Ok, I'm doing it. I choose
Tesla. Sacramento's hometown heroes. I can't resist. I'm sorry to whoever it is that throws me that elusive #1 vote every draft.
What's to say? They had a great twin guitar attack. Quality vocals. Good hooks. Unfairly miscategorized as a hair band after tours with the likes of bands I guess I will not name, just in case. Were they the best band of their genre? Hardly. But for those of us in Sacramento in the late 80s early 90s they were OUR band. And they worked hard at it too, always shouting out to Sacramento, shooting videos there (I'm fairly certain I am in like 3 frames during the guitar solo for the "
Love Song" video). I'd see them all around town at the strangest places. Model airplane shops. Softball games. Kings games when the team was strictly a blue collar affair.
For me this was particularly meaningful as I spent my freshman year of HS in 88-89 in New Hampshire and just wasn't enjoying it, not making friends and generally pretty miserable until winter had just about wrapped up. I was on the wrestling team and pretty much would just go from school to school to get my butt kicked every single week. And I remember going down to the record store and Great Radio Controversy had come out during this time and just jamming out on those long bus rides. I guess "
Hang Tough" was my personal soundtrack on those rides.
Its a bit more dated than some other hard rock/metal I was listening to then, and kind of cheesy looking back at it now but I've also found quite a few folks not from Sacramento also really loved this band. And its almost impossible for me now when I hear them on the radio (admittedly not often) to just crank it and sing along full throat.
But perhaps their great contribution was their Five Man Acoustical Jam which pretty much gave birth to the Unplugged Concert Series, at least as far as it pertained to heavy rock acts. They slowed down their originals and had a memorable cover of "
Signs" among quite a few others.
Oh, and the last time I heard from them they were at the Save Our Kings rally.