There are very few things in this world I would willingly own up to enjoying even if it meant enduring endless grief — but hair metal is one of those things. That being said, I always involuntarily cringe when someone asks me to recommend a band in the genre, because, well, a lot of the names are total crap. I completely believe you have to judge a book by it’s cover — how else will you know if it’s any good? — and a band’s name has always served me as the first clue in their “cover,” so to speak.

Hair metal band names require a few certain things; references to animals or power or danger are a plus. If there can be allusions to sleaze and/or sexual prowess, maybe juxtaposed with virginal innocence, you’re headed in the right direction. And if they can do all that and throw in some umlauts and misspellings, then it’s gold. But there is such a thing as too much, and those monikers are the ones that just make you wonder exactly how coked out the band members were when they decided that it would be a good name for band.

And so, I give you the ten worst.

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What do Twisted Sister, Great White, Kix, Nelson, Danger Danger and Anthrax all have in common?

They’re all playing this year’s Rocklahoma Festival.

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If there’s one thing I love about shred… ok, fine, I love pretty much everything about shred. But a favorite pastime of mine is watching the facial expressions of one-man shred guitar virtuosos. Here, Rob Marcello of Danger Danger gives us some choice nuggets. Pain, bad-assery, confusion, surprise, indifference, anger, mouthing the notes, it’s all there. The best is the sequence from 1:15 to 1:25; the eye-roll followed by the horns, followed by a nod to the Asian dude mysteriously perched on the side of the stage. Priceless.

-VN