#hot leg

[guys-moments]

[vinylspinning]

Hot Leg: Red Light Fever (2009)

Not to make light of a dead-serious situation, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine has me seeing RED this week, so I’d like to show solidarity for the Ukrainian people with a week’s worth of red vinyl, for what little that’s worth ...

Hot Leg was basically The Darkness with a different name ... and three out of four musicians, sure, but let’s not kid ourselves: the only one that really mattered was vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and all-around driving force Justin Hawkins.

After living up to every rock ‘n’ roll cliche in record time with his former group -- the meteoric rise to stardom, sophomore slump, descent into drugs, and acrimonious break-up -- Hawkins momentarily retreated from the spotlight to lick his wounds and figure out his next move.

Among other things, he contributed a dynamite track to American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert’s For Your Entertainment LP, and it’s fair to say that “Music Again’s” lyrics reflected their composer’s renewed passion: “Oh, you make me wanna listen to music again.”

So, Hawkins formed Hot Leg with lead guitarist Pete Rinaldi of Anchorhead, former The Thieves bassist Samuel ‘SJ’ Stokes, and drummer Darby Todd of Protect the Beat (*), then proceeded to make amends for The Darkness’ patchy One Way Ticket to Hell ... And Back LP with 2009’s Red Light Fever.

First, Justin showed he’d lost none of his sense of humor (nor his penchant for nut-sack pinching falsettos) with downright comical opener “Chickens,” then he led the group through a stellar set of hard rockers, headlined by the anthemic “You Can’t Hurt Me Any More” and “Whichever Way You Wanna Give It.”

But take note: more than simply indulging in Spinal Tap keyboardist Viv Savage’s motto to “Have a good time ... all of the time,” Hawkins also saw fit  to unleash his pointed ire against reality TV (“Ashamed”), self-righteous Christians (“I've Met Jesus”), and even himself (“Prima Donna”)!

You’ll also hear a spot of new wave synths on “Cocktails” (eat your heart out, The Weeknd!), more fun than classic rock usually allows itself on “Trojan Guitar” and “Gay in the ‘80s,” plus a Queen-indebted power ballad-cum-baroque harpsichord drama-fest in closing number, “Kissing in the Wind.”

To recap: that’s an efficient ten songs, all but one of which sticks to the three-minute range, for a hard rock tour de force even ‘Mutt’ Lange would sign off on -- in fact, he’d probably happily put his to name to an album so clearly inspired by his great works for AC/DC, Def Leppard, and others.

And if you haven’t sussed this out by now, yes Hot Leg’s Red Light Fever is essentially The Darkness’ “lost” third album, because the group duly reunited and picked up right where they’d left off -- only stronger -- and redeemed themselves with 2012’s superb Hot Cakes.

* Though most of the album was performed and recorded by Hawkins solo.

Related Darkness: “Growing On Me,” Permission to Land, One Way Ticket to Hell … And Back, Hot Cakes, Last of Our Kind.

[lo-3darts]

I played minecraft only once

[bloofbloofbloof]

woah mama

[doodzpadoodz]

burn burn burn

[horkbajir99]

A good robo

[sanswithmettatonslegs]

[kuuart]

I took my favorite Fire Emblem character and my one of my favorite games ever and decided to roll them together.

AKA, I put Arvis in (a variation on) the Desert Pyromancer Set from Dark Souls 3. I did the male chest piece, but the female bottom section, because,,, L E G

aka I’m salty AF that I had to compress this so much to upload it to tumblr