Michael Monroe Is Still Really Fucking Awesome

If you don't like Michael Monroe, I will fight you. Yes, he dresses like C.C. DeVille's stunt double and sure, he tends to overdo the eyeliner in spectacularly dramatic fashion, but he writes some of the catchiest, hookiest, feel-goodiest rock and roll songs of our time. I'm always both stunned and saddened when I drop his name in conversation — with someone fluent in rock shop — and they regard me with a bewildering dearth of recognition. Née Matti "Makke" Antero Kristian Fagerholm, the founder and former frontman of Finland's Hanoi Rocks never penetrated the US mainstream to the extent of his glam metal colleagues like Mötley Crüe did, and yet his post-80s career has yielded one fist-pumping, pop-powered rifftastic anthem after another.  His 2013 Horns And Halos album is an exhilarating siege of barreling riffs and singalong choruses and it is essential listening for any road trip. I see Michael around L.A. every now and then and he's one of those guys who still sort of intimidates me. I'd never throw a hand at him and introduce myself as I've done with hundreds of other musicians, probably because I don't want to spoil the legend in my mind. He's just that awesome to me.Mr. Monroe just released a new video for Goin' Down With The Ship* — my favorite song off of last year's Blackout States. When I first heard it, the Cubs were down three games in the 2015 NLCS and from a patchwork of frantic texts and cheerless phone calls, I understood that my buds in Chicago had spiraled into a splintery, emotional shambles. Although the song has virtually nothing to do with baseball, it still struck me as an appropriate shanty for their team's most unfortunate and imminent exit and the fans who stuck by them to the bitter end. This video could have been pulled out of the tail end of a Headbanger's Ball playlist from the late-80s, fully immersed in that storied conceit of the tireless band out on the road, caught in candid backstage shenanigans buttressed by reflective montages of Turn The Page-style tedium. It's a fun song and a fun video. Get stuck in.https://youtu.be/23KAL0fft7w *Whenever I see a song title where "ing" is replaced with "in'," I'm reminded of the fantastic Metalocalypse scene when Murderface is pitching his new song, "Takin' It Easy."