January 1987

CONTENTS

CHAINMAIL

BASELESS ATTACK OF TRIUMVIRATE THREATENS STABILITY OF METAL ITSELF! To: Jesse, Martin and Hal: Where do you get off (and we do mean get off) calling Cinderella and Queensryche homosexuals? Put away your rosary beads, ’cause they’re not! We thought the whole point of your article was to rate the band’s albums, not to comment on how pudgy their lips are or whether or not they shop at transvestite boutiques.

ONE HECK OF AN ENCOUNTER WITH IRON MEIDEN

Liz Derringer

Although the PMRC weaves dark and devious tales of heavy metal music and its creators—which are swallowed whole by the yuppie brigade en masse across the nation—Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson recently proved to us that headbanging musicians can be unpretentious, intellectual, and charismatic.

QUEENSRYCHE ARE RAGING!

Sharon Liveten

Geoff Tate, the lead singer of Queensryche. is a good sport, really. But here it is, late in the afternoon in the middle of a humongous week-long gathering of music industry geeks, and Geoff doesn't look like he's having fun yet. It's understandable, of course.

AC/DC Face The Harsh Realities Of Showbiz!

Sylvie Simmons

Everybody likes AC/DC. Even the people who don’t like AC/DC like them really. Impossible not to, when you get right down to it; AC/DC’s like an old friendfun, familiar, not likely to come out with anything to surprise you but the best companion for getting deaf, dumb, blind and out of your head with a smile on your face and a beat in your brain cells.

RECORDS

Alexandra Staunton-James

BON JOVI Slippery When Wet (Mercury) Poor Jon Bon Jovi tries so hard to play the tough hetero rock guy, but invariably comes out sounding like he’d be more comfortable helping mom with the dishes. For three straight albums now, Mr. Jovi (you can call him Bon) and his namesake Jovi ensemble have turned out soullessly efficient medium-heavy productrecords so startlingly unambitious, so completely oblivious to the qualities necessary for good rock ’n’ roll, that, aside from the occasional medium-lewd sexual reference, they could have been blueprinted by the PMRC as models for safe under-18 consumption.

METAL VIDEO: All The Latest Doggerel & Suds!

Richard Riegel

Some wags call the tail end of summer the “dog days,” but your faithful reporter has managed to avoid making any messes on the floor of his family-room media center so far this month. Instead, he’s found the TV music video scene inexplicably easier to take, possibly because some changes are taking place, even at the long-dominant MTV.

RONNIE JAMES DIO

Alvin Lee: Running On Diesel Twenty Years After

Harold DeMuir

“This is my first talk for a few years," says Alvin Lee, in the Big Apple to drum up support for Detroit Diesel, his first new LP in five annums. “I can’t think of anything to say," confides the English guitarist/singer, grinning at the thought of throwing his inquisitor into a momentary panic.

METALLICA

GREAT WHITE ARE!

Paul Suter

“Whatever happened to Great White?” has been a recurring question over the last couple of years, in fact virtually ever since they toured Britain with Whitesnake in early 1984 and then trekked across America with Judas Priest, winning reactions and reports ranging from merely good to great wherever they went.

METAL UNDERGROUND

Peter Davis

Ha-ha...After having my heart ripped out and eaten in front of me by Quorthon of Bathory. I’m glad to say that I’m back from the grave to deliver you another installment of Metal Underground. A place of literary information. A place where one can easily broaden their musical horizons...

SHRIEK ATTACK!

Ida S. Langsam

There’s been a lot of hype about Megadeth—not from a record label, but from real metal fans who know about these groups before any A&R guy is courted. That in itself is a good sign: dedicated headbangers are highly critical and fiercely loyal.

Bullets

Anne Leighton

My friend Mikey is not one of God’s original angels; he’s a hyperactive rocker who knows about rock stars before the press does. A new metal band comes around and they say, “We’re some band. ’Spose to be good for you.” So I say, “Let’s get Mikey to try you.

OZZY OSBOURNE

THE SCORPIONS SHOULD BE ELECTED PRESIDENT! (If this were a just and righteous world!)

Anne “Cronkite Rather Rooney” Leighton

When Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale ran for President in 1984, I had the worst time trying to get an answer from them about the world’s most important issue—music. Phone calls and letters to their offices and campaign headquarters were ignored...!

MEGADETH BE YOUR SANTA CLAUS!

Moira McCormick

If any of you out there are old enough to remember Woodstock, you might recall a side-splitting parody album of that peace’n’love’n’musicfest called Lemmings. It was put out by the National Lampoon troupe, which at the time boasted such soon-to-be-ready-for-prime-time players as John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest, and involved screamingly hilarious takeoffs on rock folk of all types.

THE INFESTATION CONTINUES...

THE RETURN OF DEF LEPPARD

Remember, if you will, 1983—when the biggest story in metaldom was the incredible ascent of Def Leppard— the youthful quintet of British rockers who stood the planet on its ear with their multi-platinum Pyromania. Then—tragedy! Drummer Rick Allen was involved in an auto accident, which eventually necessitated the amputation of his left arm.

STEVE TYLER AEROSMITH

MAGNETS

Well, looks like it's getting kind of late around here. Everybody's packing up and leaving. There go the editors-guess they're gonna go skydiving in the Bahamas again. Man, I'd kill to get one-tenth of their salaries! There goes the art department.

ROB HALFORD JUDAS PRIEST

W.A.S.P.