There's that time honoured cliche that if you remember the '60's you weren't there, well the one for the '90's could no doubt be 'If you remember the '90's you probably don't want to'.
It was a patchy decade at best and one I promise that I will explore in detail at some point, but it was a time of change, not only for metal but for me.
Exciting new musical avenues were beginning to open up, with the early '90's seeing alternative rock challenging metal, and exciting bands such as Tool, Deftones and Pantera began to emerge into public consciousness. Established acts such as Sepultura and Judas Priest turned in some of their career best music in 'Chaos AD' and 'Painkiller,' and a cartoon band called White Zombie flattened MTV with an album called 'Astrocreep 2000.'
Smack bang in the middle of the decade I went to my first festival, the (by then) long running Monsters of Rock festival at Donington. This year was arrogantly re-branded by none more cocky Metallica as 'Escape From The Studio '95' as they skipped out on finishing the fan base splitting, and overall average, Load/Reload set, to top a bill that featured Corrosion of Conformity, Warrior Soul, Slash, Machine Head, White Zombie, Slash, Slayer, Therapy? and Skid Row.
It was here I first set foot on the hallowed soil of my spiritual home. Here I first felt that primal sense of unity, my people, gathered together for a common cause; the charge and energy of the crowd, the expectation... thinking back, it was a disturbingly erotic moment.
Until the moshpit for CoC's 'Dance of the Dead' kicked off around me.
For me the first half of the decade very much belonged to two bands - Iron Maiden and Skid Row.
The former you'll probably hear more than enough about over the course of this, being without doubt the finest metal band ever (FACT), but fewer bands captured the excitement of my youth quite like Skid Row.
InceptionWaaaaay back in the late '70's/early '80's over in New Jeresy there was a fresh faced kid, probably without the expensive dental work and teased designer hair, called Jon Boingoingoingovi who was all Italian American, no doubt said dude a lot and grew up the hard way what with his Dad making him sleep on the floor apparently.
Now Jon was probably the kind of kid who enjoyed such japes as stealing warm apple pie from window sills and skipping stones across the New Jersey turnpike with his chums, one of whom was a kid named Dave 'The Snake' Sabo. With a nickname like 'The Snake' you'd imagine that whilst Jon was working on the docks or out helping old ladies across the road, Dave was getting his older sister to buy him fags and beer so he could moodily kick back in the garage and listen to the Ramones.
Anyway the pair became friends and played together making the vow that if either one became famous they would come back and help the other one out.
As history shows the young Jon changed his name to the more redneck American friendly and easier to fit on PR material Bon Jovi, smiled an awful lot and won the hearts, minds and loins of America with a series of bubblegum rock anthems.
Meanwhile back in Jersey, Dave had put together a band that featured the ridiculously nose to ear chained Rachel 'Probably not my real name' Bolan on bass who despite looking like a girl and naming himself after one was essentially a dirty punk rocker who liked the Sex Pistols as much as Aerosmith (a cut price Duff McKagen if you will), Rob Affuso on drums, Scotty Hill on guitar and hyperactive, gangly Canadian coke hoover Sebastian Bach on vocals.
Bach had spent a few years enduring a miserable time fronting a bar band called Madam X in Toronto whose guitarist would pleasantly beat the shit out of him, pull his hair and spit on him during their show, because despite being the '80's where every dude looked like a chick and hair wasn't hair unless it was long and teased, he did look like a girl with massive cheekbones. It is little wonder he jumped at the chance to drag his 6'1" frame to Jersey although the years of hazing would come back to haunt the band in later times.
Debut album
With the line up complete and it was time to call up Jon.
Good to his word the man signed the band to Underground where he was talent spotting, recommended them to his management, helped produce Skid Row's eponymous 1989 debut and in what would prove to be costly to the friendship, retained a large percentage of the band's publishing rights (along with, for some reason, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora), not to mention taking them out on the road as support on Bon Jovi's chart crushing 'New Jersey' album tour.
Behind the scenes is where it began to get messy. Allegedly when the finished album was submitted to Bon Jovi he took issue with the vocals (clearly jealous that Bach could kick his Jersey Tunnel when it came to singing) and demanded that they be re-recorded. Funnily enough Bach refused and in an increasingly escalating war of words Bon Jovi parted with the cheap shot 'I hope you can jam a Gold Record up my ass' although this may not be related to the vocals.
Skid Row was a huge hit... double platinum in fact (now certified 5 x platinum), spawning the singles 'Youth Gone Wild', '18 and Life', 'I Remember You' (along with two other releases). As a 'fuck you' it is a spectacular piece of success. Featuring the polished, clean, glam metal sounds and chart bothering appeal but with a swagger and danger of the punk era, Skid Row took to success like the proverbial duck...
However several issues tainted this success.
That pesky publishing deal was naturally unfair, Sambora shame-faced returned his share (Bon Jovi had few qualms though) and the two parties went to war ending in a court injunction to stop Bach running his mouth and tarnishing Jon's fresh faced image. No doubt Sabo pulled the world's best Ostrich impression during all this back and forth.
Eventually the good guys triumphed and Skid Row won back their publishing rights by and large, but were vilified in the press when Bach was struck by a bottle thrown from the crowd opening for Aerosmith in Massachusetts. Clearly riled he threw a bottle back and dived into the crowd to beat up the culprit, but the missile he threw struck a girl instead and cut her face up.
The result was an out of court settlement and several years where he was not allowed home to Canada, clearly on a roll he also came under fire for wearing a t-shirt given to him by a fan that said 'Aids kill faggots' about the same time.
Tension grew between the band towards the end of the three year touring cycle, but never the less their debut album is an absolute corker and was jammed on my stereo for years and if ever I need a pick me up today it is on a small, select list that can bring a smile to my face.
Slave To The Grind
Despite the problems surrounding the band off stage, expectation for their second album was huge and they were riding high on a very successful album.
Having finally wriggled free from under Bon Jovi's sequined wing the band were free to explore their chosen musical directions and no doubt it came as a shock to all the Bon Jovi fans who bought the first album when Slave To The Grind dropped in 1991.
Whilst retaining their trademark sound 'Slave...' was anvil heavy in comparison, with song material dealing in drug abuse, child molestation, third world exploitation and psychotic sex.
The album went straight to Number 1 and the band toured with the recently out of the closet Rob Halford, dragged Pantera into the public eye by making them main support and were special guests to Iron Maiden at the 1992 Donington Monsters Of Rock festival where Bach opened the show by falling on his ass during 'Slave To The Grind' after stacking it on the wet stage.
Despite these slip ups, the album was a massive success despite not reaching the dizzy sales of the first and has still been certified double platinum. It is packed with anthems and utterly addictive.
The tour cycle was again lengthy and under the surface issues bubbled about Bach's hyperactive nature verses the rest of the close knit band.
As an interim the band released the B-Side Ourselves EP, a stop gap featuring covers of Kiss, Hendrix, Judas Priest and The Ramones.
Subhuman Race
By the time I saw Skid Row tear the ass out of Doinington in 1995 Metal music had taken a hit. Grunge, post-Grunge pop punk and the rise of RnB had stricken the musical wasteland, it was no longer cool to look like a chick, even Megadeth were wearing plaid lumberjack shirts for crying out loud, Metallica were cutting their hair, Bruce Dickinson had jumped ship from Iron Maiden and the whole thing was (on the surface) beginning to whiff a little.
Skid Row had, prior to this, recruited Motley Crue and Metallica producer Bob 'Mile deep sheen' Rock to man the desk for the follow up to 'Slave...'
'Subhuman Race' saw the band head into darker territory and to this day remains a forgotten gem. Songs like 'Eileen' were heavier, the title track was almost speed metal - time on the road with Pantera clearly having rubbed off on them.
However faced with a changing public who still thought of them as a glam band and a record label who clearly didn't know what to do with them it was promoted with an awful sounding, ham fisted advert along the lines of, 'Loud Guitars, Loud Behaviour, Rock and roll bands used to stand for something... one of them still does!'
Despite this the album was a reasonable success going Gold and cracking the top 40 but by now Bach was consigned to a separate tour bus and things came to a head when Bolan allegedly turned down the opportunity for the Skid's to support Kiss, opting in favour of pursuing his punk side project and the subsequent fallout saw Bach fired.
The remnantsThe remaining members surfaced briefly in 1998 with the terribly named
Ozone Monday before sinking without trace and causing drummer Rob Affuso to depart in favour of doing anything else.
In 1999 the rest of the band reformed Skid Row and recruited some bar singer by the name of johnny Solinger and new drummer Charlie Mills who stayed for five minutes before leaving again.
Since then they have recorded two extremely subpar albums in Thickskin (2003) and the even worse RPM (2006) and got Dave Gera in on drums who would stay a whole three years. They have plied their trade eeking out an almost bar scene existence since with Dave 'The Snake' not even touring with them anymore, instead concentrating on managing New Orleans sluggers Down when they are on tour.
The almost daily clamours for Bach to return would probably sell more records.
And the man himself?
Well it is a mixed bag of embarrassments for Baz, resorting to several years on Broadway doing Jesus Christ Superstar and Joesph. He eventually left amidst rumours of 'Prima Donna behaviour', played the last ever gig at Torquay town hall (closed after someone threw a bottle at him funnily enough), released the fabulous 'Angel Down' album, spent time on wank US TV show The Gilmore Girls, the talent spotting vehicle 'Supergroup' and more recently Celebrity Fit Club US. He was last seen on tour with BFF William Bailey opening for The Axl Rose Project, having to endure the indignity of taking to the stage at least a week before the fat ginger cunt decides to show up.
Reports that Bach has put together a new band to record a follow up to 'Angel Down' are growing in frequency, presumably the problem being is that he has to uncork his head from Axl's arse to sing into the mike.
In many ways, like GnR, the actions of the band following the mid '90's cannot ever tarnish their early works - I urge you to check them out.
