I’m way pumped that Steel Panther’s Balls Out album broke the Top 40 for first-week sales. That is awesome and it brings reality one teeny notch closer to my dream of a Ozzfest-sized mega-glam festival curated by SPanther and friends. In my fantasyworld, the bill would mix glory-era acts that still rip (Cinderella, Kix, Winger), now-dormant underdogs from that time (Junkyard, Dangerous Toys, Love/Hate), super-special events (Ozzy, Zakk, Geezer, and Vinny play all of No Rest For The Wicked; the returns of Badlands, Blue Murder, and Bonham) and most vitally a bunch of great, young glam bands like Crazy Lixx, The Last Vegas, and Crashdiet. This historic fest would hail the genre’s redwoods and fertilize its saplings for tomorrow’s party metal forests. Um yeah. And absolutely, positively no Eddie Trunk LOL.

But for now, the reality is that Sweden’s brightest glam light Crashdiet is in Los Angeles to kick off a run of West Coast dates (info here). Fuckin’ A right they are. The Little Glam Metal Band That Could looks ready to party in hair metal Graceland (above, with beardo), so expect some big-boner performances this week. Let’s consider it dress rehearsal for Steel Panther and MetalSucks’ MEGA-BONER FEST L.A. 2015. See you there!

-ADF

Get awesome Crashdiet tourdates here and records here. 

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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I’m probably the last guy around the MetalSucks Mansion that should be writing about pot.

Last time I smoked was over 20 years ago. I was riding around in a van with a couple of dudes from Deadhorse somewhere in Houston, Texas, having a great ol’ time. For some inexplicable reason though, I decided to give up the ganja then and there. There was no traumatic reason for doing so. I just knew I was done. Haven’t touched the stuff ever since.

So, instead of trying to opine about marijuana, I decided to turn to some of my metalhead friends in the business. I simply asked them to write down their thoughts on pot.

These are their stories:

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I’ve been lucky enough to know Jason McMaster for nearly a quarter century. For those of you not in the know, McMaster was the seminal progressive thrash frontman for the legendary Austin, Texas band Watchtower. While respected worldwide, Watchtower was, nonetheless, waaaaayyyyyy before its time. Think Dream Theater, Symphony X, Between the Buried and Me, Obscura, et al, and you might start to get an inkling of what these precursory tech-metal masters were all about.

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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.

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

As regular MetalSucks readers are no doubt aware, our own Vince Neilstein doesn’t really see what the big deal is about Kylesa, while our own Sammy O’Hagar thinks they’re the cat’s pajamas, and actually started his recent review of Kylesa’s Spiral Shadow with the phrase “Vince, you ignorant slut.” Looking through the comments section of the various pieces we’ve run on Kylesa, it seems readily apparent that you readers are divided on this issue as well. So this seemed like a good time to ask the rest of our writers:

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KYLESA?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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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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Don’t think I haven’t noticed how that rotten Paul Masvidal (armed with his lousy awesome columns about happiness) has raised the intellectual level of MetalSucks to at least high school. And I must protest. Yes, Masvidal is wonderful, but c’mon dude! We’re trying to bicker about Mustaine and boobs here, man.

It’s like his guileless insights, so eloquently stated, render sub-retards like me too self-conscious to, say, publish 6,800 words about the hand-hug from Ronnie James Dio a fortnight ago that has changed my life. And suddenly, after I complete a second extended harangue about Stephen Pearcy, my finger hovers over the button that reads SUBMIT FOR REVIEW ‘cuz I’m thinking, “Will Paul think this is bullshit? Wait a minute. This is bullshit!’ It’s like I have another editor. A silent, invisible editor by remote suggestion!

MASVIDAL!!!!!!!

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Whenever hair rock is ridiculed, discounted, and slighted by metal’s sandy vaginas/haircut jockeys, it’s conveniently forgotten that the reviled oh-faced crotchboys only represent the most visually memorable/thematically asinine segment of the genre. I can’t FUCKING STAND this blind slagging, especially from dudes who weren’t there/out of diapers at the time. I was only a pre-teen (who looted a relative’s purse to buy the first Badlands tape  – sorry, Aunt Rita), yet even I knew about the movement of bands opposed to the fluffy, boob-crazy antics of Warrant, Poison, et al. Most were bluesier and dark, and therefore aimed at listeners whose incentive to purchase music lay beyond the promise of nipple-packed videos. And though it’s a microscopic distinction, I point out that the harder-edged hair rock acts put emphasis not on partying so much as on getting fucking fucked up. Also: No synths, but the occasional organ. Tight leather and denim, but no spandex. You get it. Sleaze Rock, not Splits-Off-Drum Riser Rock.

So why did these non-pretty, non-eyeliner bands get signed to major labels? I guess it’s thanks to the danger of Appetite For Destruction, but one could imagine the logic of targeting horny dudes who buy shitloads of CDs, though none offered by guys with names like Kip Winger or Mark Slaughter. (Except Florentine – total bulge-petter.) Okay, so none really went beyond Gold sales, but each landed a (probably awful) major deal: Atlantic signed Badlands, Geffen had Junkyard. Warners and BulletBoys. Columbia added to their Dokken-tainted roster both Love/Hate and arguably the most lovable and least loved, Dangerous Toys.

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We haven’t done “Ask Anton OyVey” in awhile because Anton went to the old country to visit the shtetl. But before he left he once told me that he was on the hunt for an original, vintage Dangerous Toys shirt, and was having no luck locating one on eBay. Since I know Anton is tight with Shadows Fall’s manager, I told him he should give the dude a call – the Shads recorded a cover of “Teasin’ Pleasin’” a few years ago with Jason McMaster doing guest vocals, and if they could put Anton in touch with McMaster, it was hard for me to imagine that McMaster wouldn’t help out; I mean, what the fuck else does the guy have to do these days?

So apparently Dangerous Toys reunited for a 20th anniversary gig last week (see video footage below). I imagine a tour will follow shortly, at which point Anton will be able to get an original (if not vintage) Dangerous Toys shirt. I can’t wait to see the look of joy on his face when he does.

-AR