Look at all the people here tonight to ponder this little drippy nugget:
How do you go from the brilliant punchy skull fuck of Eat Em to the slick commercial stagnation of Skyscraper? Simple: Hair Loss + Insecurity = paranoid Napoleonic Complex.
Now, the songs are not the problem; there is some great stuff on there but DLR's heavy production is.
So it probably started at the end of the EEAS tour when he pulled out that crappy rug/hair piece/Shatner hat/whatever the fuck, off his head and realized that the forest was not coming back.
In a tearful moment of lost youth he threw the hair helmet across the room, slammed his fist down and vowed that the world would take him seriously as an artist. He would no longer hide his thinning locks or be burdened by an image. After crying some more he combed his hair forward (like a good Roman soldier would), tied on a bandanna and headed off the The Rainbow.
Thus, Napoleon Dave was born. He was going to bully, kick and micro manage every aspect of his career including the Skyscraper sessions. He would iron fist his entire universe in an effort to over compensate for his hair.
Nobody would/could stop him. By the time the record was done the music was tighter that a rhino sphincter. Each track was strangely layered (like his hair) to conceal what was truly hidden underneath. Raw power coated with a plastic sheen. Every aspect of his life started to become synthetic. I'm sure he was even banging groupies with the bandanna on and probably went ape shit if they ran their fingers through his weakened nest.
Rock climbing music video, giant boxing rings, rocket powered surf boards. Was it all great? Sure! But his goal was to hammer it home that he was still the mighty DLR; hair be damned!
Mark my words: had Dave not excessively thinned, the Skyscraper album would have been fat. It may have even been better than EEAS but fate (and shitty genetics) had a different idea.
We are all Dave fans but ask yourself what if..what if Dave didn't have a bald spot that you could see from the top of a Skyscraper. Psychologically, he would be an entirely different person.
Mezro....who is busy kicking Billy Sheehan out of my band
How do you go from the brilliant punchy skull fuck of Eat Em to the slick commercial stagnation of Skyscraper? Simple: Hair Loss + Insecurity = paranoid Napoleonic Complex.
Now, the songs are not the problem; there is some great stuff on there but DLR's heavy production is.
So it probably started at the end of the EEAS tour when he pulled out that crappy rug/hair piece/Shatner hat/whatever the fuck, off his head and realized that the forest was not coming back.
In a tearful moment of lost youth he threw the hair helmet across the room, slammed his fist down and vowed that the world would take him seriously as an artist. He would no longer hide his thinning locks or be burdened by an image. After crying some more he combed his hair forward (like a good Roman soldier would), tied on a bandanna and headed off the The Rainbow.
Thus, Napoleon Dave was born. He was going to bully, kick and micro manage every aspect of his career including the Skyscraper sessions. He would iron fist his entire universe in an effort to over compensate for his hair.
Nobody would/could stop him. By the time the record was done the music was tighter that a rhino sphincter. Each track was strangely layered (like his hair) to conceal what was truly hidden underneath. Raw power coated with a plastic sheen. Every aspect of his life started to become synthetic. I'm sure he was even banging groupies with the bandanna on and probably went ape shit if they ran their fingers through his weakened nest.
Rock climbing music video, giant boxing rings, rocket powered surf boards. Was it all great? Sure! But his goal was to hammer it home that he was still the mighty DLR; hair be damned!
Mark my words: had Dave not excessively thinned, the Skyscraper album would have been fat. It may have even been better than EEAS but fate (and shitty genetics) had a different idea.
We are all Dave fans but ask yourself what if..what if Dave didn't have a bald spot that you could see from the top of a Skyscraper. Psychologically, he would be an entirely different person.
Mezro....who is busy kicking Billy Sheehan out of my band
Comment