Friday, March 7, 2008

Press release(s) of the day: Un-Warrant-ed reunions

warrantTrixter

These two announcements came within 13 minutes of each other this afternoon, from the same publicist.

First, at 12:28 p.m., the return of Warrant:

THEY'RE BAAAACK!!!

POP METAL KINGPINS WARRANT REUNITE FOR REPEAT PERFORMANCE, KICKING OFF CO-HEADLINING DEBUT AT 2008 ROCKLAHOMA FESTIVAL WITH ORIGINAL LINE-UP

..."CHERRY PIE" ANYONE?

Hollywood, CA ­ Multi-platinum selling rock band WARRANT, best known for classic MTV staples' "Cherry Pie," "Heaven," and rock anthem "The Down Boys" will co-headline the 2008 Rocklahoma Festival ­ marking the reunion of its original line-up including Jani Lane (vocals); Joey Allen (lead guitar); Jerry Dixon (bass); Erik Turner (Guitar) and Steven Sweet (drums) — for the first time in 14 years. Warrant will co-headline Rocklahoma with Cinderella, it was announced today by XM's Boneyard/VH1 Classic host, Eddie Trunk, at a press conference taking place at the world famous Whisky A-Go Go. Rocklahoma is a popular four-day music festival taking place July 10-13 in Pryor, OK, which attracts an impressive worldwide audience and big ticket sales. More than 80 bands will be performing on three giant stages with an expected attendance of more than 60,000 rock fans from all 50 states, every Province in Canada and every country in Europe. This phenomenon was covered in Rolling Stone's year-end issue with an in-depth seven page spread.

Followed at 12:41 by this inexplicably thorough and completely unformatted 1,150-word release on the reunion of Trixter. Yes, Trixter. As always, these are presented in unedited form, exactly as received (with, in this case, one typo and one grammatical error in the first sentence, to say nothing of “slowley” and “Saxaphone”). My only changes were to bold a couple notable lines:

The rock bamd TRIXTER is now reunited again after 13 years!!! They will be having a new CD out shortly! www.trixterrocks.com for more info. TRIXTER STORY: TRIXTER was formed in 1983 in Paramus , New Jersey by STEVE BROWN & PETER LORAN. After a year in the basement and the addition of new drummer , MARK "GUS" SCOTT, they played their first live gigs. They began playing the NJ / NY club scene and built a huge following of fans. In 1988 bassist, PJ FARLEY, joined TRIXTER finalizing the line up. With every gig the band was drawing more & more people to their shows and by May of 1989 the band landed a deal with MECHANIC/MCA RECORDS. September of 1989 the band went to Hollywood to record the debut album with producer, BILL WRAY. "TRIXTER" was released in May of 1990 with the song "LINE OF FIRE" as the single for ROCK RADIO. The song slowley climbed the charts reaching #1 on Z-ROCKS Top 100 by July of 1990. Along with the release of the album TRIXTER also filmed their first video for the song "GIVE IT TO ME GOOD". In September the band headed out a nationwide tour and after two weeks they landed the opening slot for, "STRYPER". From New York to Seattle , the band rocked clubs and theaters earning lerions of fans who were captivated by their high energy live shows. In Mid October TRIXTER joined DON DOKKEN for another tour around the USA. It was on this tour that MTV added the video for "GIVE IT TO ME GOOD". Within one week the video was #1 on the popular "DIAL MTV" top ten video countdown.The video stayed #1 for 5 weeks straight.The crowds were getting bigger and record sales started kicking into high gear. In December of 1990 TRIXTER filmed the video for the 2nd single, "ONE IN A MILLION" at a Sold Out show in Rockland County, NY. The band also recorded a song, "ONE MO' TIME", for the film "IF LOOKS COULD KILL". The song featured Rock legend, EDGAR WINTER, on Saxaphone. By January 1991 the record was selling 20,000 units per week.The video for "ONE IN A MILLION" went #1 on MTV for 3 weeks. The album peaked at #28 on BILLBOARD's TOP 200 ALBUM CHART and the single for "GIVE IT TO ME GOOD" was a TOP 50 HIT on BILLBOARD's TOP 100 SINGLES CHART. TRIXTER did their 1st ever arena shows opening for POISON and then headed out on a 5 month North American Tour with the legendary German rockers, THE SCORPIONS. As "ONE IN A MILLION" rocked MTV ,the single also went TOP 50 on BILLBOARD. In February ,the band flew to Daytona , Florida to do "MTV'S SPRING BREAK" and soon after MCA records gave the band some incredible news. Backstage at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in California, the boys were told that their debut album had gone GOLD selling over 500,000 copies. In April of 1991 TRIXTER played their hometown MEADOWLANDS ARENA, where they were presented with their GOLD ALBUMS at a special after show party. In May they filmed the video for the 3rd single, "SURRENDER". By June TRIXTER started the "BLOOD, SWEAT & BEERS TOUR" with WARRANT & FIREHOUSE. Around this time the popular rock magazine, METAL EDGE, dedicated an entire issue to the band, "THE TRIXTER COLOR SPECTACULAR". The video and single for "SURRENDER" were released and once again the video went to # 1 on MTV for 2 weeks and the single went TOP 50 in BILLBOARD. In September of 1991 the "BLOOD, SWEAT & BEERS TOUR" was filmed for a Pay Per View special. October marked the end of the TRIXTER touring cycle for the very successful debut album. By years end the band racked up worldwide sales of 750,000, 3 #1 MTV videos, 3 TOP 50 SINGLES, HIT PARADER MAGAZINES "BEST NEW BAND" AWARD for 1991, METAL EDGE READERS POLL "BEST CONCERT" FOR THE BLOOD , SWEAT & BEERS Tour , and "GIVE IT TO ME GOOD" was in MTV'S TOP 100 VIDEOS OF 1991. TRIXTER also wound up in the movies. Their song "LINE OF FIRE" was on the soundtrack for the film "MARIO BROS....WHITE KNUCKLE SCORIN" and "ONE MO' TIME" was on the soundtrack for the film "IF LOOKS COULD KILL". In January 1992, TRIXTER began pre-production on the 2nd album. Also, during that time the band renegotiated their record deal and were signed directly to MCA records. TRIXTER chose JAMES "JIMBO" BARTON of RUSH & QUEENSRYCHE fame to produce. Recording began in April and lasted until August of '92. The result was the stellar rock cd, "HEAR". Released in October along with another Arena tour opening for long time idols, KISS, TRIXTER raged across North America supporting the new disc. Unfortunately , Grunge had taken over the airwaves which left little room for the single, "ROAD OF A THOUSAND DREAMS" on Radio & MTV. January 1993, they shot a video for the next single "ROCKIN' HORSE" and began a headlining club tour called "THE HEAR CLUB FOR MEN TOUR". May of that year had TRIXTER embarking on a tour of Japan. "HEAR was doing very well in the Land of the Rising Sun, so the band was invited over to do 2 shows and alot of promotion. The shows in OSAKA at Moda Hall and KAWASAKI at Club Citta were very successful. The boys had a great time. TRIXTER finished the "HEAR" tour in late June of '93 in front of 5,000 screaming fans at "Milwaukees Summerfest". Times were changing and the band was dropped from MCA records. In 1994 the band recorded the "UNDERCOVERS EP" in STEVE BROWN"s home studio. This was a cd of all cover songs that was released in Oct. 1994 on the indie label, BACKSTREET RECORDS. Once again the band headed out on the road again across America. No matter how tough things got the band kicked the shows were more often like a big keg party opposed to the typical rock show. Lot's of Fun, but the writing was on the wall that TRIXTER's style of Pop Metal had run its course. Time to move on....but what a great ride. Still to this day, TRIXTER, has fans all around the world and the music still gets airplay. In 1999 the band was featured on VH-1's "WHERE ARE THEY NOW" and in 2000 they were voted #29 on VH-1'S "TOP 40 HAIR BAND COUNTDOWN". The songs are on various rock compilation cd's: "GIVE IT TO ME GOOD" is on "GLAM ROCK VOL. 2" , "ONE IN A MILLION" is on "ROCK OF THE 80'S" and "SURRENDER" is on "HARD LOVE" and that was only the beginning. After 13 years, 2008 has the all original members rockin' the Worldwide Arena Circut once again. PETE,STEVE, PJ & MARK ...the one , the only , the mighty TRIXTER!!!


I confess that I once performed on the same bill as a post-Trixter band called Soaked, at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. I remember nothing about them.

2 comments:

rudylandsam said...

Soaked had short hair and were pretty grungy.

rocka said...

So those were'nt the original bands of Warrant and Trixter that I saw at Rocklahoma last year?