POISON – Look What the Cat Dragged In (1986, 2006 Capitol remaster)
I remember seeing this album in the racks of our local Zellers store. I didn’t know the band. I thought CC Deville was pretty cute.
Taking the gender-bending makeup of the mid-80’s to its logical end point, Poison stormed out of Hollywood and onto the charts. They did this with a handful of great singles, including “Talk Dirty to Me”, “Cry Tough”, and “I Won’t Forget You”. Also huge, but barely tolerable as a song, was the singalong “I Want Action”.
Bass “rapin’?” Good god!
Armed with just $23,000, Poison recorded Look What the Cat Dragged In with producer Ric Browde (Ted Nugent, W.A.S.P.) in less than two weeks. What they emerged with was a fun, raunchy and terrible sounding album with some big hits and plenty of filler.
“Cry Tough” was a tight little opener, a hot and bright rocker about going out and givin’ er. “You gotta cry tough, out on the streets, to make your dreams happen!” sings Bret Michaels in full-on cheerleader mode. Unfortunately the sonics of the album leave much to be desired. The guitar, drum and vocal sounds are demo quality at best, but that’s what you get for $23,000 and Ric Browde.
The other singles were all huge. “Talk Dirty to Me” is now minor staple, and “I Want Action” (annoying as it is) is another. The ballad “I Won’t Forget You” is an album highlight, well before Bret & co. had mastered the art of writing hit ballads. Low key, basic and electric, “I Won’t Forget You” is very different from “Every Rose” and some of the later broken-hearted Poison love songs. Paul Stanley has a cameo in the road-ready music video, which didn’t hurt.
That leaves a hell of a lot of room for filler, and Look What the Cat Dragged In has plenty. Of the album tracks, the decent ones include the saucy glam-slam rawking title track, and another song called “Want Some, Need Some”. Both tunes could have used some last-minute tightening up, but neither are as bad as the dreck on the tail end of the album: “#1 Bad Boy”, “Blame it on You” and the horrid “Mama Let Me Go to the Show” all suck absolutely. “Play Dirty” on side one is also pretty awful.
Even with the quality issues in sound and songwriting, Look What the Cat Dragged In sold over 3,000,000 copies. 20 years later, it was given a fresh remastering and three bonus tracks. The remastering could not fix the audio issues, but the bonus tracks are pretty good. Single remixes of “I Want Action” and “I Won’t Forget You” are marginally better than the original album tracks. Somebody realized that they were sonically deficient, and the remixes help a teeny tiny bit. Then Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” is added to the end, a song that got more exposure on the covers album Poison’d! The bonus tracks go a long way towards making the album a little more listenable from start to end.
2/5 stars
MOTLEY CRUE – New Tattoo (2000 Motley records, EU edition with bonus track and 2 CD edition)
The worst Crue album? Could be Theater of Pain, Generation Swine, or 2000’s New Tattoo. I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but Randy Castillo was not a suitable replacement for Tommy Lee. Tommy Lee isn’t a great technical drummer by any stretch, but he has bombast and his songwriting is crucial to the Motley sound. Here, the songwriting void is filled by future Sixx A.M. collaborator James Michael.
The drum sound is flat and lifeless, the guitar is dry, and there is simply no fire here. The songs drone from soundalike to soundalike, and you will forget which is which. This is the Crue on cruise control if not pure autopilot. Of course, the band hyped this as a “return to the roots” album, which it is not. The Crue’s roots are bombastic loud chrome plated sleezy metal with loads of attitude and aggression. This is dull, pointless, meandering rock that goes nowhere. Without Tommy, I am inclined to say there is no Crue. Compare this to the Vince-less self titled 1994 album, a 5/5 star release all the way. Who is more crucial to the band’s energy?
Not one, I repeat, not one great song here, but plenty of mediocre ones. “Hell On High Heels” isn’t too bad, but it’s certainly not up to the standards of Motley Crue singles past. Also half decent is “Punched In the Teeth By Love”, a title which dates back to 1991’s Decade of Decadence. Unfortunately the majority of New Tattoo is clogged up with dreck like “She Needs Rock N’ Roll”, “Hollywood Ending” and the title track. Nothing stands out after numerous listens.
MVP: Mick Mars, who always seems to nail a tasty solo when needed.
The saving grace to this particular release is the live disc with Samantha Maloney (ex-Hole) on drums. It is more fun and entertaining than the album itself, but maybe that’s because the live disc is 66.6% oldies. The two demos included are no better than the album versions, but collectors should be aware that Europe got a version with a different bonus track called “Time Bomb”. On top of that, Japan got an exclusive song called “American Zero”. It’s too bad it was relegated to Japan alone, because it might be the only track that actually hearkens back to the good old days.
Avoid. A bore and a chore to listen to. Pick up 1994’s self-titled release instead.
There are several Quiet Riot live albums available: this one, Setlist, Live at the US Festival, and Live & Rare. All are vintage recordings from the early 1980’s. Of the three, you might look at Extended Versions and pass on it. It looks cheap and unofficial. To overlook this CD would be a mistake, and this is why.
Sure, it lacks any sort of booklet or liner notes. All I know is that the first eight tracks are from Pasadena in 1983, and the last two from Nashville the same year. From the outside you wouldn’t know that. The only information is the ominous “Recorded Live” which tells you very little indeed. Being 1983, this is the “classic” lineup of Kevin DuBrow, Frankie Banali, Rudy Sarzo, and Carlos Cavazo, on the Metal Health tour. Introducing “Love’s A Bitch,” DuBrow reveals that they only began their US tour a short while ago.
Perhaps because it’s early in the tour, or maybe because they’re home in California, Quiet Riot pulled out two rarities for the Pasadena show. These are “Gonna Have A Riot” and “Anytime You Want Me”, neither of which are on Quiet Riot I or II. Both are written solely by DuBrow, but “Gonna Have A Riot” is from the Randy Rhoads period. “Anytime You Want Me” is of more recent vintage, and it’s actually quite an excellent pop rocker. Also rare was the set opener, “Danger Zone”, unreleased until 2001 when the studio version was added to the Metal Health remastered CD.
In addition to the rarities, you get the hits: “Metal Health”, “Cum On Feel The Noize”, “Slick Black Cadillac”, “Love’s A Bitch”. There’s also a handful of well liked album cuts such as “Let’s Go Crazy” and the smoking “Breathless”. That song knocked me out as an 11 year old and it still does today. All performed by the band in their prime, before the downfall.
Live & Rare sounded awful, but this CD sounds pretty good. I’m not sure if it’s a radio broadcast, but it’s perfectly listenable. It’s too bad there’s no packaging, because if this had been packaged with more effort and care, it could have been sold as an “official” live album quite easily. Bummer there’s no liner notes, all you’re going to get is the music. However, the music stands up for itself and it’s an enjoyable live album.
BON JOVI – Greatest Hits: The Ultimate Collection (2 CD)
I guess Bon Jovi were due for a new “hits” CD. Crossroads, after all, was 16 years old at that time, and Tokyo Road was only made available in Japan. Ultimate Collection isn’t the ultimate collection that I would have put out. If you’re going to do two CDs, you have room for great also-rans like “Last Cigarette” and “Something For The Pain”. Still, it’s not a bad Bon Jovi collection. Listening to it front-to-back, I was pleasantly reminded of all these hits, and man, Bon Jovi had a lot of hits. From early stuff like “Runaway” to the New Jersey classics such as “Born To Be My Baby”, to the newbies like “Have A Nice Day”, this has pretty much all the key Bon Jovi radio hits. Unfortunatly, you’re going to miss out on second-rung hits like “Dry County” and “Joey” but for the uninitiated, or those who just want a good sized Bon Jovi collection, this is the place to go. I think it’s important to explore albums such as New Jersey (the review of which is Part 2 in this series) and Keep the Faith, as well as hits.
Almost every Bon Jovi album has hits included here, right up to The Circle. The song flow is excellent, hitting you with hit after hit after hit, landmark ballads sprinkled in between. And I give credit for the inclusion of “Blood On Blood”, a song that was never a single but has been a huge concert favourite due to its real life story of JBJ’s childhood. Not to mention it’s just a great song.
The four new songs create feelings of moderate indifference to great dislike. “What Do You Got?” is another trademark Bon Jovi ballad, certainly nothing special, outshined to a great degree by all the other tunes here. It’s easily forgettable and feels tacked-on as an afterthought. But two of these new songs — “No Apologies” and “The More Things Change” are just awful songs. Cheesy, contrived, choose whatever words you like, they’re juvenile and awful and really don’t fit in among the classier hits. To me these are B-sides and perhaps should have been held back as B-sides. Or just deleted completely.
Packaging is not the greatest. There are full songwriting and production credits, but they are arranged in such a way as to make finding information difficult. Performance credits are even harder to find — I couldn’t find bassists Hugh McDonald or Alec John Such’s names anywhere in the credits, and their pictures are also not included. There are a few more recent photos of the main four guys. No liner notes.
On the whole, despite the fact that I don’t really like the four new songs, I don’t regret this purchase. It’s going to be a great road CD. It is a good way to hear tunes like “We Weren’t Born To Follow” without listening to the album it came from, which I wasn’t too keen on. So, no regrets. I think most fans will like the album, they might even like the new songs. Mrs. LeBrain’s Mom enjoyed it in the car and commented that she knew many of the songs. Newcomers would be wise to pick this up as it has a great hit-per disc ratio!
BON JOVI – Slippery When Wet(1986, 2010 Universal special edition)
I’m not blown away by the new series of Bon Jovi reissues. For the running time of a CD, they could give you a heck of a lot more content. I mean, I’ve bought this album 3 times. I bought it on cassette back in ’87, then I bought the first round of remastered CD issues of the entire Bon Jovi catalogue. Now, begrudgingly, I’m starting to pick these up, because I’m a completist. How many times have you bought Slippery When Wet already? At least once, I’m guessing.
Slippery When Wet is one of those oddball albums: It’s considered the classic landmark by a very successful band, but it is by no means their best. I’ll tell you what it is though: It’s a concept album. When I listen to Slippery When Wet, all I can hear is a concept album about growing up in Sayreville, New Jersey. Think about it! “Wanted: Dead or Alive”? That’s not about touring, man. That’s a song about dreaming, while writing songs in Richie Sambora’s mom’s laundry room. Lyrically, Slippery When Wet captures a more innocent era and presents it in the form of different characters from all walks of life.
She says we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got Cause it doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not
Slippery is the album that made people like Desmond Child and Bruce Fairbairn into household names. It’s notable for the presence of three smash hit classics: “Wanted: Dead or Alive”, “Livin’ On A Prayer”, and “You Give Love A Bad Name”. All three are obviously available on various Bon Jovi hits compilations. There are a couple deep cut classics, but Slippery is mostly padded out with filler. Surely, “Social Disease” with its juvenile lyrics and terrible synth-horns is one that Jon would like to disown? Also cheesy are “Wild In The Streets”, “I’d Die For You”, and the sappy “Without Love”. What helps save these songs are earnest performances from Jon, but especially Richie Sambora.
Two of the best songs are the deep cuts. “Let It Rock” is a cool song, a bit muddy in the mix, but with some really cool sounding keyboards. The atmospherics of it were unique for the time. It still stands as one of Jon’s better moments. Then there is “Raise Your Hands” which opened side 2. This one rocks, and has some blazing guitars. I have always been a fan of “Raise Your Hands”. Remember when it was used in that one scene in Spaceballs? Sweet!
John freakin’ Candy
The production, by the late Bruce Fairbairn, is muddy at times and too glossy at others. Fairbairn’s work on the 80’s Aerosmith albums was more innovative and interesting. I’ve always liked talk-box on guitar solos though, so I’ll give him and Richie Sambora credit for the catchiest talk-box solo in history. Regardless this album set new standards. Suddenly, everybody wanted to work with Desmond Child and Bruce Fairbairn. Aerosmith were next, then Poison, then AC/DC. As for Desmond Child, his old pal Paul Stanley came-a-knockin’ when it was time to write for the next Kiss album. Slippery When Wet was undeniably one of the biggest influences on the second half of the 1980’s. Rock bands were adding keyboardists, and trying to find ways to get played on radio and MTV the way Bon Jovi had. Jon also used his newfound influence by helping friends like Cinderella and Skid Row get signed. Cinderella certainly benefited from having Jon and Richie appear as rivals in their “Somebody Save Me” music video.
As influential as it is, albums such as New Jersey, Keep the Faith, and These Days are superior in my ears. When I was swept up in the Bon Jovi tide in ’87, I finally picked up Slippery on cassette. I was surprised, because I expected it to be a lot better. Considering all the hits, all the hype, and all the sales, I was hoping for more than half an album of good songs.
As far as the reissue goes, the reason I picked this particular one up was that I saw there was a “live acoustic” version of “Wanted” on here. I hoped and prayed that it was the acoustic version from the original 1987 “Wanted” cassette single. (If you haven’t heard it, man, you absolutely need to.) I only have that on cassette. However, it’s not the same version. It’s a good live acoustic version, with just Richie and Jon. It’s purportedly from the Slippery tour, and made stronger by Richie’s powerful vocals. “Prayer” and “Bad Name” are the other two live songs included, sounding pretty standard. These three bonus tracks are all there is; no era B-sides such as “Edge of a Broken Heart” or “Borderline” are included. Songs like these would have gone a long way to strengthen an album that’s a little weak in the knees.
I was pleased to see a retro looking backstage pass included within the slipcase. That made me a bit happier with my purchase. Nice touch, this is the kind of thing that rewards people for buying the CD rather than downloading.
When Rudy Sarzo rejoined Quiet Riot, re-completing the classic Metal Health lineup, there wasn’t much fanfare. There also wasn’t much fanfare for this album which came and went without so much as a whisper. The reason is pretty simple. Like most of Quiet Riot’s post-1983 output, it’s not that great.
It’s better than I feared though. Some of these new songs are darnright good. “Against The Wall” is the best of the new songs, a rocker that would have fit on Condition Critical as one of the best tunes. It’s a peppy, upbeat motivational rocker. “Angry” is also not bad, being pretty heavy with a great vocal delivery from DuBrow. It is incredible that right up until his death, Kevin DuBrow’s voice was as strong as ever. “The Ritual” is a groover, something previously unknown for Quiet Riot. It’s mean and nasty and it works really well.
The rest of the new material isn’t all that hot. Quiet Riot’s problem has always been poor songwriting. Much of their best material were either covers or co-writes. There are awkward choruses that just don’t hit the spot; bridges and verses that jar with the riffs. These songs don’t sound like completed songs, they sound like a bunch of parts stuck together. Witness “Too Much Information” (which I actually like the lyrics to quite a bit), “Don’t Know What I Want”, “Alive and Well”, and “Overworked and Underpaid”. These are not great songs. They have neat parts and nice bits buried within them, but as a whole…sorry, no. There is also one truly awful song, the funk-crap of “Slam Dunk (Way To Go)”. What an awful song. Truly a terrible, terrible song that never should have made it past the demo stage.
There’s one previously released track, the AC/DC cover “Highway To Hell” (previously released on the AC/DC tribute album, Thunderstruck). It’s OK, but let’s face it, very few bands can cover AC/DC. Carlos Cavazo can’t play that rhythm part and make it sound right. Sarzo’s bass is a little too bouncy. Otherwise, it’s an OK cover, but once again Quiet Riot are padding out albums with covers…
The record company made them re-record six of the old classic tracks, and here they are tacked onto the end. Some are OK. “Don’t Wanna Let You Go” (one of my personal favourite Quiet Riot songs) has been rearranged acoustically. Carlos’ acoustic guitar is beautiful, and because this song presents a new arrangement, I think it’s worthy of inclusion. The rest offer very little of interest. Why re-record old classics? There’s no real artistic reason, only financial reasons. I guarantee you that you will not replace your old copy of “Metal Health” with this re-recorded version. And the new version of “The Wild and the Young” is just bad, bad, bad. All the techy-uniqueness of the original has been replaced by pseudo-heaviness and funk. Yes, funk, there’s a funky break right in the middle that should have been excized. It’s just awful.
As an album, Alive and Well has enough good going on to make it listenable, but this is no comeback. This is treading water, zero growth. Amazon is loaded with positive reviews, fanboy-ish as they are. Well, I am the biggest Quiet Riot fan around. And I’m just being objective here when I say this: Unless you’re die-hard like me, you don’t need this album.
When this one slid into my hot little hands, I couldn’t help but laugh. Double Dose of Poison? Look at that cover. Someone forget to give Bret the memo, the 80’s are over. But it was summer, and Poison were touring with the Crue. The cougars were on the prowl, and if that’s not enough reason for a classic rock band to release an album, I don’t know what is.
However, let us not forget, Poison haven’t released any new original music since the dreadful Hollyweird in…God is it almost 10 years already? So when your band is creatively on ice, all you can do is repackage the hits. By my reckoning, Poison have done that very thing almost as many times as they’ve released studio albums.
Anyway, enough of my lecturing. Let’s dig into the album, a very generous slice of Poison, albeit one that wears out its welcome prematurely. The album is wisely sparked off with “Talk Dirty To Me”, their first hit, and still a firecracker 25 (!) years later. Sequenced chronologically, this is followed by the equally familiar “I Want Action”. The lesser known (but still classy) ballad “I Won’t Forget You” is here. So is perhaps the best single for the first album, “Cry Tough” which still has that youthful energy. The perennial “Look What The Cat Dragged In” tops off the material from the first album It’s an inferior song, but one that has proven to have legs over two decades later.
By the second album, Poison had tightened up their chops and songwriting a bit, and the still-great “Nothin’ But A Good Time” is next. The rest of the ’88-’89 singles follow in due course: “Fallen Angel”, “Every Rose” (of course!)” and “Your Mama Don’t Dance”. So far, CD 1 works. It sticks to (mostly) the hits, with the ballads sprinkled about sparingly, exactly as any good rock album should work.
But the first disc ain’t over yet, although this is where the chronological concept is ditched. From album #3, here’s the dreadfully awful “Unskinny Bop” (please, nobody really likes this song)! It’s followed by the Kiss cover “Rock N’ Roll All Nite” which was actually recorded between albums #1 and #2. But the other three singles from album #3 follow in short order: “Ride The Wind”, “Something To Believe In” (another ballad) and “Life Goes On” (wait…two ballads in a row?). Then from album #3, we jump to album #5. “Stand” is the third ballad in a row. While it is more a soul song with the great Richie Kotzen now filling CC Deville’s shoes, it still serves to slow down this disc almost to the point of skipping. Then, for whatever reason, the compilation skips to albums #7 and #8 (the worst album Poison ever did, Hollyweird). “The Last Song” from Power To The People is…holy crap…another (boring) ballad. It is followed by the cover “Shooting Star”. What the devil were they thinking? Four ballads in a row? Sure, we’re not young anymore, but we’re not comatose.
Onto disc two. Keep in mind, Poison have used up most of their hit ammunition on disc one. Disc two relies heavily on covers from the Poison’d album. That’s five more covers for those keeping score, bringing the total of covers on this whole compilation to eight. Eight freaking covers out of 35 songs, that’s 23% covers — almost a quarter of the album! Come on, guys. We know you had all your hits in a brief period of the late 80’s and early 90’s, but what about the great album tracks? Where’s “Ball And Chain”? Where’s “(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice”? “Valley of Lost Souls”? Where are all the great album tracks that prove Poison was more than a handful of singles? Well, some are here: “Look But You Can’t Touch”, “Love On The Rocks”, but mostly we’re into the covers. If you already have Poison’d, then this disc is pretty redundant. A few tracks from the underrated Crack A Smile CD (with Blues Saraceno on guitar) are here, such as the swanky’ “Sexual Thang”. A few rarities too, “Gotta Face The Hangman” and “Livin’ For The Minute”… but they are rarities for a reason. They don’t hold up to the quality of the hits.
Highlights on this second disc are the bright and sparkling rocker “So Tell Me Why” from album #4 (the live + studio CD Swallow This Live) and a deuce with Richie Kotzen: “Fire And Ice” and “Bastard Son of a Thousand Blues”. The disc, very unwisely, ends with perhaps the worst and most overplayed Poison song in history, “Poor Boy Blues”. Bret, I know you like the blues. I know you like them a lot. But Poison are not a blues band. Never were. Never will be. The closest you ever got was when Richie was in the band. 20 freakin’ years ago.
That about sums it up. If you want a really good, solid, to the point Poison hits album, choose one of these two:
1986-1996 Greatest Hits
The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock
Both are single discs, but are boiled down to the basics.
Let’s face it, if you’re a big Poison fan, you already have all these songs, because they’re all on the CDs. If you’re not a big Poison fan…you don’t really want all these songs.
2/5 stars
Disc one:
01. Nothin' But A Good Time
02. Talk Dirty To Me
03. Look What The Cat Dragged In
04. Be The One
05. We're An American Band
06. Life Goes On
07. Every Rose Has Its Thorn
08. Stand
09. Livin' For The Minute
10. Little Willy
11. (Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice
12. I Won't Forget You
13. Rock And Roll All Nite
14. Love On The Rocks
15. Suffragette City
16. Lay Your Body Down
17. Until You Suffer Some (Fire And Ice)
18. No More Lookin' Back (Poison Jazz)
_______________________________________________________________
Disc two:01. Unskinny Bop
02. Cry Tough
03. I Want Action
04. Your Mama Don't Dance
05. Something To Believe In
06. Fallen Angel
07. Ride The Wind
08. Bastard Son Of A Thousand Blues
09. Sexual Thing
10. Can't You See
11. So Tell Me Why
12. What I Like About You
13. Face The Hangman
14. Cover Of The Rolling Stone
15. Poor Boy Blues
16. Look But You Can't Touch
17. Theatre Of The Soul
QUIET RIOT has “amicably” parted ways with singer Scott Vokoun and has replaced him with LOVE/HATE vocalist Jizzy Pearl. Pearl will make his live debut with QUIET RIOT on New Year’s Eve (December 31) in Flagstaff, Arizona. QUIET RIOT is currently in the recording studio with Jizzy in preparation for the release of a new album in early 2014.
Warning: The delightfully titled Hot Tub Time Machine is the same as every other modern comedy. Outrageous situations! Gross-outs! Swearing! Hollow characters!…but I liked it. What can I say, I’m easily amused. I don’t mind this kind of movie, plus it has an 80’s metal slant. The performances by John Cusack and Rob Corddry were good enough to keep me entertained long enough.
Plot in a nutshell: Three dudes plus Cusack’s nephew are going nowhere in life and in their relationships. Trying to dip back into the past, they visit the same ski resort that they went to back in ’86. It’s gone downhill since then, but after a drunken night in the hot tub, they wake up (gasp!) back in 1986, forced to relive one of the most interesting vacations of their lives! Will they do things the same? Will they try to change the future? Can they even get back to the future? What about the nephew? Watch to find out!
Each character has his own trip to relive, Corddry’s being the lynchpin of the whole situation. The plot is pretty simple but the movie is fun. Great music from the 80’s — Poison, Motley Crue, and more — make this a movie for the balding generation. Heck, there’s even a vintage-looking Poison concert complete with some dude that looks exactly like C.C. Deville circa Look What The Cat Dragged In.
To its credit, the ending was a twist I didn’t expect, and I enjoyed the cast including Chevy Chase. It was fun revisiting some aspects of 1986 (even though some tunes, such as “Kickstart My Heart” didn’t come out until ’89).
Blu-ray special features include commentaries, deleted scenes and extended scenes. The best deleted scenes were multiple hilarious takes of Corrdry, who’s comes across as a pretty funny guy. Digital copy is included but don’t ask me about it, because I don’t use them. All I know is that the digital copy is just the “rated” version of the film.
In 1991, hard rock was breathing its last gasp (for the moment, anyway) and Swallow This Live is a perfect example of how this happened. Many rock fans were fed up with substandard releases, and this is one of the biggest turds of that era.
Swallow This Live was a double — yes, you heard that right — a double-live CD from a band who only had three studio albums! And Poison are not Kiss. On the cassette version, two tracks were missing: “Life Goes On”, and “No More Looking Back”. I think Poison instead should have excluded Rikki Rockett’s painful, overly long drum solo. They definitely should have cut C.C. (billed here as “Cecil”) DeVille’s horrendous guitar flatulance.
Poison imploded before this was even released. The fact that C.C. DeVille was only seen in the video for “So Tell Me Why” for a matter of seconds spoke volumes. (Opening lyric of the song: “I’d like to put to bed the rumours”.) This was after the train wreck that was the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. There’s C.C. with bright pink hair, not able to play an entire song…it was no surprise when he was fired, although the band waited until after the release of Swallow This Live to tell anybody.
C.C. also hated the bluesy, more serious direction that Poison’s music was taking, which was fully realized on their next studio album, Native Tongue. With guitar maestro Richie Kotzen as the catalyst, Poison finally delivered a mature piece of work which of course did not sell. But that’s another story.
Here, we have a very rough sounding live disc, overly long, and embarassingly bad. Every song is superior in its studio version, making this album completely redundant. Ironically, coming from the band who once said, “Fans comes to see us play, not PRESS play,” you can hear lots of backing vocal tapes, especially on “I Want Action”. You do get basically every hit that Poison ever had, which was an impressive amount. However, even that couldn’t pad out a full 2 CD release, so they also played some really terrible songs live. “Look What the Cat Dragged In” is awful, but even worse is the blues massacre, “Poor Boy Blues”. Bret’s ad-lib is a cheesy mess.
The only reason to buy this CD is the new studio material Two of the new songs are among the best that Poison had recorded up to this time. “So Tell Me Why” is a firecracker of a song, a brilliant rocker held aloft by fantastic guitar melodies. “Only Time Will Tell” is one of their best ballads, along the lines of “Life Goes On” or “I Won’t Forget You” crossed with some Native Tongue maturity.
If you can get Swallow This Live at a decent price (I used to sell it around $8.99), pick it up for the new studio stuff, but don’t blame me if C.C.’s live guitar solo makes your ears bleed! (Note: I know this has been reissued as a single disc with various track omissions, so buy according to your needs.)
2/5 stars
Don’t forget that Poison’s second album was originally to be called Swallow This!
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