Freeze, Sucka!

This past week, I watched a couple of the Dirty Harry movies, starring our (well, mine, at least) favourite tough guy, Clint Eastwood. It had been several years since I'd seen them, so it was a pleasure to fall into each story without many memories of how every scene played out. The films I caught were The Enforcer and Sudden Impact, the third and fourth in the series. I honestly feel that these flicks are just as entertaining as the first two Dirty Harry pictures.

Watching all the gun-play, chase scenes, nastiness, and occasional humorous one-liners got me to thinking about other cop movies that made an impression on me over the years. When I look at my sizable movie collection, I don't see very many crime thrillers, but I do have some of the ones that would make most folks' Top Ten lists. But even among those, how many of them have likable and memorable cop characters?

Tom Selleck as Chief Jesse Stone

I enjoy the genre plenty; I just don't like a lot of crime films so much that I'd want to re-watch them enough to own them. But I can still mention several notable (and some favourite) police officers in film:

Max Rockatansky: Mel Gibson is a Aussie cop in the first Mad Max movie, but goes rogue (and crazy) in the sequels

Jesse Stone: Tom Selleck as no-nonsense chief of police in nine made-for-TV movies

David Toschi: Mark Ruffalo plays the persistent SFPD Inspector  in Zodiak

"Dirty Harry" Callahan: Clint Eastwood is tough-as-hell SFPD inspector in five movies

Ed Tom Bell: Tommy Lee Jones faces off against a ruthless killer in No Country for Old Men

Axel Foley: Eddie Murphy's seminal 80's comedy role in Beverly Hills Cop (and its sequels)

Martin Riggs: Mel Gibson goes crazy again as a wacko officer in the Lethal Weapon movies

Frank Serpico: Al Pacino really nailed his part in Serpico... and I need to see this again!

Frank Drebin: Leslie Nielsen was rarely funnier than in The Naked Gun and its two sequels

Freddy Heflin: Sylvester Stallone as NJ sheriff battling corruption in Cop Land

Popeye Doyle: Gene Hackman as a NYPD detective lays the foundation for future morally questionable movie cops in The French Connection

Vincent Hanna: I need to see Pacino in action in Heat, a classic that's evaded me too long

John McClane: not my favourite, but Bruce Willis must be mentioned for his Die Hard work

John Book: Harrison Ford is excellent as a Philadelphia police detective in Witness

Jacques Clouseau: comic genius Peter Sellers is the inept French police inspector in the Pink Panther flicks

Sly Stallone as New Jersey sheriff in Cop Land

There are doubtless dozens more famous cinematic cops, but these are the ones that come to mind right now, including some that are favourites. Though we can certainly get deeper into the minds of the investigators via the written word in fictional books, it is in film that we can better visualize the sweat and dirt and blood that comes with the job. Plus the thrilling "stunt" scenes provide us with unforgettable movie memories. Jumping from one building roof to another, tense foot chases, daring high-speed car chases, and exciting hand-to-hand combat. 

As a kid growing up watching movies on TV, I guess it was Inspector Clouseau who first caught my attention with his crime-fighting finesse... er, bumbling. At the time, there were far more TV cop shows available and appropriate for me. They were "clean" enough that I could easily watch them without parental guidance. Stuff like Barney Miller, CHiPs, S.W.A.T., Starsky & Hutch, Kojak, Baretta, Columbo, The Streets of San Francisco, and Adam-12. These are the main ones I can think of now, but they were definitely my favourites back in the day. And those were just the actual police shows: I loved private detective programs just as much, like Rockford Files, Magnum P.I., Cannon, Charlie's Angels, and McCloud, among others. Some was fluff (like the Angels), but others were a bit heavier, grittier, and more realistic. 

Though I now love to read crime fiction on a regular basis, I have little interest in TV shows of that genre anymore. There are just so many out there that it seems a chore to wade through all the average (or worse) stuff just to locate a few truly good ones. Having said that, I do enjoy the current comedy cop show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Oh, and a couple of amazing imports caught my attention: The Fall, from the UK, and The Bridge, a Danish-Swedish production. And of course, I was entranced by season one of True Detective, Sherlock, and The Wire was pretty wild. Breaking Bad, Narcos, and Dexter were great but focused a lot more on the criminals... not a bad thing... they just don't feel like "cop shows" in the truest sense. 

Metal for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

I've lived most of my life as a disciple of heavy metal. It all began for me with KISS back in the mid-ish 70's, when I was sort of graduating from the lightweight pop/rock of Monkees and Beatles. The less innocent KISS opened the doors to darker and more adventurous music by Zeppelin, Sabbath, Maiden, Rush, and many many more.

70's genre pioneers streamlined their sound for the 80's

As time passed, my tastes became more refined... if you can call it that, and though I still retained a love for early progenitors like Sabbath and Priest, I developed a taste for stuff like Savatage and Megadeth's progressive style of playing. I can appreciate raucous headbanging tunes by bands like Motorhead and AC/DC while sometimes making that leap to more sophisticated artists such as Opeth and Dream Theater. Just off the top of my head, without a whole lot of thought, I've thrown together a list of my favourite metal albums:

MY TOP TEN METAL ALBUMS OF ALL TIME (sort of, but not in exact order):

Heaven and Hell, by Black Sabbath (Dio's re-invented and re-invigorated Sabbath 2.0)
Appetite For Destruction, by Guns N' Roses (80's heavy music got back on track here)
Rust in Peace, by Megadeth (few thrash albums approach the power of this masterpiece)
Destroyer, by Kiss (kicked off my love of the genre, chock full of great hooks & anthems)
Black Sabbath, by Black Sabbath (pretty much invented the whole genre, riffs and all)
Sad Wings of Destiny, by Judas Priest (built upon Sab's work, even more gothic & doomy)
Screaming for Vengeance, by Judas Priest (established a sleek modern metal template)
Paranoid, by Black Sabbath (classics from the masters - top to bottom) 
Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?, by Megadeth (pushed technical thrash into the spotlight)
Ride the Lightning, by Metallica (heavy, brutal, and brilliant... the future of thrash)

Honorable Mentions: 

Reign in Blood, by Slayer (props to one of the fastest and heaviest pioneers of thrash)
Diary of a Madman, by Ozzy Osbourne (life after Sabbath with guitar genius Rhoads)
Killers, by Iron Maiden (a personal favourite, loaded with early Maiden melodies)
Hall of the Mountain King, by Savatage (dramatic near-prog power metal)
Dirt, by Alice in Chains (monolithic, menacing, and depressing)

It's amazing how the metal genre has grown and spread globally. Countries as distant as Thailand, Russia, Chile, and China have thriving metal scenes, with young musicians taking up their instruments every day and fans buying band T-shirts and attending shows. The world-wide appeal is undeniable. Metal music transcends borders and cultures, and provides a forum for social and political expression. That outlet is what gives many people hope, especially when they live in regions of poverty, and political oppression and repression. Or even the American suburban teenager with strict parents and school teachers... he (or she) can escape and dream and aspire thanks to the metal music that speaks to his (or her) sensibilities. 

Texas A&M music professor Harris Berger says, "Metal fans are joined by a common sense of cultural dissent". Unlike most other musical forms, metal has often been described as a lifestyle. Punk was perhaps the only other genre by which its fans lived according to its "code", but that era of the original "real" punks has passed. Metal lives on.

As a guy over age fifty, I may not exactly live the lifestyle any longer, but I do wear black band tees around home and occasionally out in public, and I buy the odd CD to support my favourite artists (like Megadeth's latest amazing album Dystopia). Concerts are few and far between, but I make the effort if it's something really special (like Black Sabbath in 2014). 

And I love to crank up the stereo on a fairly regular basis, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. 

Bon appétit!

Concert Rituals

I've talked a lot about concerts I've seen over the years, the performances that are still fresh, or close to expiry date, in my mind. But there is another aspect of the concert-going experience that has nothing to do with listening to singers and musicians on stage.

I am talking about the pre-show rituals. Mine varied a little over the decades, depending on my age and who I was going with to the show. I attended my first handful of concerts with my best friend, Chris. He had already been to some concerts before I went to my first, and he was the guy who showed me the ropes. 

Naturally, there is the ticket purchase. He took care of that end of it, and I simply coughed up the dough when the time came for reimbursement. Chris did the travel planning, too. We took an inter-city bus for our first concert, Triumph, together. That was easy. A two hour ride brought us to the main terminal in the downtown core of Toronto. Chris knew the big city, so he was the tour guide, steering us toward a dining establishment (I think it was a McDonald's) for sustenance before our evening of rock'n'roll. Oh, and it was New Year's Eve, too, don't you know!

We browsed a few shops on our way to Maple Leaf Gardens, where T.O.'s pro hockey team played back then. That night, though, the Gardens would be transformed into a light and sound experience. As we neared the arena, Chris suddenly remembered something we needed... cigarette lighters. No, we didn't smoke cigarettes... or anything else, but as my buddy explained, we'd need the lighters to participate in the show. I was clueless about this, so I deferred to my concert-savvy pal. So we made our inexpensive purchases at a corner store. My first lighter. Heh.

Stepping inside the doors of Maple Leaf Gardens, I felt like this was a key life moment. And of course it was; I still remember it today and smile. Thousands of music fans thronged around us, some buying food and drink, some heading off to find their seats. Others were clustered around the tables of Triumph merchandise for sale. Yeah, I wanted souvenirs of this event. Triumph was one of my favourite bands at the time, a close second to Rush (another heavy Canadian act that I saw live several times), so I needed some cool stuff to prove I was there.

I got an Allied Forces tour shirt, the half-sleeve style, which was popular at the time. I also picked up a big, glossy tour program and a button. The shirt is long gone, shrunken and worn out, but the other goodies from that night live on, and are pictured above. 

I won't get into the details of the concert itself since I talk about that in another post (here), but I did get to use my lighter. Settled in our seats, adrenaline pumping in high gear, Chris told me to get my lighter ready. The lights went down... and everybody in the arena produced a flickering flame, like a starry night sky... quite magical to see, especially for a first-timer. And during the show, whenever the place darkened, the lighters would flare up again. It was a fun way to participate in the mood of the event, and also a sort of way to send our thanks and appreciation to the band onstage. I know musicians feed off the energy of the audience, and I'm sure our lighters, plus our cheers and applause, gave Triumph an extra boost of confidence and inspiration as they pumped out one hard rock hit after another. 

The following year, Chris and I, huge Rush fans that we were, snagged ourselves tickets to a Toronto show on the band's Signals tour. Our pre-concert rituals altered a little this time, but were essentially the same.... though better. Since Rush was our Number One band, we had to do more than just show up for the gig. We developed a project that would keep us busy for many hours in the days leading up to the big night. Chris and I designed and assembled a very artistic banner to parade around the Gardens before Rush took the stage. Pictured above is a snapshot we had taken of us holding the banner, not at the concert, but ahead of time. That's my fave souvenir of that evening (Chris got to keep the banner), plus the program and ticket stub. 

Chris had a jacket with a bunch of Rush patches and buttons on it. This was his "uniform" to wear to Rush concerts. I liked the idea, so I politely asked my mother to sew my Rush patches onto a cheap army surplus jacket I bought. After tacking on my own growing collection of band buttons, I had a pretty impressive Rush garment of my own. I did away with that jacket long ago, but I kept every patch, pin, and button... you can see them all here. 

This time we drove ourselves to Toronto, and there were four of us in the car. I believe Chris had brought along some Rush music on tape for the ride down. Our dinner was fancier this time around; we hit a real restaurant, with beer and knives and forks. Mmmm. 

At the venue, pre-show, with the lights up, we held the banner high as we did a little tour around the arena floor, raising many cheers from fellow fans. And during the concert, we had a chance to unfurl the banner again, this time before the eyes of the band (and probably nobody else), since our seats were at the other end of the arena, facing the stage, just high enough that Rush could probably see our handiwork. 

A little post-show ritual that began that night was the perusal of bootleg band shirts for sale on the sidewalks outside the Gardens. Funny how the bootleggers were so bold back then, probably threatened very little by the authorities or anyone else. It was just part of the experience, accepted as "normal" by most folks. I took a chance and bought myself a cool and unusual Rush shirt, sporting a design nothing like the pricier tees sold at the authorized merchandise tables. This was the early 80's, long before the legality of such practices were considered that important by anyone at all, including the artists. 

My comrades and I more or less stuck with similar pre and post-show procedures for many years. Things evolved over time, as I moved cities and attended gigs with different friends, and we all got older. The gang and I would always do dinner beforehand, either fast food or something more extravagant. Booze wasn't always a factor in concert-going, though it played a role when I was hanging with a certain crowd prior to metal shows in the 80's and 90's. There were some shows I have pretty much no memory of at all, thanks to some heavy-duty imbibing beforehand. A couple of Iron Maiden and Metallica concerts are particularly fuzzy in my mind. All part of the experience as a reckless youth. 

Sadly, no more lighters at concerts! Now it's just boring old cell phones. Not very magical, if you ask me. 

Anything Goes For Duff and Rose

Skimming some milestones in show biz today, I noticed that two members of Guns n' Roses are celebrating birthdays this weekend. Duff McKagan, the band's bassist, and singer/troublemaker Axl Rose both turn 54. McKagan blew out the candles on his cake on Friday, and Rose gets his turn today. 

I would never say I'm a huge Gn'R fan, but I would without hesitation cite their debut album Appetite For Destruction as one of my favourite rock albums of all time. If it's not in my top ten, then it is at least in my top twenty. This brutally honest, heavy, gutter-level sleaze rock album arrived just in time in 1987. I was getting a bit tired of all the highly polished rock and metal, when even the "bad boys" sounded too commercial to be legit. 

Duff in his heyday with GnR

Like Def Leppard, whose Hysteria album was wildly successful yet feels quite limp nowadays. Super-multi-tracked vocals softened the hard edge of the instruments and simply made every song too gooey. Sort of like wrapping candy floss around a razor blade. Pour Some Sugar On Me, indeed.

Though Aerosmith and Motley Crue achieved great success that same year, I was less than impressed. Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation album completely lost me with its addition of horns and a kitchen sink production approach. The tough image and sound of the 70's was cast off for their new, glittery MTV-oriented near-pop. Dude (Looks Like A Lady)... meh, I never liked it. 

Motley Crue, in my opinion, became a casualty in the same vein. The gritty sound and bad attitude on their first couple of albums were watered down for ballads and a glossy sheen on their next two, including '87's Girls Girls Girls. Its dull songs turned me off, even when I saw them performed live. 

Can't forget Whitesnake's leaden self-titled offering that year. Its heaviness didn't make up for its stupidness. Triumph, Kiss, The Cult, and Helix also popped out albums that were a step down from their former greatness. 

Um, how do I play this thing?

Then along came Guns n' Roses with their snapshot of L.A.'s sleazy Sunset Strip. The music oozed guts and raw primal urges. Lyrical references to violence, drugs, and sex gave Appetite For Destruction the nasty reputation that we rock fans were yearning for... something we could really sink our teeth into. None of this safe corporate rock that was all too common.

Axl's powerful, wailing vocals writhed dangerously around Izzy and Slash's thick, crunchy riffs and Duff's pounding basslines. The band performed as a tight unit, their delivery aggressive yet structured with melody in mind. I mean, just stop for a moment and think of a few songs off Appetite. Now sing or hum the tune from each one. Easy, right? That's called great songwriting. 

From mean and dirty opening track Welcome to the Jungle, through grooving and rocking tunes including It's So Easy and Paradise City, to the final cut Rocket Queen, it's a relentless ride. Even mega-hit "ballad" Sweet Child O' Mine contains searing guitar breaks. 

I saw Gn'R open for Iron Maiden on their 1988 world tour. I have practically no recollection at all of that show, so I can safely assume it was a blast. I'm sure I was blasted. 

The album Appetite For Destruction has reportedly sold over thirty million copies worldwide. It's so easy to understand why. Happy birthday, guys!