Posts Tagged ‘odin’
Cathouse Live Concert Review, Irvine, California, August 15, 2015
A while back, former MTV host, Riki Rachtman, announced a one day festival celebrating the now defunct (and purely dysfunctional) Cathouse in Hollywood. Let’s be clear, back in that era of the 80s, I was not down with hair bands, silly ballads and much of the stuff associated with that hairspray and makeup. There were a few acts, however, that I did at least like a few songs from. But whatever.
This show was set up with a limited number of VIP passes and I was able to score one for the main purpose of the meet and greets to get my Book signed. Supposedly all bands that were performing were suppose to appear. More on that later.
I got into LAX around noon on Friday the 14th and got my rental car (1.5 hour wait) and headed down to Irvine to get checked in to the hotel. I unpack, grab some dinner and head to a club in Anaheim called Chain Reaction. It’s an all age club that didn’t serve alcohol so no beers for me. I caught the last 3 bands which in order were Tower Guard, Toronto’s Crimson Shadows and Nekrogoblikon. I really liked Tower Guard. Younger power thrash with some good potential. The singer could stand to do less talking between songs, though. Crimson Shadows, while technically proficient musically, were about as boring as I could have wanted. Tight Gothenburg style metal with cookie monster-esque vocals intermingles with clean vocal harmonies from the two shredder guitarists. Nekrogoblikon came on and had a large band and some dude dressed as a “goblin” that runs around on stage. I was totally annoyed less than a minute into the first song and left.
The next day I slept in a bit to save up some energy for the long day ahead. Parking lot opened at noon and I went to get my VIP swag which included the meet and greet wristband. I ran into some friends of friends and hung with them until 2PM when the gate was opened. It was pretty damned hot and I was in jeans, black SA Slayer shirt, denim vest and the shoulder bag that I carry the book. It was hot, but not quite Texas hot. Opening band, Swamphammer, was playing as I walked into the venue. I made a bee line right into the VIP tent and downed 2 bottles of water. I was drying out quickly.
The meet and greets were set at 2 different times to have the later playing bands come out early to meet the fans and vice versa for the early playing bands to come out later. In the early one, I got Stephen Pearcy, Tom Keifer and Steve Riley to sign the book. Riley had been an elusive one for me over the years. Phil Lewis recognized the book and said, “I remember this. You’re carrying this around all day?” Ugh. Yes. Faster Pussycat came out and it was good seeing those guys. Good friends, Dangerous Toys came out and as always when I see any of them around town, it’s just friends hanging out together. Great guys. During this meet and greet, Bullet Boys, Enuff Z’Nuff, Trixter, Autograph, Black N Blue all played. I only got to hear them play and all of them sounded great, Especially Black N Blue and Autograph. I was hoping that Don Dokken, Mark Boals and Mick Brown would come out but they never did. Bummer.
After this, I went down into the VIP pit and watched part of Junkyard’s awesome set and the beginning of Saigon Kick, which bored me as much now as back in the day. I went to the merch/food area to grab a taco and caught some of Pretty Boy Floyd’s set on the side stage. Kristy Krash Majors was back in the band and they sounded pretty good. I moved back to the pit and caught LA Guns, Dangerous Toys and the beginning of Pussycat’s set. They had a bunch of original members join them on stage which was cool.
By this point it was time to hit the other meet and greet. At this one we got Autograph, Black N Blue, Junkyard, Extreme, Sebastian Bach, Bullet Boys, Jetboy and Trixter. I got the 2 guys from Autograph, 2 from Black N Blue and Bach. I didn’t know Extreme had come out until they had already left, so no sigs. I hung with David Roach from Junkyard for quite a while and with my old pal, Rowan Robertson (DIO). Guys from Trixter, Jetboy and others that I had no idea what band they were in signed my VIP pass. I really hated bands like Trixter, Jetboy, Little Caesar, Bullet Boys, Cinderella and Extreme back in the old days. Modern day, I do at least like the old Cinderella.
So let’s get to the band performances that I saw/heard.
- Bullet Boys – I only heard them but they sounded good. I’ve seen them several times in the last year and when their singer saw me he jumped up and gave me a big hug. Nice guy. I got to see their drummer, Shawn Duncan (Odin) briefly and his wife, which is always a pleasure.
- Trixter – Heard them only. They were solid but I just couldn’t care.
- Black N Blue – Heard only but they may be my faves of the day. They were solid, great vocals and heavy. Chains Around Heaven!
- Autograph – Sounded great and I wish I would have seen them to watch Steve Lynch play. He’s a great guitarist. It was cool hanging out with him as we have a good friend in common.
- Junkyard – ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL. They were great. It was hot as hell up there and they rocked their set.
- Saigon Kick – zzzzz
- LA Guns – As solid as ever
- Dangerous Toys – Jason McMaster and company sounded great and the crowd was really into them. Always fun to see live, especially seeing “hometown” boys away from home.
- Faster Pussycat – Sounded great and cool having the originals on stage again
- Stephen Pearcy – Only heard him. It was about like it was last year. He’s having a tough time these days.
- Sebastian Bach – He sounded great as did his band. Great show.
- Dokken – Only heard but they sounded much better than I expected. Having Boals on backing vocals is a good idea.
- Tom Keifer – He sounded great. Utterly impressed.
- Pretty Boy Floyd – Solid. Nothing different than what I expected.
I didn’t catch any of the other bands. I tweaked my back somehow during Dangerous Toys and it got progressively worse throughout the evening, so bad that I left before Extreme came on. That meant that I missed the Gilby Clarke all star jam with Ace Frehley. I was in incredible pain. Absolutely horrible. It was better by morning, thankfully, but not great.
All in all this show was fun and well organized. The bands on the main stage were on a rotating stage and no set times were missed. It was impressive seeing all bands start and finish on time. The only negative thing I can say is that it sucked not getting to meet a few of the bands, but oh well, herding rockstars is like herding cats. I had a blast.
Stephen Pearcy, LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, BulletBoys Concert Review, November 22, 2014
Night #2 of the eyeliner and hairspray weekend took me to Houston, TX to see Stephen Pearcy, LA Guns, Faster Pussycat, and The BulletBoys at the sold out Warehouse Live. I had booked a room at the famed Sam Houston Hotel in downtown. What a nice hotel. The rooms have been fully modernized and while small, they are very comfortable. I’ll likely stay there again when the opportunity presents itself.
This show was a free show and all you had to do was RSVP tickets. I was supposed to be on the VIP list as well (thanks to Faster Pussycat) but it didn’t happen. No big deal. One of the reasons I was going to this show was to get The Book signed by Phil Lewis and Steve Riley of LA Guns and hopefully Stephen Pearcy. More on these developments later.
My friend from Houston picked me up and we went to grab a quick dinner near the hotel and ended up at Frank’s Pizza in downtown which was delicious. From there we went to the venue and got in about halfway through BulletBoys’ set. This place is open and spacious and the sound was probably as good as you could get in a giant concrete room with very high ceilings. Bulletboys sounded good again and the crowd was very into it. I ran into some other Austin friends there and we all hung together for most of the night.
Next up was Faster Pussycat. They are one of the few bands of this genre that I’ve always liked. I think their scenes in The Metal Years softened it up for me. I had played with them back in Virginia about 12 years ago and always love seeing them live. Taime is a character and does his job as front man very well. They opened up with Cathouse and blew right into Slip of the Tongue. They played 9 songs including 2 covers (Supersuckers and Betty Blowtorch). They were very tight, which is no surprise as this unit has been together for the better part of 18 years. It’s always a good time seeing them.
After a quick set change LA Guns took the stage opening with Show No Mercy, Sex Action and Never Enough. Their set consisted of everything you’d want and expect to hear from Phil and the guys. Their lead player is a total badass, too. That guy shreds. Phil’s voice sounded great. I was super glad to see them since I missed them in Austin a few months ago as I was going out of town very early the next morning. Twelve songs total and it was a lot of fun.
Then Stephen Pearcy comes on. Look, I’m a pretty big Ratt fan and it was never really about his voice. I love the riffs and solos those guys used to lay down (minus the silliness of songs like Way Cool Jr). Pearcy never had a great voice although it was unique. I saw Ratt with the Scorpions in 2010 and his voice sounded pretty good. Saturday night not so much. I want to be careful to not dog him out as I don’t know if he was just having a bad night, can’t sing anymore or just didn’t care to try. He seemed to be phoning it in. His backup band sounded good but the voice was killing me and many others. We decided to leave about mid-set during I’m Insane. We weren’t the only ones. People were rolling out steadily and you could hear lots of people saying how poorly Pearcy sounded.
During Pearcy’s set, I went to the merch booth to see Shawn and the Bulletboys guys as Marq hadn’t signed the book yet. He thought it was great and cheerfully signed it. Hanging out with him 2 nights in a row did change my perspective a little bit. Aaron Samson (Odin) was also at the booth and while both he and Shawn had signed the book a few years back at an Odin show in LA, he hadn’t signed my rare Odin Caution! EP. Shawn and Jeff signed it for me a few months ago before sending it to me. Aaron was glad to see it. I still needed Phil and Riley from LA Guns though. I went over the VIP area to chat with Sean a bit while Pearcy was still playing and Phil came out. Chad Stewart, Pussycat’s drummer, grabbed Phil to come over and meet me to sign the book. He signed the band photo and flipped though it a little bit and asked where he could get a copy. I told him I’d send the link. Pussycat’s guitarist, Xristian Simon, was looking backstage for Riley and couldn’t catch him before he bailed out to the hotel. No biggie. Guns come to Austin every couple of years and I’ll be sure to get them next time.
All in all it was a great night with my friend, Myra, and my Austin friends. I was tired, so tired, and just needed to get back to the hotel to crash out and that’s exactly what I did.
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- My view at the hotel
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- Faster Pussycat
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- LA Guns
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- Aaron on the Caution! EP
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- Marq Torien signs The Book!
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- Phil signs The Book!
Here are some great photos taken by Jamie Miller! Please visit his page!
BulletBoys Concert Review, Austin, TX, November 21, 2014
I will go on record to say that most of the music from this genre of hard rock/metal didn’t do it for me in the 80s. I found the hairspray and makeup quite silly and still do. There were a few bands that did stand out and I took a liking to, but BulletBoys were not one of them. Smooth up in ya? Puhleaze! That over the top, bombastic pretty boy type stuff just made me want to puke. I had even seen them a few years ago when from pal in Arsis was in town on tour and freaked out knowing that BB was playing next door, so I subjected myself to it and didn’t pay any attention to the show at all. “Another shot please!?”
Fast forward to 2014. My friend, Shawn Duncan, who plays drums for DC4 and Odin (yes, that Odin), let me know that he was touring with BB this year and that they were coming to Austin and Houston. Shawn’s one of the nicest dudes out there and I was stoked to be able to hang out with him again. We didn’t get to hang out on my last couple of trips to LA so I was happy to get to see him here in Austin. He let me know that for the Austin and Houston shows, Odin bassist, Aaron Samson, was also playing.
I work near a Guitar Center and the band’s manager had asked me to pick up some sticks and strings for the band if I was near one. Luckily I work right around the corner from one so I grabbed their stuff and went right downtown after work to catch them at sound check and to try and grab dinner with them. There were several issues related to the promoter in getting an actual backline, hotel, food etc and the band decided to just go back to their hotel until showtime. Fine by me, I needed a nap anyhow!
After getting some rest, I catch my ride back downtown and get ready to see the band. Again, I am not a BB fan and was only there to hang out with Shawn and Aaron.
But I got surprised big time. I thoroughly enjoyed the set besides Smooth Up In Ya and For the Love of Money. Those still give me an MTv hangover. But the band was as solid as they could be. Marq Torien’s voice was strong and he handles most of the guitar solos these days. Homeboy can play and he’s a really good front man. I love watching Shawn play drums. I always get a Cozy Powell vibe.
There were about 50 or so people there, with a lot of them being fans of the band singing every song. That was good to see and I could tell that the band was having a good time. I had a great time as well and would definitely go see them again, even if my friends aren’t in the band. I’m still tired as that was night #1 of 3 straight shows.
Odin Live @ The Whisky 8/27/11
What a weekend! As has been discussed on this site ad nauseum, I am a huge Odin fan. I love their debut Don’t Take No For An Answer and the subsequent albums all had some killer tunes on them. When I found out in the Spring that Odin was doing a show, I had to go. I’ve wanted to see them since 1986. I had a chance to see them 3 or 4 years ago but stuff came up and I couldn’t go. It almost happened again this time too. I had purchased my concert ticket right as they went on sale but waited on buying my plane tickets as right around the time of the show announcement, I was told that I’d be getting laid off soon. So I held off as I didn’t want to spend the extra money. Fortunately I was only out of work for a month and was living on the severance pay that my former company had given me. As soon as I got a new job I booked my flight to LA.
Twenty-five years is a long wait to see a band. Sit tight, this post may take a while. Maybe not.
The original plan was to stay with a good friend out there but with my flight getting delayed because of Hurricane Irene and some other 
unavoidable happenstances, I just decided to get a hotel in Hollywood. Good move. As soon as I landed in Burbank, I got my rental car and headed straight to Hollywood and my hotel on Santa Monica Blvd. I checked in, freshened up a bit and headed out for the night. It was about 10:15PM or so when I hailed a cab and headed straight for the Rainbow Bar and Grill. Again, good move. As I was having a few drinks at the inside bar, the guy next to me was talking to the bartender about Hurricane playing at Key Club just a few doors down. Hurricane! I always liked the song Hurricane and a few others of theirs. While they were a pretty boy type of band, they were definitely a cut above bands like Poison, Warrant and much of the other terrible glammy sleaze that plagued LA (and the world) in the late 80s.
I used to own Take Want You Want and one shaped EP on vinyl. In the late 1990s I started selling off my record collection. They were listed on eBay and Kelly Hansen, the singer for Hurricane, had gotten in touch with me to work a trade for those records. Of course I
Robert Sarzo – Hurricane
was skeptical, but after he called me and we talked, I knew it was legit. In trade, he sent me some unopened tapes and CDs and signed one of them for me. Hard to believe that some bands don’t have their own material…same thing happened one other time with Frankie Banali. I had a WASP EP that he didn’t have from the Headless Children album. I had 2 so I gave him one.
OK, let’s get back on track here. The dude at the bar was the show promoter. He gave me his card and told me to hand it to the door guy and I’d get in for free. I offered to pay my way in but he insisted. Cool! I finished my drink and went right over to Key Club as Hurricane was getting ready to go on. I go in with no troubles, grab a beer and hit the floor. Hurricane comes on and they open with Hurricane. Sarzo and Cavazo were still in the band and I think Kelly’s brother was on drums. Of course Kelly sings for Foreigner now. The new singer is Andrew Freeman who used to play guitar for theOffspring. He sounded great and played some guitar as well. I was really impressed with them overall. I caught a little more than half of the set and then made my way back over to the Rainbow. Luckily for me Lemmy was there (of course). I got to say hi again. He remembered me from Austin. We only spoke for a minute as he was only taking a short break from the video game machine. I love the Rainbow. Such a cool place with so much history.
Being almost 2AM California time, it was almost 4AM my time, so I was pretty worn out. I grabbed a cab and went back to the hotel. I watched the weather channel’s coverage of the hurricane until I fell asleep.
After only about 4 or maybe 5 hours of sleep, I got up and muddled around town for a bit before driving out to San Bernardino to meet an old friend for lunch. It was great to see her and the Thai food was tasty. From there I headed back into Hollywood to catch Odin’s 
soundcheck and to get Randy O and Aaron Samson to sign the book. I got to watch them do 2 or three songs, got my signatures and hung out with Shawn and Jeff Duncan for a little bit before they left to go back home. I became friends with them a few years back when their band DC4 played here in Austin. What a band and a great bunch of guys! I really wanted to have dinner with Shawn and his fiance but I was so wiped out and just wanted to go take a nap. So we parted ways and I headed back for an all-too-short nap.
When I originally bought my ticket, I went ahead and bought a spare as I figured a friend from Austin or someone I know in LA would want to go. Luckily I happened to meet Regina in Austin a few weeks prior to the show through some good friends of mine and I mentioned that I’d be out there for the show. I asked her to go and she graciously said yes. So after waking up from my nap, I took a quick shower and grabbed a cab for the Rainbow again. I wanted some of their pizza. It’s my favorite ever. I get there and the door guy remembered me from the night before. He waived the cover and gave me 2 drink tickets. SCORE! It was still a little early so seating was pretty wide open. I sat at the outside bar as it was a nice evening. The bartender remembered me and even what I had been drinking the night before and automatically poured one for me. Peroni on draft by the way. I ordered a small pizza and it came out pretty quickly. The small is huge. I met a few people while waiting for my food and we were having a great time talking shit. They were super fun and luckily helped me eat the pizza. After the beers and pizza were done, I paid out and headed over to The Whisky 
to see the reason I made this trip…ODIN. Regina met up with me shortly after and we went in. I ran into some folks that I knew, mainly the other DC4 guys, Matt Duncan and Rowan Robertson. I love Rowan. He’s such a nice guy and we always have a great time hanging out. (Your arrow, siiiir.) Saw a few other folks that I knew and we hung out upstairs until Odin was about to come on. Luckily Regina didn’t mind getting in the crowd. We were about 2 or 3 people from the stage in the center.
The lights go down and Odin comes out to a loud roar from fans, including me. This show definitely brought out something in me that doesn’t happen that often. I see a lot of shows…A LOT. But very few bands actually get me “juiced”. Iron Maiden, Testament, Motorhead and a few others do. Odin did. The music nerd in me came out completely. Poor Regina. haha. Odin opened with 12 O’Clock High. It was great. Their setlist was great and Randy’s voice was in good shape. A lot of the guys who used to hit those high notes back in the old days can’t do it now. Randy hit a lot of his. And the ones he knew he couldn’t hit, he didn’t try. While they played most of the EP, The Writer and Solar Eye weren’t played. Well, a piece of Solar Eye was played which gave Jeff some solo time.
It was a great show. They were awesomely tight. I really can’t put into words what it meant to see them. It was a very special night for 
sure.
I love California, or at least SoCal. Never been that far north, but the LA/Hollywood area sets me right every time I am there. It’s beautiful. I almost moved there in 1997 and still do the “what if…” game sometimes.
After the show, Regina and I head back over to the Rainbow for a final drink. It was fun closing it down. The valet brought her car around and we drove around and foraged for food around town. We grabbed some fast food and headed back to my hotel. She dropped me off, I went to my room and went straight to bed, completely wiped out again.
The next morning was checkout, a drive around Hollywood for a bit and then off to the airport. Absolutely one of the best weekends I have had in a long time thanks to Odin, DC4, Hollywood, and my LA friends, new and old. Good times. If/when Odin plays again, I’ll try to be there for sure.
Last view before hitting the airport.
Hurricane setlist
Andrew Freeman – Hurricane/theOffspring
Odin Setlist
Shawn Duncan
The Odin Guitar!
The Odin bass!
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Thank you and goodnight!
Leaving California with an aching in my heart…
Spent the weekend in Hollywood for last night’s Odin show. Happened into the Key Club Friday night and saw Hurricane. Reviews and pics from both shows soon.
Sorry there haven’t been many posts recently. Got laid off and was unemployed for a month and my new job has me working out of town for the next few months.
The Metal Files 
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