Betsy Bitch on the Web:
Bitch on MySpace: Official band page run by Betsy herself and loaded with great pictures!
Betsy Bitch on MySpace: Betsy’s personal page. Be nice to her and maybe she’ll add you as a friend.
Witch
official site:
Betsy
joined the classic Sunset Strip metal band Witch in late 2008,
permanently replacing original vocalist Peter Wabbit. Witch are a very active group, and this site covers
Betsy’s work with Witch so well that it’s best to send you there and let
them give you the skinny on her work with Witch. The site is loaded with large, high quality photos of Witch
past and present, and features a detailed Witch discography that is almost as
detailed as our Bitch discography.
Bitch
and Witch
in Encyclopedia Metallum (Metal
Archives):
Betsy’s
two current bands’ entries in this amazing user-updated heavy metal database.
Bitch Articles and Interviews:
All
Access Magazine, 2-15-07:
A
great concert review written by a friend of Betsy’s.
My favorite part of this article is toward the end: “[A]s I talk with
Betsy at the club, a male fan is falling all over himself to speak to her and
take a video clip of himself with her, [and] in doing so, horribly blowing off
his date. ‘Do you get a lot of this?’ I had to laugh. She just shrugged and
took a swig of champagne.” :-D
Metal
Maidens, 3-97:
The
earliest online Bitch interview still on the web; gives some insight into what
Bitch was up to in the mid-90’s.
Hard Rock 80 (France), 1-07: A bit tough to read because of the all caps. In this one we find out Betsy is a fan of the glam revival band The Darkness, and also learn that Betsy owns (*gasp*) a Barry Manilow Greatest Hits album--the horror! (I own The Warrior Is a Child by Christian inspirational singer Twila Paris, Betsy, so you're not the only one with some schlock in the collection.) The website is from France but the interview is in English.
Full In Bloom Music, 2008: Longer interview with more all caps. Favorite quote from this one is regarding the Be My Slave photo session: “I remember being surrounded by whips, chains, handcuffs, ropes and all manner of S&M paraphernalia. I remember standing there amidst all of this gear in my ripped tights, my thigh-high boots and my studded arm bands and Brian Slagel walk[ed] into the room and proclaimed, ‘What a mess!’”.
Heavy Metal Time Machine, 10-8-08: Shorter interview that covers the Bitch basics pretty well.
Sleaze Roxx, 3-16-09: My favorite of all the Betsy interviews currently on the web because it contains some of the best thought-out questions of any of the Bitch interviews here. It gives a little insight as to what Betsy is like offstage too.
Hair Metal Mansion, 9-28-09 (intv. conducted in '07 or '08): Very short and a bit thin, but still worth reading.
Bitch-Related
Bands and Industry People:
The Electric Prunes: One of the legendary garage bands of the late 1960’s is back and proving themselves to the world like a young band reaching for fame for the first time. The band shares twin guitar players Steve Kara and Jay Dean with Bitch.
Anger As Art: Official site of All-Star Bitch member Steve Gaines’ most recent band. The group is releasing their third album Disfigure with metal indie label Old School Metal Records. The current lineup features Angelo Espino from Hirax and Once Dead, and is rounded out by members of Steve’s most famous band Abattoir, so Anger as Art is definitely an all-star group in and of itself. Check their MySpace for more info and song samples.
Killen: I cannot recommend this almost flawless power/traditional metal band enough! This all-instrumental group is fronted by 1999 “Infatuation”-period Bitch member Ed McCrary, and features Bitch co-founders David Carruth and Robby Settles in the lineup. Check the entries for their CD Speak No Evil (2006) and DVD Epic (2007) on CDBaby, and go to their official MySpace to hear some of their music.
Lizzy Borden: Lizzy was label mates with Bitch when they were with Metal Blade, and continue to be a regular on Metal Blade’s roster. Betsy did guest vocals with Lizzy on a cover of The Tubes’ “Don’t Touch Me There” that was released on Lizzy’s 1987 stopgap EP Terror Rising. Lizzy Borden, like Alice Cooper, is the name of both a band and its frontman (whose birth name is Gregory Harges). Lizzy is one of the long-running banner wavers for classic heavy metal and is truly one of the very best of the genre. I’ve personally listened myself sick on their newest album Appointment With Death (2007), which some fans rightly believe to be Lizzy’s best album ever. I also heartily recommend Lizzy’s 1989 prog-metal masterpiece Master of Disguise and the 2000 comeback album Deal With the Devil (get the Japanese edition with the Scorpions cover “We’ll Burn the Sky” if you can).
Bill Metoyer: The legendary metal producer and engineer Bill Metoyer worked on Be My Slave, The Bitch is Back, and A Rose By Any Other Name. Bill continues to do production and engineering work with his production company Skull Seven Productions.
Joe Romersa: Joe Romersa was the producer of the album The Bitch is Back and a high school classmate of Betsy’s. Romersa is a multi-talented guy to say the least, with a very long list of credits as a producer, drummer, voice actor, and visual artist.
Metal Blade Records:
Metal Blade Records Official Site: As self-explanatory as it gets.
Official Metal Blade Discography: A complete listing of practically every album ever released by Metal Blade Records. I used this as a source for building our Bitch discography.
Detailed Metal Blade Discography 1982-1986: This unofficial discography covers the first four years of Metal Blade releases, complete with album cover photos and serial #’s. Very nit-picky info for the discography nerds amongst us.
Brian Slagel and Metal Blade Records—Why They Are Cool: This tribute page to Brian Slagel and Metal Blade Records draws attention to Brian’s and Metal Blade’s long-running pattern of honest business practices and concern for their artists, past and present. Includes brief stories on Brian’s involvement with Bitch, as well as with Flotsam & Jetsam, The Galactic Cowboys, and Voivod. Enhanced with MP3 samples and YouTube videos throughout.
Metal Blade 20th Anniversary Box Set Online Browsing Companion: With 9 CD’s, 1 DVD, and a half a day’s worth of music, Metal Blade’s 20th Anniversary Box Set is one of the most amazing vanity releases ever. However, because of its size it can be a little bit intimidating for the uninitiated. For that reason I built an online browsing companion for the box set, which features a complete track listing, MP3 samples of many of the songs, and YouTube videos that cover about two thirds of the DVD. The track listing features a running commentary from Brian Slagel himself.
Metal Blade Records Vault on eBay: Metal Blade have been around for nearly thirty years now, and believe it or not they still have some leftover stock from past releases that have long been deleted and are commanding collector prices now. Metal Blade’s Vault division allows you to go to the source to buy the last remaining copies of these classics that have since reached collectible status.
Lady metal pioneers Ann Boleyn (Hellion, Détente) and Doro Pesch (Warlock, Doro):
Betsy,
Ann Boleyn,
and Doro Pesch are generally thought of as the Big Three Lady Pioneers
in Heavy Metal. I hope to eventually have a little more info on Ann and
Doro on this site, because chances are that if you love Betsy, you’ll also
love Ann and Doro. For now a few links will suffice.
Hellion, Warlock, and Doro in No Life ’Til Metal: NLTM is an incredible resource that is run by Scott Waters, a long-running metal fan and singer/bandleader with a MASSIVE metal collection. Waters essentially surveys metal artists’ discographies and gives his opinions on the music, and his opinions are very fair, thoughtful, articulate, and well written. His run through the music of Ann and Doro helped get me started with both of them.
 |
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Isn't the picture on the left just adorable? That's Ann Boleyn of Hellion as a little girl putting on a "concert" to a Beatles record, complete with a Tinkertoy microphone and a paper cutout guitar and Beatles drum head (misspelled "Beetles" with two E's--how cute is that?) The picture on the right is a more recent photo of Ann giving an interview on her 2001 Japanese tour. |
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Hellion Bio at Metallian: Ann and Hellion had a much tougher time on the road to fame and notoriety than Bitch did, and this bio covers some of the basics. Essentially Ann grew up in a podunk town in Washington State and decided to try to make something of herself in Hollywood even though her parents were dead set against it. The poor darling had the following happen to her: had to leave The Runaways because manager Kim Fowley was making the band members “turn tricks”; narrowly escaped a life of white slavery in the Alaskan Klondike; had to leave the management of Wendy Dio (wife of Ronnie James Dio) because no label would take Hellion no matter how hard Wendy shopped them. She also had two bands defect on her for the exact same reason; one formed a band called Burn and the other became part of an early version of Mandy Lion's WWIII. Finally, when things were looking up for Ann and she was getting ready to release Hellion’s masterpiece The Black Book with a big promo tie-in on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball, the network cancelled the show and the label reneged on the promotion, causing the album to sink without a trace. It’s no wonder that on Hellion’s 2003 album Will Not Go Quietly, Ann sounds like she’s exorcising all of her demons at once! Hellion did have one album go to #6 on the charts in the UK, so at least they had something to show for all the heartache they went through. This bio covers Hellion’s story in further detail.
Screams in the Night: Ann Boleyn Fan Page: This is an older page and one of the hardest-to-read pages I’ve EVER seen. I have to highlight everything on the page in order to read it. It’s got some great insight into Ann’s world though, so grappling with it does pay off somewhat.
Ann Interview with Reality Check TV on YouTube: I love this interview! The two metalheads that interview Ann are huge “women in metal” fans and cover really all the basics of Ann’s career with her, complete with a romp through Hellion’s discography. They also discuss Ann’sw work with lady-fronted thrash metal band Détente (Ann was still with the band when this video was created), and the videos shows footage of Ann singing with Détente. The interview makes reference to Betsy and Bitch too, complete with a brief shot of Betsy performing live.
Doro American Fan Club Site: A load of info, complete with a great discography and tons of articles and links. Don’t be fooled by the fantasy artwork portraits, by the way. Doro is a hot blonde that is also completely loveable; she’s truly a teddy bear in leather and steel getup if there ever was one.
Doro interview on Sleaze Roxx, 6-13-09: Gives you an idea of what a sweetheart Doro is.
More Lady-Fronted Metal:
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Tiina Teal, new lead singer of classic thrash band Détente. |
Détente are one of a select few thrash metal acts from the 1980's that had a female singer. Their debut LP, Recognize No Authority,
Détente are currently recording a new, eight-song album entitled Decline that is being produced and engineered by the legendary metal producer Bill Metoyer. They are over half-finished with recording Decline and are hoping to have the album released in time for a European tour that is to take place in April and May 2010. Check Détente's official site and their MySpace page for updates on the new release and details on the new tour.
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| Here's lady stoner/doom pioneer Gyda Gash. The photo on the right features Gyda with Bobby Liebling, frontman of stoner/doom gods Pentagram. The two are looking at Bobby's personal copy of Gyda's 60 Milligrams single together. | |
Gyda's debut 7” single, 60 Milligrams (“60 Milligrams” b/w “Ghost Boyfriend”), was released on December 21, 2009 by the American imprint Needleteeth Records. The 60 Milligrams single absolutely smokes on both sides, and is an essential purchase for any and every fan of stoner/doom. You can buy the 60 Milligrams single for $5.00 US at this link, and go to Gyda's MySpace page to read more about her.
Gyda Gash “60 Milligrams” video on YouTube: The A-side of the pioneering 60 Milligrams single by Gyda Gash is dedicated to Pentagram frontman Bobby Liebling, who counts himself as a fan of Gyda's (see photo above for proof). Here is a very well put together video for “60 Milligrams” that features Gyda in the studio during the recording of the song.
Metal Resources:
No Life ‘Til Metal: This resource site is run by Scott Waters, a long-running metal fan and singer/bandleader (Waters played alongside Anger As Art’s Angelo Espino in Once Dead briefly). Waters has a MASSIVE metal collection and essentially surveys metal artists’ discographies and gives his opinions on the music.
There are so many things I love about the No Life 'Til Metal site. First, the site keeps its base squarely on ground-zero traditional metal, and then reaches out from there, so in other words the site truly “keeps it metal”. Next, Waters’ opinions are very fair, thoughtful, articulate, and well written, and he won’t mince words if something is really great or if something blows (he’s even willing to give his own friends bad reviews). Next, it’s about MUSIC and not obsessed with or distracted by the seamy side of life (Waters is a born-again Christian and proud of it, which would explain this; however, he's not heavy-handed or preachy about it). Next, the site does foray into pop metal and black/death metal, but keeps that stuff in the minority and doesn’t let it take over. Finally, most all the references to nu-metal I’ve seen in this site say what needs to be said about it: that it SUCKS (again, keeping it metal).
If
you want to know more about metal and dig deeper than Metallica and Ozzy without
leaving those two behind, this is a VERY good place to start learning and
getting advice. Just start reading
about the bands you know about and like, and then start exploring, using Waters’ Playlists and
Top Albums of the Year lists as a guide. Before long, No Life 'Til Metal will have you into
all kinds of great metal you didn’t know existed.
Blabbermouth.net: Run by Roadrunner Records, Blabbermouth.net is probably the best source on the web for metal news from well both known and lesser-known metal bands and labels.
Encyclopedia
Metallum (Metal Archives): This
user-updated metal database features detailed information on 700,000 metal bands
and counting. I used Metal Archives
as a source for the Bitch discography, especially for researching the Bitch
Members on Other Albums section (with Steve Gaines’ discography in
particular it was an absolute lifesaver).
Sleaze Roxx: A very well organized and informative resource on the hair, sleaze, and glam metal of the 1980’s. There are a number of groups whose only existing online information is on this site, and the layout and organization scheme is absolutely pristine. I used this site in particular to research Odin and London further after watching Decline of Western Civilization Part II for the first time. Their interview with Betsy is very high quality and probably the best on the web.
Metal Sludge: This famous/notorious online metal fanzine is run by Stevie Rachelle of the Sunset Strip hair metal band Tuff. What I love about Metal Sludge is that they are not afraid to call a spade a spade, even if it concerns their own heroes. This is the way Metal fanzines should have been in the 1980’s instead of being overly nice and never giving a bad review. If they were, it’s possible that metal bands wouldn’t have been able to get away with making so much crap in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s and alternative wouldn’t have derailed metal as brutally as it subsequently did. The only time that Betsy has been mentioned in Metal Sludge so far is in this interview with Danny Dangerous of The Zeros; I’ll let you read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I would say that between Sleaze Roxx and Metal Sludge, you can get about three-quarters of the way through a B.A. in Hair/Sleaze Studies.
Dee Snider's House of Hair: Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider has had a long-running alternate career as a radio personality, and House of Hair is Dee's weekly, syndicated show that's all about metal! The show keeps it metal for two hours a week on dozens of stations throughout the United States and Canada. If you live in the States or Canada, check this map to see if there is a station near you that carries the show. And if there is, to quote Dee himself: “Get in, sit down, shut up, and hold on!”