The Joy of Rock Rags

I was in Dierberg’s after work to pick up some mundane and boring things. Dierberg’s has an astonishing amount of cooking, sports, and fashion mags, but the music mags are extremely lacking. Regardless, I have to make a stop at the racks before I leave. There are a number of guitar mags, but as far as stuff I like to read, Hit Parader, Spin, and Rollingstone are my only choices. The latest Hit Parader is a tribute to the 80s hair/metal bands. I think I heard a chorus of angels as I walked towards it. I picked up the issue and read the mag from cover to cover sometimes studiously and sometimes laughing out loud. As I turned the pages of this Hit Parader, I realized that EVERY picture was shockingly familiar. I had seen them all years ago in every rock magazine I ever bought as a teenager. I put the magazine down when I was finished, sated for the evening. So I thought.

In my closet on an overhead shelf, stashed away in a plastic storage bin, I keep a near 20-year old Metal Edge. It is a special edition Best of Metal Edge, January 1987 Vol. 4 No.6. I swear angels sing when I pull that thing out, which is rarely except for tonight. It needs to be boarded and bagged. The pages have all become brown with age. It is truly a time capsule for that scene. Metal Edge was my favorite rock magazine back when I was a young teen. It contained a shitload of information about not only the music, but of the scene. Even back then it wasn’t just about the music for me. I wanted to know who my guys were dating, who they were friends with, what they were working on, how their tours were going or when they would begin. Metal Edge gave me all that.

Here are some things about this magazine that made it so awesome.

Metal Wire – This is AGES before Google Alerts. To us army kids in Germany, it was our sole way of staying in touch with the music scene back in the States. Every other way meant a long delay and even Metal Edge deliveries to the PX bookstore were a little behind. Metal Wire gave you a quick and dirty rundown of the bands’ activities.

“There’s no better time than now to check out the latest video cassettes for your VCR. Don’t miss out on the Ozzy Osbourne – The Ultimate Ozzy, an 80-minute extravaganza on CBS/Fox and if you’re a Mötley fan beware! Your favorite quartet has put together a home video that includes exclusive interviews, backstage peeks and an array of wild concert footage.” The video wasn’t named in the Wire, but all of us kids had rerecorded versions of Mötley Crüe Uncensored soon after, which is the video referenced above. I still have it, along with Kiss Exposed. I got a new tattoo over the last weekend, and I thought of Nikki getting a new “tat” in the video. Ah, Nikki.

“Alice Cooper may stage a comeback: the veteran performer has a new tune out in the Paramount flick Friday the 13th part IV (He’s Back: Jason Lives)…”

“…You may have been surprised to find Stephen Pearcy in the pages of Playgirl this past summer, but the Ratt sensation explains, “It was done in good taste. I do not believe in over exposure and I do not want it to be a sleaze thing.” HA!

“Jesters of Destiny have released Fun at the Funeral.” Who?

“Lita Ford says she’s ‘dying to get out there and play,’ but that it’s on hold until she wraps up her LP The Bride Wore Black, held up due to production difficulties…”

“Mötley’s Mick Mars has a new tattoo,…” and so on.


Metal Directory – The Metal Directory was a list of bands, their record companies and/or fan clubs and addresses where you could send correspondence. And, yes, if you sent correspondence you were more than likely to get a response back. Don’t ask me how I know that.

PANTERA Fan Club
2210 Raper Blvd.
Arlington, TX 760113

VENOM
MEGADETH
THRASHER
EXODUS
THE RODS
TKO
EXCITER
SWEET PAIN
TALAS
c/o Combat Records
149-03 Guy R. Brewer Blvd.
Jamaica, NY 11434

Live Concert Photos Section – This section is pretty self-explanatory. The photos were in black and white and always very favorable for the artists. There was usually a huge caption that read something like “METAL MADMEN IN ACTION!” or “MASTERS OF METAL, LIVE & IN CONCERT!”

Pictures – Looking at these pictures as a 30-something I can’t help but giggle. It was always about the swagger and the pose. Not all rockers could pull off the “look”, i.e., Ron Keel, but what he lacked in face Sebastian Bach, Jon Bon Jovi, or Yngwie Malmsteen made up for in the total look. In the candid shots, you often saw open mouth SURPRISE! expressions and lots of pointing or thumbs up gestures. These expressions gave us kids the fantasy that this was THE life. We had no idea what was really going on until a little show called Behind the Music demystified the dream. Anyway, below is a sampling of the kinds of pics you would find.



HAHAHAHA!

Behind the Scenes - This was the predecessor to “[band] Makes a Video” on MTV.

19 years later and my sources have changed from magazines that come to me a month late to myriad websites, dozens of different magazines, blogs, and tons of digital cable channels. The pictures I collect mostly come from photobuckets, fotkis, and buzznet sites and are maintained on my online photobucket rather than being tacked up on my wall (well, except for the random pics of Ville or Gerard that somehow make it up on my fridge). No matter how much information is now available at my fingertips from different countries and sources, I still eagerly drive to my local bookstore to check out the new issues of Metal Edge, Hit Parader, and Metal Hammer. J and I both regularly head to the bookstore with this purpose in mind. Coffee in hand, we peruse the racks and discuss each article or picture that strikes a fancy. There’s something about holding the magazine in hand…

Coincidentally, Metal Edge is celebrating their 20th anniversary this year. -K