Effing Gnarly Classic Crue Photos #1 - World Of Motley Crue

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:

The bottom shot is the band doing one of their first photo shoots in April, 1981 at Goodman's Music (with owner). This was taken by Don Adkins.

Circus Collector's Issue, 1994 (1984 Crue Article)

This Circus Magazine Collector's Issue was published in early 1994 and features classic interviews from the 1960s to the 1990s. Motley joins such illustrious company as Led Zeppelin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. This would have been published before the band released their self-titled record with new vocalist John Corabi. The table of contents blurb says

"Til death do they party. It's 1984 and the gates of hell have opened siccing Nikki, Vince and their pack of wacks on a shocked music scene."

Richard Hogan's article, "Motley Crue: Glad To Be Bad," begins by telling us that everyone (except the Rock magazines) seem to be putting the Crue down. Hogan says that MTV Host J. J. Jackson recently reported that Vince punched out a female patron at The Rainbow Bar and Grill when she objected to his Marine outfit (Paul Miles' Chronological Crue page has this happening at The Troubadour in January of 1982). Jackson drops the script and surmises to the camera that Vince may not have been so tough if the objector was an actual Marine!

J. J. Jackson

This video of Nikki and Vince on MTV talking to host Martha Quinn comes from January-February 1984, after the Shout at The Devil album and the premier video "Looks That Kill" had been released. At around three minutes and thirty seconds Martha says that just a few weeks back Vince was in the news regarding the assault. Vince says that it was a man he hit, not a woman  ("You know, everyone in Hollywood looks like a woman  . . . I hit somebody but it wasn't a girl"). This is one of the many stories that never made it to "The Dirt" book or movie.

The Circus interview is likely from December, 1983 when the Crue were in Massachusetts rehearsing for their opening slot on the Ozzy Osbourne Bark At The Moon tour in 1984. Nikki and Vince illustrate their violent and wild temperaments with stories of a recent (Nikki) car crash and a (Vince) Halloween incarceration. "We are extremists," explains Nikki. The band members and their current ages are shared as well as the circumstances of the making of their independently-released Too Fast For Love back in 1981. 

Motley were going out of their way to gain notoriety in these years and the Metal magazines ate it up and shared the debauched details. The above video clip also shows that the band was singled out by the PMRC. Nikki's x-rated groupie stories in the pages of the magazines would land the band in hot water soon after this interview and 1984 would end with the death of Razzle Dingley of the group Hanoi Rocks at the hands of drunk driver, Vince Neil.

The Motley Crue drama played out in real time in these years. Fans devoured these popular rags to hear news of their Rock God heroes and to get images for their teenybopper shrines. Circus Magazine almost exclusively featured live shots of the bands on tour. The mixture of video channels, Rock magazines with articles and posters and LPs or cassettes blaring the music was a heady mixture.



Above is the Classified page (for some more flavour of the age) and an ad that reminds us when this Circus was published: 1994. Motley were about to release the self-titled album with new singer John Corabi and Vince was a semi-successful solo artist. This back page ad for Gibson Guitars shows Mr. Neil with two members of his band. He is still playing solo shows today. Vince would get back with Motley by 1996-1997 when the magic of the 1984 years was long gone. That a movie biography of the band would be released in 2019 is a testament to the strength of the music and the allure of the notoriety of the group in the 1980s.

More Rock Magazines to come at The Sleaze Patrol Files!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Illustrated Shout At The Devil Liner Notes-Part 1!

Let's take an in-depth look at Shout At The Devil by playing close attention to the liner notes.

If you want to view more images of the LP & cassette artwork, go HERE & click through.

Nikki gets top billing. His place as Mr. Motley Crue secured early on. He plays bass & sings back-up, it says, & 'bass pedals'. As a kid I've always wondered what that meant & it's like a bass keyboard you use with your feet!

 

 Mick & Vince get their appropriate credits & we see in Tommy's list something called 'Simmons Drums' which are early electronic drums. You can see them on his kit during the Theatre Of Pain tour & in a lot of videos from the 1980s.

 

Allister Fiend is listed as the narrator for the album's introduction, 'In The Beginning'. This is the first we hear of Motley's 1980s mascot who would appear on a lot of Motley merchandise starting in 1982-3 up until the Dr. Feelgood era. Band cartoon 'mascots' were big in the '80s with Iron Maiden's 'Eddie' being the most famous & iconic one of the bunch.

Now of course we know that cartoon characters can't talk but our Allister does . . . & he's British! We'll be doing a post dedicated entirely to Allister at some point but to give the credit where it's due, Mr. Fiend is actually Engineer, Geoff Workman. Geoff composed the eerie sounds & recited Nikki's poem for 'In The Beginning'. He also engineered & mixed the album! His contribution to Shout At The Devil is significant.

Shout at the Centerfold

                

Motley Scrapbook #1

(click images to enlarge & READ)

I began collecting Motley stuff probably around 1985. I had been a fan already for a year or more but could never get my kid hands on Crue posters. I stole a Circus mag from a local convenience store that had Shout At the Devil-era pictures (my favourite) but then someone stole it from me. An older cousin finally gave me some of his old Crue posters & I began getting magazines & would trade stuff of other bands to friends for their Crue stuff. With some I would trade Metallica posters, or pin-ups, with another, Crue for Poison or Skid row & so on. I became so notorious for my love of Motley Crue in school that people would collect Crue pics or articles or media clipping for me & would bring them to me at school. I never amassed a major collection but what I have is very me-specific & holds a lot of memories from my youth.

I started my first Crue scrapbook in the late ‘80s. I tried to date some of the pics & I see now I was often off but you get the idea.

There are carnival stickers, an ad for a show in Toronto, some great rare Too Fast For Love era pics, a Circus Magazine Poll Winners page with all of Crue’s wins, chip bag stickers, Crue chart standings from my local newspaper, an ad from a Hustler mag, a cool news clipping about Vince & Tommy saving the day at a crime scene & lotsa other little tidbits.

This is the kind of stuff that you just don’t get anymore.