FIZZY’S CLOSET
PART 3--Sunset Strip Style
Well, kiddies, it has been a good long while since we last opened the heavy, creaking door of Fizzy’s Closet. I could offer up a number of implausible excuses as to why we havne’t done this more often, but the simple truth of the matter is this: See, it all started when Flash, our resident sports nut, misplaced his bag of sweaty workout clothes, and thought he might have left them in the Closet by accident. He was in there looking to see if I had any Pretty Boy Floyd CD’s he could borrow. But I didn’t, so he left in a huff. And so later, when he couldn’t find his smelly socks and sweaty jockstrap, he assumed (quite naturally) that he’d left them in the Bunker here. And that’s why I’ve been afraid to open the Closet up until now. But he eventually found them in D-Day’s woodshed, so here we are again.
This is also going to be my first foray into the Closet with a specific theme in mind. This time out, I have selected a few albums that best represent the famed “Sunset Strip” sound. Lots of bands tried to sound as though they spent long, hot evenings cruising the Strip, but only a few made you actually believe it. Having never experienced the Strip for myself, let alone at its peak, I rely on albums like these and the yarns spun by others to base my appreciation of the period.
MOTLEY CRUE
Shout At The Devil; 1983 (Elektra)
Rating: 9.0
It can be argued that Motley Crue were the originators of the Sunset Strip style of pop-metal. Whether or not that is true, they were certainly one of the subgenre’s early stars, with enough attitude and hooks to make up for their only average musical talent. And Shout At The Devil is generally regarded as their finest hour, and I find it hard to disagree, although their debut from the previous year, Too Fast For Love, is almost as good, and their 1989 release, Dr. Feelgood, holds a soft spot for me as well, because it was the first Crue album I ever owned.
Shout At The Devil begins with an eerie rumbling, overlaid by an amplified, disembodied voice telling an apocalyptic tale that rings all the more true with the passage of time, except for the somewhat silly call-to-arms at track’s end. “In The Beginning” builds into the title track. Here we have a bona fide classic with its fist-pumping chorus, and verses with more lyrics than Vince Neil has been able to remember since, much less sing coherently. Like a surprising number of Crue songs, this one still sounds remarkably fresh and up-to-date. In fact, it has several elements that have been borrowed and bastardized and ruined by the bands of today: an emphasis on groove, a brief, simple solo, and verses that are dangerously close to rapping.
Next comes the other megahit from the album, “Looks That Kill,” with another simplistic riff and catchy, repetitive chorus. This is an area where the Crue’s biggest strength lies: in simple but outrageously catchy songs with no big ideas or concepts behind them, and that don’t always have to make sense at all. “Looks That Kill” remains one of the band’s most easily recognizable tunes.
“Bastard” and “Red Hot” are the record’s two speediest tracks, with some of Tommy Lee’s more impressive drumming between them. I find “Red Hot” to be more satisfying, with a downtuned, evil riff and Vince’s sudden howl of ‘Can’t you see we’re out for BLOOOOOOOOOOD!” One of my favorite lesser Crue songs.
The other hidden jem of the album is “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid” with another devastatingly simple riff and enough belligerence to fire up an entire street gang. The gloriously violent lyrics helped the band earn a spot among the Filthy Fifteen, as determined by Tipper Gore and her sewing circle.
Classics abound throughout the rest of the album. Nearly every song sports a gang-style shout-along chorus and a riff that has passed into the metal style-guide. Vince Neil yips and squeals his way through “Ten Seconds to Love and “Too Young to Fall In Love,” long before his vocal style became an embarrassing self-parody. “You’re not a woman, you’re a whore!” he snarls on “Too Young.” Is that the chorus riff from “Live Wire” in the main riff? Neil tones down a little bit for the band’s cover of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter,” whjich is faithful to the original, yet totally Motleyfied, with a thudding rhythm and grinding distortion.
The only weak spot on the album (aside from the intro and a rather useless instrumental) might be the final track. “Danger” is slower and more melodic than the rest of the album (though not not really ballad-like). The song just doesn’t seem to gel with the rest of the record and sounds more like an outtake than anything else. It does lend an end-of-the-night feel to the album, and the chorus has a nice ominous feel to it.
One area in which the album is surprisingly lacking is Tommy Lee’s drumming. We allknow what a madman he was onstage, but here, most of his playing is confined to standard boom-bap rhythms. He does put in some flashy fills, but overall, just listening to the record, you wonder what all the fuss was about.
There are several different reissues of Shout At the Devil floating around, with various bonus tracks. Mine is from ’99, with demo versions of “Looks That Kill” and the title track, the latter with slightly altered lyrics. Also included is a demo version of ‘Louder Than Hell,” which would appear as one of the better songs on the band’s next effort, Theatre of Pain. And there’s a mediocre unreleased track called “I Will Survive.” It’s so mediocre in fact, that I can’t be bothered to go find out if it is indeed a Gloria Gaynor cover. The bonus material on Too Fast for Love is much better. Shout At the Devil itself, however, is more consistent, as seven of the nine full-length songs belong on any good Crue retrospective, and the record itself occupies a rightful place in metal history. In the ensuing years, this style would be imitated by almost everybody, but seldom with the same charisma, which is why Motley Crue are among the first bands to spring to mind whenever the phrase “’80’s metal” is mentioned. Shit, people who normally deride everything recorded before 1992 even tend to have more tolerance for the Crue than any other band of the era. Shout At the Devil is perhaps the biggest reason why.
Best songs: “Red Hot,” “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid”
Worst Song: “God Bless the Children of the Beast”
LOVE/HATE
Black Out in the Red Room; 1990 (Columbia)
Rating: 7.5
This may not be the BEST album to come off the Strip, but it is certainly one of the most unique and creative. What the album does best is to convey an atmosphere. Rather than the romanticized view of L.A. painted by other bands, Love/Hate’s Los Angeles is filled with weird characters, implied mental illness and a certain detachment that permeates all of the tales of running amok in the big city. Musically, the band takes the typical hard-rock templates of the time and twists them, adding funky bass, frantic drumming and off-kilter arrangements that make the band seem only a distant cousin to Guns n’ Roses.
In general, the first half of the album is the best. The title track and “Fuel to Run” are boucny odes to drinking, with the latter having a killer, boing-ing bassline and a shrieked chorus that sticks to your head like a wad of gum on your pillow. “Rock Queen” is a brief little ditty about statutory rape. “Let me touch your cookies,” demands the unforgettably-named Jizzy Pearl, “let me eat your cookies--NOW!” In ‘Why Do You Think They Call It Dope,” the rhetorical question is posed over some Les Claypool-worthy bass-slapping. “One More Round” is another drinking song, where Jizzy suddenly bellows “VICKY!” apropos of nothing.
The old cliché of the innocent young girl in Tinseltown is given new life in ‘(She’s An) Angel.” “She’s tryin’ to have a good time,” Jizzy croons “even though these are bad times.” A minute later, he revelas that “Mommy took the strings off your bass, so you won’t hang yourself.” “Straightjacket” is a later-album highlight, with its exuberantly hooky chorus.
Topics covered elsewhere include marijuana (“the mediocre “Mary Jane”), bleary-eyed one-night stands (“Slutsy Tipsy”) and the life of a musician on the road (the stutter-riffing delight of “Tumbleweed”). “Hell, CA., Pop. 4” closes the album with a tale of biker lust in the desert, set to a frenetic rhythm that hints at sun-baked roads and crystal meth.
Jizzy Pearl’s vocals can be irritating at times, as he favors a piercing wail for much of the album, occasionally veering into Mark Slaughter territory. He can sound downright girly in some of his inflections (see “I’d like to introduce you to my fifth, that’s who I’m with” from “Fuel to Run”). Even so, it’s hard to imagine anybody e lse singing these songs. All the lyrics are injected with a certain oddball sense of humor, and the debauchery is depicted with a bit of grim irony that makes it ultimately more real than, say, Poison. “This is fun, isn’t it?” they seem to be asking, while beginning to sound a little unsure if it is, indeed, fun. While the tongue-in-cheek style is similar to that of Faster Pussycat, what really set Love/Hate apart was their music. Taking the usual glam formula and adding elements of punk, funk and some other, less-recognizable tweaks, they managed to create something that was both timely and ahead of its time, and, for the most part, timeless.
Best songs: “Rock Queen,” “Fuel to Run”
Worst song: “Mary Jane”
L.A. GUNS
Cocked and Loaded; 1989 (Polygram)
Rating: 9.0
Poor L.A. Guns. They will always live in the shadow of a certain former member who went on to start his own band with the word “Guns” in the title. While that band started self-destructing almost immediately, L.A. Guns soldiered on into the new century, with more lineup changes than Dio, never making the same album twice. Cocked and Loaded, the group’s second, and best, album, is sandwiched between the punk-flavored debut (which had a few good songs, but which I find ultimately kinda boring), and the weird blues-rock experiment of 1991’s Hollywood Vampires. It is a heaping platter of grade-A California riff-rock. At fourteen tracks, perhaps a bit TOO heaping.
For example, we could probably do without the opening half-song, “Letting Go.” I’ve never been too sure what the point of this track is, as it’s little more than an unfinished idea, with one verse and a chorus and a lot of weird noise at the end. The whole thing is less than ninety seconds long, and it makes a neat little intro, I guess. If it were fleshed out into a complete song, it wouldn’t be a highlight. Neither would the next song, “Slap In the Face,” despite having all the necessary components of a song. Again, it’s all right, but nothing special.
So the first few minutes aren’t that spectacular, so what? Stick around, because Cocked and Loaded picks up dramatically and immediately thereafter. Five classics in a row, starting with the incendiary “Rip ’n’ Tear.” This song just screams “INTRO,” and I have always considered it to be the REAL start of the album. Combine a simple, repeating riff, lots of hollering, a touch of cowbell and some blazing solos from Tracii Guns. Then sped it up more and more until it careens out of control and fades into the distance. Whew! Phil Lewis’s vocals are mostly hollered at sore-throat level (as he did for most of the previous album-I call it the Ian Astbury approach), and that can be a little annoying, but it totally works on this song, and anyway, the rest of the album is very melodically-sung for the most part.
“Sleazy Come Easy Go” is next, with a sly bassline and some bluesy licks. It’s a simple two-chord shuffle for the most part, but the chorus consists of two different vocal lines, weaving in and out of each other. And when the music pauses for Phil to leer “Any way you can!” the ensuing lead-lick is fretboard heaven.
“Never Enough” continues the party with the record’s biggest non-ballad hit. Count ‘em: one, two, three different riffs. From the snarling verses to the mystical harmonies on the pre-chorus, to the sing-along chorus, to the soloing slathered all over the whole thing, its place high in the bands repertory is well-deserved.
Two of the album’s more ambitious tracks are “Malaria and “Magdalaine.” The former has a groove that sinks into your skull like a hatchet into a watermelon, and gives Tracii Guns yet another opportunity to show off his Eddie Van Halen-on-crack guitar tendencies. “Magdalaine,” meanwhile, utilizes a twangy, bluesy style of picking mixed in with the power-chords, a style that would be used much more on the following album.
Of course, “The Ballad of Jayne” (the band’s ode to Jayne Mansfield) was L.A. Guns’s biggest hit, and it is one of the better power-ballads of the era, as the emotion is genuine, the playing expert and the singing heartfelt. The verses are punctuated with mournful guitar wailings and twangings, and the vocal harmonies are golden. On a personal note, I remember being ten years old and buying the cassette single for this song, paying all $2.79 in chang I had been hoarding.
The second half of the album isn’t quite as spectacular as the first, but is still solid at the very least. “Give a Little” borrows a page from Motley Crue’s “Too Young to Fall in Love, and “Showdown (Riot On Sunset)” is good as well, if not a particular standout. “I’m Addicted” is an instrumental vehicle for Tracii to lay down a frenzied squealfest that’s great for annoying non-rockers, or sick people. I once used it to torment a very hungover roommate, who begged me to kill him or turn it off, one or the other.
Near album’s end, we get another monster highlight in the form of “Wheels of Fire.” The melodies are the main attraction here, so much so that you’re totally unprepared for the howling solo.
“I Wanna Be Your Man,” the final track, is listed as a CD-only bonus track, but it’s on my cassette copy, and also the aforementioned “Ballad of Jayne” single, so it’s obviously not rare. I believe there was also a video for it. Regardless, it features a nasty pull-off riff and a strutting rhythm and some leering come-hither lyrics.
Some additoinal notes: Second guitarist Mick Cripps is credited with piano, but I’m damned if I hear any ivory-tickling on this album. Which is A-okay with me. I also can’t help but notice that Cripps’s guitarwork is mixed in lower than Tracii’s. For his part, Tracii is an absolute freak on the axe, and if he never recorded another thing after Cocked and Loaded, he would still go down as one of the more unsung guitar heroes of the time. The tones as well as the playing on this album are outstanding. Factor in the countless hooks, and you’ve got yourself an underappreciated landmark in hard rock. The very worst song here is just average. What more can I say? This one’s essential!
Best songs: “Sleazy Come Easy Go,” “Never Enough”
Worst song: “Slap in the Face”
FASTER PUSSYCAT
Faster Pussycat; 1987 (Elektra)
Rating: 6.5
All right, I know these guys are hailed as kings of Sunset Strip metal, and their debut self-titled album is especially held up as a sleaze-rock opus, but for some reason, it doesn’t really resonate with me for the most part. And the hell of it is, I’m not really sure why.
Sounding more like drug-addled Aerosmith than Motley Crue, Faster Pussycat were blessed with an oddball sense of humor that is similar to that of Love/Hate. WhereJizzy Pearl and Co. made creative music to accompany the wink-wink-nudge-nudge lyrics, Faster Pussycat don’t. This is true especially on their first album. Even so, this album best exemplifies the Sunset Strip, at least from my distant remove.
There are several decent-to-good songs here. “Don’t Change That Song” is an obvious attempt at writing a radio single, but tolerable. “Bathroom Wall” is a whimsical tale of finding a hot chick’s name and number written in a public toilet. “Boy, was I lucky that I didn’t use the other stall!” Indeed! The lead and rhtyhm riffs on this one flow very well. “Cathouse” is a lecherous ode to the oldest profession: “I got the best piece o’ Mona Lisa I ever found!” Taime Downe announces gleefully. “Shooting You Down” has one of those riffs that get passed around and twisted and reworked by many bands: simple but powerful. “Bottle In Front of Me” is a funked-up drinking song that, prdictably, works better with a few in your belly.
Then again, so does the whole album. None of these songs is bad, exactly. They just tend to blur together, and the situation isn’t helped by Taime’s limited vocal ability. “No Room for Emotion” is supposed to be a semi-ballad, I think, as the music is rather subdued, but Taime’s inability to make much of the melody holds it back. His voice is perfect for spinning his tales of debauchery in the gutter, I’ll give him that. The New York Dolls-esque punk leanings add a bit of texture as well, but overall, the music is too unvaried and average.
The real gem of the record is “Babylon,” with its hilariously loopy lyrics about life in La-La Land. “We was sittin’ in our car in a traffic jam, when some tourist started screamin’ “Ain’t you that guy in Wham!?”” is perhaps the funniest couplet, followed closely by “Man, that hoochie-coochie made me dizzy, cowabunga! I said shut yo’ face and take off what you got under!” A silly cartoon voice repeats “P-p-p-p-p-pussycat!” while the band chants “SHUT UP!”
If you want to hear Faster Pussycat at their best, go for the second album, Wake Me When It’s Over, which has more diversity without losing any of the cleverness. But for pure unadulterated sleaze, this is a good choice. It’s fun to drink and party to, but don’t look for anything serious, musically creative or even particularly interesting.
Best songs: “Babylon,” ‘Bathroom Wall”
Worst song: “No Room For Emotion”
POISON
Look What the Cat Dragged In; 1986 (Capitol)
Rating: 2.0
I decided that as long as I was talking about Sunset Strip metal, I may as well represent all facets of the subgenre. We already covered the prototypical, creative, just plain good, and gutter-dwelling aspects, so what the hell? May as well represent the stupid, phony side as well. Right? Riiiight!
So here’s Poison. I would’ve done Pretty Boy Floyd, except I don’t own any of their music, and don’t know anybody who does.
............So again, here’s Poison. Oh fuck it, I can’t put it off any longer. Let’s just do the damn review. Actually, this might be kinda fun.
As the rating suggests, Poison’s debut, quite frankly, sucks. And what makes it worse is that, along with the rest of the band’s putrid catalog, it is constantly being worshipped as a classic, a landmark, a groundbreaker in the field. Well, it broke new ground all right, and they built an outhouse on it. But hell, whenever pop-metal, “hair” bands, or ’80’s rock is mentioned, Poison always seems to be one of the first names out of people’s mouth. Usually accompanied by a snide haw-haw, which is fine, except the drool from the laughter dribbles over onto all the other bands of the time, even the ones that obviously had little in common with these pouting clowns, and were far better besides.
There is exactly one good song on Look What the Cat Dragged In, and that would be the title track. It’s a highlight just by virtue of not being as saccharine and chirpy as the rest of the band’s repertory. The hormone-crazed “I Want Action” is tolerable as well, mainly for the chorus, which redeems some value after the typical infantile lyrics. The worst offender has to be the band’s first big hit, the smarmy “Talk Dirty to Me.” Bret Michaels, as we all know, is a diabetic, and I’m convinced he became one solely by his association with this sugar-shocking turd of a song. Michaels’s vocal delivery is nothing short of nauseating: a thoroughly transparent tough-guy inflection here, a cutesy simper there, all punctuated with pathetic little yips and fake guffaws and cries of “Whoooo!” Yes, we are really having fun now, aren’t we? Aren’t we?
Poison’s whole gimmick was basically stolen from other bands. They copped the look of Hanoi Rocks, ripped off the stage-schtick of Kix, and borrowed the rudimentary, anthemic musical stylel of Kiss. Through it all, the band sounds like what they are: a bunch of suburban kids from Pennsylvania trying to be big rock stars out in Hollywood. The one non-Pennsylvanian is C.C DeVille, moron who has to be told when to start his sloppy solos. And throughout their career, even as they basked in equal amounts of California sun and tabloid notoriety, they would continue to sound just like that: fakes.
The very best part of Look What the Cat Dragged In is the last second, and not just because the CD is almost over. “Let Me Go to the Show” is a typical teen-angst rant of the time. Remember when characters in songs hated their parents because they weren’t allowed to listen to rock ’n’ roll? Now the parents either buttfuck them, or get divorced, or make their budding post-grunge kids wear off-brand sneakers or something. Anyway, the last song features Bret begging to be allowed to go to a concert. And at the very end, we hear a man (presumably playing the aprt of his ogre dad) hollering “TURN THAT SHIT OFF!” How fitting!
As a side note, I don’t actually own this album. I borrowed it for the specific purpose of writing about it. I’m going to give it back to Flash right now. See ya!
Best song: “Look What the Cat Dragged In”
Worst song: “Talk Dirty to Me”
