Tag: hair metal
3 M3 Rock Festival Announces 2013 Lineup!
GLAM & HEAVY METAL RETURNS TO MERRIWEATHER
I.M.P. PRESENTS 2013 M3 ROCK FESTIVAL
IN ITS 5th YEAR M3 IS THE BIGGEST, BADDEST METAL SHOW
DRAWING FANS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
OFFICIAL M3 KIX-OFF PARTY & CONCERT FRIDAY, MAY 3 at 5:30pm
2013 M3 ROCK FESTIVAL SATURDAY, MAY 4 at 11am
2-Day and VIP Packages on sale Friday, January 25 10am EST through ticketfly.com
If Available, Single-Day Tickets on-sale in the coming week.
The heavy metal time machine will turn back to the1980s and ‘90s when Bret Michaels Band, Twisted Sister, and W.A.S.P. will be among the 20 bands to take over Merriweather Post Pavilion, playing full sets of their glam rock and heavy metal hits. M3 fans won’t have to choose between bands with overlapping set times, since each band will play one at a time. The festival will take place on two separate stages, each simulcasting the other, giving fans the option to stay in one seat and watch all the bands as they appear on both stages, or fans can move from stage to stage without missing a note.
M3, internationally renown, has attracted fans from six continents, 10 countries and 40 states. Now in its fifth year, I.M.P. Presents M3 Rock Festival starts with The Official M3 Kix-Off Party, which will get things started Friday, May 3rd at 5:30pm. Acts playing Friday night are W.A.S.P., KIX, Danger Danger and Bad Seed Rising. The full-blown 2013 M3 Rock Festival begins Saturday, May 4th at 11am and will include Bret Michaels Band, Twisted Sister, Jackyl, Steel Panther, JSRG, Firehouse, Great White featuring Jack Russell, Kings X, Loudness, Steelheart, Trixter, Love/Hate, Tuff, In The Pink, Korupt, and Streetlight Circus.
Each year VIP and Pavilion seats sell out in minutes. Two-day and VIP packages will go on sale Friday, Jan. 25th at 10am EST through ticketfly.com. Tickets can also be purchased at the 9:30 Club Box Office in Washington, D.C. If available, single-day tickets will go on sale in the coming weeks. For more information, visit http://www.ticketfly.com/ or http://www.m3rockfest.com
VIP ticket holders will have:
• Private VIP Entrance gate
• Official M3 2013 Festival T-shirt
• Official M3 2013 Concert Poster
• Access to floor and front of house seating
• Access to M3 VIP Deck located backstage (access to VIP concessions and VIP restrooms)
• Access to Artist Meet & Greet Lounge.
ABOUT I.M.P.
Formed in 1980, I.M.P. is a Bethesda, Md.-based concert promoter and event production company. In addition to launching the Virgin Festival in the U.S., the principals at I.M.P. own Washington DC’s legendary 9:30 Club, named the Top Club by Billboard Touring Awards and renowned as the premier place to see and hear cutting edge live music of all varieties. I.M.P. also programs and operates Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. Over the last 33 years, I.M.P. and the 9:30 Club have put on nearly 10,000 events, hosting millions of music fans.
1 Hard Rock Hideout’s Big Hair Show is Tonight!
Break out the Aquanet, squeeze into your spandex, and join us for Hard Rock Hideout Radio’s “Big Hair Extravaganza” tonight!
This week’s show will feature the biggest hair metal classics as picked by the staff of HardRockHideout.com, BringBackGlam.com & Designthatrocks.com.
Don’t miss out on three hours of the biggest & not so biggest hits of the 80’s & 90’s.
Tune in Wednesday night from 9 P.M. – 12 A.M. CST (10 P.M. – 1 A.M. EST) for an incredible night of rock! Listen online at www.kacvfm.org and on Amarillo’s Cutting Edge FM 90!
0 Live Video – Whitesnake – Still of the Night
The following video is from Whitesnake’s 1987 tour. The video features David Coverdale, Adrian Vandenberg, Vivian Campbell, Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge.
0 Hard Rock Nights Radio Show on ClassXradio.com
Be sure to tune in to Hard Rock Nights tonight and every Saturday night on classxradio.com! The program airs 9-11 pm eastern time, and is chock full of the best hard rock from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and today!
In addition to classics from Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, and Cinderella, we’ll also be checking out some of the best new hard rock that’s out there from bands like Airbourne, Hell N’ Diesel, American Dog, and an unsigned band from Sweden, M.O.B! You won’t hear this stuff anywhere else!
You can check out the full playlist on the official Hard Rock Nights blog after the show. Be sure to add Hard Rock Nights to your Myspace friends list as well!
2 ShopRetroactive.com
I stumbled upon a pretty cool store while on vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Within the Broadway at the Beach Entertainment complex, is a cool little store called Retroactive. This store has a pretty good collection of 80’s hard rock CD’s and DVD’s for sale, as well as concert t-shirts from just about every band of the hair metal era.
Check them out online at ShopRetroactive.com!
0 Warrant – Ultraphobic (Release Year – 1995)
Warrant has reunited with their original lineup intact in 2008, and will
be one of the headlining acts at Rocklahoma on Saturday, July 12th.
As much as I like the initial releases with the original lineup, I decided to dust off one of Warrant’s later discs, Ultraphobic, which featured Kingdom Come’s Rick Steir on guitar and James Kottak on drums.
I remember when I first heard that a couple of former Kingdom Come guys were joining the band, I was hoping that Warrant might try to approach a classic rock/ Zepplinesque update to their music. That was not the case at all with Ultraphobic.
In 1995, Hair metal was about as popular as diarrhea, but Warrant tried to forge ahead with a darker, grungier sound in an effort to stay relevant in
the music scene. The sound of Ultraphobic seemed to follow the heavier sound of the 1992 Warrant record, Dog Eat Dog.
The guitars are are tuned down, and a little grungier on Ultraphobic. For me, this style of guitar playing does not suit Jani Lane’s voice well, and this album suffers as a result.
There are a couple of highlights on this disc. Undertow, isn’t too bad, and Crawl Space is pretty cool. I kind of like the title track, Ultraphobic as well.
Chameleon is a song that would have sounded better if Warrant just stuck to their tried and true sound. The deeper guitar sounds mess up, what could have been one of the better Warrant tracks. There are some cool guitar parts, but this song scream redo.
I have to applaud Warrant for trying to stay relevant in the music scene (although some might argue that they never were relevant). Ultraphobic isn’t a total departure from their signature glam metal sound, but I didn’t care for the varied guitar sounds on this disc. (What was the purpose of that drill sound on Ride #2)
With the classic lineup of Warrant back together, they could rearrange some of the songs on Ultraphobic, and quite possibly turn them into new hits. This isn’t Warrant’s best work, but it isn’t their worst either. This is a middle of the road album, that isn’t as good as the first three discs the band released. Warrant fans will still want to pick this up. All others may want to preview this album on Amazon.com, before buying.
Rating:
Out of 10
Track Listing:
1. Undertow
2. Followed
3. Family Picnic
4. Sum Of One
5. Chameleon
6. Crawl Space
7. Live Inside Of You
8. High
9. Ride #2
10. Ultraphobic
11. Stronger Now
Warrant is:
Jani Lane – Lead Vocals
Rick Steier – Guitar
Erik Turner – Guitar
Dave White – Keyboards
Jerry Dixon – Bass
James Kottak – Drums
3 Extreme – S/T (Release Year – 1989)
Extreme’s debut CD hit the hair metal scene in 1989. I always thought their debut CD was a little hit
and miss. There are some good songs, and there are a few tunes that feel like filler material.
The one thing that propels Extreme past many of their peers is the superb guitar work of Nuno Bettencourt. Without Nuno, I often wonder if this band would have been a blip on the musical radar.
Bettencourt adds a funky groove to Extreme’s music that helps seperate them from so many of the bands that oversatured the music scene in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The band broke out in 1989 with several videos on MTV that launched a fairly solid career for Gary Cherone and company.
This self titled debut isn’t the band’s strongest effort by any means, but it is definitely worth a listen. Check out the songs Wind Me Up, Kid Ego, or the Play With Me, and you will certainly have a rocking good time.
This is one of those discs that you have to get out from time to time, if only to hear Bettencourt shred. His guitar work on Play With Me is worth the price of admission, all by itself.
Extreme has reunited in 2007, and will play the first show of their 2008 tour, at the Rocklahoma music festival in July. For more information on Extreme, check out their myspace page.
Rating:
Out of 10
Track Listing:
1. Little Girls
2. Wind Me Up
3. Kid Ego
4. Watching, Waiting
5. Mutha (Don’t Wanna Go To School Today)
6. Teacher’s Pet
7. Big Boys Don’t Cry
8. Smoke Signals
9. Flesh ‘N’ Blood
10. Rock A Bye Bye
11. Play With Me
Extreme is:
Gary Cherone – Vocals
Nuno Bettencourt – Guitars
Pat Badger – Bass
Paul Geary – Drums
12 Motley Crue – Shout At the Devil (1983)
It is almost mind boggling for me to think that 2008 marks the 25th Anniversary of Motley Crue’s Shout At the Devil.
If I were to choose my top 10 favorite albums of all time, Shout at the Devil would almost certainly make the list.
I think I have owned Shout at the Devil in every form it has
been in, including LP (Yes, I tried to find the backwards message), cassette, and CD. Few CD’s bring back the fond memories that this disc does, and this album has always found itself in my playlist consistently over the years.
On Shout at the Devil, Motley Crue was still hungry, and this comes across in the sound of the record. They had not yet achieved the massive success that they were headed for. The band was certainly were making a name for themselves every where they went, and their reputation as L.A. bad boys certainly solidified after the release of Shout At the Devil.
The band’s sound matured over the punk/metal style of Too Fast For Love. Shout at the Devil is a raw metal record. In my opinion, the band hadn’t fallen prey to the pop metal sound that would show up on their later records.
Everything from the Intro to the final cut Danger rocks on this record. Shout at the Devil is everything that a metal record should be loud, sleazy and totally cool. No metal fan should be without it.
Rating:
Out of 10
Track Listing:
1. In the Beginning
2. Shout at the Devil
3. Looks That Kill
4. Bastard
5. God Bless the Children of the Beast
6. Helter Skelter
7. Red Hot
8. Too Young to Fall in Love
9. Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid
10. Ten Seconds to Love
11. Danger
Motley Crue is:
Vince Neil – Vocals
Nikki Sixx – Bass
Mick Mars – Guitar
Tommy Lee – Drums
4 L.A. Guns at the Blue Note, Cincinnati, Ohio 1/24/08
L.A. Guns brought their 20th Anniversary Tour to The Blue Note in Cincinnati, Ohio last Thursday Night. A couple of bands Session 9, and A Nervous Wreck opened the show, and got the crowd revved for Phil Lewis and company. This night started to look as if it was going to be the third live music debacle of 2008. The band Z02 were supposed to open for L.A. Guns, but
cancelled the day before the show. I was looking forward to seeing this band play live for weeks, so their cancellation came as a disappointment. This was the only thing disppapointing on Thursday Night.
L.A. Guns, featuring Phil Lewis on vocals, Stacey Blades on guitar, Scott Griffin on bass, and Steve Riley on drums, hit the stage at around 11 P.M. and played for a little over an hour. The set contained most of the band’s hits including: Sex Action, Over the Edge, One More Reason, Never Enough, Kiss My Love Goodbye, The Ballad of Jayne, Rip and Tear, Hellraiser’s Ball, and Gypsy Soul.
It was an extremely tight set, and the band seemed to be in top form all night. This is the second time I have seen L.A. Guns over the last few months (you can read about the first show here), but it was definitely the best out of the two shows I have seen.
Phil Lewis still sounds as good as he did 20 years ago. Stacey Blades is an outstanding guitar player. As a whole, L.A Guns still rocks and does it well! The Phil Lewis led L.A. Guns continues to prove that their is only one band that deserves to use the L.A. Guns name. The best one played in Cincinnati Thursday night. The 150 – 200 people that were there for the show, saw a very good night of rock. The turn out for this show was exceptional for a bitter cold Thursday night.
Special thanks to J.T. from Class X Radio for the ticket for this show, and to Paul at TransFusion Productions for bringing L.A. Guns back to the Queen City.
The following videos were below were taken at the show! Enjoy!
11 Cinderella – Long Cold Winter (1988)
Hot off the tails of their very successful multi platinum debut Night Songs, Cinderella released their sophomore effort Long Cold Winter in 1988.
While this disc is never considered as popular as their debut, Long Cold Winter offers a the listener a bunch of well crafted tunes with a bluesy rock edge.
Cinderella’s sound started growing away from the hair metal roots, and into a more bluesy sound, that seemed to bridge the gap in the sound difference between Night Songs, and the later release Heartbreak Station. Tom Keifer was developing as a better singer instead of a screamer, which he did more of on the debut.
While I have enjoyed all of Cinderella’s releases so far, Long Cold Winter is by far my
favorite of them all. This is one of those rare releases, where there are no filler tracks. I can play this one from beginning to end repeatedly, without finding the need to skip a track.
It took several years after its release, but the RIAA shows this disc along with Night Songs as selling over 3 Million copies now. It is hard to believe that disc is already 20 years old. It is a must own record in my collection, and is one that I would be happy to purchase again today.
Rating: 
Out of 10
Track Listing:
1. Bad Seamstress Blues, Fallin’ Apart At The Seams
2. Gypsy Road
3. Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)
4. The Last Mile
5. Second Wind
6. Long Cold Winter
7. If You Don’t Like It
8. Coming Home
9. Fire And Ice
10. Take Me Back
Cinderella is:
Tom Keifer – Vocals
Jeff Labar – Guitars
Eric Brittingham – Bass
Fred Coury – Drums
7 Sons of Angels – S/T (Release Year – 1990)
Back in 1990, Atlantic Records signed Norwegian rockers Sons of Angels to a record deal.
Their self titled disc disappeared about as fast as it arrived. The band had a little bit of success, as a music video was released for the song Cowgirl. The band managed to sell 150,000 copies of the CD, but disappeared before long.
Unlike many of the hair metal CD’s of the early 90’s, this one actually has a little more substance. Great vocals, and a funky upbeat vibe drive these tunes. While Cowgirl is the obvious hit, there isn’t a bad song on this disc.
I once owned a copy of this on cassette tape, but never
replaced it until last year. I was shocked to find a used copy of this disc in 2007. A quick internet search, and I found that you can still grab this disc for under 10 bucks (for a used copy) through Amazon.com, and occasionally on EBay. It is way out of print, but well worth the price of admission.
Rating:
Out of 10
Track Listing:
1. Cowgirl
2. Spend the Night
3. Look Out for Love
4. Lonely Rose
5. Rock and Roll Star
6. Trance Dance
7. Would You Die for Me?
8. Fight
9. Could It Be Love
10. Fly
Sons of Angels are:
Solli – vocals
Torstein – bass, backing vocals
Lars K. – keyboards
Stafan William-Olsson – guitar
Geir Digernes – drums
4 Cold Sweat – Break Out (Release Year – 1990)
Cold Sweat is a five piece hard rock band that recorded one CD in 1990 on MCA Records.
This band features former Keel guitar player Marc Ferrari, ex-Wasted guitarist Erik Gamans, bassist Chris McLernon, drummer Anthony White, and singer Rory Cathey.
There was some stink between Cold Sweat and Lynch Mob for a while as Oni Logan who was the
original singer, defected to go sing for George Lynch on the day Cold Sweat was to sign with MCA.
Break Out is a very solid 80’s style hard rock disc that is often forgotten about. Marc Ferrari’s guitar work on this CD is superb. This disc doesn’t have a band song on it, and even features a writing credit on Four on the Floor by current KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer.
Let’s Make Love Tonight
This disc has it all! A great power ballad in Waiting in Vain, and a bunch of excellent hard rockers: Four on the Floor, Take This Heart of Mine, Let’s Make Love Tonight and Fistful of Money. This disc also has a pretty cover of the Foghat song, I Just Want to Make Love To You.
This long out of print CD often sells for 20 or more dollars on EBay, but can often be found for lesser amounts. It is a disc well worth seeking out if you are a fan of 80’s hard rock and glam metal. Buy Break Out if you can! You will love it!
You can hear more songs at the band’s myspace page here.
Rating: 
Out of 10
Track Listing:
1. Four on the Floor
2. Cryin’ Shame
3. Lovestruck
4. Waiting in Vain
5. Take This Heart of Mine
6. Killing Floor
7. Riviera/Long Way Down
8. Let’s Make Love Tonight
9. Fistful of Money
10. Jump the Gun
11. I Just Want to Make Love To You
Hard Rock Hideout 