Music

Skool’s in session

Metal, irony party together Thursdays at Body English

Julie Seabaugh

Bruce Springsteen’s here. Or at least a guy who took great pains to look like him. Someone else is done up as W. Axl Rose. And in addition to any number of generically feather-haired, leather-clad ironic types, there’s a bachelorette party, a divorce party and an abundance of over-oiled, well-lubricated frat dudes. Vegas band Forget McCarran. Oh, and Cindy Margolis. The real one.

The four seven-year Sunset Strip vets known as Metal Skool take the stage in all their rippling-muscled, superfluous-scarved, jungle-animal-printed, permed-n’-teased glory at 10 on the dot. Ever since a highly successful trial run this past July, singer Michael Starr, guitarist Satchel, bassist Lexxi Foxxx and drummer Stix Zadinia have packed devil-horn-tossing throngs into Body English every Thursday night. And it’s not just the surprisingly tight Poison and Warrant covers that keep the repeats coming back; it’s also the lengthy—damn near endless, really—onstage banter.

Between the monster riffage of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City,” there’s meaty comedic riffage on sluts, MILFs, Animal Planet f--king and Hoobastank. The bits are mostly courtesy of Starr and Satchel, as Foxxx’s downtime is dominated by his hand mirror, lip gloss and hair spray.

Sure, all the talking leaves room for only 10 songs over an hour and 15 minutes, but those 10 songs are monsters. Impressive guitar solos and glass-shattering falsettos bolster the likes of Van Halen’s “Jump,” Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and a Margolis-backed version of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” And these guys must really like GNR, as the setlist also includes “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Welcome to the Jungle,” which Starr introduces as “Welcome to My Vagina.” Just one complaint: Yes, the production is equal parts celebration and huge joke, but does the vibe have to be so overwhelmingly ironic? Why do the attending 20-somethings take their hipster costumes so seriously, yet don metal-head wigs with tongue so firmly in cheek? These songs hold up so well live and on radio for a reason. To mismangle the title of one of the evening’s highlights, when most of the audience is there simply to smirk and be seen, they give (metal) love a bad name.

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