MetalSucks

Our friend Allyson at Bring Back Glam has been reporting from Rocklahoma all week. She’s obviously a big fan of the event, given that a) she runs a site all about glam and b) she wrote the text for the Rocklahoma coffee table book that came out last year.

But she’s been making (perfectly valid) complaints about this year’s fest for the past ten months, taking issue in particular with this year’s line-up. And as it turns out, she was totally correct: attendance at this summer’s edition of the event was apparently abysmal.

Check out this photo Allyson took of the crowd. This was at dusk; if it was Ozzfest, everyone who skipped the second stage would be starting to pile in right about this time. No such luck for Great White, even though there was absolutely no chance of being burned alive at the outdoor venue:

Click to read more…

Rocklahoma, the three FIVE day hair metal festival in Pryor, Oklahoma, kicks off its second annual event tomorrow. Hard to believe it’s been a year since last year’s massively successful event, but it has, and this year’s lineup is even more extensive than the last.

Pretty much every hair band ever — both those still on the touring circuit and a bunch of recent reunions — are playing. This year’s headliners are Queensryche, Warrant, Triumph, Bret Michaels and Ratt. Even bands that were peripheral but related to the ’80s hair scene have joined in the party, such as Extreme, Living Colour, Jackyl and Armored Saint. There are also two sidestages with a smattering of lower-level national and regional bands, though the Rocklahoma website makes this info hard to find.

Apparrently 100,000 people attended last year’s event; this seems crazy to me, but I guess it speaks to this music’s longevity. New MetalSucks columnist Michael S. Robinson plans to write a piece about this topic later in the week.

Any of our readers going to Rocklahoma? I know at least one person who is SUPER psyched!

-VN

The headline “JACKYL Frontman Returns With Second Solo Outing” on Blabbermouth last night totally startled me; I had no idea that Jesse James Dupree had a first solo album – or, for that matter, that Jackyl were even still around in any capacity. And I don’t really have much to say about the revelation that Dupree feels some need to make records without Jackyl; I mean, a) I’m not sure any of you give a shit and b) I myself don’t really give a shit. ‘Cause at the end of the day, you have to wonder why Dupree even bothers making solo albums – does he feel upstaged sometimes by the other members of Jackyl? Are there musical experiments he feels he can’t try within the oubliette of that band? Who knows?

ANYWAY, thinking about Dupree did get me thinking about those chainsaw solos that pretty much overshadowed every other aspect of his band (”Which ones are Jackyl again?” “The ones with the singer who does the chainsaw solo.” “Oh yeah!”). I always assumed that these mini-masterpieces of the aural equivalent of found art were just studio tricks – and even though Dupree apparently does try to recreate them live (at least according to some “fans” on the net), I can’t find any video of said recreation.

I did, however, find the below video of Dupree sawing a stool in half at last year’s Rocklahoma. Truth be told, the clip is only half as amusing as the description posted with it:

“Anyone who knows Jackyl knows that Jesse James Dupree always ends to the show with the ‘Lumberjack Song’ where he actually PLAYS the chainsaw as an instrument. Well, he also always chainsaws a bench and throws it. This is a video of that.”

Gentlemen, start yer engines…

-AR

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