"Teas'n Pleas'n" by Dangerous Toys

I remember the day I saw Dangerous Toys for the first time. It was the summer of 1990. I had put on "Hard 60", MTV's 60 minutes of hard rock and metal every afternoon, to watch some of my favorite fist pounding videos. The "Teas'n Pleas'n" video came on and I was instantly hooked. The band looked like a fucked up version of Guns N' Roses. The band sounded like a fucked up version of Guns N' Roses. Hell the video even reminded me of a lesser version of the "Paradise City" video.

But it was awesome.

The sleazy breakdown. The gun cocking. Jason McMaster saying "man....I think I got the wroooooooong house!". Sleaze metal at it's finest.

My birthday soon approached and I asked my mother for their album. She took one look at the demonic jack in the box on the cover and promptly told me no, I would not be allowed to have such filth. But, sometime after my birthday, I was in a record store in Maine. I was eying the soundtrack to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie when my mother turned away. I quickly grabbed the Dangerous Toys album, slid it under the soundtrack, promptly gave both to the cashier, handed him my money, he bagged it up, and I was on my way. When my mother asked me what I bought, I showed her the turtles tape and left Dangerous Toys in the bag.

Damn, I was sneaky.

Download "Teas'n Pleas'n"

*bonus post* "Supernaut" by 1000 Homo DJs

Brad commenting made me think that I needed some college tales to tell.

So this one is quick and short. "Supernaut" is a cover of a Black Sabbath song that was one the "Nativity in Black" tribute album. It is by 1000 Homo DJs which was a Ministry side project.

I remember Brad and I arguing whether it was Al Jourgensen on vocals or if it was an uncredited Trent Reznor. We never came to a consensus.

Apparently, this song was available on many albums, EPs, and bootlegs, and even Trent and Al cannot agree on who sang on what.

download "Supernaut"

"Roll With It" by Steve Winwood

What can I say about this song?

It was the bane of my existence in 1988. That summer "Nothing But a Good Time" by Poison and "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard were ruling my universe. But one goddamn song was keeping my beloved pop metal from topping the charts. "Roll With It".

I didn't get it. Here was this old guy, who apparently had records since the 60's (trust me these days I know much more about Steve Winwood and have much more respect for the man) making this terrible, terrible adult contemporary music, and he was thwarting my favorite bands attempts at commanding the realm of Top 40.

All summer long.

It just wasn't fair. I mean, for fuck's sake, I believe his video was sepia toned and he was wearing fucking suspenders! FUCKING SUSPENDERS! (I haven't watched the video in about 20 years, so I could be completely wrong, but that's what I remember).

download "Roll With It"

"Beautiful Day" by U2 and "As Long As You're Loving Me" by Vitamin C

In 2001 I was dating this girl in Somerville. Somerville was close to where I worked in Cambridge, so I ended up just heading to her house after work most evenings during the week. She had a roommate, so in order to disguise the sounds of our sexual encounters from the roommate, my girlfriend would turn on the clock radio. She had no CD player in her room, and this was pre-iPod era, so every night I was over she would turn on the damn clock radio which was always on some local Top 40 station. And like clockwork, every single time we had sex, "Beautiful Day" by U2 and "As Long as You're Loving Me" by Vitamin C came on.

Every. Single. Time.

For months.

And it drove me crazy. But she refused to put on any other station. So I dealt with it, because it was really good sex.

download "Beautiful Day"
download "As Long As You're Loving Me"

"Drive" - by Deftones (bonus track from "Saturday Night Wrist")

So I was checking up on the Deftones new album yesterday on Wikipedia and happened to look through their discography. There I noticed in the "covers" section that they had covered "Drive" by the Cars. Apparently it was a bonus track if you bought all of "Saturday Night Wrist" from iTunes. Unable to purchase just the track alone from iTunes, I searched the music black market and behold, I found it.

And just like all of their other covers...shit is goooooood. Deftones do the best covers, because they make them their own. Even if they are performed rather faithfully to the original, the energy they bring to the songs is always magical. This song gives me the same chills that "No Ordinary Love" did the first time I heard it.

So yeah, no real story here. Just a rare track that I thought I'd share.

download "Drive"

"Chocolate Pudding" by the Mighty Mighty BossTones (from the album "Medium Rare")

I fell in love with the BossTones in 1993. My friend Darrin's pal John told me all about this wild band from Boston who did these insanely awesome shows. I was super curious. On a trip to Boston in the summer of 1993 with my Dad and brother, we stopped by a record store in Kenmore Square and I was excited to see the BossTones new EP, "Ska-core, the Devil, and More", prominently displayed. I took my last $7 and bought the CD, having never heard the band at all. I immediately fell in love with them.

Cut to the fall of 2003. I fell hard for a girl in my High School who was into punk and ska. She told me about this band from Monroe, CT, Spring Heeled Jack, who she knew I would love since I liked the BossTones. And she was quite right. I went on to see that particular band more times than any other in my life.

I was very happy to find out that December that Spring Heeled Jack and the BossTones were playing a show at The Sting in New Britain. I procured tickets for me, my brother, and his pal Andy, and we went on a cold snowy weekday night to see them. The show was awesome in every way and that was the night that I first heard the BossTones play "Chocolate Pudding".

By this time, I had all of the BossTones albums, so I was confused when I heard the crowd chanting for this song that I was sure was not on any of the albums. The band obliged the crowd, and the sax player, Johnny Vegas, came to the front of the stage to sing. Immediately it became a classic in my mind, and I saw why the crowd had been yearning for it.

To this day it is one of my favorite BossTones songs, and one of my favorite spring/summer jams to rock on a sunny day. The last time I saw the Bosstones, at the Hometown Throwdown in 2002, they played Chocolate Pudding and it was the first time I had heard them do it live since the mid nineties. It was certainly as magical as ever.

For years I had the song on a cassingle (I believe it was finally released as the B-Side to "Kinder Words" in 1994) and when the Napster age came around I acquired an MP3 of it, but it was nice to see it finally come to CD late last year when the reunited BossTones released their "Medium Rare" b-sides album.

download "Chocolate Pudding"

"No Soul" and "Shiksa (Girlfriend)" by Say Anything (from the album "In Defense of the Genre")

Say Anything is one of those bands that each album has 2 or 3 good songs on each album, and the rest is ok. Not bad, but just ok. But, goddamn, those 2 or 3 songs are always fucking hot tits!

So, there isn't any real story with these songs. I've read all of the articles on this band and Max Bemis, and although his bipolar disorder is interesting to read about, I guess I don't really care about how it relates to his band. Well, sure, it has to make a big impact on his songwriting, but part of me just doesn't care.

The album these songs are off of, "In Defense of the Genre", is a double album and really deserves my internal comparison to "Use Your Illusion I & 2". There's a whole lot of filler, and it could have been weaned down to make one awesome album, but instead is 2 discs of "meh".

But, let's get back to the fucking hot tits. "No Soul" and "Shiksa" are both awesome songs. Full of sunshiny spring and summer goodness.  They have both been in the "current hot mix" playlist on my iPod since I downloaded them last summer. So sit back and savor the goodness.

download "No Soul"

download "Shiksa (Girlfriend)"