Ever find a song that just perfectly encapsulates your lived experience to an uncanny degree? That speaks to your very soul?
I went to bed too late and got up too soon My poor head still spinnin' from too much booze I got a foot in the gutter a foot in the grave I ain't seen home in the last three days
It’s like the singer was spinning his art from the very stuff of my everyday existence.
No tell, motel, hotel bed If it wasn't for the sunlight I'd swear I was dead I got a girl on the left of me a girl on the right I know damn well I slept with both last night
I don’t think anyone has quite chronicled the life of a bald 48 year-old pen pusher and occasional music blogger the way Bret Michaels and his little playmates did on Look What The Cat Dragged In. Yowza!* Miaow! Rrrrr! etc. etc.
Poison Look What The Cat Dragged In was my second Poison purchase and my second Poison picture disc – that was fitting, the music demanded a flashy, impractical format. I taped a copy of Open Up … from Clarkie at school and made this my first LP picture disc when I saw it in Backstreets Records in Carmarthen**.
The front cover, wow. Don’t get me wrong, I knew they were dudes but it was confusing … I mean check out the guys on the flip side, they’re all covering their Adams apples – a sure sign. I have definitely been with less feminine looking ladies. Thank goodness Poison were not often to be found drinking in the Riviera Club^, I fear a severe case of buyer’s remorse might have ensued one befuddled morning after the night before.
No such ambiguity or remorse with the music, this was good old barely competent pop rock covered in pink glitter and sequins, just the way I like it, baby; confidence and competence butting heads. The recording sounds delightfully cheap and tacky, if that’s how the finished product sounds I wonder what Ric Browde was presented with when he rocked up to produce.
34 years on from release I like Look What The Cat Dragged In every bit as much now as I did back in ’89^^, more so possibly. I think it stands up really well in terms of their back catalogue and the scene at the time in general, surprisingly well.
I love the Ronettes style drum beat that ushers in ‘Cry Tough’, it works perfectly. It’s the perfect American strivin’ n’ jivin’ white bread take on Springsteen-via-Jovi. I had totally forgotten this track and that’s my bad, I love its’ daft shiny faith and C.C DeVille’s guitar frosting gilds the lily a treat here and I found myself humming it in the shower just now*^.
‘I Want Action’ and ‘I Won’t Forget You’ are lesser treats, but treats nonetheless. To be fair ‘ … Forget You’ is a pretty decent ballad, the soundtrack to a gazillion exploratory gropes*** I’m sure I am too discreet to recall.
Side 1 finishes with a real flourish with the faux-mean ‘Play Dirty’ and the excellent title track, wrap it over to side 2 opener and ‘Talk Dirty To Me’ and you’ve got three 80’s glam titans right there. It’s all soiled sheets, Rimmel, hairspray and man musk as far as the nose can, umm, see. What makes it all so delightfully great is just how damnably poppy and catchy the whole shebang is which, when it’s prodded home with a guitar sound like ‘Look What The Cat Dragged In’, I find irresistible; Poison’s best rocker for my money.
(Warning: Watch at own risk. Following video contains scenes of scantily clad lady disrobing in front of a terrifying evil giant cat-headed demon devil thing. Oh and scenes of glam rock which may be triggering for anyone who lived through the late 80’s. Warning ends)
That’s the peak of Look What The Cat Dragged In, the remaining quartet have their moments but nothing I’d particularly want to champion from the rooftops. The playing is delightfully basic for the most part, it really does have the quality of a well-produced demo at times and Bret Michaels and C.C DeVille really are the standout performers, in fact C.C surprised me on occasion here, he was better than I remembered when he picked up that guitar and talked to me.
Example? ‘Blame It On You’ which is a pretty poor offering, rather enlivened by some six-string garnish here and there. I like it when the band pick up the tempo on LP closer ‘Let Me Go To The Show’ too, a bit.
Look What the Cat Dragged In was a treat, an utterly disposable pink fizzy-wizzy good time. Poison wrote some great pop tunes here, slathered them in a bit of rock and served it all up in drag. hey, it worked.
My hair's is a rat's nest I look like hell Half alive or half dead, I just can't tell
1016 Down.
PS: Unlikely, I know but check out the intro of Candlemass ‘Under The Oak’, also released 1986 for utter similarity to ‘Look What The Cat Dragged In’. Candlemass clearly worshipped Poison, their track is virtually a cover version. True story.
*as rock types used to ejaculate back in 1986.
**on 03/03/89. I know, I get it, that’s the sort of fact that only a true sociopath would know 31 years later. In mitigation I did buy something a little less frivolous that day too.
^Carmarthen’s premier ‘nite spot’ back then, probably now and in perpetuity.
^^I mean it’s no Faster Pussycat but it sure as shit could take D’Molls in a stiletto fight.
*^only available for 1537 platinum subscribers to view.
***not to be confused with explosive grapes.
I am delighted to see this here! Picture disc too? Holy shit!
Yeah Blame it on You sucks pretty hard. So does Mama Take Me to the Show. But they got better after this. Second album is still a load of fun.
I never really listen to this anymore but Cry Tough is so much better than most of their discography. I remember singing it at work when I was at the grocery store in 1990. I was in parcel pickup and I thought nobody was watching.
Hi Mike, yup it’s a doozy isn’t it?
It stood up a lot better than I remember it doing, Cry Tough is a winner and I don’t think glam got any better than the 3 tracks in the middle here. It all sounds a bit naïve and young and I love that.
Open Up is great but it has a couple of bad ones on for my money, if you could fuse the first two LPs together with a bit of judicious editing you could create (Frankenglam’s Monster?) the ultimate lightweight goodtime LP.
Yowza!
There is a PLATINUM membership??? Do Tell!!
and why do I have “LOLA” running through my head?
Walks like a woman, talks like a man – that’s actually my family motto – we have it engraved beneath our coat of arms.
I like to imagine all the uptight homophobes in their white shirts and ties were at one time dedicated/confused Poison fans, all we have to do is find the evidence. Sorry for any stereotyping of white shirt and tie wearing reasonable people.
Just as well you left out ‘bald’, Neil.
Being challenged in my own way around this I would never add bald.
All the closet Ru Paul fans. My kids are absolutely obsessed with that stuff, I mean utterly, totally obsessed.
I like that, where the medium should match the music – in this case, flashy & impractical!
All folk music should be played on hand carved wooden records.
Barly competent pop rock…yeah, that sums it up nicely. And dang, that Candlemass guitar riff sounds vaguely familiar!! Great stuff and I haven’t listened to this in awhile and now I still don’t want to go back and hear it just yet, but enjoyed this very much.
They were so good at what they did for a while, at least. Never the best, but they have a good 10/12 brilliant tracks.
If you’ve never wept along to Every Rose when you were 17, you’ve never lived, I reckon!
Their Native Tongue album with Richie Kotzen on guitar was one of their best. They had a enough really good songs to make for super greatest hits package.
I guess I never lived then as I didn’t weep to that one. Something to Believe In thought, that one got me a little 🙂
Never got into them as much as other bands of their ilk but I have a soft spot for this album. Mainly due to the clear Candlemass influence. But also cause metal docs insist on using Talk Dirty To Me to illustrate how terrible glam metal was and it always backfires cause that shit is awesome! (Ratt’s Round And Round is another one. Find a bad glam metal song, documentary makers! There must be one out there.)
Nobody mentions that Rikki Rokkett was the founder of Candlemass, ever. It’s weird.
Poison were never my faves but they were really good at what they did, for a while. They were no Vain though.
Poison were kind of a supergroup really cause CC Deville was also an original member of Saint Vitus.
They were never quite the same after Dave Lombardo left for Slayer though.
On picture disc none the less. Safe to say that opening verse of the title track was all of us at one point. Not so much the second verse lol
Ok debut, I think Cry Tough is a great track as the verses are classic. Preferred the second album more…but thats me.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had rat’s nest hair too!
Second LP had some classics but some shite too. I’m more of a Flesh & Blood man myself, although it’s been a long while since I’ve played more than tracks off it.
Flesh and Blood had some good stuff and some filler. One of those albums that should have been trimmed down to about 10 songs.
Filler? You take that back! Otherwise, it’s hairspray at dawn – to the death!
Ha!
One term used to describe Poison back in the day was “Phillies with willys.” There are some good tracks on this album but my favourite part is the father at the end of “Let Me Go to the Show” when he bellows, “You heard your mother, turn that shit off!”
Phillies with willies is just superb!! I’d not heard that before. Thank you!
Do you remember a late Friday night heavy metal show called “Noisy Mothers” back in the early 1990s? It was hosted by a guy called Krusher. It was he who introduced me to that label for Poison.
I don’t actually, I do remember Krusher though he worked for Kerrang! back in the day.