Music Blogs

 (Desmond) Child Is The Father Of Man

Last weekend, writer/producer Desmond Child joined the immortals in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In a 30-year career, he's written or co-written hits for such cultural luminaries as Kiss, Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Cher, and Kelly Clarkson.

Needless to say, there was much rejoicing here in Albany, Oregon. Although Desmond's never set an alligator-booted digit in town, we adopted him as a native son years ago. His words shaped innumerable Friday nights and, consequently, crafted most of the Generation Y wisps roaming Heritage Mall today.

While Desmond absorbed accolades on the East Coast, I was in the Pacific Northwest, recruiting fellow music freak Mike Dvorhausen for a tribute to the force whose prose propelled our yearning young lives.

We met at the sole location in town suited to our purpose: Bogey's Bar and Grill, where Desmond's songbook flows as freely as the whistle-wetters we lifted to our lips. We brought only our memories, the GetBack.com spirits allowance, and a semi-definitive five-page list of the man's highlights. It wasn't often a civil exchange - we crossed ouzos over Kiss' "Shandi," which I insisted was a Child/Paul Stanley collaboration, only to discover after a scan of my weathered Unmasked it was actually Vincent Poncia - but we agreed that no one captured those heart-in-gullet weekends of winking stars and carnal promise better than Des.

The Slippery When Wet/New Jersey juggernaut, 1986-1990. Bon Jovi was ubiquitous in our fair city, the lazy upstart Jersey. Chicks wore Jon's pinup puss over their inaccessible curves. As restless, wandering acid-washed teens, Mike and I would slither out past curfew and hear street after street of adenoidal hirsutes in basements screeching "Livin' On A Prayer" in preparation for the stadium glory they'd someday abandon for a more tepid American dream.

We talked about the band's videos, the majority of which sold Bon Jovi as a live experience. "Bad Medicine" mocked the formula and went DIY as a collage of fan-shot footage. It was babe overspill, especially that blonde auteur some enterprising cameraman had the enviable luck to capture.

We remembered only the chorus to "Born To Be My Baby," the chorus being the band's and Child's ultimate strength. You'd need a back-alley lobotomy to pry those vice-talon suckers, those slushy structures with a hardhat palooka punch, outta your bean.





Funny thing about "Made," of course, was how much its discotheque preen was once maligned. Naturally, KISStory got the last laugh. Just this morning I spun Alive IV, and the ovation that brick-walled its opening gallop jarred my eardrums loose. "Heaven's On Fire"...was that Animalize? Asylum? No matter - typical swagger atop the ancient thump-o-chorus, plus the juxtaposition of divine four-alarm disaster. It was later included on the surgically enhanced career compendium Smashes, Thrashes & Hits (Eric Carr vocal on "Beth," weird edit in "Shout It Out Loud"), which also featured the spankin' new eroto-suite "(You Make Me) Rock Hard" and "Let's Put The X In Sex." The latter's survived to become a worldwide biker-bar tassel-doffer.




The unimaginable chain: no Rick Rubin, no Run-D.M.C., no comeback, no Permanent Vacation, no "Dude Looks Like A Lady." I might've never known a frosty '90 eve at Portland's Memorial Coliseum, where an excited Steven Tyler informed a gazillion rocked suburbanites that two of their number had engaged in some covert zipper-down during "Angel." A disgusted Brad Whitford might've never interrupted a "Love In An Elevator" rhythm shiver to boot a rapturous stage diver in his clueless balls. He surely wouldn't have written "Hoodoo/Voodoo Medicine Man," the last stinker you had to fast-forward through on Pump's side two to hit "What It Takes," perhaps Aerosmith's finest cheek-glistener since "You See Me Cryin'."

Has the song retained its power? We activated it (G8) and wisely shut up to watch every patron in the bar sway slowly in their own arms. I began swaying myself, closing my eyes to better recall a balcony at the Red Lion Inn in Sea-Tac, Washington, an infuriating girl, and a lovelorn sky consuming its own bejeweled city.

Sigh...Take it away, fellas.