Jay Jay French

REVIEW: Twisted Sister – The Best of the Atlantic Years (2016)

TWISTED SISTER – The Best of the Atlantic Years (2016 Atlantic)

Nobody likes buying the same thing twice, so Twisted Sister have ensured this “greatest hits” album is vastly different from their other stand-by, 1992’s Big Cuts & Nasty Cuts.  That album boasted a side of live B-sides, now collected as Live at the Marquee.  As such, it only had 10 studio tracks, whereas this new compilation has 17 plus a previously unreleased bonus.

The repeated songs are the obvious ones:

  • “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!”
  • “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll”
  • “I Am (I’m Me)”
  • “The Kids Are Back”
  • “I Wanna Rock”
  • “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
  • “The Price”

That leaves a whole lotta songs, including a few singles, that you’ll find here but not on Big Hits.  Notably though, that means this compilation doesn’t have “Shoot ‘Em Down”, “Under the Blade”, or “Bad Boys of Rock ‘N’ Roll”.

What makes this compilation a little more special is that the tracks go almost chronologically, and don’t skimp out on songs from Come Out and Play, or Love Is for Suckers.  Founding guitarist Jay Jay French mentioned in the liner notes that Suckers was supposed to be a Snider solo album, but we do get two songs.

Opening with Twisted’s first Atlantic album Under the Blade, we are treated to the 1985 remixes of “What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)”, “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” and “Sin After Sin”.  It’s a nice one-two-three punch, with “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” being a bubble gum punk sandwich, stuck between two heavy metal hard hitters.  It’s actually a nice change of pace, getting the echo-laden remixes this time.

The heavy metal assault continues with what might be my favourite Twisted song of all time:  “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll”.

“Like a charging bull, it’s a juggernaut,With steam at full, never to be caught,Incarnate power, roaring from the sky,While others cower, rock ain’t gonna die.”

The slow intro, the chugging riff, the pounding drums of the late great A.J. Pero (my favourite member as a kid) and the roar of Dee Snider made this the perfect heavy metal song to entice a young teenager back in the 80s.  “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll” is part of a trio included from the same-titled album, joined by melodic metal masterpieces “I Am (I’m Me)” and “The Kids Are Back”.  When Twisted went all melodic, they drew upon classic influences, but combined with the heavy guitars, they almost sound like precursors to pop-punk.  In many regards, Twisted Sister were ahead of their time.  It’s a simple recipe:  Guitars chug, bass joins them, drums throw in some catchy fills, and Dee Snider delivers the hooks with the band on backing vocals.  Simple, but difficult to master.

The largest clutch of songs obviously comes from Stay Hungry, with six.  The three big singles are the obvious ones, but also thrown in are the classic deep cuts “Burn In Hell”, “The Beast” and “S.M.F.”  In these songs, you get the heavier side of “Stay Hungry”, minus the title track itself.  People who don’t actually know Twisted Sister might be surprised how heavy Stay Hungry could get once you ventured outside the safe singles.  “Burn in Hell” is an exersize in intensity that deserves every listen you can give it.  Perhaps the oft-forgotten “The Beast” is the most welcome here, as a true red-blooded slow burner metal monster.

Despite the quality of the lesser-heard Stay Hungry songs, one remains the pinnacle of Twisted Sister’s finest moments:  “The Price”.  Twisted probably took guff from the press and the doubters for attempting a ballad, but “The Price” puts the “power” in power ballad.  Notably, A.J.’s drums are far busier and heavier that you expect from the average paltry power ballad.  Dee Snider demonstrates his expert-level versatility here on the high notes, rendering this song very hard to sing note for note today.

This album wastes no opportunity.  Come Out and Play is finally given a fair shake.  The dark ugly duckling of the Twisted discography is represented by the title track, “Leader of the Pack”, “The Fire Still Burns” and the forgotten sing-along “You Want What We Got”.  They didn’t skimp out here, and you get the full length version of “Come Out and Play”, including the Warriors homage of “Twisted Sister, come out and play!”  Pero’s final album, and his drumming on this track is as blazing fast as it got for Twisted Sister.  “Leader of the Pack” is campy fun, but it really had to be included, being an integral part of Twisted’s early history and eventual failure (at least according to Jay Jay in the liner notes).  “The Fire Still Burns” has an intense flame indeed, though did Dieter Dierks’ production do it any favours?  Of note:  “You Want What We Got” is not the album version.  It is longer at 4:21, and contains an outro with Dee Snider talking, and dropping a deleted expletive!  This version is not credited as being unique, and it’s currently unknown where it originated.

Love Is For Suckers is often neglected.  The Beau Hill-produced album was written to be Dee’s solo debut, and included members of other bands from the Hill camp, such as Fiona, Winger and Kix.  Reb Beach played lead guitar, which led to a sudden change in sound, away from the heavy metal of Twisted Sister’s roots, and more towards what was popular at the time:  the subgenre they call “hair metal” today.  Joey “Seven” Franco replaced A.J., and was so nicknamed as he was the band’s seventh drummer.  Franco also followed Dee into his solo band the following year.  “Hot Love” was the single, which should have been a hit, while “Love Is For Suckers” was the only cover the band ever recorded without playing live first.

The final song is the bonus track, “Born to be Wild”, the Steppenwolf cover that they have indeed played live (going back to 1976, but more recently on Live At Wacken: The Reunion).  This new studio version was recorded in 2005 and produced by Mark “The Animal” Mendoza.  It was used prior to this release in a reality TV series called Knievel’s Wild Ride.  It’s tremendous fun, with Twisted Sister ripping into it with their usual reckless abandon.  Mendoza’s bass is delightfully bass, but Dee Snider really lets loose at the end.

This set, being limited to the Atlantic years, gratefully doesn’t include anything from Still Hungry or Twisted Christmas.  That’s fine and dandy; they would unbalance this release.  The Best of the Atlantic Years is the best single Twisted Sister compilation on the market.

5/5 stars

REVIEW: Twisted Sister – Club Daze, Volume I: The Studio Sessions (1999)

TSCD_0001 TWISTED SISTER – Club Daze, Volume I: The Studio Sessions (1999)

Everybody knows that Twisted Sister has been around a long time; since 1973 in fact, just as long as Kiss. However not too many people have heard Twisted’s early material outside of their first single “I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!” which was on their “best of” CD. Club Daze, Volume I fills in the gaps.

This CD is for fans only. It will have absolutely no appeal at all to casual listeners who only want songs they recognize. In fact, some of these songs are painfully bad. “High Steppin'”, “Big Gun”, and “T.V. Wife” for example are all examples of some very poor early songwriting. These tunes are in a more traditional rock and roll vibe, and are lyrically quite awful. Take “T.V. Wife” for example, written and sung by JJ French, a song about a woman who sits around all day watching soaps. Really bad song.

On the flipside there are rough and ready versions of some really decent songs, such as “Come Back” which had Dee Snider writing in a heavy metal mode. “Rock ‘N’ Roll Saviours” is a personal favourite, a 1978 attack upon disco music. “We’re gonna fight until disco is dead!” sings Snider.  And they did!

To make collectors salivate just a little more, the best tracks on the CD are the three songs originally from the (then) impossible-to-find EP Ruff Cutts (now since made available on the Under the Blade reissue). This includes an early version of “Leader of the Pack” and more familiar songs: “Shoot ‘Em Down” and “Under The Blade”. It is only these last two songs that really show what Twisted Sister was capable of and where they would go in the future.

There’s one Ruff Cutt missing (“What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)”), and a few other miscellaneous early tracks as well, but Club Daze is a compilation of these years.  Club Daze is also loaded with ample pictures and liner notes (from Jay Jay and Dee).

As an album purchase, this CD is not the greatest release. Twisted Sister were never virtuoso musicians, and it shows. Most of these songs don’t have Mark “The Animal” Mendoza on bass, who really helped make their songs heavier. Most tracks feature Kenny Neill on bass and Tony Petri on drums. This is for collectors only, and anybody who wants to know what this band sounded like in the 70’s before they did their first serious recordings, and found the sound that would make them famous.

3/5 stars

REVIEW: Twisted Sister – Stay Hungry (25th Anniversary Edition)

TS SH R_0003

My Twisted reviews: “We’re Not Gonna Take It” single, Under the Blade, Live at the Marquee

TWISTED SISTER – Stay Hungry (25th Anniversary Edition, Atlantic, 2009 originally 1984)

Fact:  When I was a kid, I used to think that Jay Jay French might in fact be blind; I never saw him without his dark shades!

25 years of Stay Hungry?  Actually 29 years at press time!  I don’t want to believe it.  Anyway, this reissue was a pretty big deal because Stay Hungry was out of print on CD.  For whatever reason (legal, contractual?) when Twisted issued their series of remasters with bonus tracks back in 1997, Stay Hungry was not one of them. Then in 2004, the reunited band recorded an album called Still Hungry, which was all of Stay Hungry re-recorded “the way they originally wanted it to sound” (cough). As a fan, I only enjoyed it for the new and unreleased bonus tracks. I was underwhelmed by the re-recording. It’s impossible to duplicate a specific recording, especially when the singer can no longer hit the high notes in “The Price”.  And it just didn’t sound good.

That was then, this is now, and Stay Hungry has finally been remastered and beefed up with a bonus disc of unreleased material and one brand new song! (None of these unreleased songs were even heard on Still Hungry, but a couple were remade by Dee on a solo album.) The album itself remains one of Sister’s best, although my preference is to You Can’t Stop Rock N’ Roll.  The bonus disc sheds light on what else the band was writing at the time.

IMG_00000189_editThe remastering and liner notes are excellent. The album sounds like it should, the way a pristine vinyl copy would sound back then. Still Hungry was mastered way too loud; this is much better.  The liner notes reveal friction between the band and producer Tom Werman. Werman rejected a lot of what the band had written, which makes up disc two. However, he was also a big supporter of their heavier songs such as “Burn In Hell” and “Horror-Teria: The Beginning”, while disliking “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.  Dee Snider, in fact, wanted to save “Horror-Teria” for a rock opera he was composing, but Tom Werman wisely insisted it go on this album.

The special thing about the original Stay Hungry album was that there was not one bad song on it. From all three smash hit singles (“I Wanna Rock” and “The Price”), to album cuts like “Don’t Let Me Down” and “S.M.F.”, every song here is a classic. And only one ballad!

Twisted Sister appeared in the 1985 comedy, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

Highlights include the opener “Stay Hungry”, which smokes the speakers immediately.  “Burn In Hell” (seen performed by Twisted Sister in the 1985 film Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) turns up the scare factor with some unholy Snider vocals.  Snider’s epic “Horror Terria” is split into two parts.  “Captain Howdy” (later to become Snider’s character the film Strangeland) is a warning to stay away from the title character.  It’s ominous, Snider obviously hamming it up as Captain Howdy.  As a kid I never fully appreciated exactly what the song is depicting, unfortunately this kind of thing is now in the news on a weekly basis.  Part two is “Street Justice”, an angry song that inspired scenes in the film.

The man was caught, and brought before a judge,
who had just returned from a three-drink lunch.
His lawyer screamed, “You must set him free!”
And off he went, on a technicality.

Side two commenced with two of the big singles, “I Wanna Rock” and “The Price”, but equally good was “Don’t Let Me Down”.  This would have been another single as far as I’m concerned.  “The Beast” is evil and Sabbathy, but the album ends with the TNT blast of “S.M.F.”  At this point you are blown back into your seats.

TS SH R_0006The sound quality on the bonus disc varies from track to track, as is bound to happen with demos this old. Don’t let that spoil your enjoyment. These are some of the heavier songs that Twisted were writing, that Werman simply did not feel were strong enough. Perhaps with some fleshing out and proper studio time, tracks like “Death From Above” or “We’re Coming On” could have stood proud on the album as well. Clearly these demos are unfinished, most are very brief and unadorned. Some are a bit too similar to stronger songs that did make the album. Listening to the whole disc makes you wish that they had been fleshed out and released on B-sides or albums, as some are pretty good.

The highlight of this disc is the brand new Twisted Sister song, “30”. Finally, somebody has written an anthem for older rockers! It’s about time! And it’s a great tune, as well! “30 came and went a long long time ago,” sings Dee, with absolutely no shame, and rightfully so!

If you’re a new fan, or an old fan who has heard Stay Hungry a million times, this is a compulsory purchase. It renders the original release obselete. Still Hungry pales to this reissue. Well done, if only all reissues were put together with this much care and effort.

5/5 stars