Sharks in the $2 Bin: Lou Waxman on Great White’s Recovery Live!

Lou was wading in the two-dollar bin with a pint of Narragansett in hand (Pro Tip:  At the Black Moon Public House do not let them give you the fancy craft beer glass in an assorted assembly of shapes and sizes.  Get a proper pint glass.  The Moon only has an Orono IPA pint glass, but this will have to do.  Lou thought about bringing his own glass but has abstained.  From bringing the glass, not drinking the beer), when he came across a Great White.  Great White’s Recovery Live! to be exact.  The album cover looked water damaged like it had been swimming in the Atlantic Ocean cruising for prey.  It had ripples to it.  This happened not in the ocean but maybe in a bathtub, more likely a basement, like John Wayne Gacy’s crawlspace.  (Side bar:  Gacy’s Crawlspace would be an awesome name for a punk or thrash metal band.  A more extreme band, not some flaccid group like Marcy Playground.  Sex and Candy.  Like come on, that is missionary shit right there.)

Anyhoo, Lou snapped up the Great White.  If you are ranking bands with any longevity, there are those at the top like The Rolling Stones and those at the bottom, like the cover bands that have played weddings, graduations, and bar mitzvahs on Long Island for decades.  Great White is down near the bar mitzvah scale.  Sure, sure, the metalheads and the guys that were in metal shop in high school will tell you that Great White rocked and were a great band.  “You have to see them live!”  Sounds deadly, dude.  To talk facts, they are a one-hit wonder.  A truly great one-hit wonder, but a one-hit wonder, nonetheless.  (Sorry, Another Sidebar:  Sitting at a bar the conversation with the bartender should not be Beatles vs. Stones.  No, pontificate about English vs. German version of “99 Luftballoons”.  It isn’t cool but Lou likes to watch the video of the English version, particularly the keyboardist who looks like a mutant Leif Garrett.  For what it is worth, Lou also likes watching the drummer in the video for Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America”.  Both these guys look like they are wondering how the fuck they got here and how long could this gig possibly last before I am back busking in the subway.  As for Nena: 99 Luft Balloons/Is Nena’s greatest hit/But they’re a great hair band/Cause of her pits)

For Great White, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” is the tune.  The whole thing is stupendous from the song to the video.  Chef’s kiss.  For years, Lou wondered how one-hit wonder Great White could possibly write such a wonderful song.  It seems beyond them.  Well, it was, because Great White is not only a one-hit wonder, but they are also a glorified cover band.  Their hit was written by Ian Hunter, who had a successful solo career, but rose to fame as a member of Mott the Hoople, which could also be labeled, if you are unkind, as a one-hit wonder cover band, since there claim to fame is “All the Young Dudes”, which was, let’s be serious here, a David Bowie song.  This is rabbit hole shit.

Anyhoo part deux, Recovery Live! is fun stuff, like all Great White when you get down to it.  They are fun.  Or should Lou say they are a frivolous band.  They don’t matter and don’t need to exist, but they are an enjoyable time.  Like a roller coaster or bubblegum.  The album features tracks from live performances from 1986 (Side 1) and 1983 (Side 2).  Side One opens with two Led Zeppelin tracks:  “Immigrant Song” and “Rock n Roll”.  If you are going to be a cover band, cover the best, Lou always says.  The rest of the side is “Money (That’s What I Want)”, “Red House”, and “I Don’t Need No Doctor”.  All standards.  On side two, there is a version of The Who’s “Substitute” but also some stuff Lou doesn’t recognize like “Streetkiller”.  Lou could look it up; but come to think of it, you could look it up.  Or if you know what this is drop a comment.  Hit the subscribe button and ring the bell.  It really helps out my channel and helps Lou provide you with all this great content.  Fuck that.  Just tell me in person at The Vogue.  I am the hefty, homeless looking guy, drinking a beer, while looking at records.  What’s that you say?  There are dozens of guys like that at The Vogue.  Geez.

So, the live album is fine, but what is really fine is the 80s chick on the back cover.  This is the stuff.  Give credit where credit is due.  Great White knew talent.  They knew the limits of their own talent, which was covering songs in a hair metal style.  And more importantly they knew groupie talent.  Case in point, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”:  a groupie song.  Bobbie Brown (Legend!!) is in the video.  Of course, she is.  She is on the Mount Rushmore of 1980s video vixens.  Tawny Kitaen is on there.  We can argue back and forth about the other two.  Let’s do that after the break.  First a word from Him’s.  Have you lost your fastball?  Do you find yourself cheering from the side lines?

The icons will always be the icons, but what about all the other vixens out there who have disappeared from history.  Lou did some half-assed research and could not find the name of the woman on the back of Recovery Live!  Lou swears he saw her in an issue of Swank, but he is having trouble locating the magazine at the moment.  We have Google, we have AI, and it is still difficult to find out important shit like “Who is the woman on the back cover of Great White’s Recovery Live!”

This got Lou thinking.  What about all the vixens that are levels and levels below Bobbie Brown to say nothing of Christie Brinkley?  What about the vixens that are the equivalent of cover bands on Long Island?  For example, Lou often watches the Crüe’s concert video for “Home Sweet Home”.  Lou likes the crowd shots, particularly the shot where the girl in the audience is about to have her top pulled up.  Or the woman in the audience who stares down Nikki Sixx with pure lust and desire.  Or all the ladies in the front row in Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me”.  Where are these lost angels?  Lou thinks of them late at night.  What happened to these crucial figures of Lou’s youth.  Are they as bloated and worn-out as poor old Lou?  As time treated them cruelly?  Are they dead?  No, no, no, they live on!!!  They live on in Lou’s memories and the memories of thousands, dare Lou say, millions of rock fans, who now look homeless at the various Vogues around the globe and prowl the two-dollar bins, like a great white gliding through the ocean looking for its next meal.  Where are you Crüe poon?  Did you date a hair metal groupie in high school?  A Cure fan?  A Duran Duran fan?  We will be talking calls after the break!!  Now a word from Draft Kings?  Tap in for $100 in bonus bet with your first placed wager.

Suggested Sites and Sounds:

Fox News Brings the Hard News Not Fake News:  The Hottest '80s Video Vixens | Fox News

The Icon at the Top of Mount Rushmore:  Whitesnake - Here I Go Again '87 (Official Music Video)

Bobbie Brown and the Sadly Forgotten:  Great White - Once Bitten Twice Shy

The Sugar is Sweet and Fame Is Fleet:  DEF LEPPARD - "Pour Some Sugar On Me" (Official Music Video)

— Lou Waxman