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Pissed!

By Johnny Angel

Crock o' Tears:
Where have all the posers gone?

In the February issue of Spin magazine, writer Lynn Snowden runs down the sad plight of the dinosaurs--no, not brontosauruses and tyrannosaurs, but the hair-metal bands of the late '80s. In a kinda "where-are-they-now" thang, the author takes to the road with Skid Row, now reduced to station-wagon, only-seven-roadies status. The writer had toured with the Skidders three years ago, nearer the band's peak, when they had 30 employees and road cases full of gaudy costume wear. Now, sadly, they are lugging shorts and baseball caps in handbags to gigs as stage wear.

Piss and moan is what the band seems to do offstage. Lead singer Sebastian Bach disses Courtney and Kurt with such dismissals as "I never OD'd or shot myself in the head. We don't cancel shows." The gist of Pretty Boy Void's complaints seems to be along the lines of "We're professionals, why are we going down like the post-torpedo Lusitania?" Bach voices the same screed that has plagued bizzers since the first caveman was booed off the plains. Life ain't fair!

Well, how my achy-breaky heart bleeds gallons of tomato juice for Skid Row, Warrant, Poison and all the varmints out of the past. Luckily, Snowden didn't portray these acts in need of any sympathy, but that's clearly what they seek (that and the return of their blow-jobs-in-the-back-of-the-limo lifestyle). They've been wronged by all of them no-talent scruffs that now inhabit MTV's airwaves, not to mention MTV itself.

Well, dig this, pinheads. He who lives by MTV, dies by MTV. With only a major record deal and stardom as their raison d'être, the glam metalers prostrated themselves before the altar of music TV only to find out what a cruel mistress she can be. Ever in search of mo' newer and hipper, the cable channel heave-ho'd this brigade of willful sellouts when their time was up, just like it had for the Brit synthy kidz before Bon Jovi.

Oh woe is us? Nope. Too close to the corporate structure that gave them life, the metal bands were perceived (correctly) by their suburban audiences as being in bed with the despised establishment. They posed less a threat to the status quo than the Daughters of the American Revolution, for gawdsake.

So now, time advances backward for the former spandex squadron. Touring by van, playing small clubs in the sticks, Skid Row and their ilk are doing what real bands have had to do for years: Build a legit audience base that really appreciates what they do as opposed to one that has been saturated with shameless, big-bux promo and has capitulated in its face. "Welcome to the Jungle," as one of your cohorts once said (and I can't wait to see Axl Rose belting it out at some 400-seater, too), only this time it's the real thing, not some ersatz tough-guy pose.

I liked some of the music these bands made, as I would any bubblegum ear-wash, but let's see if they have the balls they used to flaunt so proudly and stick it out through their own dark ages.

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