Skid Row - 18 And Life (cover)

This cover is special for me for many reasons.

Back at the turn of the 1980's and 90's Skid Row was one of the most influential young rock bands. Music critics sang odes about them, the talent of bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarist Dave Sabo while they all bowed down for Sebastian Bach being a charismatic frontman despite his young age. Fans worshipped them for a reason. Their self-titled first album was an absolute hit with songs like "I Remember You", the legendary "Youth Gone Wild" or like this song, "18 And Life". These two latter ones quickly became the anthems of young people.

I remember the album got to me on a long and winding road, to cite another classic. It was a copied cassette owned by a family member, and this copied cassette was literally smuggled into the country where I live in. To understand the situation: Communism heavily censored not just the tv and radio shows and the newspapers/magazines but also the release of albums and singles. Certain performers were supported by the system, these were mostly those pop singers and bands that played the most conventional, sloppy, wishy-washy music. Certain performers were "tolerated" while others were "banned" - these two often had vague boundaries and those once were banned might have found themselves in the tolerated category and vice versa. It always depended on the current mood of those in power. Needless to say, rock and metal performers were always labeled as "banned" ("tolerated" on a very rare occasion for short times), which meant that neither foreign nor local rock and metal bands were allowed to release their music through the one and only existing record label that was owned by the state. Many local rock/metal bands could release their music only after the collapse of Communism, even though they had existed for many years. 

Yet people had their own ways to trick the system and bring (smuggle) banned music into the country. In the 1980's, when travelling to the so-called West (i.e. Austria, West Germany) - of course on very rare, very well-justified cases, under heavy control -, people bought cassettes and  they copied these banned albums on them abroad and brought the copied cassette home to lend it to friends who copied it for themselves. One album had sometimes so many copies (the copy of copies and the copies of these copied copies) that at the end you could barely hear the music as the sound was so mushy. Still we couldn't put our hands to rock and metal music in any other way.

Skid Row's first album got to me in this way, as a smuggled, copied cassette. I remember when I discovered it at a family event, I locked myself up to the room where the music player was (this old-fashioned, big "music tower" with radio, record player, cassette player and equalizer) and I copied it to myself on a cassette I had in my pocket. I fell in love with it right there, I remember I felt sorry I couldn't turn up the volume (some elders of the family were already freaked out by my "music choice") and I could hardly wait to get home, fling it into my own player and listen to it on full force.

This song was one of these "holy cows" for me. There might be better songs, there might be better bands, better singers, but this song was one of those that were perfect for me. Powerful, with deep and destructive emotions, with the feelings of "alone against the world" and "I pay the price of being who I am" - show me just one teen who can't identify with these emotions in some way. The performance of the musicians and especially Seb Bach was - still is! - absolutely sweeping. I was sure for many years that this song is as perfect as it is, touching it in any way would just destroy it.

Then came Cygnus Rock Band and proved that I was wrong.

(I love it when they prove how wrong I can be)

I remember the first time I listened to this cover. I was in tears and I couldn't say anything for quite a time. Not just because all the memories that came back rushing from the time I listened to this song on a daily basis but also because this cover is much more powerful with much deeper emotions than the original.

I admit, I would have never thought Sebastian Bach's voice and performance in this song can be exceeded. If anyone had told me anything like that back then, I would have probably said something very nasty right there. And now in this cover here is Ruxx, everyone's favorite drummer-singer and simply washes off Seb Bach. Comparing their voices, Seb had a distinctive, sharp, high-pitch screaming voice, usually full of anger through which he could perfectly express all the emotions in their songs. While Ruxx's rich, powerful, skilled tenor full of edges of rock and smoke of blues puts this song on another level. The extreme emotions, the flooding wrath of Ricky's story get a shape, and...

...oh, those legatos at the end of the song by Ruxx, they are the gems of this cover... Seb Bach was just screaming on the top of his lungs, while what Ruxx is doing is simply amazing.

Interesting that even though I listened to this song I don't know how many times, I realized only by watching the video of this cover that those deep guitar sounds of the intro come from the bass. I remember I was humming these sounds countless times in all situations of my life, and they gave me goosebumps every now and then. All hail to Deneb for this characteristic, thorough and profound work he did in this song and of course all hail to Rachel Bolan, without whom it would have never happened!

Another interesting thing in this video is that Ruxx and Deneb perform wearing the jersey of the Swedish national hockey team as well as matching baseball caps. They received them from their friends in Sweden - all hail to the entire D. family, you are immortalized by our favorite band!