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By Day We Run, By Night We Dance

By Cindy Davis | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (16)

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First off, let’s get one thing straight. There are at least two factions of the eighties; the lame-o, cheese-filled, pretending-to-be-macho-but-really-kind-of-girly hair bands:

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and the über-cool, pretending-to-be-macho-but-really-kind-of-girly alternative bands:

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Alternative band rocked, hair bands sucked. Got it?


And…on to the news. A while back, Dustin reported some casting rumors on the upcoming Adam Shankman film, Rock of Ages. An adaptation of the Broadway musical that features songs from a bunch of the aforementioned hair bands such as Twisted Sister, Poison, Journey and Styx, Rock of Ages follows an aspiring rocker trying to make the big time. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mary J. Blige is signed, Tom Cruise is still in the mix to play the lead singer of successful band, but Will Ferrell and Steve Carell have both declined roles. Now the offer to play club owner, Dennis, has been put out to Alec Baldwin, who pretty much kicks the ass of anything he does these days - so I say good on Shankman for going that route. Meanwhile, hot off “Glee” and Country Strong, Gwyneth Paltrow is up for the role of a Rolling Stone reporter.

Shankman himself lent credence to the casting rumors by tweeting about them Friday. As bad as the music is, I could be sucked into seeing this craptastic-ness if the Cruise/Baldwin dream team is fulfilled.

Meanwhile, I recommend you spend your Sunday in PJs, jamming.









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Comments

Alternative band rocked, hair bands sucked. Got it?

Yeaaahhh....I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you on that.

80s alternative bands are the raison d'etre for much of the emo music of the last few years. So many trying to be The Cure or The Smiths and not understanding that THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE TALENT TO BE THAT!

Posted by: Fredo at December 19, 2010 3:46 PM

I'm with Feedo.

HAIR METAL FOREVER!

Mope-rock breeds the sort of people who masturbate to sparkly vampires.

Posted by: cheryl at December 19, 2010 3:58 PM

So the film is going to go with significantly older actors (Gwyneth Paltrow aside) than the Broadway cast? It's the opposite approach of the Hairspray film, where every actor from the original cast was deemed too old to play their role.

Posted by: Robert at December 19, 2010 4:28 PM

Sorry, cheryl, but hair-metal bands were the models for sparkly vampires.

Posted by: alone in the dark at December 19, 2010 5:24 PM

There are at least two factions of the eighties; the lame-o, cheese-filled, pretending-to-be-macho-but-really-kind-of-girly hair bands... and the über-cool, pretending-to-be-macho-but-really-kind-of-girly alternative bands.

Then there was Rollins-era Black Flag, which managed to be both at the same time. Though the only girly one in the group was their bassist, Kira.

All in all, the eighties were kind of a drag, but Double Nickels On The Dime by The Minutemen made up for a lot of it. In other news: holy shit, am I old.

Posted by: spoobnooble at December 19, 2010 6:21 PM

I'm with you on the Black Flag.

Posted by: Cindy at December 19, 2010 8:40 PM

The top picture: is that Whitesnake? Because one of those guys looks like that band's singer, and two of those guys look like Sebastian Bach, and I don't think he was in Whitesnake. Or maybe one of them is Tawny Kittaen, who I think was dating the singer of Whitesnake at one time.


The guy in blue has the biggest afro I've ever seen on a white dude. That would make a good random list, top 5 white guys with 'fros.

Posted by: Viking at December 19, 2010 10:25 PM

That's Whitesnake. I recognize David Coverdale and Vivian Campbell.

Posted by: alone in the dark at December 19, 2010 10:40 PM

Van Halen kinda fits both categories, a little, no?

What? No, really, you have no idea how "alternative" in the literal sense VH1 sounded in the rock universe of its time. I was a classic rock fan at the time, I'd seen Nugent and Rush and Styx and BOC and Kiss and Black Sabbath and ... I'd never heard anything like "Runnin' With the Devil." Changed my world view for a few years.

I like Henry Rollins. He seems like a really funny, honest guy. But I can't force myself at gunpoint to listen to Black Flag/Rollins Band.

Posted by: , at December 19, 2010 11:28 PM

I think we're all forgetting a third faction - the 80s thrash metal bands like Metallica, Testament, Exodus, Slayer and their ilk, who actually were macho, hard-drinking road-dogs who would genuinely terrify both of the above-pictured collections of weeping vaginas.

Posted by: Dill The Devil at December 20, 2010 5:26 AM

I concur with Dill on the existence of real metal in the 80's.

Also, I feel the need to point out that the term alternative wasn't used to describe music in the 80's. It didn't really come around until the first part of the 90's.* The 80's bands you're referring to as alternative would no doubt have fallen under that category later on (or the emo genre) but they weren't at the time.

*-As I was only 12 in 1988 it is possible that this statement is completely untrue. I never heard the moniker alternative until the 90's though.

Posted by: Paultera at December 20, 2010 10:22 AM

Sorry Paultera, you're wrong. Real alternative began in the 80s.

Posted by: Cindy at December 20, 2010 10:33 AM

"...top 5 white guys with 'fros."

- Posted by: Viking

Gene Shalit, and the portly dude that runs the sex toy shop around the corner from my house.

So I've heard.

Posted by: Groundloop at December 20, 2010 1:53 PM

How can someone who knows absolutely nothing about the subject explored in the piece she's writing about be the one who gets to write about it? Kinda like when you wrote about the Alien rumors with DiCaprio

"Alien"? I've heard of that movie. May I write about that news item?

80's metal? I think I heard one of those songs once. Let me throw in my 2 cents, eh?"

That's like me saying "Menstruation. Huh. My girlfriend has those like, all the time, whenever she throws out that little wallet thing with all the holes punched out the back. I should totally be the one to give my opinion on it."

Posted by: PissBoy at December 20, 2010 3:42 PM

And the equally shitty make-up and vinyl/leather clothing your "alternative" bands wore was somehow more masculine?

No matter what, virtually ANY hair metal lead singer would STILL easily jam a broken drumstick into Bob Mould or Peter Murphy's sandy little giners.

Posted by: PissBoy at December 20, 2010 3:51 PM

So sorry to disappoint you PissBoy, clearly Journey and Styx were major metal bands about whom I should have had encyclopedic knowledge to write a little trade news blip. If you actually knew anything about the piece yourself you'd realize it has zero to do with "80s metal" and much to do with what will likely be an unintentionally funny Adam Shankman movie. But rock on with your bad self.

Posted by: Cindy at December 20, 2010 10:56 PM