Nikki Sixx Part 5, 1987

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We’ve got a candid Nikki article from 1987 in today’s post. Gary Graff from Faces Magazine has a brief chat with Mr. Crue as he lounges on a hotel bed strewn with porn mags and empty liquor bottles . . . a phone rings . . . 
 
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Motley Back Patches

 

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Wearing your Crue colors in school & public was part & parcel of being a 1980s Cruehead. A jean jacket with a back patch & pins on the front was the style of choice for me & my friends. Musical taste was war in school.

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Whoever it was traded me the below back patch of the Girls, Girls, Girls album cover obviously had a problem with Nikki! (click image to ENLARGE)

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As the Crue’s fame increased & they became a household name they also became susceptible to the attention of bootleggers & the black market. Besides the traveling summer carnivals I remember getting Crue stuff from vendors who would set-up at the local mall for a week or so. This was good & bad: Crue shirts & pins & other swag were hard to come by & could be pricey & these knock-off items were often affordable. Unfortunately, they were sometimes of noticeable poor quality:

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You were more likely to see guys decked out in full-on metal Crue gear back in the Shout At the Devil days as the group had a more militant & powerful image in the years 1983-1984. The below back patch has photos from the Crue’s 1984 European tour. We’ll leave you with some very rare footage of the band performing in Germany & Sweden on the Monsters of Rock tour in September 1984 with a brief interview with Tommy & Nikki. Crue T-Shirts & Flags coming up at the Sleaze Patrol files!!!

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Vintage Motley Posters #1

 

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The days when you could walk into a record shop or even a retail store & purchase a variety of Motley posters are gone . . . but the evidence of those days remains. Full-length posters were one of the coolest collectibles to have & they made great wallpaper.

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The above Dr. Feelgood poster portrays 1980s Crue mascot Allister Fiend as the title physician about to ‘operate’ on an unwilling patient (click on the image to enlarge & check out the scared-as-shit-face in the mirror). This was quite likely supposed to be the album’s artwork but someone, sensibly, probably saw it as a little too cartoonish & they ended up going with the far more iconic ‘evil’ medical staff (the Rod of  Asclepius). My memory is of winning this at a Bill Lynch Carnival booth in about 1990. For 50 cents to a dollar, all you had to do was throw a dart & hit one of the several posters they had displayed & you won yourself a shiny new rock poster.   

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Above is a poster from the Shout At the Devil era that came with the rare ‘Helter Skelter’ picture disc released in 1985. I never owned the disc but I got the poster from a girlfriend . . . who got it from an old boyfriend . . .

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Above are two rare posters from the 1983-1985 era. The red Shout poster shows the boys on the set of the ‘Looks That Kill’ video & the Theatre poster is from an almost aggressively glammed-out session in an early promo shoot for the record. Goodbye leather, hello polka dots.

Much more vintage Motley posters to come at the Sleaze Patrol Files!!!!