THE NEW METAL MAGS: READ 'EM & RUST!

THE NEW METAL MAGS: READ 'EM & RUST!

FEATURES

Rick Johnson

*ITEM: An investigation into the bankruptcy case of a Sacramento incineration firm uncovers 16,500 aborted human fetuses preserved in a storage tank.

*ITEM: A Harvard mathematician announces that even chaos has patterns.

*ITEM: Popular actor Tom Bosley discloses to American public, “Close doesn’t count in trash bags.”

‘ITEM: A well-known beer commerical asks, “Time: is so much of it really necessary?”

Yep, ’fraid so, fellow newshawks: the days of heavy metal are really upon us this time. If you don’t believe it, look at your favorite newsstand and you’ll find

it packed solid with new rock magazines, most of them exclusively devoted to or at the very least pandering to heavy metal music lovers.

Until now, nobody realized there were so many of 'em out there. Entire phylums of rivethead nematodes literally dying for the next Motley Crue album. Bustin’ wimp butts and banging their heads on any available hard surface. Oh well, just remember—you break it, you bought it!

Seeing as how it’s a point of honor among these Pebbles and Bamm

•-« Bamms to possess little or no reading skills, you find lots of pictures in these '■* journals, also known as hot pix. In fact, I there’s a whole new genre of poster ^ mags that you take home, unfold and y nail to the wall, the ceiling, baby sis, whatever.

Contrary to popular belief, there are words between most of the pictures, and that’s what we’re going to examine here. So, like that one chicken commerr*!cial says, know your nuggets!

METAL EDGE

What have we here? Why, this must * be hard rock’s number one photo magazine! It says so right on the cover, just below “Oozing With COLOR!”

Well, M.E. is certainly oozing with something. From a cover that’s so junked up it makes Circus look like Braille Digest to their glorious just-got-run-overby-a-manure-spreader layout, M.E. is more fun than a dire warning and death Jj by misadventure combined!

You know you’re in trouble right off when you hit the Editor’s Page. “You wanted it,” torments eddy Mark “Buzz Saww” Bego, “you got it!” Uh, Buzz— or should I call you Saww?—I don’t remember asking for anything like this. Chainsaw Moppets In Heat maybe, but not Metal Edge.

Since it’s already here, though, let’s take a gander. There sure are a lot of “outrageous pin-ups” (O.P.U.), but the outrage is their choice of the lousiest, graniest, oldest pix they could dig up. “The pix we were too ashamed to use in Rock-Shots” should be upfront as well.

One real neat section called MusicMakers, “M.E.'s Lighter Side Of Rock,” spotlights funny captions. Here’s a photo of headbanger supreme Julio Iglesias with Susan Anton: “Julio desperately seeking duets.” Manyleveled, that. Here’s another shot of Bruce Springsteen sitting on a car you’ve all seen at least 10,000 times, this should be good. “Bored in the U S.A.! Bruce’s decided to clean up his act by riding his convertible through a car wash.” A car wash...and they say American humor is dead!

Feature-wise, there’s the inevitable Dee Snider interview—too bad this guy’s even more boring than David Lee Roth. Great photo of Dee’s beautiful wife, though. I guess it pays to keep your nose to the possum hole! Wait—I found another feat, “Call From Giuffria.” Hang up quick!

The real action is an ad. “Does your group need extra money?” begins the lovely full page blurb. “Sell the fabulous Patio Pails, designed exclusively for fund raising!” Awrite! This is exactly what I need, “unusual candles in an attractive tin pail.” Pretty handy, but do they really think they can get Aerosmith to sell some?

ZAP

Here’s a no-nonsense metal book— the whole thing is just an excuse for a 22" by 32" poster. Be careful not to unfold it all the way at the supermarket like I did or it’ll look like you’re drowning in a sea of accordion pleats.

Let’s take this 89* masterpiece a fold at a time. First unfold is, “Are Loverboy Really Rockers?” What they meant to ask is, are Loverboy really flaming homosexuals, but that doesn’t go over real good so close to the produce section.

Second unfold features “Ozzy Goes Bats.” Bats, get it? What’s really batty is the layout, which looks like somebody left a carton of all-weather livestock marking crayons in the oven overnight.

What’s this on the other side? “Ralph Macchio His Kicks.” He’s the Karate Kid, get it? Ouch! Hey—I didn’t write these headlines, stop throwing those lit Patio Pails at me!

Third unfold—whoa! You could just about build a small-but-quaint midwestern college town outta this! One side is all hairy—that must be the D.L.R. poster, in the much demanded 22" by 32" format. How convenient! The exact size of a...a...uh, an unfolding poster magazine.

HEAVY METAL HEROES

Speaking of poster books, let’s take a whiff of Hit Parader's entry in the wall mung field. This one unfolds into “two giant 2' by 3' pin-ups.” The commissioner of consumer stupidity wishes to point out that it’s actually one giant two by three foot pin-up printed on both sides. If you want to get two posters out of it, the only place you can hang it is on your window.

H.M.H has a great gimmick. Each issue comes in an X vs. Y format, like Ratt vs. Iron Maiden, Kiss vs. Motley Crue and W.A.S.P. vs. American society as we know it. Not much copy inside despite the Outrageous Interviews blurb on the cover.

Of course, these aren’t just regular interviews, oh no. This is like, writing, man! Look at this uncompromisingly original lead: “Van Halen’s inimitable vocalist D.L.R.Jionine mane...raw sexual energy...unquestioned gift of gab...quintessential rock star...” Obviously, finding a stupid idiot in the pages of H.M.H. is as rare as an identifiable human expression visiting Anne Murray’s face.

TURN TO PAGE 64

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43

Rob Plant is on the vs. end of this one, a story so profound it should be preserved in drop-forged tempered steel: “The one and only Robert Plant...decade-long stint...legendary Led Zep...rock and roll magic...” Think I’ll just finish my nap here.

GUITAR FOR THE PRACTICING MUSICIAN

Here’s a great example of pandering. This is hardly a metal mag, strictly speaking, but every cover has had somebody like Motley Crue or Def Lep on it. The dreaded Letter From The Editors spells it out: “While never presuming to neglect our hard rock and heavy metal roots, Guitar has offered such unique and complex tunes as ‘Dust In The Wind’ by Kansas, Jaco Pastorius...AI DiMeola...bla bla etc. So, although heavy metal rules and hard rock reigns, there is more in our guitar universe than—” Sorry! Your three minutes are up!

Major selling point here must be the “$12.50 worth of guitar sheet music,” as it says on the cover in big red letters. Great comps too— here’s “I Gan See For Miles,” a mere 13 pages, most of which is that infamous one-note guitar solo. Lucky us, it’s accompanied by a Pete Townshend interview (the David Lee Mouth of his era). I see Pete finally admits “I Can’t Explain” was acquired on the rent-toown plan from the Kink classic "You Really Got Me.” He couldn’t help it though, he was “living in complete squalor, getting stoned every night.” Better than incomplete squalor!

Probably the best department is In The Listening Room, a celebrity rate-a-record column with this month’s celeb, Paul Dean of Loverboy. And wouldn’t you know it, they play him NRBQ’s “Rain At The Drive-In,” one of the very few goods songs ever spun in the CREEM office—and he hates it. “Why did you play this for me?” he asks. “It sounds like the kind of tune I’ve written many times when I go through a dry spell.” No, Paul, you must be thinking of “Hot Girls In Love.”

SLEDGEHAMMER PRESS

This one's for hard core metal brats only. Who else could relate to this weird bit of pulp fiction disguised as an editorial: “He gasped when her legs spread, revealing her perfect womanhood.” Oh well, better than revealing Vince Neil.

When Sledgehammer interviews a group, they ask the tuffies, like “When you see a girl itching her crotch, do you consider that a turn on or a turn off?” Think we’ll skip the reply on that one and go to a more polite example. What kind of person is an Overkill fan? Says drummer Rat Skates, “a fuckin’ thrash banger who would rather die before wimping out.” Thank you, Mr. Skates.

Right after Miss Sledgehammer—two pages of genuine nudes—comes the obligatory poster. Sledge does it their way, though—a crummy black and white pic of three dorks with short hair called Medieval loitering in a cemetary. “Photo by Death” reads the credit.

Thank goodness they wrapped up this “metal lust” issue with something serious so we don’t think they’re just goofin’ us. Yes indeedy, a guitar instruction column entitled Doug Horstman’s Metal Clinic. “See, every guitarist uses the same six strings...” it begins.

ROCK FEVER

Here’s another case of bland metal pandering. All iron outside, but within, you start running into acts like Duran Duran and the powerchord-mad Eurythmics. When they do chat with the metal mutts, you find guys like Jon Bon Jovi claiming he was offered a role in Footloose. As what, Jon, the foot? You can pretty much guess the departments by this time. Hot Rock Scoops is daring gossip like asking David Wee Woof if his latest girlfriend is “for” real. “Ahh naw...you know me!” replies tundra tits. Is this man the Longfellow of his generation or what?

Another fab section is called Mouthing Off, a collection of useless proverbs like “Critics aren’t the ones paying our wages” (Joe Elliott) and “Too much of anything will rattle your cage!” (Lou O’Neill, Jr.)

Being a trivial kinda guy, I especially liked Trivia Fever. Let me try a couple on you. Number two asks, “When Bruce Springsteen burst onto the American scene a decade ago, he was compared to (a) Bob Dylan, (b) Robert Plant, or (c) Barry Manilow.” Too hard? OK, here’s number 18—beneath a picture of Rush, it queries “Left to right, name the members of Rush.”

If you said Peter, Paul and Mary, you win a date with Buzz Saww!

SMASH HITS

Not to be confused with Star Hits, Song Hits or Spore Illustrated, Smash is sometimes referred to as the Sylvie Simmons Experience.

I mean, you open it up and first thing you see is Direct From London, a U.K. gossip column by Sylvie S. This is good shit too, she got the theft of Blackie Lawless’s chrome-plated codpiece and Gene Simmons losing his wig onstage on the same page!

OK, flipping to the table of contents, we find a Great Interviews section (sub-titled Great Interviews) consisting of let me guess—great interiews? We’ll see about that. Over to page 42 for the Jimmy Page/Paul Rodgers conversation and what do I find but no interview! It’s a dirtee lie! Yay, Sylvie! Three entire quotes in two full pages, the best of which is, "Like a zombie.” Standing ovation!

Moving right along, we come to the big song lyrics section—reportedly the main reason people buy this rag. And let me just give a sincere thanks for all the words to Bryan Adams’s “Run To You” (“I’m gonna run to you/ Yeah, I’m gonna run to you”) plus REO Sheepwagon’s epic "I Do’ Wanna Know.” Let’s all join in—"I do’ wanna know/I do’ wanna/I do' wanna know!”

Not much else here except letters to the eds that read like “I think your Motley Crue was great even though I’ve heard all that before." Oh, brother, now Sylvie’s writing in under fake names to criticize her own articles!

Like they ask in the reader survey, “Why did you buy this issue of Smash Hits?” We do’ know, why not?

FACES ROCKS

Last and definitely least of the all-metalcover, all-beans-'n’-franks inside school is Faces Rocks, which just barely has a will to suffice.

I bet by now you can guess the contents, right? Aw c’mon, pleez? There’s only so much No Doz left on the planet, ya know. What’s that? A gossip column, you got it! This one's called Hot Flashes and contains a picture of Eddie Van Halen in his new haircut, which makes his head look like the dust ruffle on a comforter.

Now guess again—record reviews! You’re right again! Damn, I should’ve started using this method way back. What else can you say about record reviews except that here they're signed by secretive initialed writers. Hey—I’d be embarrassed too, guys! Hmm...D.M., what could that mean? Destroy Madonna? No such luck. Or F.L...Free Librium? Find Lababedi? No, hold on, here’s the names in front. See what happens when you read these dumb things backwards like I do?

Any more guesses? A layout that resembles the world’s all time worst case of combination skin? Right! Big hunks of moo-doody pawned off as video reviews? Right again! A fascinating mail section where the lead letter is from a guy thanking them for printing his last letter? Are you people psychic or what?

Betcha can’t guess what's in this month’s Pop Paparazzi. I mean besides reader C. Kitsuki about to vomit on Phil Collins’s lei— everybody knows that. Ozzy pissing on the Alamo? Nope, looks like I got ya on this one: Rob Halford in a restaurant, eating!

Too bad you can’t see if it’s a bowl of weenies!