Quiet Riot-Live At Memorial Auditorium, Burlington Iowa, 1983

Southeast Iowa wasn’t a bad place to grow up in the first half of the 1980’s. We made our own fun most of the time, were fortunate enough to live next to Missouri where fireworks were legal, and every once in a while a band would travel through and play in a 2,000 seat auditorium.
In 1983, that band was Quiet Riot. It was strange having a band that popular come through the area, but if I remember correctly, they were just a few months shy of having Metal Health hit number one.
Nonetheless, the auditorium’s limited seating made this a fairly hot ticket and the closest we could get to see the band was in the upper corner of the balcony. Not that there’s a bad seat in a 2,300 auditorium-there’s just a few that happen to be better.
The band had chosen Axe as openers, a better-than-average bar band that also happened to have a minor hit album with Offering from the year prior and who were supporting their most recent Nemesis album.
Axe played rock music, and they played it well. They were ugly looking. They didn’t have a lot of flash. But they were used to having to prove themselves every single night as the band seemed to be stuck on a never-ending road of supporting act set lists. Forty-five minutes a night with an occasional headlining gig at a nightclub.
Their set was tight and memorable. I remember thinking that their performance was much better than their album and I even toyed with the idea of getting one of their t-shirts, primarily because it said “Yo’ Mama Tour 1983” on the back. This was obviously some kind of inside joke, but it was hilarious to me.
I passed on it, thinking that maybe I’d pick up one of the headliner’s shirts when the show was over.
Quiet Riot has but one speed: irritating. And the entire 90 minute set proved to be one big rush of irritant, to the point where afterwards you actually hated the band.
Kevin DuBrow pranced around the stage in an endless parade of “Make some fucking noise!” “Come on!” “Let me see your hands” and eardrum breaking screams. He was thin, old, losing his hair, and running to both stage left and stage right in these ridiculous red tights. He accessorized his ensemble with a bunch of shit from the sales rack at JoAnn Fabric.
The drummer-Frankie Banali-sped everything up for some reason and played a stupid drum solo where at the end all the lights went out except for a lone spotlight on him. Suddenly, he looked up from the kit and he was wearing that retarded mask as seen on the cover of Metal Health.
Bassist Rudy Sarzo did that dumb thing where he played the bass over the top instead of fretting it from below. He also licked the bass neck like it was a penis.
Guitarist Carlos Carvazo played with such ear-piercing monotony, you wanted to punch him in the face. They gave the douche at least ten minutes for a solo that went nowhere, so bad that the crowd even began to grow quiet after he tried a bit of “call and response” playing for the millionth time.
But the biggest douchebag by far was DuBrow, who did every single move that you’ve seen on video already that you wonder if the guy could improvise even if he wanted to. There was the “I’m acting like I’m playing Carlos’ guitar” move. There was the “Let me spin my black and white mic stand” move. There was the “Let me act like the black and white mic stand is my penis” move.
And so on. And so on.
From that moment on, whenever Quiet Riot appeared on TV, the channel got changed. But the most telling moment was during the next summer when they had some Quiet Riot special on MTV while supporting their dismal Condition Critical album.
The one where Rolling Stone had the good sense of reviewing it with two words: “Condition terminal.”
One would think that it was just Rolling Stone being a bit of a buttplug against anything remotely metal-and it may very well could have been-but they were surprisingly spot on with that review. It featured the stupid lead single “Party All Night,” and you could actually win a chance to have Quiet Riot throw you a party at your house.
Seventeen people entered this dumb contest and a rubberneck from Kentucky won the honors.

I’m sure there were a few people that enjoyed the show, but from my vantage point, a bunch of people got Quiet Riot fatigue around the halfway point.
I got so bored that I began paying more attention to the crowd. I noticed a dude that I used to play football with in a vacant lot when I was younger standing in the aisle that led to the balcony seats. He was watching the show standing up with a stoner friend, and neither one seemed to be having much fun. This was before security guards ruined everything by telling people to “move along” or “put out that joint” and it was clear that my old acquaintance was up to no good.
His friend motioned that he wanted to leave and he began to go towards the stairway. Before he followed him, he ran up to an unsuspecting audience member in the back row of the seats in front of the doorway and took the Quiet Riot shirt that was slung over his back. He bolted before the guy had a chance to figure out what had happened, and by the time the dude weaseled his way out of his seat to investigate, the guy was long gone with a free shirt.
That’s really the best way to summarize the show: a performance so entirely mundane that the real excitement came when some dude snagged another dude’s concert tee. I left the venue with $15 more than expected (t-shirts were a lot less expensive back then-especially when you didn’t buy one), a 36 hour case of tinnitus, and a strange appreciation for the band Axe.
What I didn’t leave with was any future desire to feel the noise in any shape or form.
Fast forward to a little over ten years later when Quiet Riot called our radio station with an offer to do an interview. You read that right: our station didn’t contact anyone. The band actually picked up the phone, called us, and asked if they could stop by to do an interview.
Since the station ran spots promoting the gig, we thought it would be rude to decline the band performing at one of our paying client’s establishments.
Then the problem became “Who wanted to interview Quiet Riot?” The answer was the overnight dj who would have normally been sleeping at that time, but who generously got dressed and came back to the studio to record a quick interview with the band that would air about an hour prior to their performance at a bar on the outskirts of town (I’m not making that up, either).
Only Carlos and the band’s new bassist Kenny Hillery came by. DuBrow-they said-was in the tour bus sleeping. Carvazo tried desperately to hit on the receptionist and did not take off his sunglasses the entire time, even when we went into the dark bowels of the station’s production studios.
The overnight guy peppered the interview with Spinal Tap references, to the point where I was rolling with laughter in another studio as I eavesdropped on the interview. Carvazo was oblivious, but the bass player eventually caught on. He politely laughed it off, not taking offense even though any band with half a brain would have seen that the overnight dude was really taking a piss on his two subjects.
Finally, the interview was over and we attempted to lead them towards the front door. The two band members stopped into my office and gawked at the promo posters that covered my walls and eyeballed all of the promo items I had out for on-air giveaways.
“Oh man! Is that the new Cure album?” asked the bass player.
“Kenny likes all that alternative shit.” Advised Carlos.
“Yeah” I replied.
“Man, I love the Cure” the bassist continued, surprisingly showing that he was pretty well versed about Robert Smith’s band, stating that he had a big appreciation for Cure bassist Simon Gallup.
“You can have a copy if you want.” I told him, handing him a cassette of Wish.
And with that, the floodgates opened. Pretty soon, both men were digging through all of my items, looking for freebies until I literally had to put myself in between them and my promo shit.
Carlos offered to autograph something, which was a bit awkward because we had no Quiet Riot albums for him to sign. I suddenly scrounged up the cassette copy of Metal Health that the Program Director went out and bought just so that we had some Quiet Riot music to play for the commercial that we did for the nightclub. He opened up the blank sleeve of the cassette and signed his name.
None of us made it to the show that night. For me, I had seen my share of Quiet Riot and could have actually used a refund for the first show from ten years prior. I heard it was good, if not a bit embarrassing as the club only held about 100-150 people at the most.
About a decade after that, I learned that the replacement bassist that we had fun with actually killed himself.
I felt bad that I didn’t give him more free shit.

Axe - "Heat In The Street"

Admittedly, I’ve given the band Axe more webspace than what they’re probably entitled to, but a sidetracked visit to You Tube brought me to the band’s awesome video for “Heat In The Street.”
Their two most noteworthy albums have been review before, but the reviews failed to explain just how plain looking these blue-collar fellows were. Dudes like this shouldn’t be anywhere near melody, unless they’re in a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band that occasionally puts a Molly Hatchet and the Outlaws’ “Green Grass and High Tides” into their set list.
But Axe did come close to placing a few songs on top 40 radio, tracks that belied their grizzled appearance and hinted at a certain amount of talent within.
The video is so awesome that I had to post it, giving the band their third mention here on Glam-Racket.
Bobby Barth sports a nice Motorhead t-shirt, well before it was considered cool to wear one. He also manages to bed a pair of chicks at the same time, even when it’s painfully obvious that there’s no way that would actually happen in reality.
I mean, just look at the dude! His grill looks grody!
Even better than the actual plot of the video is the fact that one of the dudes in Axe is playing a fucking keytar.
But you want to know something-and I’m being totally serious-that same dude was awesome when I saw them live, cheesing it up like a goddamn guitarist every time they gave him some time to solo.

Axe - New Music - More Music Videos

Axe - Nemesis

There’s a part at the end of “Girls Girls Girls,” the last song on side one of Axe’s album Nemesis, where leader Bobby Barth shows some ladies his penis. It’s a spoken word bit, some comic relief as the girls all laugh at the site of his penis.
It may be the most memorable thing about this record.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Axe (read: 99% of you), they were a hard rock band out of Florida that was a pubic hair better than the hard rock band playing down the street from you right now. They penned just enough decent tunes to get a major label deal and to get a few minor chart entries on rock radio.
They opened for a lot of more famous hard rock/metal bands, and indeed, I got a chance to see them open for Quiet Riot. It was during the tour for Nemesis…wonderfully titled the “Yo Mama” tour…and they were better than the headliner that evening.
But Quiet Riot had the better (and more successful) album.
This should clearly tell you that Axe’s home was on the stage and not in the studio. Nonetheless, because of that very enjoyable live show, I have sought out…some would say endured…two of the band’s most popular albums and this review represents the final foray into this virtually forgotten act.
Sure, the band soldiered on for a few more efforts, strangely several years after they called it quits when Nemesis was originally released. You see, one of the band’s key components, guitarist Michael Osbourne, was killed in a car wreck. After his death, the band (specifically Bobby Barth) found it too difficult to continue and they hung up the Axe moniker.
It’s kind of a shame as Nemesis found the band moving ahead towards a fairly decent sound. It’s heavier than it’s proceeding album Offering, but it ultimately fails because it shares a lot of that album’s major problems. The production incorporates a limp-wristed production strategy that pushes the keyboards way up (and stupid sound-effects) and flatlines the drums entirely. The guitars have some decent bark and tasty riffs, but the moment you find yourself being drawn to them, a dumb keyboard moment comes around and ruins everything. This is strange because I remember the keyboardist being one of my favorite part of their live shows.
There are a few songs with decent melodies and some potential bite, but because of the lukewarm sound, Nemesis comes across like a nameless effort from some anonymous outfit that scored a lesser known Sly Stallone movie.
Yes, Axe and Survivor tend similar fields, but only one of those bands got the break. It’s not because Axe had lesser talent, for sure, but they certainly didn’t have any allies when Atco records allowed them to be paired with whoever sat behind the control room window.
That’s kind of a shame as Survivor got the bigger share of the market; they were essentially studio musicians that suddenly wanted to have a some recognition. Axe, on the other hand, was a bunch of road musicians that wanted the same level of recognition. The difference is that Survivor had the chops to pull off a few radio hits while Axe should have stuck with what they knew: capturing their live sound and forgone the idea that they were radio ready. It could have been just a matter of time before radio finally was ready for them, thanks to some slow growth by gaining fans on the road where they were more at home.
Unfortunately, tragedy prevented Axe from discovering the success that they obviously wanted so much.

Axe - Offering

During my early forays of trying to beat friends in getting new music, I would incorporate such methods as going down to the local newsstand and skimming through the local Billboard magazine. In one such trip, I notice a band receiving airplay in the publication’s A.O.R. charts that I’d never heard of before: Axe. If their name wasn’t badassed enough, the song receiving radio play was enough to make any red-blooded American fifteen year-old boy march directly to the record store and buy the album. The song was “Rock ‘N Roll Party In The Streets” and the album it was found on was called Offering.
It’s important to remember that I had never actually heard “Rock ‘N Roll Party In The Streets” before buying that Axe record. I mean, what fifteen year old doesn’t like rock ‘n roll or partying, and if both are indeed taking place in the streets, well, that must be one hell of a party.
So imagine my surprise after I purchased Offering to find out that the track starts with a fucking piano. Unless you’re pounding out some boogie woogie, there’s little about a piano that screams “Party!” and with the gentle tinkle-winkle of the intro to “Rock ‘N Roll Party In The Streets,” the listener is set up for an initial disappointment.
Finally, a few power chords come in, and I’m feeling a little better about my first experience with Florida’s Axe.
At the same time, you get the feeling throughout Offering that the band is faced with a serious identity crisis. During some moments, their geography is in fine form, particularly with the Southern bar-band stomp of “Burn The City Down” and their awesome cover of Montrose’s “I Got The Fire.” On other moments, they fall completely short of their radio aspirations with the awful ballad “Jennifer” and the ridiculous technological warnings of “Video Inspiration.”
And then there’s a curious side-step toward new wave, with the second single “Now Or Never” that, again, makes a blatant attempt towards crossover airplay and, I’ll be Goddamned, comes fairly close to succeeding.
Of course, it sounds hopelessly out of place on Offering and that’s the album’s underlying downfall; Axe is obviously a band of adequate musicianship and worthy ambitions, but to package a hodgepodge of music simulations before establishing themselves at any one of the genre’s examined, makes it hard to figure out what the hell kind of band they are.
Nonetheless, I still have some crazy affection for this band, even though Offering is an album that I can’t recommend. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed at the fact that, not only did I make that initial purchase of Offering; I later sold it back to a used record store and then bought it again a few years ago on cd only to realize after spinning it again why I sold it in the first place.
Part of the appeal is because I have an idea as to what the band might have been able to accomplished with the introduction of a strong-willed producer or, perhaps, a strong-willed manager that forced them to pick a side (read: music style), work it to perfection and then examine the possibilities of other directions. My own perception of Axe was enhanced when I saw them live, during the tour for their follow-up album Nemesis. In a live setting, the band absolutely rocked with ferocious guitar solos and a fairly entertaining Hammond organ solo that harked back to equal parts Jon Lord and Viv Savage. The band had some awesome concert t-shirt declaring the performance to be part of the “Yo Mama” tour; I wish I would have bought one.
Supposedly, Nemesis is a much better album but I wouldn’t know because I was completely full of Axe after their, ahem, initial Offering. The band would never really get to completely find their voice as guitarist Mike Osbourne was killed in a car wreck in 1984. Leader Bobby Barth disbanded Axe shortly afterward and then re-grouped the moniker in 2000 when Wounded Bird records brought Offering and Nemesis back after being out-of-print for over a decade. Both releases are available now, but like the original issues, take my advice and listen before you spend.