Posts (page 2)

Poison is usually not remembered kindly, but I'm going to do my best not to let modern snarkiness get in the way of reviewing these records.

First up, "Look what the cat dragged in" - Say what you will about Poison, but this album is fucking great!

OK, you have to listen to it in context I guess, but in my mind, no other LP completely sums up 80's glam metal like Look what the cat dragged in.

If an alien race visits you and says: "Please, we must know more about the sunset strip in the 80's, Can you help us understand?" just slip 'em this disc and tell 'em to thank you later!

This one has kind of a (bear with me here) punk-rock quality about it too, probably because it was recorded independently and sounds pretty raw.

I was 10 when this came out, and I remember  the impact this record had on me. A big part of which was my friends and I suddenly realizing that maybe it was possible for us to learn to play instruments and start a band. This album made it seem totally do-able.

Also I remember my Dad seeing the cover and thinking they were girls, and looking very concerned when I explained to him that they were guys.

I'm giving this one a hearty thumbs up!

Up Next: "Open up and say Ahh!" - This one is not nearly as good as I remembered it. In fact, it's not very good at all!

It's super over-produced and kind of boring.

Of course, it does have the song that eased a million broken teen-age hearts, "Every Rose has it's Thorn" and the other 2 singles "Nothin' but a Good Time" and "Fallen Angel" are good in an 80's glam metal sort of way too, but otherwise nothing else really stands out.

It also has the super annoying "Your Mama Don't Dance" a song that always got under my skin, though it wasn't until tonight that I learned it was co-written by none other than that bastard Kenny Loggins.

The album cover is pretty sweet, but overall a patchy and uninspired effort.

And last and unfortunately least is "Flesh and Blood." - I didn't really like this one when it came out and I still don't.

It's not all bad, it's just not really any fun.

They kind of de-volved into that blues-y classic rock thing that I find so annoying.

I guess the golden rule of 80's glam metal was "do whatever Motley Crue is doing" and after the faux bluesiness of "Dr. Feelgood" did so well, Poison decided it could work for them.

It was recorded in Vancouver though, which makes absolutely no difference, I just found it slightly interesting.

Overall, not a great record, but a least C.C. DeVille was still on it.

Poison really lost their groove with the whole Blues Saraceno/Richie Kotzen thing, those were some bad years!

Anyway, you probably owned these at one time, so if you didn't get rid of them, dig 'em out , put on some eyeliner and give them a listen, it'll be fun.

Wow, somebody traded in their collection of 80's metal albums at the thrift store by my house, and I bought the whole fuckin' thing.

Motley Crue, Ozzy, Skid Row, Ratt, Poison, Def Leppard, it was all there, in excellent condition and all for only a buck apiece, what else could I do?

This was definitely the greatest thrift score I've ever had, I still feel giddy from it.

Reviews coming soon.

P.S. this blog is now going to feature at least 12% more swearing from now on.

Deal with it, bitch.

Yep, Diamond Head is super awesome.

You may not know the name, but if you've listened to Metallica's "Garage" albums you've heard their songs.

I always meant to check these guys out and I'm glad I finally did.

I've only heard their first album, "Lightning to the Nations" but it's really good.

There's only 7 songs, 5 of which have been covered by Metallica.

That's a whopping 71%!

Also, you really hear where Metallica got their sound after listening to these guys. Apparently Lars had gone to England and was hanging around with them when they were writing a lot of their stuff.

Lesson 1: Don't let Lars Ulrich in your house, he will steal your sound.

Anyway, these guys should have been huge.

They were part of the NWOBHM at the same time Iron Maiden and Def Leppard were starting out, but they were managed by the singer's mom, who apparently turned down a management offer from Q Prime.

Bad Idea.

Anyway, everyone else got huge and Diamond Head just kept sloggin' away.

From what I can tell from their official site, they're still active, but they never seem to play North America.

Oh well, check 'em out, they're awesome, you'll love it, and you'll even thanks Lars for bringing them to your attention.

I just thought this video was funny.

Mainly the way he tries to pretend he didn't want the job, all the while sounding as if he's trying to convince himself it's true.

P.S. I was confused at first since Richie would have been about 15 when KISS first got together, but obviously I guess he was auditioning later on to replace Ace Frehley or maybe even Vinnie Vincent. Who knows and who cares, right?

Well, let's just get this out of the way.

It's pretty terrible.

I know Ace has been doing art like this for the last several years, so I'm pretty sure he's the one behind this.

It looks like it's a tweaked version of his 1978 solo album cover, which was totally great, so I guess I can see why he used it as a starting point.

Actually, the art itself is not really THAT bad. OK, the sunglasses are totally cheesy, (and reminiscent of the KISS album cover "Hot in the Shade" which was easily one of their worst) but aside from that it's not the worst thing in the world, it's just not particularly interesting.

The worst thing about it is the effect on the font.

That's what makes it look so amateur, the crappy "chrome" effect that never really works unless you're really good at using it, which is why almost no one should ever use it.

Also, the thing I find very interesting is the fact that Ace can't seem to stress enough how much he wants to get away from KISS and do his own thing, yet this cover has at least 3 fairly obvious KISS references.

1.  The 1978 solo album cover

2.  The "Hot in the Shade" sunglasses (probably unintentional, but obvious to KISS fans)

3.  The upside down lightning bolts over the eyes. Ace has been associated with the lightning bolt symbol before, but when they're upside down, they REALLY look like the S's in the KISS logo.

Now, I haven't heard any of the music yet, hopefully it's better than the cover.

Sorry, Ace. This album cover sucks.

I still think you're awesome though.

I'm a HUGE Spider-man fan.

In fact, I've tried to base my life on Spider-man's teachings.

Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm sure I got a lot of my moral code and sense of decency from all those comics I read and cartoons I watched.

So the movies should be a dream come true, right?

Well, overall I think they were pretty well done, but I have a few problems with each of them.

Maybe I'm just too much of a nit-picky nerd, but some things really bothered me about these films.

Let's start with the first film:

This one's easily my favorite.

Some people had a problem with the organic web shooters but I was totally fine with it.

The only thing I really don't like is the look of the Green Goblin, but I understand that to make him how he looked in the comic probably would have been ridiculous, so I'm okay with the change.

Flash Thompson could have been used a bit more too. I always liked the old comics where Flash looked up to Spidey all the while tormenting poor old Peter Parker, I think that could have been explored in the movie, but oh well, a solid adaptation overall.

I saw this one 5 times in the theater!

Up Next: Spider-man 2.

I had a few major problems with this one, the first one being the title.

Spider-man 2?

That was the best you guys could come up with?

I heard they were thinking of calling it "the Amazing Spider-man" and I think that would have been better, I don't know, anything with a number in the title just seems bad. I guess it's better than "Spider-man too" though. Can you imagine?

I just watched this one last night and while it definitely had it's moments, I was not a fan of Dr. Octopus at all.

He was never a villain I particularly liked anyway, but they got him totally wrong in my opinion.

I didn't like the way he threw his human arms around when he was doing stuff. In the comic he was always very calm and composed while his arms were flailing around trashing everything, and that just made him scarier.

The only time he wasn't calm was when Spider-man bruised his frail ego and sent him into a bitter rage, which is what was sorely missing from the film.

We did not see Doc Ock - the insecure, snarky prick, we saw Doc Ock - the misunderstood, heartbroken scientist, and that was not nearly as interesting to me.

Also, whose idea was it to give the arms intelligence and have them "talk" the good Dr. into doing all that bad stuff? It was a bad one.

Now, I'm getting really nerdy here, but like I said, Spider-man is important to me, so bear with me - this is the stuff that REALLY got under my skin.

1. Doc Ock cannot take a punch from Spidey. He's just a normal guy, a punch from Spider-man would knock him out, yet Spider-man punches him tons of times and it never seems to really bother him.

2. When Spider-man loses his powers, he falls several times from heights that could have easily killed him. I know he's tough but that was lame.

3. The screaming girls and the people staring at the camera. Seriously, watch it again and look at the people in the background, they do everything but actually point at the camera. And the screaming girls are all terrible, it just seems really forced.

4. The tie-dyed shirt that Peter Parker's Doctor was wearing. Bleh!

5. The schamltziness of that scene with the passengers on the train, with the kids giving him back his mask and all that just seemed a little too cheesy.

6. John Jameson is a useless character, how did Mary Jane even know him? (Don't get me started on her) I think they should have had Ned Leeds in there somewhere, get the seeds for that Hobgoblin story set up, right?

7. And the last one, I promise! Spider-man let stuff fall to the ground while he was fighting Doc Ock that could have crushed people. He never would have done that.

I really liked the action scenes in this one, but I guess a lot of the characters bugged me. More than I realized until I started typing it, yow!

Harry was pretty good though...

OK, Spider-man 3.

I enjoyed this one while I was watching it, but now that I think about it, it was pretty much a monumental failure.

Dang.

I liked the scenes between Peter and Harry, and the fights between Spidey and the new Goblin, they were awesome!

The new Goblin looked so lame it was painful though.

Gwen looked just right, but she was hardly in it, and even when she was she was pretty cardboard. I always liked Gwen more than MJ though, so I could be biased.

The Sandman was pointless. Sympathetic villains are a dime a dozen in these movies, couldn't he have been a thug like he was in the comics?

Venom was a complete waste, though the guy from the 70's show was way better than I thought he'd be.

The dark side of Peter Parker being explored was pretty interesting, I thought. I didn't even mind him strutting down the street, but when he started singing it went right out the window.

Wow, what a whiner, I didn't realize how many little things annoyed me about these movies.

Well, like I said, Spider-man is important to me so the little things are gonna bug me I guess.

Unfortunately I'm not looking forward to Spider-man 4 & 5.

I imagine they'll be about as good as Rocky 4 & 5, but who knows?

Hey, I just found out that KISS didn't write this song!

I guess Paul Stanley and Bob Ezrin re-arranged it and decided they should take some credit for that, but the original's pretty much the same, just not as heavy.

I was just surprised to learn something about KISS that I didn't already know.

Maybe I wasn't as big a KISS-nerd as I thought I was...

Anyway, you can hear the original here, but hurry up, it probably won't be there forever.

I haven't heard any good metal in a while, so these guys are a welcome surprise.

I first saw the poster for their album and it caught my eye in a "cheesy but awesome" way.

A few days later I saw an ad for them in a magazine and noticed the tagline: "Picks up where Powerslave left off"

Well, being the huge Maiden fan I am I was obviously intrigued, if not a little skeptical. Hey, NOBODY is as good as Iron Maiden, right?

Anyway, the fact that the album was only released on vinyl was a selling point for me too, so I decided to look them up.

Frustratingly, the band's Myspace page has no audio samples, probably a bad idea, but oh well.

Anyway, I did find a clip of one of their songs on YouTube and it sounded pretty good so I decided to pick up the LP.

Wow, it's awesome!

At first I thought it was just OK, but the more I listen to it, the better it gets.

It's crazy, it really does sound like the 'lost' Maiden album... if King Diamond was singing.

Anyway, if you like Maiden or metal just do yourself a favor and go buy this thing.

The album comes with a free mp3 download of the whole disc so you really can't lose.

Apparently an EP is also on the way, I'm really looking forward to hearing more from these guys.

Check out their label's website and buy the album here.

The thing that always bothered me about the "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer" song (besides the stupid add-ons that bored children think are insanely clever) was the fact that the other reindeer don't want to have anything to do with Rudolph until they can use him in some way.

"Gee Rudolph, we treated you like garbage before, but now that you're the only one who can get us out of this mess, we think you're just great!"

Fuck that! it's like that piece of crap "Skater Boy" song by the no-talent Avril Lavigne, where the girl only regrets breaking up with a guy because he later becomes famous.

Forget you Avril, and forget those other jerk Reindeer.

well... not really.

Nofx still has a ton of integrity in my mind, and the recent Kiss-like (squeeze out every last cent) repressing of their albums is beyond their control. (Probably)

I guess it was only a matter of time before their old record labels realized that people REALLY like buying Nofx records, especially colored vinyl ones.

Some of the more rare ones regularly go for hundreds of dollars, so of course anyone who has the rights to a Nofx album has figured out they can pretty much press them again and again on a different color and it will sell like hot cakes.

"Maximum Rock and Roll", One of their old and absolutely horrible (in a funny, entertaining way) albums has been repressed in pretty much every color imaginable, making the people who have to have every variant buy 10 copies of an album they probably won't even listen to more than once. (if that) Before you ask, I have the orange one. I've listened to it once.

Epitaph is re-pressing all their Nofx vinyl too, a few of them coming in two different colors of course, for the extremists.

I guess it's easy to get cynical, but I'm actually glad these are in print again, I don't really care about getting first pressing of most things, I just like to have albums I like on vinyl, so keep 'em comin' fellas!

p.s. the photo is taken from this article.