BABYLON A.D. WAS NOT FUCKING AROUND

I piqued my own curiosity the other day by offhandedly mentioning hair rockers Babylon A.D. so duh I finally went back and listened to their first album after whoa nearly 20 years. That shit rips! The big side A ballad is ginormous, and my memory owes me an explanation for losing track of "Caught Up In The Crossfire" (above, kinda sounds like "I Love Rock 'N Roll") and "Shot O' Love" which now reminds me of that butt-faced reality chick on VH1. Anyway, Babylon A.D. got a nice promo push after being the first loud rock act on Arista, then run by Clive Davis right? That must've been a fun meeting. I wonder who suggested the Sam Kinison swear-assault on "The Kid Goes Wild." It probably wasn't the guy who signed Whitney Houston.

THE FACIST SECURITY DROID GOES WILD

I love that drinking game where dudes take turns calling out hair rock bands and the first to blank out is punished by a council comprising the other players. The sentence is usually some night-ending amount of intoxicants delivered by eye injection or something. It gets hard to recall what may amount to dozens of crotch-boy groups by name, especially once you get into sub-minor successes (Baton Rouge, Tuff, Jet Boy, Roxx Gang, Spread Eagle) and the semi-hair rockers that always spur debate (The Cult, Aerosmith). Side bets can be had by challenging the namer to also identify by complete title a song attributable to the named band. (I took major action once to sing in its entirety "Walkin' Shoes" by Tora Tora FTW.)

This game was started before the onlinenets, so shit this is knowledge culled from Headbangers Ball, Rip and Metal Edge. Oh and thousands of hours appearing nonchalant while positioning oneself to shoplift at CD stores. Anyway, it's good strategy to keep a few in your breast pocket for later, so to speak, groups which you're reasonably certain will not be mentioned by your competitors. My trump card is usually a unverifiable regional act (Legz Up, London zing!) but when Bubbles isn't playing I squirrel away for the tough upper 60s some stateside flops like Cats In Boots or Babylon A.D. But that last ace up my sleeve might be wrecked if they ever reissue the red hot Robocop 2 soundtrack (above) or if Lazarus A.D. continues to flourish. Those are what you call good problems.