Its holiday time

Given that we are now in the middle of July, it is obvious that many people will start to turn their attention to getting away and enjoying the summer sun if possible. The credit crunch may be holding some people back and if you find yourself unable to get away, why don’t you turn up your amps to 11 and let your classic rock and heavy metal heroes transport you to a different time and place?
One of the things about a great summer is that it allows you to get away from your everyday life and experience new things. One thing that many people would choose to do is “Run To The Hills” and what better way to do this than by taking the advice of Iron Maiden. Steve Harris and Bruce Dickinson may not have had a summer holiday on their mind when they unleash this song at gigs, and we all know its an unlikely thought for Eddie to have but if it gets you in the mood, then why try to fight it? It may surprise you but Iron Maiden have a lot more holiday advice for any metal head who wishes to soak up the sun. A rallying cry of “Scream for me Long Beach” from the ‘Live After Death’ release may not necessarily be about finding the sun but with a bit of lateral thinking, who can fail to find their mind wandering to the beach and sand.
And when it comes to sand, who better to guide you than Metallica and their 1990s smash hit, ‘Enter Sandman’. This was one of the songs that launched James Hetfield , Kirk Hammett and Lars to a truly worldwide and mainstream audience but although the days of Cliff Burton may have been behind them, Metallica still knew how to rock out and have fun.
Former touring partners and more often than not enemies, Guns N Roses also knew how to throw in a holiday style lyric to their back catalogue and who can overlook the classic ‘Paradise City’? Any location where “the grass is green and the girls are pretty” would be an almost perfect holiday destination and with Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan as your tour guides, who could fail to have a great time? The Jack D may flow freely but you can bet that the amount of girls hanging around would be akin to Led Zeppelin and their Starship days. Great weather and girls really would be the ‘Stairway to Heaven ‘of all holiday hot spots. And if you cant get a lot of girls, get one big one and if you need any advice about how to do just that, who better to ask than AC/DC, who will tell you about ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ and the ways you can have fun on holiday.
So whether you want to spend your holiday in a ‘Purple Haze’ or you just want some quiet ‘Satisfaction’, following your classic rock stars advice when it comes to getting away from it all will ensure you make the very most of your time off.

It may be Download to the kids, but it will always be MONSTERS OF ROCK to me

It may be the time of year for the Download Music Festival but for many people, the combination of Donnington and heavy metal can only mean the Monsters of Rock! There is a link between the old and the new at this years Download though with two of the three Main Stage Headliners having enough old school charm to have avoided a barrage of piss back in the day.
The Sunday night is all about nostalgia with Def Leppard being the band to bring the festival to a close. The band may not be the multi million sellers that they were in their heyday when Steve Clarke unleashed the riffs that rocked the world. Sadly, Clarke is no longer with us but the band have ploughed on and still manage to please the fans with a mixture of old and new material. Joining Def Leppard on the Sunday evening bill is Whitesnake with lead singer David Coverdale still capable of reaching the high notes and bringing joy to the masses, just like during Whitesnake's awesome 1990 Headline performance with the peerless Steve Vai in tow. There is probably a twinge of regret in Coverdale when he sees the accolades given to former colleague Jimmy Page after he reunited with Robert Plant and John Paul Jones to bring the Led Zeppelin name back to the tip of everyone’s tongue. Sunday night will hopefully offer Coverdale another chance to have his time in the spotlight and maybe give the band a new lease of life.
Coverdale isn’t the only artist with a Donnington history who is looking to make another impression this time around. Younger fans may associate Duff MacKagan with Velvet Revolver or his new Duff MacKagan's Loaded outfit but for the majority of his fans, Duff will always be the bassist of Guns N Roses. The band were in their first flush of worldwide success when tragedy struck their Monsters of Rock set in a set which has been remembered for all the wrong reasons. Even as Duff, Slash, Izzy Stradlin and Axl Rose left the stage to rapturous applause, no one in the Guns N Roses camp were to know what had unfolded.
Of course, Guns N Roses have played many gigs and tours and seemed to fall out with so many people along the way. Faith No More, another Download headliner, had a feud with the act but you can add them to a list that involves Metallica, Megadeth and another Download act Limp Bizkit. Okay, Axl Rose may not be the most stable of people which means that arguments were never too far away but the amount of Guns N Roses t-shirts on sale still indicates their endearing popularity. If the weather is good, then the lyrics of Paradise City recalling a place where the grass is green and the girls are pretty may ring true for Download but it seems as though the festival is linked with rain and mud, which seems to fit with the avalanche of volume that cascades from the stages.
No matter who floats your boat at Download, whether it is ZZ Top showing the youngsters how to rock out or the new wave of acts like Pendulum or Dragonforce indicating their influences, there is likely to be something for every lover of hard rocking music.
So this weekend, with printer and resident artist Tom being away at the Le Mans 24 Hours, myself and chief T-shirt folder-upper Jack will be at Download. Jack, being a Teenager is most looking forward to Slipknott and Marilyn Manson, while I just know that with the likes of Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Whitesnake on the bill, it will be the perfect stage for the mighty Steel Panther to raise their game to new heights and blow everyone away - prompting all rock fans to cry "Death To All But Metal" (that's "but metal", not "butt metal"

The Great Gig Debate - Wish you were there?

There is a post on http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/ asking visitors to vote on the greatest ever live band. I gave this a quick thought and it got me to thinking what a daft question it is. You can ask what you think the greatest band is or what the greatest single, album, live album etc is as you can listen to all the evidence and judge from there. But even if like me your gig count is probably north of 200 shows, how can anyone judge this unless they have been to 1000s – and even then, they haven’t been to everything. Maybe one of the top photographers can judge or a leading journo, but even then they are bound to be prone to a bit of showboating – after all if you have a reputation to maintain, few people are going to say that Status Quo at Cambridge Corn Exchange in the mid-90s was better than Led Zeppelin at Knebworth, even if they did find themselves nodding off during the JPJ’s bass solo, but could have happily kept Rocking All Over The World for many more hours.

So I thought about it from my point of view…..

Skid Row were certainly the most consistent live band I ever saw. Between 88 and 93 I must have seen them 8 o 9 times and they were outstanding on every occasion. Aerosmith were brilliant most of the times I have seen them, but a bit predictable on others. Love/Hate were another fantastic live experience in the early 90’s and deserved full marks every time I saw them, same with the Wildhearts and Wolfsbane, while Motley Crue ranged between "could do better" and possibly the best gig I have ever been to when I saw their secret ‘Four Skins’ show at the Marquee (you can see me on their Anarchy In The UK/USA video). The Foo Fighters at Wembley this year when they wheeled on Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones was a phenomenal gig - if for no other reason than I expected it to be no more than an OK show. Then you have Bruce Springsteen, a man that puts more into a concert than I have ever seen from anyone else, but by the same token The Ramones tended to put in 45 minutes and then sod off (although on the Adios Amigos tour they did put in 2 hours plus) so does that make one a better live band than the other? Does any of this make any of them better than Led Zeppelin or Queen? Maybe not, but how can I tell as I never saw Queen or Led Zep?

Then of course there are Guns N' Roses that if I went on their performances in 1988, were amazing. However, if I go on seeing them at the back end of the Use Your Illusions tour then they were dreadful. Then as an Axl solo project they were arguably tighter than at any other time I saw them, but could I say Guns N’ Roses at Hammersmith in 2007 (or was it 2006? I forget, time flies when you get older) with only Axl from the original line was actually a better gig than when Slash and Duff were still on-board?

But if I had to nail my colours to one band holding better live memories for me it is AC/DC. Great indoors at theatres and arena, while at Donington they were simply magnificent. But is that nostalgia speaking or was that show that AC/DC recorded for their AC/DC Live at Donington album and video actually one of the greatest gigs ever?

I have been to a lot of gigs, but not nearly enough to judge this sort of thing. There again I am probably better placed than the kids that went to see Green Day at Milton Keynes poll a couple of years back and then voted it as Kerrang! Magazine's greatest ever concert. I am sure Billie Joe and the boys were pretty damn good if you were there, but if that genie popped out of the lamp and said "Alex, last wish, now choose a gig you wish you had been at" then I doubt it would have been that. So that is probably the point I am getting at – that the poll should be "What gig do you wish you had been at?"

I might say The Who at Charlton Athletic, but was that because of my dad banging on about how great it was or because it was their finest moment? Would I choose Woodstock, Monterey Pop, Isle of Wight or Altamont because of their cultural significance? Seeing Bruce Springsteen at Hammersmith in 1975 as he toured Born To Run would have to come close to the top. With the likes of Freddie Mercury, Bon Scott and Phil Lynott dead before I was able to see them, how could I pass that sort of opportunity by? The Rolling Stones at the Marquee, The Beatles at the Cavern, Sex Pistols at the 100 Club or New York Dolls at Max’s Kansas City may or may not have been great shows, but should I choose one of them for their ‘I Was There’ bragging rights? I wouldn’t say no to seeing Elvis or The Rat Pack in the Las Vegas prime either, but would they be top of the list? There is a chance that I would correct one of my few regrets in life – when I passed on a ticket to see Nirvana at the Astoria because a girl I was trying to bang wanted to see Slayer and Mind Funk at Hammersmith (no, since you asked, to make matters worse I didn’t get a result with the girl)

I have no idea and it would be a struggle if such a situation arose, but if anyone knows of a genie then I would happily take on such a task.

LYRIC T-SHIRTS

When we started doing Lyric T-shirts the response was fantastic. Customers really loved the style and concept as it gave them a subtle alternative to other T-shirts. Unlike our usual image T-shirts which are screen printed, the lyric T-shirts are digitally cut from flex vinyl. This gives them a super sharp edge, which is not suitable for the artwork of our image T-shirts, but makes the lyrics look fantastic on the T-shirts.

At present we have 60 or so lyric T-shirts available - I would say from A to Z, but it actually only from A to W - although I think we will do an XTC or X-Ray Spex T-shirt as well as a Zappa or ZZ Top lyric T-shirt just so we can....

So which lyric T-shirt do we have?
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie
Adam & the Ants - Prince Charming
Adam & the Ants - Ant Music
Aerosmith - Love In An Elevator
Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right (To Party)
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Blur - Boys & Girls
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
Bob Marley - No Woman No Cry
Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
David Bowie - Life on Mars
Don McLean - American Pie
The Doors - Break On Through
Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench
Foo Fighters - Best of You
Genesis - Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Genesis - Ripples
Green Day - Basket Case
Guns N' Roses - Paradise City
Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro
Iggy and the Stooges - Search & Destroy
Iron Maiden - Run To The Hills
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah (also doubles as a Leonard Cohen T-shirt)
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights
Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
Led Zeppelin - Black Dog
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
Madness - House of Fun
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Oasis - Champagne Supernova
Patti Smith - Gloria
Pearl Jam - Alive
Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
Pogues - Fairytale of New York
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Queens of the Stoneage - No One Knows
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name
REM - Everybody Hurts
REM - Losing My Religion
Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK
The Smiths - This Charming Man
The Sweet - Blockbuster
T-Rex - 20th Century Boy
Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back In Town
Tom Waits - Tom Traubert's Blues
The Who - My Generation
The Who - Pinball Wizard
The Wildhearts - Greetings From Shitsville

There will be loads more over the next few days, weeks and months. We have so many more ideas from so many different bands and genres. Indeed if you have any ideas, then let us know