Fantastic interview by Erica Ehm once again, with Reb Beach and Kip Winger. Lengthy session too, 23 minutes in total! Starting with some country riffs (Reb on 6-string, Kip on 12-string), the boys defied the expectations of the early 90s and proved they could really play — and how! For the Winger guys, it was already “first thing in the morning”, otherwise known as “mid-afternoon” to us; Kip had his cup of coffee ready! (Really good coffee, according to Erica.)
Sad observation: We’ve seen past interviews with groups like Bon Jovi, where throngs of fans were banging on the big MuchMusic windows. Winger only got a couple curious onlookers pulling faces. Too bad.
Songs played:
“Can’t Get Enuff” (at the 5:30 mark)
“Who’s The One” (17:30 in)
Topics covered:
Why were Winger not as big in Canada as they were at home?
Playing for musicians
Videos / “the image”
The art of songwriting / lyrics
Why was the new album called Pull?
Reb’s instructional guitar video
Chris Robinson, Lars Ulrich, Beavis and Butt-head, and other critics
Playgirl magazine!
Being “rock stars”
Winger ends the session with a blues jam.
Awesome acoustic tunes and a fantastic interview. Check it out below.
This blue Scotch tape has seen a lot of use over the years. It was my first blank tape, 120 minutes. This cassette was well loved. Back in ’83, it contained open-air recordings of songs like “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and “The Mighty Quinn”. At some point in history (early 1991) I must have recorded over it. Let’s have a listen.
Play ►
I have a feeling I know what it is now. Sounds like something I recorded for a girl! It would have been for my long distance crush Tammy.
This tape was never anything more than a cheap cassette, and it sounds awfully horrendous today. The contents, however, are still identifiable. The reason I never sent it to her was that it didn’t pass the sound quality test when I played it back. That was the shitty thing about cassettes. You could pour hours into making something, and then abandon the entire project.
I’m writing this in real time as I listen. If I’m right about my original intentions with this cassette, then I know that I’m going to find a specific song buried somewhere in the track list. Let’s find out.
Side 1
1. Tesla – “Love Song”
The acoustic intro to the song made a perfect run-in for this lovey-dovey tape. I’ll spare the identity of the poor girl who this was made for, but she knows! This Tesla ballad is still utterly perfect. Off to a good start.
2. Kiss – “Shout It Out Loud”
Whew, I sure am glad it’s not all ballads. This track took me by surprise. I’m glad I used a classic Kiss rocker as the second track, instead of pandering for romance with “Reason to Live”. Good for me!
3. Cheap Trick – “The Flame”
I read a lot of hate for this song today. In the 80s, it was my favourite Cheap Trick and it’s still in my top five. It may be a ballad but like the Tesla one, it’s utterly perfect. This tape is now clearly made for a girl. I’d never do 2/3 ballads for my opening trio otherwise.
4. Warrant – “Thin Disguise”
Here I go again with the rarities! She loved Warrant but there is no way she had this song unless she had the cassette single for “Cherry Pie”. I did — I collected that stuff even back then. Turns out the B-side “Thin Disguise” is one of the best Warrant tracks, even today. It’s an acoustic/electric killer. Jani wrote some incredible songs in his time. This is one.
5. Warrant – “I Saw Red (Acoustic version)”
Another rarity, this time from the “I Saw Red” cassette single. I think this simple acoustic track (just Jani and a guitar) is better than the bombastic A-side version. Even then, I was trying to impress a girl with my music collection — how comical is that?
6. Kiss – “Reason to Live”
Ahh shit, there it is! That is hilarious.
7. Cinderella – “Nobody’s Fool”
OK, I’m getting a little sick of the power ballads now. The cool thing is, I know for a fact that I taped this off a cassette that she gave me for Christmas called Rulers of Rock. I wanted to show that I appreciated the gift by including this song. Kind of like when your favourite aunt gave you a sweater and you had to wear it when she was over to visit.
Enough with the ballads though. Let’s get a rocker next. Let’s hope for a rocker.
8. Kim Mitchell – “Easy to Tame”
Well, it’s not a ballad, but it ain’t a rocker either. Kim Mitchell was a good way into a girl’s heart in the late 80s and early 90s. Everybody loved “Patio Lanterns”. “Easy to Tame” was kind of like it’s cooler, lesser known cousin.
9. Paul Stanley – “Hold Me, Touch Me (Think Of Me When We’re Apart)”
Jesus fuck! I went full ballad. This was probably my favourite ballad of all time back then. Stanley’s guitar solo is flawlessly written and executed. And I got three Kiss songs right there on side one.
10. Kiss – “I’ll Be Back”
Four! Four Kiss songs! What a wild inclusion, too. This is a brief, very quick, Beatles tune done a-cappella for Kiss eXposed on VHS. I dubbed this from the video for a “soundtrack tape” that I made, and then recorded it here tape to tape. Just a filler between two other songs, but fuck…that’s cool.
11. Killer Dwarfs – “Doesn’t Matter”
At least this ballad has balls. We played this song a lot the previous summer. Bob had the cassette for Dirty Weapons, and he loved this song. A couple years later it was still good enough to include on their next album Method to the Madness. It’s still great.
12. Triumph – “Let the Light (Shine on Me)”
I’m getting steadily more and more disgusted with myself as the ballads play on. This one was recorded from the 7″ single, but at this point I don’t care and I just want the side to be over so I can flip the tape.
13. Quiet Riot – “Don’t Wanna Let You Go”
I’ll let myself off with a warning here, because this electric song is still pretty great. Truthfully, I included it hoping she’d like it, as Quiet Riot wasn’t really her thing. I was feeling nostalgic for the early 80s, the simplicity and quality of the Metal Health era. You didn’t need a ballad to have a hit then, and indeed “Don’t Wanna Let You Go” isn’t a single. Even in this shitty tape, Carlos’ guitar sound incredible.
14. Slaughter – “Fly to the Angels (Acoustic version)”
I put this on because she loved Slaughter but didn’t have a CD player, and this was a CD bonus track.
Side 2
I need a break from all the balladeering, but I have a feeling the mush will be just as relentless. On the whole of side 1, there was only one track that you could call a rocker!
1. Judas Priest – “Out in the Cold”
Here it is! Yes, I sure do remember making this tape. The main motivation was — get this — to trick her into liking Judas Priest.
She hated Priest. Meanwhile, we were in the Painkiller era and I was riding a Priest high. I planned to write this song on the cover as:
1. Exciter – “Out in the Cold”
I used an alias (disregarding the thrash band with the same name because I know she wouldn’t recognize it) because I wanted her to hear this awesome Priest song with no preconceived notions. I wanted her to love it. I never found out since the cassette sounds so terribly bad and I never sent it, but this proves that I remembered my intentions correctly.
This sheds a new light on all the balladry. I was trying to really lull her in. I figured I needed a tape with nothing but the best soft songs in the world to really get her with the mighty Priest. It’s all coming back to me now.
2. Frehley’s Comet – “It’s Over Now”
I didn’t think she would know this one, but I hoped she’d like it. I was a big proponent of the second Frehley disc, appropriately called Second Sighting. I always thought this song should have been a huge, huge hit. I was hoping she would agree. Unusually for a Frehley song (but wiser from a commercial ballad point of view), it has both lead vocals and lead guitar by Tod Howarth.
3. Frozen Ghost – “Promises”
This one takes me completely by surprises. It’s a great song, but I didn’t have it back then. My sister did — I must have poached it from her collection for this tape. Bob played this a lot in the car over the last couple summers, so our whole gang would remember it fondly. She would have been in the car when we were rocking Frozen Ghost. Lead singer Arnold Lanni later went on to become quite a successful producer. Guitarist Phil X made it even bigger, now touring the world with Bon Jovi!
4. Lee Aaron – “Only Human”
I don’t think this is one of Lee’s finer moments, but I thought she’d like it, so on it went.
5. Winger – “Miles Away”
Putrid. Just awful. Fast forwarding.
6. AC/DC – “Moneytalks”
Holy shit! Finally a rock song. AC/DC were huge in ’90-’91. I couldn’t have gone wrong with AC/DC. Then why the fuck didn’t I include more? “Who Made Who”. “You Shook Me All Night Long”. Everybody likes those songs. Holy shitballs.
7. Motley Crue – “Home Sweet Home”
Tammy had Dr. Feelgood before I did, but I don’t know if she would have Theater of Pain back then. There was no such thing as a Motley greatest hits (can you imagine such a world?) so I thought this would be nice for her to have.
8. Van Halen – “Dreams”
OK, probably not a ballad. Very keyboard-heavy. Very easy to enjoy, and Van Hagar were still cool as fuck.
9. Van Halen – “Dancing in the Streets”
Some folks that are not necessarily Van Halen fans really like their version of “Dancing in the Streets”. It’s probably better than Bowie/Jagger, at least. I’m pleased with myself for including both Sammy and Dave on this tape, and one after the other no less!
10. REZ – “Shadows”
Woah! Deep cut. This was a tape, of a tape, of a tape, of a tape. You can imagine what it sounds like today. Bob and I loved this song by the Christian rock band REZ, formerly Resurrection Band. You can see that I snuck in a few unfamiliar songs like this, hoping she’d get into them. This one is pretty easy to like. Total shock to find it here.
11. Kiss – “Hard Luck Woman”
Kiss Count: five.
12. Brighton Rock – “One More Try”
This also comes as a surprise. Then I think to myself that my music collection wasn’t very large back then and I would have to pull a few obscure ones out. If I remember the details clearly, Tammy had MTV and so didn’t necessarily hear as much Canadian content like Brighton Rock.
13. AC/DC – “You Shook Me All Night Long”
Ah, good. What’s interesting to me about this is that at this point of the tape, the right channel is completely inaudible. So all I get is Angus (no Malcolm), Brian, and maybe half of Phil Rudd.
To my surprise, that is the last song. Usually I snuck something short and goofy at the end of a tape. “You Shook Me All Night Long” does make a good final song….
Wait!
I didn’t erase the tape to the end! There is something left at the tail. Older contents; older than 1991.
It’s “On the Road to Rock” by Kick Axe! It is a mystery how that song got on this tape in the first place, as I didn’t own it back then and don’t even own it now. I must have recorded it off someone. Who, I have no idea. Perhaps my next door neighbour George had it. It was him or Bob, but I’ll never know for sure. George is gone now and Bob wouldn’t remember.
Knowing when I made this tape, and all the motivations behind it doesn’t forgive it for being a piece of shit. I did a shitty job here folks! Too many ballads, not enough variety. It’s a real slog to listen to without a fast forward button. At least half of those ballads could be axed, and replaced with something else that I had in my collection at that time.
Usually when you make a tape for someone, you give it away and never hear it again. In this case I had the rare chance to play back a mix tape that I made 28 years ago and never sent. It’s just as bad as I feared though not without some surprises and the odd cool inclusion.
That blue Scotch tape, an ancient C-120, goes back to at least 1983 making it 36 years old at minimum. 120 minute tapes are never any good, and this one was always particularly cheap. Now that I’ve satisfied my curiosity, I will never play this tape again.
Kip Winger and Reb Beach were on MuchWest with Dixie Dregs fan Terry David Mulligan to talk about their second album In The Heart of the Young. It’s kind of sad, really. Kip says that Winger are pretty close to being a headlining band, not foreseeing the turning tide of the 1990s.
Check out this interview on location in lovely Vancouver.
Winger broke up in ’94, but reunited in 2001. Part of the reunion entailed new music. Before they finally released a new album (Winger IV), they tested the waters with one new song on The Very Best of Winger. Yes indeed, you had to buy a “greatest hits” to get the new song. At least Winger also gave you a Japanese bonus track for your money too.
New tune “On the Inside” was written for Pull (their third album and last before breakup) but recorded for Very Best Of. It’s a chunky, heavy tune with splashes of anthemic keyboard in the chorus. It really underlines that Winger could write and play with integrity when they wanted to. Reb Beach’s solo is unorthodox and outside the box. “Hell to Pay” is listed as an outtake, but it was actually released as a Japanese bonus track to Pull. Stuff like this saves collectors for shelling out mucho dinero for a Japanese import. Good sassy tune, and listen for that scorching outro.
Pull was a record that never got a shot, so it’s OK that the first chunk of tunes are from that album. It deserved a second chance. These are standout songs: “Blind Revolution Mad” smokes white hot, and with depth. “Down Incognito” has a bright, memorable chorus contrasted with groovy verses. 90s-style riffing worked perfectly on the track “Junkyard Dog”, a seven-minute thrill ride through different textures. Winger were not playing it simple. Even their ballads from that era have more heft. “Spell I’m Under” has edge under those layered melodies. Few songs are as starkly lovely as “Who’s the One”.
The Very Best of Winger takes a dive after the Pull material. The CD is in reverse chronological order, which almost never works. Yes, it highlights the most current sounding music, but at the cost of consistency. Winger II: In the Heart of the Young was, let’s be honest, not good. The ballads were sappier and the rockers too cheesy. Only “Rainbow in the Rose” really fits on this set. Past the dreck, the four singles from album #1 are included. This means the CD at least ends on an up, though the ballad “Headed for a Heartbreak” is a bit anti-climatic.
A highschool guy named Rob Petersen recommended Winger to me. Rob was one of the only kids with long hair. I was so jealous of him. He had the Rick Allen curls and everything. Girls thought he was cute. I thought maybe some of his cool could rub off on me. Luckily I sat next to him in Mr. Lightfoot’s history class.
I recorded the music video for “Seventeen”, which was OK, but didn’t particularly stand out. Kip Winger’s abs did. Towards the end of the video, he did this weird thrusty-dance with his bass. This is memorable to me because the tape that “Seventeen” was on, was also used for a school video project. I made a music video for “Nothing But A Good Time” by Poison with friends, for a school award. I recorded my copy on the same tape as “Seventeen” — immediately after it, actually. When we presented the video to the film teacher, she caught the tail end of “Seventeen”, and Kip’s thrust. “Oh,” I heard her comment, and I sensed it was more disgust than titillation.
Kip Winger mid-thrust
Despite their image, Winger possessed a rare rock pedigree. Classically trained bassist and singer Charles “Kip” Winger was fresh from Alice Cooper’s band, as was keyboardist Paul Taylor. Kip also performed on Twisted Sister’s Love is for Suckers LP in 1987, with future bandmate Reb Beach. Most impressively, drummer Rod Morgenstein was an alumnus of Steve Morse’s Dixie Dregs. Yet all these massive players went and made a commercial hard rock album with, let’s face it, pretty juvenile lyrics at times.
It’s hard not to be critical of Winger for this. Knowing what these guys are capable of, the debut album Winger seems like pandering. They did sneak in a few progressive hints, such as a string quartet on “Hungry”, but the impression was that they were just another hard rock band with big hair and candycane hooks. They were underachieving, from a certain point of view.
Winger was in the batch of the first CDs I ever got, for Christmas of 1989. This was based almost entirely on Rob Petersen’s raving. Another reason I chose it was the “CD bonus track”! One of the incentives for buying a CD player was to finally get songs that were only on the CD release. I had mixed impressions. The first “side” was decent but the second was a little filler-heavy.
I’m sad to admit this, but Winger’s version of “Purple Haze” was the first time I ever heard the song. Ozzy’s version was the second. Go ahead, judge me.
Winger could have taken it further on their second album. In a way, they did: progressive songs and complex rhythms stood alongside the pop rock tracks. While they advanced in that regard, they took a step backwards in another. Some songs were even dumber: “Can’t Get Enough” for example, was a transparent re-write of “Seventeen”, and the ballads were dreck. Worst of all was Kip’s very unnecessary rapping on “Baptized by Fire”.
Two songs, “Rainbow in the Rose” and “In the Heart of the Young” (the title track) were so far above and beyond the pack, they could have come from a different album. These two epics drip of the kind of progressive rock you know these guys can play. Yet they kept it radio accessible, somehow, even while Rod Morgenstein is playing rhythms my brain can barely compute.
While Winger II charted higher and sold as well as the first, 12 months later it was hopelessly outdated by the birth of grunge. Winger then fell victim to two of the 90s greatest antiheroes, Beavis and Butt-Head. A black Winger shirt was worn by nerd character Stewart, and the band were repeatedly mocked. This eventually killed Winger off as a business. Gigs dried up. Fortunately for fans, Kip Winger and Mike Judge of Beavis and Butt-Head recently had a make-up session. Even Kip admitted, “Winger was a band that was popular for some of the wrong reasons, man.”
The third album, Pull, is a reference to skeet shooting. Kip knew that for all the chances they had, they may as well throw the album into the air and take shots at it. “Pull!”
It was a lose-lose situation and both Winger and the public lost by Pull‘s commercial failure. Keyboardist Paul Taylor had left, and so Pull features less of the instrument and a far heavier sound. Taylor was eventually replaced by John Roth, a guitarist. The message was pretty clear. Pull featured some of Winger’s best tracks: “Down Incognito”, “Blind Revolution Mad”, “Junkyard Dog”, and “Who’s the One”. Had Pull come out in 1990 instead of 1993, things would have gone very differently. Instead, Winger broke up.
The happy news is that like many bands, Winger reunited (the John Roth lineup occasionally with Paul Taylor as a fifth member), and started putting out albums again. Good ones, too. Their last Better Days Comin’ is pretty great.
As further proof of Winger’s greatness, Reb Beach went from there to Alice Cooper, completing the circle. Winger, after all, was originally founded by two ex-Cooper players. He was then picked to replace George Lynch in Dokken. And Kip? His 30 minute symphony “Ghosts” should speak for itself.
Those who are curious but sceptical should check out Winger’s Pull, and the albums that followed. Go ahead and wing it!
One more reblog for this season. Here’s an instalment of Getting More Tale (the sequel series toRecord Store Tales) about Christmas Eve in the glorious, wonderful period we knew as the 1980s. Feliz Navidad!
RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale #349: Christmas Eve
So here we are once again, Christmas Eve. When I was a kid, you were my favourite day of the entire year. It’s hard not to get excited about you, today in 2014. Christmas Eve, you were the center of everything, 30 years ago! Such a short but exciting day. Inevitably, relatives would start handing us colourfully wrapped boxes, the best ones saved for last. Then the ritual of steps: Shake the box. Give the card a cursory read and give it a toss. Rip the paper. Peer inside. 30 years ago, there would have been Star Wars figures inside. Perhaps my Jabba the Hutt gift set. An Atari game, possibly. I wasn’t into music that much until about 1985, when Kiss really opened my eyes.
Around that time, Christmas Eve changed a little bit, but only in a subtle way. Instead of racing downstairs to play our new Atari games, we would race upstairs to play our new cassette tapes! Some Helix, Kiss, or Twisted Sister would have been among the music received back then. We also would have received our fair share of GI Joe and Transformers toys. I remember the year I got the GI Joe Hovercraft from “Santa”! Oh boy. My dad won’t let me forget that one. I woke up at 1 in the morning to play with it. Yeah, the parents weren’t overly thrilled to be woken up by the noise at that hour. I just couldn’t stay asleep! Having a younger sister meant the whole Santa thing went on longer than its normal sell-by date, but I wasn’t complaining. It was a lot of fun.
I’m sure tonight won’t be that different. If I’m lucky, I will receive a CD or two from somebody who loves me. I won’t race anywhere to go and listen to it right away, but it will be just as appreciated. After I got older, got a job, and started buying people gifts with my own money, I’ve realized that it’s the giving that is so much more fun. I cannot wait to see the look on people’s faces, especially when forced to open my elaborately disguised surprises. That’s what I get a kick out of the most now.
This year, I wish each one of you all the best, and indeed a Merry, Merry Christmas. Whether you celebrate it or not, have a good day, eh? Be safe. Please drink responsibly, and please call a cab if you have been drinking. But that’s enough serious talk. I’ll leave you with one of my favourite Christmas videos (still unreleased on CD to this day), and some links to past Christmas posts. Enjoy! Ho ho ho!
Winger’s cool traditional / funky version of “Silent Night”!
WINGER – II – In the Heart of the Young (1990 Atlantic)
Another awful album cover; another Winger album! The ambitious follow-up, still sonically mutilated by producer Beau Hill, was several steps forward and a few steps backwards at the same time. The year was 1990, and while most bands were starting to toughen things up and go a little heavier, Winger turned on the tap marked “syrup”.
Truly awful is “Can’t Get Enuff”, which Winger admitted took about five minutes to write, when he decided they needed to “make a video about sex”. Because that’s never been done before. Nor has a song called “Can’t Get Enough” (spelled correctly). There is nothing new or necessary here; the talented band are neutered by programmed rhythms and cheesey, generic lyrics. Not good enuff, although the second tune “Loosen Up” is better. There could have been some rock and roll groove with “Loosen Up”, but the plastic and thin production removes its teeth.
Keyboardist Paul Taylor, who left the band after this tour, wrote the ballad “Miles Away” by himself and it hits all the bases that a power ballad needed to hit: Big chorus, sad keyboards, and sappy lyrics! “Miles Away” never quite felt like it fit on the album stylistically, but it’s actually a decent ballad. It’s well written and arranged, but so pigeonholed to its time.
I hate synth horns, therefore I hate the single “Easy Come Easy Go”. There is no substitute for real horns. Keyboards are quicker and easier, but there is no comparison to the real thing. Thankfully Winger did utilise real horns on “Rainbow in the Rose”, the first of two epics on the album. Where “Can’t Get Enuff” was written in minutes, “Rainbow in the Rose” took a year to compose and arrange. Its complexity is admirable, but a better producer could have given it the finish it deserved. It’s a shame that with a complicated track like this, you can barely hear what drummer Rod Morgenstein is doing. He’s one of the best in the world, but he’s buried under keyboards. When you do listen to what he’s doing, it’s quite incredible work. As for the song? The chorus kills!
The second side was more of the same, including another epic at the end. “In the Day We’ll Never See” was Winger’s attempt to write more serious lyrics, and that’s all well and good. With a peppy riff and serious tone, it’s a good enough song for a car tape. Reb Beach’s anthemic guitars are the highlight. Another side; another ballad — “Under One Condition” sounds like a Warrant song, although that’s probably being unfair. Warrant could never play like Winger.
Side two has a slew of annoying songs in the middle. “Little Dirty Blonde” is as putrid as it sounds, but let’s face it folks, it’s not as bad as Kip Winger rapping. The story goes that they wanted to get Tone Lōc to do his thing over “Baptized By Fire”, but that didn’t happen so Kip rapped it himself. It’s as annoying as you expect. One of the most impressive moments on the album is just a short instrumental break, sounding like speedily tapped guitar and bass, right before “Baptised By Fire”, but it’s over too soon before MC Kip takes over. “You Are the Saint, I Am the Sinner” improves the outlook mildly, annoying title aside. That leads to the final epic track, “In the Heart of the Young”. Like “Rainbow in the Rose”, this is a more ambitious arrangement, done with skill and care. Once again, focusing on Rod Morgenstein allows you to hear the complexities within. The melodies are strong and Kip’s singing is under-appreciated.
Winger were on to something with the more progressive material. Where they lost fans was with the dumbed down sounds of songs like “Can’t Get Enuff”, and they paid for it during the grunge onslaught down the road.
When Winger started out, they really played down to their audience. Kip Winger was a classically trained musician. Reb Beach was already a virtuoso guitar player whose talent can’t be under-stressed. Keyboardist Paul Taylor had been around the block a number of times, including a stint with Kip Winger in the Alice Cooper band. Most impressively, drummer Rod Morgenstein is best respected for the rock fusion combo Dixie Dregs. To hear guys with that background singing a song that goes, “She’s only seventeen, Dad says she’s too young but she’s old enough for me,”…well it’s just embarrassing.
I call bullshit, Mr. Clarence R. Winger. He’d been studying classical music since the age of sixteen. You know he could do better if he wasn’t trying to write cliche rock lyrics.
Musically, Winger (the debut album) isn’t half bad. In fact it’s more than half good! The opener “Madalaine” is cheesey rock, but it’s above the bar due to the intense guitar shreddery of Mr. Beach. It was an era when it was OK to just get up there and tap tap tap away. There is some musical integrity contained herein, but it’s not in the lyrical department. The single “Hungry” begins with a string quartet (only 22 seconds’ worth), arranged by Kip. See? Flashes of the talent within, but cloaked behind a typical rock power ballad with one of the most overused titles in the genre. Good songs both…but written down to a specific audience by guys who can do better.
Chief offender “Seventeen” wouldn’t be half bad if it had a different title; any title. Call it “Buttermilk”. Instead of:
“She’s only seventeen (seventeen), I’ll show you love like you’ve never seen, She’s only seventeen (seventeen), Dad says she’s too young but she’s old enough for me.”
Change that to:
“I love my buttermilk (buttermilk), Makes my pancakes as smooth as silk, I love my buttermilk (buttermilk), Mom says it’ll make me fat, stop that buttermilk!”
See? My lyric had depth that theirs doesn’t. It’s light and shade. Yes, buttermilk will make your pancakes extra tasty, but what of the health costs? I could go on and on about the brilliance of my lyric vs. Kip Winger’s. But I won’t. You get the point.
Shredding musicianship aside, “Seventeen” is not a good song.
“Without the Night” works well enough as a Bon Jovi-esque power ballad. What should have been deleted, because they already had enough original material, is a cover of Jimi’s “Purple Haze”. This is dreadful, overplayed, oversexed, with the only saving grace being a guitar battle with Reb Beach on one side and Dweezil Zappa on the other. Two monster players going at it is right on. Kip Winger “ooh ahh-ing” all over “Purple Haze” is blech. Just focus on Reb and Dweezil, and try your best to ignore Clarence.
The original LP had a side break here, and I think that’s a good idea. I need to take a moment to get some fresh air. Something stinks in here….
“State of Emergency” has a little progressive complexity to it, some chops and lyrics that are not about seventeen year old girls, so that is good. “Time to Surrender” shreds impressively over a slow Ratt-like riff. All considered, “Time to Surrender” is one of the strongest tracks on the album. Sadly, “Poison Angel” is the worst. This one could have been dropped. “Hangin’ On” is good enough, again boasting some impressive playing from Reb Beach. The key to listening to Winger is to focus on the instrumentation.
The most impressive track is the ballad “Headed for a Heartbreak”. Cheesey, yes. But listen for a moment, to the arrangement, and to the playing. It’s a hit power ballad, yes…but there are progressive complexities to the arrangement. Listen to Rod Morgenstein’s drumming. His patterns are not simple rock cliches. Too bad it’s so hard to hear what he’s doing. Winger has a brittle production, thanks to schlock-meister Beau Hill, ruiner of many an album. Over-processing and harsh gating on Rod’s drum sound gives the album a plastic feel. Some tracks such as “State of Emergency” should have more heft, but it is lost. “Time to Surrender” needs less gloss. The album has hardly any bass, and the thing about that is that Kip Winger is actually a pretty good bassist (not to mention singer).
The CD only bonus track (oh 1988, I miss you so) is a short rocker called “Higher and Higher”. It’s a better track than the similar-paced “Poison Angel” and should have swapped places with it. There’s also one other interesting little track to be found. Another short rocker called “Out for the Count” made an appearance on the soundtrack to Karate Kid III. I picked that up at a Zellers store, I think, on a clearance sale around 1992. It was an odd find, but being a collector I grabbed it for the one track. (Also on the CD is “48 Hours” by a band called PBF, better known as Pretty Boy Floyd!) Swap “Out for the Count” for “Purple Haze”, and the Winger album would have been far stronger.
It’s really hard to boil this down to a simple number rating. I’ve come up with an equation based on your valuing of playing and songcraft,
Where x = a scale from 0-5 on how much you value shredding,
and y = a scale from 0-5 on your importance of song craft,
RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale #358: The Personal Impact of Led Zeppelin
Christmas 1990 was another major turning point in my musical life. I know others who can say the same thing for the same reason. Led Zeppelin had released their first box set, a 4 CD collection of 54 essential tracks, remastered by Jimmy Page himself. This was the impetus I needed to finally take the Zeppelin plunge.
Prior to this, I had stayed away from Zeppelin. I only knew a couple live videos from MuchMusic, which didn’t appeal to me at all. A rock band wearing sandals? The fuck was this? I couldn’t wrap my head around the violin bow solo, nor the band. I remember watching the old live “Dazed and Confused” video with my friend Bob. “You can tell that guy’s on drugs,” he said of Jimmy Page.
That was in the 1980’s. By the turn of the decade, I was starting to tire of plastic sounding pop rock bands. I was craving authenticity, and I know I wasn’t the only one. Bands like Warrant were wracked by controversy, when it was revealed that they employed two guitar teachers to write their guitar solos and teach the members how to play them. Too much fakery for me — at that point I decided to stop listening to them. I sold my Warrant tapes. Warrant in turn accused Poison, the band they were opening for, of using backing tapes live. All kinds of bands were accused of using backing tapes. Sebastian Bach was quoted as saying, “The only band out there that doesn’t use backing tapes live today is Metallica, and that’s a fact.” (I am fairly certain Iron Maiden are above such tom foolery as well.)
The old “Dazed and Confused” video that Much used to play
I didn’t want backing tapes, I wanted authentic pure rock music. There was a bustle in my hedgerow. I wasn’t satisfied with the new releases coming out either. A lot of groups that I really liked released disappointing albums in 1990. From Dio to Iron Maiden to Winger, there were too many bands that failed to impress that year. A band like Zeppelin seemed to have not only authenticity, but solid consistently. They were hailed as the greatest rock band of all time by just about every rock group I heard of!
I received the box set from my parents on Christmas day 1990. The following day, Boxing day, I had set aside to listen to the entire box set from start to finish – about five and a half hours of listening. I took a brief lunch break between discs 2 and 3. I emerged from my room that afternoon, dazed, but not confused at all. There were some songs that I didn’t care too much for – “Poor Tom”, “Wearing and Tearing”, “Ozone Baby” – mostly songs from Coda. They were vastly outnumbered by the songs that absolutely blew me away, even though I had never heard of them before: “Your Time Is Gonna Come”, “Immigrant Song”, “Ramble On”, “The Ocean”, “All My Love”…I could not believe the sheer quality of the music.
Sure, Led Zeppelin’s songs weren’t produced as slick as I was used to. They were a far cry from Whitesnake. Jimmy Page wasn’t a shredder like Steve Vai, but I felt a personal shift. I thought bands like Whitesnake and Cinderella had been exhibiting the epitome of integrity, with the ace players and incredible musicianship. Like athletes, musicians only seemed to achieve loftier heights over the decades with their playing. This was exemplified by a guy like Steve Vai who pushed guitar into entirely new frontiers. Cinderella, on the other hand, had even worked with Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, who provided strings to their bluesy Heartbreak Station LP. I thought Cinderella were the blues! But now, my eyes were really opening. It was like Obi-Wan Kenobi had prophesized: “You’ve just taken your first step, in a larger world.”
Led Zeppelin (and also ZZ Top) were talking about blues artists I never heard of. Muddy Waters? Lightning Hopkins? Robert Johnson? Who were these people that were so influential that Zeppelin were known to lift entire songs from them?
I had a thought: “From this moment on, I will never be able to listen to rock bands the same way again. I used to think Cinderella were authentic blues. How can I ever go back to listening to Cinderella with the same feeling of passion? How can I play bands like Slaughter and Judas Priest, and think for a second that these guys are any better than the old guys like Zep?”
Fortunately I found that eventually Cinderella, Whitesnake and Led Zeppelin could co-exist in my collection. Liking one does not mean you can’t like the others. Even though Led Zeppelin raised the bar to extraordinary heights, I found it wasn’t too hard to “lower my standards” sometimes and enjoy a little “Slow An’ Easy” with David Coverdale. Zeppelin simply opened my eyes: that there was an entire history of blues that I hadn’t really been aware of before. My musical life journey was about to expand exponentially.
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