Tag Archives: 1990s hard rock

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Bangalore Choir — On Target: They Had Everything Except Time

There are records that arrive at exactly the wrong fucking moment. Bangalore Choir’s “On Target” is another record to add to those lists.

Released by Giant Records in 1992, “On Target” had the voice of a former Accept frontman, two guitarists carrying the DNA of an obscure but excellent 1980s hard-rock band, a rhythm section that had already come through another major-label act, production from Max Norman, and songs connected to people such as Jon Bon Jovi, Aldo Nova and Steve Plunkett.

This was a band assembled from musicians who had already spent years trying to make it.

Because the story of “On Target” isn’t really “here’s another forgotten hair-metal album.”

It’s the story of what happens when talented, experienced musicians get another shot and the world changes just as they’re taking it.

The lineage is the story. Start with David Reece.

Before Bangalore Choir, Reece had already won the musical lottery and discovered that winning the lottery doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve won.

He became the American singer chosen to replace Udo Dirkschneider in Accept and recorded “Eat the Heat” in 1989.

But “Eat the Heat” became controversial, the Accept experiment ended, and Reece returned to Los Angeles.

Instead of giving up, he started again. And Reece didn’t simply recruit random musicians.

He found John Kirk through the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood. Kirk had previously played with Curt Mitchell in Reno band Razormaid. Mitchell joined.

That’s already a hell of a musical family tree. Then came Ian Mayo and Jackie Ramos.

Both had been members of Hericane Alice, the Atlantic Records band that released “Tear the House Down” in 1990.

Bangalore Choir’s management had also managed Hericane Alice, and the opportunity came almost immediately after Hericane Alice had been dropped.

So look at what you’re actually hearing:

David Reece — Accept
Curt Mitchell — Razormaid
John Kirk — Razormaid
Ian Mayo — Hericane Alice
Jackie Ramos — Hericane Alice

It’s absolutely a supergroup of experience.

And, more importantly, these weren’t musicians getting their first taste of the business.

They had already been through it.

The really strange thing about “On Target” is how much machinery was behind it.

Bangalore Choir played only a handful of Los Angeles shows before major-label interest arrived. Reece later recalled via the metalforcesmagazine.com that after around nine shows, the band had offers from labels around the city. Giant Records, distributed through Warner Bros., won the race.

Then Giant brought in Max Norman to produce. His résumé already included Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeth, Lynch Mob, Savatage and others.

The album also had Jon Bon Jovi and Aldo Nova connections on “Doin’ the Dance,” while “Loaded Gun” had Ricky Phillips among its co-writers.

And yet the album didn’t explode.

That’s the great paradox. The band had the musicians. The singer. The songs. The producer. The label. The industry connections. The look.

The timing should have worked. Except the timing didn’t.

And we are back to the seismic moment of 1991–92, when the musical ground underneath hard rock was moving.

Nirvana had detonated. Pearl Jam were exploding. Soundgarden were breaking through.

And then the record industry did what the record industry always does when it discovers something that sells.

It copied it.

The same machine that had saturated the Sunset Strip with interchangeable hair-metal bands now turned toward Seattle. Suddenly everyone wanted flannel, distortion, alienation and authenticity.

MTV changed.

Radio changed.

Labels changed.

The irony is that the industry eventually did to Seattle what it had done to the Sunset Strip: saturate the market with bands trying to reproduce the sound of the bands that broke through, until the movement itself became exhausted.

Bangalore Choir weren’t suddenly bad.

The market had stopped asking for what they were selling.

And that’s the brutal part of making it in music.

Music is a supply and demand economy. Talent isn’t enough. Hard work isn’t enough. Experience isn’t enough. You can spend ten years building something only to discover that the market has moved somewhere else.

Bangalore Choir got their opportunity. They just got it at the end of an era.

“Angel in Black”

And what a way to open the record.

“Angel in Black” immediately tells you what Bangalore Choir are.

Big guitars. Big vocal. Big chorus. Big fucking attitude. It’s melodic hard rock without apologising for the “rock” part.

Reece sounds enormous. There’s swagger and melodic freedom here.

There’s something familiar buried in the main riff too. It reminds me of the riff that comes after the chorus in Alice Cooper’s “Snakebite.”

The song had an interesting history too: it was originally associated with Autograph, with Steve Plunkett credited as its writer along with Jack Conrad. Their demo version was released on an Autograph anthology release.

“Loaded Gun”

An overused song title in the 70s and 80s. However this is the commercial punch.

It’s got some serious songwriting lineage around it. Written by Curtis Cuomo, Harry Paress and Rick Phillips.

Phillips is coming from a pedigree that involves “The Baby’s” and “Bad English”. He’s hardened and been around. Paress already had success writing for Vixen, including “Love Is a Killer.” He would go on to write songs for Fiona, Quiet Riot, Bobby Kimball and Steelhouse Lane. And then there is Curtis Cuomo. His name would later become much more recognisable when he appeared as a co-writer on “Psycho Circus” with Paul Stanley, plus on all the Paul Stanley sung tracks on the “Carnival of Souls” album.

So if “Angel in Black” introduces the band, “Loaded Gun” is the song designed to make the radio understand them.

It’s hooky, muscular and built around the kind of chorus that could have lived comfortably alongside late-80s Bon Jovi, Whitesnake or Def Leppard.

The song was pushed as a single and received trade promotion from Giant Records. The music video has since become a piece of pop-culture trivia because a very young Jared Leto appeared in it.

“If the Good Die Young (We’ll Live Forever)”

It’s one of those songs where the title sounds like something you’ve heard a hundred times, but the band sells it because the melody is stronger than the cliché.

“Doin’ the Dance”

This is one of the album’s most interesting tracks because of the songwriting pedigree.

Jon Bon Jovi and Aldo Nova are involved in the writing.

There’s groove. There’s melody. There’s attitude.

But it’s not their best track. It’s competent, commercial and perfectly engineered for the moment, but compared with “Angel in Black” and “Loaded Gun,” it doesn’t hit with the same force.

“Hold On to You”

The inevitable ballad. Co written by the band with Russell Miller.

The guitars become atmosphere rather than artillery, and the song provides the album with some breathing room.

“All or Nothin’”

This is one of the songs that reveals the band’s confidence.

It was one of the earliest songs written by the developing Bangalore Choir lineup, along with “Slippin’ Away.”

And you can hear that it isn’t trying to impress anybody.

It’s simply a band discovering its identity.

The riff is direct. The chorus is huge. The rhythm section drives rather than decorates.

And Reece attacks the vocal like a man who knows he has something to prove.

Which, frankly, he did.

“Slippin’ Away”

It’s a great piece of melodic rock. And the title is prophetic. Because things just slip away.

Eras. Youth. Relationships. Opportunities. And the musical culture that had created the conditions for Bangalore Choir to exist.

Reece has said via SleazeRoxx that decades later, “Slippin’ Away” remains one of the Bangalore Choir songs audiences know and sing along to.

That’s the ultimate vindication.

The industry may have forgotten the album. The audience didn’t.

It just took them longer to find it.

“She Can’t Stop”

An AOR gem about a lonely girl dancing under neon lights who can’t stop running away.

“Freight Train Rollin’”

This is one of the album’s hardest hitters. A great riff to kick it off.

The title tells you everything.

It’s movement. Momentum. Power. And the song doesn’t mess around.

I love the groove around the verse riffs. The simplicity is deceptive. Getting stuff to sound effortless is difficult.

“Just One Night”

And then the album closes.

“Just One Night” isn’t the biggest song here, and that’s probably why it works as the closer.

After all the swagger, sex, guitars and huge choruses, the record finishes without trying to manufacture some grand finale.

It’s simply another strong melodic hard-rock song.

And then it’s over.

Thirty-eight minutes.

Ten songs.

No filler marathon.

No desperate attempt to prove they’re the next Metallica.

Just a fucking good hard-rock album.

And then reality arrived.

Bangalore Choir had done everything right.

They had paid their dues. They had experienced musicians. They had a respected producer. They had a major-label deal. They had songs. They had management.

And still…

Nothing.

There’s a tendency to look back at bands like Bangalore Choir and think: “These guys just appeared, made an album and disappeared.”

No. That’s completely wrong. The musicians had been grinding for years.

Razormaid had been around since the early 1980s before “First Cutt” arrived in 1987.

Hericane Alice had spent years developing before Atlantic released “Tear the House Down.”

Reece had already gone through the extraordinary experience of joining Accept and recording a major-label album.

Mayo and Ramos had already experienced the major-label dream, and the pain of being dropped.

By the time these musicians stood together as Bangalore Choir, they weren’t beginners.

They were survivors.

You’re listening to musicians who had already learned how fucking hard it was.

And looking at where these five musicians went afterwards only strengthens the argument.

Mayo and Ramos moved into Bad Moon Rising, connecting them to Kal Swan and Doug Aldrich of Lion.

Jerry Best’s parallel Lion/Freak of Nature/Dio story eventually connects the same ecosystem to Mike Tramp, Dio and even Courtney Love.

Reece would go on to Sircle of Silence, Bonfire, Gypsy Rose and his solo work, eventually returning to Bangalore Choir decades later.

Mitchell and Reece would eventually revive Bangalore Choir.

The family tree keeps growing.

Here’s the beautiful part. The album didn’t disappear. It went underground. Collectors found it.

Hard-rock fans rediscovered it. CDs changed hands. People bought it on eBay years after its release.

And eventually a younger generation started hearing it without any of the baggage attached to 1992.

That’s the funny thing about music.

Sometimes the audience you were chasing isn’t the audience that eventually saves you.

“On Target” isn’t a lost masterpiece because it reinvented hard rock.

It’s a lost classic because it executed the genre extraordinarily well at exactly the wrong moment.

The guitars sound enormous. The vocals are killer. The songs are melodic without becoming soft. The production has the pedigree. The musicians had the experience.

And the album has something a lot of technically impressive records don’t: personality.

Could On Target have been a major commercial hard-rock record in 1987, 1988 or even 1989?

Absolutely.

But in 1992?

That’s the tragedy. The machine changed what it wanted.

That’s timing. And sometimes timing is the difference between a band everybody knows and a band people spend 30 years telling other people they should know.

Because Bangalore Choir didn’t miss because they weren’t good enough.

They missed because the target moved.

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Always a Few Years Too Late: Why Australian Hard Rock Albums Missed Their Moment

Talent was never the problem. Songs weren’t the problem. Crowds weren’t the problem. Australia produced world-class live acts with world-class songs, often before the rest of the world caught on.

But.

The albums arrived late because everything around the music moved slower, sideways, or backwards.

This wasn’t coincidence. It was systemic.

Australia didn’t just sit far from the US and UK/Europe, it existed in a different time loop.

By the late ’80s, LA scenes moved in months. UK trends turned over in seasons. And Australia lagged by years.

Not because musicians were behind, but because infrastructure was.

Touring overseas required money bands didn’t have.

Labels wanted proof that bands had an audience before investment. Proof required exposure. Exposure required travel.

That circular logic delayed everything. By the time an Australian band secured a deal, the sound they pioneered locally had often already peaked internationally.

When albums finally arrived, they sounded right, just not right now.

If geography slowed bands down, management actively sabotaged them.

The Australian industry of the era was full of managers with control clauses but no leverage. Contracts restricted bands from signing deals independently.

Bands routinely received offers they couldn’t legally accept.

Deals were turned down “to get a better one.” Momentum was paused “to build hype.”

Albums were delayed “until the timing was right.”

The timing never was.

Candy Harlots are not an outlier here, they are a case study. A Virgin Records deal offered early, declined by management, then re-offered years later after the band had already fractured. Multiply that story across dozens of acts and you start seeing a pattern, not bad luck.

BB Steal finally released their Def Leppard influenced record “On The Edge” in 1992, however the first single of the album came out in 1988.

Roxus released their excellent melodic rock album “Nightstreet” in 1991, and like BB Steal, they had a few years between the first single (1989) and the album release.

But.

Australian hard rock thrived live.

That was both its strength and its trap.

Venues were packed. Residencies mattered. Reputations were earned face-to-face.

Bands became mythical locally without leaving physical evidence behind.

But labels don’t sign myths, they sign masters.

Many bands, gigged relentlessly without recording. Rewrote sets constantly instead of committing songs. Waited for “the real album” moment.

By the time that moment arrived, line-ups had changed, scenes had shifted, or the industry had moved on.

Albums became memorials instead of weapons.

Delay kills cohesion.

The longer an album takes to materialize, the more likely, members age out of the lifestyle, internal politics harden, financial strain builds resentment and key writers leave before the payoff.

Australian bands often lost founding members before recording debut albums.

Not because of ego, but because people don’t wait forever.

When albums finally arrived, they were frequently recorded by survivor line-ups, not the ones that created the original sound. That created a strange historical dislocation: the record didn’t fully reflect the band people fell in love with.

Australian mainstream media didn’t discover hard rock, it reacted to it.

By the time a band reached Triple M rotation or national press coverage or television exposure …the scene had already peaked locally.

Specialty radio (like 2RRR’s Metal Show) carried enormous cultural weight, but limited commercial reach. Those DJs broke bands, but couldn’t break markets.

So albums were greenlit after proof, not during ignition.

That delay mattered.

The final nail wasn’t grunge, it was speed.

Between 1989 and 1992, Glam fragmented and Alternative exploded and the Labels pivoted instantly.

Australian albums arriving in 1991–1993 weren’t bad, they were misaligned. They sounded like records that should have come out in 1989.

And many of them should have.

But systems don’t reward “should have.” They reward timing.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Australia still struggles with this. It’s better in the streaming era but it’s still a problem.

Different genres. Same mechanics.

Local scenes ignite.

Momentum builds.

Gatekeepers (the ones that still exist) hesitate.

By the time support arrives, the moment has shifted.

The lesson isn’t “work harder.” It’s compress the timeline.

Scenes don’t wait. Audiences don’t wait. History doesn’t wait.

An album arriving late doesn’t mean it failed. It means it arrived as evidence, not influence.

That’s why records like “Five Wicked Ways” still hold up. They weren’t chasing trends, they were documenting one that had already happened. That gives them a strange durability, even if it robbed them of impact at the time.

Australian hard rock didn’t miss because it lacked vision.

It missed because the system was built to move after the fire, not during it.

And by the time the album hit the shelves, the fire had already moved on.

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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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