Bon Jovi spoof artist had good ‘Hair’ day.

By Jim Sullivan

Johnny Angel, singer-guitarist for local punk bands Thrills and Blackjacks, had a side-project parody band called the Swinging Erudites in the late ’80s. They got a lot of attention back in the day for the razor-sharp Bon Jovi parody “Living on My Hair.” With the actual Bon Jovi hitting Gillette Stadium on Saturday, the Herald asked Angel - now a radio talk-show host in Los Angeles - to reflect on those good old days.

“I thought they were kind of a hoot, truth be told,” Angel said by e-mail. “So over-the-top with the feathery hair deal, the commercial-jingle Desmond Child choruses, the hyper-theatrical pomp and pound. They were awesomely grotesque in a way that no Massachusetts band would ever be. You’d have to be from Jersey to be that crass. My friends in the local hair bands like Extreme or Bang were really restrained and cerebral by comparison.

“When we lampooned ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ as ‘Living on My Hair,’ I thought it was such an obvious, easy target that nobody would like it, but it actually got radio play (on KISS-108 and WBCN [website]).

“(In concert) I got to dress up like Jon Bon Jovi for the parody and I slapped on this silly blond wig and shiny scarf and spandex, which all of the chicks in the band had, because a couple of them were honest-to-goodness hair-metal fans. But Bon Jovi was alright for what they were - an amped-up, sing-along, un-hippie version of Journey with better tunes.”

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