Hanoi Rocks
Bangkok Shocks Saigon Shakes Hanoi Rocks
1981
Johanna

Teenage rebellion and the birth of hair-glam and sleaze: Rock solid riffs, electric hooks, sex, sleaze, drugs and aquanet rock and roll

1. Tragedy (McCoy) – 3:54
2. Village Girl (McCoy) – 3:10
3. Stop Cryin' (McCoy) – 3:38
4. Don't Never Leave Me (McCoy) – 3:55
5. Lost in the City (McCoy) – 3:45
6. First Timer (McCoy) – 5:26
7. Cheyenne (McCoy/Vincent/Grant) – 3:21
8. 11th Street Kidzz (McCoy) – 3:45
9. Walking With My Angel (Gerry Goffin, Carole King) – 2:10
10. Pretender (McCoy) – 3:30

The one thing I would ask you to do before you put on this CD is remember the year. It’s 1981. The sunset strip scene hasn’t happened and wont for years. There is no Motley Crue, not even Ratt and certainly no Guns and Roses. The top rock in the charts is REO Speedwagon with Hi Infidelity (the biggest seller of 1981) and Journey have just released Infinity; Rick Springfield has the ear of the kids and Ozzy is about to release Diary of a Madman later in the year. Soft Rock rules the airwaves in general, but it’s losing the battle with Phil Collins, The Police, Adam and the Ants and the Human League. Everything in the charts is glossy and smooth…

It is hard to estimate the impact this album had on me but to put it in some sort of context I would guess it would be like the effect the birth of the first wave of Glam when Bowie became Ziggy had on teenagers in the early seventies. Hanoi was my Ziggy Stardust and Marc Bolan and punk and rebellion all in one. I know a lot of people talk about the Hanoi Rocks and their enduring influence but being there right from the start I always felt was something unique to me. It’s not like today where you can obtain anything by any band from anywhere in the world almost instantly. In those days before the internet you scraped together as much information as you could and you were very much alone in your obsession in a small town.

I think being Finnish was a great asset to Hanoi; well not necessarily being Finnish just not being English or American. It gave them a slant from the start and in a country where punk had only recently hit kids had their own take on music and Hanoi came at things from a different angle: Mike’s sax being just one example. It helped that they were the coolest looking band around and it helped that girls went to see them before hair metal made that the norm. And the songs were just way too cool for words.

2009 was a sad year for Hanoi fans with the band calling it a day for the second time. Whilst they always produced albums of quality, and their releases after their reformation were always cool I think their first album meant the most to me.

I remember waiting for the call from the now sadly defunct Way Ahead Records in Nottingham to let me know that they had the Johanna Records disc in stock and I made my way down to collect it. The original Way Ahead was one of those great institutions; a place that shied away from the mainstream, and stocked only those records that cool rock teenagers like me would truly appreciate or understand.

Even before it hit the turntable it was cool, the cover way cool, the fact it was on an indie label was cool, the cover was way cool (did I say that already?) and the pictures of the band on the back were just a bit … well odd.

For anyone who has heard the opening track Tragedy and not loved it immediately or maybe heard it too late, the effect was spellbinding. Here I was in small-town England listening to a bunch of Finns that lived in London producing a sound that was so fresh and ragged and sleazy that I couldn’t get it off the turntable.

I was shocked, moved, and felt special all of a sudden. It was like the sex I hadn’t yet had. Every track was cool, but Tragedy; Village Girl; Don’t Never Leave Me; Lost in the City; and especially Cheyenne and 11th Street Kids (my favourite two tracks at the time); along with Pretender still move me today. How was this band not the next big thing? My Kiss and Thin Lizzy albums seemed shallow and boring by comparison.

The fact that Mike looked like a girl, that Andy was responsible for all the tunes and bad lyrics and that Sam had a wicked bass (I tried to play bass in those days) made them my new favourite band. And out there in my town it felt like no even knew they existed.

Hanoi’s legacy is well documented, and rightly so. They have made better albums, but that first listen of that first album was pure gold to me. It changed my musical tastes and changed my life overnight. And all the bands that followed, and all that great LA sleaze that came later was not a patch on ‘my’ first love.

I saw the Hanoi Rocks twice soon after, both times they were a revelation. To see these guys perform in the early days had me completely under their spell. The Nottingham Tapes (recently released on DVD) may not show them at their best but it gives you the idea. All those Wasted Years is perhaps a better reflection of the band but not as personal to me.

I have the disc on the turntable now; I bought a new needle for the occasion, even though I have the Japanese release CD and the Uzi Suicide version and the later Finnish release with the five bonus tracks. It was worth the expense.

This album made everything else sound dated at the time and it has stood the test of time better than most albums, and certainly anything else of the period. Andy McCoy’s songs may have been grounded in blues-based hard rock but he throws on paint that colours them up, sometimes punk, sometimes glam or even reggae. People don’t write songs as good as this any more and songs like ‘Don’t Never Leave Me’ could drive a young boy to experiment with make up it a totally cool and non-gay way!

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