Artist: W.A.S.P.
Label:Snapper Music
Release Date: 4/30/02
Rating: 0 Skulls
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Title: The Sting: Live At The Key Club, L.A. (DVD) Artist: W.A.S.P. Label:Snapper Music Release Date: 4/30/02
Rating: 0 Skulls |
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Reviewed by Musashi (6/5/02):
Equinox said it best, "It's easy to write about bad bands." With that in mind, I think this might be the easiest review I will ever write. The only hard part is deciding where to begin. I think it was around 1989 when my friend Jon asked me to go to see W.A.S.P. with him. It was at the old Ritz on 54th Street where Studio 54 is now. That was a painful experience. I had heard a couple of songs of theirs but was certainly not a fan. In fact, I think my main reason for agreeing to go was to see Chris Holmes who I will always remember from "The Decline Of Western Civilization: The Metal Years." The image of Holmes in his leather gear sitting on a float in his mom's pool drinking vodka is the best. Holmes is the ultimate loser. It is easy to feel bad for the Lane Staleys and Jimi Hendrixes of this world when drugs and alcohol steal their lives because they are so talented. Holmes is not blessed with any talent nor does anyone care if his life is cut short: quite the contrary.Anyway, there I am at a W.A.S.P. concert. Man, it was bad. I don't know about you, but I was taught that spitting was a dirty habit. Holmes was spitting so much on stage he looked more like a wrestler trying to make weight than a guitar player for a rock band. The final straw was when he turned his back to the audience so that he could fake like he was playing the recorded intro to some song. I have been to very few metal concerts where guys play to tape and I just thought that was the most pathetic thing I had ever witnessed. The sooner Holmes is hit by bus, the better off the music industry will be. It's like Holmes and Mick Mars have a bet going to see who can have the longest career without learning to play the guitar. The concert would have been a total waste of time except for the fact that Axl Rose was in the audience and everyone including myself was more interested in watching him, than watching W.A.S.P.
Okay, so what is the deal with Blackie Lawless? I mean did he start painting the cleft in his chin before or after Nigel Tufnel? And what the fuck is up with those eyebrows? It's like Lawless and Holmes are in an ugly contest (tied for first place). Fat guys in leather and makeup is a crime. They are too ugly to be glam and too femme to be tough. W.A.S.P. look stupid and out of date.
So here I am watching a W.A.S.P. concert on DVD. The quality of this DVD is poor. The camerawork and lighting is amateurish. The twelve songs are performed poorly by everyone involved. The mix is weak. The guitar playing is pitiful. Holmes butchers every solo. It would have sounded better had he given his guitar to his roadie or anybody in the audience or just put it back in the case and went home. There are mistakes-a-plenty. I mean how many years do they have to play a song before they can do it right? Most of the songs date back to 1984 and 1985. It seems quite obvious to me that this band was better off left for dead back in 1986. Apart from getting flabbier, the band has not grown in seventeen years. Why bother at all? Even the audience knows it sucks.
The only moment of interest for me was when Blackie credited Sam Kinison with inspiring him to write "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast!)." I was and will always be a huge Sam Kinison fan. Of course, that touching moment was shattered when Blackie asked, "I only got one question for ya. Anybody come here tonight looking for a little bit of pussy?!?! Anybody here fuck like a beast?!?!" First of all, that's two questions, Blackie! Second, who the hell would go to a W.A.S.P. show in L.A. in 2001 looking for pussy? I can't imagine the skanky whores that would actually go to that show looking to fuck your dumb ass. If your idea of cruising for pussy these days is going to a W.A.S.P. show, then you don't deserve to get laid. You should punch yourself in the nuts ten times just for being so stupid.
The not-so-special features include a photo gallery which is just a bunch of lame stills of the concert I just watched. There is a heart-warming essay about W.A.S.P. written by Dante Bonutto in which he credits them with revolutionizing music as we know it. There is a discography which has pictures of W.A.S.P.'s fourteen albums and track lists. It is there that I learned that five of their albums are greatest hits, live albums or essentially remixes of the first two or three albums. They have a list of their websites which is good because typing W.A.S.P. into google doesn't help too much. Unfortunately, there is no director's commentary or interview with Lawless and Holmes. I would really like to hear the two of them discuss how they fucked up this or that part in a song and then suddenly realize that neither one of them knows what chord they are supposed to be playing.
This is a fucking lame DVD. If you buy this DVD, you are using up valuable oxygen and other natural resources and should be put down like a rabid dog: go cut your mullet! Two word review: it sucks!
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