Burn In Hell - Twister Sister

 

Hear no evil, don't you speak no evil

Don't you lay no evil down on me"

Happy Halloween! One of the first tapes I ever bought was Stay Hungry by Twisted Sister. For a period of time they were my favorite band. I was 6 or 7 when it came out and the videos for We're Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock were playing ad nauseam on MTV.  I was just starting to develop my personal "taste" in music. Before TS, my favorite band was the Monkees. I loved the tv show and received their greatest hits record from Time Life Music. We had to call in and order the album and back then it would take like three years for stuff to come in the mail (well it was more like 6-8 weeks but that still seemed like a long time. What was the deal with that anyway!?) And before The Monkees my favorite recording artists were Bert and Ernie. Below is a pic of the actual album which I still own (my parents didn't throw away much)

I was too young to see my makeup wearing, spandex clad, rock n roll heroes live so all's I had were the videos and tapes. Although when I went to the theater to see Pee Wee's Big Adventure I was thrilled to see my favorite band in my then favorite movie singing today's featured banger. Needless to say my young mind was blown seeing both worlds collide.  

Stay Hungry ended up being Twisted's biggest album and they didn't really have much commercial success after. Fast forward about 20 years and I had just moved to Richmond VA. After searching for the Howard Stern Show (apparently he was pulled from the local station for indecency years before) I discovered that Dee Snider had a syndicated morning radio show. The only two markets for the show were Hartford Connecticut (where he lived at the time) and Richmond, VA. Why Richmond? I have no idea. 

Well, the positive thing about having a presence in Richmond was that Dee and his band (not Twisted Sister) were coming down to Richmond to play a show. I finally got to see my hero from the 80's live! He didn't sport the signature make up and shoulder pads that I had hoped for instead he appeared wearing leather pants and a leather vest.(no shirt underneath of course) I know if someone is in all denim it's called a Canadian tuxedo, I wonder what county would be a leather tuxedo? Germany?  Anyway, despite being costume-less, Dee and his band played all the Twisted classics so I left content. 

Fast forward another year and Dee was coming back to Richmond...this time with Twisted Sister! Despite a thunder storm delay myself and a few buddies witnessed the full costumed Twisted Sister in a grass field within an office park just a few miles from my apartment (sounds kind of depressing but it really was awesome) It was at a place called Innsbrook Office Park and the weekly summer series was dubbed Innsbrook After Hours. Since I was in my 20's at the time it was a sweet spot to see bands from my child hood that were perhaps a little down on their luck. Since CD sales were still going strong, ticket prices weren't outrageous, so I was seeing these nostalgic bands for around $30 or less. During those couple years besides Twisted, I saw David Lee Roth, Poison, REO Speedwagon, Huey Lewis and the News and Weird Al Yankovic...all for dirt cheap. How the times have changed!

The picture above is me dressed up as my 7 year old hero back in Halloween 2005. Yes, I did my own makeup. I remember I had to work the next day and after getting out of the shower despite my best efforts, the blue eye shadow I put on the night before wouldn't completely come off. Without a wig and other parts of the costume, needless to say I looked pretty damn creepy. This was a customer facing job too so it was quite embarrassing. Luckily it was a Sunday so I didn't have to see too many people but the ones I did, probably looked at me a little differently going forward.

For todays movie recommendations I figured we hit on movies where heavy metal was going to destroy the youth. Metal was under heavy scrutiny in the 80's. Big names like Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest were being sued and getting blamed for putting subliminal messages in their work and causing kids to commit crimes and suicide. The satanic panic was in full swing and the government was moving forward with Parental Advisory Stickers on albums they deemed inappropriate.(At this time Dee famously testified against censorship in front of Congress) Well, leave it to horror movies to capitalize on the fears of the day. Not exactly best picture nominees but these nuggets are enjoyable nonetheless. Here's two movies where our Metal heroes go bad and start causing havoc on the helpless teenagers.

Since we're celebrating Dee, I'd also recommend his 1998 horror movie that he wrote and starred in. It has some "borrowed" elements from A Nightmare on Elm Street but set in the "Modern Primitive" subculture (google it) Till next time. Happy Halloween!

Burn in Hell

Twisted Sister in 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)'

Trick or Treat (1986) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD]

Black Roses (1988) Trailer

Dee Snider's "Strangeland" - 1998 - Official Trailer

Just A Friend - Biz Markie / The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service

 

"I went to the gate to ask where was her dorm

This guy made me fill out a visitor's form" - Biz

"I am a visitor here; I am not permanent" - P.S

Hello friends and happy Autumn. Once again we are gathered here today to get though this thing called life. If we're lucky life offers moments of wonder, amazement and inspiration. Grateful to have those experiences but no matter how hard we try challenges, hardships and true life horrors end up knocking loudly on our doors. While these aren't favorite moments of mine, I believe I enjoy the Halloween season and the Fall as a way to cope with the inevitability of the dark times. It's a time to embrace the scary, conquer fears and own the melancholy and underlining themes of death. Instead of fearing it, we acknowledge and hope to appreciate the present moment knowing that around the corner something wicked this way comes. 

Let's dive head first into some of those darker edges of the human experience. One pain that most of us go through is the dissolution of relationships. These come in many forms whether it's family, friendship, home towns or lovers. Today's songs deal with the changes in environment and forced growth most specifically post high school. The time when you're separated from lifelong friends that go away to college, move out of town for work or stay put and don't leave home. After time apart everything seems different. People gain new friends, acquire new interests or just become brand new people. It's perhaps most challenging for the people that are left behind and move at a different pace. So far I've felt that friendships can pause and that after some time apart rekindling and rediscovering is possible. After a certain amount of time it's easier to pick the people you want to spend time with rather that just having geography in common. For romantic partners, well that's a different story. I relate to these songs because I did have a partner that was in a different environment after high school and as much as you think you'll will be different, you end up drifting apart and feel like a stranger or like in the songs below, "a visitor." Most of us have been the dumper and the dumpee and as a veteran of both roles I don't find either position pleasant. 

Since the theme of today's post is being the visitor or outsider, there's lot's of scary movies to chose from. Let's go with an all time favorite or mine from my youth, 1987's The Lost Boys. It's hard fitting in as the new kid but imagine if it involved becoming a Vampire...or a Vampire Hunter!  Not sure if it's coincidence or if I willed it into existence, but this is the third fall in a row where I've seen a performance from a Lost Boy Alumnus. Two of which happened right down the street from my house and one a quick flight to NYC.  Two years ago I caught Corey Feldman's (Edgar Frog) band, last year I witnessed the sax man himself, Tim Capello (Beach Concert Star) in concert and just this past weekend I saw Alex Winter (Marko) on Broadway! All pictures above and below from my personal collection. If Kiefer Sutherland gets his band back together I'll check it out next year. Happy Halloween everyone! Hope to share more tunes and movies over the coming weeks. Cheers. Oh since it's been a minute also included is a bonus trailer. As a Stephen King freak I read this book years ago but didn't catch the movie till the Covid year. Quite a few cinematographic nods in the Lost Boys from 1979's Salems Lot. Solid vampire double feature for the season.