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MOTLEY CRUE CALLING

New cosmetic heavy metal show.

February 1, 1984
Sylvie Simmons

The perfect world...Little waterfalls tinkle cheerfully down the hillside and rabbits and chipmunks scamper playfully in the long grass of the sun-dappled meadow; bluebirds tweet their happy tweeting high in the linden trees, and all the men look like Motley Crue!! Art-wrecko cherubs squeezed into dead black cow, looking like lifesize ads for Frederick of Hollywood’s fetish department, their heels stilettoed, their wrists studded, their chests chained, their crotches armored, and, topping the lot like a maraschino cherry on a chocolate gateau, the most unacceptably glorious brightly-dyed shag-cuts this side of the early ’70s!

Godz meets Sweet after extensive cosmetic surgery and a weekend at the Pleasure Chest. Loud and delinquent, glam and sleazy, heavy and arrogant and bad. Valerie Bertinelli’s mom would have never let her marry one of this lot! And yet L.A. girls have been known to squirm and sigh at the mere mention of their names. (For the sake of objective reporting I have to add that not everybody has had quite the same reaction. A local mag continuously voted them “L.A.’s Worst Band.” Critics have dismissed them like lepers. Canadian hotel owners, customs men and officials expressed a preference that they never set foot in the country again. Wishbone Ash apparently went into seclusion at mere rumors that the band would be touring Britain with them.) Others have been known to release anonymous (sometimes it’s better) press releases saying things like this about the band: “Like breaking over a mountain and seeing a sunset glisten through moistureladen clouds; a rainbow of melody and power.” And even Kim Fowley’s noted that they’re “the best international image since Sweet; best European image since Japan.” Talking of Japan, why are the Japanese so confused? Because they haven’t got a cruel!! You have, so you’ve got no excuse not to go out and buy their record and make them the biggest American band around. Oh. I’ve just noticed. Several hundred thousand of you already have. So dismiss all that and join us up at Elektra’s Hollywood offices where, fresh from a night of Jack-Danielsdrinking and pool-playing and yachtcrashing are Vince Neal and Nikki Sixx, vocalist and bassist of Motley Crue respectively (Tommy Lee, drummer, Mick Mars, lead guitarist, are the other half). Pros that we are, we get right down to business even before the bright rays of the Heineken bottle cast their green light over the plush office room.

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