Skid Row

[mctallica1]

I still rock out Slave to the Grind pretty regularly.

Great song

 

[Zombify]

The Skids got me into the whole "pop/hair/melodic/glam" thing. Was a big thrash fan and hated everything else, until I saw videos of my idols Pantera play a KISS song with Skid Row (My little 14 year old opinionated brain couldn't deal with it)

Then I actually listen to Youth Gone Wild (catchy as all hell, eh?) and since then, well, here I am in a glam metal cover band building a Mick Mars guitar...

I liked Skid Row because they didn't just chug power chords, they had very different rock chords then anyone else at the time, very unique... Wish I could listen to anything after Subhuman Race

People tend to mistake Skid Row as a hair band. They were not a hair band, rather they were simply a melodic hard rock band, like countless others in the 80's. In fact the second wave of "Glam rock" (I hate that term) image was dead by 1988, save a couple of bands that didn't get the memo. Even Poison during the 88' Open Up and Say Ahh.. tour toned down their image.

Just because a hard rock band came out in the 80's, people associate it to "Hair metal", when in fact, it's just hard rock music with an image that was popular at that time. Even heavier darker bands like King Diamond during the Abigail years were perming their hair and dressing like pirates. It was just the style back then, and I think it was great, and fun.

Image was everything back then. Grunge killed good music in my opinion.

 

[toddmogle]

Cool background info

A tour long education in tone

What was Dave Sabo using back then before wolfgang's?

Snake used a custom LP jr styled guitar on the first record built by Chris Hofschneider. Loaded with a Dimarzio X2N, and a Spector neck. Also had a Garden State Custom strat guitar...green with an airbrushed snake on it. When the 2nd record came out, he got an ESP M1 with Duncan JB in it. Tour for the first record with Marshall JCM 800 two channel heads, with the ADA MP1.
Slave To The Grind record, he and Scotti both switched to Rivera M100 heads, with BBE 822 Sonic Maximizers. There was an interview in GFTPM magazine back in 1991, where they rave about the BBE's with the Riveras. Used an older Marshall cab with 100watt celestions in it. Tones on that record are great!

Got to check out their rigs in November 2000. Snake played the Wolfgang thru a 5150II head, small pedalboard with a TS808, Boss CE-2 and a crybaby 535 wah. Scotti played his custom Fenders thru a Line 6 Flextone head & cabs.

 

[OldSkoolNJ]

A lot of their favorite guitars can be seen in all of the STTG rehearsal footage on youtube.

 

[C1-ocaster]

^depends on how you define "great players"
All those grunge guys you mentioned can certainly craft a decent tune as a songwriter, but for pure technical shredding power over the neck they were less than mediocre. Tough to get the whole package as a player

Yes, that's true.
Many of us view "great player" as different things.
Hendrix was also a sloppy player as was Jimmy Page, and a host of older blues players, but many of us still liked what they wrote, the song.
The bands I listed I think the bands had "great" players with varying levels of technical prowess, but for the most part it's the songs that resonate with me.

Alice is more of a hard rock to metal band. Yes, they got lumped in to "grundge", but they had the hard edge with a more stripped down tonal approach. Cantrell is a great player. He's not fret board gymnist, but to me that's not what makes a "great" player.
He's a very solid player and he played clean as in, he's not sloppy. The boys in Sound Garden, yes, a bit sloppy, but it fit their songs.
They weren't a solo guitar band, again a likely reaction to the mess that was happening in the late 80's early 90's.

It wasn't grundge that hit people on their big hair and said "HOLD ON!" It was Guns and Roses.
I think GnR kicked the door open for something different to come around, and that was the stripped down rock music that came during the so called "grundge" era. I hate that term as much a I hate "hair metal" or "hair bands" actually, because it lumps too many variables into one thing. For those of us who were there we know there was much more to the 80's and 90's rock scene than just hair metal and grundge, repectively. If anything ruined real music and the making of real music it was hip-hop and rap when it became mainstream.
There I go again, driving the bus off the cliff.

 

[C1-ocaster]

I understand music needed something else at the time and the music was overproduced, solos were wank fests, songs were predictable, etc. I appreciate the songs and listened to and enjoyed all the [grunge] bands I just bashed on. I just wish they had maybe kept the chops and technical skills and been more selective about when and how to use it, instead of throwing the technique out the window in the name of playing with energy/emotion/whatever.

I think you're trying to have your proverbial cake and eat it too.

The whole reason the grunge movement turned rock back in the right direction, away from all of the needless wankery and shredding, was because these guys were not technical "virtuosos". They were meat and potatoes players. This allowed them to focus on writing good songs, as opposed to good solos. The reality is, for the majority of players, the more technically proficient you become, the more that proficiency will show up in your writing. I have not known many guys over the years that were killer shredders that were able to truly park their egos and play what the song needed, as opposed to showing the world what finger acrobatics they were capable of. This, of course, is my experience and YMMV. And, to be clear, I am speaking in reference to songs based around a vocal, not instrumental guitar music.

Wait a minute! This thread is about Skid Row!

Yes, it is. And that brings me back to before my derailment. I liked them because they weren't like the masses of hair metal, or aluminum rockers as I called them, cause aluminum is not a heavy metal.
Skid Row was a hard rock band and I appreciated their intensity of song without the need to wait for the solo before there was something to listen to.