Spent some time futzing around with my myspace this evening, updating photos and the show schedule etc. Reminded by a note in my message section, I finally went and revisited Pink Steel, my uber-gay hyper-metal friends, over at myspace.com/pinksteel.
I've been told that I, along with my freshman year roommate in college, am partly responsible for the very existence of this band. Not that I feel old or anything, but cast your mind back to 1986. Those were the days of unalloyed metal devotion, banging one's head against anything cinderblockish, one for all and where's the keg, etc. Maiden posters everywhere, blissfully ignorant of the sheer thickness of the wool Rob Halford had pulled over our bloodshot eyes, the bastard. All in the big mix, of course; I drove my roommate ballistic should I display the huevos to play "American Beauty" or, Elvis forbid, "Everywhere At Once."
But, there was one band in particular which I think laid the extra thick 'n' chunky meat pipe for Pink Steel. Remember Stryper? Faux-Christian spandex sock-stuffing gun-toting ambassadors to the Lord with their stupid A-team assault veeee-hicle, almost certainly gay? We had a Stryper poster in our dorm room for some reason. They looked either like the ugliest pretty girls in the world, or the prettiest ugly dudes in the world. The girls laughed at them, and then at us. And heavens to Betsy, the spandex. The yellow-and-black rock-out-with-your-sock-in attack. The drummer in particular must have had four kielbasas duct taped to his thigh. I think his name might even have been Betsy.
Fast forward and enter Pink Steel, the gayest German metalest-of-metal band on the planet, starring:
Hanson Jobb: Vocals,
Udo Von DüYü: Guitars
Helmut Bang: Drums
Just kills me. Out At The Devil indeed.
Myspace.com/pinksteel, enjoy. Sausage Party will have you rolling. Hold on to your spandex, and don't muss your do. Ken, I'm buying you a lucite BC Rich for your birthday. You've earned it, and I'm profoundly sorry for that fucking poster.
...or that other A-word.
I'm not complaining. Really. But it did really take me 1.5 hours to get home today. 11 miles, 1.5 hours. No accident, no Caltrans road work, no bomb going off. Just too many people in this hourglass.
Nominations so far for the best license plates seen in LA:
XCUZMYAZ
and
TOROPOO
A few good gigs coming up:
April 9 at Tangier
May 24th at Molly Malone's
June 13 at Dragonfly
All in Hollywood-ish. More noise about those later.
RIP Brad Delp.
Damn.
Damn, damn, fucking damn.
Truly one of the big greats, one who never failed to cheer me up and brighten things. I studied you, practiced you, translated and interpreted you, sang along loudly and stupidly, and always learned from you. There were times I relied on your voice for my sanity, even long before I started singing. A one-man 6-part soundtrack to youth, melding perfectly with the not-for-me-to-emulate guitar tones.
Looking at the big picture, rock and roll is once again a little more diminished now.
Again, people, hang on tight.