Show 281 – The Stroke

Show Notes

• For the last time, the Cover Song of the Week is not about masturbation!
• Pariah’s review of the L.A. Guns Cocked & Loaded concert fiasco
• (Not) New music from “The Cult”
• New Black Stone Cherry, Kickin Valentina, Gravity Machine, Small Town Titans, Ghosts of Sunset, and Volster
• Hits & Deep Cuts from Steelheart, The Cult, LA Guns, *Doro, Judas Priest, Thundermother, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister, Nonpoint, and more!
• The Cult‘s “She Sells Seashells Down by the Seashore”

Playlist

Own the hits and deep cuts you hear on Hard, Heavy & Hair! Click the iTunes/Apple Music or Amazon Digital Music icons to the left of each song.

Twisted Sister – I Wanna Rock

Judas Priest – Delivering the Goods

Whitesnake – Crying in the Rain

Bon Jovi – Wanted Dead or Alive

Steelheart – Like Never Before

AC/DC – Thunderstruck

L.A. Guns – Never Enough

Thundermother – Roadkill

Cinderella – Night Songs

Warrant – I Saw Red

Mötley Crüe – She Goes Down

Poison – Love on the Rocks

Doro – Brickwall

Nonpoint – Electricity

The Cult – Dark Energy

The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary

Def Leppard – Animal

Beds by Audionautix.

Transcript of the Show

[INTRO]

This is the show you turn to when you say–

—————————————-
Twisted Sister – I Wanna Rock
—————————————-

Twisted Sister kicking off another Hard, Heavy & Hair Show

My name is Pariah Burke, and I’m your hard talking, heavy drinking, hairball of a horny hedonist host.

Thank you for joining me.

Get ready to unwrap a new Gravity Machine after Judas Priest delivers the goods.

—————————————-
Judas Priest – Delivering the Goods
Gravity Machine – Standing Stones
—————————————-

New song “Standing Stones” there from Gravity Machine.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in the studio. We’re gearing up for next week’s Hard, Heavy & Hair Holiday Special of Christmas- and New Year’s-themed Hard Rock, Metal, and Glam.

My grubby-ass, holey socks are hung haphazardly over the mantle. There’s two cases of Plantation rum in the corner just waiting for egg nog. Over the door that separates my studio from the engineer’s booth is hung mistletoe and a condom dispenser. But the prettiest sight to see, is Holly over my knee in a sexy elf outfit. Say hi, Holly.

That’s Holly Woods, folks, she dances at Little Darlings in Vegas and came up to Portland to spend a few days with me. I’m getting an early Christmas present. And I deserve this present, too, because I’ve been a naughty, naughty boy all year.

Holly: do you need a spanking?

Hahaha, why yes, I do need a spanking. Or maybe to give one.

But that’s later, in private. I’m on the air and need to play for all the naughty AND nice boys and girls at home this next song from Whitesnake. It’s “Crying in the Rain” on Hard, Heavy & Hair.

—————————————-
Whitesnake – Crying in the Rain
—————————————-

We’ll be right back. New music from Black Stone Cherry, Kickin Valentina, Small Town Titans, and more is coming up. Don’t puss out on me now!

Welcome back to the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show, your weekly dose of Hard Rock, Metal, and Hair Bands from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 20-teens, and today, including the latest new releases, your old favorites, and deep cuts and rare hair.

Your first Cover Song of the Week clue is coming up after Classic Bon Jovi and new Kickin Valentina.

—————————————-
Bon Jovi – Wanted Dead or Alive
Kickin Valentina – End of the Road
—————————————-

New Kickin Valentina, “End of the Road,” following “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi.

Ready for your first Cover Song of the Week clue? Remember: the first clue is always the hardest.

I’m amazed at how many people think the Cover Song of the Week is about masturbation. I mean, really, do you think Top 40 radio stations in 1981 would play a song overtly about choking the chicken? That’s when the Cover Song of the Week original was released, 1981. And it’s been a staple of Rock and Classic Rock stations ever since. I mean, sure, Classic Rock stations let the Who say “who the fuck are you” uncensored on the air, the clueless FCC let’s it slide, but a straight up beating-your-meat tune? No way.

So the Cover Song of the Week isn’t about jerking off. It’s about the music industry, though some of the terms are interchangeable.

What song is that?

By request for Hard, Heavy & Hair super-fan Jessica Frehley, this is Steelheart “Like Never Before.” It ain’t no crime, Jessica, that you’re so fine. Here’s your request.

—————————————-
Steelheart – Like Never Before
—————————————-

Right after a brief station identification break you’ll be Thunderstruck, and we’ll talk about the latest L.A. Guns virtual concert.

This is Hard, Heavy & Hair, and you’ve been… Thunderstruck!

—————————————-
AC/DC – Thunderstruck
—————————————-

Anyone else catch the LA Guns virtual concert on November 28th, yesterday as I record this show?

It was the entire band–Tracii Guns, Phil Lewis, Ace Von Johnson, Johnny Martin, and Scott Coogan–on-stage playing live in a Las Vegas club to a minimal crowd but simulcast online through Veep. They played the entire Cocked & Loaded LP–their most successful album–in order. It should have been a killer show. It wasn’t.

The band played their asses off, don’t get me wrong. The problem was they sounded like shit.

Have a listen:

[Clip – LA Guns concert 2020-11-28]

Yeah, that’s an actual clip from the live L.A. Guns “Cocked & Loaded” concert broadcast on November 28th.

For the first three songs of the concert it sounded like all the instruments were unmicced except for Phil Lewis’s lead vocal mic, and that all the other instruments that could be heard–which wasn’t all the other instruments–were being picked up by Phil’s mic.

Right about the fourth song I’m guessing the people at Veep and the sound mixer noticed all the angry tweets and emails to support at veep.com, and did a little adjustment, but they never actually fixed it.

By the fourth song you could finally hear a little bit of Tracii Guns’ guitar work, and by the fifth song Scotty Coogan’s drums started to bleed through into the audible range. You could never quite hear Johnny’s bass or Ace’s rhythm guitar, and for the entire concert–I mean every song all the way through the finale–the backup mics that Ace and Johnny sang into were never turned on. And throughout it all, Phil’s mic was way, way out front, meaning it was louder than all the other instruments, often to the point of drowning out all the other instruments.

The mix was so bad, at times you could hear the crowd in the club louder than you could hear the players on stage.

For songs one through three–“Letting Go,” “Slap in the Face”, and “Rip and Tear”–it sounded like a karaoke show with a loud microphone and a shitty boombox playing the music from behind the singer.

After song four, when the sound man did SOME adjustments, L.A. Guns became a three-piece–Phil Lewis’s vocals super loud, Tracii Guns’ guitar getting to a decent level just in time for his blisteringly awesome solo 10 minutes before the end of the concert, and Scotty Coogan’s drums MOSTLY audible. There were just two other guys on stage doing weird poses with silent instruments like over-zealous roadies. These fully-dressed, oddly moving go-go dancers also sometimes screamed into turned off microphones as if the band didn’t want them to sing but wanted to make them think they were singing.

Now I don’t know if it was an equipment failure or what. I’m guessing the band sounded great live in the little theater with the small number of people on-site, probably friends and family, and I’m sure they sounded fine in their monitors, so… At first I thought: equipment failure. It can happen at live shows.

But then, by the second and third songs in the set, I started getting pissed. Veep and the sound guy had the ability to throw up graphics into the feed–they did that to hock band merchandise at different times throughout the set–and they could have broken in and had the band announce technical difficulties, paused while they fixed them, and then resumed the show. But none of that happened, which means the sound guys, Josh Hodges and Joshua Good, weren’t listening to the streaming feed sound mix, nor was Veep, the company selling tickets with a 15% processing fee markup to the event. They didn’t even bother to fix the audio mix in the rebroadcast of the live show.

It sucks, too, because the band was playing their asses off. You could see them doing that. You could imagine what they were supposed to sound like you just couldn’t hear them actually playing their instruments or contributing in other ways to the song Phil was singing. And Phil Lewis sang his ass off, even though he couldn’t remember the lyrics until just before he sang them.

The whole concert I’m texting with my friend Ruben Mosqueda, a writer for Sleezerocks–ironically, someone I met at an actual L.A. Guns concert before we both interviewed members of the band. We also both picked up on the fact that from the very first song, Phil Lewis was reading his lyrics off an iPad. Playing through the Cocked & Loaded album start to finish, the band played a couple of songs LA Guns has never played them live, but for the majority of these tracks, Phil has been singing them for 30 years. Why did he need to look up the lyrics to “the Ballad of Jayne”? But there he is, looking down at the iPad by his feet.

That makes me worry maybe there’s a memory issue here. Or maybe he was just nervous. His first live gig in, what, 6 months? I don’t know. He still sounded great, so I’m not knocking Phil for that; I’m just concerned, like I said.

To Tracii, Phil, Johnny, Ace, and Scotty: you guys rocked the house! Thank you for a killer concert. I’m sure there are a lot of requests for refunds coming out of this; that’s not your fault. You need to make sure that Veep absorbs those costs for making you sound like you were rehearsing without all of your equipment instead of putting on a great live show. And I suggest nobody ever work with the two Joshes doing the audio again.

What really sucks is that these are some of the nicest guys working–and they work hard–and their show is going to become a cautionary tale for other bands. People are going to remember how crappy this show sounded because of a sound engineer and booking company who couldn’t be bothered to pay attention.

Here, this is how L.A. Guns NORMALLY sounds.

—————————————-
L.A. Guns – Never Enough
Thundermother – Roadkill
—————————————-

Thundermother with “Road Kill.”

The Cover Song of the Week, new Volster, Small Town Titans, Black Stone Cherry, and not new Cult still coming up on the show.

It’s time to come into the night singing… Cinderella.

—————————————-
Cinderella – Night Songs
Volster – Hanging On
—————————————-

That was “Hanging On” from Volster.

Ready for another Cover Song of the Week clue?

The artist doing the Hard Rock Cover Song of the Week is someone you may or may not know. Informally, I polled a few friends in either bands or the radio business, and less than half had heard of the band despite their large following on social media. They’re a… blue collar band formed in 2006 that has that… x-factor… and has also been stroked by the music business and lived to tell the tale, specifically in this week’s Cover Song of the Week.

Think about it.

This is the newest from Ghosts of Sunset singing about something we all love. This is “Another Rock N’ Roll Show” on Hard, Heavy & Hair.

—————————————-
Ghosts of Sunset – Another Rock N’ Roll Show
Warrant – I Saw Red
—————————————-

“I Saw Red” from Warrant. That song just blindsides you, doesn’t it? It starts out with a beautiful message of love, a power ballad like a hundred others back in 1990, then, bam! Jani Lane sucker punches you, just like real betrayal feels. Damn. I miss that man’s songwriting.

Other well-written songs are coming up from Def Leppard, Small Town Titans, the Cult, and more! Don’t go away!

This is Motley Crue singing about one of my favorite topics, right, Holly?

This is “She Goes Down” from Dr. Feelgood.

—————————————-
Mötley Crüe – She Goes Down
Poison – Love on the Rocks
Doro – Brickwall
—————————————-

“Brickwall,” the newest from Doro following a two-for of Glam from first Motley Crue and then Poison with their deep cut “Love on the Rocks.”

We’re almost to the Cover Song of the Week! One more clue and a few more songs and you find out if you guessed correctly! Stick around!

Let’s start this segment with something new from a new band I really like, a band that changes its sound from song to song. Channeling just a little Five Finger Death Punch–like, one- maybe two-, finger death punch, this is Small Town Titans and new track “When It All Comes Down.”

—————————————-
Small Town Titans – When It All Comes Down
Nonpoint – Electricity
—————————————-

Every Friday I get the week’s new music. Record labels and most bands release their music on Fridays–actually at midnight Thursday night–and on Friday morning’s, I get buckets of new tracks. I dump them all onto the Hard, Heavy & Hair music server, then listen to the songs throughout Friday and Saturday in the studio, at home, while I’m taking a run, while I’m driving, whenever, and decide which to add to the following week’s show. So, imagine my excitement when I see, way down in my WAV file inbox, a new track by The Cult.

I know the Cult is working on a new album, and I’m a fan from way back during the pre-Sonic Temple days, so I got excited, but when I got down to the T’s (my phone doesn’t sort without articles like “the”), this is what I hear:

[Clip – The Cult – BI-CULTURE – SEE YOU LATER]

Obviously, that is NOT Ian Astbury and the gang. That’s some new HipHop solo artist self-publishing an album and calling himself The Cult. WTF, man! WTF? Not cool!

This is the REAL Cult, a double-shot of the Cult to get us both over the disappointment. First, is the last thing the Cult DID put out, back in 2016, and then their biggest hit ever. Let’s lean back and groove with the Cult.

—————————————-
The Cult – Dark Energy
The Cult – She Sells Sanctuary
—————————————-

The Cult–the real Cult–with “She Sells Sanctuary” following “Dark Energy” from 2016’s Hidden City LP.

For your third and final Cover Song of the Week clue, to make you a winner and not just a sinner, I’d like to give you some lyrics from the song.

Ready?

So put your left foot out, keep it all in place
Work your way right into my face
First you try to bet me, and make my backbone slide
When you find you’ve let me, slip on by

Think about that. The Cover Song of the Week is next!

[COW]

Have you figured out the Cover Song of the Week?

The cover is by blue collar Hard Rock and Metal band by the name of XFactor1. The song they chose to make heavier is one I was sincerely surprised to realize so many people think is about masturbation. I mean: a LOT of people think it’s about choking the proverbial chicken when it is, in fact, about the music business.

Written by then-12-year-veteran of the 1970s music business, the song “The Stroke” is about Billy Squier’s experience within, and insight into, the way the music business treated musicians. Not a whole lot has changed in that regard, even though we now have virtual concerts, Internet radio, and Spotify.

The Cover Song of the Week is “The Stroke,” as done by XFactor1, with the original Billy Squier version following for comparison.

—————————————-
XFactor1 – The Stroke
Billy Squier – The Stroke
—————————————-

That was “The Stroke”, the Hard, Heavy & Hair Cover Song of the Week. That was the original version by Billy Squier following the heavy cover by XFactor1.

This is brand new Black Stone Cherry. The song is called “Push Down & Turn.” I suggest you push down on the volume knob and turn it to the right until it breaks the hell off.

—————————————-
Black Stone Cherry – Push Down & Turn
—————————————-

If you missed any part of this show, you can stream it again on-demand 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, from PariahRocks.com, that’s P-A-R-I-A-H-R-O-C-K-S-dot com. That’s the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show’s official website, which also includes the very latest up to the minute Hard Rock and Metal news and reviews, ways to contact me for requesting songs or serving paternity suit subpoenas.

We’re on all the socials, so reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram, MeWe, and VK @PariahRocks. Give the Hard, Heavy & Hair Show page a like on Facebook at-PariahRocksYou, and come join us in the Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, and Hair Bands Facebook GROUP.

My name is Pariah Burke, I’m your hard talking, heavy drinking, hairball of a horny host and producer. Thank you for joining me for this week’s Hard, Heavy & Hair Show.

Don’t forget to come back next week on on this station for the 2020 Hard, Heavy & Hair Holiday Special. I’m Pariah Burke. Thank you for tuning in. Def Leppard is going to play us out with “Animal” .

—————————————-
Def Leppard – Animal