comes when you least expect it and it is never at night.

Call Me from The Sound of Madness (2008)

I kept my whole life in suitcase,
Never really stayed in one place
Maybe that’s the way it should be,
You know I live my life like a gypsy

When I first heard this song, I immediately thought of Tracy Chapman, as the vocal delivery is very similar. Are we ever settled in life? We always want something more, something different, something else.

Heroes from Us and Them (2005)

All my heroes have now become ghosts
Sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most

We all die in the end. What legacy will we leave behind?

My Name (Wearing Me Out) from Amaryllis (2012)

My name is revenge and I’m here to save my name

Enough said.

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The Evolution of Burnside

I’m listening to an album from a band called Burnside. The album is called Evolution and it was released in December, 2012. I really like it and I recommend it.

I need to know more. So I go straight to Google. I type in Burnside.

I get all these results about Uniting Care, the city of Burnside, the Burnside Public School and all these other results that do not deal with music. Not a good start.

So I change the search words to “Burnside Band” and the website, http://www.burnsideband.com is the first one that comes up. That is better. However I would have expected the Facebook and Twitter accounts to come up as well.

So I change the search words to be, “Burnside Band Facebook” and it comes up, however it is not the first one. Anyway, I go onto the Facebook page, and I see that they have an album launch happening soon. I am confused. The album came out in December 2012. An album launch six months later is a bit weird. 

This is why the idea of the album fails in this day and age, especially if you are a band starting off. Evolution is a great album, one of the best I have heard in the last few years, and it is in my top 10 of releases for 2012. So how does a band, that recorded a great album get it out to the people, without disappearing.

The answer is the fans. The fans need to be sharing the songs on their Facebook accounts, on their twitter accounts or blogs. Once upon a time there was an old way. Bands and new music where broken by radio and the press. Theses outlets are obsolete today. The fans are the new way. They are the new press. They are the new radio.

Burnside have over 7000 likes on Facebook. It’s time to mobilise these fans. The fans need to share. The band needs to record themselves playing some of the songs acoustically and put them on YouTube and then get fans to share those YouTube clips. It’s not about the sales anymore, it’s about remaining relevant and in the public eye. That is the battle.

Burnside are from an area called Penrith, Australia, which is about 70 minutes away from where I live. This is typical of Australia, where talented bands fail to escape the local area. I only live 90 minutes away and I have never heard of them. They formed in 2009, however the members Grant O’Hara (Vocals, Guitar, Bass), Sheldon Wharton (Vocals, Guitar, Bass) and David Rice (Guitar, Bass) have been in other bands prior.

Their bio has them comparing themselves to Birds of Tokyo. Why? They are way better than Birds of Tokyo. Silverchair is also mentioned. Evolution is an album that Silverchair wished they could make. Foo Fighters is another reference. Foo Fighters are renowned for releasing albums with four to five great songs and the remainder is seen as pure filler. Evolution is an album that has no filler.

Be sure to check out Remember When.  If you like Everything from Lifehouse, you would like this song.

The combination of The Battle moving into With A Gun is brilliant.  The strings over the distorted guitars sounds grand.

Lost The Will is modern rock in the vein of Shinedown.

Will I Find You There reminds me of The Calling.  The Last Time is the best song that Daughtry hasn’t written.

What You’ve Become merges brilliant piano playing with distorted guitars.  Its melodic and haunting at the same time.

Through My Veins, has that AC/DC, Long Way To The Top vibe.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Imagine Dragons – It’s Time and Demons

It’s Time and Demons are two songs that are just stuck in my head.  They are catchy as hell.  They have enough of the rock in them to get my attention and keep it. The vocals are unique enough to have me interested. This is why I love music.  A great song can come from left field.  The rookie that no one gives a chance, has come to play.  

Yes, I am a bit behind in hearing their music as some of the songs on the album are from 2010 EP releases, however good music will always come to the top.  It is the signal in the noise.  Once you find it, you latch on to it and ride it to the top.

The fans of the band have made this happen.  The actual album is still moving 30,000 units each week in the U.S., however that pales in comparison to the digital sales of It’s Time and Radioactive. Both songs are numbering in the millions for downloads.

YouTube lists Radioactive with 36,671,318 views and It’s Time with 30,431,235 views.  How come the RIAA isn’t complaining about piracy here.

Spotify lists Radioactive with 93,914,273 streams and It’s Time with 46,974,864 views.

The other songs are doing high numbers as well.  This is the key today, to keep people coming back, over and over again.  Imagine Dragons are doing that.  Spotify is proof of that.

 

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