Rant n' Rave With John Nagle

Personnel:

Steve “Sex” Summers- vocals

Kristy “Krash” Majors- guitar, backup vocals

Vinnie Chaz- bass

Kari “The Mouth” Kane- drums

Scott’s patience was wearing thin. Did we really need to visit another record store? Hadn’t we seen enough? We hadn’t. I could tell from the look in his eye that he was regretting signing on to this intrepid quest for vinyl. I was doing research for my final journalism project, and enlisted Scott to come along because he is one of my most patient friends. He’s feigned interest when I’ve breathlessly recounted the Flair/Steamboat feud of 1989. He’s put up with more Butch Walker pitches than I care to count, and has nearly gone deaf at some of the shows I’d dragged him to. After a day of criss-crossing the greater Baltimore area popping in and out of record stores, his seemingly infinite amount of patience for my quirks began to wear off. I was getting frustrated too, but I didn’t let my weariness show. As we pulled into Joe’s Record Paradise, I had a feeling it was going to be worth the drive.

When I walked through the doors of Joe’s, I had a vision of what I want my apartment to look one day. There were records and CDs as far as the eye could see, old stereo systems and vintage Kiss posters on the wall. It was one of the last bastions of the true music geek. I was practically skipping through the aisles, perusing the racks with joyous glee. Scott stayed toward the front with my mom, occasionally stopping to check out the selection.

After 20 minutes, I had a few cool albums but nothing truly amazing. Michael Monroe’s Not Fakin’ It was out of print, but I could probably find it on eBay for a fiver. Before we left, I asked Scott to help me browse the P section, since I was unable to reach it. Scott dutifully bent down and began to flip through the thick rack. At first, the rack was pedestrian: The Police, Pretenders, Tom Petty. They were pretty much the run of the mill records you saw in every used record store. I was about to pack it in when I saw it flash before my eyes. I let out an audible gasp. Scott was still flipping.

“DUDE! GO BACK!” I yelled.

“What?” Scott asked, frightened by the frantic nature of my request.

“GO BACK!”

Scott flipped backwards, and there it was. A copy of Pretty Boy Floyd’s Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz, in its original shrink-wrap. I shrieked like a fourteen year old girl at an *NSYNC concert. Scott handed it to me and I held it above my head as if I was Indiana Jones handling The Holy Grail. I was nearly in tears as I breathlessly showed it to my mother, whose response was as warm as I thought it would be.

“That’s great John. Can we go home now?”

This was a good idea. I needed to purchase this as soon as possible, before somebody else does. The clerk looked at me in disbelief when he rang up the record, especially my zealous response when I mentioned it. Nobody understood what a momentous occasion this was. I’d seen this record on eBay for more than $50, and I was getting it for a measly seven. It was the culmination of the intense obsession I’d had with this record.

It all started with a magazine. An issue of Spin with pre-cornrows Axl Rose on the cover. I remember buying the issue and thinking he looked like a god. He was rail-thin, poured into a pair of black leather pants. The look on his face conveyed both apathy and sensuality. He looked so cool. The feature story of that month was the legacy of the Sunset Strip during the 1980s. When I bought the magazine I was still relatively new to the genre of androgynous looks and hard rock hooks. The stories that I would know by heart a few years later were still fresh and exciting. It was the first time I’d read about the complete and utter debauchery of the Motley Crue house. Taime Downe from Faster Pussycat talked at length about receiving oral sex under a table at the Rainbow Bar and Grill. As a fourteen year old kid, it was one of the most exciting things I’d ever read.

Unfortunately with every rise there is a fall. The end of the article spoke of the thousands of bands that glutted the Sunset Strip by 1989. These subpar bands were being snapped up by every record label, completely diluting the genre. Eventually the public got sick of it and the flannel monster from Seattle named grunge took over. Spin cited Pretty Boy Floyd’s Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz as one of the final nails in the Aqua-Net coffin.

I was a young and impressionable lad then, and completely bought into that statement. If Spin said it, it must be true. After all, you have to truly be enlightened about music to make such a broad statement. Despite what the magazine said, I really wanted to hear this record. I figured it would be like watching a really bad movie, and besides this band supposedly killed an entire genre. That’s pretty hard to do.

Hearing Leather Boyz was easier said than done. The album had been out of print for over a decade, and copies of it started at $35 on eBay. I scoured the site for six months, and every single copy was out of my price range. Then I found a copy for the low price of $10. There wasn’t a picture on the auction, but I was so desperate that I took a chance. When the album finally came, I found out why it was so cheap. It was a cassette. I was so anxious to get my hands on a copy that I’d neglected to notice. I was bummed, but at least I could finally hear the band that killed my favorite genre of music.

I held the record that supposedly killed hair metal in my hands. Before I took the cassette out of its case, I examined the cover. It was the kind of cover that could only be taken seriously in 1989. Four transvestites were standing on top of a skyline, and the one in the center was shooting lightning out of his hands. For a brief second, I wondered if this was Nitro redux. Was this just another case of image without the songs to back it up?

I blew the dust out of my dormant cassette deck and prepared myself for the worst. The title track began with a slow fade-in and an explosion of drums. Then Kristy “Krash” Majors played the opening riff, and Steve Summers sang something about being a “black on black sex attack.” I must have been a moron, because this song didn’t suck. In fact, it kinda ruled. I listened to the album once, twice, three times. By the third time I knew every word and was singing along. It was one of the best examples of the genre that I’d ever heard.

So why is Pretty Boy Floyd only known to hair metal nerds? If their record is so good, why aren’t they on a package tour with Poison or Motley Crue? PBF are victims of bad timing. In 1989, hair metal was becoming a parody of itself. The once vibrant scene was awash with generic bands. The threatening sleaze of Motley Crue, Ratt and W.A.S.P. was replaced by generic pretty boys. Winger, Danger Danger, Firehouse and Slaughter were virtually identical, and the music was overproduced and polished. They were as safe as they could possibly be. Even the Crue became homogenized, releasing the safe and unremarkable Dr. Feelgood.

In the midst of the blandness, Pretty Boy Floyd was a throwback to the early days of the scene. When most bands were going for a more subdued look, the pictures on the inside of Leather Boyz make Poison look butch. The songs were straightforward and memorable, with strong hooks. Each chorus contained a word or a phrase that was designed to be chanted back at the band: “ROCK!” “ON FIRE!” “LAST KISS!” The record’s pacing ensured that there was never a dull moment. Kristy “Krash” Majors was not Dylan or Leonard Cohen, but knew how to write a catchy guitar riff, which was all that mattered.

The reason that I connected with PBF was because it sounded like a hair metal record I would have made. The lyrics are endearingly clumsy, but the band had attitude to spare. When Steve Summers sang about running away to Hollywood, rocking and rolling all night long (like he never could), he really meant it. There’s a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland, “Hey kids, let’s make a hair metal record!” aspect to the album, which is something that the scene lost towards the end.

There is a lot of controversy about Pretty Boy Floyd. They were complete posers and were not ready to be signed. The songs were not written by Kristy Majors, but by Ariel Styles. Steve Summers is a tyrant who conned former bandmates out of their share of writing credit. I don’t care about the politics that went on with these leather boyz; I just really like listening to their electric toyz. PBF is everything some people hate about hair metal, and it is everything I love about it. It’s a record that you don’t really think much about. You put your fist in the air and chant when the band tells you to. Besides, it does provide one universal truth, rock n’ roll will always set the night on fire.

Recommended Listening: Leather Boyz With Electric Toys, duh.