Mar
17
2013

Sideshow

Sunday, March 17, 2013 - 11:28:43 am
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music)
I recently got my hands on some Beat Angels demos. Well, a whole bunch actually, some of which I've had for years. And a whole bunch I haven't. One of the many gems on there is their original version of Sideshow. Y'know, the song that Alice Cooper recorded and released in the early to mid 90's.

Listening to it today made me revisit the Cooper version, which I've heard a few times before. It's a great song. Hell, it's written by Smith, Brooks and Norwood. But the Coop's version, by comparison, oh so noticeably lacks the true rock 'n roll edge. Y'know what I mean - that whitewashing by the late 80's / early 90's overproduced, clean and commercialized sound that the labels gave the big hard rock acts of that era.

I'm not knocking Coops. Alice Cooper is a legend. I remember when I was 10 or 11, when Bed Of Nails and Poison came out, and lying in front of my stereo, equal distance between both speakers, loving how the guitars cut like a knife. It definitely seem raw and dangerous to my ten year old self. I brought Trash on CD about 10 years later. Did the production seem dated, even then? I'd be lying if I said no. You grow up, and the slick, "made to be a commercial radio hit" tricks are more obvious. Sideshow suffers a similar fate, almost 20 years later.

Until you hear the original Beat Angels demo version. Probably recorded on a miniscule budget compared to Cooper's version and coming from cassette tape, warts and all. And it sounds absolutely rock n' roll, trash and absolutely credibly; pretty much 20 years after it was recorded.

The intro stood out to me immediately. That's got to be Westerberg influence right there. Particularly on this demo version, the guitar riff is as if was born out of Talent Show and All Shook Down spending a sordid night together. God, I love it.

These demos are great, and have some pretty cool history associated with them. It often kills me that the Beat Angels didn't take the world by storm and that so many amazing songs didn't see the light of day, nor mass appeal. But I guess if they had, they'd probably have received the slick big budget treatment, and I wouldn't be sitting here today freaking out over how great these songs are, nor how they gel my trashy glam rock youth, with what I listen to these days perfectly. So maybe it's all for the best. Fuck, it's not like I don't know that most of the best songs were recorded on a shoe string budgets, heard by few, and cared about by less, anyway.

All hail the 3 minute pop song.
Now Playing: Beat Angels - Sideshow (Norwood Demos)

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