Review: Skid Row, "The Gang's All Here"

 I didn’t see this coming.

Like many fans, I’ve longed for a reunion of the original lineup of Skid Row. While I enjoyed some of the band’s work with replacement vocalist, the late Johnny Solinger, it never quite stacked up with their earlier output. It’s become pretty clear, though, that the chasm between former vocalist Sebastian Bach and the rest of the band is too wide to bridge. So, I never expected to get a new Skid Row record that I considered on par with those first three albums.

Enter Erik Gronwall, former vocalist of the band H.E.A.T., a lifelong Skid Row fan despite being born only a couple of years before their debut album. His version of the band’s hit “18 and Life” on a Swedish TV singing competition helped earn him the nod from Skid Row after they went through a series of replacement vocalists for Solinger, including Tony Harnell (TNT) and ZP Theart (Dragonforce), and they seem to have made the right choice. Gronwall breathes new life into the band. He sounds enough like a young Bach to hit old guys like me right in the nostalgia, but he also brings enough of his own sound to not give off the tribute vibe.

Random Rants: HBO's "Peacemaker" and glam metal

When director James Gunn took on the relatively obscure Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel, he brought a chart-topping soundtrack of 1970s music that connected with audiences and became an integral part of the film’s success.

Now, Gunn has taken on an even more obscure property from DC in the HBO Max series Peacemaker, and he’s done something similar for a surprising genre. In this raunchy romp about a ridiculously goofy and often clueless anti-hero, James Gunn has injected a much-needed dose of humor and silliness into the previously mostly grim DC Comics Universe, and in the process, he’s also injected life back into the glam-metal sounds of the 1980s.

For a child of the ‘80s, the soundtrack for Peacemaker hits hard. But much of the real fun in it is that a great many of the featured bands and songs are not from that era of the glam scene, but from the more recent past. Look no further than the goofy yet endearing opening sequence which has turned Wig Wam’s 2010 track “Do Ya Wanna Taste It” into a bit of a sensation.

Review: Kiss at CenturyLink Center (Sept. 7, 2019, Bossier City, La.)

Sometimes, you plan concert trips a year in advance. Sometimes, you accidentally end up at a Kiss show.

When tickets went on sale for the End of the Road Tour in Bossier City last fall, I was considering going. My son had never seen Kiss, and though I believe this is a retirement tour just about as much as I believe in any other “retirement” tour these days, I had to admit that Gene and Paul are getting up there and this might actually be the last time I got to see them.

Then I checked the prices and decided that I’d seen Kiss enough times over the years. I saw them sans-makeup in the 1980s, on the reunion tour in 1996 and on a previous “farewell” tour. And honestly, the last time I caught them with the current lineup, they kind of phoned it in, and I left disappointed.

Fast forward to the night before the show, and a stray thought struck me to check and see if there were tickets left. There were, and there was a discount code that took some decent seats down to about $40 (which, of course, works out to about $70 apiece after Ticketmaster gets through with you, but that’s another rant). How could I say no at that price?

Review: "The Dirt"

The Dirt delivers exactly what you’d expect in a biopic of Motley Crue – a trashy, but fun tale of debauchery that turns dark but never quite faces its demons. Much like the band’s lyrics, the movie often skips over substance and tough topics in favor of more sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

I didn’t go into The Dirt expecting a factual, documentary-style account of Motley Crue’s rise and fall. It’s a movie. Some things will be dramatized, some facts will change and some things will be completely made up. The film even acknowledges this in an early aside to the camera from guitarist Mick Mars: He lets the audience know that the telling of how they met legendary manager Doc McGhee is complete BS because, “Doc would never come to a dump like this.”

In some ways, The Dirt is refreshingly honest. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the band acknowledges that, for the most part, they were a bunch of idiots. At other times, though, it glosses over things that could make it a stronger, more meaningful film.

Metal Meltdowns: Celtic Frost, "Cold Lake"

In the mid-1980s, Celtic Frost, along with contemporaries like Venom, Hellhammer and Bathory, was one of the pioneering bands of what would become death and black metal. The band’s first two albums – Morbid Tales and To Mega Therion – helped lay down the template for what those styles would become.

Their third outing, Into the Pandemonium, marked a change in style, opening with an unlikely cover of Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio,” and incorporating many new and jarring influences for fans. But for all its strangeness, that record still doesn’t draw the ire of metal fans like 1988’s Cold Lake.

Frontman/founder Tom Warrior had planned to end the band, but was convinced to continue with an entirely new lineup … and an entirely new sound.

Something Borrowed: "Feed My Frankenstein," Beasto Blanco/Alice Cooper

The apples don’t fall far from the tree on the latest release from Beasto Blanco. The leader of the band is Alice Cooper bassist Chuck Garric, and the female vocals are provided by Calico Cooper, who just happens to be Alice’s daughter. So, I wonder how they got the rights to cover an Alice song?

All jokes aside, this is an interesting take on a song that’s not one of my favorites in the Alice catalog.

Saturday Night Special: Bang Tango, "Wrap My Wings"

I’m working on a couple of ideas to try to breathe a little life back into this site. I started with the Sunday Sabbath feature, and now a series I call Saturday Night Special.

If you’ve been coming to the site for a little while, you’re probably familiar with the Saturday Shuffle that I used to do. That kind of ran its course, and though it got good traffic, was a pain to put together with my work and family schedules. So instead, I’m going to try a one-song approach, where I focus on a tune that I heard at some point in the week that maybe I haven’t heard for a while or that just struck me in some different way. We’ll kick things off with my favorite song from an ‘80s band that I consider underrated.

Metal Meltdowns: Quiet Riot, "QR III"

In 1983, Quiet Riot’s Metal Health announced the arrival of metal as a viable commercial music form when the title track and their cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize” both made waves in the Top 40. The band, however, was unable to capitalize on that success. Their next album, 1984’s party-hardy Condition Critical failed to make the same impact, despite the band throwing in another Slade cover “Mama, Weer All Crazy Now.”

By 1986, Quiet Riot’s fortunes were definitely on the wane. Bassist Rudy Sarzo had left, to be replaced by Chuck Wright (Giuffria, Ted Nugent, House of Lords), and for QR III the band took a far more pop-oriented approach to the music than the previous two records.

Let’s start with the good, and that’s the lead single “The Wild and the Young.” On an album of sub-par material, this tune shines. It’s a fantastic hard-rock anthem with one of those hooks that burrows into your head and gets stuck there. Sure, it’s a bit more polished than their previous work, but it’s still instantly recognizable as Quiet Riot, and I would argue that it’s one of their best songs.

Review: "We are Twisted F***ing Sister!"

Twisted Sister may have had one of the strangest rides in heavy metal history. When Stay Hungry was released in 1984, the band was on top of the world. They were the darlings of MTV for their over-the-top cartoonish videos and a target of controversy for Tipper Gore’s PMRC for the violence in those videos. But a few years and a couple of poor-performing albums later, Twisted Sister had fallen off the face of the earth.

For those who had been following the band through their tumultuous club days, that’s par for the course. As we learn in We are Twisted Fucking Sister!, they were always one of the most popular bands that no one wanted anything to do with.

The film focuses on the pre-Stay Hungry days, beginning with the formation of a very different band than the one we know by guitarist Jay Jay French in the early 1970s. Through interviews with Twisted Sister and their fans, and some rare early live footage, it traces a decade-long journey that brought us the familiar lineup and the band mainstream popularity.

That journey, at times, is of Spinal Tap proportions. The outrageousness of their antics during the Stay Hungry years was apparently nothing new, as the band shares some wild and often funny stories from the early days.

Saturday Shuffle: Flotsam and Jetsam, Testament, III, ST, Ratt

This week starts strong with an underrated album and ends on a mediocre note.


Flotsam and Jetsam, "Empty Air." From the album Drift (1995). Drift is far and away my favorite Flots album. I loved the slightly more progressive tone of it. "Empty Air" is one of the heavier tracks from the record, and it's got as much power as anything that the band has ever recorded. A fantastic song from a fantastic record.

Still Spinning: Motley Crue, "Theatre of Pain"

When talking about Motley Crue’s classic 1980s albums, Theatre of Pain usually gets ranked at or near the bottom of the list. Even bassist Nikki Sixx has gone so far as to call it “rubbish.” I was thinking about the record as I was being subjected to an awful country-pop version of “Home Sweet Home” in a restaurant recently and, looking back, I believe it might have gotten short shrift.

Theatre of Pain had a couple of things working against it at the time. First, it came on the heels of two really good albums. The debut Too Fast for Love was glitzy, raunchy, raw and energetic. They followed that up with the more metallic and angry Shout at the Devil — which is for my money, the band’s best outing. Those are a couple of tough acts to follow.

Review: "The Decline of Western Civilization Collection"

A lot of years have passed since I’ve watched Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, but it was a staple of my teenage days. Thanks to the new Decline of Western Civilization Collection from Shout Factory!, I had a chance to relive at least a few hours of my misspent youth and look at it from a very different perspective.

The boxed set collects all three of Spheeris’ Decline of Western Civilization documentaries on Blu-ray, with an extra disc of outtakes and extended interviews. Coming into this viewing, I had seen the first film once or twice, Part II probably a dozen times or more, and I had never seen Part III, which was previously unreleased on video.

The first film focuses on the punk scene of Los Angeles in the late 1970s, with groups like Black Flag, X, and Fear. Penelope Spheeris documents a series of live performances from L.A. punk bands interspersed with interviews with the musicians and other punk fans. It’s the format that all three movies will follow. The focus of this first film is solidly on the music, the ideas behind it and the people who make it.

Still Spinning: Marilyn Manson, "Mechanical Animals"

Yes, I know Manson has a new record out, and I plan to get to it eventually. But this one, for some reason, has been popping up in my shuffle a lot lately, and I’ve come to appreciate again how good it was.

I remember seeing one of those clickbait articles online at some point last year discussing rock albums with only one good song, and Mechanical Animals was on that list. The writer’s contention was that “The Dope Show” was the only good song on this record. I remember at the time thinking the guy didn’t know what he was talking about, and after revisiting this record, I’m sure of it. If anything, “Dope Show” is one of the weakest songs.

You can say a lot of things about Marilyn Manson and the direction that his career has taken. Strings of mediocre albums have made him a caricature of himself, but those first three records cannot be denied. Each of those showed a developing and evolving persona for Manson. His debut, Portrait of an American Family, was solely about shock. With Antichrist Superstar, he honed the edge on that shock with rage and vitriol — producing, arguably, the last rock ‘n’ roll record to truly scare the shit out of parents. And that’s what made the transformation on Mechanical Animals so bizarre and wonderful.

Review: Slash, "World on Fire"

Slash’s 2012 record Apocalyptic Love blindsided me. I went in for a half-hearted listen, and it turned out to be one of my favorite records of the year. Of course, that means the expectations for the follow-up were much higher.

World on Fire races out of the gate with the same vibe and energy that Apocalyptic Love brought, but it doesn’t sustain that drive and fizzles a bit toward the end.

I appreciate Slash wanting to give fans more bang for the buck with 17 tracks on the album, but maybe it should have been pared down a little as many of the tracks that come late on the record kind of blend into each other.

Saturday Shuffle: DLR, Dio, Living Colour, Metallica, Soundgarden

A nice variety of hard rockers from classics to new stuff, from glam to grunge ...


David Lee Roth, “Tobacco Road.” From the album Eat ‘Em and Smile (1986). I always forget how much I love this cover until I hear it again. Steve Vai’s screaming guitar licks are perfect, and the bombastic, showtune tone of the song is right down Diamond Dave’s alley. It could very well be my favorite track from my favorite DLR solo album.

Saturday Shuffle: Hank Jr., Sturgill Simpson, Dash, Lillian, Ratt

We start this week's installment with a little redneck noise, take a trip through Louisiana, and end up in L.A. ...


Hank Jr., “Attitude Adjustment.” From the album Major Moves (1984). There was always this mix of hell-raising country rebel and goofy fun in Hank Jr.’s older work. This tune, about a guy who can’t learn his lesson, definitely fell in the latter category. It’s silly, but much more likeable than some of the humor songs that came later.

Saturday Shuffle: Testament, Crue, Danzig, Pantera, Anthrax

This week's shuffle is a pretty hard-hitting lineup ...


Testament, “Electric Crown.” From the album The Ritual (1992). Testament never got the press of the Big Four of thrash, but they can stand with the best of them. This album was a bit of a shock at the time with a couple of ballads and, at times, a more accessible direction. Over time, I’ve come to have a greater appreciation for it. This is just a great heavy metal tune, not as thrashing as perhaps what we expected from them, but with a great hook.

Something Borrowed: "Tobacco Road," David Lee Roth/The Nashville Teens/John D. Loudermilk

Every now and then my shuffle hits a song from David Lee Roth’s Eat ’Em and Smile album, and I remember how much I loved that record.

Sure, it’s silly, corny and completely over the top, but that’s precisely what I want from Diamond Dave. That flamboyant, and at times, yes, goofy personality is part and parcel of why I’ve always loved him and why, in my mind, Sammy Hagar was never a replacement for him despite really being the better singer. 

Roth also has a knack for surrounding himself with great musicians, and that was especially true of this record, which featured the likes of Steve Vai on guitar, Billy Sheehan on bass and Gregg Bissonette on drums.

At a time when Van Halen with Hagar was moving toward a more pop-oriented sound, Eat ’Em and Smile was a loud blast of wild-eyed rock ‘n’ roll that was essentially a middle finger to what Roth’s former band was doing. At least that’s how I saw it.

Review: Skid Row, "Rise of the Damnation Army: United World Rebellion, Chapter 2"

United World Rebellion, Chapter 2 marks the first Skid Row record that I’ve actually had some anticipation for since Subhuman Race.

That’s because Chapter 1, released last year, was such a great EP. It was the first to really recapture the feel of their classic material. Rise of the Damnation Army follows that well. I’ll admit that I don’t find the songs on this EP as immediately catchy as some of those on Chapter 1, but they’re solid rockers, and they’ve grown on me with each listen.

This one follows the same basic pattern as the first one. There are four hard-driving rock tunes and one ballad. This one adds a couple of cover tunes.

Saturday Shuffle: Sevendust, Megadeth, Firewind, Crue, Body Count

All heavy rock, all the time in this week's shuffle.


Sevendust, “Bitch.” From the album Sevendust (1997). The mid- to late-1990s were kind of a barren time in hard rock and metal for me, but in the waning years of the decade, a few albums came along that excited me. One of those was Sevendust’s debut. Though many copied the sound in the years that followed, it was something different at the time. I still can’t listen to a song like “Bitch” without cranking it up and screaming along.