"Feel Like Makin' Love" by Dangerous Toys

    Hey friends! It’s time once again to delve into the archives of Kyle’s Radio Dial! This time, we check out an early ‘90s pop/metal cover of a classic rock staple… a remake that deserved a solid chance at radio, but was destined to remain an album cut. Crank it up for Austin, Texas’ Dangerous Toys and “Feel Like Makin’ Love”.

“Baby… when I think about you… I think about love…

Darlin’ gonna live without you… and your love…”

Featured on the Toys’ second LP, 1991's Hellacious Acres, “Feel Like…” was not issued as a single, nor did it garner much, (if any) radio airplay, so it earned no position on the Billboard Hot 100. Don’t let this affect your perception of the song’s quality however as it’s still a solid rocker and a great version of a 70’s hit.

The boys of Dangerous Toys…  Lead vocalist Jason McMaster, guitarists Scott Dalhover and Danny Aaron, Mike Watson on bass, and drummer Mark Geary, update Bad Company’s classic (a US #10 hit in ’75) by replacing the original song’s country-rock styled guitar work with glam metal riffs, and by adding more vocal adlibs, consistent with the genre of pop/metal. The tempo and overall vibe of the tune is undisturbed, though it appears that the lyrics were changed ever so slightly.

While the original Bad Company version is clearly a man singing to his lady about how much he is attracted to her, the Toys' version appears to be a man singing to his lover whom is dying. Check out the differences in these lyrics.

Bad Company: “Darling, don’t live without you… and your love”, and “I would wrap you in the heavens, ‘til I’m dyin’ on the way”.

Dangerous Toys: "Darlin' gonna live without you and your love", and "I would wrap you in the heavens, Feel ya dying on the way".

Bad Company’s verse seems to say that the man doesn’t want to live without his lady, and would be willing to place her in the heavens (metaphorically, I’m assuming) until he passes away and is on the way to see her again. This is a fairly common depiction of romantic devotion in love songs… the singer giving something unattainable (like the heavens) to the subject of the song in order to prove their devotion.

The verses in DT's cover, however, seem to illustrate that the man understands that the woman is not long for this world, as evidenced by the definitive "gonna live without you", and "feel ya dying on the way" lines.

So is this an intentional rewrite in order to change the focus of the song, or a case of DT misinterpreting the original lyrics? I admit I’m not sure. I have to imagine that DT had a copy of the lyrics at the time of the cover, who knows? Maybe they recorded it “off the cuff” and tossed it onto the Hellacious Acres LP at the last minute, and just went with the lyrics as best they remembered them.

“And if I had the sun and moon… we would shine in… I would give you both night and day… both satisfying…”

I first encountered this track through a friend of mine that shared my interest in cover tunes. His music collection was infinitely superior to my own, so periodically, he would record remake-only compilation cassettes for me entitled “ReMikes” (ya know, because his name is Mike.... and that's awesome!) 

It's through these cassettes (which I still have), that I first heard truly awesome covers such as Dweezil Zappa and Donny Osmond launching into a ripping version of the Bee Gee's "Stayin' Alive", (complete with a goof on Donny & Marie's "Why don't we play this one a little bit country?" shtick), and the piece de resistance... Motorhead's Lemmy and The Plasmatics' Wendy O' Williams doing a thrash metal duet of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man". Amazing stuff.

Dangerous Toys’ cover of the Bad Company ballad was one of the more conventional covers that Mike recorded for me, but it really caught my ear, and I listened to it quite a bit as it made for great driving music.

In fact, I can't listen to the Bad Company original anymore without "hearing" Jason McMaster screaming the "Yeahhhhhhh Bayyyy Bay!" adlib going into the guitar solo. Sometimes, if I’m singing along to the original on the radio, I’ll just sing McMaster's adlib over top of the Bad Company instrumentation. I know you’re jealous.

So check it out, and drop me a line with what you think. Do you think the Toys did a faithful cover here, or does it make your ears bleed?

And be sure to keep it tuned to the Dial for more overlooked gems from the past because as we often say... the more you listen... the MORE you remember!

“Feel like makin’… Feel like makin’ love to you!”



"I Love You Period" by Dan Baird

    Hey friends, it’s time for our annual April Fools review, where the Dial spotlights a track with a peculiar sense of humor to give you a bit of a chuckle. This year marks the first April Fools tune that actually made a sizable showing on the top 40 charts as well, Dan Baird’s “I Love You Period”.

“Back when I was goin’ to school, I never learned a thing.

All I did was daydream, a-waitin’ for the bell to ring.”

Best known as the lead singer for The Georgia Satellites, whose big hit “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” reached #2 hit in 1986, Baird is considered an important figure in the subgenre of “cowpunk”, a hybrid of country, rock, and punk.

In the song, Dan relates a story of himself as a young man (seemingly in elementary school) with a crush on his teacher. He writes her a love note, but it gets returned with criticism of his poor punctuation.

As he grows up, he continues to work the love note angle in his attempts to woo other young ladies, but the teacher’s comments from years earlier cause him to over-emphasize his punctuation, much to the detriment of his romantic success.

“Then one day I decided, that I would write a little letter…

She said the spellin’ was a masterpiece, the punctuation could be better…”

The story mines the same vein as Van Halen’s rock classic “Hot for Teacher”, as both songs deal with male students lusting after a female teacher. But where Van Halen’s track is from the point of view of a teenage boy, Dan Baird’s character seems to be in grade school, making the line about mentally undressing her just a bit unsettling. Still, fans of the Satellite’s “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” will find much to like here, as “I Love You…” exhibits a similar hillbilly cornpone sense of humor as that 1986 smash.

As mentioned earlier, Baird’s solo tune is the first of our annual April Fools songs to hit the Billboard top 40. Landing at a modest #26 on the pop charts, “I Love You…” had greater success on the US Mainstream rock listing, achieving the #5 position.  Dan’s follow up single “The One I Am” reached #13 on the mainstream rock chart, but had no showing on the hot 100. Both singles were pulled from Baird's first solo LP, Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired, in 1992. 

So, get your funny on, and click the video below to enjoy Dan’s ode to schoolboy fantasies, and Happy April Fools Day from Kyle’s Radio Dial!

“I love you period… Do you love me question mark?

Please, please, exclamation point… I want to hold you in parentheses…”