Tag Archives: Twisted Sister

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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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

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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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music, My Stories

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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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Classic Album Closing Songs

Diary Of A Madman (1981)

Entries of confusion
Dear diary, I’m here to stay

What can I say, it had to be a Randy Rhoads song.  Diary shows the monster that Randy was becoming.  Despite being seen as Ozzy’s band, the star of the band is Randy Rhoads.

Diary Of A Madman is the perfect fusion of progressive metal, technical rock and sinister classical all rolled into one potent song.  As much as Sharon Osbourne tries to re-write Ozzy’s history, she can never re-write the music that was created.  The music comes from the guitar, bass and the keys, all instruments her beloved Ozzy doesn’t play.

Australian Bob Daisley as the lyricist and bassist is the unsung hero in Ozzy’s second coming.  He doesn’t even get credited as playing on the album, thanks to a spiteful Sharon Osbourne.  He was recruited from the Dio fronted Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow.  How ironic, that Dio would leave Rainbow to sing for Black Sabbath, and Daisley would leave Rainbow to join the singer that Black Sabbath fired.

Hallowed Be Thy Name (1982)

Mark my words believe my soul lives on
Don’t worry now that I have gone
I’ve gone beyond to seek the truth

When you know that your time is close at hand
Maybe then you’ll begin to understand
Life down there is just a strange illusion

It’s a Steve Harris composition, however the voice of Bruce Dickinson is the savior. It gave Iron Maiden the fire to break away from the New Wave of British Metal image and forge a new direction.  It made them relevant.

Iron Maiden became a household name on the back of The Number of The Beast along with it’s anthem Run To The Hills.

However the real star on this album is the closer, Hallowed Be Thy Name.  The definitive version is the live version featured on Live After Death (1985).  The tempo is increased slightly and Nicko McBrain (who replaced Clive Burr) on the drums, gives the song the fury it needs.  The song is about the last moments of a prisoner before the execution.

Who We Are (2011)

We are the young
And young at heart
The strong and the brave that are destined to start
We are the change
The world needs to see
Look in our eyes and see our belief

This is who we are
This is what I am
We have nowhere else to go
Divided we will stand

The mighty Machine Fucken Head.  It’s a Robb Flynn composition.  He should have changed the Divided We Will Stand to UNITED WE WILL STAND.  It would have fit the lyrical message of the song to a tee.  The only time we metal heads stand united as a metal show.  Apart from that, we are in a elite class of the genres we like.  I like Black Veil Brides.  Try telling that to my elite Slipknot and Mudvayne friends.  Do you get what I mean.

S.M.F (1984)

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.

Any closing song that abbreviates the term Sick Mutha Fucker has my attention.  Twisted Sister was one band, that knew how to write songs for the live show.  Put that down to their 9 years of playing the club scenes before they even got a shitty independent deal.  Dee Snider was a master.

Of course the Stay Hungry album was known for the smash hits, We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock.  However the real star of the album is the ode to all of those Twisted SMF’s who supported the band.

The lyrical theme follows the same theme as We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock. It’s about metal fans versus the system and the family dynamic. This time the band is telling me, it’s okay to be different, it’s okay that I don’t fit a mold made for me.  There are others out there, that are experiencing the same and let our love of music, find us a home.

Shogun (2008)

Time has come to face all evil

It’s an epic.  The musicianship is excellent.  Trivium to me are part of the current Big 5 of metal bands, along with Machine Head (actually Machine Head to me are part of the Nineties Big 4 as well as the 2000’s Big 5), Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God and Five Finger Death Punch.

That time to face all evil came to me in 2010, however I should have faced it in 2008.  Avoiding it, only made it worse.

If you succeed in this battle
You still will lose so much more

Ain’t that the truth.  Winning a battle (albeit a court case, a street fight or a real battle) is one thing, dealing with the aftermath is another thing.

Aerials (2001)

Life is a waterfall
we’re one in the river
and one again after the fall…

life is a waterfall
we drink from the river
then we turn around and put up our walls

System Of A Down nailed it on Aerials.  They really captured their European Armenian minor key arrangements and fused it with modern metal. The music is written by guitarist and backing vocalist, Daron Malakian and the lyrics are shared between Serj Tankian and Malakian.  I got into SOAD because of the unique vocal style of Serj.  In bands, it doesn’t matter how great the music is, if the singer cannot connect with the listeners and deliver, then it’s time to find someone who can.

How true is the statement?  We flow into each day, into each routine without any effor and we could flow like that for days.  Then one day, it all changes and we are going down the waterfall.  It’s quick, it’s crazy and when we come out of it, we will flow again like we did, but we will be different.

 

The Count Of Tuscany (2009)

Could this be the end?
Is this the way I die?
Sitting here alone
No one by my side

I don’t understand
I don’t feel that I deserve this
What did I do wrong?
I just don’t understand

Dream Theater deserves a mention for this beauty.  The lyrics by Petrucci could have been better, however the last section makes up for it.  Furthermore, there is no denying the impact of the music.  I also have my own edited version, where I cut out that atmospheric 4 minute keyboard and guitar interlude.

The stars of the band have always been the guitarist and the keyboardist for me.  John Petrucci and Kevin Moore was Mark 1.  John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess is Mark 3.

The great fear in humans. Death.  There isn’t a subject on it.  Hell, there even isn’t a subject about getting old.  I know that the lyric lines quoted above are about how John Petrucci as a child, got lost on a family holiday in Italy and he was fearing for his life, in an Italian cellar with a strange-looking Christopher Lee.  The beauty of lyrics done right, means that they can also be taken in a different way.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music, My Stories

iPod Shuffle – Classic Songs To Be Discovered

When the iPod shuffle gets it right, it gets it right. Driving into work this morning, the shuffle made 6 random songs from different bands, sound like one fluent album sequence.

Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue)
By WASP, from The Crimson Idol (1991)

I have no excuse for not attending the WASP concert, when they came to Australia. The Crimson Idol album was going to be played in its entirety. I remember walking out of the Iron Maiden shows (I went to both of those shows) on the Caught Somewhere Back In Time tour, and people where handing out flyers for the WASP shows. I took one, spoke about it with the people I was with and then did nothing. Maybe I was just burnt out from the Maiden shows and wasn’t interested in going or maybe I was broke. I don’t even remember the reasons. The people I was with, have heard of WASP but never heard The Crimson Idol. I was amazed.

Blackie covers the recording business in this song. Chainsaw Charlie is the “the president of showbiz” who is just looking for the next raw talent that he can exploit. Back in 1991, you never really got to hear stories about the labels and how they treated artists. The bottom line was that if an artist wanted to be heard, they needed a label behind them.

“Sign right here on the dotted line, it’s the one you’ve waited for all of your life”

That is how it was. Artists worked hard to get a record deal. In The Crimson Idol story Charlie (the record label honcho) is saying that to Jonathon (the wannabe Idol).

“We’ll sell ya wholesale, we’ll sell your soul
Strap on your six string and feed our machine”

It’s basically the hidden fine print in the deal. The labels owned the artist. They owned their image. They owned the music. They would do whatever it takes to make as much money from the artist as they could. As our access to information has become greater with the rise of the internet, we are now seeing more and more people talk about the creative accounting of the labels.

Def Leppard are doing forgeries of their own songs, in order to circumvent a blockade put up by their label due to a breakdown in the negotiations to the digital rights of the back catalogue.

Eminem took his label to court and won, over the way iTunes payments are treated compared to album physical sales.

Don Henley is going to Court against his old label, to reclaim the Copyrights to his songs due to a clause that the labels are trying to remove, that states after 35 years, the Copyrights of songs are transferred back to the original creator.

California Morning
By The Night Flight Orchestra, from Internal Affairs (2012)

I love this song. It’s got that Deuce feel from Kiss, which was a Rolling Stone bass riff played backwards, so you can say it has that Rolling Stones feel as well. I really like what The Night Flight Orchestra did with their 2012 release. Bringing back the seventies style of music into the NOW.

It’s that slide guitar at the end, that makes me feel like I am catching a wave on a hot summers day. It reminds of Fox On The Run by Sweet and Do Ya from Electric Light Orchestra. It comes in after the lyric line, “I left my heart in L.A.

Even the name The Night Flight Orchestra is a combination of a Led Zeppelin song called Night Flight and the Electric Light Orchestra band name.

The retro style vibe captured by modern recording technology fitted in perfectly as song number 2 behind Chainsaw Charlie from WASP.

We never said a word about it
We knew it wasn’t meant to be

Crazy Train
By Ozzy Osbourne, from Blizzard Of Ozz (1980) – Remastered Version

I’ve listened to preachers
I’ve listened to fools
I’ve watched all the dropouts
Who make their own rules

Randy Rhoads wrote my bible. The Tribute tab book that I purchased was my bible. I learned every note, every lick and every riff. It’s impact was monumental to my guitar playing. It’s funny how history has been rewritten to show this as an Ozzy Osbourne solo album. However, the guys in the band at the time, always believed that it was a band called Blizzard of Ozz.

I grew up listening to people tell me what I need to do. Teachers, instructors, parents, friends or brothers, always leading me onto a path that they want me on. It was a push and shove society. That is why I fell into rock and metal music in general. They wrote the anthems that I could relate to. We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock from Twisted Sister are two songs that come to mind immediately.

Then as time goes by I see all the drop kicks, the ones that everyone said would be unemployed, working for themselves. Some went into the entertainment business and began changing the world with the music/movies they create. And here I am, woodshedding 24/7 to become a guitar god on a music style that killed itself.

Caught In The Middle
By Stryper, from Against The Law (1990)

You’ve been working hard
Trying to make your life appealing

Two simple sentences. That is why we are slaves to the system. We believe that by working hard, we will get richer, we will get promoted and that we will have a better life. What a load of B.S.? My father worked his whole life at the steel mill, and he worked hard. The job was enough to pay the mortgage, pay the bills and keep the wheels turning in everyday life. So my father worked a second job, so that he can make his life appealing. Then when it came to retirement, he was forced into it, by his loving employer.

Cardiff
By Stone Sour, from Come What(ever) May (2006)

This fluid feels like pain
This stoic mood is all in vain
I reach into the dark
I tear the sun and me apart
How many years ago
How many deaths I can’t let go
My flesh is temporary, my God extraordinary

Corey Taylor had a past that involved alcoholism and drug overdoses. These lyrics are depressing as hell. In the end, we are all our own worst enemies. We put so much pressure on ourselves, it’s no wonder that we all break down and end up overdosing on something. How biblical is the last line, the flesh is temporary but our legacy will live on forever in the people that speak it.

Caustic Are The Ties That Bind
By Trivium, from In Waves (2011)

Can you help me find my way
I’ve been lost for so long
I don’t even know where it went wrong

When I first heard Caustic, I saw it as a cut down version of Shogun. It is a Trivium classic and a song that will be part of their set list for a long time to come. I woke up one morning, and I was in a place where I should never be. It was in a hospital room, with a busted eye and a shattered foot. Where did it all go wrong? Was I lost for that long, that I lost my way in life. It’s very easy to do, especially when you don’t believe that nothing is wrong. It’s a lesson learnt. What doesn’t kill me can only make me stronger.

How fitting that this song is like the album closer of this morning drive.

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Music, My Stories

Motley Crue and Kiss at the Allphones Arena, Sydney 9th March 2013 – Part 2 – Kiss’s Set

Getting late
I just can’t wait
Ten o’clock and I know I gotta hit the road
First I drink, then I smoke
Start up the car, and I try to make the midnight show

Get up
Everybody’s gonna move their feet
Get down
Everybody’s gonna leave their seat

Its all about the show.  A lot of bands just write songs and then you have Paul Stanley who wrote songs for the show.   The intro is built for explosions, pyro and fire.  The story behind Detroit Rock City is legend by now and from tragedy you get a song stands the test of time.  37 years later it is still relevant and the Kiss fan that got killed on his way to the concert will never be forgotten.  Credit must be given to Bob Ezrin as well.  Apart from being the producer, he also was a co songwriter on this song, and the task master on Destroyer.  Coming into the Destroyer album of 1976, Bob Ezrin was coming off his recent successes with Alice Cooper and Lou Reed.  Of course Ezrin would go on to greater fame with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. 

It doesn’t matter what you do or say
Just forget the things that you’ve been told
We can’t do it any other way
Everybody’s got to rock and roll, whoo, oh, oh

Shout It Out Loud is one of those songs that just endure.  Rock N Roll was all about doing things that the conservatives wouldn’t do.  The history of rock music is littered with the same themes.  It doesn’t matter what the people in power say, we will try to do it in our own way.  This song was penned by Paul, Gene and Bob.  All the big songs from Destroyer had an Ezrin co-write.  These themes popped up again in I Wanna Rock and You Can’t Stop Rock N Roll from Twisted Sister. 

You know your man is workin’ hard
He’s worth a deuce

As described by Gene Simmons Deuce was a popular street term in the early 1970s meaning fellatio and full sex afterwards. This song is penned by Gene Simmons only.  It has also endured through the 40 odd years.  Will a song be written like Deuce these days?  Probably not.  Everyone wants to be liked these days and they do stuff that is politically correct.  Music is never about toeing the line.  There are artists out there that do it their own way but these are outliers.  They could rise amongst all the others or they could be forgotten or they could change and be part of the masses. 

She can move you and improve you
With her love and her devotion
And she’ll thrill you and she’ll chill you
But you’re headed for commotion

And you’ll need her so you’ll feed her
With your endless dedication
And the quicker you get sicker
She’ll remove your medication

Get the firehouse
‘Cause she sets my soul afire
Get the firehouse
And the flames keep gettin’ higher

The usual concert staple where Gene Simmons ‘spits’ fire and sings about the slaves men have become to women, relationships and sex.  It’s so true, we are so addicted to being loved or to having a sexual relationship, we will change and bend who we and then we get burned.  You can even see we think a lot with our penises.  Another Kiss classic penned by Paul Stanley, who to me is an underrated songwriter when he goes it alone. 

I rode the highway to heartache
I took a trip on the ship of fools, woah yeah!
And I paid the price to have my way
‘Cause money makes the rules, yeah!

Hell or Hallelujah is probably the best song Kiss has written since the Revenge album.  Psycho Circus is a close second.   It’s good to see Paul Stanley going alone again with the writing, instead of a list of outside writers, like he has done for a long time.  Life is about paying your dues, it’s about accumulating experiences.  What price are we prepared to pay to have it our own way?

How true is the last lyric line?  Money makes the rules.  There is a story at the Wall Street Journal stating that “nine executives at private-equity firms together will take home more than $1 billion in dividends and compensation from last year”.  Money buys rules.  How many of the architects of the GFC got punished.  Instead they got bailouts, generous severance payments and are doing College tours of the US.  On the other side of the coin, you had people lose their houses, their families, their lives and their sanity.     

So if you please get on your knees
There are no bills, there are no fees
Baby, I know what your problem is
The first step of the cure is a kiss

So call me (Dr. Love)
They call me Dr. Love (calling Dr. Love)

Calling Dr. Love is rock n roll all the way through. With its Cold Ethyl borrowed riff and the usual subject matter about sex, this Gene Simmons penned tune follows all the rhyming clichés. This was on the Eddie Kramer produced Rock N Roll Over.  That album didn’t stand a chance as a follow up to Destroyer. 

I was born to the human race
Livin’ life feelin’ out of place
People said I was wasting my time
Looking to find my kind

Outta This World is a song that sounds forced and fake.  This Tommy Thayer penned tune is a sad imitation to the real Space Man.  As much as Gene and Paul spin it, there is only one space man and that is Ace Frehley. It is a shame that Ace doesn’t recognise his value to the Kiss Army.  Even the banks are foreclosing on his home.  So you have an ex member of one of the biggest bands in the land, that sell everything that they can think off, and his home is getting foreclosed.  Are Gene and Paul doing creative accounting in this or is Ace just silly with his money.   

Get up!
Now it’s time for me to take my place
The make-up runnin’ down my face
We’re exiled from the human race.

You’re in the psy
You’re in the psycho circus
I say welcome to the show.

Step up!
No one leaves ’til the night is done
The amplifier starts to hum
The carnival has just begun.

Psycho Circus is about the rock experience.  It’s about the rock heads.  It’s about how the establishments treated us as exiles from the human race, before the bankers all wanted a piece of it and made it mainstream.  Then our rock idols also wanted to become bankers.  The rock show was a circus, it was a place to let our hair down and be as one.  This was penned by Paul Stanley and Curtis Cuomo.  Cuomo also co wrote a lot of songs on the Carnival of Souls album that didn’t get any attention due to all the hoopla of the original band reunion.  Psycho Circus was produced by Bruce Fairbairn and in the end he couldn’t save it either.  As much as it was hyped as a reunion Ace was more or less absent again from most of the recordings with Tommy Thayer doing most of the leads.  I didn’t mind Psycho Circus but as with every follow up album to a mega successful one it has a lot to live up too.  The intention of Psycho Circus was never to sell truckloads of albums.  It was all about putting the make up on again and being KISS.     

I love it loud, I wanna hear it loud, right between the eyes
Loud, I wanna hear it loud, I don’t want to compromise

Turn it up, hungry for the medicine
Two fisted to the very end
No more treated like aliens, we’re not gonna take it ‘cos

I Love It Loud, I Wanna Rock, We’re Not Gonna Take It and many other songs shared similar themes.   Kiss need to really credit Vinnie Vincent for their resurrection in the early 80’s.  I Love It Loud was penned by Gene Simmons and Vinnie Vincent.  This song is from Creatures of The Night.  Even though Ace is credited on album sleeves it was Vinnie Vincent that brought the guns and had Kiss firing on all cylinders again.

They try to tell us we don’t belong,
That’s alright, we’re millions strong
This is my music, it makes me proud,
These are my people and this is my crowd

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

Again another song for the rock show, making the people believe that they belong here.  Crazy Nights was co written by Paul Stanley and Adam Mitchell who he used on the Creatures of the Night album as well.  Live this song didn’t go down to good.  They key they where doing the song in was all wrong, Paul even had a capo on his guitar (which isn’t very ROCK N ROLL) and everything was just out of key.  You can tell that the band was put off. 

Better watch out ’cause I’m a war machine

That is how the rockers and metal heads felt.  Indestructible war machines.  It was an elite club once, and when the bankers and others wanted a piece of it, we didn’t like it.  Our heroes took the bankers in and they started to treat the real fans like cattle.  There is no other way to describe it.  Just look back to our record collection of the mid 80’s onwards and what you have is an album with 2 to 4 good songs and the rest is pure filler.  Of course there where always albums that rose above this, like Slippery When Wet, New Jersey, Dr Feelgood, Hysteria, Appetite for Destruction, Master of Puppets and many others.  Thank god the internet came and levelled the playing field once again.  War Machine is one of the most heaviest songs in the Kiss arsenal, up there with Unholy, yet it was co-written by Gene Simmons, Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance.  The heaviest song Kiss has was written by a pop duo. 

You pull the trigger of my
Love gun, (love gun), love gun

Another Paul Stanley classic, penned on his own.  It’s part of pop culture now.  You pull the trigger of my love gun.  Growing up in the 80’s I cant recall how many times I used this line on the opposite sex, only to get laughs instead of the actual deed. 

You show us everything you’ve got
You keep on dancing and the room gets hot
You drive us wild, we’ll drive you crazy

You keep on shouting, you keep on shouting
I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

Rock and Roll All Nite was co-written by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.  These two guys need to do more co-writing together. This is what we wanted to do.  No one wanted to work nine to five jobs.  We all wanted to be musicians.  Kiss wrote the anthem for it.  To me the Rock n Roll all night isn’t about rocking per se, it is about getting down and having dirty sex. 

Lick It Up – kneel at the altar of Vinnie Vincent.  Gene likes to rewrite history that Vinnie Vincent’s contribution to KISS was as a salary paid employee, however the music doesn’t lie.  The songs that have Vincent’s involvement are a step above the other songs Kiss released in the 80’s and the 90’s.  Paul Stanley and Vinnie Vincent wrote this song.  The good thing about the Lick It Up album is that it was all written within the band.  That is why it works.   Lick It Up was their big album in the 80’s.  The best songs on Creatures of the Night were also co – written by Vincent and the best songs on Revenge where also co- written by Vincent.  Of course Revenge was their big album of the 90’s. 

Don’t wanna wait ’til you know me better
Let’s just be glad for the time together
Life’s such a treat and it’s time you taste it
There ain’t a reason on earth to waste it

We all know what Paul is saying in the lyrics to the women in the world.  Make sure that no mess is left ladies.  This song killed it when it got started. 

Black Diamond is another Paul Stanley penned tune.  In the concert Eric Singer sang the song, and I must say I was impressed with his vocal abilities. 

Out on the streets for a living
Picture’s only begun
Your day is sorrow and madness
Got you under their thumb

I must say Eric Singer played the part of Catman perfectly.  If Peter Criss was there or not, I don’t think it matters, however for some reason, Tommy Thayer pretending to be the Spaceman, matters.  I am still trying to work this one out.

And the show comes to an end.  I looked over at my boys and they had Joker style grins from ear to ear.  They were tired at midnight, but pumped.  For an eight and seven year old, they are just starting out.  To me, it was great to experience the concert with them.  Kiss and Motley have the biggest arena shows and it was a perfect first concert for my boys.  Kiss where far superior on the night, more professional and tighter.

To me, one of the best concerts i went to was a Black Crowes gig at the Wollongong Entertainment Center where about 1000 tickets where sold in a venue that holds about 10,000.  The band went on and they played and they jammed, extending their songs and just having fun.  They played all of their hits, but they didn’t play them the same as the album.  The band had fun doing their extended jams and the audience had fun along with them.  This is an important fact that seems to be missing from concerts these days.  Kiss might as well have lip synced as they didn’t really do anything different with the material.

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Music

Motley Crue and Kiss at the Allphones Arena, Sydney 9th March 2013 – Part 1 – Motley Crue’s Set

Motley Crue and Kiss at the Allphones Arena, Sydney 9th March 2013 – Part 1 – Motley Crue’s Set

Tonight, there’s gonna be a fight
So if you need a place to go
Got two room slum, a mattress and a gun
And the cops don’t never show

The mighty Crue kicked off their set with the excellent Saints of Los Angeles.  Artists these days are not prepared to live the life their heroes lived.  We are all comfy in our middle class homes.  Not the Crue. Anyone who has read The Dirt knows that the Crue’s lifestyle determined their musical style.

I took two of my boys to the concert.  Their first ever RNR concert.  The sound for the Crue was muddled and the drums where very difficult to be heard (whereas Kiss had a far superior mix).  Vince as usual was short of breath and off key.  Maybe the five kidney stones that knocked him out on the next night was the cause.  One thing I can say is that the live show is spectacular, with the lights, the pyro, the backup singers/dancers and Tommy Lee’s rollercoaster. 

So come right in ’cause everybody sins
Welcome to the scene of the crime
You want it? Believe it? We got it if you need it
The devil is a friend of mine

The party line was the scene of the crime.  They lived it, they felt it, they sang it and they made every adolescent kid in the eighties want to do it.    

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

Yes, every band that dreams of fame and fortune, sign their lives away to the Record Label.  From Motley’s perspective, they were four headstrong individuals that wanted to drink and fuck the world.  , It didn’t matter to them what the label said or their manager or agent said they are going to do things their own way.  Not a lot of artists trying to make it these days have that attitude.  It is the ones that do not sell out that end up having a lasting and profitable career.    

Red line tripping on a land mine, sipping at the Troubadour
Girls passed out naked in the back lounge, everybody’s gonna score
She’s all jacked up, she’s down on her luck
You want it, you need it, the devils gonna feed it

The decadence.  Getting tanked at the Troubadour.  I have never been to LA, but listening to this song, made me feel like I have been there and experienced what the Crue did.  The power of music.  It is forever and it touches us all in different ways.  The reference to the devil once again in a song with Saint in the song title.  The Yin and the Yang.  Sharing the groupies with each other and whoever else was in the room.  The debauchery. 

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

I can’t believe that Nikki Sixx wrote those lyrics when he was shooting up twenty four seven back in 86.  Wild Side is the street man’s bible.  In 1987, Greed had been crowned the new king.  The world was changing.  Technology was starting to get traction and the bankers started to get more power.  Everyone and everything was thrown away as soon as they or it stopped making money for the Corporations. 

I carry my crucifix under my death list
Forward my mail to me in hell
Liars and the martyrs lost faith in the Father
Long lost is the wishing well

Who can we believe in these days?  It seems that evil deeds and good deeds go hand in hand and are committed by the same person.  We lose more and more of our innocence as we get older.  We make choices that are heavily influenced by money. 

Shout shout shout
Shout shout shout
Shout at the devil

Could Shout At The Devil be the best Christian song ever.  Even Stryper would be proud.  Nevertheless, the Crue started the show with three winners.  Ah yes, I still remember the criticism that the Crue took in the 80’s for this album because of the pentagram on the cover.  But as Nikki Sixx described in the Dirt, “It just looks cool. It’s meaningless symbols and s–t. I’m just doing it to piss people off.”  A lot of the artists these days, don’t do this.  They all want to be loved.  It upsets them when they see hate or criticism thrown their way. 

She’s got an alligator bag
Top hat to match
Dressed in black on black
She’s got a Philipino girlie
She claims is her friend
I tell you boys, you just gotta laugh
Now I used to call her Cindy
She changed her name to “Sin”
I guess that’s the name of her game
I really used to love her
Then, the kitty she discovered
It’s got to be a sexual thing

The perfect love song, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, only for girl to leave boy for another girl.  Only the Crue could have pulled a song off like this and with Nikki’s witty street gutter lyrics, it comes off as a treat.  And they gave a new meaning to what SOS stands for.  Same Ol’ Situation

Everybody wants some, what the hell
Everybody needs some, everybody yell
Ohh (Ohh) , No (No)
Don’t need no lovin, no respect
Cos it’s all about the sex (SEX!)
Cos it’s all about the
Ohh (Ohh) Yeah (Yeah)
What gets me off is a little neglect
Cos it’s all about the sex (SEX!)
It’s all about the

Finally a Crue song about what they like doing best.  Sex.  Two of their stars even stared in their own movies.  Could this be the reason why the Crue returned in 2004 bigger and better?  I think those two sex tapes combined with The Dirt re-launched the Crue and made them relevant again.   They where all over the internet. 

Home Sweet Home didn’t go down to well.  As Tommy Lee was playing the piano, either Vince’s mike got cut or he forgot when to come in.  To me it sounded like he forgot when to come in and this put the band off.  Home Sweet Home was the Turn The Page of 85, and by 86 – Wanted Dead Or Alive by Jovi would have replaced it.

That’s alright, that’s okay
We were walkin’ through some youth
Smilin’ through some pain
That’s alright, that’s okay
Let’s turn the page

Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away) was the first song on Dr Feelgood that I repeated constantly.  I loved the title and the way the song starts off as a Rob Stewart Maggie May, before kicking in to a Boston – Don’t Look Back / T Rex style groove.  It was one of those songs that put growing up out there.  It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be happy.  It’s okay to love and it’s okay to leave.  Just turn the page and move on. 

The Drum solo and guitar solo parts are the weakest part of the shows.  It would have been way cooler if Tommy Lee actually drummed to Primal Scream while doing the drum coaster.  And it would have been way cooler if Mick Mars did an extended solo break on the Home Sweet Home solo with the band and all as his back up, sort of like how John Petrucci does in Hollow Years.

Broke dick dog
My head slung low
Tail knocked in the dirt
Time and time of being told
Trash is all I’m worth
When I was just a young boy
Had to take a little grief
Now that I’m much older
Don’t put your shit on me

Primal Scream was a 90’s version of We’re Not Gonna Take It.  The kid from 1985 is now six years older.  And I didn’t take shit.  I knocked a kid out because he stepped on my school bag.  It was an accident that he stepped on my bag, but man I was an angry kid.  I was angry at the system.  My home life was good, but teachers just didn’t understand me. 

Plug me in
I’m alive tonight
Out on the streets again
Turn me on
I’m too hot to stop
Something you’ll never forget
Take my fist
Break down walls
I’m on top tonight
No, no
You better turn me loose
You better set me free
Cause I’m hot, young, running free
A little bit better than I use to be 

Cause I’m alive
Live Wire

When I first heard Live Wire, I was just a kid.  As I got older, I got stronger.  As I got stronger, I felt invincible.  I believed that I was invincible.  This is before marriage and before kids.  That is when a person’s life becomes complicated in the sense that it is not about them anymore.  Until that day came to me, I was feeling alive and was trying to break down as many walls as I could. 

He’s the one they call Dr. Feelgood
He’s the one that makes ya feel alright
He’s the one they call 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
Got a little hideaway, does business all day
But at night he’ll always be found
Selling sugar to the sweet
People on the street
Call this Jimmy’s town

The Dr. Feelgood album has gone into history as Motley Crue’s best album and also the album that Metallica wanted to emulate in its sound.  This in turn led to Metallica working with Bob Rock, and the best-selling album of the Sound Scan era.  How cool did Nikki Sixx sum up corruption?  That is why we can never win the war on drugs.  There is too much money going around, and a person on a shitty wage will always be tempted to look the other way.  This is also why the RIAA and MPAA will never win the war on people sharing.  If people want to share, they will share, regardless of the laws and fines around copyright infringement.  If people want to sell drugs and take drugs, they will, regardless of the rules and jail time around it. 

Friday night and I need a fight
My motorcycle and a switchblade knife
Handful of grease in my hair feels right
But what I need to make me tight are

Girls, Girls, Girls
Long legs and burgundy lips
Girls, Girls, Girls
Dancin’ down on Sunset Strip
Girls, Girls, Girls
Red lips, fingertips

Only the Crue could release a song like this.  Again their lifestyles determined their musical styles.  They talk about LA and the Sunset Strip.  It made you want to go there.  Just to see those girls with the long legs and burgundy lips. 

When I get high
I get high on speed
Top fuel funny car’s
A drug for me
My heart, my heart
Kickstart my heart
Always got the cops
Coming after me
Custom built bike doing 103
My heart, my heart
Kickstart my heart

This is the song where Vince sings the words When I, speed and me from the first four lines.  That’s it, that is all he sang.  I couldn’t stop laughing.  Kickstart My Heart = taking things we do in life and doing then to the extreme.  A lot of people link this song to Nikki Sixx’s overdose and resurrection and the title does make you believe that is so.  However the only reference to that part of his life is the lyric Adrenalin running through my veins.  To me this how we should live our lives.  If we are not doing things out of our comfort zone and pushing ourselves we could end up like the billions around the world, toeing the same line of live, work and die.  

Crue set is over, my two boys are like WOW.  And that in itself is worth the $800 i paid for 4 tickets.  This is my third time seeing the Crue.  This show for me was all about experiencing them with my kids.  Hopefully when they come around again a few years time my one year old will be old enough to come.

Next up KISS.

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Music, My Stories

Remembering Mega

Remembering Mega

Mega isn’t his real name, but a nickname given to him for his love of the band Megadeth.

This all begins in the Australian summer of 1985, when I first heard Stay Hungry from Twisted Sister.  It was on a cassette tape and it was my cousin Mega that introduced me to it.  He also had a video tape of rock and metal music clips that he taped from the music programs that used to play on Friday night and Saturday night.

That is how we did it back then.  There was no Spotify or an iTunes store to sample songs.  We religiously used to stay up late, so that we could tape the new video clip from our favourite bands or bands of similar style.  Hell by staying up late, that is how I was introduced to Motley Crue(the Smokin In The Boys Room clip and then Home Sweet Home clip), Ratt (the Round and Round clip), Quiet Riot (Cum on Feel The Noize clip), Vah Halen (the Jump and Panama clips) and many others.  But one band stood tall over all the others for me back then.  And that was Twisted Sister.   We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock where doing the rounds back to back.

We’re Not Gonna Take It, No
We Ain’t Gonna Take It
We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore

Three opening lines that summed up the youth of 1985.  The ones that didn’t want to follow what their fathers did and leave school early to work the factory floor.  This was our war cry.  Mega and I listened to this song over and over again, by watching the video clip over and over again.  We even rented Animal Farm because we saw the psychotic parent from the video clip on the cover. 

We’ve got the right to choose it and there ain’t no way we’ll lose it, this is our life, this is our song
We’ll fight the powers that be, just don’t pick our destiny cause you don’t know us, you don’t belong

Mega’s dad was one of those people that never should have been a father.  He was all about money, money and more money.  Mega came a very distant last.  He always kept on comparing Mega to other kids.  Poor Mega could never measure up to his father’s expectations.  That is why this song was special to him and he made it special to me.  Mega’s life was exactly that of the kids in the video clip; however his life didn’t end up getting back at his father, with the power of music.  He just used the music to get away from it all.

You’re so condescending, your gall is never ending, we don’t want nothin’, not a thing from you
Your life is trite and jaded, boring And confiscated, if that’s your best, your best won’t do

Those words could have come from any adolescent child in the eighties.  Mega’s room was a cultural haven.  The walls where covered in posters from Hard Rock, Glam Rock and Metal bands at that time.  He had a record collection that left me envious.  He cherished his records.  He wouldn’t lend them out to anyone and only he could touch them for fear that they will get scratched.  I remember one day, when Mega and I went to the Utopia Record Store, which at that time was in a little shop at Martin Place train station in Sydney.  Mega had the money so he picked up a few more albums and I just stared at the covers of albums that I wanted to buy.  We return back to Mega’s place and it was chaos.  His parents trashed his room, the records where all over the floor, pulled out of the covers.  The reason, his mum smelled cigarette smoke on his clothes when she was throwing them into the wash and wanted to find where the cigarettes where hidden, so they trashed his record collection.  Seriously, who hides a packet of Winnie Blues inside a record cover? 

I remember him saying to his parents, IF THAT IS YOUR BEST, YOUR BEST WONT DO.   That is how important music was to him, he even quoted the song.    Hell, he even tattooed the TS logo onto his shoulder.

We’re right/yeah, we’re Free/yeah, we’ll Fight/yeah, you’ll See/yeah

We’re Not Gonna Take It summed up how we felt at the establishments, our parents and all the rules of what we should be.  Songs like I Wanna Rock, Smokin In The Boys Room, We Rock, Cum On Feel The Noize and Shake Your Foundations summed up what we wanted to do.  

I WANNA ROCK! (ROCK)

The war cry. 

Turn it down you say
Well all I got to say to you is time and time again I say No
NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

I can’t even mention how many times Mega’s parents would walk in and turn down his stereo and then walk out.  As soon as the door shut, Mega would crank it again. 

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

When it’s like this I feel the music shootin through me
There’s nothing else that I would rather do

Music when done right is like that.  You lay back with the album, the lyric sheet in front of you and listen to each song and read the lyrics.  It was a therapeutic feeling, without going to therapy.  This is something kids these days will never feel as their lives are always on the go and they are connected to each other 24/7.  Back then, no one was texting you or phoning you, there was no Facebook to kill time on and there was no Computer in the house that you could use.  Music, Books, Magazines and TV was all we had, with the occasional Cinema outing for a new release. 

Cum on feel the noize
Girls rock your boys
We’ll get wild, wild, wild
Wild, wild, wild

That’s all we wanted to do.  Get to the Rock N Roll show, to hear the music, to feel the noise so that we could get wild.   Mega just wanted to be a drummer.  He saved up his social security money to purchase a drum kit and then saved up again to purchase another bass drum so that he could do double kick.  His father frowned at him and they both kept on yelling at him every time he played.   His father wouldn’t let Mega borrow the car, so we used to catch the train with his drum kit and my guitar and amp to the rehearsal room.  That is full blown commitment.

We always talked about our band and the songs we would write.  We never got there.  He more or less gave up drumming due to all the stress pushed on him from his parents.  He failed at school so his father wasn’t pleased, especially since Mega’s sister was all A’s.  He went to Art School as his other talent was drawing, and that led nowhere as Australia post-recession in the early 90’s wasn’t employing young up starts.  And this was the pre Internet era.

By 1997 Mega was diagnosed with schizophrenia due to a chemical imbalance in his brain.  His parent’s won.  His parents finally had control of him.  From all the medication that was prescribed, Mega ballooned into a 140kg slob.  I abandoned Mega after 2006.  It was too painful to see him.  He hadn’t showered for weeks and he looked like Crusty the Clown from The Simpsons.  He never could remember the last time we spoke due to the medication even though it was 24 hours ago over the phone.  It got to a stage when I called and his parents wouldn’t even give him the phone.  I used to send him CD’s of the EP’s I was doing with my band, and his parents wouldn’t give the CD’s to him.

I heard he broke the fridge door because aliens where inside it.  Prior to his diagnosis, I remember I was at his place and he goes to me ‘She is there.”

“Who is there”, I answer back.  Mega’s face got all spooky and weird.

“Her.  She is there next to you, laughing”, he answers back.  I am at this stage thinking WTF.  The hairs on the back of my neck are hard as a rock.  I turn to where he is pointing and as I expected, no one is there.

“WTF, Mega.  What’s this shit?’ I fire back, both worried and angry with him.  What came next freaked me out.  He started laughing hysterically, like those weird horror movies where kids have these evil imaginary friends.  Typing this and recounting the events is just freaking me out.

Mega was such a mega influence on my life and the music I listen too.  He was my first cousin.  Mega’s mum and my mum are sisters, but they are so different.  Maybe because my dad was a muso it was easier for me, but Mega he didn’t get that.  That is why he loved coming down to our place and staying for a week or a month.  He was liberated at my place.  We would go down to the Pub, drink beers, shoot Pool and just crank the Jukebox until the morning hours.  On the other hand his home life was hell.

It wasn’t healthy anymore for me to be around him.  I didn’t want to be dragged in to all of that shit that was going on.  By 2006 I had my second child.  I didn’t want my kids growing up around an uncle that was mentally ill.  Selfish and cruel maybe, but these are the choices we make in life.  You can say I took the easy way out by abandoning him, and a lot of people condemn me for it, but those people haven’t dealt with a person that has a mental illness.  Then others, who have experienced mental illness with loved ones, tell me that they only wish they had the courage to walk away.  Instead they got sucked down with their loved one and are now suffering depression as to why they couldn’t help them.

Mega is still alive.  He will probably even outlive me.  But to me Mega died in 1997.  After that it wasn’t Mega anymore.  The jokes and the laughs went out the window, his fascination with Horror movies became greater and his paranoia was getting the better of him.  I still think he will knock on my door and say, what’s up, have you heard the new ….

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music

Be Somebody

Be Somebody

What a song.  I didn’t hear this song until a few weeks ago (Jan 2013) and the album it was on ‘The End Is Where We Begin’ was released on April 17, 2012.

That is how it is these days.  It’s an information overload society we live in.  The beauty of the internet is that nothing goes away.  This song deserves more attention.   I came across this song from a download I hadn’t listened to, and after I heard the whole album, I purchased it on Amazon.  It was that good; I wanted to have it in my collection.

“We all wanna be somebody; we just need a taste of who we are
We all wanna be somebody, we’re willing to go but not that far”

Aint that the truth.  We all want to be someday, but we are not willing to take it all the way.  That is the majority of people these days.   Even in my case, I wanted to make a living from music, but I also wanted to have a house, a family, a car and to have all of those, I needed a steady income.  So I became a slave.  Doing the grind.  My first job I was paid $160 a week and $100 went on petrol getting there and back, as it was 75 minutes drive from where I lived.

You can’t say that Thousand Foot Krutch wasn’t willing to take it all the way.  I did a search on them and the Wikipedia page shows that the band has been going since 1997 and prior to that the singer Trevor McNevan was in another band from 1995.  During that period 6 albums have been released from TFK and 4 from his side project FM Static.   Remember the golden rule, content is king.  Keep pumping it out, keep the fans satiated.

All up that is 17 years of work put in to BE SOMEBODY.

I wonder why bands are classed as Christian Rock bands or Christian metal bands.  Music is music, rock is rock, metal is metal.  The themes in the lyrics are irrelevant to me.  When I first heard the song, my initial view is that the lyrics where about music and how important music is to him, then I thought it was about someone that is very important.  I did come across an article in where Trevor states it’s about the Holy Spirit and how it speaks to him and how he feels about it.

“When I can only see the floor, you made my window a door
So when they say they don’t believe, I hope that they see you and me”

You know the feeling when your head is down, nothing seems to be going right and you just need that someone, a song, a friend, a lover, a parent to show you a different door that you can open.   I remember growing up and relating to We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock from Twisted Sister.  It was the music that opened doors for me.  They told me what I needed to know in a way no one else could.

“After all the lights go down, I’m just the words you are the sound
A strange type of chemistry, how you’ve become a part of me”

Yep, let the music play as we go to sleep.   Let it take you to the imagined place in your mind. That is the chemistry going on between the ears.   And then the chorus kicks in…

“We all wanna be somebody; we just need a taste of who we are
We all wanna be somebody, we’re willing to go but not that far”

How far are we willing to go to achieve our dreams, our passions, and our desires?  Do we go into things head first and with no plan b or do we go into it with a strategy and a fall back?   How many hours are we prepared to put into our art?  I could have done things differently, I could have made different choices, however one thing I didn’t do is go all the way.  I became safe in getting the fortnightly wage, I became scared to change, just in case I lost the possessions I had.  I became another link in the chain and I forget what I was.  I need to get that taste back.

“And we’re all see through, just like glass
And we can shatter just as fast
That light’s been burned out for a while; I still see it every time I pass
It was lost in the coldness of my mind, behind a box of reasons why”

There it is.  Our mortality.  We can hide behind names; make up, clothes and hairstyles.  We can build something that takes forever.  All it takes is one second to see it all disappear.  We need to be great every day, bullshit doesn’t cut it.  Be see through, it’s okay.

Musically the song is pretty easy, moving from C to Em in the verses and C to D to Em to G in the Chorus.

I did some Googling on TFK and saw that their latest album was done via Kickstarter and released through Tunecore.   The band took control of their career again, after 8 years on a label.

Apart from Be Somebody the album has a lot of good songs, like Fly on a Wall, War of Change, Light up the Sky, The End Is Where We Begin, Courtesy Call and Let the Sparks Fly.

Give the song a listen, it deserves your attention.  Don’t let the Christian moniker dissuade you from experiencing it.

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Music, Uncategorized

Guitar World – January – 1986

Guitar World – 1986 – January

I was unpacking boxes and I came across all of my Guitar World magazines, Guitar for the Practicing Musician which morphed into just Guitar, Guitar School, Guitar One, Guitar Player, Total Guitar, Guitarist, Australian Guitar and Guitar Player.

This was the first Guitar World magazine I purchased.  I remember purchasing it from the newsagency, bringing it home and slowly taking it out of the plastic.  I remember turning the pages over as delicate as a heart surgeon.   This was all I had back in 86, apart from a tape of Twisted Sister’s Stay Hunger, Van Halen’s 1984, Bruce Springsteen’s – Born In The USA and Motley Crue’s Shout At The Devil.  I also had some seven inch singles from my brothers that had Kiss – I Was Made for Loving You and Hard Times as its B Side.

It had Yngwie Malmsteen on the cover.   I don’t know why I purchased this edition as at that time I didn’t even know who Yngwie was or how he sounded.  However I was starting to get into guitars and the magazine was called Guitar World.

There was a small piece in a section called The Whammy Bar, which stated that Billy Sheehan will be joining David Lee Roth on his new solo project and that DLR is also trying to get Yngwie Malmsteen in there.  Here is the connection for me as I knew who DLR was from Van Halen.  This alone made me interested in seeking out the music from Malmsteen.

Who would have thought how interconnected Malmsteen and Steve Vai where at that time.  Talk about six degrees of separation.  So Malmsteen came to America and played in a hard rock band called Alcatrazz.  When he left that band to do Rising Force, Alcatrazz hired Steve Vai as his replacement.  DLR is looking at putting a new band together post Van Halen and Malmsteen is sought out, however it is Vai that gets the job.

Then I read the Malmsteen interview.

“I’d rather have people dislike my style than change it,” he says. “If someone says, ‘Hey, Yngwie, you play too damn much’ –- I don’t care. The way I play is the way I like to play. If people like it – great.  If they don’t, it’s still fine with me.”

I think 27 years on; it’s safe to say that Yngwie didn’t conform to any record label standard.   I have listened to every album he has produced and while quite a few became a yawn fest and a waste of time I will never get back, he never gave in and he never sacrificed his ideals to please the  corporate empires.  For any guitarist or musician coming out, this should be your motto especially when you have musicians from ‘successful ‘ groups departing and issuing comments like this (from Adam Gontier – ex Three Days Grace vocalist);

“The music BUSINESS.  Remember this people…, in my/our case; it’s always been about the “business”.  The money.  What about the love for creating real music from the heart?  Where did that fit in? Pretty much nowhere.  No room for music from the heart, when it’s just about music for the radio.”  

You can safely say that Malmsteen has always been about the music.

It’s okay to have haters.  You cannot please everyone.  However as soon as you lose what made you special in the first place, you are the same as everyone else.

“I’ve always sacrificed things in order to become the best musician I could be. “

Malmsteen dropped out of school at 15, got a job working in a guitar shop which further developed his skills (being able to play is one thing, however knowing your equipment and knowing how it all hangs together is another).  How many kids these days drop out of school at 15?  Why would they?  Isn’t it better to get an education and even go to Uni/College so that there is something to fall back on?

“If guitar players just listen to other guitar players it’s almost impossible to avoid sounding like them,” says Malmsteen, who acknowledges only Jimi Hendrix and Ritchie Blackmore as guitar influences.”

Isn’t that so true.  Look at all the metal guitarists around today, they can do all the guitar tricks from so many different styles, all packaged into one.  Malmsteen sweeps, Van Halen taps, Al DiMeola alternate picking, Steve Morse string skipping, John Petrucci legato, Randy Rhoads modal theories, and so on.  The ones that truly stand out are the ones that do it a touch differently.  Disturbed is a prime example that comes to mind of this where guitar and drums where one.  The guitar acted like a percussion instrument.  Great music can be born out of the syncopation of drums and guitar.

“It’s also important to me that what I play fast will also sound good if the same notes are played at a slower speed. I play classical runs, arpeggios and broken chords that if played at a slower speed would sound very nice as well. “

Has anyone ever done it?  I have.  I remember taking Trilogy Suite and playing it at 100bpm instead of the 200 bpm it is supposed to be.

“Anyone who’s witnessed Malmsteen on stage knows he is an intensely exciting performer. Most guitarists with mind-boggling technique are actually quite boring in concert, but Malmsteen manages to impress as well as entertain. He is always in constant motion, whether playing his Strat with his teeth or effortlessly twirling it around his body.”

This is a general rule for every musician.   The definition of musician also takes in the definition of performer.  You need to deliver the goods live and make it exciting.  You need to make the kids want to be you, you need to inspire the almost there musicians to be you and you need to leave the mouths wide open of seasoned musicians.   Otherwise the million plus other musicians will come along and push you aside.

“Much hard work, of course, has gone into honing his style.  “I’ve been playing constantly since the age of eight,” says the twenty-two-year-old guitarist.”

Yes that’s right, Malmsteen was 22 in 1986.  He came to the U.S in 1983 as a 19 year old.   This is what kids need to realise.  It takes time.  Nothing happens overnight.  You need to be in it for the long haul.  In the case of Malmsteen, he came to the US and joined Steeler and then Alcatrazz.  Both bands where stepping stones.

Would Led Zeppelin have been so great if they formed in 1964 or 1966?  Would Jimmy Page write the songs he did if he didn’t do time with the Yardbirds and the British studio scenes.

Would Metallica be where they are if they kept their original bassist and never hired Cliff Burton?   Would they have written Master of Puppets if Dave Mustaine was still in the band?

Basically it was a long road to success once upon a time and that hasn’t changed in the current internet era.  Even someone like PSY had put in time before he went viral.  His first album was released in 2001.  It wasn’t until 2011 that the world knew who he was and that was achieved without the traditional mainstream press and radio.

Even though the news carriers publicise the one in a million stories of people found and made into overnight sensations, there are still a billion of other artists still paying their dues.

“I’ve always been aware of recording techniques,” he says, “and I’ve always felt I could do a better job than an outside producer because they obviously don’t know the songs as well as I do.  I mean, I don’t think a painter would do the background and let someone else finish the rest of the painting.”

The musician definition just keeps on growing.  You create, you perform, you know your gear and tweak it to suit, you practice your art, you record your own music, you produce it and release it.  With the internet and advancements of technology, every musician should be doing the above.

 “Malmsteen’s desire to do it all obviously puts a lot of weight on his shoulders. Will he keep a clean head and progress? Or will he get caught up in the rabid attention he’s been getting and stagnate? The answers to these questions will prove if Malmsteen becomes the legendary guitarist he is so capable of becoming.”

The magazine came out in January 1986.  Malmsteen was promoting Marching Out which came out October 1985.  In September of 86 he released Trilogy.  Three albums in three years as a solo artist.  In total if you include Steeler and Alcatrazz releases that is six releases in four years.

Remember Malmsteen’s motto, it’s all about the music.  Keep on pumping the music boys and girls, that is how it was done back in the day so that artists could get traction and that is how it should be done in this day and age.  Six album releases in four years.  A total of 50 songs over a 48 month (as one Alcatrazz album was a live release).

A song a month should be the aim of every artist as a minimum.

Did Malmsteen become the legendary guitarist?  My view is YES.  He released Odyssey in 1988 with Joe Lyn Turner which became Malmsteen’s most successful album of his career and the one where you could have questioned if he was becoming another record label slave.  Remember his motto, its all about the music and the very commercial sounding Joe Lynn Turner was fired.

Did he maintain his legendary status?  My view is YES.  When shredding and neo-classical became out of fashion in the record label controlled U.S Malmsteen still forged a successful career in Europe and Japan during the 1990’s.  He never gave in to suit a flavour of the year style.  He remained true to himself and that to me is the sign of a legend.

Yes there are stories of his ego, his erratic behaviour, his fury (remember the plane incident) and his controlling manner however he never gave away himself, he never sold out to cash in.  As soon as he became commercially successful, he fired the singer and started a new again.

I remember reading in Metal Edge or another music rag sometime during the mid 90’s that Malmsteen and Ronnie James Dio ended up getting together to write some songs or where going to get together to form a supergroup.  I don’t know how true that is and what happened to the music they created.

Other guitarists mentioned in the magazine where Spacey T. from the band Sound Barrier, Kazumi Watanabe, George Thorogood, John Martyn, Lonnie Mack, Steve Stevens, Dave Meniketti and Al Di Meola.  But that is for another day.

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