play-in game
(15) tnt, "10,000 lovers (in one)"
defeats
(15) firehouse, "all she wrote"
36-29
and will play in march shredness
Read the essays, watch the videos, listen to the songs, feel free to argue below in the comments or tweet at us, and consider. Winner is the aggregate of the poll below and the @marchshredness twitter poll. Polls closed @ 9am Arizona time on Feb 5, 2018.
This play-off is going to be a hard one considering both bands have a lot sonically in common as they do in hair product. But TNT got their start in Trondheim, Norway which means whomever ends up writing about them for March Shredness might connect these guys to their rightful place in the history of Norwegian Black Metal. Or not. Yet being Norwegian could also mean TNT founding members grew up under socialized medicine so to some degree a reason to consider for their continued longevity in the mid-2010s and a shot for a March Shredness slot, right? Or not. For their biggest hit “10,000 Lovers (In One) features San Diego-born and bred power singer Tony Harnell belting his lungs out over Ronni Le Tekrø’s cocksuredly luscious licks. Just that sudden glass-shattering hawk’s cry at 01:47 in the video alone should suffice to have these guys rawk their way through our hair metal tourney, shoulder pads and all. If not that then for updating that ancient multi-dimensional take on the vicissitudes of the LTR (that’s long-term relationships for all of you still living the rock-n’roll fantasy) where one lifetime partner can—with the right lighting and role-playing script—fulfill all of one’s erotic aspirations. All 10,000 of them. A hair-twirling marriage-saving “a-ha” moment if you will. Come on, it’s Spring fever and it’s time to as AC/DC says Sink the Pink (or as I say Drown the Brown) into some deeper cuts.
“All She Wrote” serves as the official hair metal rock entry to shake up the Dear John epistolary genre. What did I do wrong? CJ Snare sings, his soaring vocal (along with sultry man-sneer) does its job to veil the masculine vulnerability with hirsute bravado, at the only thing she wrote in the letter: bye-bye, baby, bye-bye. Piercing for this pre-ghosting era of rock history. The video however is a classic early concert footage of a band reveling in riding the wave of their newcomer success (or flying over what looks like the opening credits of Westworld). The band received accolades from the heavy metal press corps upon release of their self-titled debut on Epic Records in 1990. Wait, did it really only take Firehouse a year to get big? Having formed in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1989 and they rapidly ascended to upper rock echelons when they won the Best New Hard Rock/Metal Artist award at the 1992 American Music Awards. Yet their winning may have been too much but not soon enough as the band might have been the last glam rock metal band to win in that category. Cue the ushering of a new era. Grunge of course took the mainstream by storm as the years following bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam began winning the same categories as Guns N’Roses and Aerosmith. You’re going to vote for these guys because “All She Wrote” is a story of loss on so many levels as told through the shred.
Raquel Gutiérrez was first introduced to the politics of space when in 5th grade got dropped off at the Music Plus in Lakewood, California to stand in line for Guns N'Roses tickets only to realize she was a browner kind of fan. A former life involved working music retail marketing for a Soundscan competitor back in the pre-MP3 days and now Gutiérrez is a poet and essayist pursuing her MFA degree in poetry at the University of Arizona. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she writes about space and institutionality and publishes chapbooks by queers of color with the tiny press Econo Textual Objects, established in 2014. Her work has found homes in FENCE, Zócalo Public Square, ASAP Journal, Huizache, The Portland Review, Los Angeles Weekly, and Entropy.