TWISTED SISTER

TWISTED SISTER's "Shrill, Crass, Defiant And Triumphantly Hideous" Dee Snider - "We're The Transvestite-Siberian Orchestra!"






Village Voice's Rob Harvilla reports:

"I can't even describe the sight of Dee Snider in a Santa suit to you people. It defies language. Here: Tammy Faye Baker half-disgorged by a 900-pound python. On Christmas. That's as good as it gets.

And for a few savory moments Thursday night, Dee, too, was as good as it got, shrill and crass and defiant and triumphantly hideous, commanding a legion of leather-draped fist-pumping uncouth types from the Irving/Fillmore stage, leading TWISTED SISTER through a blaring, ribald version of 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas'.

It's been that kind of week.

The Trash...

Dee Snider. Yes. Twisted Sister has a Christmas album. A Twisted Christmas. Came out last year. There are worse ways to spend 45 minutes of your life. They even transform 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' into 'Heavy Metal Christmas': Eight pentagrams, four quarts of Jack, and a tattoo of Ozzy. You could crack plenty of "I Love the 80s" jokes here: Dee spends a lotta time onstage Thursday night complaining about how small the stage and the dressing room are, and I spy a cane raised up amid all those fists during 'I Wanna Rock'. But these dudes seem remarkably at peace with their place in the world. "We're the Transvestite Siberian Orchestra!" the guitarist hoots—that's actually really funny. Candy canes hang from the speakers; a bright bow adorns each Marshall stack. Jesus is born.

This show is preposterous. I can't figure out if the fantastically inebriated Twisted Sister faithful gathered here is into cock-rock Christmas carols or not: They seem amused enough when the drummer kicks off the cowbell-heavy beat to 'We're Not Gonna Take It', only Dee howls out "O Come All Ye Faithful" instead. But they obviously prefer plain ol' 'We're Not Gonna Take It'. This approach creates some staggering contrasts, though: 'White Christmas' with dueling guitar solos, or a deep cut like 'Wake Up the Sleeping Giant' segueing seamlessly into 'I Saw Mommy Fellating Santa Claus'. Mr. Snider, see, brings a touch more sophistication to the band's raunchy third-grade antics—at least he uses the word fellating. (He also says effing instead of fucking, e.g. "Twisted Effing Sister," which is polite, I guess.) Dee runs backstage during every solo, and indeed during any instrumental break that lasts longer than seven seconds; I surmise that he's playing chess with his roadie, who is dressed as an elf and is nearly de-pantsed during the encore.

In an affecting gesture, Twisted Sister dedicates 'I'll Be Home for Christmas' (in full power-ballad splendor) to the troops, whether you support the war or not; in a less affecting gesture, this segues into their own 'Burn in Hell'. Ah, well, they're on a roll. The show climaxes with (1984!) 'S.M.F.', and on this night, our thirst for cheeseball holiday revelry finally sated, there can be no doubt what that stands for: "Santa, Mother Effer".

Read Rob's full "Holiday-Concert-Trail" report at Village Voice.