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Pat Boone
In A Metal Mood — No More Mr. Nice Guy
Recorded in one insane, cocaine fulled overnight session whilst Boone was undergoing a mid-life crisis, hormone replacement therapy, a course of anti-depressants and a conversion to Sufi Buddhism, “In A Metal Mood — No More Mr. Nice Guy” is an unsung gem that has never truly been accorded the place it deserves alongside other painfully soul-searching classics such as “Sister Lovers”, “Tonight’s The Night”, “Berlin” and “Music For A New Society”.
Recruiting an all-star band consisting of James Dean Bradfield (lead guitar), Peter Hook (bass), Philthy Animal Taylor (drums), Courtney Love (backing vocals) and Dave Balfe (keyboards), Boone rips through full-throttle versions of “Stairway to Heaven”, “Enter Sandman”, and “Paradise City” like a man who’s just met the Angel of Death in a drinking contest and lost. With a gaggle of underage beauties on hand to keep his organ pumpin’ throughout the entire cathartic experience, this is the genre-bending Rosetta Stone that both consolidated Boone’s reputation as W.A.S.P. America’s blackest sheep and helped spawn the entire gabba, progressive gospel and White Metal genres in one fell swoop. Indeed, Ozzy Osbourne was allegedly so impressed by Boone’s rendition of “Crazy Train” that he offered to bite off his teenage daughter’s head onstage if the latter would produce his next album.
Also present at the sessions, although not credited on the sleeve, were Klaus Dinger (who fired well-aimed lawsuits at anyone who dared to suggest in the press that Boone was merely trying to revitalise a hackneyed career), Iggy Pop (who provided pre-coital stimulation to Boone’s female entourage in order to ensure that they were nice ‘n’ moist in readiness for the great man himself) and Kim Gordon (who recently described Boone in “Option” magazine as “the doyen of every teenage fantasy fuck I ever had — much more of a man than Thurston’ll ever be”), and whilst their musical contributions may be non-existent, their obvious adulation permeates the grooves like an eerie clarion call across the desert to a long forgotten era of bobby-sox, flat-tops and post-marital virginity loss.
I’m aware that many HH readers may find Boone a little unpalatably rockist for their tastes, but c’mon — if you dig AMT, High Rise and Blue Cheer there’s gotta be room for this speaker-shredding monster in your collection.