Category: songs

by The Cure

~ Would you believe this was a hype song? ~

I was a metalhead while growing up, and even though I lived in Europe in the mid 80s when The Cure were building a massive following on the continent, I never had checked them out, in part because their goth fans were kind of weird.

That changed in the late ’80s once I got back to the US, and I finally heard this one. I actually used to use this as my warm-up song getting ready before soccer games back in high school. This would be the one I would have playing on the bus, trying to drown out the rest of the morons around me and just focus on getting ready for the game. It’s not necessarily a song you would expect to get someone pumped up for a sporting event, but it worked for me.

It’s a repeated D-minor riff with variations on how you pick the strings, and a nice driving bass line, and it’s hard to believe I’m even trying to describe a song I’m pretty sure every one of the readers here already knows by heart. It’s plenty of oddball Cure-perfect lyrics, with all the doom-&-gloom you’d expect from the video.

by Temple of the Dog

~ Re-used Riffs ~

This Is a good song. Let’s just lead with that. It’s overshadowed by many of its compadres on the Temple of the Dog album, but this one is very clearly tied to the death of Andy Wood as the lyrics are obviously in line with the rest of Cornell’s odes to his best friend. 

However, the song shot to much greater prominence once Pearl Jam released “Footsteps” as the b-side to “Jeremy” in ’92. In that 2-year gap between Ten and VS, the world was starved for Pearl Jam recordings, and even the b-sides of their singles took on lives of their own. This one was aided by its appearance in the infamous Rolling Stone cover story about Pearl Jam that included stories from Eddie’s childhood and how they manifested themselves in a trilogy of songs, starting with “Alive“, winding through this one, and ending with “Once”, the lead track from Ten.

I had a quote from this one written in sharpie on the inside of the flap of the bag I used for school most of my sophomore/junior years of college. People largely forgot about this song, even though it was very well-written, and sung with heartbreaking conviction by Chris Cornell. Given what’s happened in the interim since Andy Wood’s death, to Layne Staley, and Cornell himself, this song, like many from this album, are even more painful.

by Pop Evil

~ Really wish these guys had a different name ~

Seriously, it’s a crappy name for a band as good as they are with as much lyrical and musical versatility as they have. They’ve got cheesy ’80s big hair sing-along girls-&-guitars riff-fests, extended thought-provoking tunes that border on prog rock, and then ones like this with solid inspirational musings and some killer riffs that would sound great pumping the crowd up before a game through a stadium PA if anybody could get past the name of the band on the CD.

You could legitimately play this tune back-to-back with something from Skillet and it would all fit together just fine, but no one wants to announce “Pop Evil” on the PA. It’s a dumb name that doesn’t really sound foreboding enough for the black metal guys to glom onto it, and the mere presence of the word “evil” ensures that no self-respecting radio station is going to touch it.

by Lynch Mob

~ Give that guy a singer ~

What was it about late-80s LA bands that made the guitarists always want to blow out of the band and give their own show a go? George’s solo effort after taking a break from Dokken showed some real pop sensibilities for great hooks, and an ear for great singers. Dokken always had some excellent songwriting that was mired behind Don’s rather listless vocals. On the debut Lynch Mob disk, George gets a singer (Oni Logan) who provides a little more snarl and a lot more power. The guitar playing is just as good as anything he did with Dokken, indicating he wasn’t really holding the ‘good stuff’ for his solo work, but the production is definitely better than it was on the first 2-3 Dokken discs. There were 2-3 top-20-worthy tracks on this album, and the band definitely deserved a chance to run it back for another album or two.

This week we’re showcasing bands that were founded by guys who made their names as someone else’s sidekick.

by Steve Stevens

~ Just to prove he could do it ~

Steve Stevens made his name as Billy Idol’s guitarist, and the punk ethos that Billy brought to his solo work always seemed to leash Steve Stevens from what he could really play when he wanted. The thing is, Stevens never really seemed to mind, and genuinely liked playing with Billy Idol. Still, though, he launched a one-album side project and recruited a whole lot of LA buddies to put together one of the better late-era LA hard rock albums before giving it about half of a tour and then going back to his ‘day job’ with Billy Idol.

Truthfully, this song, the video, the band, and the overall performance doesn’t really stick out from most of what else was being released at the time by the B-list of late-era LA-style hard rock (Law & Order, Savatage, Tyketto, etc) except that it had Stevens’ name attached to it and that gave it a bit of a novelty factor that the other bands didn’t have. Stevens definitely stretches himself more here than he ever did with Billy Idol, but does he really separate from the rest of the crowd?

This week we’re showcasing bands that were founded by guys who made their names as someone else’s sidekick.

by Pat Buzzard

~ Someone you didn’t know, much less that he was a sidekick ~

Pat Buzzard was Marti Dodson’s guitar player in the band Saving Jane, and the only dent he made as a solo artist was … when Marti joined him on this cut …. covering a beloved tune that grew to much higher fame when… someone else covered it (paging Darius Rucker!)

So yeah, Pat Buzzard isn’t just a sidekick. He’s a sidekick covering a song you know best from a completely different cover version, with his original lead singer joining him, from a band you probably never heard of in the first place. I mean, if we’re going to go deep, let’s way deep, huh?

This week we’re showcasing bands that were founded by guys who made their names as someone else’s sidekick.

by Clarence Clemons

~ Trading one legend for another ~

Clemons actually released a few different solo albums, just to get some things out of his system that didn’t quite belong with the E Street Band. Some of his better work actually came while Bruce and the E’s were on the outs in the mid- and late-80s. But Clemons only had one solo ‘hit’ and that was when he swapped out Bruce for Jackson Browne, and was still kicking around with a legendary lead man. So yeah, Clemons’ name is the first one on the title, and it’s his album it’s on, but he didn’t write it, the only hit he had as a solo artist was with another superstar, and yes, Daryl Hannah actually sang the backup lines in the real song, and not just the video.

Clemons was even a sidekick in the biggest hit of his not-just-a-sidekick solo career.

This week we’re showcasing bands that were founded by guys who made their names as someone else’s sidekick.