What? You didn’t expect hair metal in this blog series? I was an eighties teenager, for Christ sake, how could hair metal not be part of this? We were hair metal! If anything, this is far too late in coming and believe me, there will be more.
This is one of those bands that simply oozes hair metal. From the gaudy outfits to the corny band name to, yes, the magnificent hair, you won’t find many bands more hair metal than this one. And I was infatuated with this song in the summer of 1988.
Perhaps it was the pseudo-mimicking of AC/DC vocals (certainly not dress) that drew me to them, I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I thought this was the greatest guitar driven rock song in history and continued to feel that way for approximately the two months of continuous listening of it I did. As the summer drew to a close I had pretty much killed my enjoyment of the song through overindulgence, and the cassette tape remains tucked away in a box nearly untouched since.
That summer was the last year I played softball. I was sixteen and it was pretty much a useless season of ball. My neighbour, a good friend at the time, and I somehow convinced our parents to let us drive ourselves to a tournament in Whitby, some three hours drive from our home. I think it says a lot as to the pointlessness of that final softball season that none of our supportive parents had any desire whatsoever to experience this tournament with us. Considering my utter absence of memory for the actual tournament I suspect they harbor zero regret for their decision.
What I do remember, however, is cruising down the 401, further east than I’d ever been in my life to that point, windows rolled down on my buddy’s ugly beyond sin mid-80s Charger (or Duster, I can’t remember which) and this song cranked on the aftermarket cassette deck. If only we’d had suitable hair blowing in the wind. I know nothing more about what happened that weekend, but it was the highpoint for this song in my life. For one weekend, it was the perfect road tune.
In honour of those long lost, hair metal loving days your weekend is now kicked off with “Gypsy Road” by Cinderella from the 1988 album Long Cold Winter.
Official Video:
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