They were the bands who shared names with insects and blood-thirsty beasts, the original men in black who frightened the mothers of pubescent girls everywhere and then slipped into the abyss of obscurity from whence they came. Trampled in the record industry's early-'90s stampede toward Seattle, the hair-sprayed monsters of rock that all-but-dominated MTV during the '80s were pushed off the charts and onto the stages of America's backwater clubs.

\\After weighing the benefits of playing frat houses or pushing french fries, bands like White Lion gave up the ghost while other acts chose to trade airbrushed tour buses for rented vans and major label excess for indie label thrift. As generation swine returns for another dose of bad medicine in the form of a Motley Crue reunion and an attempted Jon Bon Jovi comeback, here's a look at what happened to some of the decade's other outlandish artists.

\\Cinderella

\\Cinderella is no longer packing arenas, but the band's tour bus hasn't turned into a pumpkin yet. "We were dropped from Mercury after 10 years of loyal service, but we weren't ready to quit at the time," says frontman Tom Keifer. Realizing what they had once it was gone, Cinderella has trudged on in the face of other such Spinal Tap-style setbacks, including the resignation of two drummers and potentially career-ending vocal chord problems for its singer. Keifer has been pursuing a solo career during the group's hiatus.

\\Skid Row

\\According to Metal Edge magazine editor Gerri Miller, Skid Row has entered the hard rock equivalent of a witness protection program -- changing its name, recruiting a new lead singer and hiding from the wrath of controversial frontman Sebastian Bach. "There are a lot of problems between Sebastian and the other members," Miller says. For now, bassist Rachel Bolan is playing in Prunella Scales with fellow '80s survivor Phil Varone, last seen behind the drums for Saigon Kick. The notorious youth gone wild, Bach is headed for the studio with the Last Hard Men -- which also includes former Breeder Kelley Deal and former Smashing Pumpkin Jimmy Chamberlain -- to record songs for Rod Stewart and AC/DC tribute albums.

\\Winger

\\Though they're forever immortalized on the chest of Beavis and Butthead's geekazoid neighbor Stuart, Winger called it quits around the time MTV began to smell of teen spirit. Earlier this year, ballet dancer-turned-rocker Kip Winger downsized his arena-rock antics for a decidedly more mellow tour of 37 Barnes and Noble bookstores. "I'm not into the rock star bulls--- and I never was," says Winger, who recently released a new album, "This Conversation Seems Like a Dream." "I talk to people who say, 'Bring the '80s back,' but there is no bringing it back. I feel like I am the only one of that genre that is trying to turn the page."

\\Trixter

\\Seven years after MTV taught the underage foursome that tight jeans and motorcycles make for stellar videos, Trixter is still an active entity -- whenever their credit card bills dictate so. The band sporadically tours East Coast clubs with a show of mostly covers because, according to guitarist Steve Brown, "If you want to be a musician in this business, you have to take the highs with the lows -- and you have to make money somehow." The bill-paying will continue this fall with the release of "Trixter Alive." "It's a waste of our time to make a new album that is just going to be put in the toilet," Brown says.

\\Slaughter

\\"We stuck with it and now we see people night after night who say 'Thank You,'" says Slaughter frontman Mark Slaughter. To please shrinking but apparently grateful audiences, the band plodded through the bleakest hours of the grunge invasion -- including several months traveling the country by minivan to open shows for Ozzy Osbourne. The group has since switched back to real rock star buses for a tour to support their new album, "Revolution," and will join fellow CMC recording artists Warrant, Dokken and Alice Cooper for a string of dates starting August 2. "There's a lot of people who are angry at the record industry for alienating their kind of music," Slaughter said. "We're definitely coming around again."

\\Poison

\\Poison singer/songwriter Bret Michaels wasted away on Tennessee's death row after recording "Crack a Smile," the 1995 album that Capitol refused to release because the band's "hard rock style wasn't cool anymore." Luckily for the band's fans, he was there doing research for "Letter From Death Row," the movie he wrote, starred in and recorded a solo album for. Due in October, "Letter" will be the first release for the upstart film company Michaels formed with actor Charlie Sheen. "I wanted to do a movie that had nothing to do with music," says Michaels, who chopped and dyed his long blond locks for the role. "I'm not ru