Published on Dec 5, 1999
Damn you, VH-1’s “Behind The Music”. Not only do you get me
hooked into watching shows about artists I’m not particularly
interested in, but you actually make me want to dig through the
Pierce Memorial Archives and re-listen to some of this stuff! (It’s
times like this I fall down on my knees and thank Jah that I don’t
own a single Tony Orlando album.)
The latest frenzy I’ve been sent into was thanks to their show
on the glam-rock band Poison – a band who I did listen to in spurts
during their glory days. But when the bug bit me, could I have gone
the easy way and picked
Flesh And Blood to review? Could I have gone the daring way
and picked
Native Tongue – a disc I thought was terribly underrated at
the time? Hell, no, I went and dug out the two-disc monstrosity
Swallow This Live, an album that highlights both the good
and the atrocious about this group.
As a live album, it’s passable, and is typical of what the metal
scene had degenerated into around that time. There are times that I
thought the crowd noise might have been boosted up in the mixing
process, and there were times I thought that the crowd wasn’t
reactive enough. Musically, Bret Michaels and crew don’t really
impress in general with their live show, failing to kick new life
into such bland songs as “Look What The Cat Dragged In,” “Look But
You Can’t Touch” and “I Want Action”.
Two things save the day. The first is the guitar solo from C.C.
DeVille – who proves that his guitar was no prop… the sonofabitch
can really play that thing well! While the disc proved to be
DeVille’s swansong with the group (and, looking back, it does sound
like the band isn’t quite firing on all cylinders in general), it
makes me look at his talents in a more respectful light.
The second thing is the inclusion of material from
Flesh And Blood. Sure, “Ride The Wind” isn’t done up to the
nines, but “Something To Believe In” really gets the crowd – and
the listener – into the show. The raucous take on “Unskinny Bop”
seems to be appropriate for both the song and the mood of the
show.
Yet something about
Swallow This Live just doesn’t sound right to me – and I
hear it on songs like “Fallen Angel” and “Talk Dirty To Me”.
Specifically, the backing vocals sound exactly – and I mean,
dead-on – like the studio versions. I don’t want to point any
fingers, but it just strikes me as odd. And I’m sorry, but I’ve
never liked Poison’s rendition of Loggins & Messina’s “Your
Mama Don’t Dance” – just let it die, guys.
The four studio tracks that round out
Swallow This Live sound like tracks from the
Flesh And Blood sessions, all of which prove themselves
worthy of your time and effort. (I would, though, debate calling
“No More Lookin’ Back” as “Poison Jazz”. Cripes, it’s cut from the
same mold as “So Tell Me Why,” “Souls On Fire” and “Only Time Will
Tell”. Don’t make something out to be what it’s not.)
The one negative about
Swallow This Live is that its excitement and overall
importance just haven’t held up well since it was released in 1991.
It’s not the best example of a live album you could pick up, and it
seemed odd at the time that the band’s fourth album overall would
be a live disc.
I guess that
Swallow This Live could still have some importance to some
people out there – if you can still find this one, that is. For the
rest of us, me may just as well live with the “greatest hits”
disc.