manicego

Before I even got halfway down the pictures I said, "I'll bet that's a prison" - wow, whatta guess.

Whoa, hold up. I want one of them there USED dildos for, ummmm Nevermind!

>> have to keep rubbing it out to start again << Nice choice of words ...!!

Amy Arena - s/t Quite possibly the worst album ever recorded and actually released by a legitimate record company.

>> The guy in the background just off her right shoulder looks like he wants to kick her ass about 3/4 of the way through the clip. << LOL I noticed that too. He has that priceless "what the fuuuuuuuck?!?!?!!" look on his face

I found this on, believe it or not, a music industry message board - and not as spam! I had never even heard of a "Google Gadget" before so when I clicked on this I had no idea what I was doing! Yeah, I'll just go with that excuse ...

Steel Panther's 'Feel The Steel' What's the concept?? Filth. Pure, unadulterated filth

>> Before I left for the ZO2 concert yesterday, I put on my ZO2 t-shirt. My wife's friend started laughing saying "YOUR THAT GUY, YOUR THAT GUY!!!". I quickly thought I was on a milk carton or something. My wife's friend is about 23 years old and she claims that you never wear a band t-shirt that your goin' to see. Is this true? or is this some youngster bullshit that makes me feel like i'm from mars. Hanging out with the boys last night, they didn't seem to mind that I wore their T. Anybody else feel the same way? << I'm thinking this is somewhat recent. I've read stuff like this ovr the past few years. I remember in my high school you weren't "supposed" to wear the shirt of the band you went to see the night before to school. Wait, did that make sense???

Oh, my God ... that's umm, yeah! At least she was easy to look at

Happy Birthday dude!

The London show at the Electric Ballroom sold out in an hour and a half and will be upgraded to Shepherd's Bush Empire. All of the shows are being upgraded to larger rooms, actually.

>> Rubbing elbows is the correct phrase and hell nothing wrong with dropping names, looks and sounds like you have had an interesting life, so far and beleive me these stories are the best and you aren't the only one telling them, seems every entertainer I meet has a fist full of, "Oh one time I was here and was drinking with so and so..." stories and I eat them up like candy. As always thanks Dave for the breif, yet entertaining insights into your past. << haha Thanks. I dunno, I try to shy away from a lot of that stuff because it's easy to go overboard with it. And I had an assistant back in the early 90's who told her friend that "yep, Dave loves telling us stuff that HE gets to do but not us." and that kinda sucked, even though she was just picking on me. It was hard not to, though because back then I was literally somewhere nearly every single night of the week for years. There was usually free food involved so I managed to get myself invited somehow or other! It WAS pretty damn cool being moved to the front of lines and going in through "secret doors" because the owner of so and so knew who you were. And there's at least one other person who lurks on here that has as many, if not more, stories as I do. At least I think he still lurks here ... >> Annnnnddddd: I did not think the record was that bad, I think Wes sent it to me??? I have heard a hell of lot worse, of course as Geoff stated, I've heard a million times better, but like Dave says, someone at Geffen dug them and gave em a deal, who knows could have been a write off... << Ya know, I remember thinking the first half of the album was really, really good but that the second half of it was "too out there." I thought "Perfect Absolution" and "Everytime I See Your Picture" were fantastic and and could have been "hits" to some degree but again, that's pretty hard when your own label won't give you a publishing deal. I remember someone on a message board (maybe here??) saying that they ruined "Everytime ..." because of the way Steve sang but I dunno. I thought his strained and "tortured soul" vocal style fit the song - and lyrics, especially - perfectly. And then there was the song that even people at Geffen called "The Elmer Fudd Song" ... The musicianship was stellar and I thought Godfrey Diamond did an amazing job of blending voices for the backing vocal parts. As for being a write off, I don't know - Vicky seemed to really love what she heard, even went so far as to co-write one or two of the songs with Steve. And, according to Tom Zutaut, "there are no write offs, just bands we don't dedicate as much attention to."

Missed this, sorry .. >> Man, I love that shit. Thanks for the info mate. Just out of curiosity, did that Steve fella always sing like that, or did he have a better singing voice in there somewhere? << Yeah, he pretty much did ... certainly wasn't up for any "Vocalist Of The Year" awards. He was actually a drummer and was in the metal band Witchkiller who were signed to Metal Blade in the early / mid 80's.

>> Agreed Geoff, I could read stuff like that all day long and I've told Dave on more thanone occasion to right a book. Let's hope he does I am sure the stories in Dave's memroy banks are quite entertaining. << Ha, ya never know what may happen in the future - but there's a lot of stuff that I'd probably get myself killed over telling LOL Not patting myself on the back or anything but I did get to "rub elbows" (is that the phrase?!??!) with some pretty important (on one level or another) people back in the 80's and 90's. I got to hang out with Dick fuckin Clark one day for an hour or so, even, in Geffen's lobby, while he told me - and 2 or 3 other people - hilarious stories of the early days of American Bandstand. It just doesn't get much better than that. Even though I was never an actual employee at the label, Geffen was verrrry good to meeeee. I even got into a "fight" with Vanilla Ice at an EMI Records party while the members of a band called Sugar cheered me on LOL Got to lock Dana Strum out of his own studio and delay the recording of a Slaughter album ... good stuff.

>> Apparently "Letter From Death Row" videos have become pricey collectibles! Check out the prices for VHS copies!! << $649?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Holy f@#$ ... I think maybe I'll take a little trip up the road and see if Bret and Kristi have any sitting around thatI can scrounge off of them ...

>> It's truly amazing to me to see the calibre of some of the bands that never got signed, and these guys were signed to a major label. I don't know if Geffen offered them a $100 deal or something and they just took it or what? I am seriously all out of ideas how these guys got signed over so many other bands back in the day. << Well, I handled them and they were friends of mine who I took on because ... well, just because. Steve Napoleon (aka Steve Batky) was the one with the deal and the other guys were brought in after the fact. And then OTHER guys were brought in after they left / were let go. Vicky Hamilton (google her if the name isn't familiar) heard Steve's demos and freaked out over them, simple as that. She took him to Ed Rosenblatt, the then head of Geffen (and a very nice guy) who basically said, "You're Vicky Hamilton, if you wanna sign it, then sign it" so she did. As it came time to do the album, someone on Geffen's roster started to break a little - can't remember who, Jackyl maybe?? - and the label showed no more interest whatsoever in I, Napoleon. David Geffen took the band to his friend Sandy Galin for me ( I basically begged him) and Sandy did a mgmt deal with the band. Then did nothing. Sandy's company at that time was the biggest mgmt company on Earth and he was David Geffen's "friend" so we thought something might come of it. But the album was too weird for the hard rock crowd and not weird enough for the alternative crowd and only really had one marketable song ("Perfect Absolution") so it was pretty much left to me to get all their press - and I got them a pretty fair amount of that actually (although not all of it was good, mind you) - and whatever else I could do. I got them on The Rick Dees Show (Rick Dees was managed by ... Sandy Gallin!). They were good on the show but the interview was a disaster, as Rick reacted to the band as if they were Poison or someone and asked them ALLLL the wrong type of questions (questions about chicks, drinking, partying) so the guys were kinda thrown as that wasn't what they were about AT ALL. We did two showcases for agencies at the China Club but noone signed them. Bang Tango kept telling them they'd take them out but never did. Not too long after that I just had to own up to the fact that nothing was going to happen and I left on good terms but they were dropped right afterward anyway. They didn't even have a publishing deal so radio or MTV was totally out of the question. The vision Steve had for it was fantastic, almost Queen like in presentation, but, yeah, it fell WAY short of the mark. And there ya have it.

>> Must be an urban legend on the additional recordings. << Oh, yeah, definitely - unless Steve did something on his own and after I left them. Unfortunately there was absolutely no demand for a new record from Geffen. Kinda funny (and very telling of what I said upthread about the label doing zip for the band) - a former Geffen publicist (and then A&R - she signed Thunder) is a friend on Facebook and someone put an I,Napoleon "video" up on You Tube so I put it on her page for a bit of a laugh. The joke was on me, though as she said, "I had no idea who these guys were, I had to actually look them up! We signed them?!??!" Ooooopsie

Great show and the season is starting out great. Steel Panther on screen and Evick getting a namecheck a few weeks back

>> What about the supposed demos for a 2nd album? Know anything about this? << I don't remember anything about that. The album bombed horribly as there was really ZERO support from Geffen for it (and when I say ZERO, I mean it, all they did was release the album). I last saw Steve back in the mid 90's when I ran into him on the street in Hollywood. He had a very successful jewelry company and was much happier in life.

>> Well that's not what's being reported over here. Apparently all of the bookings were made without his knowledge, which is why he was so late in rehearsing for the gigs. When he found out he suddenly became very anxious. Frankly anyone who has children (even though they're clearly not his) and takes such a cocktail of prescription drugs is just irresponsible - and has probably ruined their chances of any form of normal upbringing. << Haven't been able to find the documents I read online (were probably pulled) but apparently Rolling Stone will have a story in their next issue about Michael actually making he call on doing 50 shows himself because he wanted to break Prince's record of 21 consecutive shows.

>> did I, Napoleon ever make any music videos? << Nope

Not sure if this is the thread where I mentioned the band touring the UK, but, here are the dates anyway: Sunday 13 September – Birmingham Academy 2 Monday 14 September – Manchester Club Academy Tuesday 15 September – Glasgow G2 Wednesday 16 September – London Electric Ballroom

>> power metal... Michael Kiske is on it and so is that Luppi guy.. << Hmm, okay, good - was thinking it might be something much different ... who else is in this band?

>> Ive worked out i downloaded half of the new Trick or Treat album.. << Uhhhhh, the new what?????????

>> The theory over here is that he O.D'd himself as the rehearsals were going so badly and he was so nervous about the shows. It's also widely agreed that he thought he was only doing 10 shows and didn't realise how many there actually were. << Wouldn't consider myself a "fanboy" (although the guy WAS hugely talented) but both of these are wrong. There's footage of him from the rehearsals the night before that apparently show him in "fine form" and "kicking ass." As for the number of shows, he definitely knew it was 50 and not 10. During the show (2 hours, I think) he was only scheduled to be onstage for about 45 - 50 mins, though. Someone had sent out the show's schedule of events and it was more or less a "through the years" type of event / tribute to himself.