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The Lee Aaron Project - EP (Azra, 1984) |
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"Call it dirty, I don't care" |
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I don’t know if anybody ever bought one of Lee Aaron’s early records for
the rock n’ roll inside, but the covers were fantastic, so lotsa cats back
then had at least one. My friend Caile (who later went bug-fuck crazy and
threatened to kill me because I told “Metallica to brainwash him into
marrying James Hetfield, and paid Dave Mustaine $100,000 to hide in his
closet and spy on him”, but that is obviously a different story
altogether) had a copy of her seminal (for her,
 anyway)1984 album “Metal
Queen”, (Attic Records) where she’s dressed up in some cockamamie furry cave-girl bikini.
Me and the fellas used to go over there to listen to it, and trade the
cover around, boasting what we might do with Mizz Aaron, had we the
chance, as we popped whatever pills at all we could find in Caile’s mom’s
medicine cabinet. I think we’d get through one painfully puffball AOR
number before we’d take it off, and put on something equally Canadian, but
more manly, like Anvil, or Exciter, or Voivod. But we’d keep looking at
the cover. Then we’d either vomit or pass out from his mom’s crazy pills. |
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Lee Aaron (AKA Karen Lynn Greening) was born in 1962 in Belleville, Ontario,
100 miles east of Toronto. At the age of 15, she joined a band called Lee
Aaron as a keyboard player/back-up singer, but when she graduated to frontfox (right after she started to develop, I betcha), she adopted the
band name as her own. Then she hooked up with some starry eyed manager and
went solo. I don’t blame ya if you don’t’ know who any of these cats are, but she scored a rock n’ roll hoochie coup by getting Santers- a pseudo-flash metal band led by Canuck guitar hero Rick Santers- as her backing band. She toured Ontario, and then recorded this 4 track EP with an all-star line-up (in Canadian terms, anyway), that featured Santers, Rik Emmett from Triumph, and various members of Moxy and Wrabit, in 1982. That’s right, Wrabit. A full-length, confusingly also called “The Lee Aaron Project”, was released soon after, both on Freedom Records. |
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Oh, I should mention that the picture disc is a 1984 re-release, by US
label Azra, who also did legendary pic discs for Hollywood monster metal
band the Wild (not Dizzy’s old band) and…well, monster metal band,
Kery
Doll. I’ve never seen a copy of the original, 1982 Canadian version
around, but then, why would you want the one WITHOUT the hot pictures? This EP was in the “A” bin at all-metal superstore Quincy’s Records (in Quincy, Ma, of course) for years. I’m pretty sure nobody ever bought it because metal dudes hung out in packs, and who’s gonna buy a fuckin’ Lee Aaron record when yr walking around with yr macho, Venom shirt wearing bros? You’d never hear the end of it, man. I am pretty sure every cat that thumbed over it WANTED it, tho, cuz you never saw such a worn copy of a NEW record before. I will certainly admit to pawing-it-but-not-buying-it myself dozens of times, but at least I have a good reason for owning it now. Back then, it woulda been cuz porn was hard to come by, and let’s face it, Lee Aaron is EXCELLENT stroke material. Now, it’s purely for historical purposes. And for stroke material. ___________________________________________________________________________________ |
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Anyway, “The Lee Aaron Project” is a one-sided picture disc. I mean,
there’s pictures on both sides, but you can only play one of ‘em, which kinda gives away the game, ya know? The un-playable side has a copy of the
March ’83 skinmag Oui on it. Lee’s on the cover, wearing what appears to
be about half of Pete Way’s black and white striped jumpsuit. By the way,
if you’ve got a stack of ‘em lying around, she has a nude layout in it. I
have never seen it, but I will pay you $1,000,000 for yr copy, if yer
selling. On the flip, she’s posing in red leather hotpants and a haltertop.
The picture was originally from the cover of Hot Wacks magazine, which
seems entirely appropriate to me. You can’t play that side, but you can
stare at it for days, if ya want. Admittedly, my copy is warped all to hell, but the first two songs are pretty wobbly anyway. “I Like My Rock Hard” (!) was written by Frank Soda, a Canadian comedian/musician, who had a jokey hard rock band in the very early 80’s called The Imps. Years later, be went on to become a much-loved Canuck TV star, specializing in SNL-styled satires. It stands to reason then, that “Rock Hard” is a Spinal Tap-esque satire itself, which would certainly explain ham-fisted lines like “The boys are shakin’ all they got/the guitars are screamin’, red |
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hot!” and “I like it hard, when I wanna
rock/ Cuz when it hard, I just can’t stop”. I mean, if that’s NOT supposed
to be funny, then we’re in trouble. Despite the saucy title and the
retarded lyrics, however, “Rock Hard” is decidedly limp, a sluggish
pseudo-rocker that sounds more like the hippy hard rock of Cheetah (Ya
know, “Rock n’ Roll Women”) then, say, the raunchy, chick-powered flash
metal of Bitch or
Black Lace or anything cool like that.
“Under Your Spell”, written by Lee herself, is supposed to be a gooey arena-pop number, like Journey or somethin’, and even tho Lee coos nicely on it, it sounds pretty fuckin’ dated, even for 1982. This probably has something to do with Rik Emmett playing guitar on it, cuz I don’t think Triumph EVER sounded contemporary (Fact: Triumph are STILL huge in Iowa!). “Lonely For Your Love” is the best song on the EP, and it’s actually a pretty great glammy power-pop tune, kinda like vintage Pat Benatar, with soaring hard rock guitars. Lee actually SINGS - as opposed to chirps- on this one too, and it turns out, she’s got a pretty impressive Janis-style howl on her, once she gets warmed up. I still woulda hated this at 14, but it’s pretty boss, man. |
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A semi-heavy blues-fuzz cover of “I Just Wanna Make Love to You”, a song
originally written by Willie Dixon and covered by everyone from Muddy
Waters and Ann Margret to (most notably, for most rockers, ‘specially
Canadian ones) April Wine, closes out the EP. Umm, so there ya go.
Somebody bring me some pills, and an Anvil record, quick. By the time the re-release hit the stores, Lee was already big news in Europe, and her first big hit, 1984’s “Metal Queen”, pretty much sealed her fate for the next ten years. That’s what every magazine called her after that, the “Metal Queen”, even tho I defy you to dig up one actual metal song from her entire catalog. She still rode the wave, though, releasing another mock-flash metal record, “Call of the Wild” in 1987. As the 80’s wore on, she started shying away from the “metal queen” image, and switched over to lighter dance/rock stuff, establishing herself as a sort of hard rockin’ Samantha Fox. She scored a couple of UK hits with ‘89’s “Bodyrock” album (Virgin), but just to prove that she was still prone to recording really dumb songs, “Bodyrock” included a song called “Rock the Hard Way” (sample lyric: You've gotta rock the hard way /Rock the hard way yeah/. Rock the hard way/ Rock the hard way or don't rock no way at all!” ). |
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_____________________________________________________________________________________ Although Lee has continued to successfully release albums over the years, the “Metal Queen” shtick has been mothballed for almost a decade now. In the early 90’s, she moved from Toronto to Vancouver and briefly formed a glammy power-pop band with cats from the Sons of Freedom called 2 Precious, who had a semi-hit (in Canada) called “Superbitch” in 1994. As of 2002, she’s known mostly as a jazz singer, and doesn’t wear red leather hotpants nearly as much. So, where’s the Flash Metal Suicide come in? Just ask Lee, man. Getting pegged by the world at large as the “Metal Queen” when yr really the Canadian Puffball Chick-Rock Queen can be a bitch. So, who is the REAL “Metal Queen”? Well, Wendy O asserted that she was the “Metal Priestess” and nobody, even now, second guesses Wendy O, so let’s just hand the barbed-wire Tiara to Doro Pesch and call it a fuckin’ night. Further: Lee Aaron official site -Sleazegrinder, the Metal King |
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The thing with
Chicks That Rocked back in the Flash Metal daze was
that, despite being painted like sleazy $2 harlots, underneath, they were all pretty
tough women.