1981-04-24, 25 - Live at The Starwood (Opening for Y&T) - VIDEO - Crue Boots

Fitting that Motley's very first show at the Starwood on April 24th and 25th is the first post in a series on the live bootlegs of the band. This first "project" will deal with the Too Fast For Love era shows (1981-1983). There are only around 12 video and audio boots of the band from these years.

The Starwood boot has been floating around collector's circles since the 1980s. I remember seeing it advertised for sale in the back of Hit Parader and Circus Magazines. I finally got a copy in the late '80s and could hardly believe what I was seeing and hearing. I had only heard Too Fast For Love in 1987 and had no idea the band had such a humble beginning. Motley Crue were always superhero big when I saw them in the mid to late 1980s. This young band bashing it out on a club stage was a revelation.

This is the only Too Fast For Love era show on video. Only a few brief clips survive otherwise. The rest of our 1981-1983 boot journey will will be almost exclusively in the land of Audio. 

The Crue would have played a total of four sets over the two nights, early and late shows. What is represented on the bootleg is patchy and a mess! A complete and HQ copy of the show does currently exist in a collector's hands but Nikki is so litigious when it comes to the band's early history that this fan fears we will never see the whole show properly released. 2021 will be the 40th anniversary of the show and the band's beginning. What an opportunity to release this concert in a box set along with audio the band has never officially remastered or released at all. It won't happen, though.

Friday, April 24th, 1981 - Early Set
1. Mick Mars solo into Stick To Your Guns
2. Nobody Knows What It's Like to Be Lonely
3. Public Enemy#1 [Vince says "Goodnight" at song's end]

Friday, April 24th, 1981 - Late Set
4. starts in the middle of Toast Of The Town ["That's the b-side of our new single!"]
5. Too Fast For Love
6. ballad announced but cuts to end of Paperback Writer (The Beatles)
Vince says "We're Motley Crue! We're gonna be back tomorrow night!"

Saturday, April 25th, 1981
7. cuts into unreleased song Why You Killin' Yourself?
This is the only known recording of this song.
8. Tonight (The Raspberries)
9. Mick solo into Stick To Your Guns ["This is the A-side of our single"]
10. Public Enemy #1 ["Good night!"]

11. Eliteworks shared a complete HQ performance of the band playing Paperback Writer back in 2011. I do not know what night or set it's supposed to be from.

The Sleaze Patrol Teen Bedroom, 1991

The walls of the Sleaze Patrol Files Blog have been decorated with vintage Motley pin-ups, posters, shirts, mirrors and assorted memorabilia since the mid 1980s. Here we are in the year 2020 with the original members all still alive and with a recently postponed tour (until summer 2021). It seems unreal. No one thought the Crue would be alive let alone performing and recording music this late in the game. 2021 is their 40th anniversary! Here is a video of the Sleaze Patrol Files headquarters back in the year 1991 when the Motleys were still in their original Decade Of Decadence heyday and before Vince would leave in 1992.

Bullwinkle

Here is a video featuring a woman who may or may not be Bullwinkle.

Crue Pin-Ups and Posters Home Video, 1991

Waaaayyy back in February of 1991 I made a three minute video showing many of my Motley pin-ups and posters from Rock magazines. I was fifteen years old. Back in those days, if I met a fellow Crue fan who said they didn't like the tune "Save Our Souls" from 1985's THEATRE OF PAIN, I thought they were jokers.
Enjoy!

School Notebook Crue Art and 2019's "The Dirt"

Going through some boxes at my folks' place recently I stumbled upon these old English and Math class notebook duo-tangs from the early 1990s. Tagging your school books with your favourite bands was a busy pastime for us old-school Metal Heads. I'm glad I went to public school where no one told me I couldn't graffiti my books! Looks like I was listening to Faith No More and Nazareth at the time, too. 

While we're here we thought we'd share the trailer for the Crue bio coming to Netflix on March 22nd, 2019. "The Dirt" is based on the 2001 Motley autobiography of the same same. Looks a little on the cheap side but hope it's entertaining.

They wrote three new tunes and covered Madonna's "Like A Virgin" for the soundtrack. They've released the tune "The Dirt." It's actually not as bad as I expected and grows on you.

February, 1992 - The End of Motley Crue PART I

To get a sense of where Motley were at this time, let's go back just a few months to October, 1991 in Canada where Mick and Nikki were doing a publicity junket for the new Crue retrospective Decade Of Decadence. I recorded a bunch of stuff from their day at Much Music and Musique Plus (Canadian English and French video music channels in the 1980s-1990s). The video below has Nikki talking about the future sounds of Motley. What folks don't always remember is that Motley were about to enter a slightly more progressive, heavy and experimental phase of music with or without Vince. Even before Dr. Feelgood came out in late 1989, Nikki was talking about experimenting with the Motley sound. They flirted with Rap music on a few demos that never passed the demo stage. The albums Motley Crue (1994, without Vince) and Generation Swine (1997, with Vince) show us, in compromised settings, what some of the new Motley music sounded like just before Vince quit/was fired from the band. The keyboard, experimental music Nikki, Mick and Tommy were writing that Vince didn't like became the foundation of the sound fans would hear on  Motley Crue with John Corabi on vocals. Motley started jamming with John only a week after Vince was fired.

The following two interviews with Nikki and Vince for Hit Parader Magazine have the soon-to-be-parted band mates talking about the bond between the members and how it was never going to end . . . almost like they're over-compensating for conflicted feelings. 

I heard the news at school the day it was announced. A kid came up to me in the hallway and laughed, 'Hey man, Vince got kicked out of Motley!' I remember walking home and tuning into Much Music waiting to hear the confirmation ... and it came. February 14th the band issued a press release about the parting. Here's footage of the Vince MTV interview mentioned in the Metal Edge notice, above. We're going back to the week of February the 18th in our Crue history books. 

Lonn M. Friend is the talking head in this second video. He was the editor of Rip Magazine and it sounds like he was talking to Nikki and is sharing some of what was said about the parting. MTV talked to Vince on the phone in the ensuing days and a camera crue [cough -ed.] caught up with him in Long Beach on April 12th where he was racing (and crashed twice).

Nikki, Mick and Tommy held a band meeting on February 11th and voted Vince out. The Crue told the world about it that Friday, on Valentines Day, and then remained quiet while Vince did a huge publicity response, appearing and being reported on a wide variety of television entertainment shows. We'll share more TV clips of Vinnie trying to process the firing and more magazine articles from the vaults.

Vince Part 7: Dr. Neil, 1988-1989

Vince was sober, recording Dr. Feelgood in Vancouver, Canada on the weekends, & apparently not getting along with his then wife, Sharise Ruddell. Sometime in perhaps mid 1988, Sharise talked to the folks at Blast! Magazine about her relationship with Vince, the making of Motley's new record & what she was getting herself up to as Mrs. Neil.

In May 1989, in the locker room after a charity baseball game, Coach Vince Neil talks to Gerri Miller of Metal Edge Magazine about the loss to Sam Kinison's team & updates her on the final stages of the recording of Dr. Feelgood.

Gerri Miller of Metal Edge once again gets the scoop on the new Motley record & Vince talks about everything including the new video, tour, acting & much more in this circa August 1989 article, 'Vince Neil On The Line':

Vince talks to Anne M. Raso at Powerline Magazine circa October-November 1989. He speaks at length about Motley's longevity, the scuffle-up at Moscow in August that saw them separating ways with manager Doc McGhee, the then European tour, the security necessary for big rock bands & an anecdote about an imposter who convinced a Las Vegas casino that he was the real Vince Neil & left a bill for 10 grand! The Crue would be jetting to gigs on their new private plane for the first time.

Vince's turn as an actor in some bigger budget movies is mentioned in all these interviews. He gets killed in Andrew 'Dice' Clay's The Adventures Of Ford Fairlane from 1990. He also voices regret that his scene in Police Academy Part 6 got cut from the final feature. Here's the trailer for the 'Dice' movie. Most of Vince's appearance is featured in the first 13 seconds!

Motley contributed 'Rock N' Roll Junkie' to the soundtrack. I actually bought this thing, I was such a Cruehead. I didn't know they were going to release it on Decade Of Decadence in 1991 but I couldn't have waited that long anyway. A fun & funky Motley B-Side!

We actually have about 6 minutes of Vince on the set of Police Academy 6 in late 1988. We see him in 'Hair & Make-up', going over his lines at his trailer & then being interviewed about Motley. Vince says they're taking holidays 1988 off & then pre-production with Bob Rock in January 1989 with recording starting February 1st. We even see the cut scene as the crew films it!

More Vinnie to come at The Sleaze Patrol Files!!

Dr. Feelgood Part 6: Golden Days of 1989-1990

 

The Motleys were riding high in these boon years of 1989 to 1990. Here’s some Hard Rock artifacts from those halcyon days of yore!

Metal Muscle magazine describes our boys as ‘The Most Notorious Act of the ‘80s’ & then goes on to sum up Motley operations to the late ‘89, early 1990 point.

The above Metal Edge Magazine story gives us a time capsule of the band as they embarked on their most successful tour. Late 1989 concerts are mentioned, like the December 10th, 1989 encore at the Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, NJ, with Ace Frehley & Sebastien Bach helping the boys out with a version of ‘Jailhouse Rock.’
The article also mentions Vince’s turn as an actor portraying a murdered rock star in the Andrew Dice Clay vehicle, Ford Fairlane. Here be the trailer with our Vinnie shouting, ‘Hello L. A!’ before he falls to his death. So Motley.

The US Festival, May 29th, 1983

 

The US Fest pics I saw in the ‘80s set a strange scene: the Crue doing their Shout At the Devil thing in broad daylight, on a sunny California afternoon. This show was four months before the record would be released in September of 1983. I read my Crue history as a kid & this concert was often cited as the scene of Motley’s breakthrough: it was certainly the biggest concert they had performed thus far in their career (I think their WHOLE career: approximately 670,000 people attended this fest with about 300,000 witnessing this ‘new’ band, Motley Crue). Crue performed during ‘Heavy Metal Day’ with other acts like Van Halen, Quiet Riot & Ozzy Osbourne.

These images were all I had ever seen of this monumental Motley moment & it wasn’t until the YouTube era that I got my first listen. To say I was underwhelmed would be an understatement. I think the size of the stage & the crowd intimidated the Crue & they were off their game that day. It didn’t help that Vince was having mic problems & Mick seems to be on a another planet at times.

 

Here is the show in its entirety!

Girls, Girls, Girls, Part 6: Magazine Posters

The Motleys Take A Bow

 

‘Take A bow ye pirates of sleaze! Your raping & pillaging ceased, bow before the hungry throngs who lap at your feet & cry for more!’

‘The Theatre Of Pain draws to a close, the fires subside & the bodies lay scattered amongst the ruins & carnage.’

The Sleaze Patrol Files offers up a video compilation of the band taking their bows before their rabid fans from 1984 to 1991.

The best example of the Motley exit would have to be the one director Wayne Isham filmed at the end of the ‘Home Sweet Home’ video. The band genuflects before their audience (we are watching them from behind) & each band member doubles back to exit backstage & signals a final good-bye to the camera. Nice stuff.