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TWISTED CHRISTMAS - Get Out Yer Santa Claws!
by Martin Popoff

New York glam tuffs Twisted Sister have a surprise hit on their metal mittens with A Twisted Christmas, on which Dee and his painted lovies of the fright night do the unthinkable - heavy metal covers of all your favorite Christmas classics. Out of left field, the press - all the way from we exalted metal legions down to the gutter where the mainstreamers dwell - has embraced the band, vaulting A Twisted Christmas to the top of any hair metaller's Noel Hell Wish List just in time to beat the postmark date for those letters to the North Pole.

Coupled with the album is a short tour, which finds the band - all five original members: Dee, Jay Jay, Eddie, AJ, and the bass-punching Mark "The Animal" Mendoza - playing an all-fun set consisting of half Christmas chestnuts and half Twisted toddies. I've seen the show and it's a blast, the band proving their prowess with crowds, Dee singing like a lion, everything placed within in a well-wishing groove, along with copious chops you don't normally expect with this institution celebrated for deliberately simple songwriting. Heck, says an excited AJ Pero, there's even a drum solo...

"The only time we will cut out the drum solo, is if we have to cut the set down by 30 minutes, and then we will cut the solo out. It's not a long solo. The show we did in Minneapolis was close to two hours. We're probably going to cut out two songs tonight; I'm not sure. It didn't really bother me playing the extra, but it seemed to be where it could have been a little less long. But I thank the guys so much for letting me do the solo when I can."

Indeed at the packed gig I saw, the band did chop those two songs, one, an unspecified Twisted song, the other Deck The Halls. Hell, as long as they play Under The Blade and Shoot 'Em Down (and they did), they could play their iPods all night and I'd be happy. Of course, there was - and will be on the remaining two weeks of the tour - much, much more, celebrating Twisted's raucous run around the mid '80s.

TWISTED CHRISTMAS - Get Out Yer Santa Claws! Page 2