Steel Panther by Pam Sprenger

“It’s just another manic Monday.”
This is true. But no, no, you would never wish it was Sunday.
Not if you need the true explosion of a dangerous, star-shining Rock’n’Roll.
Not if you live in Los Angeles and you have been missing the magic times of Axl Rose hanging out with Slash at the Rainbow.
Not if you are stuck in traffic on the 10 freeway and, when the radio blesses you with some Hotter Than Hell Kiss singing “you’ll drive us wild, we’ll drive you crazy,” you turn your eyes up to the Hollywood sign and wish upon those letters to actually find a place like that.
Not if, in the eighties, you were a little Italian girl watching your rebel, messy older cousin’s Skid Row videos dreaming of a guy like Sebastian Bach.

I was, then and there. Now and here, instead, I’m just another LA girl in another manic Monday.
But no, no, I would never wish it was Sunday.
Tonight Steel Panther are playing on the Sunset Strip, like they have been doing every sold out Monday for the last eleven years. And, this is enough to make of Monday my fun day.

Right at midnight, these twisted Cinderellas will jump on stage and turn themselves into the kings of the Hollywood nights.
Because, it’s not only about being excellent musicians here: these guys are also the funniest entertainers around.
And, they are smart enough to not forget that, nowhere like here in the City of Angels, people are desperate for attention. So, the hottest chicks of the front row become protagonists of the show whenever the extraordinarly charismatic lead singer drags them on stage to get wild on Def Leppard Pour Some Sugar on Me or any other classic of the eighties.
So he does with the many celebrities who don’t mind to join the band, sometimes for a killer exhibition of their musical skills, sometimes just to display all the most unexpected, disparate and desperate sides of their own personality.

Steel Panther are lead singer Michael Starr (“double r for double rocking, dude!”) who hides (or takes out) the real identity of Ralph Saenz; guitar hero Satchel (Russ Parrish) and drummer Stix Zadinia (Darren Leader).

I’m also trying to gain better knowledge of Lexxi Foxxx – the sexiest, foxiest, goofiest bass player ever. And, I guess I’m trying to achieve a very detailed knowledge, since I’ve decided that, tonight, after the show, I’ll go say hi to the crazy mind he comes from.
It’s Travis Haley’s. He can’t show off the same bubbly, never-ending head of hair of his Lexxi but, if it’s true that the truth lies in the eyes, Lexxi and Travis must share something peculiarly beautiful I want to share as well.

So, at least on this regard, from those Bangles Girls Manic Monday, I can save something for my night as well: “it takes me so long just to figure out what I’m gonna wear.”
Sure. Whoever Travis is, I am not gonna look any less than how his incomparably gorgeous Lexxi looks on stage.
This is why, “in the hottest of the Hollywood nights, in those Hollywood hills,”* I’m getting ready for what I want.
And, you know what a groupie wants, right?!?

Review by Liliana Isella.

Photo by Pam Sprenger.

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*Bob Seger, Hollywood nights