Something cool happened a couple weeks ago when I was shown into the Steel Panther dressing room for an interview (here). I was greeted warmly by the band, and while we readied/deactivated our devices and aligned our seating, my ear identified a classic BulletBoys deep cut (above) emitting from the vicinity of lead singer Michael Starr. I kinda automatically started to sing along — I know the jam like I know my ballz — and in a blink, a surprised Starr had engaged me in fan talk about BulletBoys, which led to assorted gab about their producer Ted Templeman (Van Halen), the iTunes unavailability of 66% of their major label releases, and their mercurial frontman Marq Torien. Fun!

And so, the interview got off to a bright start. Of course, by the end of our epic talk (read it), I’d dashed that baseline respect with dense observations, fumbled follow-ups, and a stoner’s slow listening comprehension. But the sadder thing is that Starr and I won’t be splitting an 8-ball at the just-announced and totally awesome and very unexpected BulletBoys reunion show on December 30 in West Hollywood. This is huge! For just about the first time since … well, at least since the internet, the BulletBoys won’t be Torien’s solo show, but the original band — most radly, hotrod guitarist Mick Sweda (King Kobra) and big ballz drummer Jimmy D’Anda. But Starr and Steel Panther play Vegas that night, so I’ll have to pour his half of our BulletBoys blow into Sweda’s vitamin water. See you there!

-ADF

Get yourself the three classic BulletBoys albums here and here and here. View Steel Panther dates here. 

Two weeks I wrote about how Ratt’s “Dance” is an excellent stripping song, and jested about trying it out myself. Jokes aside, I’ve always been fascinated by strip clubs and strippers and the whole shebang. It’s just so weird to me. The way it all functions and how lucrative it really is. When I was in college, we affectionately called the street right next to us “Stripper Alley” because of the cluster of clubs situated two steps from the dorms. You’d be hard-pressed to find worse houses of “burlesque” in the country.

Unfortunately, any fantasies or visions of naked grandeur were put to rest when I attended one innocent evening and an enthusiastic and obviously pregnant girl started raving about how much she loved my name. ‘Cause my real name was her stage name. Thanks, mom and dad.

It’s hard to deny that there’s some connection between metal, especially hair metal, and stripping. They go hand in hand like… syphilis and crazy. But I really don’t like the “stripping songs” that everyone always seems to go with. “Pour Some Sugar On Me”… like, really? There are so many underrated bands from that era and even more underrated songs. Some just had bad timing and some were plain ignored. But it got me thinking.

So here are the top underrated bands (note: “underrated” does not necessarily mean “unpopular”) of the 80s and early 90s, along with their corresponding strip songs. Now, these aren’t my choices, mind you — I just think they’d get the job done. I really hope no family members are reading this but if they are: HEY YOU GAVE ME A STRIPPER NAME, THIS WAS INEVITABLE.

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Don’t you love classic Van Halen? It’s amazing how that band’s music can just save your day. It’s been my go-to cure for post-American Idol misery; it’s Listerine for the ear, and a reminder of what true excellence sounds like. It’s Prozac for PISD (Post Idol Stress Disorder) and a reset button on any mood soured by three phony-ass judges slinging horseshit like stableboys late for a date. See, David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen can drown out even the echoes of judge Jennifer Lopez’s barbed whine as she pays lip service to “finding your voice” — yeah like she’s done with her wack new single about ballin’ up in da club, the dick-biting hack — and her more-than-occasional retorts to fellow judge Randy Jackson. (I don’t get that. She already had her turn, so like shut it, harpee!).

While we’re talking VH, can we all agree to end this silly farce already with the new bass player? I don’t give a fuck who he is; whether he’s Ed’s high school-aged son or fucking Jesus Christ, it is a side issue; Michael Anthony is Van Halen. His and Ed’s backing vocals absolutely jam on those records (like here), each of which is way better than what Idol judges can’t stop calling true creativity and great artistry. Those duo vox comprise, like, 35% of the band’s appeal, so the Van Halens should put that shit back together. We, the fans, declare amnesty; we want only what is right. Plus, if the young Van Halen is as brilliant as Ed thinks, he will earn his own chances. (Same goes for these “beautiful, perfect” Idol singers.) Van Halen just is not Wolfgang’s band. It’s Michael Anthony’s, the brothers’, and Dave’s. Period. Get Michael and pay him. And Ted Templeman too. That would counteract any and all effects of American Idol, cancerous shitpile of ear-AIDS.

Okay thanks for sticking around for paragraph #3, by which point I think we’ve established that thinking about/listening to the music of Van Halen is serving as a defense mechanism to prevent my re-living the mind-blowingly stupid, untrue nonsense spewed this week by Steven Tyler (the high preist of hooey), ‘Fer-‘Pez (SYFF), Randy Jackson (how much does it cost Idol to lease your honesty, dog?), guest fucktard Sheryl Crow (want a salt lick, girl?), and each blubbering, fam’ly-lovin’, Bin Laden-hatin’ individualist genius contestant who these days would happily agree to be shat on in exchange for the Idol crown. And because of the show’s near-total resistance to real, useful critique by “your Idol judges,” I’m counteracting this you’re-all-winners jive with a nudge upwards on my assholo-stat. So here comes your stabbiest Idol Remains shitcard ever! We measure in Danzigs ‘round here!

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As recently as Monday, I was aghast by dudes dissing Dangerous Toys as some Gn’R clone or another hair rock poof brigade. That makes no sense. Where Guns were punky, angry, and anthemic, Toys were bluesy, ribald, and wry. Where glam metal was about sky-high party times, Toys and their brethren in Badlands, Junkyard, Love/Hate, and BulletBoys were about fun and survival on the barfy edge of a born-to-lose life.

I mean, I get the confusion; after all, each of the above was attached to the scene on MTV, in magazines, and on opening slots on tour. A similar misperception might mire a real metal band like BTBAM or Behemoth if they surfaced sporting skinny jeans and complicated hair cuts. Okay that’d be hilarious, but anyway, all of this blabbing is in service of you, MetalSucks reader, and your unending quest to jam harder and more often than everyone. In this spirit, we present five ridiculous Dangerous Toys jamz for your face, each a diamond of slick melodies and Scott Dalhover’s beautifully-voiced chords. I defy you to not love each. Or hey, fine, you can cheat yourself of awesome jamz. Now, turn the shit up.

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Ah, Valentine’s Day. Reviled by most, enjoyed by the smug, and shrugged off by the belligerently ambivalent. But while most of us couldn’t care less about this specific day in February, it’s still an annoyance that comes around every year. Kind of like the common cold.

Now, most places will have shitloads of “quirky” recommendations you can do with your special someone, even if you’re of the metalhead persuasion. You can hold sweaty hands in the privacy of your parents’ basement, pour each other some classy Motorhead wine, and share a blood pudding in the dreamy light of those church candles. It’s all very nice and sweet to be… nice and sweet.

But you know what’s better? DOING IT. With a killer soundtrack. So on this very special day, I’ve made you all a romantically inappropriate mix tape.

Picking “mood” songs is a little too obvious for my taste. I mean yeah, Faith No More’s “Stripsearch” (Actually, that might be more of a stripping song than a sexing one, but ,hmm, “Evidence” maybe? Heh, “Be Aggressive” might work for some. Either way, Patton’s voice = nudity.) and NIN’s “Closer” are both appropriate (for very different reasons), but that’s no fun. Go forth and find that special someone willing to get, get naked to these select songs. There’s a little something for everyone. St. Valentine would’ve wanted it that way.

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Sweden’s glam metal renaissance is solely responsible for my throbbing, veiny ear-ection these days, but so far my fave jamz are from two sleek, uber-produced acts: Crazy Lixx and Crashdiet. Young me wouldn’t have looked twice at these synthy, post-Loverboy bad-boys-running-wild types, but goddammit it’s 2011 and I’ll take what I can get. Shit, the songs are there, so it’s cool. But secretly, what I’m eagerly awaiting is the raunchy counterparts to this scene’s Poison, Slaughter, Warrant, and Winger. (I think Goethenberg’s Hardcore Superstar splits the difference like Motley Crue.) Yes, I say let’s get some non-glossy, sleazy, bluesy, flashy, ribald, Swedish hair rock, cuz it’s impossible to overrate the best work of Badlands, Junkyard, Dangerous Toys, and BulletBoys. Oh wow stop the presses there go the fabulous BulletBoys right now! Big news!

BulletBoys’ self-titled debut album was a smash success during the heyday of heavy metal, going platinum and spawning the MTV and radio hits ”For The Love Of Money” and ”Smooth Up In Ya.” Now original members Marq Torien (vocals) and Lonnie Vencent (bass) have reunited to perform the LP from beginning to end for the first time in the group’s long and storied history.

Click to read more…

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Since it’s hair metal week here at MetalSucks, it seemed only appropriate to consider a glamtastic question. So we asked our writers:

WHICH HAIR METAL BAND FROM THE ’80s BEST STANDS THE TEST OF TIME IN 2010?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Since its inception by the typings of some clever music journalist in the 80s, the categorization “hair metal” (or “glam metal”) has been as amorphous and, consequently, as misused as “metalcore” has been in the aughties. And since it’s hair metal week here on MetalSucks, we thought we’d try to address this issue by pointing the spotlight on ten bands that are often, and incorrectly, deemed “hair metal.” And to that end…

It must’ve been an uphill battle for L.A.’s BulletBoys, the group that in 1988 was packaged as a Van Halen for disenchanted Hagar-haters. Living up to that billing is basically impossible, especially with a bluesy, Les Paul-playing, Slash-meets-Jeff Tyson guy in one of the bands and a technicolor fretboard wizard in the other.  Of course, one can understand why Van Halenism entered the discussion of how to market the BulletBoys in a crowded glam rock marketplace: In addition to sharing with Van Halen a producer, record label, and configuration, BulletBoys also resist lazy categorization. (Also, some endorse the uncomfortable comparison of BulletBoys singer Marq Torien to David Lee Roth, cuz Torien can do the steamwhistle-scream thing and also favors the flimsiest of double-entendres. But it ends there.) On the surface, each band puts on a carnival of crotch bulges and dirty imagery, but that’s just the flannel shirt or nappy beard or sleeve tattoo of the time. For the BulletBoys, a closer listen reveals high-level performance (if not consistently great songwriting) and a commercially icky element of sleaze. They may have looked the part, but their sound was too unfriendly, too minor key, and too darkly nasty to be glam.

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I get bummed out when a girl breaks up with me, but it’s kinda fun in a way, right? I just love that moment in the End of Relationship talk when the break-upper can no longer resist loudly listing my faults. Sure, most girls will attempt to execute the break-up humanely ,without telling me the reasons in explicit terms. But if needled, coerced, and (if all else fails) brow-beaten, any departing ladyfriend will be happy to smash through that veneer of kindness and read me the fucking riot act.

This is when I’m in my element, ’cause it’s hilarious to hear the exact same shit every time, like Groundhog Day or W.A.S.P. albums. The first complaint, accompanied by a chuckle, is usually a variation of “Dude, you’re quite stupid. Seriously.” The next is delivered with a bit of sensitivity, lest I lash out in denial: “Anso, you display persistent symptoms of [insert mental illness here]. Get help.” Then, in most cases, we move on to my more tangible failings: the pervasive vulgarity, the sociopath’s disregard for human life and rights of property, drugs, NBA mania, manipulation, hair rock fandom, paranoia, spitting, reckless driving, cheapness, violent sleepwalking, and everything else.

I’ve found that it makes a fun game to shout out the complaints as she’s saying them, followed by a “JINX! You owe me a Coke!” Sometimes, I can even harmonize if she and I agree in advance on a key. (Tip: Try Dm, the saddest of all keys.)

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For some reason I’ve thinking about Bulletboys this morning. I know “Smooth Up In Ya” is probably like the most obvious Bulletboys song to post… but there’s a reason for that, ’cause it’s the best. Gotta love the stock ’80s fake live performance video… I guess this is the ’80s equivalent of the modern-day metal warehouse video. So yeah, like, this video isn’t even that good, but you know you wanna click and let it play whilst you do other Internetting this morning, right?

-VN