ALL BAD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END: A MOTLEY MEMOIR

"BLUE" JIMMY:  MALICIOUS MERCHANT OF MOTLEY MAYHEM

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY early 80's

MOTLEY CRUE early 80's

"BLUE" JIMMY:  MOTLEY CRUE.  The very name strikes fear into the hearts of bar and club owners, groupies, strippers, pushers, preachers, cops and dorky garage bands just starting out.  But in 1980 Los Angeles, they were just a catchy name I saw in the listings who were opening for Bay Area hard rock legends Yesterday and Today (who later became known as Y&T.)  I was so excited.  I had never been to a club to see a band before and my best friend Dammage had a Plymouth Satellite which quickly got us to the Starwood Club on the corner of Santa Monica and Crescent Heights in West Hollywood.  It must have cost less than 10 bucks to get in and inside was a separate disco (remember this was the era of Saturday Night Fever) which we avoided like hell and a bar with pinball machines (!) and a cleared out floor area where the bands would set up and play -- not even a real stage.  I was not prepared for Motley Crue.  Most bands I had seen up to that point were bearded hippie stoners in bell bottoms playing half-hour jams.  Motley Crue came out looking like a cross between Hollywood junkie transvestites and villains from "The Road Warrior."  They played song after song of aggressive, catchy hard rock which sounded classic the first time I heard it.  I couldn't get their songs out of my head even after Yesterday and Today came out and played an excellent (louder and longer) set.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  How do you think I feel?  After he bought their first homemade LP at a show at the Whiskey, he played that goddamned thing every day!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Since then, I've got smacked in the head with Nikki's bass at the Whiskey, seen and heard them destroy the Sunset Strip 'till they were no longer welcome, slay half a million headbangers at the 1983 US Festival (BLIND DOG OZZY:  where I got lost for 5 hours!) steal the show as opening act for KISS and headline every major arena with a massive show & traveling circus and a drum kit that turns upside down.  Now, many parties, girls, fights, car crashes, arrests, lawsuits, censors, overdoses and more parties later, they say this is their final tour.  So tomorrow, Monday July 21, 2014 at the Hollywood Bowl  I guess, will be the last time I see them.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Don't cry you pussy, we outlasted a bands' entire career!

"BLUE" JIMMY NOW

MOTLEY CRUE NOW

"BLUE" JIMMY:  You know, Motley Crue's decision, has got me thinking about a lot of things.  The Age of Decadence is over and everyone has got to grow up and make positive decisions to fit in with society.  So I've decided to adopt a more conservative shirt and tie look, I'm selling my guitars and I'm going to start taking classes in business administration in the Fall so I can go to work with a consulting firm.  I've also met a wonderful lady and we're going to start doing volunteer work at her church.

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Really?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Not!!!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Dude, don't scare me like that!!!  S**t!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BLIND DOG OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!
bluejames61@hotmail.com

BEST HARD MUSIC 2013

"BLUE" JIMMY:  HARD MAN

BLIND DOG OZZY: NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  We're a month into the new year and after watching the 56th Grammy Awards, I got to thinking what was some of the best hard music that I liked last year.

BD OZZY:  BOM BOM BOM!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Starting with the Heavy Metal category, I don't think anything came close to matching Black Sabbath's "13".

BD OZZY:  YEAHHH!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  And it's about time peoples!  The last time this lineup of Sabbath recorded, I had hair down to my chest, bell bottoms and a shirt with wizard sleeves.

BD OZZY:  And you should have seen the shoes!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Song after song of molten, headbanging metal with not a weak one in the bunch.  The song "God Is Dead?" even won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.  And I loved how at the awards, you couldn't understand a thing Ozzy Osbourne was saying.  This is the first album I've bought in a long time that I could play all the way through over and over with the volume on 10.

BD OZZY:  Now the neighbor's cat can't have babies.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Best Live Show of the year also goes to Black Sabbath.  Their show at the L.A. Sports Arena last year was, I'm pretty sure, one of the signs of the Apocalypse and their haunted-looking stage show with multi-screens was downright... scary.

BD OZZY:  I came out of there feeling EVIL.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Best Hard Rock album of the year was a surprise.  I picked Black Star Riders' "All Hell Breaks Loose" over all the other great hard rock that came out last year.  The band is basically Thin Lizzy going under another name and they're not afraid to sound like it.  Highlights:  "All Hell Breaks Loose" is the best ass-kicking album opener I've heard in a decade; "Kingdom of the Lost" sounds like it was accidentally left off of the "Jailbreak" LP complete with Irish Folk Festival intro and dueling guitars by Scott Gorham and Damon Johnson; "Hey Judas" and "Someday Salvation" would've been hard rocking hit singles if they were released in 1975 and "Valley of the Stones" strays dangerously into heavy metal territory.

BD OZZY:  The bottom line is that this is basically the Great Lost Album that Thin Lizzy never made and if it had come out in their Phil Lynott heyday, they would be even more legendary than they are now due to some spotty albums in the past.  This one rips!!!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  On to some Heavy Guitar Blues!  Best Blues albums for me were Popa Chubby's "Universal Breakdown Blues" and Lurrie Bell's "Blues In My Soul".  Popa Chubby's career was almost over before it began because due to some horrible album cover art on his debut, many people thought he was a rapper and his album even got put into the rap/hip hop bins in the record stores.  Since then, he has put out an amazingly long string of albums that show him to be one of the most scorching modern blues guitarists on the planet and "Universal Breakdown Blues" continues the tradition with songs like "I Don't Want Nobody", "69 Dollars" and "Mindbender" which showcase not only his blistering guitar work but also a huge, hurricane of a voice which many so-called Blues guitarists lack.  Add to this a sizzling instrumental version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and you got the whole package.  Lurrie Bell, the son of Blues legend Carey Bell, is becoming a legend in his own right, with "Blues In My Soul" putting his raspy Blues voice and silky smooth and piercing guitar right up front where they belong.  When you hear the agony of songs like  "Blues In My Soul" the roadhouse funk of  "Southside to Riverside" and the Down in the Delta intro  to "My Little Machine",  you just get the feeling you're hearing the Real Deal.  

BD OZZY:  You won't hear this kind of Blues in no Guitar Center hotshot competition where the players never had a beer bottle and ashtray thrown at their head in some mean ass bar.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  So put on the Lurrie Bell album when you want the sound and feel of walking into a smokey, Southside juke joint.

BD OZZY:  And put on the Popa Chubby album when you just want to hear some fat f**ker choking the s**t out of a Stratocaster!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Special mention goes to Rory Block in the Acoustic Blues category for her album, "Avalon:  A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt" just for the fact that she actually studied with brother Hurt and other original Bluesmen and there ain't nobody can play this way anymore.

BD OZZY:  Go ahead, try it!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The Blues/ Rock category is for those who ain't quite pure Blues but not quite Rolling Stones/ Zeppelin classic rock either.  My hands down favorite is The Russ Tippens Electric Band for their album, "Combustion" which makes me want to go practice every time I hear it.  Tippens' virtuoso guitar  and classy singing style remind me of Robben Ford on hard rocking steroids with a bass and drums rhythm section that can step out and solo whenever they want.  Add to this the fact that they are British and Tippins plays part time in Satan, an early 80's New Wave of British Heavy Metal band that plays muddy, beer-soaked Metal Festivals in Europe and I don't know what to think.  But I haven't heard a new band this good in a long time so check 'em out.

BD OZZY:  And be prepared to practice more!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Well, there's other types of hard music but other people are more qualified to  comment on those bands  than me.  I just picked some of my favorites of the past year.  So pick up some magazines, listen to some radio stations and check out some websites.  The hard music you love is out there...

BD OZZY:  You're just not going to see and hear it on prime time TV!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  "Sake's Alive!"

BD OZZY:  "Wow!  Wow!"