W.A.S.P. singer, founder and leader Blackie Lawless is known among fandom for his raging douchebaggery. Witness a recent event in Russia, where Blackie ignored the one and only fan at the train station asking for his autograph. Everybody should understand a human being’s need for privacy when they live in the limelight, but asking for an autograph at a train station is hardly imposing, especially when they’re the only fan in the place.
Blackie don’t sign nothin’!
Even back in the Record Store days, I was hearing stories about Blackie being an asshole to fans. Witness the evidence below, an interaction I had with a customer in the late 1990’s:
Customer: Hey, do you have any W.A.S.P. albums?
Me: We might…are you looking for a specific one?
Customer: No. Just one that has a picture of the singer. Blackie’s his name right?
Me: Yup, Blackie Lawless.
Customer: Here’s the thing. I just want to see what he looks like. I was in Toronto a couple months ago, and I swear I saw this guy. I asked him, “Hey, are you in a rock band called W.A.S.P.?” The guy said no, but I was sure it was him. I said, “Come on, you’re him. You look exactly like him.” He had the long black hair, and he was really tall, man.
Me: Well, Blackie’s definitely known for his hair and his height. Sounds like him. Hey, I have a CD called Headless Children here and there’s a picture inside. Let’s take a look.
So we grabbed the W.A.S.P. CD and opened up the booklet.
Customer: That’s him! That’s the fucking guy! I knew he was lying to me! What an asshole.
W.A.S.P. – Still Not Black Enough (Castle, US and UK versions)
This one came up due to some discussion between myself and Jon Wilmenius who suggested that I not outright dismiss Still Not Black Enough. I decided to give it a listen again, all the tracks from both versions, and listen with an open mind. I haven’t listened to this album in years. I went through a brief W.A.S.P. phase not long after quitting the store. I bought Helldorado, Unholy Terror, and both Neon God CDs, which might not have been a good idea; doing so many at once.
Still Not Black Enough was a treat to revisit. It’s top-loaded with some pretty great W.A.S.P. songs. In fact the album rocks and rolls along quite excellently for four solid tracks in a row: “Still Not Black Enough”, “Skinwalker”, “Black Forever” and the awesome “Scared To Death”. I’ve never heard Blackie attempt anything like “Scared To Death” before. Female backing vocals on a W.A.S.P. album? It actually works, and brings this track to a much higher level. Nothing wrong with the other three songs either — all are catchy, heavy W.A.S.P. songs with that Crimson Idol sound.
The album skids to a halt upon track 5, “Goodbye America”. The unfortunate thing is that “Goodbye America” is a great W.A.S.P. song, kinda similar to “Chainsaw Charlie”, like a shorter twin brother. Blackie chose to introduce it with a boring, spoken word political thing, which sucks all the air out of the room. Cut the shit, Blackie. You’re a rock star who drinks fake blood from a fake skull for a living. Leave the politics to Bono on the left and Ted on the right. Shit, even Ted doesn’t write his songs about it.
After a rousing cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody To Love”, Blackie gets out the piano and does the first ballad of the album. It’s essentially a reprise to “Hold Onto My Heart” from Crimson Idol. It’s even called “Keep Holding On”. Nice song, but no need to do it twice. OK sure, “Keep Holding On” is a different slant, on a lot of different instruments, but it’s the same damn song.
“Rock And Roll To Death” is both old (previously released on 1993’s excellent First Blood…Last Cuts compilation) and too gimmicky. It’s an old-timey rock and roll song a-la Chuck Berry played metal style. I guess it’s supposed to sound like “old W.A.S.P.”, like “Blind In Texas”? Regardless it’s out of place on Still Not Black Enough, and it was already on the last album, so to me, that means “delete”.
The original ten-track version of the CD placed a ballad here, after “Rock And Roll To Death”. The acoustic-with-strings ballad “Breathe” was removed from the re-release, and I get why. It’s similar once again to Crimson Idol songs like “The Idol” and “Hold On To My Heart”. The actual sonic quality of the song is not good at all, it sounds like a demo. The drums are obviously not real, they sound like a drum program. The strings are obviously synth. It sounds unfinished, compared to the rest of the album.
No matter which version of the CD you buy, track 9 is “I Can’t”. It’s also acoustic, so again it’s good they removed “Breathe” from the CD, two acoustic songs in a row is too much for a W.A.S.P. album. This one’s a little edgier, it’s not a ballad. It’s more a cheesy bad-ass cowboy song with gratuitous “fucks”. Thankfully it turns electric at the end. Track ten, and original album closer, is “No Way Out Of Here” which sounds like any number of songs from Crimson Idol. The similarities are more than superficial. There are lyrical references to that album, and both albums were performed by the same band: Frankie Banali and Bob Kulick.
The re-release of Still Not Black Enough has three bonus tracks. (It also has “Skinwalker” which was track 2, but not on the original release of the CD.) Track 11 is “One Tribe”, which is pretty different and pretty cool. It’s a softer song, but it’s about the most original song on the album. It has strong melodies, and a dramatic enough arrangement. There’s also what sounds like an electric violin solo! Lyrically, this sounds like redemption.
Then come the unnecessary covers: “Tie Your Mother Down” and “Whole Lotta Rosie”. Of the two, I would say “Tie Your Mother Down” works best. It brings back the female backing vocals from “Scared To Death” and it’s fun! “Whole Lotta Rosie” isn’t particularly notable.
I was surprised that I like Still Not Black Enough as much as I do. I dismissed it outright years ago as an inferior clone of Crimson Idol. It has moments like that, most definitely. It’s also a pretty enjoyable listen, and now that I’ve dusted it off, I’ll spin it a couple more times. Regardless of which version you get (track listings for both below), I think Still Not Black Enough is worth about:
Welcome back to WTF Search Terms. These are real search terms that somehow led people to mikeladano.com. Today, I thought I’d answer some people’s musical questions.
1.why is lenny kravitz last two cds a disappointment
Lenny Kravitz has sucked since cutting off his dreads. Scientists call it “Samson Syndrome”.
2.whats the dirt on richie kotzen screwing bandmates wifes
Great question. Kotzen was actually screwing Rikki Rockett’s girlfriend/fiance while on tour with Poison. Kotzen later married her after being terminated by Poison.
3.glenn tipton can’t play anymore
Incorrect.
4. iron maiden lyrics “what information do you need”
“We want…information…information…information!” – The Prisoner
5. does blackie lawless ever talk to anyone? 2013
Blackie Lawless has taken a vow of silence and now speaks through a computer like Stephen Hawking.
6. i wonder book list of names in the rock roll band kiss used to be in ks benny gene simmons paul stanley ace frehley peter criss and vinnie vincent
W.A.S.P. – W.A.S.P. (1997 Snapper Classics, originally 1984)
I remember having this self-titled cassette back in the 80’s, and for whatever reason the word on the street was the album was actually called Winged Assassins. I’m still not sure how that started but strangely enough W.A.S.P. later did an album called Double Live Assassins, so there must have been something to it.
This album was well overdue for a remastering. The original CD sounds tinny and weak, not at all like the way I remember it sounding originally. This CD fixes that. It also adds the bonus track “Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)” which fits right in. I guess Blackie wanted the track to open the album originally but cooler heads prevailed. Anyway, given the opportunity to do a remaster Blackie has restored that song to the beginning of the album as originally intended. The hit single “I Wanna Be Somebody” is now the second track.
If you’re a W.A.S.P. fan, then you already know and love this album and you’re not going to disagree with anything I say about these classic meat n’ metal toons. If you’re not a W.A.S.P. fan yet…well, grab hold of something bolted to the ground when you push play. Blackie & his original cohorts had the pedal to the metal all the way through this disc, with the exception of “Sleeping (In The Fire)”. That “ballad” had a powerful enough chorus to keep you going, even if the verses were too lightweight for us as kids.
But seriously though: “L.O.V.E. Machine”… “The Flame”… “B.A.D.” (enough with the abbreviations!)… “School Days”… everything on this album kicks. Hard, heavy, rated R and sometimes X.
But catchy! That’s the thing, really, isn’t it? Blackie has always said his prime influence was the Beatles. I don’t hear it myself, but he obviously learned a lesson or two about the construction of a melody. Blackie’s songs are memorable and melodic without once giving an inch, or sounding like anything less than heavy metal purity. Unfortunately my feeling is that later on, Blackie’s songs all sounded the same. On this first album, he was writing standouts and some would argue that he’s never reached these heights again.
Bonus material at the end includes the B-side “Show No Mercy” which I also have on a CD soundtrack for a movie called Dudes. Great song. Easily as good as the album. “Paint It, Black” is the only song that sucks. From the Tea Party, to Glen Tipton, Vanessa Carlton and Deep Purple, I’ve never heard a good cover of this song. W.A.S.P.’s is no different.
Packaging is awesome, loaded with cool pics, blood, and Blackie telling you how he sees things. If you’re a fan this remaster is a must. If you’re not yet, this is the logical place to start. It’s one of the few W.A.S.P. studio albums that I would consider essential (the other being Headless Children).
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.
It’s a holiday weekend in Canada! Happy Thanksgiving. Because it’s a holiday weekend I thought I’d be lazy and just review two songs instead of an album!
W.A.S.P. – “Mean Man” (1989 7″ single)
I bought this at a record show in 1995. For $8 it seemed like a great deal: Non album track “Locomotive Breath”, purple vinyl, and a “means test”. A what?
“Locomotive Breath” is one of my favourite Tull tunes anyway, so I was fine with Blackie and the gang pummeling their way through this cover. The riff is perfect for a metal band like W.A.S.P. to utilize anyway. They do it straightforward and it works.
The A side was from The Headless Children LP. In my opinion, that’s the best W.A.S.P. album anyway, and has my favourite lineup: Blackie, Chris Holmes, Johnny Rod, with Frankie Banali. Not the best song from that album, though. It’s catchy and has a solid riff with a tough-guy singalong chorus. The lyrics are a pretty funny send-up on guitarist Chris Holmes, that’s why he’s on the cover! I’m sure the song did nothing to ease the public’s image of Chris, after being seen drunk in a pool in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.
Blackie stated on MuchMusic in 1989 that Chris was not drunk, and that it was an act for the cameras. It certainly does seem staged. Either way I think this song and single was clearly an attempt to capitalize on that image!
The purple vinyl is cool, gotta love the cover image, and as for that “means tester”, it works like a mood ring. Push your thumb on it and it changes colour due to your body heat. The best I seem to do is somewhere between “hard” and “firm”!
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