Partying in the 80's

[goldwing68nv]

so we've pretty much decided

1. The 80's were awesome if you were there

2. The 80's would have been fucking awesome if you would have been there.

fuckin' A

 

[Beyond Black]

Dude, my fifth birthday party in 1988 was off the CHAIN! Clowns all up in this bitch.

Good one kid.

 

[Chubtone]

Dude, my fifth birthday party in 1988 was off the CHAIN! Clowns all up in this bitch.

Son?

 

[Anonymous]

Dude, my fifth birthday party in 1988 was off the CHAIN! Clowns all up in this bitch.

Son?

Steve

 

[ACShreds]

Im 20 I would give anything to be able to live one day in the LA glam scene of the 80's. That being said being born and growing up in the 90's did yield some of the best cartoons and kids tv shows ever, you cant deny that. Pretty sure though that had i been a teen in the 90's i would have hated it, hell i barely like where im at now, the only thing keeping it from being totally lame is the cool technology.

 

[university81]

+1
turned 30 this year,

wish i could have seen all those bands back in the mid /late 80s, exciting time for sure

at least now all that stuff has been released , but imagine waiting in anticipation for reign in blood...master of puppets or somewhere in time, seventh son, painkiller, whitesnake 87 to be released (to name a few albums), or getting to actually hear glam metal stuff on the radio , or new wave bands, looking at the top 20 in the 80s compared to now heh

i miss buying an album and listening to it back to front so much you had the track times hardcoded into your brain =0 so much quality stuff released these days it's hard to keep up , not a bad thing in itself, but when i got my first cd player the only cds i had bought were 'and justice for all..', the first prodigy album and a batman soundtrack album man i played that stuff to death,

 

[racerevlon]

The Sunset Strip was THE place to be in the 80's. Was like a blank check for drugs, booze, and some of the hottest women on the planet willing to compete to see who could get more of what was left on the deli tray up their ass for a chance to get on the bus...

The 80's were all about having a good time, then came the 90's, "I hate my life," and Generation Apathy...

Never been a party like that since, and I doubt there ever will be...

 

[jlbaxe]

The Sunset Strip was THE place to be in the 80's. Was like a blank check for drugs, booze, and some of the hottest women on the planet willing to compete to see who could get more of what was left on the deli tray up their ass for a chance to get on the bus...

The 80's were all about having a good time, then came the 90's, "I hate my life," and Generation Apathy...

Never been a party like that since, and I doubt there ever will be...

AMEN

 

[stephen sawall]

I have never been to Paris ? Why do you ask ?

 

[guitarmike]

I graduated high school in 1981 and enjoyed the music "scene" from 1977 - 1993. Even in Milwaukee there were many clubs that had live music 4-7 nights per week. The bigger clubs pulled 200-300+ people on the weekend, every weekend. Most guys had long hair in the 80's, a lot of us had perms (we were too cheap to keep buying aqua-net!), and the women looked incredible. Married my hot babe in 1985 and am still with her. I miss being able to play out as much as I wanted and actually make a little money. Back then if you were good it did not take long to get a solid following.

My neighbor is friends with the drummer from White Tiger, a band from the 80's. I spoke with him and he told me for a number of years he would go to the beach every morning, practice at 2pm, and play a show 5-6 nights per week. Each night the band made $500-1500. He said by the late 80's it became pay to play, and he ended up back in WI.

I agree that the grunge - alt era did not kill the metal era, the record companies and their greed did. By 1990 there were 100 or more record company assembled bands for every real one. We as consumers did not buy into it long and the era was over. The bar scene died by a combination of higher drinking ages, tougher drunk driving laws, Aids, and a crack down on illegal drugs.

 

[TeleBlaster]

Ahhh the 80's.
I grew up in the rust belt in the 80's. My Dad lost his job as Production Manager of the world's largest heat treating company when they shut the doors.
Unemployment in the area I lived in broke 18%. Many large manufacturing and heavy industry companies disappeared. Home values plummeted and foreclosures were rampant, sorta like the times we live in now, but at the time it was fortunately limited to the rust belt area. Very intense era, watched my parents file for bankruptcy and lose their life savings and our family home, foreclosure, etc. Dad got a job managing a small foundry and bought another house, but they closed up a year later and we were out on the street again. I started working full time nights at a restaurant when I was 15, and going to high school during the day, giving everything except gas money to my parents. I somehow managed to graduate a year early but could not afford to take the time off for commencement lest I lose my job, so I got my diploma in the mail. I did the best I could to help out my parents until I turned 20 in 1985, and by then I couldn't take it anymore and had to live my own life so I moved to Arizona. I went 8 weeks before I could find any work. I lived in a house with smashed out windows and no hot water with a bunch of guys I didn't know. I slept in a sleeping bag, on an old mattress I found in the back alley that I dragged into "my" room. I had my wallet stolen, in it my last $42.00 and my ID. I finally found a job five miles away and walked back and forth to work until I saved up enough to buy a car at auction. I had sold my car in Milwaukee before I moved, to buy a one way plane ticket to Phoenix. I somehow managed to get an apartment and make some headway in life and got married in 1986. We fought almost daily for about two years. My wife was a cop. I got pistol whipped a few times, seriously. Didn't think we would make it but last May we celebrated our 25th Anniversary. Things got better in 1988 when my son was born and we managed to buy a house, but in early '89 because of the owner's shenanigans, my company got raided by the Feds and shut down. While unemployed, I got mixed up in a high speed chase ending in a shooting... too long to tell the details here, but I was in serious trouble for a few months until I was cleared, really just in the wrong place at the wrong time!
SO anyways, the 80's weren't all parties and good times for everyone. They kinda sucked for me and I'm glad they're gone forever.

 

[threadkiller]

I graduated high school in 93' so technically the 90's is my decade. Well... the 90's sucked. The music sucked. The scene sucked and my life sucked so yes, call me nostalgic but I still look at the 80's as "my" decade even though I was a kid. I was never much of a partier but just in terms of the music I still remember Nirvana as the band that killed "my music". If it hadn't been Nirvana it would have been someone else though. By the late 80's early 90's even I, as a 15 year old kid, could look and tell that a lot of the bands were record company products. The music became very formula and predictable, and it was still and album market so you could bu the album, listen once through, and predict the order of release. It would be the Rocker followed by the ballad. Never failed. It was rigged for implosion.

The 90's had some high lights but as a decade, music sucked IMO. The current music scene is much better IMO. Still, give me my 80's back.

 

[rlord1974]

.....I loved a lot of the 90's music because IMHO some of the bands had much better written songs and I welcomed those bands killing what was becoming a laughable trend in the music of 80's.

Agreed. Let's not get too down on the 90's guys. Some great music came out of that decade. AIC, Soundgarden? STP? Pearl Jam?, etc., etc.

Sure, maybe the female fans of these bands smelled like moth balls and dressed like hobos, but that doesn't detract from the music itself.......

 

[guitarmike]

Ahhh the 80's.
I grew up in the rust belt in the 80's. My Dad lost his job as Production Manager of the world's largest heat treating company when they shut the doors.
Unemployment in the area I lived in broke 18%. Many large manufacturing and heavy industry companies disappeared. Home values plummeted and foreclosures were rampant, sorta like the times we live in now, but at the time it was fortunately limited to the rust belt area. Very intense era, watched my parents file for bankruptcy and lose their life savings and our family home, foreclosure, etc. Dad got a job managing a small foundry and bought another house, but they closed up a year later and we were out on the street again. I started working full time nights at a restaurant when I was 15, and going to high school during the day, giving everything except gas money to my parents. I somehow managed to graduate a year early but could not afford to take the time off for commencement lest I lose my job, so I got my diploma in the mail. I did the best I could to help out my parents until I turned 20 in 1985, and by then I couldn't take it anymore and had to live my own life so I moved to Arizona. I went 8 weeks before I could find any work. I lived in a house with smashed out windows and no hot water with a bunch of guys I didn't know. I slept in a sleeping bag, on an old mattress I found in the back alley that I dragged into "my" room. I had my wallet stolen, in it my last $42.00 and my ID. I finally found a job five miles away and walked back and forth to work until I saved up enough to buy a car at auction. I had sold my car in Milwaukee before I moved, to buy a one way plane ticket to Phoenix. I somehow managed to get an apartment and make some headway in life and got married in 1986. We fought almost daily for about two years. My wife was a cop. I got pistol whipped a few times, seriously. Didn't think we would make it but last May we celebrated our 25th Anniversary. Things got better in 1988 when my son was born and we managed to buy a house, but in early '89 because of the owner's shenanigans, my company got raided by the Feds and shut down. While unemployed, I got mixed up in a high speed chase ending in a shooting... too long to tell the details here, but I was in serious trouble for a few months until I was cleared, really just in the wrong place at the wrong time!
SO anyways, the 80's weren't all parties and good times for everyone. They kinda sucked for me and I'm glad they're gone forever.

I can relate to you, my dad was self-employed repairing semi trucks. All his customers were the union trucking companies. Do you remember deregulation? By 1982 my dad had to relearn how to stay in business because the union companies were going out of business almost weekly, and to this day he is paying for it. I got married in 1985, my wife's dad was a drunk and wouldn't walk her down the aisle... We had NO $$ after the wedding, our honeymoon was going to Kokomo Ind (I worked for an expedited freight company delivering emergency shipments) 3 times in one week and sleeping on dirty moving blankets in the back of the van.

We made it (you and I), and even in all the bad I had music to pull me through. I was an over the road truck driver by 86 and pretty much quit gigging until 2000 so I spent most of my time listening to music, not playing.

 

[rottingcorpse]

played in a ski circuit band straight outta high school in 83. hot and cold running pussy, liquor, and dope. yep, had to wear spandex and hairspray, and had to play some songs i didn't wanna play, but never had to wait for any of the fun to start. (i should note i was playing bass at this time,but my guitarist was tearing it up. used 2 marshall halfstacks maxed out though a sholtz powersoak. awesome tone.)

did it for 2 years, then came back home to texas and started playing thrash in 85. by that point we were all making fun of the glam scene. still was able to score all the hot chicks without having to look like one. all this before any of the new generation of S.T.D's arrived. man,the 80's were a blast.

 

[TeleBlaster]

Yup...
I remember Reagan's speech: "Recession is when your neighbor loses his job, Depression is when you lose your job, Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job...." That was the first election I voted in. All of my family and relatives worked in manufacturing in some trade, and I remember the anger that the unions had let them down, all the years of union dues and voting the party line and an entire sector of the local economy was erased forever.
I lived two blocks from Kearney & Trecker in West Allis. I had a temp cleaning job for awhile at Allis Chalmers until they closed. My Mom got laid off from Allen Bradley, one of my brothers got laid off from Master Lock, the other from Briggs & Stratton, my uncle from Harley Davidson, my Dad's company was Wisconsin Steel Treating. Another cousin got laid off from Harnischfeger (P&H) and my brothers father in law from Rexnord. It was like armageddon for manufacturing in Milwaukee.
After graduating I was working all sorts of temp, part time and restaurant jobs. I hated the unions because they wouldn't give you a chance and they made it impossible for a young guy starting out to even get his foot in the door at a full time union job.
I played with a couple different bands, just small time stuff, for about three years before moving to Arizona. I saw what it would take to have a chance to "make it" in the music business at the time, and frankly the lifestyle was completely opposite of what I really wanted out of life. I was sick of the semi-vagabond arrangement and wanted a house and kids and stability, so I sacrificed that part of my life to work a job and be a boring middle class wasp.
I've been extremely fortunate to be able to play musician on the weekends and get to travel and perform with some very talented guys and have been in some really great bands the last 25 years. So in a way I get to have my cake and eat it too. The only thing I'm lacking now is sleep!

 

[JTyson]

I moved to LA in 1985. How fun was it? How ridiculous was the partying? Use your imagination and be very creative. The band I moved to LA with at the Troubador in Hollywood. Rocking the '84 Charvel San Dimas

Chubtone; that picture is wild.

I graduated HS in 1985 and the 80's were pure magic for guitar-oriented music. Everything from Pat Travers, to Yngwie, to Satriani, to Gary Moore, and probably 1000 other examples - or course kicked-off by Van Halen. I've always had mixed feelings on the term "hair metal" as in the 80's and early '90's there was no such term. I think that word originated in the 1997 time frame and has a lot of inaccurate references. The glammish stuff like Poison, Warrant, Cinderalla, was not considered "metal" at the time because that space was occupied by Iron Maiden, Saxon, JP, Metallica, etc.

THIS^
I got out of HS in 81, I can remember thinking the "hair bands" were a bunch of pussies that dressed up like girls, and wrote the dreaded "metal ballads" that polluted the airwaves and took airplay time from the real stuff. I was in a metal band from 82-92 called Skidmore Alice, and as fate would have it, was forced to play that stuff in clubs because the female contingent loved it, and loved hair metal in general. I looked at it as "sacrificing my musical integrity" to get a check
It was a unique time in music for sure. Back then it was totally a competition between bands to see who could pull off the cool guitar stuff, and you could always tell when your competition was there watching you, they would be the guys in the front with their arms crossed while you tried not to screw up in front of them Very little discussion of tone secrets between guitarist's back then
We were friends with all those guys though and had a great time. Fighting was rare, there were no shootings to speak of.
We never did anything big, but we had a blast for several years. I miss those guys, a few I still talk to regularly, 2 of them have died.
We opened for Pantera in Ohio once. The rest of it was normal club mahem. Its funny that some of the best band stories seem to stem from catastrophic equipment failure at the worst possible time during a show. (anyone else feel that way)
I must say I miss the bigger more epic club shows from back in that period. There seems to be a trend of club bands using as little as possible to get the job done. I understand what a PITA it is to load in/load out, it took us 7 hours to set up and get a soundcheck, and a solid 4 hours to tear down and load out. But it was supposed to be big back then. Everything was big. Bigger was much better
I guess it was typical of the time we lived in. I do miss that time period, but I'm glad to have gotten out alive

 

[JTyson]

The Sunset Strip was THE place to be in the 80's. Was like a blank check for drugs, booze, and some of the hottest women on the planet willing to compete to see who could get more of what was left on the deli tray up their ass for a chance to get on the bus...

The 80's were all about having a good time, then came the 90's, "I hate my life," and Generation Apathy...

Never been a party like that since, and I doubt there ever will be...

Agreed

 

[thiswaythatway]

That was one of the main things I didn't get about the 90's. What good was it to be in a band if you weren't enjoying yourself? Why were those guys so miserable and WHY did they get even more miserable when they made it huge and became filthy rich? Plus girls didn't wash their hair and dressed like slobs and ate way too many cheeseburgers if you know what I mean. The guy who works for me is 31 and has been working here for 16 years. He loved the cheesy, glam bands as a kid and their videos. He complained through the whole 90's about why the chicks tried to look hot and dress hot in the 80's and how women in the 90's were the laziest, most boring decade and that was HIS glory days.

I have to admit, while there was some stuff i liked, overall rock n roll was terrible in the 90's. The solo's all sucked if there even was a solo, all the singers sounded the same, and it all sounded sooo depressing. And the look of everyone was the same, straight hair like cousin it and flanel shirts.

I look at 1991 like the Mason Dixon line in rock. Although it took until about late 93 when the Clear channel stations started playing grunge 24/7 to really take over.

Funny thing is though, now that the bloom has come off grunge it's so much more clear to see the huge lack in talent a lot of them had. And 80's rock to me, seems to be more popular right now than grunge.

 

[Ventura]

I'm 40, and lemme tell ya, I had music in my life since I can remember, and that means having the more psychadelic/prog-rock music of the late 60's and early 70's as part of my musical intake at a young age from hanging with older cats, and musical families. I "understood" music to be everything from Hendrix and Zep and Stones to Genesis and Beatles and Rod Stewart. When I started fiddlin' about with a guitar, there weren't a lot of icons to gravitate towards, late 70's and young, young kid. 80's came along and I never really dug the hairbands, but the inspiration came from the non froo-froo classics: Scorpions, Sabbath, Ozzy, Maiden, Priest, Uriah Heep, ACDC, shit...I was too busy trying to figure out the ower chord headpounders than I was looking into the technical prowress of the big-haired virtuosos at that time.

As for partying, hell, for me it wasn't era specific. I lit it up good and hard for 25+ years of my life and have no regrets. Just happy I came out alive and without any permanent STDs. One thing I can say though is the day I heard the 1st 4 chords of Smells Like Teen Spirit - I knew a welcome change was on the horizon. And how very true that was - RHCP, Soundgarden, AIC, and so many more. Just HAMMERED the glitter-glam metal scene and I was so f*ckin` overjoyed

Funny thread, it took me back for sure...
Mo