Wildside

Fat Freddy wrote:

That Child's Play track was pretty badass, Toho. Don't think I ever heard that band before, I was vaguely aware of 'em back in the day but there were too damn many hair bands out there to keep up with every one of 'em

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Tuff, Pretty Boy Floyd, Vain, Love/Hate, Romeo's Daughter, Mammoth, Thunder, Witch, Sea Hags, Salty Dog, Jetboy, the Bang Gang, and Junkyard

Love me some Love/Hate and Jetboy, but can take or leave most of the others you mentioned.

Bang Gang, Thunder and Junkyard were OK, but the Sea Hags were fuggin' god-awful.

I was at the Sea Hags' big-deal New York City area debut show at L'amour in Brooklyn and we walked out on 'em after about three songs. They were all strung out and it showed, badly... they could barely stand up and it sounded like each guy was playing a different song. Babylon A.D. opened that gig, and they ate the Hags for lunch.

Dosen't surprise me to hear that about Sea Hags given that their bass player died of an overdose, some bands just sound a lot better in the studio then they do live.

The "Black Out In The Red Room" album is gettin' a reissue. I need to get my hands on that one.

tohostudios wrote:

PM me your address if you want a copy.  Based on the scant liner notes these tracks were recorded between January and May of 1992 after the band came off the road supporting Skynyrd.

The notes for the "XXX" album add this:
 

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While we were busy the world shifted.  Grunge hit and the (third) record never came out until now

PM has been sent.

BTW just got really lucky with "Long Way", I managed to get a CD-R of it via Ioffer for just slightly over 20 bucks.

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Dosen't surprise me to hear that about Sea Hags given that their bass player died of an overdose

Oh yeah, you could practically smell the heroin comin' off of those MF'ers from the stage.

First band to record at 5150 studios! Good stuff, bought a used cassette when I was a kid, wore it down pretty thin.

tohostudios wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I've heard the name but that's about it.

By the time they came along the hair metal ship had already left port...they got lumped in with all the other bands who showed up too late to the party, i.e. Kik Tracee, Southgang, Sweet F.A., etc.

Man those are some good bands in that list.  I'd add Child's Play too.



As far as Wildside goes, I sort of agree with MG.  After all the hype I'd heard about the band, when I finally heard some I was like "Meh, they sound like a ton of other bands that came out around the same time".

Now you're talkin Toho. Love that Child's Play album!

Since the album is so hard to find, if anyone wants mp3s of Long Way by Child's Play just PM me.



I also have two Child's Play live shows that were recorded for FM broadcasts: Live on Z-Rock (21 March 1991) and Live at Hammerjack's (Baltimore, 18 May 1991).

Unfortunately the sound quality is not great on either of them. The Hammerjack's show is a bit better than the Z-Rock show. That said, I'm happy to share them with any completists out there.

Vexer6 wrote:

Speaking of Child's Play, would anyone happen to have their 1993 album "Long Way"?  That thing is like crazy rare(its selling for around 200 dollars on Musicstack right now) and i'm not willing to pay an arm and a leg for it, i'll happily settle for a CD-R.

I have the MP3s if you're interested I can upload them.

I love Wildside, great debut album. I've been searching for the vinyl for a while, its number one on my wantlist.

There is alot of good stuff that got released when the grunge wave hit, lots of crap but lots of great stuff that hit at the wrong time.

To be fair, almost none of these bands would've been much more successful, even if they had come out during the peak years (more successful than they were in 1992, sure, but none of these guys were going Poison or Crue big). There were just too many bands.

But, that doesn't mean they didn't rule. I dig on most of the bands mentioned in this thread.

I think the Sea Hags were pretty cool. They had a different sound and vibe than most of their contemporaries. It's weird how Seattle had this whole little world of music, and a lot of it sounded a lot different than the similarly styled bands in each genre. SH and Vain both definitely sounded a lot different than the other glammy pop metal bands.

And I brought it up before, but: Noize Toys.

They are so unknown here in europe but even back then the album as used version got sold for high prices and i thought i was a sucker to pay 35€ for a used copy. Nowadays i see the album go for 80 to 120€ here in germany and i'm really happy
The album is great, i really like it and so does everybody else i played it to or made aware of it. I also know of all the other late bands here, i really like all the glam and sleaze stuff and despise grunge beacause the world is bad enough so why should my music be bad? I rather party all the time (bad pun i know)
Crashdiet has a interesting history, i never knew about the hold up in canada, i never even knew they existed until about 5 years ago. But i really love the Under the Influence album and their version of Crash Diet (ddn't they get sued because it was originally a Guns n' Roses song bug because of the original players and one of them being in Wildside it got thrown out?)

Sven Gali is another band that switched styles pretty drastically between their debut and their second album. I think their attempt at a grunge album is slightly more convincing (and interesting) musically than Wildside:


1992:



1995:

In my opinion, the KINGS of changing up their style is Shotgun Messiah.  They went from a hair metal band to trying to be the next Nine Inch Nails in one album.  I like both styles but I find the contrast really stark. 

1991:


1993:

I forgot about that Shotgun Messiah album. I never listened to Violent New Breed beyond the first 30 seconds because of the change in sound. Actually, I had to check that I had the right band when I put it on a few years ago. But this thread has me interested in how some of these bands tried to adapt in the 90s.

I really like Violent New Breed; it was my introduction to the world of industrial metal.  From there I explored Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, etc.  But it's definitely completely different from what Shotgun Messiah had been doing before.  Tim Skold went on to actually be in KMFDM and Marilyn Manson for a time as well as releasing a solo industrial album under his own name.

Dangerous Toys tried the ol changing of the times on their 4th album. It was a turd to put it nicely.

ShadowAngel wrote:

But i really love the Under the Influence album and their version of Crash Diet (ddn't they get sued because it was originally a Guns n' Roses song bug because of the original players and one of them being in Wildside it got thrown out?)

I never heard that anyone was sued. The story that I've heard (back before the internet) was the song was either partially or entirely written by frequent collaborator and friend of the band Wes Arkeen. When GnR didn't use it, he shopped it around to anyone that would record it. The band Asphalt Ballet also recorded a version of it for their album Pigs...

MetalGuy71 wrote:

ShadowAngel wrote:

But i really love the Under the Influence album and their version of Crash Diet (ddn't they get sued because it was originally a Guns n' Roses song bug because of the original players and one of them being in Wildside it got thrown out?)

I never heard that anyone was sued. The story that I've heard (back before the internet) was the song was either partially or entirely written by frequent collaborator and friend of the band Wes Arkeen. When GnR didn't use it, he shopped it around to anyone that would record it. The band Asphalt Ballet also recorded a version of it for their album Pigs...

That's my understanding as well. Wildside certainly had no qualms about playing that song live either.

I was looking at Child's Play's page on discogs after reading hear about that second album that I never knew existed. It looks like they also had a 1986 EP called Ruff House. It's a little more '86 sounding than Rat Race. Heh. Good stuff.

tohostudios wrote:

I really like Violent New Breed; it was my introduction to the world of industrial metal.  From there I explored Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, etc.  But it's definitely completely different from what Shotgun Messiah had been doing before.  Tim Skold went on to actually be in KMFDM and Marilyn Manson for a time as well as releasing a solo industrial album under his own name.

V.N.B. was the first Shotgun Messiah album I heard -- I picked it up (on cassette) out of a cut-out bin on a whim sometime in the mid 90s. I was not big on NIN, Ministry, etc, but for some reason VNB clicked with me bigtime on the first listen. That damn album was a b*tch to find on CD too when I wanted to upgrade; I guess cuz it only sold about twelve copies total, CDs were hard to come by, but I finally landed one.

I didn't hear Shotgun Messiah's other two albums till quite a few years after that. So I guess I kinda got into them backwards.

Part 5 of the band's history is finally up on the band's Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/WildSide.OFFICIAL