I love the first five albums. I think "Black Widow", an outtake from SATD, should've replaced the terrible cover of Helter Skelter on the album though.
Mick is scary looking because he's about 10 to 20 years older than the rest of the band and an ugly dude. He would have been in his mid 30's when the band started. The make up and leather didn't look that great on him. These days he looks like a scarecrow. Never thought Mick Mars née Bob Deal was that good of a guitarist, but he worked for what the band did for sure.
You're right! What made Mars work so well is that he was a Blues based guitarist joined with this punk, hard rock/metallish thing. F'n brilliant on Sixx's part (primarily.) They could've had one of these EVH, Randy Rhoads prototypes, but went in a complete different direction. Genius sh**!!!
I can recall from some old TOP era bootlegs that Mick's solo spot was basically just him playing snippets of the solos from the songs, and frankly pretty sloppily too. I guess it was era when the guitar player had to play a solo, both for 'guitar hero' appearances sake plus cocaine breaks for the other members. But Mick shouldn't have been doing solo spots at all. The brilliance of Mick was staying completely away from literally every other band of that era trying to throw Eddie Van Halen playing on top of their own songs whether the song needed it or not (and most often it did not). Take Wait by White Lion; they're a band I never got into but to this day I think that's a great, memorable song. But the solo is just this bolted on attempt to put VH tapping into a song that doesn't need it and it winds up sounding completely out of place. Of the Sunset Strip scene, nobody was better than Motley Crue, and Mick was a big part of that in the simplicity of both his rhythm but especially his soloing. Sadly even the bloated egos of Tommy and Nikki forgot that and they weakened the band by not being able to understand their strengths. Two points I couldn't seem to fit into my above narrative... 1. I do think that Nikki probably deserves a lot of credit for the riffs too, just going by song writing credits. 2. RATT could have given Motley Crue a run for their money if they'd been able to put out one or two albums of the quality of Out Of The Cellar. But to me the RATT gang was a one great album band.
Amen. Mars was so unique for 80's Metal. Motley were 4 unique components that made this brilliant monster. It's all there on TFFL: punk, glam, power-pop, metal, Jack Daniels, "KRELL", and wild women!!!
The only Crue LP I have is Dr. Feelgood which I think has some killer tracks and is a top-notch album for the genre.
Not a fan but if I were forced at gunpoint to listen to one of their records i'll choose Too Fast For Love.
Wow, so much great stuff being said here! I've spent years on motley dedicated boards that don't have half the amount of knowledge & passion for the band. Great to read! I put Motley at the B-level as an overall grade. The Beatles, Led Zepplin, The Doors, The Stones etc, that's A-level Rock Royalty. Crue are step down, I think most would agree. But Motley punch above their weight in many ways. What happened to Motley in 1992 is kinda tragic. Primal Scream sounded like a step forward from Kickstart My Heart & Dr. Feelgood . . . some of those tunes on MC '94 would have been on the next Vince record had they stayed together. That next record could have been killer. A slightly more progressive & aggressive Motley. Imagine Vince singing Smoke The Sky or Hooligan's Holiday! I think that woulda been great. and also, some of the tunes offa Generation Swine were a part of the new writing Nikki was doing in the early to mid 1990s. So imagine an album with some of the tunes off of MC '94 & GSwine with Vince singing. Had they stayed together & made those records I think we could have had an A-level band, kinda more on par with Metallica (altho' I'm not a fan of anything by them since AND JUSTICE). Stick To your Guns was sold to someone is why it's not on the Elektra version. DANGER is a monster tune. Strong lyric, great mood & some of Tommy's most interesting drumming on a Crue record. They've Never played this song live! Knock 'Em Dead Kid is my favourite Motley Crue song. Even a tired old dog like the song Girls, Girls, Girls . . . that guitar riff is soooo grungy & heavy & groovy & cool that I'm still not tired of hearing it. Mick Mars is responsible for a lot of Motley Crue's identity, check this blog post out http://sleazepatrolfiles.blogspot.ca/2012/07/mick-mars-part-3-bobs-deal-with-crue.html Motley's very first show on April 24th-25th 1981 at the Starwood was filmed & was widely bootlegged & most of it is on YouTube but the pristine master, as well as the pristine master of the first two videos they did in about April or May 1981 (also on Youtube) were auctioned off years ago & the gents who own them want to release them somehow but Motley are very uninterested in these items. In fact, they could have bought them & many more super rare items from their Manager's collection for about 10,000 & they passed!!! The 30th anniversary of Shout came & went with ZERO celebration on their part. One of the other rare video items that were auctioned off as part of Motley's first manager's holdings was this November 1981 interview & live clip from MTV when the Leathur TOO FAST was released. This is some Motley Holy Grail footage!
you have got to be kidding. you are the first person who thinks that would sound good. those songs and albums were for corabi and vince would sound like garbage singing them and sounded like garbage on the generation swine album. the band should have kept corabi and told the record company to give them 1 more chance with corabi for public animal #9 or whatever they were going to call swine while corabi was still there
I practically lived on the SHOUT board from '99-'05. I was "artfromtex" there as well. Too bad it went away once Live Nation got involved.
Wow. This exact show was the first concert I ever saw. My favourite band at the time. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
I dunno, he has a few decent ones. Some of his bluesier solos on Theater of Pain are pretty good . But when he just speed picks and plays root note - second - minor third over and over and over...too much of that and to me it is completely uninspired.
Mick does wank, yep. He's guilty of going for 'gnarly' over feel sometimes but it has a kind of goofy charm
Mars' leads are very memorable. When I have a Crue song in my head I hum the solo just as I do the choruses.
Poison were doing convention centers and ampitheaters. Crue, on the GGG and Feelgood tours, were doing 2 nights each at big hockey/basketball arenas. They were MUCH bigger than Poison, not to mention the Crue were genre architects where Poison were simply riding the wave.
Yeah, Motley created the context out of which a bunch of more generic bands emerged. That's why Hair Metal is not a correct term to describe all their music. And when Motley is Hair Metal it's as good as it got, imho. Poison for sure are way more, technically, Hair Metal & are probably the best example of that music, but their 'lite' sound didn't have the traction & sincerity that Motley had: a band that lived dangerously & wrote honestly & accurately about it. People think of a Motley as somehow 'inauthentic'. Yet they were completely honest about their motivations & tastes & lived it & then wrote songs about it. A guy like Bruce Springsteen is considered way more authentic yet writes songs about working men while living the life of a rich musician. I'm not trying to say Crue are better than a Springsteen but i think when you look at some of the criticisms & the cliche opinions of certain bands, they just don't ring true. For some better than average writing about Motley, check out this Chuck Klosterman piece concerning SHOUT AT THE DEVIL https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/klosterman-01fargo.html
