Friday 8 April 2011

Hanoi Rocks...

Hey everybody from Finland who keeps reading this, thanks very much!  In your honour, here's a post about Hanoi Rocks, who I've loved since I was 13.  I fondly recall getting the 4 reissues on Axl Rose's Uzi Suicide label for xmas 1989.  And putting "'Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Hanoi Rocks' on my walkman as we drove to my grandmother's house for her xmas party.  And falling in love with it, especially "Tragedy", "11th Street Kids", "Don't You Ever Leave Me" and their cover of "Walking With My Angel".  I also loved the yellow, red, blue, and green colour scheme for each reissue cover.  Green is my favourite colour, yet another thing to recommend 'Back To Mystery City' to me, a near-perfect record with lots of highlights.  Glamrock, pure pop, or both, whatever you want to call it.  Here are two of my favourite Hanoi Rocks songs, both from 'Back To Mystery City':






And here's "Don't You Ever Leave Me" reworked from the first album on their 1984 record 'Two Steps From The Move' (their last before Razzle was killed in a car accident.  Michael Monroe and Andy McCoy reformed Hanoi Rocks in 2001 and have released some very good records, including 'Another Hostile Takeover', which has an excellent version of Phil Lynott's "Dear Miss Lonelyhearts".  I finally got to see them live at The Astoria in London, March 2008, a really excellent gig, meant a lot to me)  'Two Steps From The Move' also contains the ace 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams'.




And here's a rare version of '11th Street Kids' from the first record (another great version on the live album 'All Those Wasted Years' .  In 1990 this was very hard to find and my uncle Frank finally tracked both video and album down for me on a business trip to Japan, for which I still am very thankful).  Live on Finnish TV show 'Rockilta':



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