Poison/Look What The Cat Dragged In(1986)

Haven’t done one of these(3/4’s Filler) in a while and since I rip on Poison  in other reviews on this site all the time  why not delve into something a little deeper like this debut from Poison.

Look What The Cat Dragged In  was the name! Hairspray/Lipstick/Cheese Rock was the game. Fair enough these guys sold a shitload of records and hey I’m not that Evil as I dig the followup (Open Up And Say AHHH) . Flesh&Blood released in 1990 was good also (some filler but pretty decent).

As you followers all know I caught along with our friend Oinks, Tbone and T’s younger brother Rugg, Poison in Jan/1991 in Winnipeg and I’ll leave it a that for now!(review is on the site)

But let’s back up to 1986…

Read in Circus Magazine that Poison is opening for RATT so if those cool rodent rockers are letting Poison open up they must be decent so I checked em out and bought this album at a record shop called Poor Pete’s here in Tbay. They had a dude that worked there that was a splitting image of  Randy Rhoads and that day Randy Rhoads sold me the album(nice guy from what I remember)…

I played the album and it was ok. I mean I’m 18 so I’m easily influenced and basically buying everything in sight at the time (1986).Like I always did was to scoot on over to my best pal Tbones place and show off my latest purchase.  Tbone took a look at the cover squinted and asked me…well our conversation went something like this…

(For people  reading on a device that doesn’t show the you tube clips below I have posted the cover of LWTCDI along with the track Cry Tough. Just so you can get an idea where I’m coming from…

TBone: “Is that a chick on the bottom right hand corner?”

For a split second I thought of telling Tbone Yup it’s girl and her name is Rikki Rockett  she plays the drums. It would have been cool to hear Tbone tell our fellow hard rockers at the time  that the chick drummer in Poison is awesome! haha….anyways back to reality…1986 style

Deke: “Naaa it’s a dude but shit they could all pass as chicks..”

TBone:”Where did you get this?”

Deke: “Poor Petes. Randy Rhoads sold it to me….”

TBone:” Let’s Go I need this….’

We hopped into Tbones hot rod and headed down to Poor Petes. Tbone wanted the cassette  copy! Randy Rhoads  didn’t have it in stock or for that matter there was not any vinyl left as well. We hit all the record shops A&A Records/Sam The Record Man/Kings Stereo/St James Stereo and about 4 different Music City  locations! We hit all the record shops as listed none of them had Poison.

We had to go to Plan B which was for me to record this for Tbone on a Maxwell cassette tape which would hold Tbone over until he could purchase the tape at a later date. Which he did…

(Now two years later in 1988 Tbone scored Poison’s sophomore Open Up And Say Ahhh the first day before I even got my hands on it! Read the sordid tales of this fine story here…)

SONIC WAVES….Poison/Open Up And Say Ahh!

Wowzers were all being Poisoned!

So the first single drops and it’s Cry Tough. What a great opening number and first single even though it bombed on the charts and no one cared but I. Still think it’s a solid track 30 years later!  The pre chorus with the drums and guitars colliding is Gold! Speaking of which Tbone does a bang on impersonation of  Elvis singing Cry Tough! Dump a few Beers down the Man’s Hatch and you just never know when Elvis Michaels will reappear!

30 years on and yeah it’s a bit of tough sledding getting through this record. The last 3 tracks(Blame It On You/#1 Bad Boy/On With The Show) I couldn’t even bother with dunno why to me they haven’t aged well and perhaps neither have I.

Compare it say to RATT’s “Dancing Undercover” album from 86 as well and I have no problem getting through that album as its sleaze rock 101 even 30 years later but Look What The Cat Dragged In sold tons more. So there ya go!

But there are some good songs like Want Some, Need Some even for Poison with stuffiness schmooze tunes. I Won’t Forget You is a pretty decent written track! The title track is not too shabby as well I mean the lyrics are friggin funny and hokey but sometimes hokey can be cool. After all its the 80s!

But yeah Bret Michaels/C.C.Deville/Bobby Dall and Rikki Rocket hit pay dirt with this record so good on them!

Didn’t Motorhead have a track at the time called The Chase Is Better Than The Catch? Wonder what Tbone would say now about it. Was the chase to get a copy of this cassette worth the catch?