Swords & Tequila: Riot's Classic First Decade

Bad Mangement + bad record company ... Riot should have been huge !!! Fire Diwn Under is a great great album/cd...I’m not in the band , but reading this book frustrated me in how both the manager and record Company all sucked !!!The record company didn’t want too release Fire Down Under!!!! Which is a classic!!!An awesome book .. Martin Popoff delivers another very cool book !!!

I would have loved to give this a five star review. Here's the reasons why, and why not. For those who discovered Fire down under, Narita, and Rock City the music speaks for itself. Fire down under particularly is a stone cold classic, should be and will always be in any quality hard rock collection. If things had turned out slightly different this band would have gone from strength to strength after that. Martin Poppof rightly tries to credit this band for what they delivered in the early 80s, but sadly the passing of time and death of key band members has prevented this book from doing the legacy justice. The more recent versions of Riot, morphing into Riot V are not the same band, the same vibe or the same quality and Riot's classic time was regrettably not a 'decade'. Photos of the original band are few, and recent versions of the band are sadly a group of anonymous individuals who I cannot name, and the numerous photos contain no names to help associate them for those interested. The last 20 pages resort to copies of emails from fans to the author reminiscing of times gone by, some who saw the classic version of the band, others who would have liked to...in other words, not especially interesting or enlightening and a dull end to the book. For those of more mature years, there's a close comparison with a group like Saxon; a 'holy trinity' of early albums and a classic live album, then a series of new faces and multiple albums which fail to capture the original vibe or the inspiration of what once was. Younger fans may feel differently, dismissing views such as this (no problem with this, each to their own!), but hand on heart it's only the name that's the same. The book feels slightly disjointed overall, and the time to have written this book was during or just after that 'classic decade' to get the full story from those who created those special albums. That's no criticism of the author, recognising this group is to be applauded and Poppof is no band-wagon jumper, the heart's in the right place. My recommendation is to ensure you own Riot's classic three albums and the live album, lower your expectations and you may not be too disappointed by albums like Thundersteel. Buy this book? On balance, yes because there's nothing else on Riot which is a shame., the book's an easy enough read but overall left me somewhat dissatisfied. So yes, almost but not quite...just like Riot.