I’m going to be covering more of my rarities in 2013. Here’s a neat little item that I picked up back in 1996 for the princely sum of $4. A guy called me up and said he was bringing in some discs including a Sex Pistols 3″ single. I’d never owned a 3″ single before, so I knew right away that I would want it for myself. He came in right at the end of my shift and we did the deal.
This 3″ single contains 3 tracks, all of them available on Pistols albums:
“God Save the Queen” (from Never Mind the Bollocks)
“Did You No Wrong” (from Flogging a Dead Horse, which collected this B-side)
“Don’t Give Me No Lip Child” (from some versions of The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle)
I only own one Pistols album, a 2 CD edition of Never Mind the Bollocks, including a bonus disc called Spunk and Spedding Demos. That one album is more than enough Pistols for me (although I do still want to pick up Filthy Lucre Live) and I really never liked the bonus disc too much. The album itself is the meat and potatoes.
Having said that, this single was a great way for me to pick up two more Pistols songs that I liked, without having to get more albums that would probably sit collecting dust on my shelves. And I do like these two tunes. “Did You Know Wrong” is a particular favourite, “Don’t Give Me No Lip” sounds like it was probably recorded live in the studio. It’s muddy and you can barely hear Rotten. You certainly can’t really make out the words! You can hear tape drop out at 1:47, don’t know if that’s on the album or not.
I’m going to try and cover more rarities from my collection in 2013. Here’s a very rare one indeed! First, the story of how I acquired it, then the review.
RECORD STORE TALES Part 160: Harem Scarem Acoustic Sessions
Everybody at the store knew I was a big Harem Scarem fan. A bunch of Japanese imports found their way into the store, and I bought them all. I also played their music frequently in-store, as it was melodic and radio-friendly. Their stuff ranged from early Jovi-goodness to mid-period progressive pop rock sounds, to later pop punk. I liked pretty much everything they did, until they changed their name to Rubber and drifted too far into the pop direction for my tastes.
At one point in the early 2000’s, we had a large warehouse in the back of one of our stores. The idea was, we’d warehouse stock for opening future stores. There was a warehouse manager, and he would inventory everything in there. We’d send him anything decent that we had too many copies of. He’d also have stock from liquidations, or estate sales.
A lot of the time, the stuff from liquidations would include promo CD singles. I have dozens of promo discs from him, that we couldn’t sell in store. Usually these promo discs would have edit versions of album tracks. I have stuff from him including promos from Metallica, David Lee Roth, Motley Crue, and King’s X. Some of them, like the King’s X (which we’ll talk about in the future), had rare non-album tracks too.
He also ran our eBay store, and eBay have strict rules about selling promo discs. So basically, anything that was obviously promo sat in boxes gathering dust in our warehouse. On occasion, when it was a band like Harem Scarem that he knew I liked, he’d let me have it. Otherwise it would have sat there for years, probably just to be thrown in the garbage at some point.
One of the discs that he sent my way was a Harem Scarem EP called Acoustic Sessions. Subtitltled Limited Edition, there were only 500 copies made (see footnote for confirmation of this number.)
Most commercial retail releases have barcodes, and this one does not, indicating it probably was not a commercial release. Yet it also doesn’t say, “Not For Sale: Property of Warner Music Canada Ltd.” like a promo should, so who knows? It doesn’t even have a year printed on the case, only the CD itself (1991). The spine of the CD doesn’t even have a serial number. Maybe it was given to fanclub members or contest winners?
Either way: Never seen it before, never seen it since. I don’t truthfully know how it ended up in our possession, whether it was a liquidation, or just something we purchased off a regular customer somewhere. The details are now lost to the sands of time, but either way it ended up in our warehouse and consequently my collection. I also don’t recall what I paid for the disc. Probably $3. That would have been typical, with my staff discount, for something like this. With hindsight, we probably could have sold it for much more than that, but the folks in charge always underestimated the selling power of bands like Harem Scarem.
If it’s true that there’s only 500 copies out there, then I’m thrilled.
Oh, who am I kidding? It’s a rarity no matter what! I’m still thrilled!
HAREM SCAREM – Acoustic Sessions Limited Edition (1991 Warner Music)
The EP starts with a 3:16 edit version of their single “Something To Say”, the fifth single from Harem Scarem’s self-titled debut album. It’s a ballad, pleasant enough, acoustic. It has a really nice acoustic guitar solo courtesy of virtuoso player Pete Lesperance. Otherwise I’ve never considered it a standout. If you like “To Be With You” by Mr. Big or “More Than Words” by Extreme, this is another ballad for your collection. This same version was later released on another EP called Live & Acoustic.
Onto the exclusive acoustic tracks. These three songs were only available here, or the 1994 Japanese import version of the debut album. Good luck finding that today at a decent price!
The debut single “Slowly Slipping Away” (co-written by songsmith Marc Ribler) is rendered in acoustic form first. These acoustic sessions were recorded at Cabin Fever studios and self-produced by Lesperance and singer Harry Hess. As great a song as “Slowly Slipping Away” surely is, I think it does miss something in its acoustic form. That really nice electric guitar hook that precedes the verses, I miss it! I also miss that throbbing bassline. Yet the band’s incredible harmony vocals are just as powerful as ever.
“How Long” is next, a great album track in acoustic form. The chorus is just as big and dramatic as the album version, thanks to the band’s trademark harmonies. In my opinion, the band’s strength here was the original drummer, Darren Smith. What a voice. (The quartet were rounded out by original bassist Mike Gionet who stayed for three studio albums and a couple live releases.)
“Hard To Love” was not a single, but it works really well acoustically and maybe should have been a single after all. Once again the harmonies soar, with Smith in particularly standing out. I’ve always felt that the band really lost something when he left in the early 2000’s. This is a great track, radio ready and full of hooks.
The fifth and final track is just the regular album version of “Something To Say”, at 4:41, with the full (intricate) acoustic intro.
For a five song EP, this one is a winner. Just wish I knew more about its history!
4/5 stars
ADDED NOTE: Reader Danny has emailed the haremscarem.net site, and heard back from somebody regarding there being only 500 copies of this CD:
yes it’s true. Very rare now, because it was released in this very limited quantity. Take care, Dan
CINDERELLA – Long Cold Winter (1988 Polygram Records)
I remember how excited I was upon hearing the first single, “Gypsy Road”, in the summer of ’88. Cinderella had managed a bluesier, more “authentic” hard rock sound for their critical second LP. Night Songs was OK, but Long Cold Winter was better in every way. The cheese factor had been replaced by pedal steel guitars, pianos, and Hammond B3 organs.
Drummer Fred Coury was touring with Guns N’ Roses (Steven Adler had broken his hand punching a wall) during much of the making of Long Cold Winter. It’s not clear how much of Long Cold Winter he played on, as the band pulled in two incredible session drummers for the project: Denny Carmassi (of Heart and later Coverdale – Page), and the late great Cozy Powell!
From the bluesy opening of “Bad Seamstress Blues”, it was clear that the AC/DC clone Cinderella that featured Bon Jovi cameos in its videos had evolved. Two incredible, throat wrenching rockers follow this: “Fallin’ Apart at the Seams” and “Gypsy Road”. Both songs easily stand up today as forgotten classics of the “hair metal” era. But truthfully, Cinderella only made one “hair metal” album. Long Cold Winter doesn’t really fit in with that scene, and their next album Heartbreak Station would leave it behind completely.
“Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)”, the epic power ballad, is more Aerosmith than Poison, and still features a great guitar solo straight out of the Iommi blues notebook. I’m not too keen on “The Last Mile”, a straightforward rocker, but it was still chosen as a single from this album. Much better is the side-closing “Second Wind”, amped up and stuttering.
Side two opened with Cinderella’s “serious” blues, the title track. It’s a bit too contrived for me, it has a vibe of, “Hey, let’s write our ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’!”. Lots of repeated “baby baby baby” Plant-isms. At the time it was released, this song was seen as a serious departure for the band, but in hindsight it’s really just a first step into a larger world. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the rare occasions that Black Sabbath has attempted a slow blues (I’m thinking “Feels Good To Me”, also featuring Cozy Powell) mixed with Zeppelin.
“If You Don’t Like It” is another standard rocker, nothing special, but this is followed by no less than three great songs in a row. First is the single “Coming Home”, not really a ballad, but a hybrid. This was one of the most immediate songs that I fell for when I picked up the album. You can tell that Cinderella wrote a lot of this album on the road, by the lyrics. “Coming Home” is one such road song.
“Fire and Ice” is heavy, sort of a revisited “Second Wind”, another standout! Then the album closes with the slide-laden “Take Me Back”, which strikes me as another road song. Just as good as “Coming Home”, but heavier, it was a great album closer. Personally if this album had spawned a fifth single, “Take Me Back” would have been my pick, hands down. And I think this album could have justified five singles.
The band evolved further with album #3 (which featured strings by John Paul Jones!), but I think Long Cold Winter strikes the perfect balance between screeching rock and bitter blues. From the classy album cover on down to the perfect production, I don’t think they’ve ever made a better album.
One thing that you need to be aware of: If you’re a Maiden die-hard, From Fear To Eternity was not designed for you. This, much like Somewhere Back In Time, is for new fans only. (Although a bone was thrown to us die-hards, more on that later.)
This is a decent compilation. The reason I bought it was to “complete the collection”, and of course the great cover art (by Melvyn Grant once again). The cover pays homage to Maiden album and single covers of the past 20 years. The only one I didn’t see represented in some way was The X Factor, but see if you can spot a clue.
This collection is a joy to listen to from start to finish. I won’t go over the details with a fine-toothed comb, but there are plenty of fan favourites here: “Passchendale”, “Benjamin Breeg”, “The Clansman”…and these are not short songs, folks! Of course there were the hits, all big in Europe if not here in North America: “Bring Your Daughter”, “Wicker Man”, “Different World”, “Man On The Edge”, “Afraid To Shoot Strangers”, “Tailgunner”. There are also a slew of personal favourites such as “Be Quick or Be Dead”, “For The Greater Good of God”, and “Where The Wild Wind Blows”. Really it is very hard to find fault with this collection, or the running order.
In fact my only beef is the lack of inclusion of the ballad “Wasting Love” which I still have a soft spot for. Also I was surprised that “From Here To Eternity” is not on here, not a personal favourite song, but it did lend its title to this album!
Finally, one touch that I enjoyed was substituting the Blaze Bayley era songs for live versions with Bruce singing. After all, Maiden are out there touring now, and new fans don’t need to be confused by a different singer. This means that you’ll get the live version of “Sign of The Cross” from the Rock In Rio album. But what’s really cool is that the live “Man On The Edge” was only released as a B-side to “The Wicker Man” single, so this is its first album release. A little extra bonus for the Maiden die-hard who may have missed that single a decade or so ago.
I strongly recommend this collection to new Maiden fans, as there is really not a bad song in the bunch, and it’s a great listen from front to back. For die-hards, you already have (most of) these songs, so if you feel like picking it up for the cover art like I did, it’s still an enjoyable listen.
One of the most popular stories of 2012 was the tale of“Aerodouche Dandy”. So, in light of that, how about a sequel?
RECORD STORE TALES Part 159: Dandydouche 2 – Dandy Deuce!
We had several CD players in our store that allowed our customers to listen to anything they wanted, before buying. It was a pretty cool innovation by the chain owner. Other stores had “listening posts” where you could listen to one of a select few new releases, but at the time nobody else would let you listen to anything you wanted in the store. As cool and helpeful as that sounds, it was also an invitation for abuse.
Many times, I’d put up to 50 discs on for somebody who purchased nothing, but we couldn’t cut them off. We couldn’t say no. You could spend over an hour serving a customer, retrieving discs and filing them when they were done, all for naught.
Record store guys have a sixth sense though. We’d pick up the signals. For example, when Kid Rock had a huge hit with “Picture” (a duet with Sheryl Crow), a lot of older people used to come in and listen to it, to see if they would like the rest of the Kid Rock CD. Predictably they didn’t, and it wasn’t out on Sheryl’s album yet. I knew they weren’t going to buy the Kid Rock CD, and most didn’t. That’s one example.
One thing Douchebag Dandy would do is purposely put the wrong CD in the player. I know of one instance where he substituted a lady’s chosen disc with Iron Bitchface. Iron Bitchface was a local “outsider music” project that Dandy hung out with. He had been known to jump onstage with them, and was always seen in public as a lookalike pairing with their singer, K-Rot.
Iron Bitchface was, by their own admission, people who could not play music. They created a lot of noise and recorded it, and split it up into tracks. I grabbed a T-shirt because I liked their logo, but it was completely unlistenable. In fact our store-play copy had a massive skip in it that nobody even noticed. That’s how bad it was.
Anyway, this time Dandy was working, a lady was in listening to every Harry Connick Jr. album we had, and not buying anything. After a dozen or so listens, Dandy swapped out her last CD for Iron Bitchface. She immediately took off her headphones. “I think the CD player is broken,” I’m told she said.
Dandy sauntered over to check. “Nope. It’s working fine.”
“Really? Whatever I’m hearing isn’t music!”
Dandy opened up the player. “Nope. This is the disc you picked out.”
“Well you can take it off, that’s nothing but garbage! Who could listen to that?” she said.
Dandy found this tremendously funny, and laughed and boasted about it after. Even though she wasn’t buying anything, that’s still just a douchebag move! Apropos for a Douchebag Dandy!
Def Leppard have released the second in their series of iTunes re-recordings. The first, a double single of “Pour Some Sugar”/”Rock of Ages”, was a pretty straight “forgery” (to use Joe Elliot’s phrase). The second, entitled “Acoustic Medley 2012” is exactly what it sounds like it would be. Apparently, Leppard were playing this medley live, and decided to commit a studio version to tape.
The songs in the medley are: “Where Does Love Go When It Dies”, “Now”, “When Love and Hate Collide”, “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad”, and “Two Steps Behind”. Total time: 7:32. The first two songs in the medley, I give Def Lep full points for. I’ve always been a sucker for the Slang album, so to hear something from Slang again, is just…wow. Maybe this is being done to pre-hype the Slang deluxe edition due 2013, eh?
“Now”, and the X album in general I’ve never been a huge fan of, as I made clear in my review. I give the band credit for putting “Now” back out there, since they rarely touch that album anymore. I’m all for obscure material being resurrected.
The other three tunes in the medley are a bit ho-hum, but taken as a whole it’s incredible how well they all work together. “Two Steps Behind” gets the majority of time in the medley, a song that I really never need to hear again. It’s pretty much identical to the standard version from the Retro-Active CD.
As mentioned, this is an iTunes-only release, but I’d love to see a physical product. Limited edition vinyl? I would buy that. Are you listening, Joe?
GEORGE CARLIN – Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990)
This isn’t a music review, but who is more rock n’ roll than George Carlin? This is one of my favourite albums of all time.
George Carlin’s acerbic humour has been classic, relevant and awesome since the 1960’s. I think he got better with age, and regardless of the fact that it’s 22 years old, Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics is just as relevant today as it was in 1990.
Politically correct, this isn’t. In fact the big thing Carlin rants against on this disc is political correctness!
I think spokesman ought to be spokesperson. I think chairman ought to be chairperson. I think mankind ought to be human kind, but they take it too far, they take themselves too seriously, they exaggerate! They want me to call that thing in the street a personholecover. I think that’s taking it a little bit too far. What would you call a lady’s man, a person’s person? That would make a He-man an It-person. Little kids would be afraid of the boogieperson! They’d look up in the sky and see the person in the moon! Guys would say come back here and fight like a person! And we’d all sing “for it’s a jolly good person!” That’s the kind of thing you would hear on Late Night With David Letterperson!
Carlin remains funny, even while being preachy. For example, “Life’s Little Moments”:
You and your fiancé have been invited to your mom and dad’s house for dinner for the first time. Half way through dinner, your fiancé stands up and says, “I’ll be right back, I gotta take a dump.” There seems to be no really genteel way of announcing publicly a dump. And frankly, I’m not impressed with people who tell me what they’re going to do when they go to the bathroom in the first place. Doesn’t that bother you? People who announce it. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to take a shit!” “Nevermind! Do what you have to do and leave me out of it. And don’t describe it when you come back.” “Boy, you should have seen…” “Nevermind!” “It set off the smoke alarm!” “Nevermind!”
This CD is taken from an old HBO special. Personally, I’ve always kind of preferred an audio version of a comedy show. Sometimes you miss the visuals, but this is how I grew up experiencing comedy. My buddy Peter and I would drive to the cottage with two hours of comedy tapes in the deck. It’s a great way to experience stand up comedy. George Carlin’s well-written and composed comedy is 99% verbal, so it really works perfectly on CD.
And that’s the best way I can describe this disc: Well-written and composed. While it still sounds live and spontaneous as stand up comedy should, it’s obvious that George laboured over his words, language and his messages. Language is a big part of this show. Carlin laments the watering down of modern language. When you water down the words we use, you water down the thinking as well. For example, “shell shock”. They used to call it “shell shock” in the First World War. Now, they call it “post-traumatic stress disorder”. More words, but softer, sucking the humanity out of the phrase. Think about. It doesn’t seem to hurt as much, does it? It doesn’t seem as descriptive either. This is one of Carlin’s messages on Parental Advisory.
And his messages are pretty simple: Fuck the establishment! Fuck political correctness! Tell it like it is, stop beating around the bush, and the world would be a better place! All with a wink and a smile. David Lee Roth used to say, “If you wanna send a message, use Western Union.” Well, if a message can be delivered in an entertaining way, I say go for it!
I miss George Carlin. I think the world is a darker place without his humour and his insight.
A treat for you boys & girls today! A guest shot, a vintage concert review, and a significant one at that. Remember when Metallica was just an opening act for mediocre bands? Meat does. And he’s back to tell you the story. Enjoy the first guest shot of 2013, by Meat!
W.A.S.P. w/ METALLICA and ARMORED SAINT – January 19, 1985
By Meat
I was lucky at a young age to have the opportunity to see some great concerts. The first concert of my life was at The Center in the Square in Kitchener, Ontario. It was The Monks (remember “Drugs in my Pocket”?) and I went with my childhood friend, Scott Hunter, and his mother. I also saw the almighty Black Sabbath play the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, three days before my 12th birthday, on the Mob Rules tour on November 19, 1981. I saw Triumph on the Allied Forces tour play the Center in the Square, with my father not long after that. But really my early concert experiences were mostly, and most memorably, with the aforementioned Scott Hunter. I believe it was his uncle who had connections with a concert promotion at the time called CPI. He would leave free tickets at Will Call for us at Maple Leaf Gardens or wherever the show was. We saw the last Kiss tour with makeup at the time (Creatures of the Night tour) on January 14, 1983 with The Headpins opening. Also saw the first ever Kiss tour without makeup (Lick it Up tour) on March 15, 1984 with Accept as the opening act. As well as Motley Crue on the Shout at the Devil tour on June 10, 1984, at what is now the Ricoh Coliseum, also with Accept as support. Many of these shows are quite memorable and monumental, but none so much as the first time I saw Metallica live.
I remember the first time Scott and I heard Metallica. We would have a sleepover at his place every Friday night specifically because Toronto radio station Q107 had their “Midnight Metal Hour” on that night. We would have first heard Metallica (“Seek and Destroy”) either late 1982 or early 1983, before Kill ‘Em All was even released. Obviously it was an instant shot of Metal Up Our Ass! Kill ‘Em All was released on vinyl and cassette on July 25, 1983. I specifically remember (but not exactly when) walking into a record store downtown Kitchener called Records on Wheels and buying that album, Anthrax’s Fistful of Metal and Van Halen’s 1984 on vinyl, all during the same visit. I also remember buying Metallica’s second album, Ride the Lightning, the day it was released. Thanks to the World Wide Web, I know now that date was July 27, 1984. Starting grade ten that September, I was pushing Metallica on anyone that would be open to it at my high school. There were a very select few of us who were die-hards and would have Sony Walkmans stuck to our heads at every opportunity possible. Now I cannot recall if we got free tickets for this particular show, but I do remember how pumped I was when I knew I was gonna see Metallica live.
The bill was as follows: Armored Saint (with Anthrax’s John Bush on vocals), Metallica and W.A.S.P. Yes you read that right. Metallica was opening up for W.A.S.P. I do know that further along on the tour, Metallica and W.A.S.P. would trade headlining sets due to the obvious buzz around Metallica at the time. Here is a picture of an actual ticket stub of this show. Note the price ($15.00) and Armored Saint being spelled wrong on the ticket.
One thing I will add before I go on. Of all the concerts and bands I have seen multiple times live, it is kinda strange I only saw Metallica live twice ever. One of the reasons for this is quite obviously that after their album Load (otherwise known as Mighty Load of Shit), I never really had a great interest in seeing the band live again. But it is worthwhile noting that I have seen Metallica live twice and BOTH TIMES they were opening for someone else. (The second time being the strange bill of The Black Crowes / Warrant / Metallica / Aerosmith on June 29, 1990 at CNE Exhibition Stadium in Toronto) Again, note the ticket price for this. This was before The Eagles ruined ticket prices for all acts with the ridiculous prices for their shows. To quote “The Dude” I hate the fuckin’ Eagles.
So there we were, January 19th 1985 standing in line in front of the late great Toronto concert venue named The Concert Hall. It was freezing cold out, and windy too. So since this was a General Admission event, standing in line braving at least -15 Celsius weather, you can imagine how cold and bitchy people were. I recall the rush of metalheads being ushered quickly into the venue. The second I got in there I went straight for the merch booth and bought a Ride the Lightning tour shirt for me and a high school friend named Joe DeLeo. After that, like seemingly everybody, I had to take a wicked piss. After doing that, I was horrified when I tried to zip my probably really tight jeans back up, and couldn’t because my hands were numb from the cold. My embarrassed horror turned to laughter as I turned my head to see dozens of much older and much larger long-haired headbangers all having the same problem. Only in Canada I guess eh?
Sometime later, Armored Saint took the stage. I remember them being great and how loud it was in there. They were received well and that venue was filling up. While enjoying their set my buddy Scott gets my attention and points to the much-shorter person beside me. Immediately I recognized him as Russell Dwarf from the Toronto band Killer Dwarfs. Their name was very apropos considering this band consisted of nothing but short dudes with long hair. I can only imagine how this band got together. Wonder if an ad went out that said. “Metal musicians needed. Must not be over 5 foot 6 inches tall and have long hair”. I loved that first album. If you don’t know of them, here is their first single and video.
It was time for the Mighty Metallica. They started out with the first track off Ride The Lightning, the classic riff-monster “Fight Fire With Fire”. At this point I was probably about mid-way to the stage in a sea of metalheads. This was before the days of the “moshpit”. This was more of a Hair Swarm packed with long-haired sardines covered in denim and leather. It would have been about half-way through the show that I wormed my way to the front of the stage. This was no easy task as I am sure you can imagine, however being only 15 and much smaller than the masses (with the exception of the Killer Dwarfs of course), there I was literally feet from what would become the best-selling metal band of all-time. This brings me to a memory I will cherish forever. The seemingly monstrous Cliff Burton was right in front of me. I reached out and had in my hand, the bottom leg of his ragged bell-bottom jeans. He tried to kick me in the face, and thankfully missed. Can’t blame him either for trying to kick my head off, and honestly it was the first thing I thought of when said legend died in a bus accident a year and a half later in Sweden on September 27, 1986. R.I.P. Clifford Lee Burton. Check out this YouTube audio clip I found of Metallica playing “Seek and Destroy” from this exact show. Gotta love YouTube.
Check out this set list of the show the next night in Buffalo at some place called the Salty Dog Saloon. (I couldn’t find the Toronto set list online but I am sure it is identical)
“Fight Fire With Fire”
“Ride the Lightning”
“Phantom Lord”
“(Anethesia) Pulling Teeth”
“For Whom the Bell Tolls”
“No Remorse”
“The Call of Ktulu”
“Seek & Destroy”
“Whiplash”
Encores:
“Creeping Death”
Guitar solo
“Am I Evil?”
“Motorbreath”
Which brings me to winding down this novel of a concert review. How could W.A.S.P. possibly follow Metallica? Well, I do remember chants of “you suck”. I remember that the front was nowhere near as packed as it was for Metallica. Maybe Blackie thought he could follow them by drinking fake blood out of a skull (which he did). Here is a quote from Mr. Blackie Lawless comparing separate tours with both Slayer and Metallica and musing about this particular tour.
Blackie: I’ll tell you what was worse – us and Metallica. It was our first or second U.S. tour. It was us, Metallica, and Armored Saint. When they (Slayer) went out with us, they were still an up n’ coming band, didn’t have a lot of fans, so there was a pocket of division every night. With Metallica, I kid you not, it was like an invisible line was drawn right down the middle of the room, and half was theirs and half was ours. It didn’t matter what we were doing on stage. It looked like two opposing armies. Sometimes we just stopped what we were doing and watched. It was a war.
I realize that the merit of music is subjective and it is all in the Ear Of The Beholder. But lets face it. W.A.S.P. really does kinda suck. Some good moments but really not much to speak of. During their set myself and others that with us were just kind of mulling about as most others were really. It was during this time that a guy we were with named Kevin B. (nicknamed Little Dude) said that he saw Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson leaving out a side door during their set. Now to give some perspective on this, this person was a known bull-shitter. None of us believed him. True story: Kevin years later had trans-gender surgery and now is known as Treva. But anyways, we shrugged this off as yet another lie from Little Dude. It was months later reading a Blackie Lawless interview in Circus magazine that I read this quote. “Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were actually at one of our shows in Toronto last year…. But they were not there to see us.” A classic example of the Little Dude who cried wolf.
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