Vim Fuego OK, so I’m not a huge Poison fan. I was right into them at one stage though. I listened to “Open Up and Say... aah!” til the tape wore out (yes, back in the 80s), and I own “Look What The Cat Dragged In”, but then I stopped listening some time around the time I first heard “Unskinny Bop”. Being bored in lockdown, I had a quick squiz through my CD collection at a few albums I hadn’t listened to much, and came across “Seven Days Live”.

I don’t actually remember buying this particular album, let alone listening to it, and can’t understand why I would have bought it in the first place. After all, I parted company with Bret Michaels and the boys in the early 90s. I was in search of harder, faster music, and they certainly weren’t producing it. And besides, no self-respecting thrasher would admit to owning a Poison album. But I must have dragged this thing out of a bargain bin at some time. Poison were always the butt of jokes for their massive hairspray abuse, feminine looks, and CC De Ville’s supposed shortcomings as a guitar player. By the time this was recorded in early 1993, CC had been ejected due to tension in the band caused by his drug abuse problems, and hotshot guitar hero Richie Kotzen had taken his place. There was a joke circulating that Kotzen would have to wear boxing gloves to play as poorly as De Ville. Funny, but unkind.

So not being familiar with Kotzen-era Poison, this is all pretty new to me. What do we have? The first couple of songs I had no fucking idea about. Bland glam pabulum. This doesn’t seem promising. If the whole album is like this, it’s going to be hard going to get through this. Third song “Ride The Wind”? Oh fuck, I HAVE heard this before! I thought it was Bon Jovi. And no, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

The next track is “Good Love”, from “Open Up...”, but I didn’t recognise it at first because it had more of a blues rock swagger than the studio original. Yeah, nah, don’t fuck with it. It wasn’t the best song ever written to start with, but if you’re going to do it different, at least do it better!

“Your Mamma Don’t Dance”, the band’s infamous Loggins and Messina cover, has a 12 bar blues swagger missing from their studio version. This time it improved the song, bringing it closer to the Loggins and Messina version. It’s still a silly party anthem.

Brett announced “Body Talk” was off “Native Tongue” so I don’t know it, but this ain’t too bad. Bobby Dall’s bass is more than solid, and these guys nailed the backing vocals. Kotzen finally lets rip with a too short solo, and Michaels proves he’s actually a pretty fucking good singer. Who’d a thought it? I hadn’t. And then Kotzen comes back for a longer, more satisfying solo. And apparently he cut it off short, because it was meant to be Brett’s piss stop song. Never mind...

You know that horrible taste you get in the back of your throat when you almost-but-don’t-quite vomit? Yeah, that’s “Something To Believe In”. Being live doesn’t improve it.

And “Stand”. More wimpy bollocks which I had heard before, but this time thinking it was Extreme. I really wasn’t paying much attention to these bands at the time these songs came out. I have no idea who these power ballads belonged to because I was more concerned with Sepultura’s changing sound, whether Bolt Thrower’s bottom end could actually wreck your speakers, and looking forward to what Entombed were going to do next.

“Fallen Angel” was a rare (for Poison’s first two albums) thoughtful song. It’s about the pitfalls of seeking fame and fortune in the big city, which the band knew about too well. It seems to have some deeper meaning to them than some of the other songs. It could have been a weepy ballad, but it’s a driven rocker instead. It’s one of the highlights of the whole show.

“Look what The Cat Dragged In” was silly, harmless fun when it was released, and it’s silly harmless fun here. It’s the epitome of what glam metal was supposed to be all about. Rikki Rockett punctuated it with a drum solo, and you know what? He’s not bad. No, he’s not Nico McBrain or George Kollias, but he knows a good rock groove when he hears it. And the solo isn’t too long, so no chance for it to get boring.

Blame the Black Crowes for “Until You Suffer Some (Fire & Ice)”. They made everyone think Southern rock was cool again. Hey, it never wasn’t cool, but the Crowes inspired mush like this.

The band really shines on “7 Days Over You”. Yes, it’s more blues rock, but this time it’s done well. It’s one of those week-long hungover break-up songs, when you realise she’s not worth it. It’s the best of the Kotzen-era songs. He shows he’s got the wailing licks and rocking chops to make a real go of this sort of music.

And so just when you thought Poison had got too mature and serious, up pops the dopey duo of double entendre filled sexytime songs in “Unskinny Bop” and “Talk Dirty To Me”. These are the sort of dumb fun anthems that made cock rock popular in the first place, but also ultimately led to it’s demise.

Or was it the ballads? Nobody ever out-ballad-ed “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn”, the quintessential acoustic glam weepy. Michaels and Kotzen together on guitar add an extra layer to the original. And that voice. No, he’s not one of the all-time great singers, but this is a guy who had perfected his craft through years and years on the road, and can connect with his audience.

Imagine finishing a show on such a downer. Well, yeah, maybe a band like My Dying Bride could finish on something melancholic, but this is supposed to be one of the ultimate party rock bands, so the finale is a belting version of “Nothin’ But A Good Time”. And this is what this is – a band having a good time, with a crowd also having a good time as a means of escaping their regular workaday lives. It’s fun, and unapologetically so.

Yeah, so Kotzen didn’t last too long after this. He turned out to be human filth and got caught fucking Rikki Rockett’s missus, so got booted from the band later in 1993. Poison sounded different with him – more mature and subtle, but a lot less chaotic and fun. He was replaced by Blues Saraceno, and eventually CC made up with Bret and got back into the Poison fold.

OK, I gotta say it. Bret, and the rest of the fellas onstage at the Hammersmith Apollo on April 23 1993, that was actually a pretty fucking good time.

I still don’t know where the fuck this CD came from though.

progshine First of all let me get this out of the way: You do not even have to read an interview with guitarist CC Deville or hear him talking about his influences to know that he was one of those American teenagers obsessed with Kiss (in a Detrot Rock City film style), just listen to his guitar sound and his riffs to see it clearly.

I confess that I have an absurd preconception about this Hair Metal thing. I have not yet heard a single decent record from this 'genre', but I keep trying, I guess. The only records I remember that I have somewhat enjoyed are The Final Countdown (Europe) and Screw It! (Danger Danger). Everything else I heard does not do anything for me. The almost Pop production of the 80s weights on that factor, and on several occasions, Metal does not even exist.

'Open Up and Say ... Ahh!', Poison's second record, does not change my mind, it's an ok record if it's playing as background music in some friends' meeting or at that Rock Bar you went for a beer, and that's all. 'Nothin' But A Good Time 'is a pretty cool track, and' Every Rose Has Its Thorn 'is the obligatory ballad of the record (every Hair Metal album needs a 'power ballad', right).

Like I said, in the end, forgettable after just one listen.

Vim Fuego Back in the 80s, thrashers had mortal enemies in the form of glam rockers, and one of the biggest and easiest targets was Poison. Hairspray, make up, spandex and a penchant for happy pop songs mislabeled metal by a clueless press made Poison cannon fodder for the bullet belt, mullet and obscenely tight jeans brigade. Poison didn’t really give a damn, just carrying on their merry way, selling millions of records along the way.

‘Open Up And Say...Ahh!’ is a good exercise in the art of filler songs. Filler songs are like those gap filler products you can buy for fixing cracks in your walls- they match the wallpaper and you don’t really notice them. There were four singles released from this album, a 40 percent strike rate for a ten song album and while they were all reasonably successful, the rest was filler, and pretty bloody bland and formless filler at that.

First though, the good bits. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” is the power ballad which all other power ballads aspire to be. It is weepy, cheesy and catchy, and surprisingly wasn’t written by Willie Nelson. It has a solo to die for, and to cry to, making a nonsense of all the criticism levelled at guitarist CC DeVille’s playing ability. This is a white trash anthem to broken hearts and lost loves, perfect for singing with newly found beer buddies.

“Your Mamma Don’t Dance” is an ancient Kenny Loggins song given the glam treatment. It’s harmless poppy nonsense, about teen antics and a girlfriend’s uncool parents. “Nothin’ But A Good Time” is an 80s version of the same song, but the teens have grown up, and want a weekend escape from the daily grind of life. “Fallen Angel” is a too cheerful treatment of the pitfalls of a small town girl trying to make it in the big city. These four songs have more hooks than a fishing tackle shop and more pop melodies than the Spice Girls mustered in an entire career. Poison always knew their musical limitations, and pushed their abilities right to the limit. Bret Michaels might not have had the strongest voice in the glam scene, but he knew it, and made the most of what talent he did have.

And then, the filler. Oh dear... But you can hardly blame the poor wee Poison boys, because all their heroes had made careers of padding out a couple of songs and calling it an album. Just check out pretty much any studio album by KISS or Van Halen or even Motley Crüe, and you’ll find half-hearted, underdone tracks aplenty. The song titles give it away- “Back To The Rocking Horse”, “Look But You Can’t Touch”, and “Love On The Rocks” don’t promise much, and deliver exactly that. There’s the odd decent moment, like a fun melody in the chorus of “Look But You Can’t Touch”, but moments don’t make songs. Poison manage to hit every cliché listed in the 1980s cock rock handbook, and add a few of their own. None of it is terribly cerebral, but then, it’s not supposed to be.

The vinyl album version of ‘Open Up And Say...Ahh!’ had a brilliant gimmick on the cover, in the form of a three dimensional tongue stuck to the painted up cat woman on the album cover. Looking back now, the cover is somewhat ridiculous and over the top, but that matched Poison’s music, and the lifestyle provided by a mega-million selling album. CC DeVille’s heroin addiction and Bret Michael’s appetite for shagging models and groupies are both well documented, and perhaps those excesses stopped the band ever reaching the same heights again. ‘Open Up And Say...Ahh!’ remains a dirty little secret, kept in the closet by many a metalhead who steadfastly denies ever owning it.

Stephen The story of "Crack A Smile" actually began in around 1994, after "Native Tongue", but then their label decided to hold back the release until 2000 and instead tried to cash out from a greatest hits compilation in 1996. Richie Kotzen had been fired and Blues Saraceno filled in the position to give the album a different touch compared to the early Poison roots, but if you enjoy the more mature approach of "Native Tongue", then this album will also found a place in your heart easily.

Good thing about this, aside from the original twelve tracks, the label decided to throw in four extra tracks and also another four live unplugged session to make this a value catch. Several great tracks that I love is "Best Thing You Ever Had", continues the style from "Native Tongue" release; "Baby Gets Around A Bit", back with their typical naughty and groovy touch, slightly sounded like Enuff Z'Nuff which I like and Saraceno's solo is just stunning there; "Cover of Rolling Stone", a pretty nice cover song; "Be The One", a nice and smooth ballad; "Sexual Thing", which also appeared in their greatest hits compilation; and "No Ring, No Gets", splendid hard rock with a commercial chorus. "Face The Hangman" is a superb outtake from the classic "Open Up" and if you like that album, you might as well pick this one for that track alone.

The late release of Poison still greeted with a warm response by the fans, and even though looks like their time is up by the new millennium, "Crack A Smile" still able to broke into Billboard chart, and with many great set of songs, this one is an underrated gem and recommended for the fans.

Stephen Poison did well with their debut, "Look What The Cat Dragged In", in 1986, and they successfully spread the venom with the follow-up, "Open Up and Say.. Ahh!", spawning four singles, including the well-known acoustical piece of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". They stripped the heavy metal element from the debut and put a more stadium-oriented hard rock and commercial touch to the songs. The result is beyond any devil's expectation, racking up 10 million sales worldwide and boost their name to become the big contender for Bon Jovi and Guns N' Roses.

While many claims this is their best album, I hardly agree as I think Poison reached their peak later with "Flesh & Blood". Sure this has a lot of strong and classic tracks, but with some decent songs such as "Love On The Rocks", the Def Leppard-rip of "Tearin' Down The Walls", and the worst filler, "Bad To Be Good", this album suffered from what we called the songwriting consistency. My fave picks of the album are "Nothin' But A Good Time", a firey party starter, the stripper's naughty anthem of "Look But You Can't Touch", the bodyshaker Loggins and Messina cover of "Your Mama Don't Dance", the painful ballad of "Every Rose", but the top of the mountain is undoubtly the fame-and-fortune journey of "Fallen Angel".

The production is raw and thin. The volume level is very low you have to double-pump your speaker, I haven't got the remastered version yet but I hope they've resolved this issue. "Open Up And Say.. Aah!" is still a very good release, lots of fun and excitement, and with this album, Poison taught you how to live life and party hard. As long as you don't drive drunk, kill somebody, and blow up your liver, that's quite a harmless lesson to learn.