Monkey Business

Dear James,

What's this funk,
That you call junk?
To me it's just monkey business.

Back in the summer of 92, the cool metal kids who wouldn't let me join their gang were listening to something heavy which I didn't recognise. This came as a shock. I'd spent the previous two years watching my Raw Power videos over and over again to become the ultimate metal geek.
"Who is this?" I cried over the wanky guitar solo.
"Skid Row", said one of the metal boys.
"Damn!" I thought.

You see, Skid Row didn't used to be like this. They used to be hair metal and sing songs about Ricky, the lost kid acting tough on the streets. My friend Gary who listened to Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, listened to them, which made them officially crap and for girls only. Then Sebastian Bach (real name Sebastian Berk) got into Pantera and they went heavy. It was OK to like them, even though Sebastian Bach had luscious long hair and looked like a girl.

We'll have more on Sebastian Berk later, as his Wikipedia page is ripe for piss-taking, but for now I'll tell you about my bass guitar idol between the summer of 92 and the autumn of 92, Rachel Bolan (real name James Southworth), who wrote this song with Dave "The Snake" Sabo (real name David "Michael" Sabo). The thing I idolised most in MRs. Bolan was his nose chain, which went all the way from his nose piercing to his pierced ear (see here). I tried to pull off the look myself, but those chains are really heavy. Plus, you can get away with that look in certain circles in Los Angeles, but you go out with that in in your nose in Stockport on a Friday night and there's no way you go home with it.

Monkey Business has some of the best rock lyrics ever, such as "Kangeroo lady with her bourbon in her pouch, can't afford the rental on her bamboo couch". Eh? Who rents a bamboo sofa? "Little kiddies playing dollies in the New York rain, thinking Bowie's just a knife". That one had me when I was 16. What's a Bowie knife? how could anyone not have heard of David Bowie? The song also includes two of my favourite rock guitar moments: At 0:59 ("widdly widdly phrooom!") and at 2:01 ("phroom -kjnk, kjnk, kjnk!").

But Monkey Business wasn't the song the cool boys were listening to. No, I got into Skid Row for the same reason I got into Guns N Roses through "It's So Easy": They said "fuck" in a song. In fact, in "Get The Fuck Out", they said it loads. It was great.

All the Young Dudes / Heroes

Dear James,

I always thought those screechy-scratchy guitars in Fashion were courtesy of Mick Ronson. This is the part of the Freddie Mercury tribute concert I told you about, where from my 15-year old point of view, lots of people I'd never heard of came on stage and played lots of songs I'd never heard of. When I told this to my girlfriend at the time, she retorted "What? Queen?" That relationship didn´t last long, though principally because I put a wet floor cloth on her head while she was trying to fix a leaking washing machine. That was probably my fault, though I would argue that she had no sense of humour.

It was said after the concert that this was the best part of the night, although if you consider that the same night included Paul Young singing Radio Gaga and Lisa Stansfield gurning all over I Want to Break Free, that's not saying much. I was going to write that within a year of this performance, both Ronson and Ian Hunter were dead, but it turns out Mr. Hunter is still very much alive, and in 2001 toured the US with Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band.

And here's some things I never knew about Mick Ronson:
1. He was from Hull and had a posthumous solo album called, wait for it, "Heaven and Hull".
2. When they came to look for Mick Ronson to get him to join David Bowie's band, he'd given up on London and was busy marking out a rugby pitch.
3. Ronson co-produced Lou Reed´s "Transformer" album with Bowie, and played piano on "Perfect Day".
4. He was also partly responsible for Lulu's cover of "The Man Who Sold The World." To think, I once bought a Lulu album based on that cover.
5. The last song Ronson ever played guitar on (the solo) was The Wildhearts' "My Baby is a Headfuck".

And speaking of all this guitar business, which I wasn´t really but it´ll do, I was walking home today when I saw this beauty in a music shop window. Do you know if they're any good?