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....