Damn you, VH-1’s “Behind The Music”. Not only do you get me
\nhooked into watching shows about artists I’m not particularly
\ninterested in, but you actually make me want to dig through the
\nPierce Memorial Archives and re-listen to some of this stuff! (It’s
\ntimes like this I fall down on my knees and thank Jah that I don’t
\nown a single Tony Orlando album.)<\/p>\n
The latest frenzy I’ve been sent into was thanks to their show
\non the glam-rock band Poison – a band who I did listen to in spurts
\nduring their glory days. But when the bug bit me, could I have gone
\nthe easy way and picked
\nFlesh And Blood<\/i> to review? Could I have gone the daring way
\nand picked
\nNative Tongue<\/i> – a disc I thought was terribly underrated at
\nthe time? Hell, no, I went and dug out the two-disc monstrosity
\nSwallow This Live<\/i>, an album that highlights both the good
\nand the atrocious about this group.<\/p>\n
As a live album, it’s passable, and is typical of what the metal
\nscene had degenerated into around that time. There are times that I
\nthought the crowd noise might have been boosted up in the mixing
\nprocess, and there were times I thought that the crowd wasn’t
\nreactive enough. Musically, Bret Michaels and crew don’t really
\nimpress in general with their live show, failing to kick new life
\ninto such bland songs as “Look What The Cat Dragged In,” “Look But
\nYou Can’t Touch” and “I Want Action”.<\/p>\n
Two things save the day. The first is the guitar solo from C.C.
\nDeVille – who proves that his guitar was no prop… the sonofabitch
\ncan really play that thing well! While the disc proved to be
\nDeVille’s swansong with the group (and, looking back, it does sound
\nlike the band isn’t quite firing on all cylinders in general), it
\nmakes me look at his talents in a more respectful light.<\/p>\n
The second thing is the inclusion of material from
\nFlesh And Blood<\/i>. Sure, “Ride The Wind” isn’t done up to the
\nnines, but “Something To Believe In” really gets the crowd – and
\nthe listener – into the show. The raucous take on “Unskinny Bop”
\nseems to be appropriate for both the song and the mood of the
\nshow.<\/p>\n
Yet something about
\nSwallow This Live<\/i> just doesn’t sound right to me – and I
\nhear it on songs like “Fallen Angel” and “Talk Dirty To Me”.
\nSpecifically, the backing vocals sound exactly – and I mean,
\ndead-on – like the studio versions. I don’t want to point any
\nfingers, but it just strikes me as odd. And I’m sorry, but I’ve
\nnever liked Poison’s rendition of Loggins & Messina’s “Your
\nMama Don’t Dance” – just let it die, guys.<\/p>\n
The four studio tracks that round out
\nSwallow This Live<\/i> sound like tracks from the
\nFlesh And Blood<\/i> sessions, all of which prove themselves
\nworthy of your time and effort. (I would, though, debate calling
\n“No More Lookin’ Back” as “Poison Jazz”. Cripes, it’s cut from the
\nsame mold as “So Tell Me Why,” “Souls On Fire” and “Only Time Will
\nTell”. Don’t make something out to be what it’s not.)<\/p>\n
The one negative about
\nSwallow This Live<\/i> is that its excitement and overall
\nimportance just haven’t held up well since it was released in 1991.
\nIt’s not the best example of a live album you could pick up, and it
\nseemed odd at the time that the band’s fourth album overall would
\nbe a live disc.<\/p>\n
I guess that
\nSwallow This Live<\/i> could still have some importance to some
\npeople out there – if you can still find this one, that is. For the
\nrest of us, me may just as well live with the “greatest hits”
\ndisc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6053],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-36389","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-poison","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36389"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36389"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}