4000

Nah, tapes are a thing again. Apparently.

As long as it was only vinyl you were pulling. 😉😂

I’ve never really understood why Nigel gets so much grief. He’s usually asked to do this stuff when demonstrating gear, or when he’s just amusing himself (he used to work in A1 Music in Manchester, my regular haunt). He’s a lovely bloke too. God forbid anyone ever films me playing in a music shop, razzing around like Matt Garrison on speed. 😂

Never hear Sigtryggur mentioned but he’s a fantastic drummer.

It’s alright. I’ve still got mine.😉 😂

I don’t think it’s the quality of the singing that bothers me as much as the type of voice. I really am not of fan of what I refer to as “the three-octave-up pub singer”. 😂 DLR certainly doesn’t all into that category, but most of the hair band vocalists do. I’m not even that much of a fan of Myles Kennedy’s voice - although he can undoubtedly sing - and my thoughts on Skid Row are best left out of print (doubtless coloured by my historic acquaintance with a local band who thought they were the UK’s answer to them and really, really, really weren’t). Coverdale is a prime example of someone with what I consider a fabulous voice who for some reason latterly chooses to sing in that high-pitched, nasal whine that I hate. But I digress. Sorry. 😂 I think unfortunately the rise of DL coincided with my waning interest in the then-current state of rock (except for the aforementioned Bon Jovi’s first, which I thought at the time had a lot more energy than DL). Well, at least until 1984, when I first witnessed the mighty Kings of Metal, which kind of took me back to Priest and Sabbath again. 😉

I’ve probably owned more than twenty, but in this case you’re absolutely right. 😉

Phil Collins. Buddy Rich (I’d be very scared😂). Ian Paice. Mick Fleetwood. Bill Bruford, although I think he’d have got on my nerves. Would have liked to have played with Gerry Conway in Fotheringay as that would have meant I would have been in the same band as Sandy Denny and I could’ve died happy (I suppose that also applies to Mick & Stevie). Billy Cobham.

This. Always and forever. I’d happily replace myself in the studio if I could afford someone I considered better for the record.

I like Photograph, thought that was a great record at the time. But even though I’m not a huge Maiden fan, never have been, I’d take Number of the Beast over any DL record, although to be fair the thing that really does me with DL is Joe’s voice. I really don’t like it. Really. That’s one of the issues I have with a lot of the hair metal bands actually, I generally hate the vocalists. 😂 The whole ‘pop metal’ thing doesn’t bother me at all though, although they do fall slightly towards the Camembert side of it. I love bands like Journey and Dan Reed Network (a lot more than Maiden or DL to be fair) and never had a problem with rock bands having catchy songs, like some seem to. But then ABBA might be my favourite band of all time (tied with Yes and Genesis) so no real shock there.😉

In real terms, certainly when it came to buying records, I was the same as you, far more first wave. I came to heavier rock through Prog really. Hawkwind, Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy were really my breakthrough heavier bands, then Sabbath. S’funny, never liked Leppard or Metallica. I quite liked Zep but never loved them, 4 or 5 tracks aside.

I was at Uni tail end of ‘82, way down south and not a denim jacket to be seen. I’d also got into stuff like Bow Wow Wow and Siouxsie and moved away from metal somewhat, although I did buy Bon Jovi’s first, which I thought was great (the only one I did buy).

Have to say I was much happier with grunge than hair metal tbh. 😉

Yep, remember that. A friend who bought pretty much all the NWOBHM stuff - which I didn’t - had it.

No, wasn’t Jilly’s. I was aware of that but don’t think I ever went. It was this; http://www.mancky.co.uk/?p=7221 We only went once. My mate met a female pen-pal from Manchester. I sat with her mate for about an hour, too terrified to even talk. I have nightmares about it even now. 😂 We sat in the precinct (?) and went to the club afterwards; I remember Hallowed Be Thy Name coming on and that’s about it. To be honest, I was never that keen on rock clubs. They seemed to be about all the parts of heavy rock that I didn’t like; darkness, crap beer, blokes. 😂 At heart I remained more of a Progger, happier at home chilling to Pink Floyd, or in wilder moments listening to Live & Dangerous on my dad’s headphones, turned up to 11, obviously.

See I spent my teenage years in a seaside town, and although there was a fairly big well-known town nearby (Blackpool) it certainly wasn’t a rock haven, being the light entertainment capital of Britain.😂 I do remember one year going to a rock club in Manchester (Phoenix maybe?) with a mate and it was like another world. I’ll add that me and my mates went to an all-boys school so hardly knew any girls anyway! I’ve just been thinking about it and around the age of 15 I knew of one local girl who was into rock, and I didn’t even know her; she worked in a local record shop. 😂

I can imagine Ron would be knocking on a bit now. Hope he’s ok.

See that’s the thing, I have Lizzy & Purple on the Sabbath strand. Classic rock. I guess Whitesnake would have been on there too. Obviously we all have different perceptions based on what we were into at the time.

They weren’t in my era, in my area. I knew 2, no, 3 girls who were into rock, even into my 20s. That’s one of the things that makes me happy going to see someone like Babymetal these days, there are so many girls into it, which is great. It may have been different in cities, but I didn’t meet a girl who really knew who Van Halen were until Jump came out and they were on mainstream tv. I remember when we used to follow Girlschool. They were girls! Who played Rock music! They may as well have been from outer space to us. Evidently we didn’t all have the same experience. Oh I love Van Halen, but again probably didn’t discover them until about ‘81 or ‘82. By that time there pretty much was no NWOBHM. And discovering Van Halen in no way diminished my love of any of the classic rock bands. I’ll add that to me VH are a genre unto themselves; I in no way lump them in with the r’n’r metal bands that I dislike.

Yep, that would probably have been me at the time. 😂 Ironic as I loved Judas Priest to bits. At the time I probably wouldn’t have seen the irony though, I was 15 going on 12. 😉 For me, I guess bands like Girl were kind of on the Hanoi Rocks / hair metal branch of heavy rock, which IMO eventually led to bands like Guns’n’Roses. The “rock’n’roll” side of it all, JD and partying. I never really liked any of those bands; still don’t. As soon as you attach the words “Rock’n’Roll” to heavy rock/ metal in that context (and I exclude Motorhead and DC from this, who really ARE rock’n’roll) I lose interest. Bands like Purple and Heep aside(I loved those), I was always into the Sabbath/Priest thing, and later Manowar. Mighty Metallic Riffs. 😂

I probably will have done. That’s awesome. Was that Ron? Haven’t been to Berlin in absolutely ages but it used to feel like we lived there!

Thing is, and I say this as a fan of a fair bit of the genre, isn’t this true of heavy rock generally? There certainly wasn’t a sniff of me or any of my mates getting laid in our mid teens! And if I was still in my embroidered denims 40-odd years later I doubt that would have changed.😉 I think the think with NWOBHM was that, as has already been said, it was heavy rock/metal’s equivalent of punk. It was about the energy of it all and feeling like yes, you too may have a chance to climb on a stage at the (insert venue of choice) and do your thing. And just like with punk, many of the bands actually weren’t very good, with hindsight. But when you’re 15 and first starting to think about seeing live bands, they seemed pretty darned exciting.

Probably!😂 Really? Fun fact, their original singer, Gav White, was in my class at school. He was continually told he would amount to nothing. I remember therefore being somewhat amused when, a few years later, whilst rooting through the singles in a record shop, I came across a single with a picture of Gav on the front. My mate Tom Couch is the drummer.

It’s funny, not only do I still think of Metallica as a new band, I still think of Iron Maiden as a new band! Still remember Running Free on TOTPs first time; really exciting. I bought Wasted by Def Leppard but kind of lost interest in them after that; I never liked Joe Elliott’s voice for a start. UFO, I think early on I read an article about Phil Mogg where he came across like a complete knob, so I think that also put me off. Its funny, at the time I didn’t really get punk either (I was probably a bit too young and found it all a bit scary), but so many bands from that era have been such an influence on my writing. I think as a quiet, introspective lower-middle-class young teen I didn’t really get what everyone was so angry about. 😂