No New York Giants or GB Packers, no game worth watching.

Emily - no one has taken more freedom then the Dems.  Nor, looted the treasury as they have.  We are in serious debt. 

It was actually the Reagan Administration who  oversaw the country plunge into debt after being the world's largest creditor.

GW Bush didn't really do much good on that front either.

The Ventures should be on a list like this.

I agree, but I'm biased - I'm from the Northwest.

To say nothing of The Sonics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGpActuZbGc

The originators of grunge!

Interesting. I read elsewhere that it's Nirvana (who I do not tolerate).

The Sonics were 60s. So they had 3 decades on Nirvana (a very overrated band IMO).

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Nirvana is overrated.  It's been 25 years, and I still don't understand the attraction.  And, no offense to any of their fans, but IMO, I highly doubt they would be placed so highly on so many lists of rock bands had Kurt Cobain had not died when they and grunge were at their peak. 

The Leadbelly and Vaselines covers are pretty much the only songs by them that I can stand to listen to.

I almost forgot about our old friend thomasogg. The precursor to ghost/newguy/summerinparadise.flac and Sheri/Denni.

What about Booker T and the MGs? Coasters? ? and the Mysterians? The Four Seasons? Replacements?  Sonic Youth? Pixies? Pavement? Bikini Kill? Sly and the Family Stone? Blondie? Talking Heads? Phish? Neutral Milk Hotel?

Beautiful analysis, Cyncie.

I love Brian's 15BO/Love You voice. The gruffer the better.

Thank you! DLing now. Looking forward to reading all 3 parts.

Northern NY was spared, surprisingly.

I knew I shouldn't have waoted... Burlington is sold out, goddammit! 
A trip to Boston may be in order.

Until the Academy starts nominating more comedies for Best Picture I'm going to continue not giving a sh*t.

Wow! I'm pleasantly surprised. I was expecting Fall Out Boy-lite, sounds more like the Cherry Poppin' Daddies with a some Bosstones in the chorus.

Not the first punk song necessarily, but the first something....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r998weOUiM&list=PL_Gg17_p81w3B8TRcuExmOJp3ptlfD6WG&index=3

I wonder if the Human League consciously lifted that bass line for Keep Feeling Fascination.

No love for "Dance Magic Dance" from Labyrinth? Was my first exposure to Bowie as an 8 year old. I thought the glittery mullet wig was his actual hair.

You remind me of the babe. With the power of the voodoo. Who do? You do.

If Duff sticks around Tommy Stinson is going to need a new gig.

I had some recollection of writing about one of my absolute cornerstone hard rock albums and bands, and after a quick search, I found that I'd posted it early last year in Bubbly Waves's 1980s Appreciation Thread: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,19590.msg495172.html. But it fits here, so below is a pasted repost of my Jan. 22, 2015, Twisted Sister writing.
...................


Nobody here, or anywhere else for that matter, needs me to list out albums from the '80s that hit everyone's best of all time. We all have access to those lists. Maybe that is what Bubbly wants--that or at least recommendations. I'm not sure I want to give a recommendation. Instead I reminisced a little bit about that decade and how I thought about music then. Of what I loved at the time, barely of any of it remains in high esteem (by me, I mean). Graceland and Prince's stuff are probably the only things that were beloved then and now. Other things, like Waits's stuff, I came to well after the fact.

But f*** all that. Here's something else. Here's Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry.
...............
In 1980s rural Minnesota, the almost literal witch hunt for satanism in rock music felt like an obsession. For those of us listening to that purportedly satanic rock music, it was terrifying.

A prepubescent, newly fascinated connoisseur of hard rock and metal struggled in a very conservative Christian household. Songs with curse words were to be played quietly--contrary to every instinct--or through headphones. Album covers with scantily clad women had to be kept out of sight. Most of all, anything looking or sounding satanic had to be disavowed entirely. "I listen to hard rock, mom," the kid would say, "but I don't like that satanic stuff."

The problem in the American influenced by Tipper Gore, the Peters Brothers, and television journalists ready to jump on the dream story of teenage suicides inspired by satanic cults--and yes, they seemed insistent these things existed--was that "satanic" meant damn near everything more risqué than Stryper or Petra. Long hair, torn or tight clothes, men in makeup, obviously any religious imagery whatsoever, anything more reasonably categorized as fantasy (e.g., elves, wizards and the like), any sentiment questioning the merits of a Reagan-era American dream: satanic. Or at least under heavy suspicion.

When Pee-Wee's Big Adventure featured a scene that included Twisted Sister filming a video for their "Burn in Hell," I was placed in a very awkward position. Number one, even saying hell outside of the context of church was an issue in my home. One could just as well have said fucking c***. But number two, a song whose refrain threatened that you'd burn in hell, well, that was pure satanism. Simple as that. My mom didn't have to hear anything else. Not "welcome to the abandoned land. Come on in, child, take my hand. Here, there's no work or play. Only one bill to pay. There's just five words to say as you go down, down down."

Just "you're gonna burn in hell," sung by these ugly men garishly dolled up in absurd makeup and feathered or fringed costumes.

I was so f***ed.

See, by this time--1985--I knew Stay Hungry, the 1984 album on which "Burn in Hell" appeared. Like, really well. I owned the cassette several times, wearing it out from overuse. I considered it the greatest album of all time, or at least in a tight competition with Van Halen's 1984. I was 11 years old.

In the same way that KISS would affect me around the same time or soon after, Twisted Sister had the perfect formula for an adolescent boy. These were huge hooks being punched by the cornered, oppressed underdog. And what 11-year-old boy isn't a cornered, oppressed underdog?

"We've got the right to choose it. There ain't no way we'll lose it. This is our life, this is our song … you don't know us, you don't belong. We're not gonna take it. … Oh, you're so condescending. Your goal is never-ending. We don't want nothin'--not a thing--from you."

The guitar solos are familiar to me even today. Right now--right now!--I am listening to "We're Not Gonna Take It" and miming the whammy bar dives, so entirely ingrained into my psyche did they become 30 years ago. The riffs were among the first I ever learned, and they're rock solid examples of hard rock music.

Twisted Sister were not what we've long-since come to know and dismiss as hair metal. This wasn't a band conceived of by the marketing team of a major label, assembled from girlish boys whose parts could be recorded by Rod Morgenstein, Greg Bissonette, Billy Sheenan, Steve Luthaker as long as the "band" wore their tight leather pants with the banana or rolled-up sock inserted just so. Twisted Sister had by this time been working the clubs of New York for 10 years and had released a couple of albums. They weren't apart from the now-hilarious fashions of the day, but they weren't so much in it, either. More gruesome than girly, more monster than manicured.

"Stay Hungry," the leadoff and title track, rocks. Like, really rocks. A.J. Pero and Mark Mendoza drive it hard on drums and bass, respectively, the guitars really just pounding out sustained power chords atop the rushing current of rhythm … at least until the dual-guitar solo. It, and the whole album that follows, is big. Everyone knows the cartoonish mid-tempo anthems, "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock." Other songs sped past more akin to "Stay Hungry." There were gothic comics and, yes, a power ballad.

Nobody needs a track-by-track, but I mention these songs excitedly because I haven't heard them in more than 20 years. Stay Hungry went from the greatest album of all time to one of those albums I used to like in a heartbeat, not so much because of Nirvana--I hated Nirvana--but because when contemporary music chased its northwestern nirvana, I dug into the past and obsessed on the guitar gods of the '60s and '70s, then jazz, then whatever else.

But listening again now, this is a great album. Always was, always will be. I probably won't listen to it again for many more years, if ever, because it has nothing to do with me now. The adolescent anger and frustration wore themselves out a long time ago; I'm not backed into a corner and have nobody and nothing to rebel against.

But for what it is, for who needs it, this is a masterpiece.

Stay Hungry is an almost perfect hard rock album.  It's a crime that Twisted Sister is thought of as one or two hit wonders. 

Three hit wonder. Everyone seems to conveniently forget Leader of the Pack.

Hey all,

My friend Mandy and I have launched a new musical project together, a jangly-guitars-and-Farifsa-organ indie pop thing called Pentacon Six.  We've been doing a few little home-recorded singles, and will be putting out a longer EP in the new year.  Our first three songs - "Summer's Over," "Nobody Walks," and an original holiday tune called "Christmas Is Better With You" - are online.

Everything's up on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and all the other usual places.  Our Bandcamp is http://pentaconsix.bandcamp.com

Looking forward to sharing more with y'all in the future.

Nice! Very C-86 sounding.

Are we all forgetting about Animal House?

The only thing I can see happening that allows for more consistent production of creative and experimental movies is the same thing that happened the last time: the collapse of the studios.

Or else another surprise success from a young independent hotshot, like with Bonnie and Clyde or Pulp Fiction.

Coincidentally, the sinking of the studios--at least one of them--may not be far off. Lucas and Spielberg have alluded to this. And it explains why 2 out of every 3 movies these days, or so it seems, is a safe marketable reboot or sequel of an established property. Most studios cant afford a big flop so theyre afraid to take risks. Ironically, if they followed my advice and just lay off the 250 million dollar shlock-fests with a 200 million dollar ad campaign they wouldnt need every picture to be a hit to stay afloat.

The real medium to follow these days is TV, not film. And again, this isnt me talking out of my ass. People in show business have been saying as much for a few years now. If you want to tell a great story with relative creative control and plenty of time to flesh out the plot and develop good characters--put it on TV, especially Netflix, HBO and AMC. Thats where the foreseeable future of motion pictures are. Ive enjoyed Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Community and others far more than ANY movie Ive seen in theaters the past 10~15 years, personally. The only films Ive really enjoyed in that time span, and enough to buy on DVD/bluray and watch again and again, are Quentin Tarantino and Chris Nolan's movies, along with the original Pirates of the Caribbean. I honestly cant think of anything else, tho admittedly there may be one or two others that arent coming to mind right now.

What about Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, et. al.?

I pretty much thought the consensus was Vega-tables, Wind Chimes, Mrs. O'Leary, I Wanna Be Around, Love to Say Da Da.

Boston - Walk On. 

So much anticipation since it had been 8 years since Third Stage.  At this point in the game, all of the songs sounded the same.  The novelty of a wall of guitars processed through the Rockman had worn off, and they dumped Brad Delp for a new singer.

"Livin' for You" is the only song I've heard from that album, and it's total over the top early 90s AC/MOR/lite rock/power ballad dreck. The worst songs on the mediocre follow up "Corporate America" (Brad Delp had returned to Boston, but was criminally underutilized and almost seemed to play second banana to Walk On-era singer Fran Cosmo.) were still more tolerable than that musical abomination.

My all time favorite Weiland vocals...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18g8McJFQbk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwS_Eu-HLZo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEkpZnc4dFc

I was never big into the early grungy stuff, but I think I'm going to check out some of STP's later stuff now thanks to hearing those tracks.


48 is way too young to go.

[AND WE SHALL CONTROL THE BOARD !!!!]

There are wrongs to be righted, situations to be addressed. Shortly you shall receive tons and tons of PMs outlining my agenda. Follow them to the letter... AND WE SHALL CONTROL THE BOARD !!!!

Dafuq? 

I'd like to hear Pet Sounds done in Sweet Insanity style!!! 

Looks like an off day after traveling from New York to California.  9/29/95.  According to Bellagio.

HEY! WHO LET THE MILLENNIAL IN HERE? Kidding of course. I now don't feel like the baby of the board.

The band had just released "Gotcha Back/Male Ego" the week before my birth.

Another older Millennial here... My DOB (9/20/1985) isn't listed, but two days later the Boys played the 1985 Farm Aid.

- Multi-part, feature documentary on the group. Numerous hours long. Then, work extant promo films into that documentary, with more clips included as bonus features.

Like a super extended Endless Harmony?