Dec. 9: Twisted Sister
The dawn of networks like MTV and MuchMusic changed things for the
music industry. It was no longer enough to just make music, now musical
acts had to create videos to promote that music. This was bad news for
Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, who hates making music
videos. It probably wasn't good news for Brad Whitford and Tom Hamilton,
Aerosmith's respective rhythm guitarist and bass player. Check out an
Aerosmith video and you'll get closeups of both those dudes for about a
split second each. The camera pretty much stays on Steven Tyler opening
his bigass mouth and spewing out bluesy filthy sex lyrics like "Pink on
the lips of your lover 'cause pink is the love you discover."
Fun fact. My middle name is Tyler. This almost got me a date with a girl following an Aerosmith concert in 1989. Almost!
In the early 80s, no one was bigger than Michael Jackson, who was quick to embrace the music video trend. Heck, he didn't embrace it, he redefined it. To this day, many people claim Thriller to be the greatest music video of all time. I am not one of those people but I still think Thriller belongs in the top ten. It's miles above the current trend of showing scantily clad young people dancing in nightclubs or airplane hangars or the moon. Yo yo yo.
And now I will tell you what I think are the best music videos of all time.
Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer is definitely on that list.
Weird Al Yankovic's Eat it, a shot-by-shot parody of Michael Jackson's Eat it, is also there.
Topping the list are David Lee Roth's videos for Just a Gigolo and California Girls, both of which made me come to grips with my heterosexuality.
Sadly, by the time I turned 18, this girl was already 40.
And, of course, one must not forget Twisted Sister.
Twisted Sister was a heavy metal act that was very popular in the 1980s. I became a fan after I saw two of their music videos - We're Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock - which were sort of live action cartoons where teenagers dealt with ultra-controlling adults at home and at school. Like Charlie Watts, Twisted Sister Dee Snider has been married for a long time and was faithful to his wife while the band was on tour. This probably wasn't very difficult since most groupies don't want to get with a dude who looks like this:
Part of the reason you don't see Dee Snider around anymore is because the 20-year lease has expired from the House of Hair. He had to relinquish and give it to someone else (in this case, Canadian songstress Amanda Marshall.)
I don't think Twisted Sister ever came to Calgary when I was a kid. I doubt my parents would have allowed me to go to the concert (I have never gone to a rock concert where marijuana is not smoked and marijuana is bad!!!)
It is cool that Dee Snider once wrote a survival guide for teenagers. Here it is:
You know, I vaguely remember seeing this somewhere. I think it might have been at the Southwood Library on the reserved cart (that book would have been in hot demand.) From what I remember, Dee dispensed some pretty good advice. ("When someone says something mean to you, don't take it personally. That person probably doesn't know the first thing about you.")
Also cool is that the picture on the cover could very well be a teenaged girl scanning her face for zits. Of course she would have a girl's face, not one belonging to a rock star.
Dee Snider came to Calgary sometime in the mid 90s when I was in my early 20s. He did a show at The Back Alley, which was a dirty scummy dive of a bar. Allanah Myles once did a concert there. She wore black leather pants and she played the tambourine.
I went to the Dee Snider concert (he was no longer with Twisted Sister but he sang a lot of Twisted Sister songs.) There was an intermission. I went into the bathroom to pee and the bathroom was filled with a bunch of guys about my age. I said "I don't know about you guys but I feel like I'm 12 again." And then there was much merriment and everyone started talking about their Twisted Sister memories.
Later, Dee Snider sang I WANNA ROCK, which is a great song. I don't know what it means to rock. Some rock critics have said 'rock' is just a slang term for 'have sex' and I'm sure it is in a lot of instances. But it wasn't for I Wanna Rock, which really is kiddie rock (rock made for kids who are too naive to know that they are listening to rock for kids.)
To prove my point, here are the lyrics to I Wanna Rock with 'have sex' substituted for rock.
TURN IT DOWN YOU SAY,
WELL ALL I GOT TO SAY TO YOU IS TIME AND TIME AGAIN I SAY, "NO!"
NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!
TELL ME NOT TO PLAY
WELL, ALL I GOT TO SAY TO YOU WHEN YOU TELL ME NOT TO PLAY,
I SAY, "NO!"
NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!
SO, IF YOU ASK ME WHY I LIKE THE WAY I PLAY IT
THERE'S ONLY ONE THING I CAN SAY TO YOU
I WANNA HAVE SEX.
Sorry, doesn't work. It's a song about listening to rock music (in this case, rock music can be defined as music your parents hate.)
-
When I think about Twisted Sister, I am mostly thinking about their album STAY HUNGRY, which contains their two biggest hits. There is also a song on there called Burn in Hell. Seeing those words disturbed me when I first slid their cassette into my ghetto blaster back in 1984. I knew that there were black metal bands (Satan bands) like Venom and Slayer and I didn't want Twisted Sister to be doing anti-Jesus music. I remembered reading that Dee Snider had testified in front of a group of parent music responsibility panel people (or whatever it was called) and he told them that he considered himself Christian. John Denver also testified and he said that he considered himself a friend of Kermit the Frog.
You're cuter than Tipper.
But back to Burn in Hell, which actually functions as Christian doctrine. I'm not saying it belongs in a hymnbook but I think I will say that Twisted Sister's song Burn in Hell is much more edifying than anything Joel Osteen says.
The lyrics:
Welcome to the abandoned land
Come on in child, take my hand
Here there's no work or play
Only one bill to pay
There's just five words to say
As you go down, down, down
You're gonna burn in hell
Oh, burn in hell
You can't believe all the things I've done wrong in my life
Without even trying I've lived on the edge of a knife
Well, I've played with fire, but I don't want to get myself burned
To thine own self be true, so I think that it's time for a turn
Before I burn in hell
Oh, burn in hell
Take a good look in your heart, tell me what do you see?
It's black and it's dark, now is that how you want it to be?
It's up to you, what you do will decide your own fate
Make your choice now for tomorrow may be far too late
And then you'll burn in hell
Hear no evil, don't you
See no evil, don't you
Oh, burn in hell
Lay no evil down on me
You're gonna burn in hell
Speak no evil, don't you
Think no evil, don't you
Oh, burn in hell
Play with evil, 'cause I'm free
Well there's no mention of Jesus in there but ya know what? It's a start.
(Tagging Hendrik again just for his thoughts.)
Fun fact. My middle name is Tyler. This almost got me a date with a girl following an Aerosmith concert in 1989. Almost!In the early 80s, no one was bigger than Michael Jackson, who was quick to embrace the music video trend. Heck, he didn't embrace it, he redefined it. To this day, many people claim Thriller to be the greatest music video of all time. I am not one of those people but I still think Thriller belongs in the top ten. It's miles above the current trend of showing scantily clad young people dancing in nightclubs or airplane hangars or the moon. Yo yo yo.
And now I will tell you what I think are the best music videos of all time.
Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer is definitely on that list.
Weird Al Yankovic's Eat it, a shot-by-shot parody of Michael Jackson's Eat it, is also there.
Topping the list are David Lee Roth's videos for Just a Gigolo and California Girls, both of which made me come to grips with my heterosexuality.
Sadly, by the time I turned 18, this girl was already 40.And, of course, one must not forget Twisted Sister.
Twisted Sister was a heavy metal act that was very popular in the 1980s. I became a fan after I saw two of their music videos - We're Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock - which were sort of live action cartoons where teenagers dealt with ultra-controlling adults at home and at school. Like Charlie Watts, Twisted Sister Dee Snider has been married for a long time and was faithful to his wife while the band was on tour. This probably wasn't very difficult since most groupies don't want to get with a dude who looks like this:
Part of the reason you don't see Dee Snider around anymore is because the 20-year lease has expired from the House of Hair. He had to relinquish and give it to someone else (in this case, Canadian songstress Amanda Marshall.)
I don't think Twisted Sister ever came to Calgary when I was a kid. I doubt my parents would have allowed me to go to the concert (I have never gone to a rock concert where marijuana is not smoked and marijuana is bad!!!)
It is cool that Dee Snider once wrote a survival guide for teenagers. Here it is:
You know, I vaguely remember seeing this somewhere. I think it might have been at the Southwood Library on the reserved cart (that book would have been in hot demand.) From what I remember, Dee dispensed some pretty good advice. ("When someone says something mean to you, don't take it personally. That person probably doesn't know the first thing about you.")
Also cool is that the picture on the cover could very well be a teenaged girl scanning her face for zits. Of course she would have a girl's face, not one belonging to a rock star.
Dee Snider came to Calgary sometime in the mid 90s when I was in my early 20s. He did a show at The Back Alley, which was a dirty scummy dive of a bar. Allanah Myles once did a concert there. She wore black leather pants and she played the tambourine.
I went to the Dee Snider concert (he was no longer with Twisted Sister but he sang a lot of Twisted Sister songs.) There was an intermission. I went into the bathroom to pee and the bathroom was filled with a bunch of guys about my age. I said "I don't know about you guys but I feel like I'm 12 again." And then there was much merriment and everyone started talking about their Twisted Sister memories.
Later, Dee Snider sang I WANNA ROCK, which is a great song. I don't know what it means to rock. Some rock critics have said 'rock' is just a slang term for 'have sex' and I'm sure it is in a lot of instances. But it wasn't for I Wanna Rock, which really is kiddie rock (rock made for kids who are too naive to know that they are listening to rock for kids.)
To prove my point, here are the lyrics to I Wanna Rock with 'have sex' substituted for rock.
TURN IT DOWN YOU SAY,
WELL ALL I GOT TO SAY TO YOU IS TIME AND TIME AGAIN I SAY, "NO!"
NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!
TELL ME NOT TO PLAY
WELL, ALL I GOT TO SAY TO YOU WHEN YOU TELL ME NOT TO PLAY,
I SAY, "NO!"
NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!
SO, IF YOU ASK ME WHY I LIKE THE WAY I PLAY IT
THERE'S ONLY ONE THING I CAN SAY TO YOU
I WANNA HAVE SEX.
Sorry, doesn't work. It's a song about listening to rock music (in this case, rock music can be defined as music your parents hate.)
-
When I think about Twisted Sister, I am mostly thinking about their album STAY HUNGRY, which contains their two biggest hits. There is also a song on there called Burn in Hell. Seeing those words disturbed me when I first slid their cassette into my ghetto blaster back in 1984. I knew that there were black metal bands (Satan bands) like Venom and Slayer and I didn't want Twisted Sister to be doing anti-Jesus music. I remembered reading that Dee Snider had testified in front of a group of parent music responsibility panel people (or whatever it was called) and he told them that he considered himself Christian. John Denver also testified and he said that he considered himself a friend of Kermit the Frog.
You're cuter than Tipper.But back to Burn in Hell, which actually functions as Christian doctrine. I'm not saying it belongs in a hymnbook but I think I will say that Twisted Sister's song Burn in Hell is much more edifying than anything Joel Osteen says.
The lyrics:
Welcome to the abandoned land
Come on in child, take my hand
Here there's no work or play
Only one bill to pay
There's just five words to say
As you go down, down, down
You're gonna burn in hell
Oh, burn in hell
You can't believe all the things I've done wrong in my life
Without even trying I've lived on the edge of a knife
Well, I've played with fire, but I don't want to get myself burned
To thine own self be true, so I think that it's time for a turn
Before I burn in hell
Oh, burn in hell
Take a good look in your heart, tell me what do you see?
It's black and it's dark, now is that how you want it to be?
It's up to you, what you do will decide your own fate
Make your choice now for tomorrow may be far too late
And then you'll burn in hell
Hear no evil, don't you
See no evil, don't you
Oh, burn in hell
Lay no evil down on me
You're gonna burn in hell
Speak no evil, don't you
Think no evil, don't you
Oh, burn in hell
Play with evil, 'cause I'm free
Well there's no mention of Jesus in there but ya know what? It's a start.
(Tagging Hendrik again just for his thoughts.)
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