HEAVY METAL Must Be DESTROYED!

HEAVY METAL Must Be DESTROYED!

Rick Johnson

"I'm not a metallurgist—most of us aren't," admitted internationally acclaimed music critic Phil Donahue on a recent show, and for once he was right. Then he went back to the main subject of that day's program, which I think was about plugging the leaks in the clean urine black market.

It's easy to blame the record labels and their corporate sponsors, but why bother? You can spit at capitalism all you want.

Go ahead—ptooey! Still, you know way down in the innermost Stomp Creek, Tennessee of your rock ’n’ rollin’ soul that if it wasn’t for the entrepreneurial lure of tall dollars, we’d all be standing in line to buy potatoes, and heavy metal would still be a silly phrase in an obscure novel.

Is there anything you can do to fight back? Glad you askedl

* Send all your major label heavy metal records to me in care of this magazine.

I will punish them by selling ’em to used record stores and investing all the money (after expenses, heh heh| in pole barn futures.HHHHH

* Write MTV immediately and demand that their afternoon Heavy Metal Half Hour be changed to the Heavy Metal Second.

* Take all the cash you would have spent on metal records, tapes and merchandise and spend it instead on such un-heavy products as mole pellets, felt

Finally, study the following examples closely. They will help explain just how dopey all this metal schmetal Is and enable you to develop sales resistance without joining Headbangers Anonymous. Queensryche: In an

Bon Jovi: No matter which way you slice it, "You Give Love A Bad Name"

a few new ideas, though rember gang an empty skull is the

ditherment not unlike June Cleaver's when she asked Ward, “Can you imagine me going to PTA meetings in a pickup truck?” No can do, June, anymore than I can imagine Heather #1 (Thomas) beating my goo-goo queen Heather #2—or Benji for that matter—in a game of tic-tac-toe.

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Quiet Riot: “Twilight Hotel” is a classic in the same sense that Kev was a “classic” candidate for hair restoration. I mean, the guy’s head looked like an abandoned landfill! Better yet, the one time I caught the video, most of the picture was somehow preempted through weird satellite mojo by an Only On Showtime ad! The sound came through loud and clear, though.

Krokus: The Krokes finally wised up and advertised Alive And Screamin’ in Fangoria, where it belongs. Come on, guys! When that “Ballroom Blitz” vid first appeared on my tube—the one where they’re all talking in their funny accents, saying stuff like, “Yaw, she blitzed me very!"—even my dog turned and looked at me utterly deadpan and rolled her eyes as if to say, gag me with a tick strip, puh-leez! I say we give ’em time off for inept behavior.

Tesla: For this one, we’ll take you behind the scenes of the glamorous world of bigtime rock writing! Now, I’m not a writer, but I play one on TV, so I’ll share with you the actual notes I took on Tesla while viewing their video: “stupid lyrics .. . stupid everything!” There you have it. Be a cowboy instead.

Ozzy Osbourne: Glad to hear Ozzy won the big suicide lawsuit, although it’s a shame the mom and dad killed themselves after they heard the verdict. While we’re on the subject, here’s a fact I heard on CNN, so it must be true: TV news stories about teen suicides cause 2.9% more teen suicides! Isn’t that something? How would you like to be that .9?

Vinnie Vincent: Swell guitar, ill-advised haircut. The end.

Kiss: Even after all these years, you can trust Kiss to come up with major thud emissions. Maybe not the same way doctors trust Metamucil, but still. That “Tears Are Falling” is a killer song. It’s not the kind of music you want to just sit around and listen to. It’s the kind of music you want to throw at bowling pins!

Metallica: Talk about jinxed, these puppet whompers would have taken over the world by now if they didn’t always have members getting fired, crippled or killed. The strange hayride juju overtones of a style loud enough to herd seals is bound to win out sooner or later. Meanwhile, hey!—great barbecue weather!

Dio: All of Ronnie James Dio’s songs bring to mind those nauseating My Little Pony cartoons. “A winged pony, a young girl and an eccentric magician,” says TV Guide, “join forces to rescue ponies captured by the evil Tirac.” Oh, get off it—who the hell kidnaps ponies? Besides CREEM’s editorial staff, I mean.

Accept: Udo may indeed be the Mork of heavy metal, but I still find this crew kinda lovable. Their enormous sound isn’t really something you passively listen to. It’s something you batter the waterfront with. Just remember, keep your chute locked, Udo!

Boston: From the liner notes on Third Stage: “It took nearly six years to conceive and complete this album.” (Interjection: WE ARE SO SURE!) “Each individual piece of music relates a human experience.” Which one, Tom? Disgust? Remorse? Showbiz Pizza?

W.A.S.P.: True, Blackie’s face is starting to resemble a limp wind sock, but these guys still put on a show with more slam than the Audi 5000 Sudden Acceleration Syndrome. As for Mr. Lawless’s brilliant composition, “King Of Sodom And Gommorrah,” all I can say is .. . well, Blackie, Sodom anyway.

Dokken: Most of Dokken’s rockin’ doesn’t sound like something you’d expect to hear on a record, it sounds like something that should happen on a tarmac in Pakistan. No argument here that George Lynch is one hotshot guitarist. He can take the lunge ’n’ parry technique to a level where it can open garage doors in Casper, Wyoming! Only problem is, the group’s dedication to producing solid material is highly reminiscent of a remark Mr. Ed’s neighbor, Roger, once made: “Wilbur, you not only lack culture, you lack lack!”

CONCLUSION: Aw, heck—we don’t have to waste our time destroying heavy metal. Heavy metal will destroy itself!

So let’s boogie!