Remember the 1980s when all the guys wanted to be cool and all the girls wanted to be hot? Remember the heavy metal and big hair bands of that era? Nothin’ But a Good Time captures the craziness and weirdness of that decade with over a hundred interviews with band members, agents, record executives, promoters, producers, engineers, publicists, stylists, costume designers, photographers, journalists, magazine publishers, video directors, club bookers, roadies, groupies, and assorted hangers-on.
Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock present the changing world of rock music at the beginning of the 1980s with groups like Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, Guns N’ Roses, and Van Halen. It was a time that excess led to success with huge arena concerts.
The effect of MTV on the industry was massive. Every group had to issue videos of their songs to get airplay. Touring increased. And as the decade ended, so did the popularity for this kind of music. Grunge Rock was on the horizon and many of these groups crashed and burned. Record companies wanted the next New Thing.
My favorite chapter in Nothin’ But a Good Time was Chapter 50: “Send the Check for the Nelsons–They’re Ready.” I knew Gunnar Nelson and Matthew Nelson were sons of Ricky Nelson, who died in 1985. But, I did NOT know how dire their predicament was: “Our father died when we were 18 years old. It was devastating. He was our best friend and our mom was a horrible excuse for a mother. She basically shot us out into the world. So when he died, it was literally like the rug was pulled out from under us, and we spent a year of our lives spending money we didn’t have, impressing people that didn’t matter, and just trying to medicate over our grief. We were sleeping on friends’ couches and living out of the trunk of a beat-up car.” (p. 357)
What music were you listening to in the 1980s? Were you a fan of heavy metal music? Did you have a favorite Eighties group? GRADE: A
Table of Contents:
Foreward by Corey Taylor — xi
Cast of Characters — xiii
Introduction — 1
PART I: EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!
CHAPTER 1: “The Pussy-Plucking-Posse Pocket of Hollywood” — 7
CHAPTER 2: “Dinosaur Music” — 15
CHAPTER 3: Interview: Michael Anthony of Van Halen — 20
CHAPTER 4: “Just Because Someone Says You Suck Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Suck” — 24
CHAPTER 5: “Rhymes with Rockin’ ” — 33
CHAPTER 6: “Blue-Black Hair and High Heels” — 42
CHAPTER 7: “Ratt ‘N’ Roll” — 52
CHAPTER 8: “Don’t Just Tackle the Quarterback—Break His Arms and Legs, Too” — 58
CHAPTER 9: “The Yellow and Black Attack” — 68
CHAPTER 10: “It’s Male Dominating. Macho-ism or Whatever” — 73
CHAPTER 11: “We Prayed in the Limo, Sure” — 83
CHAPTER 12: “We Know What We’re Doing, Fuck You!” — 88
CHAPTER 13: “Okay, Where’s the Knives?” — 91
PART II: FEEL THE NOIZE
CHAPTER 14: “Anthem Participatory Rock” — 98
CHAPTER 15: “This Is Gonna Go” — 105
CHAPTER 16: “Then I Got the Ozzy Gig…” — 113
CHAPTER 17: “When You’ve Got Nothin’, You’ve Got Nothin’ to Lose” — 117
CHAPTER 18: “I’m Not Running Any Fucking Circus!” — 124
CHAPTER 19: “You’ve Gotta Meet My Friend Axl” — 130
CHAPTER 20: “We Just Made It a Friggin’ Party” — 138
CHAPTER 21: “It’s Hard to Believe, But at that Time Jani Was Really Kind of Shy” — 144
CHAPTER 22: “Everybody Would Be Throwing Up, Passing Out, Hallucinating or Banging Outside” — 148
CHAPTER 23: “Pop Songs with Heavy Guitars” — 151
CHAPTER 24: “I Broke Nikki’s Nose. I Broke Tommy’s Nose. I Punched Poor Mick Just for the Heck of It” — 158
CHAPTER 25: “I Believe Our Bus Got Crabbed Out” — 164
CHAPTER 26: “George and Don Hated Each Other…Really Hated Each Other” — 169
CHAPTER 27: “Guns and Rose” — 177
CHAPTER 28: “For One Thing, We Never Wore Any Fucking Lipstick!” — 184
CHAPTER 29: “The Poison Thing ” — 192
PART III: KNOCK ’EM DEAD, KID
CHAPTER 30: “What? A Chick in Our Band?” — 203
CHAPTER 31: “The Girls Were Just, Like, Melting” — 208
CHAPTER 32: “People Didn’t Know Whether to Fuck Us or Fight Us” — 213
CHAPTER 33: “How Do I Get a Record Deal?” — 223
CHAPTER 34: “Our Hero is Gonna Fucking Split His Brains Open in Front of Us Right Now!” — 232
CHAPTER 35: Interview: Alan Niven, Guns N’ Roses and Great White Manager — 243
CHAPTER 36: “And We’ve Got the Pictures to Prove It” — 247
CHAPTER 37: “The Horniest Band in L.A.” — 255
CHAPTER 38: “Flyer Wars” — 263
CHAPTER 39: “If They Had Cameras Back Then That Whole Scene Would Be in Jail” — 271
CHAPTER 40: “It Felt Like Beatlemania” — 283
CHAPTER 41: “Garden State Music” — 287
CHAPTER 42: Interview – Dave “Snake” Sabo of Skid Row — 293
CHAPTER 43: “You Mean Slash Coulda Played the Chris Holmes Part?” — 297
CHAPTER 44: “We Never Even Knew We Had Money in Our Bank Accounts” — 309
PART IV: YOUTH GONE WILD
CHAPTER 45: “You Just Signed Kip Winger!” — 315
CHAPTER 46: “Michael Jackson Saw the Value in Poison” — 323
CHAPTER 47: “If You Put Tits on Him, He Could Run for Miss Texas” — 330
CHAPTER 48: “If You Look at the Clothing It’s All Pretty Outrageous, Innit?” –340
CHAPTER 49: “Saving Whales Doesn’t Sell Albums; Leather Pants Do” — 354
CHAPTER 50: “Send the Check for the Nelsons—They’re Ready” — 356
CHAPTER 51: Interview: Rick Krim, MTV Executive — 362
CHAPTER 52: “We Call Them, Uh, ‘Panty Wetters’ ” — 367
CHAPTER 53: “Fucked If I’m Gonna Do This Every Night.” –376
CHAPTER 54: “Tommy Lee Came to Our Room With a Plate. And He Had Shit on It.” — 379
CHAPTER 55: “Bon Jovi, Jr.” — 384
CHAPTER 56: “It Was Like Being on a Plane with 200 Gremlins” — 394
PART V: THE LAST MILE
CHAPTER 57: “Is It a Gun Problem or a Bat Problem?” — 405
CHAPTER 58: Interview: Steve Brown of Trixter — 411
CHAPTER 59: “The Scorpions Wanted Us Off the Tour After the First Night” — 415
CHAPTER 60: “Cherry Pie Guy” — 421
CHAPTER 61: Interview: Brian Baker of Junkyard — 427
CHAPTER 62: “What Comes Around Goes Around” — 431
CHAPTER 63: “It Was a Total Scene Out of Gunslinger or Something” — 441
CHAPTER 64: “The Girlfriends and Wives Didn’t Want Us There” — 452
CHAPTER 65: “The Party Cost a Quarter of a Million Dollars” — 457
CHAPTER 66: “It Was Like, ‘Fa-an-nu-no-nu-sh-abba-abba’ ” — 462
CHAPTER 67: “You’re Gonna Lose Half Your Audience” — 469
PART VI: SHUT UP, BEAVIS
CHAPTER 68: “38 Guns N’ Roses, 20 Ratts, 14 Warrants…” — 480
CHAPTER 69: “We Said, ‘Fuck It’ and Hung It Up” — 482
CHAPTER 70: “I Don’t Think Nirvana Ever Wanted to Kill Anyone’s Career” — 500
CHAPTER 71: “All of a Sudden You Were Radioactive” — 503
PART VII: EPILOGUE
CHAPTER 72: “This Is What We Do” — 512
Acknowledgements — 527
Notes — 529
