DOKKEN

"Unchain The Night" VS "In My Dreams"

A better one would be the tragic, doomed "Alone Again" vs. "In My Dreams"....two broken hearted dokken classiks!

Okay, so the new Dokken album just leaked (if you consider Don Dokken and Mick Brown to be Dokken). What they seem to have gotten right this time is what so many of the other pop metal bands continue to get wrong...this album sounds like it could've been released in 1987.

Unfortunately it's ballad-heavy, but the faster songs are, musically, solid as hell. This guitarist in the band now, Jon Levin, obviously spent the last 20 years studying those George Lynch VHS guitar lesson tapes, because the style and sound is IDENTICAL. Too bad Don's voice isn't really up to the challenge anymore.

Unchain the Night sounds better at the wrong speed (faster).

ah, but doesn't everything?

Most hair metal does. And New Edition.

For like 15 years, me and my cousin had this thing where, if either of us mentioned Dokken, or if a third party mentioned Dokken, we'd automatically add "Rhymes with 'rockin!'" Another friend, same deal. So it was inevitable that when we three were hanging out one time, I found a way to mention Dokken, just to hear the two of them (who barely knew each other at the time) both chime in with "Rhymes with 'rockin!'" simultaneously, to the amusement of all. Good times, good times...

Dunno if I've ever even heard a single song of theirs, other than "Breaking the Chains".

One of the few things that has not changed over the last 20 years is my repugnance of, and violent reaction when exposed to, hair metal.

But Dokken was the one case where I made an exception. It seems like they appeared out of nowhere with a legendary reputation among the metalheads and guitar freaks at my high school. To my 17 - 18 year old ears, Tooth and Nail was an outstanding record, with tons of flashy, technical guitar, and with songs that were tuneful and easy to like. And the production, while certainly not dirty, was a lot less bombastic than what I had heard from the glam fags like Motley Crue or Cinderella or that shit.

By recomendation from said guitar freaks and metalheads, Tooth and Nail was the first record of theirs that I bought, and it was by far the best. Breaking the Chains, their debut, was solid if unspectacular. Under Lock and Key, their third was highly anticipated by me, but when it came out, I was disappointed to see that they'd teased their hair and wore makeup for the album cover shoot. And while "Lightning Strikes Again" was as good as anything on Tooth and Nail, the rest of the album did nothing to differentiate itself from the glam metal pack.

Having Made ULAK the last Dokken album I ever bought in much the same way and for much the same reasons as I made Somewhere In Time my last Maiden record, I promptly discovered noise rock and forgot all about Dokken.

But I think I'll pull my copy of Tooth and Nail out this evening; I
wonder what I'll think?

Dokken had the best run of singles by any band in the pop metal era. Aside from their 80s material, though, I've never been interested in any of their stuff since, whether it was this band, Don Dokken's solo stuff, or Lynch Mob, but I just might have to try this new album out.

Tooth & Nail still holds up well.

I misread that as Unchain the Fire , and was super psyched for a minute.

Dokken is awesome, but RATT is just a little more awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOsgqG5OOlM

wtf i started this thread?

I own the Unchain The Night DVD (I'm guessing this was a reissue of a VHS from the 80s) but I was sad to find there's no "Unchain The Night" video unfortunately.. However this one is major LOL city...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlkD0ZDYOG4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2pAjKViITM&feature=PlayList&p=295322CECAC2163A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6

I was a fan of these guys when I was in junior high. in the mid 90s a friend and I got to go see them at some tiny bar in upstate NY. George Lynch was with them. The vibe in that place was incredible - it was one of the most fun shows I've been to.

On January 27, 1988, Dokken got the Key to the City from Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who proclaimed it Dokken Day.

I realized today I kinda dig Tooth And Nail. Alone Again sounds like English-speaking Scorpions with intelligible not-as-lolsy lyrics.

I only ever used to know Dream Warriors which I dug a lot, but I guess over the years I've absorbed more Dokken into my database somehow. I also remember hearing Don say on a VH1 special somewhere that the bigger their hair got, the worse their songs became.

Tooth and Nail is a great, great album. The entire band is firing on all cylinders and, though the next few albums were okay, they didn't reach those peaks again.

Did you know that when Klaus Meine had vocal chord surgery in 1981 that Scorpions brought in Don Dokken to sing vocals on what became Blackout? I wish those demos would surface some day.

I just read that today! Yeah would love to hear those tapes

Check this early single 'Hard Rock Women' by Dokken with Don on vocals and guitar from 1978. The rutted sound is quite nice ambience. It's sounds like a Rick Derringer sound and groove. Got to dig the spacey buried ernies on the closing solo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJiYRb3Yzr8

Whoa. It always felt to me like Don Dokken predated the hair metal thing and kind of grafted himself on to it (much like Quiet Riot), and now I know it's true.

Don't know if it is muck in the production or piece of vinyl this recording comes from but that opening few second feedback thing is kinda shoegaze sounding. You could definitely loop it.

rawk but not feeling it, never have, but they had some nice graphics

George Lynch and Warren DiMartini (who basically play identically) were my favorite lead guitarists back in my early teens when I was buying, like, five guitar magazines a month.

Would highly recommend this doc if you're interested in the 70s LA hard rock/pre hair metal scene

https://youtu.be/XlzWl795u0E

LOLZ

I watched parts of this Dokken concert the other day. Dokken were My First Metal. I saw In My Dreams the first time I watched MTV in 1986, along with Locked In by Judas Priest. For some reason when I pleaded with my mom for the Under Lock and Key tape, upon review of the lyrics, she let me keep it (unlike Wang Chung's Mosaic, which had been confiscated earlier that year for having a pair of cuss words on its final, boring track). Thus began my metal years, although when I took my Dokken tape out to the street to ride bikes to the music, my friends always made fun of them, and soon I was making high speed dubbed copies of their Motley Crue albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxCrAL5j_nA

As someone in the comments noted, keep your eyes on the drum riser, particularly at 7:25 and thereabouts.

i like dokken i think they had a really good sense of melody, def felt like they brought a lot of old school early priest/rainbow type euro metal influences into the pop metal context

Dysfunctional is my favorite attempt to go grunge by any hair metal band. They got into a nice hazy Doors, Beatles, and Alice in Chains territory before trying to sound like Tool on Shadowlife.

I love Dokken! I think Don has a great voice & they have really great hooks. First 3 albums are my faves; especially Breaking The Chains

PS i started work in a new office & the business next door is Dokken Engineering \m/

rainbow/early priest influence otm

when I took my Dokken tape out to the street to ride bikes to the music, my friends always made fun of them, and soon I was making high speed dubbed copies of their Motley Crue albums.

Sounds like a downgrade, tbh...

UMS is very OTM, i think Dokken was going for riffage and metal of a higher calling than some of the other L.A. metal of their era. i think they sort of held down the middle ground between Priest and something more poppy like 1987-era Whitesnake, just exceptionally played and hook-filled and sincere. some of those hits from the first three albums are incredible. I really like Back for the Attack, some ill riffs on that one.

the Crue was a huge downgrade!

Tooth and Nail is the rokken Dokken.

Dokken and Krokus were my first concert at an armory in rural Missouri in 1984. I remember solo Tommy Shaw opened that night and got in a yelling match with one of my 9th grade friends who was heckling him.

wait nm that was with Autograph the following year at the same venue!

lol re: Dokken Engineering. I had a meeting at one of their offices a few years ago and because my mind is the way it is, it was very difficult to sit in that stuffy conference room and focus on the boring-ass grading and drainage plan sets in front of us without getting distracted imagining the REAL DOKKEN bursting through the walls as a violent flurry of hair and leather and jagged guitars

i hum Dream Warriors every morning lol

https://s3-media1.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/mo4l3eYPAABEj7gJ52LNeg/ls.jpg

always makes me :)

nice

i didn't realize that Dokken's original lineup had Ratt's Juan Croucier on bass

wiki:

After several personnel changes on guitar, Dokken's attorney Jon Levin stepped in to fill the role in 2004.

Yes of course

I measured Don Dokken's inseam for a replacement pair of custom leather pants, on a job I had for 2 days, when I first moved to LA at 18. He was screaming about how the tailoring on the OG pair had made him look like he was wearing a diaper on stage in Japan. https://t.co/HDfenpOowk

— Jessica Hopper (@jesshopp) January 26, 2022

Meanwhile the other assistant was whispering "pretend you know what you are doing" while I measured his hairy thigh; he was loaded and his face all bruised from having some work done. Truly next level. All the levels at once.

— Jessica Hopper (@jesshopp) January 26, 2022

He sounds pretty cool.

there's this documentary series called Inside Metal, in one about the roots of the LA scene Don Dokken talks about being Keith Morris' coke dealer and also claims to have been connected to Pablo Escobar through some LA lawyer

Whoops, thought I had opened the Dokken thread when I read

The only 70s band to evolve effortlessly from Glam to New Wave to New Romantic electro disco (making Bowie look hopelessly earthbound)

...but that was about Sparks.