Britny Fox - Self Titled - Columbia Records 1988
Despite this blog being about vinyl, my first musical format as a kid was nothing but cassettes. They were as integral as vinyl is to me today. It's the format everyone had in 1988. It was the only portable way to listen to music. With vinyl basically out the door at that time and CD's soon to put cassettes on the same tombstone as vinyl. The only record I vividly remember my mom buying and owning was the "We Are The World" 45 rpm 7" when it was released in 1985 when I was 5. I remember that record being in our house far more than the memory of any record player itself. My dad's records were all apparently stored away before I was probably born at my grandmother's house until they were magically rediscovered around some time in my early high school years. There were probably 50 records in that collection and with most things pop music related, I have a bizarre memory of remembering which titles he owned especially when I see them at record stores now. "Yup, my dad has that!" It's like a familial music nerd brain game. Out of his collection, the most prized record I kept of his is King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King. This record is accompanied with his amazing story of seeing them blow his mind in a small venue in Boston in 1969. More on King Crimson for another blog post eventually.
As a young kid when I wasn't listening to cassettes, I was fixated with music videos. Even though we had cable TV off and on in our house, I would religiously watch MTV and even VH1 whenever I could. I remember when VH1 only played adult contemporary videos like Sade "Smooth Operator" 50 times a day and the video that weirded me out the most when I was 6 or so, Yes' "Owner Of A Lonely Heart." As I got a little older, I worshiped at the alter of hair metal and MTV was my church. If I couldn't watch it at home, I would always find a way! Either at a friend's, a cousin's or my grandma's house, I wanted my MTV! In 1988, hard rock videos were king.
In 1988 I was 8/9 years old and I also loved baseball. Despite loving sports stars like many kids did, It was just one of many instances of blatant child like blind obedience to heroes. And with sports, it didn't end up in a life long adherence like it has with music. I loved the mathematical statistics of baseball in particular. However what mattered to me way more was how well my favorite hair metal/hard rock bands would do in the MTV's Year-End Top 100 Countdown. All these results were an accumulation of a years worth of the most requested videos on a show called 1-800 DIAL MTV. Which was a show on weekdays that would play about 12 of the most requested videos of the day by viewers who called into the number. Power ballads and metal fared much better on Dial MTV then on the Billboard Top 100. "Home Sweet Home" by Mötley Crüe held the #1 position for over 90 days in 1986, causing MTV to invoke the "Crüe Rule."Terminating a video's eligibility 30 days after its premiere. However by 1988, the rules were loosened and Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" held the top spot for over 10 weeks that summer. There was no better lesson about democracy to a kid than this. As hilariously embarrassing as it is to admit this now, in 1988 it was super fucking important! The only videos that mattered to me that year were
#1 - Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
#2 - Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me (I'm sure a big debate among the hairspray crowd?)
#3 Areosmith - Ragdoll (The closest thing to soft core on t.v you could find at the time)
#16 Def Leppard - Love Bites
#18 Van Halen - When It's Love
#21 Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle
#28 Joan Jett & The BlackHearts - I Hate Myself For Loving You
#33 Cinderella - Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)
#38 Poison - Nothin' But A Good Time
#41 David Lee Roth - Just Like Paradise
#54 Whitesnake - Give Me All Your Love
#56 Poison - Fallen Angel
#81 Van Halen - Finish What Ya Started
#98 Vixen - Edge Of A Broken Heart
This was the world we lived in and to give you a little more musical perspective of what else was on the countdown in 1988, Let's not forget just a few non metal artists...
#3 INXS - Need You Tonight/Mediate
#5 Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror
#24 Billy Ocean - Get Out Of My Dreams, Get Into My Car
#39 Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up
To me and many many rock disciples at the time, the fact that Guns N' Roses could beat Michael Jackson was a far more important victory than our favorite sports team winning any championship. Or that Poison beat Rick Astley by one spot. We'll take it! Metal was finally on top motherfuckers and our touchdown dance has a sick guitar solo!
 |
| Adam Curry - The king of the countdown |
In addition to the victory against safe pop music, the demand for metal had far larger arena on MTV's late night show Headbangers Ball. A weekly late Saturday night show that was dedicated to all things heavy metal. It began on MTV on April 18, 1987 and was one of the most popular music shows ever to air on MTV. It was on the air for nearly 8 years, and for a time, it was one of the network's flagship shows. In 1988 and 1989, the show was even increased to 3 hours. Which is a reason to fairly claim that 1988 was the year of mainstream heavy metal. The show originally focused on the more popular hair metal bands at the time but after a few years they would play much heavier thrash and death metal. I was obsessed with this show. It was the personification of my ridiculous 9 year old identity at that time. I remember strategically sleeping over my cousin Lisa's house so we could watch Headbangers Ball together and record it on VHS. We watched enough Headbangers Ball to brag that we've seen every Mötley Crϋe video with the pride only an elementary school kid from small town America could claim.
As I write this, the more I realize how much metal (of all things) is the all time thing I've ever had in common with my relatives. It was mainly with my cousins and sister but especially with my cousin Lisa. We were buddies roughly the same age and I spent a lot of time at her house. My aunt and uncle were usually at work to leave me and Lisa loosely watched by my older cousin Amy. However the real adult supervision came from all the hair metal bands on MTV at the time. When we weren't endlessly watching music videos, we would read about all our favorite bands in metal magazines like Circus and RIP. Magazines I wouldn't dare have at my house.
"Axl Rose guy" at the mall shared in the same role play as us all. Living through our most impressionable ages, hair metal was the accelerant to rid ourselves of being kids and relentlessly day dream about surrendering our youth in full allegiance to metal. I was so ready to become an adult and hope my life could be like the scenes in the Mötley Crüe Unsensored VHS tape. Or painstakingly waiting for my inevitable fate of walking off a Greyhound bus in Hollywood like Axl did in the beginning of the "Welcome To The Jungle" video. I was extremely jealous that my cousins in California grew up mere miles from the action in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey. Between metal, skateboarding and my soon to be future of loving punk and hardcore, I would have done anything to trade hometowns!
I think people may have forgotten or be unaware how omnipresent heavy metal and hard rock was in America? Everyone wanted to fucking rock! Even my relatives! In 1988, I did a full on knee slide with my air guitar to my illusion of what hair metal convinced me it should be. Bonding over metal with my cousins in all its cheesy forms will always be my favorite memories with them. Realistically, I didn't have too many memories anyway because I moved far, far away to Seattle in 1997 when I was 18. So let's get into some crucial ones...
"Surprising moments I remember cousins cranking metal at full blast when I was at their house with no aunts and uncles present. Also, surprising moments my aunts and uncles rocked!"
(I understand this might not be that impressive in comparison to your family but for my mine, this was nothing short of a miracle)
1) My slightly older cousin Scott cranking U.D.O - Animal House (That ruled!)
2) My way older cousin Tom cranking AC/DC - Hells Bells in his garage. I was probably 6 at that time. (Instant fan forever then)
3) My slightly younger cousin Craig cranking Pantera at Old Orchard Beach, Maine at his parents summer beach condo
4) A vague recollection of an unknown cousin cranking Van Halen - 5150. Or at least enough of a memory to know that someone cranked that for me around the time it came out in 1986. Even with my parents present. A thing I was powerless to do so on my own and I was extremely excited about it. Thanks mystery cousin!
5) My favorite Aunt Claudette who chain smoked like crazy and loved Cheap Trick and ZZ Top, cranking my cousin's (her step daughter I didn't know) copy of AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" 7" vinyl for me while I sat down at her Ms. Pacman machine. A thing of legend in 1986!
6) Me and my cousin Lisa discovering her parents copy of Led Zepplin 2 on vinyl and how much it blew our minds that they could ever have been that cool once. I remember laughing our asses off. It still blows my mind. Even though my dad may of had a King Crimson record, he surprisingly never had any Zep. He did admit to me only a couple years ago he did see them. Nice save dude.
Even today I talk to my cousin Michael in L.A about metal all the time. Although when his family would visit our grandma in the 80's he would crank RUN DMC. Which is pretty cool too! His sister Jennifer wasn't so much into the hair metal. I think she though it was low brow? Which she's absolutely right about. Her actually being from L.A while we worshiped the idea of L.A, she was a few years ahead of us hicks in fashion and music. She was surprised we hadn't heard of Jane's Addiction yet.
The relative I cranked metal with the most was my sister. She was of course around all the time. In fact I can't not think of her when any 80's reference, song or movie is being mentioned or played. She is chained to me as my witness to all things 80's. In the late 80's metal was everything to us. She even spray painted Faith No More on my skateboard launch ramp I had out front of our house. We were into all the hair metal and hard rock bands available to us. Despite not having metal magazines around we were luckily able to listen to our heavy metal cassettes. Mostly on our portable Walkman's where it was safe to not be heard by our parents and we could really turn it up full blast as it was intended to be! Most of them were dubbed from our cousins or friends but the real tape she had that I wished I owned was the killer Cinderella - Night Songs! There was a time I remember my mom threw away all her cassettes out of Christian rage. For some reason unknown, I was spared that fate. Should I thank God or Satan? It's still one of my biggest childhood unsolved mysteries.
(let it be known that that best cassettes she owned were hands down Slayer's, Seasons In The Abyss and Trouble's, self titled album)
 |
| Libby Laplante - Classic Cinderella fan |
OK so maybe metal wasn't the only thing I could relate to with my relatives? Around 1988 I would watch wrestling with my grandma all the time. If I couldn't convince her how important to my existence the music (and especially the video) for Mötley Crüe's "She's Got The Looks That Kill" was, then we could definitely relate to her favorite wrestler, Hulk Hogan. She may have been a French Canadian immigrant but when It came to Hulk Hogan, she was a "real American!" This was the golden age of wrestling with a "federation" of stars like Macho Man Randy Savage, Andre The Giant, Ric Flair and so many more. Most every wrestler had some kind of relation to rock and roll. Looks, attitude and theme songs! Just look how much Hulk Hogan fucking rocks in the video for his theme song video! He even appears to play it on a fucking American flag guitar!
I mean he did play bass in a rock band in Tampa, Florida called Ruckus. In fact before becoming a pro wrestler, he was discovered by NWA World Heavy Champion, Jack Brisco after seeing him perform with Ruckus at a Florida night club. He was so impressed by him that he asked him if he wanted to become a wrestler. the rest is history.
So technically me and my grandma did bond over rock and roll through wrestling. Pretty much every wrestler's theme song was some second rate version of Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger." There was even a tag team we watched all the time called The Rockers. Their 1988 theme song "Rock Out" has a metal guitar tone as fabulous as their hair. Look it up and thank me later.
The Rockers may have been cheese dicks but I sure did go crazy for The Road Warriors! The most bad ass tag team champions at the time! I mean look how fucking metal they looked!
No wrestler was as incredible in his maniacal attitude and nonsensical banter as The Ultimate Warrior! He was the wrestling equivalent of an infinite choir of heavy metal falsettos! Though technically not pushing a heavy metal agenda, his freak animal nature was my fantasy of what I wish a heavy metal front man would be. A thousand times beyond the Blackie Lawless' of the world. Just listen to this mother fucker and how metal everything he says is! "Come on into where nightmares are the best part of my day!" Pretty fucking metal!
* Extra bonus. Anyone else ever notice the similarities between The Ultimate Warrior and Bastard Noise? I wish they would have done a collaboration! Take a listen.
As an adult, I'm firmly opposed to giving any credit to entertainers as heroes. I clearly admire many artists I write about but I find it difficult to believe in the exhausted parables of good versus evil and the hero myth but in 1988, my whole existence was about hair metal and wrestling heroes. These two worlds were the ultimate tag team champions. They we're exactly the same to me. A connection I never made until I started writing this. It was the most ridiculous inauthentic and authentic entertainment duality of my entire life.
I'm sure if you're my age or a bit younger, you've heard older brother/sister types and rock bands reminisce about KISS over the years. I would arguably say KISS was their super hero rock band for all the obvious reasons. They invented the concept of relentless marketing to kids. It was very clever of Gene Simmons and the boys. You could even be part of their army!
If I was a bit older, I guarantee I would have been in the KISS Army. I'm no authority on KISS but similarly the first super hero metal band for me was Twisted Sister. Their short cameo in the 1985 movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was technically my introduction to a lifetime of metal fascination. I may have been super into Huey Lewis And The News because of their songs in the movie Back To The Future. Which also came out in 1985 but there's no denying that when I saw Twisted Sister tell me "I was gonna burn in hell," I agreed. If hell is this cool, Please take me!
Pee-Wee Herman was awesome for so many reasons as a kid but the fact hat he gave us kids a heavy metal teaser in his movie was a big deal to us. Between that awesome scene in the movie and their hit anthem "We're Not Gonna Take It" from their 1984 album Stay Hungry, they were definitely one of the biggest topics with us future scumbags at my elementary school. Twisted Sister gave me the false impression that eventually becoming an adult meant I could be a big kid forever! Plus they looked exactly like wrestlers.
The other band that was even more mysterious and intriguing to us kids was the shock rock metal band W.A.S.P. Whose band name alone was the source of much debate. Intentionally named to be vague I suppose, most of us agreed that it meant "We Are Sexual Perverts." That shit blew my mind and it had to be so. Their cassettes were absolutely impossible to get my hands on so all my intel came from kids whose parents let these little deviants have such glorious things as W.A.S.P cassettes and watch horror movies. Those parents of the 80's were the real heroes! I wasn't so lucky. It was the main source of all my jealousy as a kid. However further research tells me...
"The original U.S. release of the band's 1984 debut album W.A.S.P had the words "We Are Sexual Perverts" inscribed on both sides around the label in the center, while "Winged Assassins" is inscribed on the spine of the first vinyl pressing."
W.A.S.P may have been the most shocking metal band of that era? With their most controversial song "Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)." A song that made it on the PMRC's "Filthy 15" along with Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" W.A.S.P and Twisted Sister may have had grand intentions of being shocking but they helped cue the fusillade of the second wave of misguided glam bands. This time around, it put the lipstick on the pig that is glam metal.
How did we get from the glam rock of the 70's to it's sleazy interpretation of 80's glam/hair metal? Most of you know the big two suspects of 70's glam rock. T-Rex and Bowie. Yet when it comes to 80's glam metal, the two biggest influences undoubtedly has to be from Slade and The New York Dolls. If glam rock was a reaction to the absurdity of fame then glam metal was a stubborn reaction to their destiny of fame.
Wolverhampton, England's, Slade wasn't just an influence, they were straight up ripped off. Quiet Riot made an entire career off covering Slade's "Cum On Feel The Noize" and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now." Slade even has an album called Nobody's Fools. Which is pretty close to the Cinderella song "Nobody's Fool." Slade's trademark was to intentionally be the proprietors of misspelling their songs. And some 80's glam metal bands followed suit. Britny Fox steals the way they misspelled their name and blatantly owning up to it by covering Slade's "Gudbuy T' Jane" on their self titled album. Which is supposed to be the main subject of this blog entry but I have to paint a picture over here. Give me a frickin break!
It goes without saying that Slade was an incredible and a super fun rock band that wrote powerful anthems that were written specifically with the winning combination of audience participation. Look for yourself!
Songs that were appropriated by American hair metal. Intriguingly, Quiet Riot's version of "Cum On Feel The Noize" succeeds Slade's by only ten years. Yet in 1983 when mainstream heavy metal was seen as dinosaur rock, it's regarded as the song that saved heavy metal from new wave. It led Quiet Riot to becoming the first metal band to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 at #5 and helped their album Metal Health to become the first metal album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200. A song Quiet Riot didn’t even want to cover. Specifically, lead singer Kevin DuBrow. According to drummer Frank Banali, producer Spencer Proffer had pushed the idea of Quiet Riot recording “Cum On Feel the Noize. He goes on to say
"Kevin DuBrow wanted nothing to do with it, since he wanted the band to write every song on the album. He and the band cooked up a plan to sabotage it. Kevin was waiting for it to fall apart, but we just kept playing. It’s in my DNA to do the best job I can, so I vamped, and it turned out to work within the song. When we finished, the producer said it sounded great on the first take. The engineer happened to record it, and when we listened back, it worked. Kevin was furious."
In America The New York Dolls brand of over the top, cross dressing, androgynous rock and roll boogie, steeped in blues and 60's era girl groups like The Shangri-Las, sent shock waves through the fault lines of the music industry. An aesthetic that was almost the "too perfect" sound of sleaze.
Their influence has been cited numerous times especially by the likes of Twisted Sister, Poison and W.A.S.P (Blackie Lawless was even in the final version of The New York Dolls).
"In a Creem magazine poll, they were elected both best and worst new group of 1973."
Sleazy is defined as "morally bad and low in quality, but trying to attract people by a showy appearance or false manner." It may be hard to describe in words what sleazy sounds like but we all know know it when we hear it. (Sticks tongue out) Riffs so sleazy they sound like they're actually sexually harassing you. With the kind of persistence only a predator would have in a Camaro outside your high school when the final bell rings.
Despite the sleaze factor, I've always put glam metal loosely in two categories. Team Slade or team New York Dolls. Team Slade being the Quiet Riot, Cinderella and Ratt types who wanted to sing heavy big rock anthems while looking fabulous. Or the blatant Dolls types like Poison, Hanoi Rocks and Faster Pussycat whose bizarre version wanted to play sleazy boogie rock and look as fabulous as the kind of girls they wanted to fuck. Takers of the value out of the shock. The hopeful bracelet clang of a torch pass abandoned by these glam metal vultures.
Then there's the third category that sound like both with the added AC/DC influence. Especially of vocalist Brian Johnson. Whose amazing ultra raspy vocals I believe changed metal on his debut album with AC/DC, Back In Black. A vocal style that was tantamount to Slade's Noddy Holder but with an even more inhuman sounding rasp. In the early 70s Johnson had a decent career as the singer with British glam-rock band Geordie. He was considered Newcastle’s answer to Noddy Holder. It's like being influenced by Slade twice at once! Check out this awesome video of Geordie live on T.V. from 1974. Listen for Johnson to sing the words "quiet" next to "riot!" Coincidence?!
Two more coincidences in this connection is that Geordie had played shows with Slade a few times and Noddy Holder was also asked to Join AC/DC around the same time as Johnson.
“I was asked (to join AC/DC),” Noddy said. “They did approach me - not directly to me but they approached my management - whether I’d like to join AC/DC. I think they probably heard that Slade was sort of on the verge of breaking up and apparently, I was approached to join them. I said I’d turn it down, y’know, I still got in my head that Slade was still a force to be reckoned with and that we’d still be carrying on. But I would have turned it down anyway because Slade was my baby; it was the thing that I worked with for years, worked hard with for years.”
Noddy continued: “I knew Brian (Johnson) from the band Geordie and Geordie had played with (Slade) a few times. So, I knew Brian – I thought Brian was the perfect choice for them anyway. He's great. They became obviously a huge, huge band and produced probably some of the greatest rock music that's ever been - and still are! I mean I just loved AC/DC as a band.”
It could be argued that AC/DC has been ripped off far more than Slade. The amount of AC/DC clones throughout history is absurd. But there's definitely a handful I love. Especially the band Cinderella's glam version of it. The first song "Night Songs" off their debut record of the same name even has the same church bell intro as AC/DC's "Hells Bells." With its opening slow euphonious riff, that sounds like an air raid siren to warn the rock and roll masses of a post apocalyptic, glam, doom metal fall out. In a world I imagine where Cinderella lives eternally on a 80's hair metal sound stage and everyone is gathered around fire pit barrels toasting singer Tom Keifer after he screams one of the greatest lines in rock history "I need a shot of gasoline!"
What's not to love? Especially singer/guitarist Tom Keifer's singular vocal snarl! He sings like what I imagine if Brian Johnson was a wrestler and part dying pigeon. A crazy sounding combo that actually works and I fucking love it! Plus Keifer is technically three times influenced by Noddy Holder. So you can't go wrong there. I wouldn't be opposed to people singing like Keifer more in in rock. Imagine the excellent possibilities! People can't deny an anthem and there's some great ones on Night Songs. Songs I call "finger less leather glove, fist rock." Maybe they should have named the album that? They were on fire! They could even sell chili dogs! That's right! check out this amazing commercial they filmed for their local chili dog restaurant! Pat's Chili Dogs!
When it came to the videos they made for Night Songs, "Shake Me" had me and thousands of other kids wishing they would come to life out of our Cinderella poster like they did in the video. Only to teleport me to their concert while they're doing epic guitar windmills and 360° guitar strap spins. All while the drummer is partying down on a sick cowbell and doing drum stick spins! All this before I turn into a pumpkin at midnight. "Shake Me" is one of the great hair metal anthems of all time even if the classic Cinderella plot of the video is a stretch and weird as fuck. To be a fly on the wall when producers were snorting coke and story boarding all hair metal videos of the time. Just watch any DIO video.
By the time Cinderella's second album Long Cold Winter was released on July 5th, 1988, they definitely bailed on team Slade and joined team New York Dolls. Being more focused on blues rock and boogie, they "hitched a ride, took a fast moving train" into a weird southern rock sound with harmonica in hand. Their single "Gypsy Road" is still one of my favorites of the genre with the righteous lyric, "And who's to care if I grow my hair to the sky!" Preach Tom! I definitely was on standby waiting to be old enough to have the choice to be a long hair for life. Once I had long hair, it's stayed that way. Even still. So I jumped on this southern sounding party train and purchased it with my lawn mowing money as my first cassette when it was released.
A purchase in 1988 that I couldn't believe my parents allowed me to buy with my own money. They even took me to the now defunct Bradlees department store in Lewiston, Maine. It was as if they smoked weed for the first time in over a decade or something on a whim? which probably wasn't since the 70's and were suddenly cool with me being allowed to have something so "worldly" in their normally religious view. I remember them asking me to play it in the car on the way home so they could check out why I liked it so much. Being awful suspect in their comical support of this big historical purchase of mine that only a religious parent who hadn't done really anything cool since the 70's could be. Despite this awkward initiation, this was the beginning of a long varied relationship with collecting music. And what a ridiculous introduction it was.
One cool thing about Long Cold Winter having a white cover was that I could easily trace the Cinderella logo in my school notebooks next to all my other favorite glam metal of the time. The genesis of the identity of my choosing was very pro neon and spandex except I didn't get to have any. I did at that time in 4th grade have a sick Mötley Crüe "Shout at the devil" t-shirt that some white trash metal girl gave me. Which may be the coolest things anyone has ever given me? I wish I could thank her now but have no clue who she is? I would sneak it into school and change into it all the time. I also had some cool Ratt and Mötley Crüe buttons that I loved to wear on my shirts. Except that year I forgot to take off my Mötley Crüe button during school photos and I had to sneakingly cut the bottoms off of every photo (and there were a shitload of different dimensions of photos back then, so I had my work cut out for me) and pray my parents didn't notice. And miraculously they never did!
Speaking of school. In 1988 there was an awesome band that emerged from the hairspray fog called Britny Fox. They had this killer, sleazy anthem called "Girlschool." Which was and still is the heaviest sounding glam metal anthems of all time! It was played on regular MTV and Headbangers Ball often and the similarity to Cinderella was uncanny. Except their singer "Dizzy" Dean Davidson took the vocal style of Tom Keifer and did bench presses with them! I fucking love these ridiculous vocals so much! Even if sometimes he does a Paul Stanley thing. They all did a little bit. Everybody was a Kiss army member. You hear every hair metal band reference them in every interview in that era.
But why did these guys give off such a Cinderella vibe? Cause Tony Destra and Michael Kelly Smith from Britny Fox were original members of Cinderella. I wish I would have known that all these years. What kind of hair metal aficionado am I?! They even played on the coveted Cinderella 7" single "Shake Me/Nobody's Fool" that was self released in 1984 that goes for $400 on discogs.com. Sure wish I had one.
And how did I finally learn this? I fell upon a book a year ago while browsing the music section of Elliot Bay Books on Capitol Hill in Seattle named Nöthing But A Good Time - The uncensored history of the 80's hard rock explosion . It's basically a book of quotes from all the players in the hair metal genre that explains so many aspects about this era. All my Britny Fox questions have been answered!
In this book, the story of Britny Fox is told that Derek Shulman executive at Mercury/Polygram records had come to see Cinderella and thought Tom Keifer and Eric Brittingham were superb but he didn't buy Tony Destra and Michael Kelly Smith as stars. He would give them $25,000 for three months but they needed to get rid of Kelly and Destra. It was a tough decision because Keifer had known them for almost his entire life. Keifer says
"Let's just say there were some musical differences before Shulman ever came into the picture. And it was still a hard decision. And to their credit they went and started Britny Fox and they did well for themselves." - Nöthing But A Good Time - The uncensored history of the 80's hard rock explosion (P. 185)
You could argue that there may have been some musical differences but if you look at the way they dressed, it asks the question...
So these dudes who look like girls with a female sounding name, that hints at being foxy but are totally straight and look like they just exited a time machine from 18th century Philadelphia, and actually are from Philly, and their name actually comes from the 18th century, are classic team Slade glam metal with a lot to prove after a couple members were kicked out of Cinderella cause some dumb executive didn't get them, might totally rule? I fucking do!
Billy Childs (bassist, Britny Fox) "Bitny Fox were modeled after Cinderella. We did step right into their spot. We had a buzz because we had two of the original members. We had Michael Kelly Smith and Tony Destra. I mean, it gets thrown at us a lot, it gets denied a lot, but there's really no denying that we were pretty much just by luck and by design modeled after Cinderella. I couldn't really help the fact that I had long blond hair kinda like Brittigham, you know what I mean? It was what it was. And Dean I think consciously and subconsciously did model himself after Keifer" - Nöthing But A Good Time - The uncensored history of the 80's hard rock explosion (P. 185)
Billy Childs (bassist, Britny Fox) "In the early days we had girls make the outfits for us who would do it for free. Dean had a sister that was invaluble to helping us out and making that shit work. 'Cause how do you dress like a Victorian era dude? I don't know, you know? Oddly enough, it's actually more Edwardian than Victorian. But that's a whole 'nother story..." - Nöthing But A Good Time - The uncensored history of the 80's hard rock explosion (P. 349)
Dizzy Dean Davidson (singer, Britny Fox) "For Britny Fox. I looked at the old Who. Remember The Who when they were in the 60's? With the ruffles? It was like the early Who, Paul revere & The Raiders, Prince. It was more of a mod look and I ran with it. - Nöthing But A Good Time - The uncensored history of the 80's hard rock explosion (P. 349)
This realization made me ask myself? "Could Jerry Seinfeld pass as a Britny Fox fan?"
 |
| "What's the deal with Edwardian hair metal anyway?" |
(Johnny Dee, Drums Britny Fox) “I think
we were a product of the time more than anything, and the stuff that we
grew up on: obviously, Alice Cooper and KISS, Sweet, Slade and Bowie,
all that stuff sorta thrown into a big pot.” Dee contends that “the
music was simple, you know, good-time anthems, that type of arena rock…
It’s what we grew up on, and what we wanted to represent.” - Britny Fox: And the band played on, screamermagazine.com, October 28th, 2015
So what the fuck is a fucking Britny Fox? Inspired by Davidson, who named the
band in honor of an 18th century Welsh coat of arms of one of his 18th century ancestors. They just gave the Britny part the old Slade style misspelling and there you have it
They were described on a compilation
as "trashy Victorian glam." Or my favorite moniker, "Frilly in Philly." From a sticker on the 2021 re issue of a live concert at the hen house for their 88 debut. An aesthetic that was confusing to many especially me being 9 years old. Coincidentally, the original hype sticker on the promo copies of the album said "Metal
Hammer says "Gudbuy T' Jane "perhaps the finest cover of a Slade anthem
yet attempted by an American group." Now that's a team Slade endorsement!
They were in direct competition with Cinderella who were unbeatable with their Long Cold Winter's
three-platinum belts which was released in the same year. However Britny Fox is
still considered one of the more successful acts of that year by winning Metal Edge
magazine's award for Best New Band and racking up gold status. Look at these freaking stats.
An interview with Rick Krim who joined the MTV staff in 1982 who rose to becoming the Vice President of music programming, was instrumental in which videos were played during the hair metal era responded to the following question in the book, Nöthing But A Good Time - The uncensored history of the 80's hard rock explosion
Dial MTV, where viewers called in and voted for their favorite videos every day, seems to have been incredibly important to a lot of the bands. Did hard rock groups know how to mobilize their fans, or do you think the labels were hiring people to call in?
(Rick Krim) "I think some of the bands figured out how to get people in the phone banks. It seemed obvious when certain bands would be number one every day, and that didn't align with what was really going on in America. Britny Fox is the one that sticks in my brain. And Britny Fox was fine, but they were number one, like, every day. Not that they didn't deserve to be in the top 10, but number one every day was pushing it. There's a long history in the business of trying to beat the system however you can do it, and i think they found a way and it worked for them. And others followed." - Nöthing But A Good Time - The uncensored history of the 80's hard rock explosion (P. 365)
So that explains why I was beat over the head with Britny Fox as a kid. They may have been forgotten in the classic rock history books but Columbia Records pushed the shit out of them. At least on MTV. The gate keepers of music had limited spots available for radio so the only chance for any kind of metal exposure, was MTV, Headbanger's Ball, metal magazines and tape traders. Metal's biggest weapon was and will always be the fans. Their loyalty is unrivaled even beyond the biggest Oakland Raider's fans. Making bands like Slayer and Iron Maiden international legends, with virtually no radio airplay. In 1988, radio was still a powerful force and Britny Fox managed to even make #100 on Billboard's Hot 100 for the week of October 1st, 1988. The fact a band like this could even chart blows my mind. If you look at the other artists that charted that week, it'll remind you how fucking weird American music history is. Bobby McFerren's "Don't Worry, Be happy" was #1 for fucks sake! Britny Fox also went on the road with some heavy hitters like RATT, Alice Cooper and Joan Jett And The Blackhearts. As well as the wildly successful Poison "Open Up And Say...Ahh!" tour.
So why do I still love the first Britny Fox album so much and why after all these years have I been trying to get people to not forget these hair metal gems? First reason is the production of pretty much every major label metal album at the time was off the charts, gigantic sounding! Wrapped up in a nice big analog blanket protected against the future of lifeless digital recording, And this album is way up on my list. The industry was hell bent on releasing albums that sounded like perfect live arena records. Making the music a true spectator sport. Using caveman reverb for every instrument as the weapon of choice for these gladiators of sleaze. Bringing the wrestling match to you whether you like it or not. Look at songs like Accept's "Balls To The Wall," Whitesnake's "Still Of The Night," and Slaughter's "Eye To Eye" for instance. All massive as fuck!
Ironically I can't even remember owning the Britny Fox cassette even though I'm more leaning on the fact I did? However, I bought the record as an adult in my late twenties. For me, nothing fills the hair metal anthem void quite like the first Britny Fox album. And the videos are the candy store.
The video for the song "Girlschool" is what would happen in 1988 if I could have any wish. To be in a metal band performing under martial law in an all girl school, full of rock and roll horn dog maniacs. All with enough stage presence and sheer volume to sway the teacher once and for all towards our glam metal debate team's eternal hair spray laden affirmation.
This song goes straight
to the Slade school of anthem writing and lights up in the smoking
section of the girls bathroom. Connecting like the baseball bat snare
hit overdubs sprinkled throughout the song. These hair metal
enablers of rule breaking and extra curricular activities just lit your
hall pass on fucking fire! Especially when Dizzy Dean screams "You're
staying after school!" Cuing the neon lightning that is one pretty
fucking sick air raid siren guitar solo!
In a brilliant ploy, it's as if Britny Fox took the concept of Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" and made "Girlschool" their hot for student anthem? Although it's literally impossible to top the song and video for "Hot For Teacher," "Girlschool" is wildly entertaining and a monolith in 80's glam metal anthems. Riding a wave of massive amplitude in a sea of 80's mix tapes lives "Girlschool." Delivering a traveling disturbance of hormones. Propagating glamorous energy into the bleeding ears of fabulously trashy devotees.
The most prominent devotee in the video being Kim Anderson. Who you may recognize from a handful of other hair metal videos like Guns N' Roses' "Patience," Slaughter's "Up All Night" and Great White's "Once Bitten Twice shy."
(Speaking of "Once Bitten Twice shy," Great White is another band of the era that couldn't really write an original hit like Quiet Riot and made a career out of the 1975 cover from Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople.)
In the video, she walks into class with her headphones on and as soon as the school bell rings she hits play on her walkman and blasts "Girlschool." In retaliation for not paying attention to the J.S Bach lesson, the perfectly cast teacher played by Marianne Muellerleile, who has over 200 acting credits and is mainly
known as the wrong Sarah Connor from The Terminator (1984), walks up to her and cuts her headphones cable. But it doesn't matter cause Britny Fox magically appears at that very moment playing where the chalk board once was on a classic 80's hair metal sound stage. The teacher can hear the blistering rock but when she looks behind, all she can see is the chalk board. In no surprise, all the girls can see and hear Britny Fox playing and they start following Kim's lead by rocking out. Then once Dizzy Dean screams "Come on girls!" The uniforms get shorter and the chaos ensues. By the second verse, the teacher can see Britny Fox and looks like she's going to have a heart attack while trying to bring order to the classroom. By the third chorus,the relentless fervor of Britny Fox and the hysteria of the girls has the teacher entranced in full on Stockholm syndrome with the band. Letting her hair down and throwing her fists in the air. Completely abandoning the classical music theory lesson of the day. Leaving the janitor one hell of a mess to clean up.
Now if the roles were reversed and the hugely successful all female metal band at that time, Vixen happen to play live in my grade school music class, I absolutely would have broken "all the rules," lost my fucking 4th grade mind and screamed at the top of my lungs while playing air guitar in a Speedo. Living it up for every fleeting millisecond in exchange for the world's longest after school detention.
The video for the second song off the album "Long Way To Love" is set in a post apocalyptic, industrial wasteland where a homeless man pushing a shopping cart crosses the wrong side of the tracks and comes upon an old TV with a button on top of it and a sign above that says "press here." He can't resist his senile curiosity and hits the button. The TV turns to static and Britny Fox, always the magicians of illusion, appear on yet another 80's metal sound stage behind the TV and unleash the big opening riff. Then the band gallops into battle using all the horse power of their guitars to stampede into the verse like a freaky Edwardian cavalry. And let's just say that the British are definitely cumming! Dizzy Dean's vocals are so commanding that you wanna scream along way before the chorus.
Now if Britny Fox was supposedly modeled after Cinderella, then my favorite homage has to be using organ to fill out the sound in part of the verses. Just like in the chorus of my favorite Cinderella song, "Gypsy Road."
Then again, Michael Kelly Smith unchains another perfect guitar solo that takes all the liberties and extends it a few more unexpected bars. Which sounds like a disgruntled ex-employee of Cinderella showing off his "trophy solo." If you read the comments in the video, people lose their minds over this fucking solo. A solo so good, more than one person says they were named after Britny Fox!
I love it too! It's why I've spent countless hours writing this. Regardless of the lyrics, the music is self admittedly super positive. Like an electrified marching band leading you into battle against abstinence. I also read in the comments how someone got drunk listening to this album all the time. Shit, I can definitely relate. Which brings me to the book that encouraged me to write about hair metal. Chuck Klosterman's, Fargo Rock City - A Heavy Metal Odyssey In Rural Nörth Daköta.
On (P. 227) Klosterman validates my thoughts completely in his rant about the harmonious relationship between metal and alcohol.
"Even though I almost never think about it, I should probably hate glam rock for what it does to my body. It's clearly helping me drink myself to death. When I'm alone, and I've had my eight or ninth drink, and there are no old buddies or estranged girlfriends to call on the telephone, I inevitably find myself going into my closet and digging through my old high school cassettes. This stuff sounds great when I'm getting drunk. I rock out in my apartment. I play air guitar and work on my Paul Stanley shuffle, and I chug bottles of Rolling Rock during guitar solos. Some nights this is all i do. I get home from work after a bad day, skip supper (so i can get drunk faster), and start throwing heavy metal tapes into my stereo. When I wake up the next morning, there will be empty bottles all over my living room and a bunch of W.A.S.P tapes piled up on my couch."
Now Klosterman wrote this when he was 27. Which is about the same age as my alcoholic hair metal revival. I basically stopped listening to hair metal around 12, when my new obsession was Metallica's Master Of Puppets and Slayer's Seasons In The Abyss. So about 15 years later I remember absolutely annihilating my roommates and friends with my drunken infatuation with bringing hair metal back in my life. Alcohol was my time machine and I was kidnapping the people around me and torturing them. I would get wasted and blast The Cult's Electric on vinyl cause I found a copy at Value Village. It drove my roommate, an avid hater of The Cult, insane. Until I watched him slowly like it more and more with every forced listen until he could be "corrected." Successful influence is a volatile gratification for any obnoxiously persistent alcoholic. This is about the time when I finally bought the first Britny Fox album on vinyl but without a doubt, my favorite party favor had to be Slaughter's Stick It to Ya. My drunken air guitar and drums were relentless. Even worse is the fact the I can sing really crazy falsettos. My motto was "there's nothing false about my falsetto." But my falsetto addiction was becoming unmanageable. Alcohol was taunting me to do falsettos and Mark Slaughter was my pusher.
 |
| Me and Mark Slaughter April Fools 2017. He has no clue how much I've impersonated him over the years |
This revival was taking me back to when I was a little kid and I would have my make pretend rock concerts in my living room. Some kids my age wanted to be sports stars but I legitimately wanted to be everyone in Def Leppard, Poison, Mötley Crüe and Slaughter. I was proficient as fuck at all air instruments. This is where I mastered all my most righteous rock and roll facial expressions. Still find myself pulling from this archive when I play live.
I haven't drank in years but alcohol clearly mixes well with all metal. Hair metal in particular acts as much as a social lubricant as alcohol itself. Nothing breaks the ice socially like a good hair metal anthem. Metal has the potential of taking you through every emotion. There's a metal album for every mood. Just ask Pat Boone.
To me, nothing says party time quite like glam metal. It's wildly fun and entertaining. All the way down to the cowbell. Every Friday at the very least, I try and listen to nothing but party metal/rock all day to kick the weekend into gear. Every time, there's Britny Fox in that mix. But why do I love this shit so much?
Let's face it, GLAM METAL IS FUCKING DUMB AS FUCK! It's such an embarrassing skeleton in so many people's closet. However it's so dumb that most anyone doesn't mind admitting they love it. I'm so glad that I was a little kid when it was happening. If I was even 5 years older I would have probably dismissed it with good reason. Underground metal, punk and new wave was amazing back then so I imagine I would have been a raging thrash metal fan? But I wasn't. Hair metal was the first music I was able to choose to listen to. It was my destiny and everyone, I mean everyone including my relatives were into it. Even one of my lesbian friends' hilariously admitted she had a crush on Kip Winger before coming out. As an adult, I've considered hair metal as strictly entertainment. And as much of a music snob as that sounds, I can't place the same musical value on Britny Fox as I can on jazz fusion legends and most talented band of all time, Return To Forever. But Return To Forever could never entertain me the same way as "Long Way To Love" by Britny Fox does. The earth may be over 4.5 billion years old but I happen to exist as a kid at the same exact time when MTV pummeled me with hair metal. Talk about luck.
Most every rock fan I know, loves RATT and gives them a pass based on their undeniable entertainment value. They're like a porn mag you find the woods when you're a kid in the 80's. You didn't know how much you wanted it until you find it. My goal is to try my best and remind or educate you that Britny Fox was pretty fucking awesome too. If you're looking for nothing but a good time, the first Britny Fox album is exactly what Doctor Feelgood ordered. It's one of the best in the arsenal of "made for the arena" rock albums of the time. A genre that seemed by design, was meant to be fleeting. Any great style of anything deserves an existential crisis. It was inevitable that hair metal died as soon as it did. It would be crazy if it didn't. They say Grunge killed it. But Grunge had it's own expiration date too and lasted about the same amount of time. Imitation may be the best form of flattery and if every genre of rock has its influence, then I'm excited to see what the future holds. Take that one to heart.
"They rate our music down, they take our words and change them around. Pop, Rock, Country and metal won't take it laying down!" - "Rock Revolution" Britny Fox
I was gonna wrap this story up right here but I went home to Maine last week to visit family. I couldn't resist and went to the immutable time warp that is the Auburn Mall. I walked through the door passed the next generation of eldery mall walkers and I could have sworn I saw tumble weeds on my way to the center of the mall where the stage is. As I walked passed the bench I once sat at tripping balls, I could hear Lisa Lisa And The Cult Jam's 1987 hit, "I Think I love you from head to toe" playing on the overhead speakers. Reverberating off the floors with the timbre of the past. As if they're still playing 80's music relentlesly since then in protest to a change they never asked for. They never got it anyway as many stores were long gone and vacant. I walked past the Maine National Gaurd with the same distain I had as the 15 year old kid with an anarchy logo sharpied on my jeans on my way towards the natural treasure that is the mighty Spencer Gifts. A store that should get more credit as the great enabler for American sleaze culture like glam metal. On my way towards what used to be the Dream Machine to see if there might miraculously be a high school fight, I saw this sign. Standing right where "Axl Rose guy" used to, in solidarity with the 80's music playing overhead. Begging me not to forget the memories of this oneiric, Stephen King like Maine time period.
Our family never had a video camera but there's plenty of blackmail in old photographs and stories. I was reminded on this trip that it's a little silly to say that metal was one of the few things I had in common with my relatives. Even if it's my favorite. A week before I arrived in Maine, There was a mass shooting in two locations in Lewiston, Maine. Which is the twin city of Auburn, Maine seperated by the falls of the Androscoggin river. One of the locations was a Bowling Alley one mile from where my parents live. It was a mind boggling tragedy that literally hit home in many ways for many friends and family. All 18 victims were unfairly killed in yet another American as apple pie incel murder spree. Two people were a freind of a friend's mom and dad about my parents age. Which broke my brain and made me count my blessings that I didn't have to selfishly deal with that happening to me. I could scream at the top of my lungs about the gun violence in America but I feel completely defeated. As I'm sure many of you are too. Another American town that was forced to be #strong instead of having the human decency of not being murdred by another fucking loser who has unbelievably way more rights to act on their suicidal impulse to take everyone out with them. Thanks for your sacrifice America.
In a miraculous twist of fate, my mom had invited almost every cousin and a bunch of other relatives related to my grandmother I have in Maine, to a family reunion at my parents house. An event of that size I wasn't quite expecting. A visit I planned before the mass shooting happened where a gathering of the likes hadn't really been witnessed since maybe around the time this Britny Fox album was released in 1988. The 80's was a time when our wrestling enthusiast grandmother was the matriarch of our family. Giving us a reason to make family an important aspect of our lives. But as my cousins who are all older than me had their own families and my grandmother who eventually passed away 20 years ago this week, gathering at that scale was pretty much unheard of since.
My mom just trying and inviting everyone was a great lesson in the power of suggestion. There's no way you can expect every relative to be perfect like the friends you choose. When everyone is getting old these days, it's worth reconnecting if you can before you have regrets. Faking it a little bit is totally reasonable. Many of my cousins in this story were there and I kind of left this story to myself but I left the party feeling better about everyone and myself. I may have not figured which cousin blasted Van Halen 5150 for me in 1986 but reconnecting after so long was the best fuck you!!!!! to any mass shooter I could think of.
 |
| Me with the infamous Mötley Crüe button |
Luke Laplante -
www.instagram.com/wax_biographic_vinyl_blog/
Comments
Post a Comment