March Metal Moment #1: Metallica Kills 'Em All

As a fitting conclusion to March Metal Month, you can’t spell ‘Metallica’ without ‘Metal.’ Sing along with monster tunes “Hit the Lights” and “Creeping Death” while watching a fantastic montage of rare photos, flyers and propaganda from their early days with ex-guitarist Dave Mustaine and bassist extraordinaire Cliff Burton, who was tragically killed in a bus accident while on tour in rural Sweden on September 27, 1986.

March Metal Moment #59: Danger Kitty Discover Ad

March Metal Moment #4: Van Halen live 1979

The mighty Van Halen. Diamond Dave. Eddie & Alex Van Halen. Michael Anthony. The best American heavy metal/hard rock band ever. What could possibly go wrong?

March Metal Moment #6: Heavy Metal Parking Lot, 1986

Here's some cringeworthy footage from the 15-minute documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Capturing beer-swilling metalheads partying before a Judas Priest show in 1986, director by Jeff Krulik recorded the Zupruder film of rock concert tailgating.

WHAT SORT OF MAN READS PACO CAMINO?

As the lead singer for Black Sabbath, he does whatever he wants, with whomever he wants, pretty much like all the time (or until he marries a ball-busting, highly manipulative band manager). The original multitasker, the Paco Camino Man exalts in attending to his bathroom business with a fresh drink in one hand and a newly sparked joint in the other. With his trousers and borrowed groupie panties pulled down around his ankles, our blithering banshee boy shows off crudely drawn smiley face tattoos on his knees all the while cognizant that, well, everybody poops. He’s read the best-selling book and thinks he's seen the movie—it all comes naturally for a man who will one day pee on the Alamo and out-party Motley Crue. Oblivious to pesky bloodstains on the shag carpeting, the Paco Camino Man knows his exponential brain cell burning may one day land him a popular reality show.

March Metal Moment #11: Accept Sings About Testicles

You better watch the damned (God bless ya)
They're gonna break their chains (hey)
No, you can't stop them (God bless ya)
They're coming to get you
And then you'll get your

Balls to the wall, man
Balls to the wall.

March Metal Moment #79: Savatage rips off Lord of the Rings

Video director: All right you guys, get dressed in your puffy shirts & medieval pants, climb up on the rocks and shut the hell up. When I yell action, pretend to play your instruments and try to look all menacing and shit. In a couple of minutes, there’s gonna be a flustered midget dressed up like Frodo Baggins running through here and you guys will point him into the hall of the mountain king.

Savatage Lead Singer Jon Oliva(excitedly blurts): MADNESS REIGNS IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING!!

Video director: Hey buddy, save it for the shoot. I need to get the fuck out of here tonight for my private casting call with Tawny Kitaen.

March Metal Moment #47: Rush Hides DVD Easter Egg

Found hidden away as easter egg extra on the Rush in Rio dvd set, here's a rare 1975 performance of "Anthem," the opening track on Rush's breakthrough album Fly By Night. I know what your thinking--and yes, Geddy Lee is still by far the ugliest man in rock & roll even when he was younger. Not that there's anything Strangiato about that.

March Metal Moment #60: RIP: Bon Scott, 1946-1980

A couple of years ago, our dear friend Lady M paid a visit to the grave of legendary AC/DC singer Bon Scott. Upon entering Australia's Fremantle Cemetary, guests are given this overcopied flyer for directions to Scott's headstone. "Have a beer with Bon."

March Metal Moment #68: Lego Megadeth

Lego Megadeth performs "Symphony of Destruction." In other words, someone combined too much to drink with too much time on their hands.

Video Flashback: Over The Edge, 1979

Sometimes disguised as an after school morality play and other times as a late-night horror flick, Over The Edge was mainly discovered on HBO by a Fast Times-loving audience in the early-80s. A gritty film based on actual accounts of kids terrorizing a planned suburban California community, few theaters ran the film in 1979 for fear of copycat teen violence. Directed by Jonathan Kaplan, Over The Edge was shot in Colorado in1978 with a large cast of young teens (without their parents) including Matt Dillon in his first role prior to his S.E. Hinton character days.

Decades before satellite television, Internet and iPods, the film depicts bored teens defying authority figures, drinking & drugging and listening to vinyl records through giant headphones. This highly influential movie left an indelible pop culture mark on kids everywhere including Kurt Cobain, who related to character Claude Zachary and with the seemingly endless days of teenage monotony.

Sometimes a film is only as good as it’s soundtrack and this one is superb. Over The Edge plays like a classic hard rock musical yearbook signed by Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, and The Cars. Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me” perfectly captures the urgent excitement entering a suburban house party, while Valerie Carter’s soaring vocals on “Ooh Child” during the euphoric finale are powerfully cathartic. This film rocks.

Legacy: “A kid that tells on another kid is a dead kid.”

March Metal Moment #13: Dio: Holy Diver, 1983

For a guy that stands 5’ 4” Ronnie James Dio sure rocks like a metal giant. The controversial artwork adorning his 1983 album Holy Diver pissed off priests, parents and principals, while obviously enlisting millions of teen metalheads to worship Satan and destroy lame-ass records by Culture Club, Human League and Soft Cell.

March Metal Moment #9: Motley Crue @ US Festival, 1983

On Sunday, May 29, 1983, a young and hungry Motley Crue rocked a crowd of 375,000 people with the anti-cop anthem "Knock 'Em Dead, Kid." After Vince Neil's insane vehicular manslaughter accident in 1984, they rarely played the song.

March Metal Moment #114: A Charlie Brown Christmas

So yeah, this is a little out of season, but the Peanuts gang links seamlessly with Tourniquet's "Perfect Night For a Hanging." Interestingly, Tourniquet is a Christian metal band, so if Charles Shultz were alive today, he would surely think this is okay.

March Metal Moment #49: KISS Dolls TV Commercial, 1978

“This is KISS. Each sold separately. And you can put them in any crazy pose you want. KISS. Each 12 and a half-inch figure sold separately. By Mego.”

KISS isn't a mere 12 inches long, but 12 and a half-inches long. Sold separately, that’s over four feet of KISS! AND YOU CAN PUT THEM IN ANY CRAZY POSE YOU WANT!

Vintage Ad #157: Hustler X-Rated Rolling Papers, 1978

March Metal Moment #3: Iron Maiden live 1985

One of the greatest heavy metal bands ever performs "Powerslave" at California's fabled Long Beach Arena in 1985. GWAR takes notes but dumbs down lyrics a billionfold.

March Metal Moment #76: KiLLeR DWaRfS, 1986

As you can see, the lofty production values of "Stand Tall (Stick To Your Guns)" are quite amusing, but the long lost video for "Keep the Spirit Alive" is even better. Still based in Toronto, the Killer Dwarfs continue to rise up and stick it to the man to this day.

March Metal Moment #13: Judas Priest, 1980

Video director: Right then, here’s what I’m thinking. Rob—you’re being driven in a huge convertible caddy and you jump out in front of a bank. The rest of you Priest blokes follow him inside to rob it. You’ll hold everyone hostage.

Judas Priest Drummer Dave Holland: Um, how are we holding them hostage?

Video Director: Well of course, you’ll be overwhelming them with your unplugged instruments lip-synching the song “Breaking the Law.” Later you’ll all be driving in the convertible with the top down, pretending to play your instruments and singing the song into a stiff wind. Later we'll edit in a retarded video security guard playing a cardboard guitar. Guys, it'll be freaking fantastic.

Judas Priest Drummer Dave Holland: Will my drums fit in the car?

Video Director: Bloody Christ, No! You’ll just pat the top of the front seat and try to stay out of the shot as much as possible.

Vintage Ad #163: Dean Guitars, 1982

March Metal Moment #19: Scorpions live in NYC, 1984

...preceeded by head-shaking footage of buzzed Scorpions fans embarrassing the shit out of themselves ala Heavy Metal Parking Lot (we'll cover that later). "I wanna play guitar and be in a band like the Scorpions!" Get 'em while they're young. "Blackout!"

Video Flashback: The Sure Thing, 1985

Hot off the heels of his directorial debut This is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner banked on The Sure Thing. In this memorable scene, underlaid college freshman Gib (John Cusack) tries to convince goody-two shoes Allison (Daphne Zuniga) to tutor him in English, but apparently she's too busy--too busy to help a drowning man.

Vintage Ad #93: Heavy Metal t-shirts, 1978

March Metal Moment #63: Dokken live in Germany 1982

Wait, that's not beloved Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson? No, it's Juan Croucier, who would leave Dokken soon after this show to play in the rival LA metal outfit, Ratt.

The following handwritten letter was found frozen on the ice encrusted marble steps of McKinley Hall:

Dear Lisa,

Your blabby mom tells me you delayed your flight because airport security thought the giant vibrator in your carry on was some sort of torture device. I told you not to travel with The Nightstick. So anyway, last night, I froze my meat curtains off wearing a micro miniskirt waiting in the freezing cold to get into that new nightclub that used to be a short guy's big and tall shop and now I’ve got a black and blue discoloration on my thigh shaped like a bruise after falling up the stairs off the roof in the basement. On closer inspection, turns out it’s not a bruise but a sticky slab of drooled fruit roll up that adhered to my skin when I slept on it. Hey I’ve invented a new shade of red called blue. It’s in the green family, but yellowy in nature. Purplish if you will. Or I guess it pretty much just looks like red after all.

Hey since when did the post office start giving body cavity searches?

Kristin


Song of the Day:

70’s Orgasm Club, “Supersonicloveisticated”

March Metal Moment #52: Queensryche live in Tokyo 1984

Japanese folks really know their aluminum and heavy metal. By the way, Sofia Coppola had to have seen this video once or twice before filming Lost in Translation.

March Metal Moment #63: You Can Beat Anyone with a Rawlings Bat!

As promised, here's a special demonstration of the awesome power of an aluminum bat. When Godzilla is having a hissy fit destroying Tokyo and knocking planes out the sky, leave it to a giant Japanese little leaguer to beat the shit out of him with just one swing.

Bullshit or Not! Heavy Metal Edition!

Every week dozens of strange bands release CDs with strange titles to attract listeners. Guess which five are legit and which five are bullshit:

1. You Slut!, Critical Meat
2. Hellhammer, Demon Entrails
3. Monolith Deathcult, Triumvirate
4. Hate Eternal, Fury And Flames
5. Brutal Pestilence, Plague Will Eat Your Soul
6. Venom Spewer, Living and Loathing
7. Hour of Penance, The Vile Conception
8. Dream Crusher, Death Kills
9. Malignant Maelstrom, Two-Ton Tumor
10. Bad Apples, Rotten to the Core

Legit!
1. You Slut!, Critical Meat
2. Hellhammer, Demon Entrails
3. Monolith Deathcult, Triumvirate
4. Hate Eternal, Fury And Flames
7. Hour of Penance, The Vile Conception
Bullshit!
5. Brutal Pestilence, Plague Will Eat Your Soul
6. Venom Spewer, Living and Loathing
8. Dream Crusher, Death Kills
9. Malignant Maelstrom, Two-Ton Tumor
10. Bad Apples, Rotten to the Core

March is Metal Month!

Metal is fascinating! Did you know that guns are made of metal? It’s true. And did you know there’s four awesome metal groupings—Base metals, Noble metals, Ferrous metals and Precious metals? Wow, that’s heavy. Be sure to check back all month for riveting posts on steel, copper, and an extra special aluminum celebration. Discovered in 1827, aluminum had no practical use until the 1970s when the metal replaced wood bats as the little league baseball head trauma weapon of choice. My handlers tell me Metal is also apparently a dreadful type of popular music.