BEFORE: Well, it seems I planned this rather well. If Ziggy Stardust was the spiritual progenitor to Alice Cooper, then Alice Cooper is the fore-runner of Twisted Sister. Yesterday's film even said so.
Dee Snider carries over from "Super Duper Alice Cooper".
AFTER: Of course, one day after I declare that every band has exactly the same story, or something very close to it, along comes a film about a band that didn't follow the same pattern as everyone else. Oh, sure, they had the mates from school forming a band thing, and practicing and gigging really hard, and then - well, not much of anything happened for YEARS, though it wasn't for lack of trying, if you let them tell the story, anyway.
The problem was that they were a gimmick band, and some people just didn't like, or didn't get, the gimmick. Which sounds weird because as I've already seen, Bowie did it, Alice Cooper did it, why did people get turned off just because a metal band was dressing up all girly and glam? If you ask me, the gimmick is only a gimmick, and you kind of need some hit songs to progress any further past the gimmick. But that surely couldn't have been the problem for Twisted Sister, because all of their songs were amazing gems, right? Again, this is THEM telling the story so I have a hunch that they're somewhat biased. To hear Jay Jay French say that when he went to see Bowie in concert he was inspired by his look, but his music sucked - well, that tells you pretty much what you need to know. Even though not every song in the "Ziggy Stardust" concert was amazing, I'd still listen to early Bowie a thousand times before choosing to listen to early Twisted Sister, so please, get over yourself.
What Twisted Sister was, instead of a hit-making machine, was a bar band - meaning that they knew how to work a crowd, perform on-stage antics like hosted drinking competitions that for sure would be illegal in today's litigious world, and yeah, dressing up in women's gear. But unlike Bowie who could probably pass for female, Dee Snider was more in the Alice Cooper camp, where his masculinity still came through the clothing and the make-up. And he would explain to people back then, "Hey, I'm not a fag..." Umm, great, but you may want to stop telling the story that way, it's a much more sensitive world now. Classy guy.
There's no doubt that this band had their share of bad luck - every time they got close to signing a record deal to make an album, something bad would happen. A key member of the band would quit, another record company executive would veto the deal, or the executive that did want to sign them would suddenly die or his business partner would walk off with all the money. So even though the band had a few hit singles released (again, I question their quality, because the film didn't really play them) it was YEARS before they were able to release an album. And then when they finally did, it turned out that glam groups were passé, and it appeared that they had missed their shot at stardom.
They kept gigging, and touring, and got their name out there, and of course they did finally have a hit album and video - you know the one, "We're Not Gonna Take It" - only this documentary STOPS right before that happened, it ends with a 1982 appearance on the BBC's Channel 4 where they managed to win over a crowd with Dee wiping off his make-up. (Umm KISS did it first, sorry, man... then of course the fans begged KISS to put the make-up back on...) This makes no sense, this band had ONE big super hit, why not find a way to include it in this film? There are titles at the end of the film that explain that the band was on top of the world for five years after that hit, but why spend over two hours focusing on the time that the band was mired in relative obscurity?
It can't be a rights issue, the BAND produced this film - do they just want to be perceived by their fans as lovable losers, like is that more sympathetic or something? Why shy away from playing their most famous song? Why not include any footage of the phenomenon the band became during their most popular years? It seems that they're much more proud of their reputation for playing on the final night of some very famous clubs, when they prompted their fans to tear all the building's fixtures out, which if you think about it, is probably cheaper than hiring a professional demolition crew. The band probably found their calling here, and I hope the club owners paid them for this service - an unruly mob of rock fans is unfortunately not licensed for this, but man, did they work efficiently.
NITPICK POINT: Why did two people associated with the band have to be interviewed while they were driving their cars? Were they so busy that they didn't have time to sit down in a studio, so they had to answer questions while doing errands? This wasn't even visually interesting, it just seemed like poor planning on somebody's part. Even worse, answering questions about the band's history seems like it would cause distracted driving at the very least - so really, this was not the proper way to conduct interviews.
Also starring Jay Jay French, Mark Mendoza, Ken Neill, Eddie Ojeda, A.J. Pero, Suzette Snider, Jason Flom, Joe Gerber, Martin Hooker, with archive footage of David Bowie (last seen in "Bowie: The Man Who Changed the World"), David Johansen, Iggy Pop (last seen in "Super Duper Alice Cooper"), Lemmy, Mel "Starr" Anderson, Keith "Angel" Angelino, Kevin John Grace, Frank "Rick Prince" Karuba, Michael "Valentine" O'Neill, Tony Petri, Billy "Diamond" Stiger,
RATING: 4 out of 10 shades of lipstick
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