Ahhh the '80s. Hair metal. Shredding. Glam 'n sleaze. Axl vs. Bon Jovi. Axl vs. Vince. Axl vs. the rest of his band.
Some of the most snarly, flashy, and sometimes androgynous rock of this time period came out of the L.A./Hollywood area. You've probably read about bars like The Whisky, The Roxy, The Troubadour, and Gazzarri's (which in the mid to late '70s was one of the regular homes of Dave-era Van Halen). These are the factories that spawned a plethora of metal bands.
Grunge and flannel shirts put the nail in the coffin for a lot of these bands as people moved away from the "rock star" worship type of thing. They moved onto bands with a message --- like Pearl Jam. Except they eventually got tired of Eddie's weight-of-the-world-is-on-my-shoulders agenda.
With people looking for an alternative to the endless drone of screamo bands, Deadline Records has put together a massive, 4 disc, 78 track collection (that's 5 hours of music, people!) of all the bands from that era (actually ranging from 1978 to 1993). All the guilty parties are present, from Dokken to Poison, and Keel to Bang Tango. The cool thing is that all the cuts are demos --- some even taken from band members' personal collections. There are also some b-sides, live cuts, alternative takes and more.
I got to listen to a 17 song promo sampler CD that has a cross section of what's on the box set. Some of the stuff is better than what I remember. Some of it is as average as I remember.
On the good side: Dokken, Warrant, Rough Cutt (with the excellent vocals of the amazing Paul Shortino), Pretty Boy Floyd, and Love/Hate.
On the blah side: Bang Tango, Keel, Stryper (remember the bumblebee suits?) and Great White (I'm a fan of the band but this is a boring song - "Down on Your Kness").
Doing what they do (and either you like 'em or you don't) is Quiet Riot, WASP and Poison.
This is a great snapshot of that moment in time…a period when bands were about having fun and also giving the audience 110%...even if sometimes they looked a bit goofy.
