A look at the underrated career of Saigon Kick Albums Saigon Kick (1991) The Lizard (1992) Water (1993) Devil In The Details (1995) Bastards (1999) Shuttlecock (2000)
In their prime in 1991-1992, my band opened for Saigon Kick to a full-capacity crowd at the Rockit Club in Tampa Florida two separate times. As a local bar-star and seasoned player eight or ten years older than these guys, I couldn't help but be amazed with the amount of command they had over the audiences at those two shows... It was both awe-inspiring and a little humbling knowing we'd never come close to reaching their (albeit fleeting) level of popularity. They effortlessly connected with any crowd they encountered, and rightly so because they rocked. All pretty nice guys...Tom was always the coolest, Matt was generally pleasant and polite, Phil wanted to shag our girlfriends, and Jason was a little to aloof and distracted to notice the relative strangers occupying the same space as him backstage. And now some thirty-plus years later, we all work at the same carwash... Their charisma level is the same, but their energy output is lagging, especially on busy Saturday mornings....
Dude! These guys were my favorite band when The Lizard released. I bought every album I could find. Missed out on Bastards until years later. Thanks for the video! SK Forever!! Colors is the best song on their debut album IMO too!
Excellent summary piece! Thank you for sharing! Still a big SK fan and of Jason's phenoiminal work post SK up to the great stuff he puts out now. If you always wanted one more good SK album, you can at least get a taste from Jason led Super Transatlantic right after SK's official demise, and their (sadly) one and only album 'Shuttlecock'. Given that the rest of the band bailed on Jason 2 records into a 5 record deal, he basically did and played everything for the last 3 to honor the record deal they had committed to with the record company while the other members just went on with their lives. If you ever wondered why the last mishmash of an album was called 'Bastards' well, my guess is that he just wanted to put a period at the end of the ordeal. We owe a great and many thanks to Jason Bieler for keeping SK going as long as he did and the great music we got to enjoy. Check out all his other stuff. You'll fine sniffs of SK vibes scattered about.
I loved the album "Water"! I played a hole through that sucker. I loved how they seemed to go from one side of the music spectrum to the other, but kept, and sounded exactly who they were. Thanks for this video. Extremally underrated band!
Tom Defile did not leave right after the recording of the lizard. They were on tour when he left. I know all of them and I grew up with Tom. I’m still friends with Tom and Phil and Matt.
Absolutely loved their first three albums. I never knew what happened to them after that and had always just assumed they lost their record deal because the musical landscape had changed so much. For me, the magic of Saigon Kick is lost if both Matt and Jason are not involved.
Thanks for putting this vid together.. excellent. IMHO a ton of their songs stand up well today.. They use a very unique and diverse set of sounds and musicality.. Their melodic harmonies are incredible and to this day, I still can’t understand why they weren’t a lot bigger than they were. I don’t like the Beatles but I often think of how they must have been influenced by them.. awesome
I always thought of them as a poor man's Jane's Addiction, but as such they were really good. Love the first two records and dig alot of the stuff on the next two. The problem for them commercially was that they were too hair metal for alternative but too alternative for hair metal. Good stuff
Interestingly, I always thought of them as the poor man's Extreme, but I think we're coming from the same place. Todd In The Shadows (youtube content creator) dubbed the late-80's/early-90's genre-hopping hard rock sound as "Bill & Ted-rock", and I love that term because it represents the type of music (and the movie) that got me into rock and metal and which I still have a soft spot for to this day. Stuff like Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, early Alice in Chains, RHCP, RATM, Extreme, Living Colour, King's X, 24-7 Spyz, and of course, Saigon Kick. \m/
Weird you say that - while I always got more of an Ozzy/Skid Row vibe as a whole, "Cruelty" always struck me as toe-in-the-water opener that immediately reminded me of "Up The Beach" off Nothing's Shocking.
This band could have been bigger but Jason's ego would end the band soon after their 1 hit. Matt went on and recorded with Harry Cody of Shotgun Messiah, but it never saw the light of day. The samples I heard were amazing. As far as Jason, he has been trying to find a match for Matt's voice for 30 years. SK tried hard not to succeed and Matt simply had to go his own way and I don't blame him.
i remember reading about them being called "coma" in metal edge. my buddies and i were super interested in hearing their material, but alas, it remains in the vaults.
Loved this band ..used to open for them when they would play the button south...i thought the first album was better...played tue kazoo in one of their songs for them
it's a shame if the debut came out a few years earlier I think things would have been different. Love is on the way even in 92' was a big hit imagine how it would have been in 88' or 89? Loved the heaviness, loved the harmonies, loved the creativity. Too bad they Matt is at war with the rest of the band currently. Looking forward to seeing the 30th anniversary Water tour with Phil and Jason
tuff luck .....2 official releases 1987....and 1992....2 different singers !!!!......the 2 biggest bands in the late 1980s (for this type of music)in south florida were tuff luck and Saigon Kick......Saigon Kick.......won !!!
In the late 90s, my friends band opened for them at Harpos in Detroit. They were so threatened by the opening acts that they had the monitors turned off on the stage just to make sure they sounded better. Slaughters guitar player at the time was filling in for them. He was cool. The rest of the band from the little I experienced of them were a$$ holes.
My band Einsteins Attic did shows with them through out FL in the early and mid 90's as we were another overlooked band. I remember telling Jason how I thought he could be the next guitar hero but unfortunately he never received his due credit. They were a great live band and im happy we got to do shows with them.
Followed them since small. Local gigs in Ft Lauderdale with Marilyn Manson and spooky kids ( joke he turned into) Saigon Kick fell because Jason's greed and need for power . True fans dropped off with @mattkramer
Love this band! Odd side question: does Ghost sound like Saigon Kick? Every time I hear a new Ghost song I'm like "man. That STILL sounds like Saigon Kick!" Song after song... Just me? 🤣
I could go On and On (no pun intended) about Saigon Kick. I just wanted to point out a couple of things....If you can find it, "Moments From the Fring" is a collection of B-sides and Demos, and is an interesting look at the formation of some of their classic songs. The opening track Dizzy's Vine at the time was the most modern new track by Matt and Jason after not working together on something in many years. It's a great track and belongs with some of their best they had to offer, with the classic harmonies you would expect with the 2 of them.The unfortunate thing is they still had that amazing chemistry when working together and wasn't the phoned in mess that Bastards was. Unfortunate because it was a glimpse at the time at what a new album could have sounded like. There are also several B-sides on the album that were very cool, especially if you are a SK fan. Also Super Trans Atlantic garnered a lot of attention briefly when they came about. I know there was a bidding war to sign them at the time. It's worth noting the track "Super Down" was featured on the American Pie soundtrack and was kind of a catchy tune, but nothing like Typical Saigon K. Original singer Matt Kramer also had a decent solo album "War and Peas" that has a few good songs on it.
its funny to me that the narrator slags on supertransatlantic so much. they had success by getting their song super down on the american pie soundtrack...but it was label politics that killed their album from getting any success, as their album got delayed for over a year after having that success on the soundtrack! super down, 7 hours, and dumb were all very much like saigon kick, and that album was a hidden gem. i agree that bastards was garbage...but that also was never meant to be a saigon kick record. it was supposed be under the name "flat", but the label refused to do anything with it but name it saigon kick.
Led Zeppelin did the same thing. Why if you are a musician should you play just one style? Saigon's bass player has crashed on my couch for a couple days and the singer Matt and I have been friends before they were signed. Their mgr. before he was published a rock mag and I was the 3 person hired for it.
Would have been a better documentary without the f-bombs. The first album is one of the greatest collections of compositions in rock ever. Nobody wrote songs like that. Almost like a heavy metal Beatles. They were far superior to other bands of this time. The Lizard was a big disappointment. It had a couple of good songs on it but the rest of them really sounded like they were running out of ideas and the compositions are weak.
In their prime in 1991-1992, my band opened for Saigon Kick to a full-capacity crowd at the Rockit Club in Tampa Florida two separate times. As a local bar-star and seasoned player eight or ten years older than these guys, I couldn't help but be amazed with the amount of command they had over the audiences at those two shows... It was both awe-inspiring and a little humbling knowing we'd never come close to reaching their (albeit fleeting) level of popularity. They effortlessly connected with any crowd they encountered, and rightly so because they rocked. All pretty nice guys...Tom was always the coolest, Matt was generally pleasant and polite, Phil wanted to shag our girlfriends, and Jason was a little to aloof and distracted to notice the relative strangers occupying the same space as him backstage. And now some thirty-plus years later, we all work at the same carwash... Their charisma level is the same, but their energy output is lagging, especially on busy Saturday mornings....
Dude! These guys were my favorite band when The Lizard released. I bought every album I could find. Missed out on Bastards until years later. Thanks for the video! SK Forever!! Colors is the best song on their debut album IMO too!
Excellent summary piece! Thank you for sharing!
Still a big SK fan and of Jason's phenoiminal work post SK up to the great stuff he puts out now. If you always wanted one more good SK album, you can at least get a taste from Jason led Super Transatlantic right after SK's official demise, and their (sadly) one and only album 'Shuttlecock'.
Given that the rest of the band bailed on Jason 2 records into a 5 record deal, he basically did and played everything for the last 3 to honor the record deal they had committed to with the record company while the other members just went on with their lives. If you ever wondered why the last mishmash of an album was called 'Bastards' well, my guess is that he just wanted to put a period at the end of the ordeal.
We owe a great and many thanks to Jason Bieler for keeping SK going as long as he did and the great music we got to enjoy. Check out all his other stuff. You'll fine sniffs of SK vibes scattered about.
I loved the album "Water"! I played a hole through that sucker. I loved how they seemed to go from one side of the music spectrum to the other, but kept, and sounded exactly who they were. Thanks for this video. Extremally underrated band!
Tom Defile did not leave right after the recording of the lizard. They were on tour when he left. I know all of them and I grew up with Tom. I’m still friends with Tom and Phil and Matt.
Thanks for the video. I would agree this is like the most underappreciated band ever.
Absolutely loved their first three albums. I never knew what happened to them after that and had always just assumed they lost their record deal because the musical landscape had changed so much. For me, the magic of Saigon Kick is lost if both Matt and Jason are not involved.
The funniest and most real review and analysis I have read in a long time. Keep it up man! Saigon Kick was pretty different but they rocked.
Thanks for putting this vid together.. excellent. IMHO a ton of their songs stand up well today.. They use a very unique and diverse set of sounds and musicality.. Their melodic harmonies are incredible and to this day, I still can’t understand why they weren’t a lot bigger than they were. I don’t like the Beatles but I often think of how they must have been influenced by them.. awesome
I always thought of them as a poor man's Jane's Addiction, but as such they were really good. Love the first two records and dig alot of the stuff on the next two. The problem for them commercially was that they were too hair metal for alternative but too alternative for hair metal. Good stuff
Interestingly, I always thought of them as the poor man's Extreme, but I think we're coming from the same place. Todd In The Shadows (youtube content creator) dubbed the late-80's/early-90's genre-hopping hard rock sound as "Bill & Ted-rock", and I love that term because it represents the type of music (and the movie) that got me into rock and metal and which I still have a soft spot for to this day. Stuff like Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, early Alice in Chains, RHCP, RATM, Extreme, Living Colour, King's X, 24-7 Spyz, and of course, Saigon Kick. \m/
Weird you say that - while I always got more of an Ozzy/Skid Row vibe as a whole, "Cruelty" always struck me as toe-in-the-water opener that immediately reminded me of "Up The Beach" off Nothing's Shocking.
I always got a Warrior Soul vibe from them.
This band could have been bigger but Jason's ego would end the band soon after their 1 hit. Matt went on and recorded with Harry Cody of Shotgun Messiah, but it never saw the light of day. The samples I heard were amazing. As far as Jason, he has been trying to find a match for Matt's voice for 30 years. SK tried hard not to succeed and Matt simply had to go his own way and I don't blame him.
i remember reading about them being called "coma" in metal edge. my buddies and i were super interested in hearing their material, but alas, it remains in the vaults.
Sounds like Jason had “LSD” (lead singers disease) as EVH used to say about DLR and Hagar 😂
Loved this band ..used to open for them when they would play the button south...i thought the first album was better...played tue kazoo in one of their songs for them
I like these band
it's a shame if the debut came out a few years earlier I think things would have been different. Love is on the way even in 92' was a big hit imagine how it would have been in 88' or 89? Loved the heaviness, loved the harmonies, loved the creativity. Too bad they Matt is at war with the rest of the band currently. Looking forward to seeing the 30th anniversary Water tour with Phil and Jason
Nice documentary, well articulated with other of interesting facts. In the 90's they were a good escape for metal fans to escape grunge lol.
Saw them live at least 5 times.
tuff luck .....2 official releases 1987....and 1992....2 different singers !!!!......the 2 biggest bands in the late 1980s (for this type of music)in south florida were tuff luck and Saigon Kick......Saigon Kick.......won !!!
In the late 90s, my friends band opened for them at Harpos in Detroit. They were so threatened by the opening acts that they had the monitors turned off on the stage just to make sure they sounded better. Slaughters guitar player at the time was filling in for them. He was cool. The rest of the band from the little I experienced of them were a$$ holes.
My band Einsteins Attic did shows with them through out FL in the early and mid 90's as we were another overlooked band. I remember telling Jason how I thought he could be the next guitar hero but unfortunately he never received his due credit. They were a great live band and im happy we got to do shows with them.
Thanks brother. I was always wondering about this band. They had 2 beautiful ballads and a few kick ass songs.
Followed them since small. Local gigs in Ft Lauderdale with Marilyn Manson and spooky kids ( joke he turned into) Saigon Kick fell because Jason's greed and need for power . True fans dropped off with @mattkramer
Intelligent review mate. 1991-1992 was a very strange and interesting time in music history.
Love this band! Odd side question: does Ghost sound like Saigon Kick? Every time I hear a new Ghost song I'm like "man. That STILL sounds like Saigon Kick!" Song after song... Just me? 🤣
They even dip into punk a bit. This band is so underrated . A family friend handed me the lizard record back in like 2004 and it blew my mind
Great breakdown man, Swedish Kick-fan here!
Love this band!!
Nice brief history with album critics, thanks, enjoyed it.
Also "a pussified Alice In Chains" made me lol 😁
I could go On and On (no pun intended) about Saigon Kick. I just wanted to point out a couple of things....If you can find it, "Moments From the Fring" is a collection of B-sides and Demos, and is an interesting look at the formation of some of their classic songs. The opening track Dizzy's Vine at the time was the most modern new track by Matt and Jason after not working together on something in many years. It's a great track and belongs with some of their best they had to offer, with the classic harmonies you would expect with the 2 of them.The unfortunate thing is they still had that amazing chemistry when working together and wasn't the phoned in mess that Bastards was. Unfortunate because it was a glimpse at the time at what a new album could have sounded like. There are also several B-sides on the album that were very cool, especially if you are a SK fan. Also Super Trans Atlantic garnered a lot of attention briefly when they came about. I know there was a bidding war to sign them at the time. It's worth noting the track "Super Down" was featured on the American Pie soundtrack and was kind of a catchy tune, but nothing like Typical Saigon K. Original singer Matt Kramer also had a decent solo album "War and Peas" that has a few good songs on it.
its funny to me that the narrator slags on supertransatlantic so much. they had success by getting their song super down on the american pie soundtrack...but it was label politics that killed their album from getting any success, as their album got delayed for over a year after having that success on the soundtrack! super down, 7 hours, and dumb were all very much like saigon kick, and that album was a hidden gem.
i agree that bastards was garbage...but that also was never meant to be a saigon kick record. it was supposed be under the name "flat", but the label refused to do anything with it but name it saigon kick.
Led Zeppelin did the same thing. Why if you are a musician should you play just one style? Saigon's bass player has crashed on my couch for a couple days and the singer Matt and I have been friends before they were signed. Their mgr. before he was published a rock mag and I was the 3 person hired for it.
i agree, Devil in the Details is clearly their best record. Surprised you didn't mention my favorite track, "Russian Girl."
Russian Girl is great every song on that album sticks out so it's hard to pick one out.
Killing Ground and Spanish Rain are killer standouts as well!
Would have been a better documentary without the f-bombs. The first album is one of the greatest collections of compositions in rock ever. Nobody wrote songs like that. Almost like a heavy metal Beatles. They were far superior to other bands of this time. The Lizard was a big disappointment. It had a couple of good songs on it but the rest of them really sounded like they were running out of ideas and the compositions are weak.
Badassawee....lol
Interesting documentary ruined by an awful narration
Great wanted to see a good documentary..... instead I got almost 20 minutes of Elmer Fudd....
Did you burn your tongue?