list 1

So it’s almost Christmas and I think it’s the first time I have had enough alcohol in the house to drink myself into a coma, well since I was about twelve that is.

So now to the first of my lists

Things I get anal about

1.twisted telephone wires(grrrr)
2.dead matches in the box (why? Just throw the fucking things)
3.toilet paper the wrong way on the holder
4.cd’s in the wrong case( I know somebody who is worse, he likes to line up the graphic on the cd with the background in the case, he then moans about the designer not tacking in to account the difference in perspective caused by the distance the cd is protruding from the background-fucking art students)
5.sweet wrappers in the quality street tin (see 2)
6.Broken cd clips in the case (who fucking does that? Is there a fairy or something that specializes in breaking the things? what a bastard)
7.having to ask for my change (I’m not made of money)
8.talking when I’m on the toilet (I don’t care if the house is on fire, leave me the hell alone)
Only eight, I was hoping for ten.
If I think of any more I’ll add them later

end of year lists

I have noticed all the other blogs have started to do lists, it must be a seasonal thing so I will have to conform and do a list or two of my own. Watch this space.

My local Tesco’s has started selling left handed milk!

photos

I finally have the photos from the motorhead gig but they are shit, can you tell which one has been altered?
"play cherry thing"

I took the classic rock test and here is my result

The Seeker You scored 68%!

I don't know if you've been searching low and high, but you do know your bare-bones classic rock basics. With this kind of score, you probably nailed the signature song questions and most of the albums. You probably don't have much of a classic rock collection yourself, but when your friends play theirs, you recognize the songs. This is a respectable score: you're neither know-nothing nor nerd.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 9% on notes

Link: The BASIC classic rock Test written by allmydays on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Last Night

Last nights motorhead gig was fantastic, nothing quite like sweating your nuts off in a leather jacket drinking overpriced beer out of plastic cups. We had a great time.

Pre gig drinks were cut down to one pint as the pub in Fenchurch street we meet up in called last orders just after we arrived and we didn’t have time to stop off in any others on the way to Brixton. Brixton is an interesting place, every ten yards they have somebody selling drugs, the dealers must have outnumbered the police by at least 5 to 1.

We arrived at the venue just in time to hear the last half of Clutch’s set and drink some more beer before motorhead came on.
They let rip with DR Rock and as always happens when I see a band like this I got a silly grin on my face. I wont go into a track listing because 1; I don’t bother to list them 2; I don’t know them all and 3; I can’t remember it all anyway, however Ace of Spades did send the crowd mental.

My only disappointment was not getting drunk enough, it felt like the evening was incomplete, and I have tried to make up for it today.
It was nice to see so many other people who had dug out their leather jackets for the occasion and I couldn’t believe the age range of the people there, we spotted young teenage emo’s and chatted to a 59 year old Scotsman who had been kicked out for attempting to stage dive(respect). One friend said to me we only go to gigs like this because it makes us appear young, there may be some truth in that, but it was a good night.

Hopefully the photos will come out and then I’ll post them here.

ttfn

g day -2

G day minus two, or should I say two days till we go see motorhead.
I am totally prepared, I have just shaved so my stubble will be at the required length, my boots are just the right side of unpolished and I have selected the appropriate knackered t-shirt (Pearl Jam-Alive 1992 vintage). I have selected the correct spectacles and shaved my head and we have arranged a pub to meet up in before gig. We are ready.

This is slightly different to how I would have readied myself 15 years ago, I would have washed my hair at the appropriate time to reach hair perfection in time for the gig (usually two days before) and probably shaved at four days instead of two, I would have accessorized with wrist bands and other things such as belts and chains, and I only had one pair of glasses so no choice there. Apart from those few differences (mostly brought about be age) things are pretty much the same.

I have been talked out of taking my digital camera and will be taking a disposable so if I get any pictures there will be a slight delay in posting them.

Greenbank ‘B’ team

Cool football shirts, where can I buy one?

Thanks to Paula for bringing this one to my attention

Motorhead

Motorhead are one of those bands that you do not hear about, you just already know they exist. You may not have heard anything by them (if you live in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan) but you know they exist. I have never been a big fan (though I have three albums and an EP) but on the 25th some friends and I are off to see them at the Brixton academy, so I thought it was time to give them a listen and dig out what I had. I was shocked to discover the only thing I have on CD for Motorhead was the Ace of Spades which came on a free CD in the Daily Mail, this raised a few questions,1:how did Motorhead become respectable and acceptable to be on a freebee in the Mail? and 2: how did I end up buying the daily mail?

Back to the tapes I suppose.

To be honest the first time I came across the band I was most likely sneakily watching repeats of the Young Ones on BBC 2 on a little black and white telly in my bedroom (mother disapproved of the young ones), they also appeared in Eat the Rich (just discovered also stars shane macgowan) “The scene involving Lemmy riding a motorcycle is played by female stunt double as Lemmy was on tour with Motörhead in America at the time the scene had to be shot.” wikipedia.

Going to see Motorhead seems more like a pilgrimage than anything else, you should do it at least once in your lifetime.
Hopefully I will have some photos to show of the gig.

For those that know me this is not news but for everybody else here it is,
I have moved.
I have moved into my wife’s home (part of) town. On the surface it appears a nice quiet area, almost villagey, full of quaint old people doing quaint old things in quaint old ways, but take a trip up to the Tesco express, scratch the surface, just look around and you will see all the usual cousinfucks and weirdoes with their baseball caps and trousers tucked into socks. The population seems stranger than the place I just left and I thought that was the arse end of England; it had a nothing to recomendness about it, but here it has a more sinister nothing to recommend with an underlying threat about itness.
Take for example the guy who works in the local convenience store, first impressions make you think he is the village idiot on work experience, he is slow, mumbles and looks at the floor most of the time except when he stares through you, but as you listen to him you realize he has a dark intelligence about him, after a few meetings you wouldn’t want him near your children, a few more after that and I don’t think you would want to leave your parents near him. If society ever collapses I’m locking my doors until I know he’s gone.

We’re going to see motorhead, tehe.

we're going to see motorhead
hehehehe

that mtv episode

I have tried to remeber everything on that tape and find the video's. There are some missing like Little Angels Do you wanna riot, and whatever the song by Bonfire was( I won't inflict that on anybody) . the songs are not in any order.

There may have been others but I cant remember them.

the horrors

I like these guys, and they are (almost) local boys too, check out their myspace, they are a bit like a cross between the Ramones and the 5,6,7,8'S

Fields of the Nephilim

How best to describe Fields of the Nephilim?
Take three parts spaghetti western, two parts Wuthering Heights, and one part brown noise, add a dash of Edgar Allan Poe and cook slowly in a pressure cooker for an eternity in a slightly too warm poorly lit room.
Oh and don’t forget to wear fingerless gloves.

These guys ARE the Goth band, none of this modern girly crap comes close, the Neph makes you shit your pants.

one for the scrap book

The first CD I bought was Faith No More's Live At Brixton Academy and my fav track was War Pigs.

Enjoy

T-shirt rant

I know I may have covered this ground before but this has to be said. The t-shirt is more than just an item of clothing to the metaller; it’s a statement of who you are. The t-shirt will not only tell somebody what band you like it will also give hints about the wearer’s personality, his tastes and possibly his age.

Why is this important you say, well last night a girl walks into my work place wearing a spangely ac/dc t-shirt, tight jeans, leather jacket and a fucking I’m a princess hair style. Basically she was dressed as a retro metaller but with some glaring wrongness that is hard to define but still tangible. It was obvious that she was chav as soon as she spoke, the spangleness of the t-shirt went a long way to giving it away as did the dirty clean look she had (as opposed to the clean dirty look or the dirty dirty look), and the hair was all wrong but what most offended me was the total disregard for the appreciation of he band in question.
Retro rock t-shirt have become increasingly popular over the last couple of years, no student is without his or her Led Zeppelin or (urgh, I have an issue here but that’s another story) Ramones t-shirt, and the number of Motorhead t-shirts in circulation has never been higher. Earlier in the day another person had come to my attention wearing a t-shirt with the words GOTHIC printed across it in gold letters, gold for fuck sake, anybody into Goth from any era would know that it should be silver or white letters and there are all sorts of t-shirts now available from Primark that pretend to be antique tour shirts from some forgotten festival.

IT PISSES ME OFF, if you want the look then listen to the music

Rant over

I was standing by the kitchen window yesterday making a cup of tea when a hearse drove past, as the coffin laden car passed the driver glanced up and gave the filthiest look possible, then the driver of the next car did the same, and the next and the next. About seven car loads of mourners in all gave me dirty looks.
After they had passed I leaned out and saw the cause of their bad feeling, my neighbour on the right had left bags of rubbish on the edge of the road (this is after the rubbish collection) the neighbour on the left had dumped a load of discarded pillows which where lying next to my drive and he had left his wheelie bin in the middle of the road in front of my house, forcing everybody to drive round it. I am innocent I tell you, but I feel so dirty.

I have told my wife not to bury me on collection day.

Boots

There are many things you can wear on your feet be it DM’s, Para boots, baseball boots or trainers, but none were so cool in my opinion as the cowboy boot (though I have owned them all at some point).

Simon got his boots first, £35 brown suede from somewhere in Basildon, he was so proud. He only had them a few days when he chucked his guts up over them at a mate’s birthday party.
Somebody (I don’t remember who) gave me an old pair (probably their dads or sisters or something). they were a dark brown leather and about two sizes too small, but me not having any money(or pride it seems) took them on gratefully, I must have tottered around in them for weeks before I finally saw sense and went back to my beaten up trainers.
I talked my mum into buying me a pair of those zip up Cuban heeled boot things for a job interview*.I must have looked a twat at the interview but that’s not what I wanted them for, my favourite jeans at the time were so tight I could only just get them over the top of the boots if I left the zips half way down, not the most ideal but beggars cant be choosers.

I never got my cowboy boots; I ended up wearing these things for years.

In the end they became my boot of choice and it wasn’t till I cut my hair that I stopped wearing them, my wife chucked the last pair along with my shredded jeans and favourite fooked t-shirt, to make sure I didn’t go looking in the bin for them she dumped them out of the car somewhere along the A13.
Years of searching has proven fruitless.

I now do baseball boots and doc’s to try and maintain my heavy metal credentials but it seems I have been left behind a bit.

Some things make sense; they are just right and need no explanation. This obviously means some things are wrong and also should need no explanation.

I received my “new” Wolfsbane album which I purchased on eBay and on the whole have been very happy with it (£2.50 even if it was shite it was cool), it’s a little more grown up than the other two albums I have and less boozy more dark but I can appreciate that and can see where its going. I am not even particularly bothered by the “lets do a nirvana” secret track at the end.
However, track six, Beautiful Lies, has a fucking poem stuck on the front. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with poetry and there is nothing wrong with poetry on rock albums (e.g. New Model Army) but there is a time and a place and that is not on a Wolfsbane album.

open door

I have got lots of music this week to listen to, Evanescence new album Open Door, Kasabian's Empire, almost the entire works of Anthrax and Metallica and the most anticipated arrival Wolfsbane’s wolfsbane which I bought on eBay for £2.50 inc. postage.

My wife phoned me at work to say my CD had arrived and that I couldn’t have it because its crap, I have only just found it and it’s too late to listen to it now so I am going to hide her car keys in the morning.

I have managed to listen to the evanescence album through a couple of times in the last few days, it’s only a matter of time before my daughter steels it and I never see it again (along with American Idiot and the latest Muse album).
I like this album though I do have a problem with it, not from any fault of the band but more to do with me.
I tend to listen to music in one of three places, while cycling, doing housework, and in the bath. This album is most definitely not a cycling album, which needs something fast, heavy and aggressive. It is too dark and slow for housework (though this is where I have been listening to it).as for the bath? The album is 13 tracks long and while I like a long soak I have to get out at some point.

Don’t ask about my choice of listening locations, it gets to weird, I mean can you imagine listening to a song like Smashed And Blind by Wolfsbane while washing up after Sunday dinner and yelling at the kids to do their homework?
Or cooking tuna pasta bake to Rammstein?

Does this all seem a little fucked up? Does anybody else have this?

Tomorrow I will mostly be listening to Wolfsbane while looking after the youngest, he already knows how to mosh, pogo and can play air guitar and he is not two till January, corrupt them young I say.

lists

Here is an interesting site; it has a list of lists. The sort of lists you go through checking against your own mental lists.

KERRANG! 100 Greatest Singles Of All Time (published 2002)

Have a few disagreements with this one,
69. Aerosmith/ Run DMC – Walk This Way-should be ranked much higher
45. Nickelback – How You Remind Me-what the fuck is this doing in the list, let alone ranked higher than paradise city and number of the beast
54. Iron Maiden – Number Of The Beast-54?54? what do you mean 54? This should be in the top ten
And where are the Beastie Boys with Sabotage?

I did start to pull apart the hundred greatest albums list then realized it was dated 1989 so Nevermind hadn’t happened yet.

Seaside Rock

Something strange happened the other day courtesy of this fellow and some tracks I downloaded from his site, but before I explain what you need some background.

I have a dream, if I win the lottery I am going to open a record(CD) shop and call it Seaside Rock, it will, of course, be by the seaside and it will specialize in rock music(naturally). The inside will be dark and the music will be organized in the most confusing manner possible, it will be organized by me. I will be rude and arrogant and keep a bloody big stick behind the counter, oh and I will always wear shades.
I have my own music categories that need sharing with the world but for that you will have to wait until I win the lottery or find some mental financial benefactor to support my crazy ideas.

The name comes not from the fact it is by the seaside even though that is important, but from a genre of music which I classify as seaside rock. When I say genre it is only such in my own imagination, it has nothing to do with style, sound or dress, it is more a state of mind, my mind.
The bands which I classify as seaside rock are: the Quireboys, the Almighty, Thunder, Little Angels, and Wolfsbane and (at a push) Gun; there may be others I have forgotten. These bands have little in common apart from the time frame I came across them, and even that is a tad tenuous. I thought it may be the association between them and Southend but if that was so then it should include other bands too, and some of these guys I’ve never seen let alone at Southend.

Like I said it’s a state of mind

Dogs D'amour were a band had heard of in the past, I had even considered buying records at one point but without knowing what they sounded like(we had no XFM or internet to find out, it was all word of mouth or taping) and money being short I had to pass on it. I think I missed out; they are a cracking seaside band and the first new seaside rock discovery since 1992. They have also crystallized in my mind what seaside rock is, it’s the Britishness (I nearly said Englishness then and some are Scottish), but not just the Britishness it’s the local Britishness they have.
I think given this new revelation I will have to listen carefully and find out if any other bands fit into this group, not pompous less rock just minipomp rock.

I may have to reorganize my fantasy record shop

The Humble T-shirt

The single most important item in the metallers wardrobe was and as far as I know still is the t-shirt(my daughter got a Green Day American Idiot t-shirt for Christmas), you may wear a shirt for special occasions, you will change jeans, leathers, spandex and god knows what else, you may wear baseball boots, docs, Para boots or clogs but you will always come back to the t-shirt.
My first heavy metal t-shirt came from a little shop in the galleries in Basildon’s Eastgate centre, we used to go in just to look at what we couldn’t afford. Sometime during the summer of ’89 I scraped together the money for a t-shirt, it probably only cost something like £5 but that was money better spent on cigarettes and newky brown. After many agonizing hours of deliberating over what print to get I decided on Stranger In A Strange Land by Iron Maiden(of course)

Yes the picture is of that very t-shirt and it must be over nearly eighteen years old(fuck me!), I cant throw it away its been with me longer than my wife, I have even worked with people younger than my t-shirt.

As you can see I still take my t-shirts quite seriously, as I type I am wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt I bought at the gig I saw them at in 1992(I am desperate to find a replacement so I can frame this one, it’s the Alive one with the stick man design) and here’s a picture of the Little Angels t-shirt I bought when I saw them in ‘91.

My most recent tour shirt is New Model Army from 2003 and my most recent band shirt is a Ramones t-shirt that I got for my birthday last year from the kids.

I know im not the only one who keeps t-shirts well past their use by date and the person I’m referring to knows who he is, but it’s reassuring to know you are not the only nutter left behind after everybody else has grown up.

whoa

Dog and me sometime in 1993 (dog is on the left)

Blast from the past 1

Today I attempted to listen to three albums from ye dusty auld tape box, they were Whitesnake’s 1989 A Slip Of The Tongue, Bonfire’s 1991 Point Blank and Jon Bon Jovi’s 1990 Blaze Of Glory (a.k.a. BOG).
Being a lazy sod I started with Whitesnake and listened to side B first because I couldn’t be bothered to rewind it, I may have gone in to deep because I could only handle four tracks before I gave up, it was just so , well boring I suppose. It was one of those albums that I can never really remember listening to and now I know why, it wasn’t bad just boring, maybe it will improve with age.

Not a good start, I felt a bit guilty about not sticking the whole album out so this time I promised I would see it through, besides I can remember a time when I did listen to Point Blank, though I had no recollection of what it was like. Its difficult to put into words how the album made me feel, it definitely triggered some emotion though I don’t think its what the artists intended, it made me feel angry. Bonfire owes me 45 minutes of my life back, the bastards. It was fucking awful, not in a funny listening to a mates demo way, or awful in a camp over the top Tygertailz way, no it was lame awful. Claus Lessmann, you and me have got issues.

Blaze Of Glory was always a bit of a laughing stock, cowboy rock? Cowboy concept album? Whatever. Compared to Point Blank it was brilliant, maybe the album just needed seeing in the right context, it was a light relief, easy going and enjoyable as long as you don’t take it to seriously.

Next time I’ll take a bit more time picking who I will listen to.

I was Ready

December 17th 1990, up until this point everything just seemed like preparation for what was to come. My hair was a satisfactory heavy metal length, I had the jacket, the t-shirt, the jeans, boots, belts, badges and accessories (rings, bracers etc), my ear was pierced and I was off to see Maiden play at Wembley. I felt I had reached heavy metal perfection.
I think there were four of us on that trip, Simon, Andy, Rob and myself. To be honest it was quite an uneventful night, with the exception of one little accident.
Anthrax was not at the top of any of our must see lists but we made sure we got there in time to see the whole show, these were the big boys, we didn’t want to miss anything. Our seats were to the rear left of the arena so our view was a tad limited (“is that somebody on the stage?”, “what stage?”) and the miserable marshals at the entrances would not let us take drinks into the seating area, so we necked as much JD as was coolly possible and made our (wobbly) way to the seats. Surprisingly(for me at the time) Anthrax were bloody brilliant, enough that we bought P.O.T. within the next few days, Iron Maiden played as well as they always seem to live, with Bruce Dickinson instructing us all to go buy Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter and stop Cliff Richard from taking the Christmas number one yet again (and we did it but the BBC still played Cliff as number one on top of the pops that Christmas).
A little incident brought home to me the quality of my singing voice, we’re at a heavy metal concert with thousands of smelly, beefy, long haired, unshaven metallers and their boyfriends singing along to Iron Maiden and somebody near shouts at me “shut the fuck up you can’t sing for shit” or something to that effect, well that told me.
Getting out of Wembley arena was also an experience, faced with epically long queue my friends and I decide it would be good idea to climb over the perimeter fence and take a short cut to the station. all goes well, no security yelling at us and we almost all over, I’m the last, as I reach the top I place my foot on the wire fence and swing my other leg over, the heel of my boot snags on the top and I topple over, a six foot drop straight on to my face in front of an audience of hundreds, man was I so embarrassed, not just my mates laughing at me but half the metal heads in London, I doubt if there is anyone else out there who remembers it but I do. Cut down in my moment of glory.
And my jacket did not even get scuffed.

Rock Stars Who Should Be Dead

ATAE and I have come up with another list (we really should not be left alone together)

ROCK STAR ..............................PLOTLESSNESS.............. DEADNESS
All of the rolling stones.................................. 8/10 ...........................9/10
Keith Richards special*................................. 9/10 ..............already dead just doesn’t know it yet
Ozzie Osborne ...............................................10/10............................ 9/10
Lou Reed ..........................................................2/10 ..........................10/10
Iggy Pop ....................................................3+1*/10 ......................6+1*/10 *for dancing
David Bowie .....................................................1/10 .............................6/10
Axyl Rose .........................................................8/10 .............................5/10
The toxic twins (aerosmith) ...........................2/10 .........................9.5/10
Mick Fleetwood .............................................9.5/10 ............................5/10
Courtney Love .............................................1-10/10 ...........make up 3/10
...........................................................................................No make up 10/10
Bez ......................................................................11/10 .........................10/10

o.t.

Not quite following the theme but I don’t care, I have just bottled my first batch of home brew wine (its white, I picked up the wrong box). It’s drinkable straight off and it’s either quite strong or highly toxic, either way it’s effective.

True to form I have bodged everything, from buying the wrong kit to not being able to get the right bottles, my kitchen looks like a bootlegger’s backroom. I could only buy beer bottles and had to use whatever was lying around, eight bottles of prime….err…..ok so I haven’t named it yet, I was thinking maybe Johnny’ swine. Any suggestions?

Did Nirvana change the world?

I’m currently reading a biography of Nirvana called (funnily enough) Nirvana by Jeremy Dean. I have already come to the conclusion the author is somewhat a twat but we’ll leave that subject for the time being. I’m up to 1992 and it poses this question: did Nirvana change the world?

1992 changed a lot for me, or I changed a lot in 1992, it seems I got a lot of stuff out of the way that year, my music tastes changed(slightly) the first incarnation of the band was created, I met my future wife, moved out, got arrested and the rest is my business so you can sod off.

We entered the year to the sounds of Metallica’s black album and Nirvana’s Nevermind, both classic and superb albums, the first gig I saw that year was Pearl Jam in a pub in Southend, the Manic Street Preachers released Generation Terrorists (only descent album in my opinion), I also discovered the Pixies, New Model Army, Levellers, Fields Of The Nephilim, Sisters Of Mercy, the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. It was a busy year. I also discovered the joys of …err …mm.

Live I also saw G’n’R supported by Faith No More(or was that the year before?)who were joined by Brian May on stage, Leatherface at the Marquee (arrested for fare evasion on the way to the gig), Lush supported by none other than Pulp (we heckled Jarvis of stage, it was another three years before we could appreciate him, well he did have a silly beard at the time) but the gig that really changed it all was New Model Army’s secret gig at the New Cross Venue.
It wasn’t apparent at the time but it started a love affair that is still on going, they are the only band I can say I have all their studio albums, have seen them four times, can stick it out in the mosh pit for the whole gig (despite being well into my thirties), have more than one t-shirt and at some point vandalized my leather jacket for them. All my children are named after Justin and I have changed my name to Army in honour of them (ok that bits a lie, my wife named them all after U2 albums). They really do rock, and they still come across as true to their message now as they did when I first discovered them, which is something special.

So 1992 changed my world but was that Nirvana? Or was it just the world changing anyway? There is no doubt about the influence Nevermind has had on music, tracks like Smells Like Teen Spirit and Come As You Are can still fill any dance floor, but so will Enter Sandman. Pearl Jam's Ten was in my opinion just as good but had a much lesser impact.

This needs a more in-depth debate methinks.

the late discussions(i)

Today at work ATAE and I were discussing the relationship between Faith No More and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, it seemed at the time they were the beginnings of a whole new metal genre, I remember the label Funk Metal being thrown about at some point in the early nineties but this didn’t seem to stick.
It must have been quite a small or short lived movement, the only participants being the afore mentioned bands plus Primus and Extreme (uurgh) and maybe Living Colour.
I much preferred Faith No More back then, and primus would come second, I never thought the Chilli Peppers would become as big as they have or produce such fantastic albums, my only complaint with Stadium Arcadium is that its so bloody long, why not cut out half the songs and release a super album then follow it up with sessions or additional material album like the Missions Grains Of Sand collection.

rock genres

In honour of those about to rock we have thought of some new styles to run along side the multitude of other incomprehensible sub genres of rock.

Sports Goth- Evanescence (gothic yet young and funky)
Wrong name rock- Incubus (sounds gothic, doesn’t sound gothic)
Seaside rock- see previous posts
Faker rock- rock by pop artists e.g. Robbie Williams & Mel C a.k.a. cunt rock not to be confused with flange rock
Simple rock- rock for non-rock fans e.g. Nickelback
Flange rock- L7, Hole, The Nymphs (anti-cock rock)
Forgotten rock- Krokus? Magnum?
Role Play Rock- Scorpion, Maiden, Neil Diamond a.k.a. geek metal
Training rock- Avril Lavigne, Sum 41
Pre School rock- Mcfly, Busted
Moaner Metal- H.I.M. (looks good, nice packaging mournful dirge)

with help form Andy "the ageing emo"

Disaster

My tape with Quireboys A Little Bit Of What You Fancy and Wolfsbane’s Down Fall All The Good Guys got chewed up last night, now I remember why I abandoned tapes. I have Quireboys on vinyl but my record player is in a cupboard dismantled somewhere and the CD with Wolfsbane is in storage at my mother in-laws house while I move. Bollocks.

kerrang

Where would heavy metal be without its guardian and chronicler KERRANG?
There were other magazines but most of them have passed away into history or obscurity, Kerrang even outlasted Melody Maker. This magazine helped shape and influence a generation, and now its twisted manipulations infect another.

Today my daughter bought her first copy of Kerrang.
I am so proud.

Look What I've Found

This is a flyer for the round acre christmas rock fest in 1989. I can't remember what the gig was like but I know I had my new Helloween t-shirt on at the time. Strange what you remember.

Video show

Ain't youtube great!

Wolfsbane-manhunt
Anthrax-got the time
Sisters of Mercy-temple of love(1992),ALICE
fields of the nephilim - moonchild
New Model Army-here comes the war(live) I'm in the moshpit somewhere in this one
Guns'n'Roses-knocking on heavens door
Rammstein-ich will(live)
Metallica-one
Bruce Dickinson-tattooed millionaire

The Pink Toothbrush

The pink toothbrush is, or was, a place of pilgrimage for any metaller, punk, goth, whatever that lived in that part of Essex. It’s ideally located bloody miles away, has no public transport links to where I lived, or live for that matter.
The place is famed for its sticky carpet and dark interior, the dark interior is typical to most alternative clubs but the floor has to be walked over to be believed, people have been trapped there for days while trying to prize themselves free.
The club claims to be the longest running alternative club in the country, it was originally called Crocs, complete with live crocs in a tank until they died from nicotine overdoses and manic depression.
The club puts on heavier rockier stuff on Fridays and more indie pop stuff on the Saturday and sometimes live bands on Thursdays. The bands that have played there read like a who’s who of alternative music however the only band I’ve seen play there is Carter USM in '97.
It’s a shame that I can rarely get to the Brush and when I can its always on the Saturday, the place has changed little over the fourteen years of so that I’ve been going, even with an eight year gap between visits, the paintings have changed and the prices of drinks are no longer on the walls in chalk, the carpet no longer looks like a carpet but its still just as sticky, and the kebab shop outside is sodding shut when you kick out.

Some friends and I went last night, its starting to make me feel old.

Pearl Jam

02/03/92 - The Esplanade Club: Southend, England [70m]
attendance: 300
set: Wash, Once, Even Flow, State of Love and Trust, Alive, Black, Why Go, Jeremy, (Outshined)/Leash, jam, Porch
encore: chant, Release, Breath
notes: PJ's first European show was unannounced and unadvertised. After 'State,' someone asks for 'Hunger Strike' and Ed asks, "Mr. Cornell, are you here? If Chris is here, we'll play it." Instead, Stone plays the opening to 'Black,' but Ed stops him saying they need to play another first and they go onto 'Alive.' Ed notes how he finds it "weird" that people in Europe know the lyrics. After 'Jeremy,' Ed says, "Let's play a little Soundgarden," and a few 'Outshined' riffs are played. The jam after 'Leash' is based on the 'Dirty Frank' tune. Coming back for an encore, Ed gets a little chant going with the crowd, followed by 'Release,' (strangely) played for the first time as an encore. Before finishing with 'Breath,' Ed tells everyone, "Hey, we're gonna do a TV show tomorrow and it might even be live. Is there anyone we should tell to fuck off? We might as well just do it right here."

I was there. What else can you say? It was the most astounding gig I had been to, for a band I had never heard of (except the recommendation of a friend) to blow me away. The sound filled the venue like something physically tangible, its almost indescribable, I think I nearly broke my nose in the mosh pit but that has happened more than once, it was like being stoned without being stoned, the crowd in front of the stage just merged into a single beast. I even bought a t-shirt (which I still have though it is about to die) and I’m a tight bastard.

I bought the single the following week, then the album the next, all as soon as they were released. I ended up buying all the singles from TEN. There is a bootleg of the show in circulation and I would dearly love to get a copy.

Pearl Jam's follow Vs up left me cold, they became another band I dropped from my shopping list. Last year however I did catch up and brought my collection up to date, I still think that TEN is still the best they have done, in fact I would put it in my top 20 albums of all time.

Beatallica

These guys are excellent, and you can download all the tracks for free. Its a fusion of Beatles and Metallica, its funny and cool. Thanks to timeblog.net

Iron Maiden

I had to wait to do this one, it just would not seem right that I should write it without buying and listening to the new album.
The first heavy metal album I was given was Number Of The Beast, the first album I bought was Somewhere In Time, the second was Piece Of Mind and the first t-shirt I wore was Stranger In A Strange Land. They were also the first “big” band I saw live. Says something doesn’t it.

Iron Maiden is the staple of all heavy metal, the be all and end all. It doesn’t matter if you like them or not there is no denying their huge influence, you say to someone heavy metal and they will say “what, like Iron Maiden?”

I think my mum was hoping it was just a phase I was going through when I first played Number Of The Beast at home, “what’s that?” “Iron Maiden” I replied defiantly “oh”. “Oh”? what do you mean “oh”? Its Iron Maiden woman, are you not worried I’m slipping down the slippery slope of Satanism? Do you not worry about my poor corrupted soul? DO YOU NOT CARE? Like most sensible god fearing folk my mum didn’t buy into the whole “heavy metal is evil” thing, despite being a conservative, I was quite disappointed really, my first bit of rebellion and it didn’t even get a reaction.
My dad wasn’t much better.

I loved Maiden to bits, to me it was the definition of heavy metal, everything else was just to fill in the gaps. I finally saw them play at Wembley Arena in December 1990 supported by Anthrax, for some reason they rapidly lost their appeal after that, by the time they released Fear Of The Dark I was not interested, I bought the single Be Quick Or Be Dead but that was it. Even though I was not listening to them I was pissed when I found out they had replaced Bruce Dickinson with Blaze Bailey but that I’ve already discussed.

My interest was briefly reignited in 2000 when some mates (of JD on wardrobe fame) had a spare ticket to go see them at Earls Court, I felt a little out of place this time but they still rocked, I listened to the new album and for a while I was back in there.
About 18 months ago I realized I had nothing on CD so I bought Eddie The Great thinking this would keep me Maiden happy, it was not so, I then bought Number Of The Beast on CD and at that point decided that each time HMV has a sale I will have to replace something on CD. I have ten albums by Maiden but most are on vinyl or cassette.

Well I have listened through the new album now and it was pretty cool.
A Matter Of Life And Death gets 9/10 for metalness and 10/10 for Maideness

update: I think I have worked out what killed Maiden for me back in 1990, it was Bring your daughter to the slaughter. What a fucking appalling song, almost as bad as holy smoke, it’s a pity because there were some good songs on that album.

Little Angels

The Little Angels eluded me twice before I got to see them, once I have already described and I think the second time was also at the cliffs but I can’t be sure. Rick and I finally got to see them play at Hammersmith Odeon as it was called then, we bought the tickets on the day and were told they only had restricted view tickets, seeing as we had travelled all the way into London to see the guys we took them and went to the pub for a bit, after the doors opened we had a rather pleasant surprise, yes the seats did have a slightly restricted view but THEY WERE IN THE FRONT FUCKING ROW, how cool was that. Not only did we get to be at the front the show was filmed for their Big Bad Video, yes I did buy it and yes you can see us, I was the only twat in bloody Hammersmith with a white t-shirt on (what was I thinking).

I recently found the tour shirt tucked away in a carrier bag, and guess what, it was white(ish)
Another band I was gutted to see split, I owned the first two albums and never got round to buying the third, I had Don’t Prey For Me on cassette which died a horrible chewy death in my brother personal stereo, and Young Gods is on vinyl. Something else to add to the wish list.

I read members of the band went on to do some good stuff, like Skunk Anansie and also things that should be punishable with death like managing Boyzone and Ronan Keating. Toby Jepson is now doing solo stuff so I may look out for him if he ever plays locally.

I think this band concludes those that I term as seaside rock.

The Almighty

I was introduced to the Almighty (the band not God) in 1991 when I saw them play at the Cliffs, I bought the ticket without having a clue what they sounded like and none of my friends knew them either. We did get a taste before the gig when their video was shown on the Friday rock show on itv, I don’t remember what the show was called though it was hosted by some bloke called Masher or Krusher or something suitably “ROCK”.

Live they were fantastic, even without knowing most of their set; they came across a bit like Motorhead lite, still quite heavy but easier to follow. A couple of days later I bought Soul Destruction which was the Almighty’s second album, and I loved it, its another that I went back to about a year ago, and last week I purchased Wild and Wonderful which is a compilation of stuff up to ’94, they do a fantastic cover of the Sex Pistol’s Bodies and Keep On Rocking In The Free World is always brilliant no matter who does it. Again I lost track of the Almighty as my tastes changed around ’92-‘93

It was only very recently that I discovered Ricky Warwick (check out his cover of Running Free)the lead singer had been a bassist for New Model Army, if I had known that back in 1992 then I would probably followed them through to today. New Model Army is something of a mild obsession with me but I’ll cover that later.


P.S. the support at the gig was Junkyard (its shite)

Thunder

I can’t remember exactly when or where I discovered Thunder though it had to be in 1989, probably on a video of Headbangers Ball which a neighbour of Simon passed us every now and then. I loved the album Backstreet Symphony, every track, it seems quite light and cheesy now but I still listen to it on occasion. Even my brother and at least one of my sisters still love the album.

Thunder was another of those bands I missed because I had to baby sit when they played at the Cliffs in Southend, that must have been sometime in 1990.
When Thunder released Laughing On Judgement Day in ’92 I rushed out to buy it without actually listening to it first, I was seriously disappointed. The disappointment is not something I can justify now, it may have been my taste had simply changed or it may have just been a crap album but whatever the reason I never followed them again.
The band are still going and by the looks of it have been very busy, I will have to check it out some time but not today, or tomorrow come to that.

Still like the first album though.

Courtney Love

very funny take on Courtney Love's great contribution to music
cheers Bob

my first gigs

It was Monday 27th of November 1989, some how we had heard that Little Angels were going to play in the Maritime bar at the Cliffs in Westcliffe. To Simon and I this was our rite of passage, we’d seen it on TV and watched the videos but this was it, we were going into the real world of heavy metal, and to top it all we had seen Little Angels on MTV’s Headbangers ball.
I don’t remember too much about the night, we had just enough money for the train fare and the door, some cigarettes and a bit for drinks. We were totally out of place; we bought coke in a pint glass (looks like Guinness) and waited for the band as the place filled up with some pretty scary looking characters. Some bloke gets up on stage to a scattering of cheers (jeers) from the occupants of the bar (not enough to call them a crowd) and told us that Little Angels would not be playing but the support would be Red Dogs. Gutted. I have no idea what the band was like, it was 17 years ago and my first experience of live music and my first experience of VOLUME. I saw moshing up close for the first time, fuck me what have I got into? I was blown away, next time I was gonna get in there.

Monday 4th of December my diary says,
Went to cliffs pavilion to see Horse London a heavy metal band but they did not turn up, but their support group Mistress played. Wasn’t much head banging but some idiots did some slam dancing, still the group was better than Red Dogs who played last week.

As you can see I had become an expert over the space of a week, and those idiots I so bravely cussed in my diary were a couple of punks, at least this time we plucked up the courage to order beer at the bar. I must have joined in this time because the entry for the next day said,

Woke up with bad neck, bad back, bad attitude and bad breath. Went to college, came back. Pissed off.

It didn’t get much better

I saw Mistress (the correct spelling) alongside After Dark and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers at the Round Acre in Basildon on the 23rd of December and did it all properly this time, moshed and mashed.

It was about this time that my mum suddenly got a social life and it happened to be on a Monday, 11th December 1989 to be precise. Oh the bitterness, it still rankles.

I would wear it but I look a twat

maybe I'll pluck up the courage one day

Leather

It was the uniform and armour of any self respecting metalhead, you could wear denim up to a point but eventually you had to buy a leather jacket.

I bought my first leather in 1990, up until that point I’d worn a white cotton jacket with an iron maiden print on the back, I looked more punk than metal. I left college in 1990 with little more than what I’d started, given up on being an intellectual and decided (actually pressured by my mum) to get a job. The first job I did (not counting summer jobs) was working as a kitchen porter for the night shift with my cousin, it was only for two weeks but the pay was fantastic, I did not earn that much again until 1997 maybe even latter. The first thing I did with the money, after mum took a chunk for keeping me, was go into Basildon and get me that leather. It was one of those typical metaller’s jackets that everybody had at the time, black, tasselled, and so many pockets I don’t think I ever managed to use them all at the same time. I also had enough money left over to buy a ticket to Iron Maidens concert at Wembley arena later that year. And then I got drunk.

Now any self respecting metaller from that time will tell you that the fucked look is best, it seems that today’s metallers go for a pristine black sort of look with everything looking all new and shiny, but the shops are now full of the “distressed” look so I suppose its still a step away from the mainstream. My jacket was used and abused faithfully for two solid stomping heavy metal years, it was beered on, it was vomited on, it was bled on, slept on, stood on, rained, snowed, hailed and bloody sunned on, moshed in, fallen over in, climbed over things in, stood around moodily in, I partied in it and got dumped in it but that jacket refused to look used, it had to go. I think it was October 1992 when I finally had enough. I went and bought a new (want old look, buy new - I know it doesn’t make sense) leather jacket from a place in lakeside shopping centre, I wanted something different so it was untasselled and a tighter fit that the old one (I had come under the influence of an old (32) punk whom I’d met through work), and so clad in my shiny new leather I went off to the pub to meet one of my mates (said punk).
Now funny thing was said punk was going through a bit of a nasty divorce and his missus had cut the arms of his old leather, to replace it he went to the same shop as I had about half an hour later and, like me, wanted something different to what he’d had (it was a tight fit and white, don’t ask why).
We sat in the pub looking at each others jackets, both identical apart from the size, justified our purchases and the set to drinking, by the end of the evening we had some how decided that we didn’t quite like the fit of our new(identical) jackets and swapped them after which we were perfectly happy with them. I’ve still got mine.

So new jacket new beginning? It was beered on, it was vomited on, it was bled on, slept on, stood on, rained, snowed, hailed and bloody sunned on, moshed in, fallen over in, climbed over things in, stood around moodily in, I partied in it and got dumped, several times, gigged in, festivalled in, chomped by horses, babies, dogs, I was kicked out of pubs in it, it was used as a sick bag and a blanket, the cat slept in it, moved house in it, and then again and again, and this jacket also refused to look used, I dumped it in a cupboard in 1995 just after I shaved my hair off (it just didn’t look right). The jacket has only seen daylight twice since then; when I saw Carter USM at the Pink Toothbrush and at a barbeque so a friend and I could reminisce. It looks knackered now but that’s due to sitting at the bottom of a cupboard for 11 years.

Sponge Bob rocks

Just come across this in the local Tesco, a new energy drink called relentless, looks like the most gothic energy drink ever.
I didn’t buy one, that would be giving in to packaging.

Home

HOME was a small town called Stanford-le-hope, A.K.A. Stanford and Corringham. It was two villages that had grown together to form a poxy little town with nothing to offer, if you wanted to do anything you had to get out. Check out the Knowhere site to get a good impression of what it was like. My favourite quote about Stanford’s best building is “the banks so you can get money to use the trains to get out”.
Despite the slating it gets it has a place of fondness in my memory, its nothingness has its own charm, a sort of indifference to the world around it. Stanford moves further away each year, not physically but temporally, maybe that’s growing up.
Stanford’s activities for the young metaller included: walking about drinking newky brown, sitting about in a park drinking newky brown, sitting in somebody’s house drinking newky brown, getting the shit kicked out of you, or going somewhere else.
Somewhere else would be Basildon’s Round Acre, Southends cliffs pavilion or Esplanade bar, or London. The round acre was a hut near a roundabout near the town centre of Basildon, its still there and it probably still does the same sort of thing; local bands for local kids. Southend is a bit more upmarket when it comes to bands I’ve seen the Almighty and Red Dogs at the Cliffs and Pearl Jam, Terrovision and Naughty Naughty at the Esplanade. London speaks for its self. Stanford had nothing to offer until 1994 when the Luna club opened (it may have been 1995) but by that point I was doing the father thing and had no money or time to spare. It was also about this time that some friends and I decided to form a band, we called it Bastard and we were shit, but it was fun.
1995 saw everybody move away, and that included me( and my sprog), I still have family and friends who live there and it will always have a place in my heart.

Gun

Another tape dug out, another tape to listen to. Gun. I think this was another band we had seen on headbangers ball but I could be wrong, and now I do not know what inspired me to buy it, Taking On The World is shit. It sounds like a slightly heavier Simple Minds, its not badly done its just as my daugter put it “boring” and I couldn’t agree more. At some point I also bought the single Steal Your Fire from one of the follow up albums.

“Scottish rock band (from Glasgow) who first came to public attention in 1989 with their striking single "Better Days," a powerful driving rock thrash which stopped just short of the top 30”

Driving thrash? Bollocks.

I don’t care what happened to these guys.

Jack Daniels

JACK DANIELS, just say it and the memory of the taste taunts you. That distinctive bottle in the hands of all those metal heroes, all those t-shirts and badges, lighters and tumblers, the sight of it behind the counter, out of reach and out of price range, just what a couple of seventeen and eighteen year old metallers needed to get pissed. “Thunderbirds please”, it was loads cheaper.

Just to show you how important it was:
Martin lived with his mum near a sheltered housing complex, I got to know him much better many years later but in those few encounters in 89-90 he impressed me with two things, one: the biggest collection of fantasy and sci-fi books I’d seen and two: the top of his wardrobe was covered in empty JD bottles. I bumped into him when he started going out with a girl I new from work about ’98, “hey I know you” I said, he looked confused, “you had shitloads of empty JD bottles on your wardrobe”, “yeah, I did, who the fuck are you?”

Jack Daniels, Jack or JD, it was important, it wasn’t the best, it wasn’t the strongest, but it was important. It still is. It was my luxury tipple up until 1995 when all the dope smoking dance music tossers started drinking it, I moved on to scotch. People still insisted when I asked for whisky on getting me JD, it started to piss me off. My little sister still bought me a bottle every Christmas until last year when I said I’d prefer a single malt or at least a scotch of some sort, I said I don’t really like JD anymore. It was terrible, I missed that bottle so much I’m still a bottle out of sorts, maybe I’ll go buy one tomorrow and try to redress the balance.

Sorry Jack, I promise to make it up to you

Wolfsbane

I'm sure I had this poster
Because of Blaze Baileys defection to Iron Maiden I more or less new the fate of Wolfsbane. Simon and I first came across them on mtv’s headbangers ball (a neighbour taped it for us) in 1989 and he went and bought Live Fast, Die Fast and taped it for me (I still have the tape and its got Whitesnake on the other side but lets not talk about that), a few years later I bought Down Fall All The Good Guys. Again the arrival of alternative rock blinded me to the release of the other albums, that and the fact nobody else could stand them.

I was disappointed when Bailey joined Maiden ('94 or '95?)for two reasons, first, even though by this point I had stopped listening to Maiden, I thought Bruce Dickinson was an integral part of the Maiden sound and without him would not work, and second I lamented the passing of Wolfsbane. Unseemly ambition had destroyed yet another great band.

Live Fast, Die Fast appealed to the teenage me because it relished in the difference between us, the metallers and them, the mainstream.
Downfall All The Good Guys worked at a slightly more thoughtful level but both albums were about booze so that was good, I’ll have to try and track down the others to see what they’re like.

Quireboys

So my quest has begun to find out what happened to the bands I liked in my early days as a rock fan.

Let’s start with the Quireboys. Last week I dug out a tape of A Little Bit Of What You Fancy and thought to myself this should be a laugh, boy was I wrong, not only did I enjoy the album more than I probably did first time round my wife even liked it. It was one of those bands that released its follow up in my hazy period of 1992-1994, alcohol, grunge and alternative rock would have pushed the release of Bitter, Sweet & Twisted into the unknown for me, and anything that followed would just be ignored (I couldn't afford anything till 1999 anyway). To be honest I thought this band had disappeared in the very early 90’s . I remember my mum saying they sounded like rod Stewart when I first played it and I found that quite offensive at the time, guess she was right though. There was almost a fight over this album when some friends and I tried to gain control of the record player at my mate Ricks 16th birthday party, I managed to play about three songs before it was removed and they would not let me put anything else on "too heavy", Rick ended up being a Slayer fan within the year.

The band appears to be in its second incarnation, and have toured this year. These are just the sort of guys I would expect to end up playing in Southend which was our Heavy Metal Mecca back in ’89-’93, I will have to watch out for them (if I’m allowed out that is).

killing time

I really need to get out more.

My daughter has introduced me to yahoo videos, and my wife and I have spent hours looking for stuff we hadn’t seen in years or in some cases never seen at all. That was until it dissolved into a battle between me playing Rammstein and her playing Richard Ashcroft. My daughter just looked on in disgust.

The collection of music on this site does not always make sense, they have loads of stuff for a band I thought would be pretty obscure (e.g. faster pussycat) and than have very little on another who are far more influential (sex pistols).

Still good fun though

Gig time

So autumn is almost upon us and I feel the need to go to a gig.
The general consensus is that it should be a boy’s night out, so we need to pick something our wives and girlfriends will not like or at least are indifferent.
This limits the choice considerably, here is what’s left:
Motorhead 25/11
Papa roach 02/10 (iffy)
Graham Coxon 25/10 (my missus likes him though)
Lordi 31/10 (come on you know you would)
Jet 08/11 (my missus again)
Thunder 22/11 (again iffy)
Lost prophets 09/12
New model army 17/12 (seen four times already but they fookin’ rock)
Iron maiden 22/12 (seen twice but brilliant)

So there you go, I fancy Motorhead myself.
W.A.S.P. are touring the country in the same period but not playing anything in London which is our nearest place likely to host a decent show, gutted.

Time magazine 1991

1991 here’s what Time magazine has to say

"Metal musicians play to the alienated fantasies of a mostly white, young and male audience by portraying themselves as disillusioned outsiders who have turned their backs on a corrupt civilization. Dressed like renegade bikers, they sing anthems to the rebellious and the wild, or wild at heart. Outrageous behavior is more than a pose for many of them, notably Skid Row's lead singer, Sebastian Bach (ne Bierk), whose on-the-road antics have included tearing up hotel rooms and striking a concert spectator with a bottle that he hurled into the audience.
"Things have come full circle," says Bach, a Canadian who sang in church choirs before finding his true calling in the Toronto club scene. "In the '70s pop was more hip, and now the energy of punk has come into heavy metal. Punk was a socialist thing, and metal was a capitalism thing." Yet both are sneeringly anti-Establishment. In Slave to the Grind, Skid Row proclaims, "Can't be the king of the world/ If you're slave to the grind/ Tear down the rat racial slime."
"We're not going to f---- in' sell out like the mainstream," vows Bach. "The kids can see through the phoniness." No doubt. Which could raise a ticklish problem for bands like Metallica and Skid Row, which presume to voice the disaffection of middle-class youths while earning fat-cat salaries. To stay on top of the heap, metal's messiahs may have to figure how to keep both their millions and their edge -- or risk becoming long-haired rebels without a cause."
Oh really?Strange how attitudes have changed since then, I can no longer tell the metaller from the goth from the emo from the whatever, just age I guess. 1991 you could tell what somebody listened to just by looking at them, after that it all changed and the boundaries blurred

losing my metalness

Wikipedia defines heavy metal as “a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterized by the use of highly-amplified distortion”. That works for me. I never quite got my head round all the subtle differences between the subgenres, I was probably the only New Model Army fan who listened to Motley Crue and the only Levelers( I know its not metal) fan who listened to Rammstein. Im not saying I liked everything, I don’t, I only play Slayer when I want people to leave.

Sometime around 1993 or 94 everybody’s taste seemed to diversify, one started to listen almost exclusively to the Doors (why I don’t know), another sold his CD collection to fund his partying lifestyle, others drifted away or got so fucked up we wanted nothing to do with them. It was during this period that I think I lost my metalness.
Late ’92 I moved out of mums and into the wide wide world, the next 18 months are somewhat fuzzy but by February ’94 I had started to listen to indie, drunk through my savings and become a father. I think I lost at the beginning of this period not at the end, because I also lost my indieness at the end. Losing my indieness was entirely the fault of Oasis, bastards, I fucking hate Brit pop for what it did to the alternative music scene, and it put so many of us out of touch we never got back in.

Becoming a father never really had an impact on my music taste until recently, my daughter now being a twelve year old Emo/grunger/goth type has rekindled my interest while I try in vain to explain where her music comes from (she refuses to listen to the Ramones). Now I have discovered that most of the collection I amassed between ’89 and ’94 is unplayable or inaccessible, my record deck is packed away in a cupboard somewhere and most of my tapes are beyond reach in some dark recess. I have made a vow; I work near an HMV, its time to update.

it begins

Somewhere along the way I lost my metalness. I’m not sure exactly where but I have a suspicion. But that’s not important, what’s important is I have found it again.
But lets start at the beginning

Sometime in late 1988 or early 1989 while staying up far too late watching TV I discovered a little ditty called paradise city (where the girls are green and the…..) by a band called guns’n’roses. So what you might say, so what indeed. I came from a musically starved home, my parents never let me watch top of the pops until they divorced in 87, mum never listened to anything other than radio four and dads record collection consisted of a shadows LP, two Jim Reeves records, somebody called Dana and some James Galway, oh and one Bob Dylan single he apparently stole from my aunt. My own music collection up till this point was limited to Complete Madness and the Top Gun soundtrack, so that’s what.

Back to guns’n’roses. My idea of rock and heavy metal at the time was a dark, dark place, all satanic and hairy, everything my parents despised and I was not the rebelling type, the thought that I might actually like a metal band was frightening, so I suppressed it.

Summer 1989 my mum forced me to get a job over the summer holidays, it was here that I hooked up with a mate from school I hadn’t seen for a year and discovered he was into Iron Maiden, I asked and he gave. Number of the Beast. Can a tape change your life? It was also about the same time I stated to hang about with a guy called Simon who I met through a mutual arsehole and he was also getting into Maiden, I was trapped, with only each other for company we started our journey into mayhem.