NOTHING BUT A GOOD TIME…
The song remains the same. “Feel the shake. Feel the Earth shake.” JETBOY had two major-label record contracts, extravagant wardrobes, winning attitudes, the Hanoi Rocks bass-player, and mostly unremarkable songs. Even so, these Sunset Strip second-stringers from San Francisco have long been due for a reassessment. A few of their boppy, happy-go-lucky, early songs, like “Car Sex” and “Don’t Mess With My Hair” may have shown some bubble-gummy promise, in a Poison, or Enuff Z’Nuff sort of way. Lighthearted, campy, tinny-pop, with cowbell, and mohawks! The problem with pop-metal, is that it often achieved neither. Few bands can really effectively be all things to all people, like Van Halen, and Cheap Trick, were.
JETBOY were, however, a fantastic live band, in some of this ancient footage, vocalist Mickey Finn reminds me alot of the Trash Brat’s Brian Oblivion, in the old days. I would have loved to have attended their club shows–and believe me, so would you. What they may have lacked in songwriting ability, they kinda made up for with chutzpah and personality. It’s 2,008, and there’s nothing with the sparkle of JETBOY. Here’s what I like about those cats-they had lots of style, they wanted to entertain the people, and they really seemed like they sincerely appreciated the perks of Flash-Metal Infamy. They weren’t like those insufferable grunge-ingrates, who forever moaned and bitched about the hardships of stardom. Much of their music still seems lite-weight to me, not alot of substance, but perfectly enjoyable in an Autograph or Poison kinda way.
This DVD is a wonderful time-capsule that really takes you back to an era when music was still magical, as Billy Rowe says in the accompanying documentary. Alot of their pedestrian hair-band rock has aged extremely well, and they’ve been playing shows with American Heartbreak bassist, Michael Butler, ably filling-in for N.Y. Doll, Sami Yaffa. They overcame alot of hard luck and bad breaks, but still come-off as really charming, lovable, and endearingly humble, upbeat dudes. You can’t help but like ’em. I’m so thrilled to own this DVD, cos it helps me more fully appreciate a band I never got to experience, properly, back then. American Heartbreak were one of my favorite bands of the last decade, so they really ended up being the bridge for my revisiting the whole Jetboy saga. I’ve sortof been converted, if nothing else, they were fun.
Listening to ’em all these years later, they make me feel like putting on my old Cathouse t-shirt, and, what? I dunno. Drivin’ fast, or maybe rattin’ my hair? Or maybe just playing “Feel The Shake” really, really LOUD! I was much too hard on Jetboy as a kid, expecting them to be something they clearly were not:Hanoi Rocks, or Lords Of The New Church. Upon more recent investigation, I’ve come to appreciate them like Sour-Patch candy-absolutely no nutritional value, but tasty, fun, colorful, and sweet. (-Anguish Young)http://www.jetboyrocks.com