Kings Without A Throne

I’ve taken yet another trip back in the past during my latest pet project, as I’ve been compiling a data base on the history of the Kansas City Kings bassit-ball franchise the last couple months. It’s easy to think of the Kings as a losing team, but looking back, I’d forgotten that they were indeed a very competitive squad for about a four-year span in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. Unfortunately, unstable ownership and an inept front office doomed that team to infamy and they wound up moving to Sacramento, California in 1985, only to repeat many of the same mistakes they made here, and they may well be on the move once again pretty soon to Seattle. So, here’s a little tribute to K.C.’s lone NBA franchise that spent 13 seasons here…

Kansas City was actually intended to house one of the original American Basketball Association teams in 1967, but at the last minute, they pulled up stakes and landed in Colorado to become the Denver Rockets and are now known as the Nuggets. Five years later, the Cincinnati Royals were struggling both at the box office as well as on the court, and opted to move west. The team had already relocated once before, having started in the ‘50s in Rochester, NY (also known as "Royals"), and Kansas City was their first choice, but there was one little problem. Even though Municipal Auditorium was/is a venerable basketball venue, availability was a major issue for sizeable hunks of the season because of events like the Ringling Bros. circus and the Ice Capades, et al, and various annual conventions and trade shows the building also hosted in its exhibition hall (in the days before Bartle Hall opened next door), as well as concerts and operas that were staged in the adjoining Little Theater and Music Hall. Kemper Arena was still two years away from opening as well, and there were no other suitable venues in Kansas City to house the team on nights when The Aud was booked, apart from perhaps The American Royal Arena where the Kansas City Blues minor league hockey team played, but it only held about 5,000 fans, well below NBA standards.

Royals ownership took a cue from several ABA clubs who during the early ‘70s were "regional" franchises, staging their home games in multiple cities, like the Carolina Cougars (Greensville/Raleigh/Charlotte/Winston-Salem), Virginia Squires (Norfolk/Hampton/Richmond/Roanoke) and Texas Chaparrals (Dallas/Lubbock/Ft. Worth), so they decided to play about a third of their home games three hours away from K.C. in Nebraska at Omaha's 10,000-seat Civic Auditorium. Bad idea. Kansas Citians were none too crazy about having to share their NBA team with another city and it speaks volumes that the first game in Kings history took place in Omaha instead of Kansas City on October 19, 1972. This team got off on the wrong foot with this town and never fully righted itself in the 13 years it spent here. And, oh by the way, the top six smallest regular season home crowds in K.C. Kings history were in Omaha.

There was also another little problem: Kansas City already had a baseball team called the Royals (as did Omaha, K.C.'s minor-league AAA affiliate), so the basketball team was re-christened the "Kansas City-Omaha Kings". The team kept its basic color scheme of blue and white with red trim, merely altering their script name "ROYALS" into "KINGS", and also retaining their rather unique uniform feature from the Cincinnati days of placing the player’s surname BELOW the numbers on the backs of their jerseys (see left). The Cincinnati Reds also did this in the early ‘50s and the Royals co-opted this look for themselves and were the only NBA team to do so, although it’s common practice in the WNBA today and practical, since many female players have long hair, ponytails or dreadlocks that would shroud their name anyway. The "Kansas City-Omaha" moniker only lasted three seasons before it was shortened to just plain Kansas City Kings in the summer of ’75, following the team’s first season at Kemper Arena. 

Even with the truncated name, the team continued to play half-a-dozen games each season in Omaha through 1977-78, in part because Kemper was tied up for most of November every year with the annual American Royal Rodeo and most of March with the annual NAIA and Big 8 basketball tournaments. The Kings’ front-office didn’t have a clue how to market this team and were totally out-of-touch with their own fan base, and just when Kansas Citians thought they finally had the team all to themselves in ‘78, the Kings’ brain-trust came up with the not-so-bright idea of farming out some home games to St. Louis, of all places. And not just ANY home games, mind you, but major draws like Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics, Kareem and Magic’s "Showtime" L.A Lakers, as well as Dr. J’s Philadelphia 76ers. True, the Kings threw fans a bone by televising these games (as well as most of the Omaha games) back to K.C., but Kansas City already has a bad enough inferiority complex when it comes to St. Louis, so to have its NBA team playing to sometimes-packed houses in its arch-rival city against the league’s marquee franchises three or four times a season was just insulting and ultimately another nail in the team’s coffin. Oh, and then the roofed caved in—literally—at Kemper Arena on June 3, 1979 (see above), necessitating their temporary move back to Municipal Auditorium for two-thirds of the 1979-80 season. It wasn’t until 1980-81—nine years into their existence—that the Kings first played their entire home schedule in Kansas City in their actual HOME at Kemper.

NOTE: The NBA itself wasn’t exactly helpful in promoting the Kings, either. Their Sunday afternoon TV coverage on CBS in the mid-to-late ‘70s included numerous "regional" telecasts featuring the Kings, but we rarely ever got to see our own team on TV, not even during road games because they were almost always blacked-out locally. 

On the court, the Kings were a mixed bag. In their first season, the Kansas City-Omaha Kings were actually quite respectable, all things considered. Even though the roster was comprised mostly of holdovers from Cincinnati, the Kings seemed like an expansion franchise, but didn’t play like one, finishing 36-46, and they actually rose above the .500 mark midway through the season before a 7-game losing streak did them in.  Guard Nate "Tiny" Archibald had a ridiculously good year, setting team scoring records that still haven’t been broken and even landing on the cover of ‘SI’ (see left). Veterans like Matt Guokas, Sam Lacey, Nate Williams, Otto Moore and Jimmy Walker rounded out the roster in those early years, and rookies like Ron Riley, Mike Ratliff and Ken Durrett showed promise. Durrett, in particular, had the look of a star early on until he tore up a knee and was never the same afterward. The team slipped badly in ’73-‘74, leading to head coach Bob Cousy’s dismissal midway through. Cousy was a bit too arrogant to be a coach anyhow, and was replaced eventually by Phil Johnson, who led the Kings to their first playoff berth in ’74-’75. Three poor seasons ensued, Johnson was let go, then "King" Cotton Fitzsimmons took over as head coach in 1978, and he turned this team around in a hurry. The Kings raced to their first and only Midwest Division championship in 1978-79, led by fan-favorite Scott Wedman and rookie Otis Birdsong. Rookie Phil Ford out of North Carolina joined the Kings for the 79-80 season, and the Kings somehow muddled through their tenuous home court situation while Kemper Arena was re-roofed, going an impressive 21-7 at Municipal Auditorium in the interim before returning to the stockyards in February, 1980. That brief stint at "The Aud" also featured the infamous night when Darryl Dawkins of the 76ers shattered the backboard and scared the crap out of late Kings forward Bill Robinzine, who was directly underneath it and wound up picking shards of glass out of his hair for a week afterwards. The Kings finished with a winning record again that year, and just two games behind the Milwaukee Bucks in 2nd place in the Midwest Division.

Another problem that plagued the Kings was playing on the road. There were certain road venues this team couldn’t win at to save their souls, regardless of the quality of the competition at the time.  The MECCA in Milwaukee (4-24), Detroit’s Cobo Arena (3-14), the Philadelphia Spectrum (4-16) and even HemisFair Arena in San Antonio were all houses of horror for K.C., but the two worst of all by far were Portland's Memorial Coliseum and the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles.  K.C. (and/or Omaha) went 5-27 in Portland in the regular season, which included losing streaks of 13 and 9 games, but ironically, the Kings won the two playoff games they played there.  As for L.A., beginning in 1974, the Kings went on an ignominious road losing streak vs. the Lakers that lasted well into the ‘90s that turned out to be an NBA record for most consecutive losses at a road venue. Granted, the Lakers were always a top-flight team, but surely the Kings should’ve gotten lucky and won there now and then. They came very close on a few occasions at the Forum, but the only other time the Kansas City Kings ever won again in the City of Angels was against the Clippers at L.A. Sports Arena.

The postseason was usually most unkind to the Kings also, as they were one-and-done the first three times they made the playoffs (once to Chicago and twice to Phoenix), but the 1981 playoffs were another story.   Following a mediocre 1980-81 regular season in which they went 40-42 and barely snuck into the playoffs on the last day of the regular season, the Kings shocked the Portland Trail Blazers in a three-game mini-series for their first playoff series win (winning two games ironically at the aforementioned Memorial Coliseum), then followed that up with a seven-game triumph over the Phoenix Suns in the second round. The Kings were one series away from making the 1981 NBA Finals, but ran out of gas and lost to the Houston Rockets in five games.  Oddly enough, the 1982-83 Kings finished eight games OVER .500, but failed to make the playoffs—go figure.  Even so, the 1980-81 postseason was still considered a triumph—far and away the high-point of Kansas City Kings history—and fan interest in the team was at its apex.  Instead of capitalizing on their good fortune and building on it, they pissed it all away. Oh, and then along came this indoor soccer team you’ve heard me talk about…

Just when it looked like the K.C. Kings had a solid nucleus of a team that might rule the ‘80s, general manager "Clueless Joe" Axelson traded away Birdsong and Wedman and others and got bupkis in return for them via trades and/or the draft (Leon Douglas, Hawkeye Whitney, Brook Steppe, anyone?). Lacey was nearing the end of his career, Ford underachieved and the team was never quite the same after that, even after they brought in talented players like Reggie Theus, Joe C. Meriweather, Mike Woodson, Larry Drew and Eddie Johnson. The Kings only made the postseason one other time during their existence in K.C., a quick three-and-out against the Lakers in 1983-84 and fan interest dwindled, despite the efforts of their avid fan club, the "Backcourt Boozers". Again, the front office didn’t have a clue how to market the team, and totally failed to capitalize on the bounce they got from that ’80-’81 playoff run, let alone the resurgence in the NBA’s popularity caused by the emergence of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the early ‘80s, and later Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Dominique Wilkins, etc. Had MJ and those other guys come along a little sooner, who knows what may have happened here?
 

Meantime, the Kansas City Comets of the Major Indoor Soccer League hit town in 1981-82 and were an instant sensation, blowing the doors off the Kings in terms of attracting big crowds and leading their own league in attendance in 1982-83, selling out 15 of 24 home dates—downright unfathomable for a sport which theretofore had precious little history here. The stodgy Kings were too old-school to learn from the marketing wizardry of the Comets’ brilliant front office Leiweke brothers (Tim and Tracey) and I truly feel this led to the Kings’ downfall and eventual exit from this city. Kansas City is most definitely a basketball town—there’s too much heritage and history with all the Final Fours and NAIA Tourneys we’ve hosted here to deny that—so there’s no good reason an NBA franchise couldn’t thrive here, but the Kings managed to find a way not to. It just felt like the front office never truly gave a damn about their fans, and that WE owed it to THEM to attend their games. No big surprise that the city didn’t put up much of a fight to keep the Kings during their lame-duck 1984-85 season before they bolted to Sacramento to play in a renovated warehouse. Long about the time the NBA’s next season in KC would’ve begun, the Royals won the World Series, and the Comets were still packing Kemper, thus the Kings were already long forgotten, and they haven’t been terribly missed since then.

After the Kings’ departure, Kansas City spent one season in the minor-league Continental Basketball Association when a team called the Sizzlers played at Municipal Auditorium in 1985-86, but interest in them was tepid at best, and they moved west just like the Kings did—to Topeka. Over a decade ago, the Kansas City Knights were members of the hap-hazard and totally disorganized ABA 2000, a league in which franchises came and went at the drop of a hat on a weekly basis, playing their home games in high school gyms, YMCAs, playgrounds, parking lots, etc., and the Knights usually played to 15,000 empty seats at Kemper. And really, that’s been the extent of professional basketball in this town to date. The advent of the Sprint Center five years ago raised the possibility of the NBA (or even the Kings franchise itself) returning to downtown KC, but that seems to be nothing but false hope, and the University of Kansas men’s basketball team continues to serve as Kansas City’s ersatz "pro" basketball team. As for the Kings, one can’t help but think "what might’ve been", if they’d had some solid ownership and competent people running the team—they coulda been a contender...  

Easy, Catman--You Are Delirious!

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Concert #113

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (Saturday, November 17, 2012 at Sprint Center) Ticket price: $47.00

Confession time: For years and years I loathed Bruce Springsteen. It wasn’t a personal thing, really, but in the late ‘70s when I was in my early teens and really getting into Album Rock radio, I was a bit narrow-minded (blame Ted Nugent) and wasn’t real impressed with The Boss and his music. I also chafed at how Rock magazines like Creem and Rolling Stone seemingly kept force-feeding this guy to me, making him out to be the greatest thing since Elvis and how he could simply do no wrong in their eyes. It also didn’t help that he was from New Jersey, which might as well have been New York City to me, because I copped an attitude during that time about anything even remotely connected with the Big Apple (except Kiss and "Saturday Night Live"). However, as time passed, I began warming up to Brucie, thanks in big part to 1980’s "Cadillac Ranch", as well as a song he wrote for my man Dave Edmunds in 1982 called "From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)". By the time Born In The U.S.A. emerged in 1984, Springsteen was impossible to ignore on MTV, and I was especially drawn to the concert video of "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" that featured Bruce's legendary band intros and I realized that this is what a band that's having fun on stage looked like. So I figured if you can’t beat him, join him. I STILL think he’s a tad overrated at times even today, but over the years, I’ve embraced his overall body of work, and since I’d always heard what a crowd-pleaser Bruce Springsteen was, I decided it was finally time to get out and see The Boss in concert. I deeply regret waiting too long and missing out on seeing the "Big Man" Clarence Clemons, but apparently the rumors were true—Boss Man puts on one helluva show.

The show began about 40 minutes late and there was no opening act. As I scanned the stage with my binoculars before things got underway, I noted an array of musical instruments scattered about—there were enough violins, guitars, percussion instruments, horns (even a tuba!) and keyboards to open up a music store. Turns out the E Street Band has expanded a bit to 17 members, including a five-piece horn section, three back-up singers and an extra percussionist in addition to Bruce and the usual suspects. This dynamic kinda reminded me of The Who’s 1989 reunion tour ("The Who on ice" as Pete Townshend later deemed it), but instead of being an exercise in overkill as with The Who, the additional deck hands blended right in to the presentation and weren’t a distraction. The sound mix was a bit iffy at first, and it sounded like Bruce was singing into a CB radio early on, but things improved as the night progressed. The name of the venue, Sprint Center, was a misnomer on this night because this was no sprint—this was a marathon!

Bruce kicked things off with an extended rendition of "Kansas City" (a morphing of both the Wilbert Harrison and Little Richard versions) that I might’ve saved for the encore, but hey, he’s The Boss, so what do I know? "Prove It All Night" was next and after that, the E Street band lived up to that title. Over the next three-plus hours, we were treated to 28 songs (29 if you count Buddy Holly’s "Not Fade Away", which Bruce sang the first verse from leading into "She’s The One") and a very energetic performance from a man in his early ‘60s. Apart from the receding hairline, Springsteen looked and acted like he was still 30-something. I was most impressed with the entire band’s stamina, especially that of drummer Max Weinberg, who never wavered once in playing for over three hours straight with no intermission and very short breaks between songs. Their next tour stop after us was Denver—good luck in that altitude! It was fun to watch the interplay between Bruce and the band, and it was obvious they were having fun up there and were feeding off the energy of the crowd as well. Speaking of the crowd, Brucie spent a fair amount of time in it, as he meandered through the audience several times to a platform at mid-floor, and even body-surfed back to the main stage during "Hungry Heart". The man is a trusting soul—I thought for sure they were going to drop him on his head...

I also liked how Springsteen doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight with his bandmates throughout the show. He knows it doesn’t always have to be about him, and it’s cool that he throws a bone to the other E Streeters and allows them do their thing for a bit. This was the first time I got to really watch Mr. Weinberg operate, and the "Mighty Max" was rock-solid with plenty of thump throughout on his Charlie Watts-esque drum kit. I also learned a new respect for long-time guitarist "Miami" Steve Van Zandt on this night. "Little Steven" always appeared to me to be a drunken idiot in the old videos (maybe he was), stumbling around and making faces, but in this show, he remained upright throughout and actually looked like a Rock star, and played well too. "Professor" Roy Bittan sounded phenomenal on the piano, but I really couldn’t hear much from his counterpart, ex-Pat Benatar keyboardist Charlie Giordano on stage right, who replaced the late "Phantom Dan" Federici. You also can never replace the late Clarence Clemons with just one person, so now Bruce employs a phalanx of horn players, led by the "Big Man"’s nephew Jake (Little Big Man?), who acquitted himself quite well on sax. 

The show did seem to drag in places, but that had more to do with me, because I wasn’t totally familiar with some of the songs they played. Some tunes got stretched out a bit too, which I tended to lose patience with, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind, and at least Bruce didn’t pull a Led Zeppelin and take 25 minutes to play just one song. As I expected, Bruce played several songs from his latest CD, Wrecking Ball, and they were all quite good, especially "We Take Care Of Our Own", the title track, "Death To My Hometown" and "Land Of Hopes And Dreams". "Shackled And Drawn" was also from the new one, but it got stretched out into this pseudo church revival bit that I personally could’ve done without, but I was pleased that Bruce, to his credit, didn’t go off on any political tangents during the show—that’s not what I attend Rock concerts for. From what I understand, the Neolithic dipshit Phelpsians from Topeka were outside picketing the show, but they must have been on the main entrance side on Grand Blvd., because we entered from the east side and never saw them. Too bad—I’ve always wanted to flip these turds the bird in person. Come to think of it, "Shackled And Drawn" is a damn good idea for these losers, but I digress…

Springsteen’s core audience almost reminds me of Trekkies because of their fanaticism and utter devotion to The Boss, and many folks were jumping up and down and dancing like it was a Saturday night barn dance and hootenanny. I was also unaware of the Springsteenian custom of fans bringing placards and signs for to place song requests for the set list. This led to the obscure "Incident On 57th Street" getting a spin, as did "Fire" (the big 1979 Pointer Sisters hit), and I longed to hear Elmer Fudd singing it, but no such luck. Oddly enough, in addition to "Fire", Bruce’s songs that other people had big hits with were highlights of the show, namely "Because The Night" (Patti Smith Group) and especially "Light Of Day" (Joan Jett), which rocked the house to end the set. They did omit some of his biggies like "Glory Days", "Rosalita", "My Hometown", "Pink Cadillac" and "Born In The USA", as well as my personal Springsteen faves "Cadillac Ranch", "Human Touch", "Tunnel Of Love" and "Working On The Highway", but then again, Bruce could’ve played another full-length concert the next night and not repeat a single song from this show (apart from the obligatory "Born To Run") and it would’ve been just as well-received—that’s how deep this guy’s catalog goes.

During the lengthy encore, when the band kicked in to "Born To Run", the house lights came up and remained on the rest of the way, which looked kinda weird. I generally don’t approve of Yuletide songs before Thanksgiving, but I’ll make an exception this time for Bruce and Co. doing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", which the crowd just ate up. "Dancing In The Dark", which preceded it, sounded way better live than it does on record—punchier and grittier—and not only did Bruce re-create the video bit of pulling a dance partner out of the crowd, he rounded up one for young master Clemons and another for guitarist Nils Lofgren and a mother-daughter combo for himself. I also noticed a woman on the video screen in the front row who made herself up to look like Courteney Cox in that video—right down to the short brown haircut and same t-shirt. "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" closed out the proceedings and Bruce made one last trek through the crowd and proclaimed, "Now this is the important part…" when he got to the line "When the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band" and the music stopped for a video salute to the dearly-departed Mr. Clemons and Mr. Federici and the crowd reacted appropriately.

I wisely chose not to imbibe during this concert. I knew it was going to be a long night and I didn’t want to peak too soon, nor did I want to be running to the can every 20 minutes. However, I did invent the Bruce Springsteen Drinking Game during the show. It’s pretty simple, really: Before or during any song, every time The Boss does a "1-2-3..." count-in, take one drink. If he does "1-2-3-4...", take two drinks. You’ll be fucked-up in no time flat!  Seriously, this was a most impressive concert. I’ve never seen a guy work so hard to please a crowd like Springsteen does, even though he really doesn’t need to anymore. Several times I kept thinking he and the band was on its last song of the night, and they’d still come back for another. If I were in a hurry to leave, I would’ve been as bewildered as Apollo Creed was in Round 15 against Rocky Balboa, but the longer the show went on the more I was astonished at the E Street Band’s staying power. Bruce left it all on the stage and won me over for good. Not too shabby for a guy from Jersey whose initials are B.S….

SET LIST: Kansas City; Prove It All Night; Candy’s Room; She’s The One; Hungry Heart; We Take Care Of Our Own; Wrecking Ball; Death To My Hometown; My City Of Ruins; The E Street Shuffle; Fire; Incident On 57th Street; Because The Night; Cover Me; Downbound Train; I’m On Fire; Shackled And Drawn; Waitin’ On A Sunny Day; Raise Your Hand; The Rising; Badlands; Land Of Hopes and Dreams; Light of Day. ENCORE: My Beautiful Reward; Born To Run; Dancing In the Dark; Santa Claus Is Coming To Town; Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.
 

 

Beating The Dead Horse, Part II

And now the companion piece to my previous post about that hallowed institution, the (C)Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame.  This is the Crock section...

PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HALL OF FAME WHO I THINK SHOULDN’T BE
(In order of un-deservedness)

1) LEONARD COHEN  Who the fuck is Leonard Cohen?  I actually had to look the som-bitch up on the Internet to figure out who he was, and there is nothing even remotely Rock about this Cohen character.  My therapist even said, “Ooooh, I can’t stand Leonard Cohen!” when I mentioned him, and added that if they ever create a lounge-lizard dirty-old-man Hall of Fame, Brother Leo’s a shoo-in for it.  I’d rather see Leonard Nimoy in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame than this goomer!  At least Spock tried singing a few Rock songs.
2) GRANDMASTER FLASH & THE FURIOUS FIVE  A fucking Rap group?!?  Seriously?
3) RUN-D.M.C.  See #2 above.  I don’t mean to sound racist here, but I can’t stand Rap “music”, sorry, Homeys.  It ain’t Rock ‘N’ Roll any more than Zamfir and his pan flute is…
4) THE BEASTIE BOYS  See #s 2 & 3 above.  Black rappers are annoying enough, but white guys doing rap is downright embarrassing…
5) JOHN MELLENCAMP  Successful career, yes, but I just don’t get what this third-rate Springsteen wanna-be hick’s true contribution to Rock music is.  His lyrics are empty-headed and lame, his music is ponderous and boring, and I’ve heard more than one radio industry person say he’s a real jagoff, too.
6) MILES DAVIS  A Jazz player?  Then how come Louis B. "Satchmo" Armstrong ain’t in the Hall?  Davis was arrogant enough that he would tell you himself that he doesn’t belong in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame.  Chuck Berry and Eric Clapton should be in the Jazz Hall of Fame, then…
7) THE SEX PISTOLS  They get in on the basis of ONE freakin’ overrated-as-all-get-out album?  What a joke…
8) PATTI SMITH  In the HOF for what? Being a stuck-up ugly skank with an attitude?  And her biggest hit was written by Springsteen.  Whatever…
9) ELVIS COSTELLO  I’ve tried and tried and tried to get into this guy’s music, and I have failed to do so.  Over-fucking-rated!  He also gets points off for once calling Ray Charles a “blind old nigger”.  No class…
10) THE LOVIN’ SPOONFUL  Very questionable credentials here.  John Sebastian seems like a decent enough duck, and the Spoonful had a nice little chart run in the mid-‘60s, but were they really all that special?  I still think they should have their membership in the HOF rescinded for that gawdawful performance at their induction ceremony—it pays to rehearse a little, fellas, if you haven’t played together in 30 years…
11) PERCY SLEDGE  “When A Man Loves A Woman” is a wonderful ‘60s R&B classic, and Percy had a great voice, but honestly, can someone name anything else this man did to earn induction?  By definition, one-hit wonders should NEVER make the HOF.  Not even Strawberry Alarm Clock, Edison Lighthouse or Steam.
12) THE CLASH  Like Elvis Costello, this is another act I’ve never “gotten”.  I like a few of their songs (namely “Train In Vain” and “London Calling”), but I never saw them as any sort of torch bearers to replace The Who in the ‘80s like they were puffed up to be.  Grossly overrated…
13) THE VELVET UNDERGROUND  Yeah, this arty-farty group really put out some toe-tappers.  Yanni is more Rock ‘N’ Roll than this avant-garde excrement.
14) THE STOOGES  If we were talking Curly, Moe and Larry (and even Shemp and Curly Joe), I’d say okay, but not Iggy and the boys.  Anyone who intentionally slices up his chest with razor blades on-stage is PSYCHOTIC, not a Hall of Famer!
15) VAN MORRISON  Another renowned singer/musician I just can’t get into.  “Domino” and “Brown-Eyed Girl” ain’t bad, but Morrison’s voice is every bit as bland as most of his material, which puts me to sleep.  Zzzzzzz…
16) MADONNA  Yes, the Material Girl turned the Pop world on its collective ear in the ‘80s, but I can’t help but wonder if her induction in the Hall had more to do with creating a buzz for that year’s ceremony than for her actual musical merits.  Wildly successful career, yes, but Hall-worthy?  I don’t think so, Madge.  Oh, and points off for all the lip-syncing during live performances—you ain’t on “American Bandstand” anymore…
17) LAURA NYRO  Semi-prolific songwriter (“Wedding Bell Blues”, “And When I Die”, "Eli's Coming", et al) and inoffensive, for the most part, but how does she rate induction in the HOF?  Not a terribly good singer, either…
18) GUNS ‘N’ ROSES  Debut album was a killer. Use Your Illusion I & II had their moments, but bordered on overkill and were indigestible overall.  G N R Lies?  Meh.  And really, that’s about it.  This band totally underachieved in my eyes—they could’ve/should’ve been the Led Zeppelin of the ‘90s, but imploded in a haze of drugs, inflated egos and arrogance.  No fuckin’ way do they deserve to be in the Hall, especially ahead of the likes of Motorhead and Deep Purple, who paved the way for them.
19) THE (SMALL) FACES  Nice band that had a handful of hits in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.  Does this mean Badfinger, the Buckinghams and the Classics IV make it too?
20) THE STAPLE SINGERS  Again, nice folks who did well on the R&B charts, but hardly in the same league with the Four Tops, Temptations and the Impressions.
21) THE GRATEFUL DEAD  As long as these guys were around, and they only produced about half a dozen memorable songs?  As they like to say on ESPN, come on, Man…
22) DARLENE LOVE  Another entrant from the “nice” category, but hardly Hall-worthy.
23) RITCHIE VALENS  Love Ritchie’s stuff—what precious little there was of it—but I really think his induction in the Hall had more to do with sentimentality and potential than his actual career achievements.  Questionable, at best, and his induction was only made worse by having that wanker Ricky Martin butchering RV’s stuff at the ceremony.
24) THE (YOUNG) RASCALS  Same dynamic as the Lovin’ Spoonful—respectable little chart run for a couple years in the mid-to-late ‘60s, but were they really all that influential or spectacular?  Not especially…
25) RICK NELSON  Overrated teen idol whose heart never really seemed to be in his musical career—even in the ‘70s as an adult.
26) BLONDIE  Over time, I’ve grown to embrace their stuff a little more than I initially did, but to me it was still spotty at best.  I like Debbie Harry a lot, but I think the band itself was overrated.
27) PRINCE  All his pretentiousness and aloofness aside, is “dat little faggot with the earring and the make-up” really Hall-worthy?  Purple Rain (the album) was brilliant and 1999 and a few others weren’t too shabby either, but that’s not enough for me.
28) R.E.M.  Good, but not great band that reigned on ‘80s/’90s college radio.  But the critics love them, hence why they’re in the Hall.
29) THE PRETENDERS  If anything, I think this band underachieved as well, but that’s due in part to the loss of two of its founding members (Pete Fardon and James Honeyman-Scott) within the space of a year.  Again, they were critical darlings, thus they went in the Hall the nanosecond they were eligible.
30) TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS  I like Petty, but I don’t really see him as a Hall of Famer.  Nice career, and it didn’t hurt to work with the likes of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan, but I’m not completely sold on TP’s induction.

Whaddya Wanna Do With Your Life?!?

A while back, I was at Barnes & Noble in search of a self-help book my therapist had recommended to me, which B&N didn’t have in stock.  But while in the store, I meandered over to the Music section and found Dee Snider’s autobiography, Shut Up And Give Me The Mic-A Twisted Memoir.  I’ve long been a fan of Twisted Sister, and I thought ‘what the hey?’, so I dropped and gave Barnes & Noble 20 and snagged the book.  Little did I realize it was not only a fun read about an ‘80s icon, but a bit of a self-help book in its own right.  SPOILER ALERT: I quote quite a bit from the book in blue, so if you’re planning to read it yourself, beware…

On Dee’s strained and turbulent relationship with his father:
“My father fought my pursuing a career in music more than ever.  After what he had witnessed [a disastrous local band gig when Snider was a teen], why wouldn’t he?  He couldn’t have been more disappointed in the path his oldest son was taking.  Once I had given up playing baseball completely [his father’s chosen profession for him] and started growing my hair out (after an ugly forced-haircut incident in the beginning of tenth grade), my dad pretty much gave up on me.  He barely talked to or even acknowledged me for years…In fairness to my dad, he was raised during the Great Depression, a time when dreams were shattered, not achieved.  He was raised to believe that the only way to get anything in life is by fighting and clawing every inch of the way, and that dreams didn’t come true.”  This was beginning to sound eerily familiar to me…

Dee (then known as Danny, his given name) and his sister gave a living room “performance” of the Human Beinz’ “Nobody But Me” for their parents that they practiced really hard for, and his old man immediately mocked it:  “What kind of stupid song is that?”  He went on to tell his friends about his “idiot son” and his asinine “No-No” song.  Dee continues: “Years later, my dad tried to take credit for my success, suggesting that his being so hard on me as a boy is what drove me on.  ‘It’s like that Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue,”' he proclaimed.  'If I wasn’t so tough on you, you never would have made it.’  To this stupidity I responded, ‘How do you know I wouldn’t be happier as a well-adjusted accountant?’  Dick.”  Ironically, my old man’s chosen profession for me was accounting.  Dee’s old man and my old man should’ve gotten together and compared notes.

On alcohol and drug use:
“Why don’t I party?  Ah, the million-dollar question.  Well, I don’t drink because I had a bad experience when I was fourteen.  I got so smashed I couldn’t get off the floor and swore that if the good Lord above me ever let me walk again, I would never touch demon alcohol…As for drugs, I’ve always known I have an obsessive personality, and if I started doing drugs, I wouldn’t be able to control myself.  Besides, I never really had a problem ‘letting myself go’…Am I anti-drugs-and-alcohol?  Not really.  I’m just anti-asshole.  If you can party and remain who you are or become a looser, more fun version of who you are, God bless you.  But if when you party, you become some shape-shifting obnoxious asshole who doesn’t know when to quit…you, I can live without.”
 
“The unfortunate thing is, society has created an environment where people don’t feel comfortable letting themselves go unless they’re high or have a few in them.  How many times have you been somewhere and asked someone (or been asked by someone) to do something such as dance or sing and heard (or said), ‘Just let me have a couple of drinks.’  Why?  Because society dictates that it’s okay to get crazy, silly or act foolish if you’re high.  It gives you an excuse to embarrass yourself.  ‘Oh, I was soooo wasted.’  If I climb on top of a bar, pull out my dick, and piss on the floor and I’m drunk, they put me in a cab and send me home.  If I do the same thing and I’m sober, they say I’m crazy and I get my ass kicked, arrested, or both.  That double standard creates a dangerous environment…If you want people to stop getting drunk and high (especially kids), you need to change the way society perceives it.  Stop making it an acceptable excuse for poor behavior.  Stop portraying it as cool.  And stop viewing outgoing behavior when you’re not high as weird.  Then you’ll see some changes.”  I like Snider’s attitude, here.  I drink (sometimes to excess, yes), but I don’t think I become an asshole when I do—I’m more of a funny drunk, if anything.

On his positive approach to life:
“…I came up with a new, personal motivation concept:  PMA, or positive mental attitude.  I kid you not.  I believed that if I thought and acted positively, positive things would happen for me, and my positive thoughts would become reality.  I still do.  I now know that’s just another form of self-fulfilling prophecy, but when I was 16, it was more my becoming aware of the power of positive thinking.  From that time on (and to this day), when people asked me how I was doing, I didn’t say ‘Okay’ or even ‘Good,’ I said, “Excellent!”  Even when I wasn’t, this mind-set has taken me everywhere, and when things were bad, it kept me from wallowing in self-pity and negativity and focused on the promise of what lay ahead.  Besides, it beat the hell out of such mantras as ‘It’s just one of those days’, ‘it’s just my luck,’ and ‘Murphy’s Law’.  To hear kids reinforcing these negative thoughts in their young, fertile mind is simply maddening to me.  Thinking like that sets you up for a lifetime of accepting failure.  Screw that!”  PMA became a great source of amusement to his father, who was quick to throw it back in his face when something went awry.  My old man would’ve done the same with me.  In fact, he often did—anytime I expressed confidence or excitement about something, he’d find a way to piss all over my enthusiasm.  Dick.  (Hey, Dee started it!)

On his state of mind following the infamous 1985 PMRC hearings on Capitol Hill:
“I was born in the ‘50s and grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s.  I was raised believing Washington, DC was sort of like Oz; a beautiful, special place where people watched out for our better interest and did great things.  Sure I had lived through Watergate and the election of a B-movie actor and Joe McCarthy/House Un-American Activities Committee rat to the highest office in the country, but I still hung on to a childish belief that some good people were still working for us.  Not anymore.  Sitting face-to-face with these personal-agenda-driven opportunists, they beat the last bit of hope out of me.”  I find myself feeling the same damn way as I watch this current joke of an election campaign unfold…

Snider’s perspectives on other bands and musicians:
Dee was heavily influence by the almost daily TV appearances by the Monkees and especially Paul Revere & The Raiders.  “I was drawn to the subtle danger of singer Mark Lindsay from Paul Revere & The Raiders (whose) songs were innuendo-filled.  Hits such as ‘Hungry’ and ‘Kicks’ were barely veiled songs about sex, drugs and alcohol.  Mark Lindsay’s slight rasp along with the generally ‘heavier’ tone of the band’s music are recognized precursors to what would become ‘hard-rock’…and eventually ‘heavy metal’.  I am an original headbanger and I credit Paul Revere & The Raiders for starting me down that path.  Thank you, boys!”  Dee is slightly incorrect—“Kicks” was actually anti-drugs and alcohol—but it’s nice to see I’m not the only one who feels this way about this vastly underrated and underappreciated band.  The Raiders were my first taste of real Rock ‘N’ Roll when I was three years old, and 45 years later, they still rock my world.  Stomp and shout and work it on out…

“When it came to Rock bands and Rock music, no band was bigger than Led Zeppelin.  [Cover] Bands went to incredible lengths to play the most accurate renditions of Zeppelin songs, and the audiences demanded it. Playing Led Zeppelin poorly was sacrilege.  The funny thing is, I remember seeing Led Zep on their 1977 tour and being stunned by how “inaccurate” they were live.  Sorry, boys, but if a bar band played your music the way you did that night, they would have been tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. Seriously.”  Amen to that, Brother Dee!  Now I’m not suggesting (and I don’t think Snider is either) that a band should play every song in their repertoire in concert note-for-note exactly like their records every night (like Rush used to do, for instance), but Zeppelin was one of the worst offenders in Dee’s scenario and they were a very iffy live act, at best.  Some nights they were fine, I suppose, but most of the live recordings I’ve ever heard of them aren’t very good.  Too many long jams and self-indulgent tangents—damn near half an hour just to play “Dazed And Confused”?  Seriously?  The Who were known to indulge themselves now and then too (especially during the post-Tommy era), but at least they kept it lively and didn’t lull the audience to sleep like Zeppelin did.  Robert Plant would also just phone in some lyrical passages and Jimmy Page’s guitar was often woefully out of tune.

On meeting Billy Joel and Ritchie Blackmore after a gig in the late ‘70s:  “Meeting these two hugely successful musicians was eye-opening for me.  Where Blackmore was weird, standoffish and unlikeable, Joel was the exact opposite.  Welcoming and self-deprecating, with virtually no ego, despite his multiplatinum status, Billy did everything to show how gracious and down-to-earth a star can be.  When people spoke of Ritchie, it was with disgust and loathing.  With Billy, it was only with praise and admiration.  After the party that night I reran the experiences I had had with both Rock luminaries.  I started to wonder how I came off to people and what they said about me after I left.  In my heart I knew the answer:  I was way more of a Ritchie Blackmore than a Billy Joel.  I vowed to make a change, promising myself I would be more like Billy.  I kept that promise…but it did take me a few years to put it into full effect.”  This is ironic because back in the late ‘70s, I always thought Mr. Piano Man came off as a bit aloof and his remarks in Circus magazine about Kiss (“I won’t associate myself with acts like that”) didn’t exactly endear me to him when I was 14, but over time, Billy has proven to be quite affable and not a bad dude.  He even played piano on Twisted Sister’s “Be Chrool to Your Scuel” on 1985’s ill-fated Come Out And Play album.  Ritchie Blackmore, on the other hand, has always come off as a moody, weird duck to me.  Helluva guitar player, but all the personality of a ball peen hammer.

“While my onstage rants are pretty much spontaneous, if I hit on something that works universally, I won’t hesistate to reuse it or modify it to fit the current situation.  That said, I can’t understand how bands can use the same stage patter, verbatim, every night.  How can it always be appropriate or not get old?...Triumph used to turn their massive light show on the upper balcony of the audience—every night, at the same moment in the show—and say “How y’all doin’ up there!”  It would always get a huge response.  Except for the night the show hadn’t sold well and the balcony was closed off and empty.  The janitor up there by himself, sweeping the balcony, was doing fine…Paul Stanley from Kiss is renowned for exactly replicating his onstage speeches, every show, on every tour—even after they’ve been captured on live albums…You gotta keep it fresh, kids, and react to your surroundings—not every venue and audience is the same.”  I totally agree with Dee on this one.  I’ll never forget the time I busted Stanley at a Kiss show in Topeka on the 1987 Crazy Nights tour when he went into his standard “I went to the doctor today to get myself checked out” bit, wherein he gets seduced by (or seduces, I forget which) a sexy nurse who gets to play with his “Love Gun”.  There was just one little problem on that particular November night in Topeka—it was Thanksgiving!  Except for ERs, there ain’t no doctors examining nobody nowhere on Turkey Day.  Nice try, Starchild…

I love this story about a phone call Dee received one day after arriving in England for a tour:  “Dee Snider?  ThesesBrianJohnsonfrumAhseeDahysee.  We cannahafya settinya ‘otelrum onaMundeh-nightenNewcaseh.  Ahmacomin’ tuh-gitya, me boy.” In plain English, that’s “Dee Snider?  This is Brian Johnson from AC/DC.  We can’t have you sitting in your hotel room on a Monday night in Newcastle.  I’m coming to get you, my boy.”  I also remember once during an interview when it sounded like Johnson said ‘piss’ when he actually said ‘pace’.  As Robin Williams once said of race driver/commentator Jackie Stewart: “…a man who speaks English, but still needs a translator.”

Loved this story too, about when Snider appeared at the Grammy Awards in 1985.  Also there was Prince, who was escorted to the stage by a phalanx of security people. Dee expounds:  “During the maybe 150-yard walk, the lead bodyguard was barking out orders to the celebrities and crew backstage.  ‘Don’t look at him!  Avert your eyes!  Look away!  Stop staring!’  As Prince and The Revolution passed a bunch of us (I assume they passed, none of them could be seen behind their security), the lead asshole tells Stevie Wonder to LOOK AWAY!  Are you freakin’ kidding me?!”  Now, I don’t know how true the Stevie Wonder part is, but if this scene really happened, it tells me all I need to know about what a pretentious and arrogant little fuck that Prince truly is if he just can’t bear for people who admire him to even gaze upon his fey little ass.  Get off your high-horse, Prince-y, baby—your shit stinks just like everyone else, you overrated little troll.

Dee re-tells the story featured on the Twisted Sister VH-1 Classic “Behind The Music” segment about their show in England that devolved into an epic free-for-all with the crowd pelting the stage with anything they could fling at it, including human excrement.  “Someone-a threw-a shite!” exclaimed a bewildered Scottish roadie called Big John.  Dee continues:  “Wow.  Somebody had thrown human shit at the stage.  My mind was blown.  So many questions about this needed to be answered.  How much do you need to hate a band to throw human shit?  Whose shit was it?  The thrower’s or somebody else’s?  Where did they get the shit?  From a Porta Potti (sic), or did they just have it on standby in case they hated a band enough to throw it?  Or were they so angered by us, they dropped trou, laid a fresh one, then hurled it?  Which brings me back to my first question:  how much do you need to hate a band to throw human shit?  It’s a conundrum.” Never let it be said that Dee Snider and Twisted Sister don’t know shit(e)…

As with yours truly, once you land on Dee Snider’s official Shit(e) List, it’s mighty difficult to extricate yourself from it.  He despised Twisted Sister’s third drummer so much that he wouldn’t even mention him by name in the book, only referring to him as “Drummer #3” (eventual permanent skinsman Tony “A.J.” Pero was Drummer #6, btw).  And don’t even get Dee started on a certain Swiss metal band whose name started with a K (whom Snider only refers to as “Krapus” in the book) after that band reneged on paying his wife Suzette $1,500 for designing and creating their stage outfits for a 1983 tour.  I won’t mention them by name either, but It doesn’t take Mr. Spock to determine that this would be the same Scorpions wanna-be band who scored a hit with “Screaming In The Night” and followed that with a bunch of lame and unnecessary cover songs like “School’s Out” and “Ballroom Blitz”.  If Dee’s story is indeed true, then Krapus really are a bunch of Krap-weasels.  No wonder Beavis & Butt-head didn’t like them…

“People often ask me what I think of current trends in music, and for the past 25 years or so I’ve said the same thing:  ‘Not enough middle finger.’  Since my heyday, I’ve liked a lot of contemporary heavy music.  I even liked Grunge—the Hair-Metal slayer—but in the 1990s and 2000s—and even still today—there’s just too much whining and complaining about how life sucks, and not enough middle finger.  Back in the day, we didn’t complain about stuff, we railed against it, and if we couldn’t do anything about it, we shook our ‘junk’ in its face.  That was the youth attitude of the time, and ‘80s metal bands exemplified that fuck-you state of mind.  We weren’t gonna take it!”  Ain’t that the truth?  All that “life sucks” attitude is why I despise so much of the music from the ‘90s and the ’00s (uh-ohs is more like it).  Oh, and another thing:  FUCK Kurt Cobain!  There, I said it…

My own random thoughts on Dee Snider/Twisted Sister:

It’s easy to forget that Dee Snider was NOT an original member of Twisted Sister, even though he’s the person who is the most associated with the band.  TS was actually formed by lead guitarist Jay Jay French almost four years before Snider joined in 1976, and the group went through numerous personnel changes (three singers, four guitar players, two bass players and seven drummers, according to French) and musical genres (including Top 40 covers and even disco, believe it or not) before evolving into the Heavy Metal outfit we know and love (well some of us do, anyhow).  French (who was often confused for Ace Frehley of Kiss without makeup) is the only Sister to make the entire 40-some-odd-year Twisted odyssey, but it seems to me that this was a truly odd band dynamic to have another guy come along in midstream and essentially take over the band, run it like it was his own baby and become the focal point of it.  Snider wrote all the songs himself, made all the important creative decisions and did all the “heavy lifting”, you might say, while Suzette designed all the band’s stage costumes and basically created the pseudo-transgendered Twisted Sister motif—unwittingly inventing “Hair Metal” in the process!

Meanwhile, Jay Jay tended to the business end (until the band had proper management and got a record deal, anyway) and the other members of Twisted Sister—co-lead guitarist Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda, drummer A.J. Pero and bassist Mark “The Animal” Mendoza (himself a close friend of Snider’s and best man at his wedding to Suzette) seemingly more or less just tagged along for the ride.  Dee accurately points out in the book that while French and Ojeda were certainly capable musicians and definitely had the Hair Metal “look”, neither of them were terribly flashy guitarists in the Eddie Van Halen/Randy Rhoads “Guitar God” vein, thus TS couldn’t really compete with the likes of Judas Priest or Iron Maiden for long.  Snider himself didn’t really develop any sort of front man sex appeal to run with contemporaries like of Whitesnake’s David Coverdale, Vince Neil of Motley Crue or even Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.  Anyway, Snider’s omnipotence created some very understandable rifts and dissention within the group, so Twisted Sister’s rapid descent after peaking in 1984 with the mammoth Stay Hungry album was not only predictable, but inevitable.

Even though Dee Snider always came off a braggart and boastful in a Nugent-esque sort of way, I’ve always liked him for some reason.  Off stage, he seems very down-to-earth and even a bit humble at times, and he was never quite as crazy as his on-stage persona would dictate.  One thing I did always take issue with Snider on was how he would on occasion call out anyone in the crowd who wasn’t getting into the performance to his satisfaction.  This became a bit of a trademark for Snider over the years, and I remember the time I saw Twisted Sister open for Iron Maiden in 1984, he targeted some guy in a white shirt in the back row of the lower deck on the side of Kemper Arena and berated him for the longest time all because he just stood there stoically with his arms folded.  Dude, whatever—it’s not your place to tell someone how to party, so why waste the rest of the audience’s time badgering one indifferent person?  The guy was probably there to see Maiden anyhow and I thought this was very uncool—what’s up with the schoolyard bully routine?  Dee was also known to charge into the crowd and go after any knuckleheads who might have crossed him during the show—with mixed results.  But, by his own admission, Snider was such an arrogant fuck at that point, there was no stopping him.

I was a bit disappointed that Snider made no mention of the “Behind The Music” segment in his book, especially something Mark “The Animal” Mendoza said about Snider after the demise of the band in which he didn’t care if Dee was alive or dead at that point, and basically “Good riddance to an asshole.”  This coming from a guy who was once Dee’s best friend—pretty strong words.  Obviously, they’ve patched up their differences since then, and TS reformed in 2002 and have toured off and on since then.

I find it truly amazing how, given the lifestyle he chose to pursue, Dee Snider has been married to the same woman for 30 years now, and they’ve raised four kids (successfully, evidently) as well.  In a truly unorthodox love story, Snider met his future (underage at the time) bride Suzette at a band gig when she was only 15 and he became as obsessed with her as Milburn Drysdale was with Jed Clampett’s millions.  She didn’t even really like him all that much at first, but he somehow wooed her and they’ve been an item since the Bicentennial, even though they’ve endured a plethora of ups and downs during that time.  I guess maybe there is still such a thing as loyalty and devotion after all.  And I gotta give Dee credit, she’s a real hottie (even today), as is their daughter Cheyenne, who looks just like her.  As John Hiatt once sang about his own daughter Georgia Rae, “Lucky for you, child, you look like your mama…”

And I’ll be damned, but I can’t believe I never did a proper Twisted Sister blog tribute before now, so without further ado…

MY ALL-TIME (DROP AND GIVE ME) 20 TWISTED SISTER FAVORITES

20)  “O, Come All Ye Faithful” (2006)  I didn’t even realize until I read the book that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” sounds like the refrain from this yuletide tribute to mass orgasm.  Which is why, as George Carlin once pointed out, “they called it ‘Adeste Fidelis’ to cool you out while you were in puberty.”
19)  “Don’t Let Me Down” (1984)  This one could’ve been a potential hit single, I think, but Atlantic Records was more anxious for the band to record their next album instead of milking more tracks off Stay Hungry.
18)  “Leader Of The Pack” (1985)  The Shangri-Las’ classic oldie had been a staple of Twisted Sister’s act for years before they hit the big-time.  Snider decided to dig it back out for Come Out And Play, an album on which he got delusional and thought it would be cool to bring in guest musicians like Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band to play on.  Love the “Big Man” (rest his soul), but saxophones do NOT belong on a Heavy Metal record.  Ever!  That kitsch-y stuff might work for Meat Loaf, but not Twisted Sister.  Anyway, “LOTP” was rather humorous in places.
17)  “Yeah Right” (1987)  More or less the last word from Twisted Sister the first time ‘round, as it was the final track on the ill-fated Love Is For Suckers album, which was initially intended to be a Dee Snider solo album.  At least it still had plenty of middle-finger…
16)  “I Want This Night To Last Forever” (1987)  Also from Suckers, this song kept going through my head during a romantic night in Las Vegas in 1999 with the only woman I every really loved.  It was the first and only time I truly felt like I had the world by the balls and I didn’t want it to end…
15)  “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll” (1983)  Like most American Metal-heads, this was the first thing I’d ever heard from Twisted Sister and a portent of things to come…
14)  “Hot Love” (1987)  The band’s final video and the beginning of the end.  At this point, they even abandoned the trademark war paint and costumes just like Motley Crue and W.A.S.P. did, and looked like mere mortals in the process.  Every time I hear the line “Should I pass/should I play?” I think of the old “Password” game show.
13)  “S.M.F.” (1984)  Here’s a Casey Kasem long-distance dedication to Jerry Sandusky.  S stands for sick.  You’re on your own for the rest…
12)  “Burn In Hell” (1984)  This one gets better every time I hear it.  Surprised it didn’t land on some ‘80s horror flick soundtrack because it would’ve fit right in.
11)  “Come Out And Play” (1985)  Great title and lead-off track to what was otherwise a fairly disappointing follow-up to the mega-hit Stay Hungry.  The album did have a couple other hidden gems, though—read on…
10)  “I Wanna Rock” (1984)  The natural bookend for “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.  Oh, boy is this great!
9)  “The Price” (1984)  “’Cause it’s the price we gotta pay/And all the games we gotta play/Makes me wonder if it’s worth it to carry on…”  How many times have I pondered that line over the years…
8)  “The Fire Still Burns” (1985)  Not to be confused with Roger Daltrey’s “After The Fire (The Fire Still Burns)”, which came out about the same time, this was one of my favorites off Come Out And Play.
7)  “Shoot ‘Em Down” (1982)  From Under The Blade, Twisted Sister’s first album, which was only available in Europe for the longest time.  Another middle-finger salute to anyone who offends you:  “Shoot them down with a fucking gun!”
6)  “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (1984)  This should be the anthem for anyone who is fed up with our current political climate in America.  “If that’s your best, your best won’t do…”
5)  “Stay Hungry” (1984)  More middle-finger.  “Don’t be sidetracked or shunted/let pretenders feel your bite…”
4)  “Out On The Streets” (1985)  The other hidden gem from Come Out And Play, and it reflects my social life and love-life these days:  “Searching for something in this human zoo/Kaleidoscope of faces/Maybe, maybe it might be you…Someone listen to my prayers/Can’t help feelin’ no one cares/No one dares…When you’re out on the streets, livin’ on your own…you can’t understand what’s goin’ on…When you’re out on the streets, your heart’s your only home.”  Sad, but true…

3)  “Tonight” (1987)  Apart from Dee Snider himself, I must be the only person in the world who thinks Love Is For Suckers was a great album, and my top 3 Twisted songs all come from it.  It was certainly more consistent than Come Out And Play, anyway, and I played the livin’ shit out of my cassette copy on my car stereo in the fall of ’87, blissfully unaware of how fractured the band was at that point.  “Tonight” is all about high expectations and anticipation, and asks many a burning question like “Are you ready for the big game?”, “Do you wanna see us shake, rattle and roll?”, "Are you ready for the coup-de-tat at all?" and “Do you wanna see us put it in the hole?”
2)  “(Wake Up) The Sleeping Giant” (1987)  Lead-off track from LIFS, which I felt took on a whole new meaning in the wake of 9/11.  “It’s gotta stop—you know there’s too much at stake…Who the hell are they to say what we can do and how we can play?  We got the numbers, we got the right, we got the strength and we’ve got the might…so wake up the sleeping giant.”  Unfortunately, the giant was sleepwalking and attacked Iraq instead of those who truly deserved it…
1)  “Love Is For Suckers” (1987)  Brilliant title and one of my all-time favorite album covers too.  “Love—is for dreamers/Love—is for believers/Love—is for looooosers/ LOOOOOOVE—is for SUCKERS!”  Ironic coming from a man who’s been married and devoted to the same woman for 30 years, but viewing love as I do through the bitter prism that only three-plus decades of dead-ends, false hopes, disappointments, rejection and total indifference from the opposite sex can bring, I can’t help but agree with Dee’s lyrics sometimes.  Wouldn’t you like to be a sucker, too?

[NOTE:  I haven’t quite made that leap to embrace Dee’s PMA thing just yet, as you can readily tell!]