Feb 222009
The People (or at least Townsman Alexmagic) have demanded this Battle Royale: Which rock band/artist could beat up all challengers in a street fight? You may simply state the artist’s name, if you think that will be convincing enough, or you could be more persuasive, possibly describing the killer moves and powers each band member might provide in the heat of battle. All in good fun, of course.
Watch it, Delaney & Bonnie are packing a Clapton!
Maybe we do this by brackets and see where we end up? Who survives the ’50s bracket of 8, in order of seeding: 1) Elvis, 2) Chuck Berry, and 3) Jerry Lee Lewis (aka “The Killer”) are probably the top 3 seeds, right? Who rounds out the next 5 spots? Then we go 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, 4 v 5 and play out the first round.
Possible seeding ideas for the ’60s may be split into two groups of four: 4 British Invasion bands facing off and 4 US bands? Although they may not be top seeds, I’m seeing Beatles and Stones in the mix. You’ve got to want to see the outcome of that match, right? I may put my money on The Animals in the British Invasion quartet, although a band like The Yardbirds might consider merit. Or should The Kinks have a spot, provided we can keep the Davies brothers’ fury focused on their opponents and not each other?
The favorite out of US ’60s artists might be James Brown, but we’ll have to see how it plays out.
For the U.S. I propose The Barbarians (Moulty had a hook for a hand fer chrissake!)and the Monks (four Army guys who where confrontational and probably a bit psycho judging from the music and the getups).
The documentary on the MC5 suggests they could hold their own in fights.
“You may simply state the artist’s name, if you think that will be convincing enough”
There is one rocker whose mere name tells you how tough he is, and that is Alice Cooper guitarist Guy Mann-Dude. Everyone else is Sissy Gal-Girl by comparison.
And I don’t care which British band you choose (even if it’s Motorhead), I’m picking the Americans.
I dunno about bands I’d want in my corner, but bands/artists I would definitely *not* want in my gang:
– Nick Drake
– Cat Stevens
– Jack White
– Andy Partridge
– Polyphonic Spree (weakness in numbers!)
– Brian Jones
– Michael Stipe
Alrighty then,
I’d pick: John Lydon, Shane MacGowan, Sid Vicious, Screaming J. Hawkins, Johnny Burnette, James Brown, Dion, & Sonny Boy Williamson II.
And I picked ’em because; either they are/were drunken Irish(well, one Brit) bastards like myself, & wouldn’t know enough to back down at the time, or they were legitimate tough guys, who either boxed or were street fighters in their day.
If you’re wondering what I’m doin’ back here, refer to the previous thread. HOWAAARRREYAAAH!!!
Oh Yeah, I forgot to say, my boys’ll take on any challengers, past or present (they’d kinda have to, considering 1/2 of ’em are dead themselves), Yank, Brit, or Whatever. So, bring it on, bitches!
A much less sensitive person might point out that we know Ike could throw a punch, and Tina could take one, so that would be valuable in a street fight.
Iggy is the crazy, fearless little man no ever wants to dance with.
I’ll take Tupac and 50 cent though. Between the two of them, they survived a lot of bullets.
chuckenfrank; And you oughtta know, my brother. I know you don’t like to talk about it these days, since you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal savior and all, but back in the day, when we were rollin’ with tha Crips, my man frankie took 957 bullets over the course of 2 1/2 weeks. I know this, because after we finally decided to take him to a hospital (he kept sayin’ he was fine, & he’d just “walk it off”), I made sure the doc who worked on you kept every slug they pulled outta yo’ ass. I had ’em all gold-plated, diamond encrusted, and made into a chain, which I wear around my neck to this day, just to remind me of the baddest muthafukin’ O.G. I EVER met. Made Tupac & Fiddy look like like the Olsen twins, yo.
I think some ground rules need to be considered if people are going to take this seriously. It’s a series of street fights, but an organized series of street fights, so nobody’s getting in with any guns. Keith Richards might be able to slip through with a knife in his hair, I guess.
I think the only acceptable things to arm yourself with would be whatever you’d normally have on stage with you. So Gene Simmons would obviously bring his axe bass, but there’s no way, Rick Nielsen’s going to be able to use his quintuple guitar effectively. This may be the one scenario where a chapman stick player might actually justify his choice, as a chapman stick would probably make an excellent javelin.
Something else to consider is band size. Bands with more musicians would probably have better odds in a given fight, naturally. Though you do have to consider intraband tensions, as Mod suggests about the Davies brothers. The Doobies would seemingly be pretty high seeds, but would McDonald cause them all to turn on each other mid-fight?
Also, band size can only take you so far. Certainly there would be dozens of power trios who could wipe the floor with all eight or ten memebers of a band like Chicago.
I think cdm is onto something, though. Moulty’s hook hand would have to be legal since he used it to drum, and that could be a game changer. I believe he also had a noted high tolerance for pain, if that story about him repeatedly smashing Barbarians records over his own head is true. And The Monks’ military background could definitely factor in, good call.
alexmgic, Have you SEEN Keef lately. I doubt he could hide a Mandrax tablet in what’s left, let alone a knife. Or are we talkin’ pre-AARP era Keef?
I just had a funny image go through my head of Gene Simmons marching along (in full get-up, holding his bass like a broad-axe & grunting unintelligabley) in a desert w/rock rock formations setting (picture an old Star Trek episode), when suddenly, out of nowhere, Tony Levin pops out from behind a rock, looking all wild-eyed (picture the guy from The Hills Have Eyes, Michael Berryman, I think). Levin lets out a blood-curdling scream & hurls his Chapman Stick, spearing Simmons straight through the chest. And that’s all I’ve got on that one.
Personally, I’d just like to see the original members of The Who (at, say, 27), pilled-up, drunk, & simply locked in the hospitality room backstage. We could just sit back & let nature take it’s course.
Re: John Lydon, Shane MacGowan, Sid Vicious – There’s a big difference between being good in a fight and simply being able to take a punch. These guys would like Cool Hand Luke vs George Kennedy: You have to admire Luke on a certain level but you also know that the sooner he stays down, the quicker the fight will be over. But there ain’t no way he’s winning (unless he fighting Nick Drake).
Does anyone remember the name of that bodybuilding heavy metal guitar player? He’d probably only be good for psyching out the opponents.
Ike Turner.
cdm, that’s why I have the bad-ass bully boys in there, too. I just like the picture of those cats together as a street gang.
Ike Turner was a bodybuilding heavy metal guitarist? Man, I thought I owned most of Ike’s stuff. I was totally unaware of this phase in his career.
dbusk, Are you thinking of that guy Thor? No, wait, he was the singer,right. Well, there’s always Man o’ War, an entire band of bodybuiders!
cdm, Wait, I just took another look at the post of yours that I just responded to. You don’t think Paul Newman in his prime couldn’t have handled anyone tougher than a weed like Nick Drake?
Tony Levin could be a good dark horse candidate, especially if he’s accompanied by Fripp, who is packing Frippertronics.
The Who in their prime – the real Who – now that’s a contender. Daltrey would be throwing haymakers. Moon would be the guy who smashes people with a barstool. Entwistle must have possessed some kind of sleeper hold. Townshend would have to get his licks in early. I think he’s be the one guy the other three would have to save as they haul ass outta there.
Pete WAS quite the scrapper in his day, though. Daltrey was well known for letting his fists do the talking. Entwistle was a pretty big guy, who I’m sure had his share of pub throw-downs. As for Moon, well he was Keith Moon, dear boy, what else needs to be said? They were easily one of the most violent bands to come out of the British Isles, though I hear The Big 3 were brawlers, too.
My original vision when bringing up The Fookin’ Oo was more of a cage match scenario between the band members. The last man standing doesn’t have to share a hotel room w/Moony & gets a baggy full of leapers & a bottle of VSOP.
Does anyone really want to get into it with Glenn Danzig? I think not.
Should there be a lightweight tag-team division of 60/70’s singer-songwriter duos going after each other?
Danzig?
haven’t you seen this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfD7agP1yxw
andyr, Do you really want to see England Dan & John Ford Coley get into it with Zager & Evans? Come to think of it, you’re right, that’d be pretty funny!
But Danzig? Isn’t he like 4’2″ or something? I always thought that’s why he bulked up, as overcompensation for his extreme wee-ness. The dark dwarf of Goth-Metal. Oooh, scary, kids!
Never tire of watching that Danzig video. Talk about the end of a legend. Betcha his asking price on tour dropped after this leaked around.
What I’m saying is, much like Cool Hand Luke getting the crap out of him by George Kennedy and still coming back for more, I think that Shane and Sid would not have the good sense to know when to lie down. There’s no doubt that they’re going to lose in the end, so their ability to absorb a pummeling really just drags things out unnecessarily.
Does anyone remember a few years ago when that Swedish Death Metal guy killed and ate one of his band mates? I’m backing that guy.
I’m a bit late to this thread & I’m surprised that nobody brought up the Ramones (alright, maybe not Joey, but Johnny & Dee Dee could put up a fight & possibly Marky & C.J.) or the Battling Gallagher Brothers from Oasis.
I’m picking Lou Reed, because he knows some kind of martial arts shit or something.
Joe, the Gallagher Brothers would turn on each other in seconds. If Blur and Oasis fought – and this would probably have to be a fight that the committee would make sure happened – you could argue that either Gallagher would likely wipe the floor with my man Albarn or Blur’s drummer, Dave Rowntree. I can admit that.
But that’s not how the fight would go down. No, what would happen is, Noel would get ready to charge across the alley at Blur, but that’s when Liam would punch his own brother in the back of the head for no good reason, and they’d start rolling around on the broken glass biting each other. That leaves those random, nameless bald dudes in Oasis, who would get trounced by Alex James and Graham Coxon – Coxon, in particular, strikes me as someone who would do surprisingly well in this back alley street fight format, he’s got a lot of rage pent up – and Oasis would go out in the first round.
I’ll leave the in-depth Ramones analysis to others, but I’ve been considering how they’d fare. I think we can assume that, the longer a Ramones fight went, Johnny would get madduh and madduh.
The Ramones could do some damage, especially with their original drummer/producer, the little Hungarian guy. They’d fight nasty!
I can’t think of a single member of Lynyrd Skynyrd that couldn’t open a southern-fried, pool-cue-wielding can of whup-ass if the situation called for it. That’s a mighty big band, too. With a serious gang leader at the helm. I’d stack the seven-member Skynyrd against the three-and-a-half members of the Ramones any day of the week.
Hand over the belt!
I’m putting my money behind Skynyrd. Even the women in that band looked like they could have taken care of half the guys in rock.
Apparently, I got a few different Scandinavian Death Metal stories mixed up but I’ll still take any of these guys over those hard asses in Blur.
“Mayhem vocalist Per Yngve “Pelle” Ohlin (aka ‘Dead’) committed suicide in a house shared by the band.
He was found with slit wrists and a shotgun wound to the head, by Mayhem guitarist Øystein Aarseth (aka ‘Euronymous’). Before calling the police, Aarseth went to a nearby store and bought a disposable camera to photograph the corpse, after re-arranging some items.
Eventually, rumors surfaced that Aarseth made a stew with pieces of Ohlin’s brain, and made necklaces with fragments of Ohlin’s skull. The band later denied the former rumour, but confirmed that the latter was true. Additionally, Aarseth claimed to have given these necklaces to musicians he deemed worthy.”
“On 10 August 1993, Varg Vikernes of Burzum murdered Mayhem guitarist Øystein Aarseth”
Skynyrd’s a great pick for all the reasons hvb throws out there: general toughness, band size and the underrated aspect of having someone calling the shots. My only worry would be that I’m not sure I’d trust Gary Rossington to have my back in a fight. He’d be out for himself.
For sheer numbers, does Funkadelic earn a high seed? You’ve got at least ten or eleven guys coming to the fight there, without even considering having them compete as Parliament, which would allow them to bring in giant novelty sunglasses and whatever could be smuggled into adult-sized diapers as legal weapons.
On the other hand, none of them seem like fighters. I could see most of Funkadelic just leaning sleepily against the alley walls or breaking into giggle fits at the start of the fight, and I’d imagine they’d fall in a huge first round upset to any competent band fighting unit with at least four members.
I don’t think anyone has addressed the Beatles/Stones fight that came up in the other thread. Much as I love the Beatles, I really don’t like their chances in many fights. Paul would be useless, and I don’t know that John would do all that well. Ringo could probably hold his own and I think George would surprise based on his stunt work in Help!, but the Beatles’ only chance would be if Pete Best was allowed to run in and save them all like that scene in “Birth of the Beatles” where he beats up an entire gang to save John and Stu.
Anybody want to handicap the Elvis/Berry, Elvis/Jerry Lee Lewis, Berry/Lewis potential singles match-ups? Chuck’s enormous left hand would have to be a factor, but could it counter Elvis’ karate mastery? Would Jerry Lee be allowed to bring in lighter fluid?
I don’t know, cdm. He ate a guy and made necklaces out him, that’s admittedly pretty hardcore. But it was still a dead guy who killed himself, so does that really speak to toughness?
I mean, Ted Nugent could eat a dead guy and make necklaces out of him, but we also know that he could hunt down and kill a living guy. In fact, if Nuge hunted down and killed a guy, he would be required to eat and make necklaces out of the body, based on his own “eat what you kill” code. Could these deathmetal guys take The Nuge?
Also, you have to consider politics. Are these guys even getting invited to the tournament? No way they’d get an at-large bid, they’d have to win some kind of deathmetal play-in street fight tourney, otherwise, they’d get relegated to the NIT of rock street fighting.
All fair points, Alexmagic, although personally, I would rather fight a guy in an adult diaper (Parliament) and a guy who ate one of his bandmates (Sandanavian Death Metal dude). Let’s hope I never have to have to make that choice in real life.
How about GG Allin? He was violent, crazy, and most likely covered in feces so his opponent would probably be less inclined to try to land a blow on him.
I think all these fights should be one-on-one. There’s no solution to the mismatches caused by bands of different sizes.
What about collectives? How many members would be allowed to participate? What about long-running bands with multiple line-up changes? Would everyone who’s ever been a member of Fairport Convention be allowed to rumble? Ok, maybe they’re not a good example.
Madonna’s looking pretty sinewy lately. Her ex-husband famously described her as a piece of gristle. She could be pretty tough — an alpha-female, a woman scorned, wise in the dark arts of the Kabbalah, able to enlist Alex Rodriguez if things get too rough, and there’s no telling what substances he might be pumped up on. He doesn’t even know!
I’d pay to see Madonna vs. Glenn Danzig.
cdm, I got your meaning concerning the inclusion of Shane, Sid, & to a lesser extent Lydon, but MY original response remains. Yeah, those guys are in the gang, but so are some real bad-asses, to back them up. I guess I’ve been thinking about this in 50s JD movie terms. Those gangs usually had some loud-mouthed provocateurs (most of whom would be gangly delinquents, in the gang cuz they “came from the neighborhood” or were somebody’s kid brother or something) who would start shit, and then there would be the REAL tough guys who would finish things off.
Hey, did you get the stuff about the Scandinavian Black Metal bands from the book “Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground”? That’s a great one. Though I have very little interest in the actual music, the bizarre subculture is by turns fascinating/hilarious/& kind of frightening, as some of those guys take their allegiance to Old Scratch so seriously they’re will to do things to those in the scene they see as not Satanic enough; like kill & eat parts of them. Whether or not that’d make them any more of a threat in a street fight, I dunno. The Godfather of Soul probably still could have mopped the floor with any of them, whilst simultaneously preaching to ’em about the merits of staying in school and reading The Good Book.
Mr. Mod, I think the women in Skynryd at one point DID ‘take care of’ 1/2 the guys in rock. BAHH-DUMM-PUMM-CHSSSSSH!!!
Who? Who in the Pistols was a bad ass? Possibly Steve Jones. Johnny Lydon? Puh-leese. Sid? No way. Their contribution would be limited to making their opponent’s knuckles tired.
I can’t remember where I first heard about the Death Metal guys. Maybe Rolling Stone a few years back? But the source of my post was wikipedia.
I’ve never heard them but I don’t like heavy metal at all so I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like their particular take on it.
Elvis vs Berry: Berry
Elvis vs Jerry Lee Lewis: Jerry Lee
Chuck Berry vs. The Killer: Chuck would be ahead on technical points, then Jerry Lee would just shoot him.
Steve, your band size disparity concerns are valid, but if these duos and power trios didn’t want to get destroyed in an illegal back alley music street fighting tournament, then why did they get into music in the first place?
I do think we’ve already established that many larger bands would still get taken to school by smaller but tougher groups. Chicago, Funkadelic, the Polyphonic Spree…all bands with serious numbers advantages that I think some smaller, committed bands would be able to overcome. ELO, for example. You’re looking at a minimum of seven guys with their optimal fighting line-up, but a band like Motorhead would be able to make up the four man deficit pretty easily.
Singles artists would probably be relegated to their own division, though, unless Elvis wanted to bring in the Jordanaires. Madonna, especially the leathery, Iggy-esque Madonna of today, would be a great sleeper pick in the singles division, good call.
The line-up question is key. For bands with multiple line-ups, I think they’d have to be represented by a specific incarnation. The Stones, for example, would probably compete under the Mick Taylor line-up rather than the Brian Jones or Ron Wood line-ups, right?
cdm; Yeah, with only a couple of acceptions, I don’t like metal either, PARTICULARLY that Cookie monster Death Metal stuff, but I LOVE reading about those Black Metal guys, because they ARE such loonies.
G.G. Allin? Talk about a guy who wouldn’t know when to stay down! I admit, the doodie factor would probably help him, because if you’re standing there starkers, & you start throwing your poop around like a crazed bonnabo, dudes will tend to steer clear of you, no matter how pissed they are
“Steve, your band size disparity concerns are valid, but if these duos and power trios didn’t want to get destroyed in an illegal back alley music street fighting tournament, then why did they get into music in the first place?”
That’s genius!
I think the Stones would fare better with the early lineup. Brian Jones may have been a fair-haired boy on the surface, but he road bareback and fathered a school of bastard children. Don’t you think Mick Taylor would have been Ken doll-smooth under his trousers?
Speaking of contestants with “loud-mouthed provocateurs,” as Bobby referred to, I’d like to see Flavor Fave start some shit and then Chuck D and the rest of Public Enemy clean up.
cdm; If you refer back to my original posting, the gang was comprised of MacGowan, Sid, Lydon, Johnny Burnette, Screamin’ J. Hawkins, James Brown, Dion DiMucci, & Sonny Boy Williamson II. I drew it up before there was any clear delineation set up about the composition of the gangs. Wait, has there been?
Also, sorry, I misspelled bonobo above.
Personally, I wouldn’t bet against any of those Michigan fuckers: The Nuge, 1/2 the cats involved in Motown, The Stooges, MC5, Parliment/Funkadelic, Madonna, hell, even Jack White’s been known to engage in occasional bouts of fisticuffs when angered (he flattened that guy in The Von Bondies a few years ago for mouthing off to him).
Most of the women I’ve met from Michigan could cream any one of us, while simultaneously downing a forty.
I think maybe there should be an intergalactic battle between P-Funk & ELO, since they both own spaceships.
I won’t take Charlie Watts knocking Mick out as a sign that the Stones are tough. That story is hilarious though..
funnyman bobbybitman:
I think maybe there should be an intergalactic battle between P-Funk & ELO, since they both own spaceships.
Boston and ZZ Top too!
I don’t know, Mod. When I think of Brian Jones, I think of that story about him collapsing in a pile of tears because those monkeys at the Rock of Gibraltar didn’t like his music. I say he’s curled up in a ball after the first punch is thrown.
shawnkilroy, But I think only P-Funk & ELO actually landed ’em on stage! Weren’t the others just cover art?
I gotta agree w/alexmagic on Brian Jones. The only people he was ever documented beating up were some of his girlfriends. In general, he was kind of a pussy (&, as far as I’m concerned, incredibly overrated as far as his contributions to the band… but that’s best left for another thread).
I think you’re right.