King Kamala

I'm in an '80s pop mood so I'm listening to Billy Ocean. I'm wondering how they let "Caribbean Queen" slide? Such a ripoff of "Billie Jean"...why didn't I notice this until a few years ago?

It might sound weird but given that I've never attended a PPV or a RAW/Smackdown (or Nitro/Thunder for that matter) taping, I think my favorite live event was a WCW Saturday Night taping in May '98, two nights after Slamboree. I know a lot of people rag on those marathon tapings but I personally enjoyed them, you got a lot of bang for your buck. I saw something like 24 matches for $25. You can't beat that. While there was a lot of crap (there were three, count 'em, three Kendall Windham matches), I got to see virtually every good wrestler (workrate wise) in action. There was a bitching Dean Malenko-Chavo Guerrero Jr Cruiserweight title match and one of Booker T and Chris Benoit's Best of 7 matches. Show also holds a lot of nostalgia as it was the first, last, and only WCW show that came to Portland. Unlike the other marathon tapings, I went to. It was amusing, all night they had promised us a Wolfpac Vs nWo Hollywood member main event (this was at the peak of that stupid angle) and that main event was...Konnan Vs The Giant! Actually, that's probably better than most post-Thunder WCW Saturday Night taping main events.

Would it be fair to say that The Eagles were the 70s equivalent of Nickelback? In that they sold millions and millions of records and sell out arenas and stadiums yet I could name on one hand the number of people I know that openly admit to listening to them. Actually, I don't hate them per say. Their music is too middle of the road to deserve the same furor I reserve for Limp Bizkit or The Insane Clown Posse. Like Cheech, I also don't mind Joe Walsh. "Boys of Summer" is also a huge guilty pleasure.

Sorry Cheech, you know how much I love classic rock that rocks but even I can't dig the Eagles...except for some odd reason "One of These Nights" which incidentally is one of the aforementioned cases of rock goes disco. I think though I might have inherited my Eagles hatred from my Dad. Though actually Pops Kamala really doesn't care for The Beach Boys. He would always change the channel when they came on the oldies station and even went as far as to say Todd Rundgren's cover of "Good Vibrations" is "way better than the original". The odd thing is that cover is almost exactly like the original! And for some odd reason at the same time, he really likes Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, who I always thought of as the slightly poppier, East Coast equivalent of The Beach Boys. Off topic but has anybody heard The Four Seasons' psychadelic album Imitation Life Gazette? Surprisingly, not terrible.

Aw that's just Banky being Banky. He said the same thing in The Rolling Stones thread. I think the consensus is that The Rolling Stones did the best disco crossover of all the dinosaur rockers (Though I do have a soft spot for "I Was Made For Loving You") . The Beach Boys' disco shit extends to basically one song (a remake of "Here Comes The Night") that was pretty bad.

I'd disagree with that...though I'm not 100% sure what you're talking about. Friends is the only BB album I'd classify as easy listening and that's not really at all comparable to The Eagles. If you're talking about the early '70s stuff, I thought it was more of a reaction to The Eagles and other country rock acts than an influence.

I'm listening the disco remix of "Here Comes The Night" again, I'd kind of like it as an odd guilty pleasure if it weren't for the lame saxophone solo. Is there any song in the late '70s besides "Baker Street" that was helped by the sax?

Yeah, it is definitely the best Beach Boys solo release but don't expect anything like the group's music...it's pretty dark (not in terms of sound but lyrics). I think it's definitely a great record but I don't know like Pet Sounds, I think the expectations set forth by rock historians and critics are impossible to really fulfill. The re-release that you mention is pretty kicking. Since I like to consider myself an amateur historian of The Beach Boys, I'll do a primer for those of you who haven't explored much outside of the radio hits and Pet Sounds. Fortunately for anybody interested in the group, most of their albums are available as part of two for one packages. Your mileage may very but I consider anything they did from about 1965 to '74 pretty infallible. Essentials The Beach Boys Today!/Summer Days and Summer Nights: The former album was the first album released after Brian Wilson's nervous breakdown that took him off the road. These albums sort of serve as the transition from the fun and surf songs to Pet Sounds, though they lean a tad more towards the former. Highlights: "When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)", "Please Let Me Wonder", "Help Me, Rhonda", "Girl Don't Tell Me", "California Girls", "I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man" Smiley Smile/Wild Honey: The follow ups to Pet Sounds. I think Carl Wilson hit the nail on the head when he dubbed Smiley Smile as a single instead of the grand slam that SMiLE would have been. It's not without its moments but it's probably my least favorite mid '60s Beach Boys record. Its whimsy is more cloying than charming. Wild Honey was dubbed The Beach Boys' attempt at R&B and their return to straight up rock after a psychadelic detour. While I'm sure Stax and Motown weren't shaking in their boots after hearing this, it is an incredibly loose and yes, at times, soulful record. It's definitely one of my favorites. Highlights: "Heroes and Villains", "Good Vibrations", "Wonderful", "Aren't You Glad", "Darlin'", "Here Comes The Night", "Let The Wind Blow" Friends/20/20: Friends is probably the least commercial record in The Beach Boys oeuvre. A laid back tribute to friendship and transcendental meditation released in the volatile Summer of '68. Needless to say, it was their least successful record to that point. Personally, I think it's a very charming record and Brian Wilson has called it his favorite Beach Boys record. 20/20, their last record at Capitol Records is essentially a collection of leftovers and thus lacks the cohesiveness that most of their records of that era had. However, I think the thrown together spirit of this record works in its favor. You get a little bit of everything and for the first time, a sizable portion of the tracks come from members other than Brian Wilson. Highlights: "Meant For You", "Friends", "Anna Lee, The Healer", "Busy Doin' Nothin", "I Can Hear Music", "Be With Me", "I Went To Sleep", "Time To Get Alone" Sunflower/Surf's Up: Sunflower, I think is the second most essential record in The Beach Boys' career behind Pet Sounds. Their first record for Warner Brothers and the return of Brian Wilson after a two year absence. It was hailed in the UK press as The Beach Boys "Sgt. Pepper". All of the other Beach Boys are at the peak of their songwriting prowess and Wilson, for the most part, seems rather unaffected by his turbulant personal life. Unfortunately at this stage, The Beach Boys were too old and square to the still prominent counterculture scene and not quite old enough to be nostalgia acts and thus Sunflower became their lowest charting album yet. Surf's Up was an attempt to rebrand The Beach Boys as enviromentally friendly hippies. Once again, though Brian Wilson is mostly absent outside of one new composition and a few SMiLE leftovers. It's a remarkably inconsistant. Some of it is absolutely tremendous and some of it is absolutely awful. Highlights: "This Whole World", "Add Some Music To Your Day", "Tears In The Morning", "Forever", "Cool, Cool Water", "Long Promised Road", "Disney Girls (1957)", "Feel Flows", "Till I Die", "Surf's Up" Mileage May Vary Surfin' Safari/Surfin' USA[/b], Surfer Girl/Shut Down Vol. 2, Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long: I've got mixed feelings about the surf rock albums. Most of the singles have been overplayed and most of the album tracks aren't very good. All Summer Long is probably the best of the lot. Carl and The Passions---So Tough/Holland: Once again, The Beach Boys attempt to rebrand themselves- this time as an AOR band, displacing bassist Bruce Johnston with South African rockers, Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar. I'm a fan of both of these records but they're probably the least critically acclaimed records pre-'80s. Most don't care for Chaplin and Fataar's tracks but they're certainly better than anything Mike Love or Al Jardine had produced in the last thirty years or so. Highlights: "Marcella", "Make It Good", "All This Is That", "Sail On Sailor", "California Saga: California", "The Trader", "Only With You" 15 Big Ones/Love You: 15 Big Ones was dubbed Brian's big comeback but its mostly a hodge podge of oldies covers, leftovers and terrible odes to transcendental meditation with a few new tracks thrown in. The Brian Wilson tracks are great but the ravages of alcohol and drugs on Brian and Dennis Wilson's voices make the oldies sound just depressing. Love You is Wilson's true comeback, he wrote and produced every song on the album. This is probably the most divisive record in The Beach Boys catalog as its basically a startling musical closeup of Brian's shattered, adult child psyche, led by the overwhelming, outdated sounds of farting synthesizers. Personally, I love it. Its relentlessly charming with a few genuinely brilliant moments. IMHO, it's the last great Beach Boys album Highlights: "It's OK", "Had To Phone Ya", "Mona", "Johnny Carson", "Honkin' Down The Highway", "The Night Was So Young", "I'll Bet He's Nice" For completists only M.I.U. Album/L.A. (Light Album): Once again- The Beach Boys try to rebrand themselves- on these albums as soft rockers (with one infamous track seeing them take a stab at disco). Though each has its own moments- Brian Wilson's mental crises and Dennis and Carl Wilson's drug and alcohol problems lead to these albums featuring a lot of material by Mike Love and Al Jardine...which is not so good. Highlights: "My Diane", "Good Timin'", "Baby Blue", "Love Surrounds Me" Keepin' The Summer Alive/The Beach Boys '85: Here we witness the final rebranding of The Beach Boys as a fun loving oldies act. Though they do try to bring in then current contemporaries (Randy Bachman, Boy George, Stevie Wonder) to enliven the sound to not much success. We've now reached the dregs though that's not to say they're not without their moments. Highlights: "Goin' On", "Getcha Back", "It's Gettin' Late", "Male Ego" Whew...talk about TL;DR but I guess helpful if you're vaguely interested in The Beach Boys.

Not doing much of anything, he died two years ago. He was a shell of his former self by the end of WCW but I'm still kind of surprised that TNA or WWE didn't give him another run. I'll answer the questions a bit later. But not having seen a lot of his ECW work, I'd say one of the peaks of his career outside of his initial WWF debut (which was a great angle but as Cheech said had a rather disappointing climax), was the first few months of his second WWF run. It looked like they were building him up to be a big monster heel and he even main evented on the house show circuit with Bret Hart while he was The World Champion IIRC but he kind of got lost in the shadows of Yokozuna. I wonder how different things would have been if it was Bam Bam Bigelow receiving the monster heel push in '93 instead of Yokozuna.

Well, it's forty five minutes but I'm going to start this one anyways since The Demolition thread died down. I figure this as good of a candidate as anyone given the discussion about him in the Fall From WrestleMania grace thread. Name: Bam Bam Bigelow Also known as: Crusher Yurkof Height: 6'3'' Weight: 370 pounds Debut: 1985 Retired: 2006 Accomplishments: ECW World Heavyweight Champion, ECW World Television Champion, Two Time WCW World Tag Team Champion (With Kanyon and Diamond Dallas Page), WCW Hardcore Champion, AWA Southern Heavyweight Chamion, IWGP Tag Team Champion (With Vader), Wrestling Observer Rookie of The Year (1986), WCCW Television Champion Career Summary: Bigelow was trained at the legendary Monster Factory in New Jersey, becoming the celebrated wrestling school's first star pupil. He made his debut in the Memphis territory where he quickly became a huge success winning the promotion's top title in July of '86. From there, he moved onto World Class Championship Wrestling where he was Russian heel, Crusher Yurkof. Like many territorial stars of the mid '80s, he would soon be snapped up by The WWF. Bigelow would debut in a major angle where the heel managers of the WWF tried to court him (as they had two years earlier with "Macho Man" Randy Savage). Like Savage, Bigelow would spurn all of his suitors offers and announced that his manager would be Oliver Humperdink, a kindly old Leprechaun like babyface. Bigelow's remarkable agility (especially for a man of his size) wowed WWF fans and soon he would be pushed as a running buddy of top dog, Hulk Hogan. Bigelow would be a part of Hogan's team at the first Survivor Series and would even outlast his Hogan in the match and pin superheavyweight, superheels King Kong Bundy and One Man Gang before finally falling to Andre The Giant. Unfortunately, his success would be short-lived as a blown knee derailed his first WWF stint. He would re-emerge in the rival Jim Crockett Promotions in late '88 but again after initial success, his career was once again set back by injuries. He would reemerge in Japan where he would become a superstar, forming a successful tag team with a fellow agile big man, Vader. He would get another shot at the big time in the States, when he signed back with the WWF in October '92. He was no longer a fun loving, cart wheeling babyface but a snarling heel. After some initial success, feuding with Bret "The Hitman" Hart (who he was defeated by in the finals of the first PPV King of The Ring), he was stuck mostly in comedy feuds with the likes of Doink The Clown and Bastion Booger. In early '95, Bigelow would embark in the most high-profile feud of his career with NFL Hall of Famer, Lawrence Taylor. The two would square off in the main event at WrestleMania XI with Bigelow being dispatched by the great linebacker in what is considered by many to be the Flair-Steamboat of celebrity matches. Despite carrying Taylor to a shockingly watchable match, it would be the beginning of the end of Bigelow's career. Shortly after, he turned babyface once again and problems with The Clique would lead to his departure in late '95. However, once again Bigelow made a comeback...this time in the controversial Extreme Championship Wrestling. There he would gain perhaps the most success of his career, defeating Shane Douglas to win the promotion's world title in October '97 and defeating Taz to win the perhaps more vaunted (got to love ECW logic) World Television title against Taz in March '98. By the end of that year, Bigelow would get another shot at the big time with WCW. Once again, he made a big inital splash, feuding with World Champion, Goldberg before being shifted to the company's new hardcore division (IE the mid-card). There he would join forces with fellow Jerseyites Diamond Dallas Page and Chris Kanyon to form the aptly titled Jersey Triad, which would go on to great success in the WCW Tag Team Division. Bigelow stuck with WCW until its sad demise in March '01. After his Time Warner contract expired in June '02, he returned to wrestling via the independent scene. Bigelow would have a tumultous and short life after wrestling. He had a deblitating addiction to drugs and alcohol and nearly died in a motorcycle accident in October '05. On the morning of January 19th, 2007, he was found dead at the age of 45 in his home outside of Tampa. Autopsy results later found toxic levels of cocaine and benzos in his system. Some points of discussion 1. Do you think success came too soon in Bigelow's career? Or was he not pushed enough? 2. In the long run, do you think his feud with Lawrence Taylor helped or hindered (or did nothing at all to) his career? 3. Was Bigelow underutilized in his runs in WWF and WCW? Which of his stints was your favorite? 4. Where does he rank amongst the great superheavyweights of all time? 5. Favorite matches, moments, etc.

However, I am able to send erotic PMs to Kinetic with a two beer buzz

Man, I was half expecting some more drunken posting tonight. But alas the band we went to only played forty minutes and there was no free alcohol as expected. I think I could have mediated not only my beef with YPOV but EHME's beef with Byron The Bulb but I simply can't do so on a two beer buzz.

Yeah...I pretty much stick to VH1 Classics, news, and sports these days. The only scripted show I watch it with any regularity is Saturday Night Live. The shows I do watch, I watch when they come out on DVD. 'Course it doesn't help that I don't have cable when I'm off at school. Actually know what's an awesomely bad channel? Fox Reality Channel. Got to love the endless showings of When Animals Attack, Celebrity Boxing, and Man Vs Beast. Still I hate to be one of those goofs that say I don't watch/hate television. There's a lot of wildly entertaining and/or genuinely high quality stuff out there, you just have to wade through a lot of crap to get to it. Hence why I like watching television on DVD so much.

Sanford and Son reruns? Actually, last time I tuned in about six months ago, they were playing a marathon of Sanford, the short-lived sequel series where Redd Foxx ran the junkyard with a lovable fat southern hick.

Are you dissing The King Kamala Krew?

For the record, I'm not going to break my no "e-beef" rule to take on Your Paragon of Virtue. If I were though, I'd be backed by a posse including Cheech, Byron The Bulb, and EHME. Also there's a band from Athens, Georgia playing a party here on campus tonight. I wonder if they know Kinetic. Perhaps I should ask.

Is any major cable channel still good according to you goons? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm having a hard time thinking of one that I haven't heard someone say is going downhill. Even HBO is not completely infallible after The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, and The Wire are done. VH1 Classics is pretty cool but I think they're starting rely a bit too much on Movies That Rock and countdowns. Though That Metal Show is pretty entertaining.

Can you at least cite a reason why exactly you're skipping my posts? If you're going to hate me- I want a detailed account as to why. The only complaint I can see being lodged against me is I'm a bit middle of the road most of the time and my drunken posts were kind of obnoxious the other night. If I want to start an e-beef with a poster I hardly know (no disrespect- I think we frequent different folders), I want a reason as to why. For the record, I don't hate At Home. Mildly resentful of him but far from outright hatred. He's a fine up and coming poster. In fact, I can't say I hate any TSM poster. But I do think I have had mild dislike at one point or another for about 75% of the regulars.

Hey, I very specifically said it's not terrible. In fact that's being harsh on it. Sleuth is a good cable channel...it's no Trio. I'm not sure if anyone here shares my appreciation for the late lamented channel---as I said before, like six people watched it.

Probably doesn't count as its a great cable channel that went defunct rather than a great channel that went downhill but was there ever a better cable channel than Trio? Good lord, I loved that channel. Brilliant But Canceled, Parking Lot, Good Clean Porn, old ass reruns of Late Night With David Letterman, tons and tons of bitching documentaries. Yeah, I only know one other person that watched it but I was pissed when I turned on my TV one day to find out it had been replaced by Sleuth (not a terrible network but it's not Trio) and found out that Trio was now an online network. Now I think even it isn't even around as that. Well I guess it's better it went out on top rather than going downhill like the channels listed in this thread.

There's like two or three topics a week on current WWE. The rest is on MMA, assorted stuff that middle aged men like (including our beloved classic rock that rocks), and the occasional topic actually on old school wrestling. Still I wouldn't advocate for or against going there. On the one hand, its very informative and the general population is pretty cool but on the other, a lot of the regulars seem like they would look like high concept gimmick posters if they posted here...

I didn't know you posted at Wrestling Classics, Cheech. . Geez, it seems like I find another similarity to you, every day. We're brothers from different Portlands!

I frequent Wrestling Classics (I don't like most of the regulars there and the no swearing rule is fucking bullshit but somehow despite all of this, it's my second favorite board. Learn something new every day). I also frequent an SNL forum and lurk at some bands fan fourms. I used to be a regular at Cawthon's board but the lack of quality posters there really wore on me.

No, I agree. While his topics are generally good, he creates a lot and a good portion of them aren't thread worthy(See the Keith Olbermann Vs Vince McMahon topic in General).

Weird shit goes down when Czechers is gone. Last night is perfect evidence of that.