We have our childhood pin-ups and posters, buttons, flags, magazines, LPs . . . but in recent years we have become rabid collectors of digital Motley images we find online. Facebook, Pintrest, Instagram have become veritable libraries of crazy rare and sometimes never-seen-before images. Here are a few we'd like to share:
We somehow forgot that this blog turned ten years old last month!
So much has happened in Motley Land in the last ten years . . . seriously, do these guys ever stop?
And, yes (knock on wood), they're all still with us.
From 2010-2020 Motley retired, had a successful biography movie released about their career, reformed and then had to halt their activity like everyone else due to the semi-global shutdown caused by the Corona-virus in 2020.
Mick still hasn't released a solo album; Nikki moved from California to Wyoming and is doing his best impression of a soccer mom on his Instagram account; Tommy released an album in 2020 and is a social media celebrity with his wife Brittany; Vince is battling weight issues and preparing for the potential reunion tour in 2021-2022 and is doing some solo shows, as always.
Here's an unpopular opinion: we hope this co-tour with Def Leppard and Poison and whoever else doesn't happen. We hope, if they must tour again (and they really shouldn't), they do it headlining alone in arenas like they're supposed to. We MIGHT go see that reunion.
Mick Funz is not a real person and over the last ten years has been the pseudonym of several people. Motley Crue are interesting as a subject of nostalgia and vicarious entertainment. In our real lives we enjoy and produce and partake in many other styles of music and culture: The Sleaze Patrol Files is an attempt to make something meaningful out of our childhood collections of 1980s Rock Culture. We still love the old Motley music, we even think the true character of the band has not been represented by any movie, book or documentary. The "phenomenon" of Motley Crue has yet to be shown accurately and can only be done by writers, researchers and publishers not associated with the band.
Motley Crue will turn 40 years old on April 1st, 2021. Although the band often cites January 1981 as their birthday, it was actually just the date Nikki decided he was going to create a band like Motley Crue . . . Vince didn't join the band until April 1st with Tommy and Mick being recruited months earlier. Too Fast for Love was released in November of 1981. What an opportunity for an amazing 40th anniversary boxset next year! But all the good stuff is owned by private collectors that Nikki hates so there goes that legacy.
As we stated 10 years ago in our introduction to this blog: This is Not A Fan-Boy site.
Let's be frank: Motley Crue, in 2020, suck.
They haven't put out really good music since the 1990s; the bio movie was a cheapo straight-to-Netflix campy romp with no substance; they put on bloated, poorly-executed concerts in the 2010s; Vince Neil has become the subject of endless parody videos showing the atrocious state of his live vocal . . . it is what it is. We stick around to get more of the old days. More and more photos and stories and info are revealed as the years pass, this is the best part about the ease of sharing on social media. Uber Crue fans and collectors and folks formerly associated with the band are talking and sharing their memories and collections and it's been a bit of a Crue fans' dream since the movie came out in 2019 when the band got that much more popular.
Thanks to those who have visited over the years. We'll try to keep the ship afloat. We do have more Crue collectibles to share. Have a Motley Christmas and a Happy Crue Year!
