This week Daft Paragon takes time of from sleeping next to the menthol dispensing humidifier to bring you…DAFT PARAGON’S EIGHTIES METAL PLAYLIST OH YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Spread Eagle was one of those bands that could have been great. Musically they were really solid. Unfortunately, lyrically…I mean, “Switchblade Serenade” is pretty good, but other than that, each of the songs on their albums is dumber than the other songs on their albums. At one point their Wikipedia page declared them to be “Streetmetal,” a genre of music that even whoever wrote their Wikipedia page appears to be embarrassed to have made up.
Two more things. Their guitarist once traded Eddie Van Halen a classic Marshall for an early EB/MM Van Halen guitar. Eddie didn’t even really want the amp1. That same guitarist changed his name to “Salvadore (Dali Edgar Allen) Poe; because apparently “Paul DiBartolo” wasn’t pretentious enough.
Shotgun Messiah were a bunch of guys from Sweden who were prettier than your girlfriend. Since they were so pretty, the Swedish govenrment allowed them to form a non-death metal band. It was an epic win for pretty people in Scandinavia.
Although the band hopped trends faster than a teenage girl went through several stylistic periods due purely to reasons of artistic growth. For the most part, though, they produced high quality music2. Not high enough to forgive Tim “Tim Tim” Sköld for being part of Marilyn Manson,(AFTER a long stint in KMFDM, I mean, come on) but enough to go back and revisit their oddly ballad free debut album.
Bang Tango was, I think, a little more musically sophisticated than a lot of ’80s bands. At the very least they used more delay. Also, Joe Lesté’s name sounds like a vampire chocolate bar. A VAMPIRE CHOCOLATE BAR. Kyle Kyle3 was an underrated bassist.
Even though Bang Tango is still a thing, these days they’re really just Beautiful Creatures in drag.
I remember really liking this Sleez Beez song in high school. 20 years on I’m not exactly sure what that’s about. Also, seriously, there was a band called “Sleez Beez.”
The Almighty once opened for Megadeth. This is presumably in the time that Dave Mustaine would let a band called “The Almighty” open for Megadeth and not blame Barack Obama for the lax moral fiber of Scotland that would give rise to a band with a vaguely blasphemous name while he was in law school. Whatever, Powertrippin’ is a great album. I believe that this video will be used on the episode of “Cheaters” starring Steve Vai’s Hair Fan.
Steve Stevens put out a “solo” album with a band called The Atomic Playboys. Their debut/only album was called Atomic Playboys and their lead single/only good original song on that album was called Atomic Playboys. I once bonded with an Ibanez employee (Jim, you should resurrect ChimChim.com) over that album. Because Steve Stevens that’s why.
Also, Steve Stevens still looks exactly the same. That’s weird, right?
Remember that album that Jerry Cantrell collaborated with Circus of Power on that sounded like Alice in Chains? This is not from that.
I always felt like Junkyard was like Circus of Power’s trying too hard little brother. Kind of like Circus of Power were sleazy(beezy?) bikers who were doing drugs, hanging out with whores and beating up guys downtown. They then would come home and tell Junkyard about it and Junkyard would write songs.
Babylon A.D. never got a huge amount of mainstream success. They did, however, get a huge amount of exposure in the Ibanez guitar catalogs, though. I still want the guitars they’re playing in the video for “Bang Go the Bells.”
Tracii Guns is a better guitarist than Slash. That is a statement of truth.
The thing to know about 80s metal is this: many of the videos took their plots, visuals and style from softcore porn. Example A: Britny Fox’s Girl School. Fun fact: those girls now probably have daughters that age who they are praying never appear in a Britny Fox4 video.
Disneyland After Dark5 had to shorten their name, because Walt Disney’s company has made America’s copyright law its bitch6. Their bassist only uses two strings. I mean, so does Nikki Sixx, but their bassist only bothers to put two strings on.
Fast Eddie Clark was in Motörhead. This song was in a Halloween themed horror movie, but not the Halloween themed horror movie7.
I largely tried to stay away from “name” bands in this playlist. But if I’m going to include a Fastway song from a horror movie, I’ve gotta end it out on the all time great horror movie/80’s metal song of all time in the 80s. You know what it is. Now get back to work.
- It’s not just me, sometimes Eddie comes off as kind of a dick, right? ↩
- Admittedly the rap/rock of “Shout it Out” was not that ↩
- Who’s name was “Kyle Kyle.” Not to be confused with the aforementioned “Tim Tim” or the upcoming “Steve Stevens.” ↩
- Still, occasionally, a thing. ↩
- Still a thing. ↩
- Please don’t sue me ↩
- Which, obviously, is Season of the Witch. ↩