MYRON AIDEN

1982...I was sitting there watching, um, either Sounds with Donnie Sutherland or Countdown with the Guru..probably Sounds,and probably with a kick-arse hangover from a night of rocking at The Sundowner....

anyway, this drum beat started and footage of old silent cowboy films flew across the cathode brain de-generator ( or t.v if you like) and the next thing I saw was this long haired pommie bloke bellowing about injun's and such like, I was hooked from that point on, so I toddled off to the Power Station at Bankstown Square and grabbed my first copy, in vinyl, of Number of the Beast, and when they brought the "Beast on the Road" show to Sydney at the Capitol Theatre, I was there and they done good indeed.

and thus began my Maiden obsession...it has hardly wained through the yonks..although I must admit to never having listened to the album with Blaze Bayley singing , the album called X,  nothing against Blaze, I dug his work with Wolfsbane, but he just never worked for me as the Maiden frontman...now onto the visual side of things,

VHS was the new format in town at the time and of course me being part tech-nerd, had myself a VHS player, and saw in Kerrang that Maiden had a tape for sale,

so I went on a hunt and found said vhs tape at Utopia records and Bruce wasnt singing on it, a bloke called Paul DiAnno was, I found out that he was Bruce's predeccesor, I heard Geoff Barton from Sounds magazine describe him as, and I quote, "a rough hewn stable boy", get your hand of it Barton , HAHAHA...

DiAnno wasnt bad, I prefer Bruce's style, but Paul more than held his own as the Maiden frontman,  I did find the cover of the Skyhook's song, Women In Uniform a smidge amusing, and wonder to this day, if Shirl and Greg Macanish made any royalty's from Maiden picking an obscure aussie song.

I tell you what though, dont they make some bloody good videos both of the songs and in the documentary version...my all time favourite music doco's list has a couple of Maiden creations in there...Flight 666 is bloody phenomenal and the Death on The Road concert dvd has an absolute brilliant doco about the making of the album, the creation and running of the stage show and a stack of fan interviews ...grab a copy..you wont be disappointed....

BUT, if you have to have one Iron Maiden dvd, grab a copy of the Early Years doco...its a deadset cracker and gives you a detailed history of Maiden, and even before Maiden when Steve Harris was in Smiler and you will also find out the identity of NWOBHM band Samson's  drummer Thunderstick ( his mum calls him Barry).....

also carrying on with the dvd thoughts, the Classic Album series is usually pretty good, BUT, the Number of the Beast show is a must own, I do and I highly recommend it....I also have a dvd called Iron Maiden and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which isnt a official maiden release, but it dont suck .

lets talk about the Guvnor for a sec....

Steve Harris is the creative, philosophical and musical force behind Maiden, he is the founder, the leader and the rock solid base on which the Maiden machine stands, of course , he has help, all the boys in the band do their share, Rod " Bloody Roderick" Smallwood is the managerial might and, even though his retired now, Martin Birch was the record producer that put Harry's vision into a cognisent form.

So...there you go, there is my take on arguably the greatest rock, metal, prog rock, whichever you want to call them, band since the days of Deep Purple, Led Zep and Sabbath....

NEVER TOO LOUD..The Tatt's Live

If there was one thing you could guarantee when you ventured out to a beer barn back in the day, it was that you were, more than likely,  have a rocking night, of course then, as now, there was a segment of the audience that believed beating shit outta someone was top entertainment...happily, along with myself, there was thousands of rock'n'roll fans who went for the tunes.

A recent RNR blog I posted praised the efforts of one Murray Engleheart and his book BLOOD, SWEAT & BEERS and in that vein,we shall continue with gig storys...and with one band in particular The Rosey Tatts....

I used to frequent a couple of pubs that had regular gigs, among those was the Sundowner at Punchbowl on Canterbury Road, that place was a short walk from the original Casa Del Recky and was the most frequented, other regular joints were the Bexley North Hotel, Maroubra Seals, St Marys Band Club ( which was a trek unto itself) The Hordern for the big gigs and very briefly, The Bondi Lifesaver, I went to Cronulla Workers a couple of times, but those fkn Shire findicks didnt like westies coming into their house, so I didnt go there often, one thing could be guaranteed at any of the gigs, if you allowed it, you were gonna have a grouse old time...

I saw the Tatts quite a few times over the years in various incarnations..saw them at Narara, the Hordern, Bexley North, The Sunnie Downer, and the biggest gig I guess, was the night Bogga Road Jail got shut down, a mate of mine who worked at the Brissy GPO ( for I worked for Aussie Post at the time) got some tickets and gave me a shout to come have a few at the Caxton and go to the gig, who was I to say nup...and must say I thoroughly enjoyed every gig..BUT...f**k they were LOUD...I dunno which nuclear physisist designed their amps but they had house P.A's screaming for mercy on a regular basis...

And one thing about Angry,  he didnt take any fkn shit of rowdy punters, in a way similar to Lemmy from Motorhead, if anyone chucked stuff at the band, which was a sporting event back then,  they were offered around the back after the gig  to "get ya fkn teeth kicked in"...I dunno if anyone was stupid enough to take him up on the offer, but you would have to be a drooling nitwit to think you could take Angry, Digger or Wellsy, wouldnt ya ?.

Anyway...I got busy banging together a comp to share with you, my readers, I took a couple of bootlegs I've accumulated over the years and took tracks from them and made the comp on this blog...tracks include BAD BOY FOR LOVE, SHE'S GONE, & ONE OF THE BOYS from a Bondi Lifesaver gig...BUTCHER, MANZIL MADNESS, ASSAULT & BATTERY from a Horden Pavillion gig, STREET FIGHTING MAN, ROCK 'n' ROLL OUTLAW and GOING DOWN starring, the one and only, Thorpey , from the night The Tatts along with the Aztecs shut Boggo Road Gaol and finally from a gig in Prattel Switzerland in 2008, WE CANT BE BEATEN, NICE BOYS, STAND OVER MAN and NEVER TOO LOUD ...a nice little collection I must say and don't forget to crank the f**k out of it cause its the way it was meant to be heard.

CHEERS

Murray Engleheart's a f**king GENIUS

NOW, anyone that reads this blog of mine would of worked out that I'm a BIG BIG fan of aussie rock from the early to mid 70's, and as I have mentioned before, we can all blame Thorpey forn that .....anyway, I was in Queensland recently, Hervey Bay in particular to check out the whales that pop by for a visit every year, and as is my want I needed something to read on the long arse train trips up to there and back, so I popped into my local shops and went to my usual purveyor of all things readable and much to my happiness I found this marvelous tome by one Murray Englehart...

Have you seen this book?...oh my goodness its a deadset ripper, its got all the tales you could imagine about some of the LOUDEST and most bad-ass aussies ever to strap on a axe and rev up an amp...its got everybody, Lobby, Thorpey , Angry and the Tatts, Buffalo, The Angels, Ian Rilens X, Buster Brown....its just f**king phenomenal...I cant spout enough positive adjectives about this book.

It covers all the Sunbury festivals, the 300,000 Thorpey drew to the Myer Music Bowl (sit on that and spin Seekers) how Buffalo rocked, rolled and self destructed and the subsequent forming of the mighty Rose Tattoo, how you took your life in your hands to watch a Lobby Loyd gig, and speaking of Lobby, there is the tale on how he kept demolishing amps, so a bloke built him a set that was damn near indestructible.

there is the tale of how the Tatts got banned from Countdown and how the Angels went from playing hillbilly jug band music to having packed arenas that resembled paramilitary rally's

AND if your not very careful, you may pick up a working knowledge of harmonics  and how your brain reacts to , lets say, The Tatts, loading so much gear into a club the size of a postage stamp that your brain goes F**K MOI and adjusts itself accordingly

I dug into my stack of music and bashed tgether a compilation for you starring the legends from within the covers of the book...tracks like GOD by Lobby and the Coloured Balls, Assault and Battery by the Tatts, all along the watchtower by the La De Da's and of course I couldnt forget, Somewhere over the rainbow by Thorpey, hell, Billy used to get abused if he didnt play Rainbow, so who am I to forget to incude it,  I hope you get amongst it and eventually track down some of the stuff these blokes released...BUT, dont forget the ear plugs

so anyway to quote the author of this fine collections of historical (and hysterical) story's...this book is both a grand F**k you and a proud salute....so rock on people