Def Leppard, Halloween 1981— I Was There

Our poker games are frequently put on pause when someone starts talking about music—everyone sitting there with a handful of cards blabbing on all drunk about the first Dio album or some Day on the Green. Inevitably, someone says “you were at that show?! I was there, too!”

One of these times, I suggested to the publisher of the local music paper sitting next to me that his rag should have a column called I Was There about shows of historical significance that (older) readers might relate to. Brent Cole agreed—and he reminded me of my idea on Monday morning with an assignment of 500-700 words on the historically significant show of my choosing. I’d forgotten the conversation, of course– but suddenly I was a columnist.

This review appeared in the WhatsUp Magazine in 2002. I’ll make it clear in this italicized introduction that there are few bands of any genre that I despise more than Def Leppard. I don’t imagine they are all that much worse than any number of others, but my disdain for them lies in the fact that they were once my favorite band. The importance of High ‘N’ Dry to my musical development cannot be overstated. And the first time I heard the follow-up Pyromania my heart was broken. They’ve only gotten shittier since then.

Still, 1981 was a very good year. I was there…

Halloween 1981 was a big night for me. I’d been to plenty of arena shows in the city, but usually in Greg Dumbshield’s mom’s station wagon. This night, I was drivin’ myself. In my ’71 Impala.   To a “theater” in Belltown, far away from the touristy comfort and landmarks of Seattle Center. Dressed as Angus Young.

I had been listening to High ‘N’ Dry all summer. Every day I listened to it and wondered how a record could be so perfect. From the springy opening riff of “Let it Go” to the last ringing chords of “No No No” Def Leppard’s second record was a masterpiece of lite metal.  Produced by Mutt Lange, it had all of the buzzy bluster of Highway to Hell, but also a sultry sense of dynamic seemingly beyond the chronological ages of its creators, none of them over 20– some allegedly as young as 16. How, I wondered to no one in particular, sitting in my room with headphones on as summer slouched away unnoticed, could any album be better than Highway to Hell?

And now they were coming. Inconcert, as they used to say. Steve Slaton was just starting to get hip, playing “Let it Go” and the title track on his MetalShop radio show, and at the last minute KISW pulled through with a Rising Star endorsement. I scoffed at the panicky marketing. “I was inta these dudes afore anybody,” I bragged to my parents before adding “bring my heel down on the toe and break the bone…”

Halloween was on a fucking Friday. I had such a stiffy as I pinned enameled AC/DC buttons all over the lapels of my navy blue suit coat and put it on over a white dress shirt, striped necktie and cut-off shorts. Horns and a tail finished the outfit, then I revved up the Impala and drove straight to Northgate, missing Belltown by six miles. Goddamnit. Not having yet matured into man, however, it was easy for me to stop and ask directions at the 76 station, and before I knew it I had actually parallel parked the Impala and was standing in line waiting to get into the Moore.

I immediately sensed something different in the crowd. They were dressed the same and used the same vulgar slang & poor grammar as the kids at the arena shows. But they seemed somehow more hip to the subtleties of the music and its implications. The Moore Theater held only 1200 people– these were the 1200 most informed and discriminating rivetheads in the Puget Sound region! These kids were students. They were my people…

The show itself was unbelievable, naturally. I had a third row seat, and jumped gleefully onto the armrests of it as soon as everyone else did, at the dimming of the houselights. The band clearly was experiencing that intoxicating and fleeting rush that floats an act in the midst of their break. They were young, playing the States for the first time to appreciative audiences. Reporters wanted to talk to them. Kids wearing their shirts were hanging around the alleys behind venues. And headlining bands (this night it was Blackfoot) were shunning them. They were on the way up.

There was something very sexual about Def Leppard in this period, before they turned into one of the lame, established bands they once frightened. And that sexuality was derived at least partially from their youth. The shirtless photos on the sleeve of High ‘N’ Dry– pasty white British skin and stringy hair (what’s wrong with being sexy?) bordered on child pornography. They were also all very fucking short. Pete Willis in particular was only about 18″ tall. He was great, though, playing this huge black Hamer Destroyer-style guitar that looked like it must have belonged to his uncle.

And the rest is history. Little Pete Willis wouldn’t see the next U.S. tour, because he drank too much. The other guitarist Steve Clark wouldn’t see the year 2000 because he drank too much. And the drummer Rick Allen couldn’t drink as much as he used to, because he lost one of his arms in a drunk driving accident. And everyone knows two fists are better than one when it comes to drinkin’.

As for myself, I sped the Impala back to the burbs and drank too much at Scott Fisher’s Halloween party with my regular friends. But my heart was back at the Moore with all of my new friends, the ones that I hadn’t actually met yet.  Handfulls of Halloween candy disagreed with kegcups of beer, and I barfed near the 10th hole of the golf course, still wearing my tail, though I’d lost my horns by that time. Trick or treat—Let it Go…

Jane’s Addiction, April 17 1989— I Was There

JANE’S ADDICTION-- MOORE THEATRE, APRIL 17, 1989

“Fuck dude, you shoulda seen it,” blurted Screwdriver into the phone. I held the receiver away from my ear. I’d been at work at the printing plant in Georgetown for several hours on this particular Monday morning by the time he called, but I knew he’d just become conscious in Ravenna, sprawled out on a futon beneath a shadeless window, fully-clothed, the smoke still lazily curling from the bigmouth of his wake’n’bake. “Perry had the fire engine-red dreds, dude, it was INSANE…”

Screwdriver had been talking up Jane’s Addiction to me for more than a year now, since their first trip to Seattle opening for Love & Rockets, Perkins sitting on the floor and all the crazy vocal effects. He’d talked that first record to death, and I’d listened to it as a courtesy, but never quite caught his enthusiasm for the band. But that was normal—Screw was the kind of guy who talked incessantly, and you could never really buy into everything he went on about, because a portion of what he talked was all shit. 

But not Jane’s Addiction. By the time this particular Monday morning rolled around, I was fully on the bus and eagerly awaiting the second show of their two-night engagement at the Moore Theater. They were touring in support of their stunning sophomore offering Nothing’s Shocking, and they had come a long way from the group who’d warmed up for Love & Rockets a year earlier. They’d even been through Seattle just a few months prior, headlining a show at the more uptown Paramount as part of FM100’s self-conscious Rising Star series. But now they were back with a two-show set in a smaller, nastier room where they could shake their shit without any coked-up radio promoters prompting them as to the call-letters and the sponsors. Now was the time to write history.

I finally clocked out at the print shop and drove directly to the liquor store to purchase a fifth of Pancho Villa, silver. Relishing the first portion of it in the fine Seattle spring afternoon, I drove to my apartment on Capitol Hill where I changed into my punk rock threads and took a few bonghits of my own, awaiting Screwdriver’s call. When it came from Belltown, Poncho & I saddled back up and headed downtown.

Now, you gotta dig Screwdriver. He has more aliases than he has fingers, but the one I’ve chosen to identify him in this column comes from a spin on his last name, which is the same as a prominent manufacturer of hand tools, and I’ll tell you it aint Craftsman. His other knicknames are considerably more vulgar, and I will spare you them this time around, though I will not promise that one of Screw’s other personas will not make their garlicpussy-breathed way to the pages of ’sup! Magazine in the future, ‘cause we had some wicked cool times together, and we’re brothers.  But even in April 1989 the guy was a fucking trainwreck, and I’ve just rolled up to him on 2nd Avenue with a zip of the kill and a bottle of horrible tequila.

So what’ya think we did? We drove around for an hour, drinkin’ and smokin’ and lookin’ for a parking place, Screwdriver all the time telling me about how bitchin’ the show the night before was. We’re listening to the record, the sun’s goin’ down, we’re gettin’ drunk and stoned-- it’s great. Eventually it’s time to think about goin’ into the theatre, so we pull in sideways to a parking spot on 3rd and head toward the Moore.

The show, of course, was fucking amazing. After pausing briefly at the merch counter to admire the tokens we couldn’t afford, we headed directly into the pit just in time for the houselights to flash, twice. The energy in the room was incredible— high like the band, but also strangely reserved, kind of like slow-motion, even after the lights went down…

Things went completely nuts immediately after, naturally, but I’ll never forget the opener, Perry Farrell holding high in a elbow-length velvet glove a bottle of Dom Perignon, the opening refrains of “The Mountain Song” cascading down upon him, pupils like Frisbees and Joker Green dreds after coming out bright red 24 hours earlier. Then the ultra-violence, punishing volume, idiots rule…

(author’s note: several weeks later, Martin & I ventured over to Jerry’s house @ 3 am after watching the Soul Kiss video to try and score some weeds. I had, 12 hours earlier, been forced to make the rather difficult decision to either shatter my wrist on the refrigerator or knock my fucking asshole girlfriend’s teeth down her face, and had opted for the former. So after having my ‘boxer’s wrist’ set at the walk-in clinic, Martin & I proceeded to take all of my pain medicine with a half-case of Schmidt. If we’d known there was tall swallow left in the bottle of Poncho Villa underneath the passenger seat of my car, we probably would have drank that, too-- before setting off in the direction of Jerry’s. As it turned out, the 500 police officers that greeted us in Jerry’s culdesac with their blue lights flashing and their guns waving were “looking for someone else” and not only could not arrest us for an open container (which we weren’t even aware of) or for being grossly impaired (which we were totally aware of), but they actually had to apologize to Jerry’s parents for the disturbance.

Jerry’s folks weren’t holding, but we considered this a pretty decent outing, nonetheless. We even got a nightcap out of the deal.)

-- Callous French 

Twisted Sister, Y&T & Q5 Seattle Center Coliseum, spring 1985— I Was There

Once an SMF, always an SMF.

That’s how Dee Snider signed an autograph for me when I finally met him in 1992. It was appropriate--perhaps even necessary--as there was hipper music being made at the time than the kind he had popularized during the previous decade. But in the crisp springtime of 1985, Dee and the rest of Twisted Sister were enjoying being Sick Muther Fuckers for the very first time.

Their commercially-explosive Stay Hungry was still selling on the strength of its cartoonish singles, and the grueling tour in support of the record was stretching well into its second year. Their Saturday afternoon show in Seattle, in fact, was the third time they’d been through town insisting every rivethead in King County purchase a copy.

I had mine. So did everyone else on the staff of Denim & Leather, the Seattle metal fanzine to which I was contributing at the time. Its publisher O.T.T. had turned me on to Twisted Sister a couple of years earlier, and I cruised down to his Northgate apartment on Friday night in my girlfriend’s ’73 Mustang Mach1 so we could get an early start on our buzzes for the show. Why Amanda ever gave me the keys to that thing to speed up and down I-5 drinking and drugging with O.T.T. was beyond me—she didn’t even like heavy metal. But it was handy, as neither O.T.T. nor myself had cars of our own, and we needed a real fast one to squeal around in once we got drunk and stoned enough.

Winding up for the show early Saturday afternoon, I discovered two caps of MDA in the change pocket of my leather jacket. I had no idea where they had come from. The concept of “spare drugs” was not a common one to us in those days. With the exception of weed, which you always purchased in bulk, there was no such thing as extra drugs. You scored what you needed (well, maybe a tiny bit more than you actually needed) for a particular event, then hit them and hit them until they were gone. Coming up the next day to face a doggie bag of what you’d tried to kill yourself with the night before was not appealing.

But a hit of mid-‘80s MDA and a sunny drive to the Twisted Fuckin’Sister show certainly was! We washed the red caps down with Moosehead and saddled up the Mach1. We were due to meet the entire staff of Denim & Leather at the fountain at 4:30 for a group photo that was to appear in the upcoming anniversary issue of the magazine.

(While we’re waiting for the drug to take, let me just make one thing perfectly clear: Twisted Sister was a great band. The unfortunate representation through the aforementioned “hits” and the gross exploitation of the band by way of the faggy music video is not worth arguing against, but none of that shit was what TS was all about. Studio records are studio records; hits are hits. The great rock and roll band excels live,

and Twisted Sister was an amazing live act. Take a listen to the B side of the I Am, I’m Me 12” recorded live at the Marquee in London in 1983. It’s fucking animal. Dig the hopped-up eleven-minute version of “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll” with Dee going out of his damn mind down on the floor. Like Rodney Dangerfield meets the Nuge in make-up, this is one of the most inspired and compelling vocal performances ever recorded. Solid rock…)

So we’re crossing the ship canal bridge, and I think O.T.T. is going out the window on me. Dude used to eat acid like popcorn, but this MDA was workin’ him over. Twisting in the passenger seat of the Mach1, he was a heap of sweats and deep breaths, darting eyes and lots of faces in the vanity mirror, but finally we got parked and smoked a bowl and by the time we reached the fountain, that real bad part of that drug was gone and it was just a lot of whoa & giggle, touching friend’s faces. It was still pretty zoomy—the Denim & Leather staff all snarling and pasty and hollering about Twisted. Eventually we escaped the group to wig on the outer rim of the fountain, soaking in its mist and trying to catch the space needle.

The show, of course, was surreal. Local doods Q5, featuring TKO originals Evan Sheeley and Rick Pierce, were great, and the Belushish Y&T drummer Leonard Haze came out from behind his kit in baseball pants to say comedy jokes. But it was Twisted Sister, all 800’ of them, who made the lasting impression this night. During the climax, amidst a show-ending medley built around “You Can’t Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll” Dee called for the houselights so he “could see all the sick muthahfuckahs.” And there, at the very top of the Coliseum, sat my old friend Skip Galvin, his back to the concrete wall of the arena. From the stage, Dee Snider screamed at Skip to get on his feet—one guy in a crowd of 12,000 caught shirking like the little imp in Horton Hears a Who. And I stood there on the floor, fist in the air, staring up at Skip, suddenly the anti-star of the evening, dilated and wondering just what were the odds?

There are probably better drugs to enjoy Twisted Sister on. And when they come around this summer on their Reunion tour (true) I’ll make use of this hard-earned knowledge.

Once an SMF, always an SMF…