30 Seconds To Carr

Jared Leto's inspirational look for his role in Dallas Buyers Club comes from none other than Eric Carr circa "Creatures of the Night."

Remembering

The Thrill Of It All

Jimmy Thrill & Michael Des Barres catching a quick tweet after Hunt Sales Memorial's SXSW 2013 Continental show.

JJAMZ - Hard Rock Las Vegas 8/6/12

L.A. hipsters JJAMZ featuring Z Berg formerly of The Like strutted through Vegas for their first neon desert debut on Monday.  The band was in excellent form, addressing the audience and getting them dancing to their Blondie-esque jams.  Z is like watching Debbie Harry in her prime during their Parallel Lines era, she commands your attention, while not overplaying her charm.
Hearing the band live will only make you want to pay closer attention to the record, as I found myself
doing afterward.  Highlights include "Suicide Pact" and "LAX."

Dee Snider: A Twisted Memoir

I love reading rock ‘n roll autobiographies.  But with the flood of them in the marketplace now, hearing about drugs and debauchery all over again and again almost seems like the same story, just a different storyteller.  Dee Snider's memoir Shut Up And Give Me The Mic steers clear of that.  As drinking & druggin’ wasn’t part of his lifestyle, you won't find here the tales of drug abuse that so many of his peers repeatedly write about.  In fact, in the very opening it's pretty apparent that he takes a swipe assumingly at a particular Motley member by asking if the reader has ever known a junkie, questioning how they kept a journal and going on to say "real heroin addicts can't hold their own dicks, forget about a pen or pencil."

It’s the story of a struggle, sticking to what you do best, not giving up, realising your dream, making it big, and losing it all, and then reinventing yourself.  

Dee has no problem telling you how big his ego inflated, which resulted in driving a wedge between him and his Twisted Sister band mates.  As a larger than life character and leader of the pack, its not hard to see why only the spotlight shone on Dee.  Who else in the band could generate that attention, Eddie Ojeda?  I think not.  Or as Dee puts it best when he says “not one fan gives a shit about the other eleven members...and out of the five that count, only one is being paid to write about his life, and it ain’t Jay Jay.”  Haha, well said Dee. Check fucking mate.

You wanna know about the corruption of the music business in ways you only imagine?  Dee justifyably goes into great detail about this, how the presidents at the major labels pratically hated Metal music, and quickly turn two-faced when Twisted actually made them money of course, but still would pull the plug on proper promotion and support.

Not many artists would have the balls to call these people out on their bullshit.  Dee throws daggers at them right between the eyes.

His story is inspirational when hearing about the one thing that was constant through his up’s and down’s, that being the love for his wife and family.  You get the sense that it truly is the most important factor  that got him through it all.  With a marriage to Suzette for 35 years+ and 3 very grounded sons and a daughter with their own strong talents, that may be the most rewarding acheivement in his life ... I somehow think he’d agree.

GB31 (Ryan Roxie interview)

As the Alice Cooper summer tour kicks off today, it’s only fitting we have superstar guitar Ryan Roxie as our guest for a cool chat.He joins the Coop camp again and tells us what it was like for him when he did take a break a few years ago to focus more on family life.  We’ll also hear him talk about his old days in Candy, on through to Dad’s Porno Mag, and may surprise you with one of the many bands he was once asked to join but ultimately skipped out on the audition.All this and of course we get caught up on the debut record that just came out from his other band called Casablanca.  Which if you haven’t heard yet, go out and check it out, listeners of this podcast will not be disapointed.  We bust him on the Blue Oyster Cult influence on the song “Rich Girl,” in which he chuckles “Its one of those things when you do that chord progression with the A minor down to F, G, it just so happens that they have the trademark on that.  But we would’ve really gone over the top if we put some cowbell on it.”

Download this interview on the free podcast here

GLAMBONE!

Blackboard Jungle/Swignin' Thing reunion 2012

It was a time machine back to the Sunset Strip glory days on Saturday night, June 2nd, 2012 when Blackboard Jungle & Swingin’ Thing reclaimed their throne as kings of Hollywood.  Most of the fun was on the streets, just like when the bands would flyer from Gazzarri’s to the Whiskey, only this time it was hugs and hello’s being traded, sometimes odd seeing how everyone is older now and have changed.
You could over hear guys from Tryx reintroducing themselves to someone saying “do you remember Tryx, that was us, we were in that band.”  Others were more recognisable, like Marc Torien, and Stevie Rachelle and Jamie St. James.  Some had to choose where they wanted to rock, as Michael Monroe was doing his show at the Whiskey to a sold out crowd with a line around the que.  Jimmy Thrill was there
hanging with his ol’ mate Taime.  Kit Ashley from Big Bang Babies also paid respect to the Hanoi god. 
Back to Blackboard, the guys were dirty and in your face from the get go.  Holding the crowd’s attention from start til the end with their high energy punky cover of Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round.”
DJ Jamie Scrap supplied the jams in between sets and did a fine job hosting the nights event.
Swingin’ Thing followed, with their hip hop intro tape just like the old days, then straight into “Do You Feel Alright?”  It was evident that the band took this gig seriously.  They were tight and full of stage presense just like how we remembered them.  The make-up was gone, but the style, attitude, and personality carried on.