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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nRight now in 2022 they may not openly want to admit this, but there was a time back at the start of the \u201880s when the uber cool indie Spillers Records emporium in Cardiff, Wales, really was the place to go for all your US metal needs. If you wanted to hear Y&T\u2019s immense \u2018Earthshaker\u2019 record, or be knocked bandy by The Rods self-titled platter following both of them getting rave reviews in Sounds that record shop was where you would find them. You could keep the NWOBHM, that was already old hat by 1982, especially when copies of the \u201clife changing\u201d (not only for the band, but for us too) self-financed debut record from a certain LA based band known as Motley Crue finally made its way across the Atlantic and into the window of a certain shop on the Hayes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember it like it was only yesterday, looking in the right-hand window of the shop and seeing that leather groin cover staring right back at me. It\u2019s import price tag would certainly have meant me forgoing a few other music purchases that month, but following yet another rave review in Sounds just a few weeks earlier for said album I just had to have a copy, and boy oh boy was it \u2018Red Hot\u2019\u2026no wait, that came a couple of years later didn\u2019t it. Ha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s face it, Motley Crue never topped that self-released debut record, in fact they then went on to completely ruin it just a few months later with a godawful Roy Thomas Baker remix of it pre the release of \u2018Shout At The Devil\u2019. However, via that legendary 10 track Leath\u00fcr Records version they introduced a whole new generation of cool kids to the visual and aural delights of glam rock, their influence stretching all the way from the Starwood, Whisky a Go Go, and Roxy music venues of their home county right through to Bogiez in Cardiff, where if you asked the likes of Rankelson and Tigertailz who they really wanted to be, Motley Crue would have been top of the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what the hell has all of this got to do with \u2018Bound For Hell: On The Sunset Strip\u2019 I hear you ask? Well, this 21-track compilation of the LA bands that didn\u2019t quite have the same worldwide influence as Motley Crue, takes you on a journey back in time to a place where there weren\u2019t all the sub-genres that metal\/hard rock is plagued with today and every new band was seemingly just looking to have a good time, whilst making, what they thought was, awesome music in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, the reason a majority of the bands captured here never got further than playing mainly local shows was because they only had maybe one or two great songs at most, but just like the four amazing, \u2018JobCentre Rejects\u2019 albums proved for the lesser-known bands of the NWOBHM scene, there\u2019s certainly nothing wrong with doing a deep dive into the underbelly of a scene, as you never know quite what long lost musical gems you might find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Case in point here being the opening double whammy (bar) of \u2018Going To The City\u2019 by Stormer and \u2018Cocaine\u2019 by L.A. Rocks, the former a glorious slab of Van Halen influenced rock shot through with some angelic (as in Punky Meadows\u2019 band not Mensi\u2019s mob) vocal harmonies whilst the latter could very easily have come from an early Tygers of Pan Tang release, and in the process sounds like the start of the NWOLAM movement that never quite got past the release of this 1979 released single.<\/p>\n\n\n\n