When ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy announced an unlikely collaboration with John Sykes (above left, the guy who wrote Whitesnake’s huge album), it was easy to be of two minds: On the one hand, Portnoy had reactivated the long-dormant Sykes, which is awesome; but, jeez, the Portnoy-Sykes affair also set a roadblock before any potential reunion of Blue Murder, Sykes’ awesomely awesome supergroup with drummer Carmine Appice and farty Tony Franklin. That’s a bummer.

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When I was very young, I remember having an intensely heated argument with my mom over who sang, “Wild World.” I insisted it was Mr. Big while she tried in vain to tell me it was a cover of a Cat Stevens song. Of course, she was right. But she should’ve known better than trying to reason with a smart-ass eight-year-old.

My mom has never spoken to Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, and probably never will due to his lifestyle and beliefs. I, however, did get to speak to Eric Martin lead singer of Mr. Big. So I still win.

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Read part one, regarding Mr. Richie Kotzen, here.

The story of Blues Saraceno’s tenure with Poison is a sad, sad story indeed.

Saraceno was a solo instrumentalist, kind of in the vain of guys like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, but really more like Kenny G. Saraceno released three albums on Guitar Recordings between 1989 and 1994: Never Look Back, Plaid, and Hairpick. Although his guitar tone was certainly unique and his magazine ads brandished a hyperbolic endorsement from Dweezil Zappa (I don’t remember it exactly, but it was something along the lines of, “This guy is so good I wanna punch him.”), I’m not entirely convinced that anyone really cared about who he was for any reason other than he kinda looked like Slash. (To your left is the largest photo of Saraceno in his Slash phase that I was able to find. Seriously.)

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As much as I love glam’s favorite apparently-playing-with-broken-fingers’d clown, C.C. DeVille, there is really no denying that Poison made their least annoying — if also least famous — music without the Brooklyn-born junkie.

To wit: 1993′s Native Tongue, the band’s first (of only two) albums written and recorded without DeVille. After expiring the man born as Bruce Johannesson for excessive drug use (a true feat amongst hair metal bands), Poison hired blues shredder Richie Kotzen — then just 23 years old, nearly a decade younger than his new bandmates. Unlike DeVille, Kotzen’s playing wasn’t obnoxious, and his guitar tone was warm, and fluid. He also happened to be a better singer than Bret Michaels, as evidenced by his vocal performance on songs like “Bring it Home” and “Seven Days Over You.” Native Tongue is no masterpiece — this is Poison we’re talking about, after all — but it does feel more like a real, honest to goodness hard rock album than the cotton candy confections for which the band is known. Hell, I even seem to recall Alex Sklonick endorsing it in an issue of Guitar World.

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It was over a year ago that we first got the news that Bret Michaels was writing his autobiography (and by “writing,” I mean dictating to some dude named Shane Stanley who had to do all the actual work); the book, Roses & Thorns (nice title, schmucky), will now finally a get a release on June 23, according to People.com.

Granted, this will not be a good book. The chances that it’s as decent as The Dirt are pretty slim; hell, the chances that it’s as good as Slash are pretty thin (and even Slash was only okay). But, there is a lot of room for comedy here, especially if Michaels takes himself too seriously which, chances are, he will.

Here are things I’m looking forward to reading about in this tome:

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