The Merits of Kissin' Dynamite

Those of you that have been paying attention will know that I have relatively broad tastes in heavy music. I'm not one of those who believes that a single sub-genre from a particular 3 year period is the sole defining element to good metal. I remember a time when there was no metal, period, and I've enjoyed watching the evolutionary development and ever-broadening of the metal umbrella. Even with that in mind, though, there are some areas of more commercially "polished" metal that lead to a little guilty pleasure for me. I was going to G.I.T. in Hollywood right in the middle of the hair metal boom and MTV's rotation of bands like Ratt, Van Halen and Poison. I recognize that era eventually reached levels of excess that burned it down and opened the door for grunge. No arguments there.

With that background, you can understand the twinge I got when I saw a promo picture for Kissin' Dynamite. Like some strange convergence of the classic Judas Priest leather and mainstream hair metal excess with an unexpected infusion from Flock of Seagulls, clearly these guys were not in any of the goth, symphonic, thrash, death or black metal camps. Fortunately, my first exposure didn't involve any promo shots, just MP3 audio plus the album front cover and all it took was a minute or so of "Money, Sex & Power" to get my attention.

Yes, there's a dose of good ol' 80s hair/glam metal. But somehow Kissin' Dynamite has straddled the line between the Scorpions/Judas Priest branch of straight ahead, upbeat, melodic metal and riff-based, tongue-in-cheek glam metal seasoning. Powered by a wall of Germanic guitars, and straight-ahead bass and drums, Kissin' Dynamite immediately made me feel at home. Hannes' vocals often make me think back to Axl's work in the class Guns N' Roses material, but that's more about the timbre and edginess; his melodic lines fit more closely in The Scorpions and Accept camp.

I recommend listening to their latest release, "Money, Sex & Power" from top to bottom. If you need an entry point, "Club 27" is a great song to whet your appetite. If you are a big fan of a little fun in your metal, how can you not like a band that writes songs like "Dinosaurs Are Still Alive"? And just when you think you've got the band figured out, they hit you with the closing song on the album, "Six Feet Under", revealing both a lyrical cleverness and musical breadth that's surprising. I'm sitting here right now listening to the album, and I just can't keep that stupid smile off of my face. Good stuff!

Codename "Tribute" - The Motivation (part 1)

At this point in 2012, the band has been called Danger, Ltd. for longer than it carried the "Tribute" codename. Even so, there was quite a long period where we simply referred to it as "Tribute". That codename was a direct reflection of the band's mission, which grew and evolved over quite a few years before a single note was played.

For many years, covering almost the entire span of my collaboration with Steve Rosenthal, we often found ourselves discussing the difference between the typical cover song performance and the real works of art. I think that our first example of masterful cover versions was Van Halen. There was something special about the way they covered a song with such conviction. They infused cover songs with so much of the Van Halen flavor that they really feel like they belong right next to their original songs. We also rambled on about Nazareth's cover of "Love Hurts", Cheap Trick's version of "Ain't That A Shame" and The Lemonhead's treatment of "Mrs. Robinson". We've all been to parties where there's a cover band; they play for hours and every song sounds like a weak knockoff of the original, without any real life or special treatment. Steve and I were always fascinated by the bands that could grab a cover song by the throat and take full control of it, making it their own song in the process.

Sometime in the 2000s, my friend Steve Sicular and I got together to talk about guitar, amps and gear in general. We'd always said, "We should play together sometime." We spent quite awhile in that mode. At one point considered starting a software venture related to music publicity but that never quite gained solid traction.

Meanwhile I'd bounced around a bit between software development jobs, eventually finding a position at Apple, working closely with my friend, Mike Hay. Though we regularly talked "tech" over lunch or coffee, the conversations often meandered until they landed on the idea of a concept band. Initially, I was interested in a band that covers relatively unknown but great songs, sort of acting as a "tribute" to great songwriting, with a nod toward under appreciated composers and performers. I don't really remember how we transitioned from talk to action but, at some point, the two Steves, Mike and I ended up getting together in my Redwood City studio, polishing up the "Tribute" idea.

Pretty quickly, it was clear that I was in the minority on the under appreciated artists concept. The overall consensus was leaning toward picking reasonably well known songs, so that listeners would have some familiarity with the material. We put together a Wiki as a place to collect song ideas and developed a points scheme that allowed us to all vote for the songs, with point totals clearly distinguishing the ones that stood out from the rest. I'm pretty sure we had almost 100 songs nominated, maybe 20 that got voted up and when it was all said and done, 9 songs made it to the album.

In my next blog posting I will talk about how we went from a list of 9 songs to a finished album release. While you're waiting, how about sharing your thoughts on some great (and interesting) cover versions of songs...