Metal Monday

One of the tragedies of hair metal, I say this as someone who thinks Poison cranked out some pretty good songs, is the hard rock bands that rode the hair wave to success and then crashed. They weren't really hair bands and had their roots in blues bases 70's rock. They have since come to be identified with hair metal. Lets start with a classic:

That's just a great rock and roll song. One of the babes in teh background went on in infamy in the Cherry Pie video (speaking of awful hair metal). This is just a tweak or two away from being a Doobie Brothers song.

Let's move on to my favorite. Tesla. I saw them in 1989 and I've seen then three or four times in the last decade, usually opening for Def Leppard:

There it is, a soulful singer, blues licks.

Here's another great one from them:

Almost a folk-rock song and one of my favorites. One of the first songs I learned to play on guitar.

I'm going to stipulate to everything the reader will say about the next band, from clothes, down to teh name, but c'mon, Cinderella rocked hard:

Sounds like a 70's band.

Speaking of damn near being a folk-rock band:

The very first rock song I learned to play, btw.

Now, Cinderella was successful, so much so that by their brilliant third album, the clothes and make up came off:

That's about 1990.

Left to their own devices, most of these guys look and sound like Aerosmith, the ultimate 70's band.