Mega 'Anything Maiden' Update - old 1988 mag, latest tour book, etc etc

I dont have much spare time for internet, so a huge long one shot update.

Its been few weeks since I talk anything Maiden, since I got the Classic Rock Magazine with the Maiden cover story actually. Its been all blogging and storytelling about trains, KTM last days in Singapore, Crazy Train and other songs from Ozzy's first two albums Expanded Legacy cds, and not forgetting Portdy posting the Heartbreak Station lyrics - one of the best ever train related songs for me - in one of his blog replies to my post.

FIRSTLY
I got this magazine, those type of Magazines that only have 100% Maiden in it that I am so fetish about, yes very rarely you can find these old English Language magazines floating around on ebay, and its even much more very rarely I can find them affordable, but sometimes I got lucky.




This is from 1988, Its called Iron Mighty – The Story of the Maiden. I think this magazine was published to celebrate the release of ‘my eyes get misty just thinking about the beauty of the songs on this album’ – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. The magazine is over 20 pages in color. Some of the pages from this magazine and the content are attractive to me, even some Steve Harris quote on getting tattoos. And of course many brilliant photos of the band members from that period.





I really love the back photo of this magazine.





SECONDLY
Alexander The Great.. . is loved by many of us as such a beautiful perfect song, and the gossip of why this song is never played live, never ever , have raised this 1986 song to even higher legendary status. In Greece, seems this song is very special to the Greece fans, as I think ATG is part of their proud history. Last two weeks, in Athens, Bruce say this words – “ Maybe we’ll think about it “ while serenading the crowd with the chorus of the song.

So hopefully one day we’ll get ATG live, and I hope to be there to see them play it live. Ooohh cant imagine that I am in Mumbai or Bangalore to see Maiden and then came the part “ they wouldn’t follow him to IN”DI”YA!” tired of the combat the pain the glory “. Haha, sorry I am just imagining things haha. I just know that if they play this song, there will be a number of people out there who will have a breakdown just listening to the wind, Alexander’s father voice, and the slow intro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDEfsU0DK-A&feature=related

Check out this Youtube of Bruce singing Alexander The Great chorus in Greece 2011 and his hints.


THIRDLY
Since I am referring you guys to a clip on youtube, here’s another one - its quite a few months but I still love it and just sharing if you guys are not aware of it, check this one out from the Fort Lauderdale Florida show. It’s a quality unique video of Maiden from the higher seats level. The kind person who records this focus much time on Janick. I find this recording amusing to see Janick on stage from such an unusual angle. His guitar playing, showmanship, all his fabulous moves, and to top it off his fooling around with the walk-on-stage Eddie ( so you guys know what song this is ), and the ill treatment of his guitar at the end of the song haha.
Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWrPxg5vh4Y

If I can afford future concert tickets or fly somewhere to see Maiden for the sixth time, I maybe will consider standing nearer to Janick side haha. Check out Steve Harris comments on Janick’s Blood Brothers solo somewhere below ok.

FOURTHLY
This is the Final Frontier Tour 2011 Programme Book which is only sold for the final leg of the tour which is for Europe. Other parts of the world has only the Postergramme version. Unfortunately those who catch them in Singapore or Indonesia have none at all. Macam sial aku tahu.

This is not mine ,I dont have this tour book. I just got the photos only. I am interested in this and I know you guys would want to see it too. Not to sound like a sour-grape, but I think the rarer Somewhere Back In Time Tour Programme Book ( which is much rarer than the common postergramme ones and only available on Europe 2008 dates ) are so much more beautiful, and I got that one after a long hard search.







But hey, if you guys can find this cheap somewhere, then get it along with the postergramme version as you’re part of the worldwide audience and the dates are printed on the them. Make a nice memory of the event.








FIFTHLY ( is there such a word )
A kind soul in the Maiden forum share this advertisement so I thought many of you may have not seen it before. Its from a Brazil magazine ad. Its saying “ Music. Read what it Is made of “ or something. I think this ad wins some ad awards.



I love it, sort of an attention seeker ad,makes a nice conversation piece, …and I don’t care what my friend say about KISS, he dare call them cheesy, and what other people say about KISS, I like their songs.They have lots of nice great songs. And I hope West Ham gets promoted immediately for Steve’s sake and I still hope Mr Wenger signs Scott Parker haha. And I cant wait for 13 July. The biggest club in the biggest city in Europe is coming… West Ham is the second biggest as far as I'm concerned. next we have Fulham, Leyton Orient, QPR.. all these are clubs that I think are great too.


SIXTHLY ( I think my English really is brain-damaged, Phua Chu Kang please help me )
Like I say on the classic rock magazine post, with Maiden doing a huge spectacular British tour which I so envy people from all over the world who got the opportunity and managed to find a way to make the trip, we get all these famous England’s music entertainment magazines features Maiden prominently on their magazines pages.
This is from one of the Kerrang issues. Not mine again. Its from the forum and shared by kind Maiden fans to those who have no access to the articles. Its even retyped. Salute for sharing.




Kerrang Song Stories May 2011

Best of the Beast

For more than 30 years, Iron Maiden have defined the term ‘heavy metal’. Now more popular than ever, and with a new Greatest Hits albums due in June, bassist Steve Harris walks us through some of the band’s finer moments of the past two decades.

Words: Rod Yates Photos: Ashley Malie, Robert Ellis/Repfoto

Holy Smoke
“Bruce [Dickinson, vocals] wrote the lyrics. I think they’re very clever, having a go at all the religious nutters. [[Not the nutters so much as the ones who make loads of money out of it.]] Did we get much flak from religious groups? Not really. We got more when we did Number of the Beast. By this time I think they’d got tired of us. It was quite a tongue-in-cheek song so we thought, “What can we do with the video?” So I shot all the video myself, and we had a lot of fun doing it. There’s Janick [Gers, guitar] playing a little plastic guitar in a swimming pool. It was all done around the grounds of my old house.”

FIND IT No Prayer for the Dying, 1990.

Fear of the Dark,
“It’s become a massive crowd favourite, they sing along to the intro. You don’t know when you’re writing a song that it’s going to happen, but I knew it was a catch melody. It was written about the house [where the Holy Smoke video was filed], ‘cos it was really old, so it was quite spooky. It never bothered me living there, but it used to freak a lot of people out. There was one part of the house where you ‘d go around the corner, it was very dark and you’d have to reach out and put the light on – it was one of those things where you think that’s something there. Everyone’s had some incident [with the dark] that’s freaked them out.”
Find it: Fear of the Dark, 1992.

Afraid to shoot strangers.
“It’s about the first Iraq War, about putting yourself in to the position of going into war – would you be gung ho or would you be afraid to shoot strangers@ It wasn’t political, it was just an observation of what was going on. At the time we didn’t know it was Martin’s [Birch, producer] last album, and we didn’t really know it was going to be Bruce’s last album either [the signer left the band in 1993, before returning in 1999]. Cos although he was acting up a little bit and showing a few signs, we didn’t really see them until later. We didn’t recognise them, otherwise we might have tried to do something.!”
Find it: Fear of the Dark, 1992

Sign of the Cross
“I think it’s a really strong song, that’s why we opened the album with it, because it’s got everything in it bar the kitchen sink. [[He said the same about Blood Brothers later :-)]] [[Listening to it at the moment. At first I thought the amp was buzzing, then I realised it was the 2-minute intro.]] We thought, “Well, this is us now, and if you don’t like it, piss off.” Some people didn’t get into this era as much cos Bruce wasn’t there, but I think there’s some great songs. [The Gregorian chants at the beginning] set the scene really well. We had some other ones which were fantastic, and we contacted the people and they wouldn’t let us use them because it was Iron Maiden – the Devil himself! Gutted!” [[A lot of chants should be out of copyright now, being medieval – get Blaze to re-record them :-)]]
Find it: The X Factor, 1995.

The Clansman
“I like history and although the film (Braveheart, which inspired The Clansman) is not true to how things really happened, I loved it as well. Sometimes when writing something, you conjure up some imagery, and [upon playing the opening riff] I thought, “Oh year, the glens”, and I decided to write about them and about being part of a clan, not the Klu Klux Klan! Some Americans, being a little naïve, they thought The Clansman was Klu Klux Klan! Did I have to defend against those claims: Not really. A couple of times people asked me, and I just said, “It’s with a C, not a K!”
Find It: Virtual XI, 1998

The Wicker Man
“Shooting this video was a bloody pain in the arse! We did it in LA so you’d think it would be nice, but it was freezing! Absolutely freezing our bollocks off. The best thing was when we set [the giant wicker man] on fire and got warm! But I think the video could have been better, I don’t know what happened with the edit. This was the second time we got nominated for a Grammy ]for Best Metal performance]. I want once years ago and vowed never to go again. I don’t like all that celebrity crap. I get a lot of grief cos the females in my family all want to go, but I won’t.” [[He should send them along in his place then!]]
Find it: Brave New World, 2000

Blood Brothers
“My dad died when he was young, he was only 49. I was actually on tour at the time, I was in Spain. It leaves you in a dark place, but some of your best material can come out of that stuff. It wasn’t just about my father. It was saying we’re all blood brothers and we should treat each other a bit better than we do. I think that’s one of the best solos I’ve heard Janick play. I still get goosebumps when he’s playing it. [[Me too. Sonisphere 2010, absolutely riveting.]] I had the basic idea for Blood Brothers around the Virtual XI era, but it wasn’t a complete thing.”
Find it: Brave New World, 2000

Dance of Death
“Is this inspired by [Ingmar Berman’s movie] The Seventh Seal? Yes and no, because Janick came up with the basic idea, and I took it somewhere else. [[Florida :-)]] It was just this story about someone being drawn into this whole world of weirdos and it just went from there. I saw the film Eyes Wide Shut, and I liked the imagery of that and just the weirdness of it. [[There’s a long long tradition of people being drawn into a dance with the dead or a fairy dance and just about escaping with their lives.]] We’ve got a bit of flak for that album cover actually, cos it was so different. But I still stand by it: I think it’s great. [[I never understood what the fuss was, apart from the artist being miffed that they used an unfinished rendition of it, apparently (on purpose, not by accident).]] You can’t take too much notice of what everyone else says or you’d never do anything different.”
Find it: Dance of Death, 2003

The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
“It’s just a short fictional story. We tried to make out Benjamin wasn’t someone fictional, but we didn’t get very far. We created a website [about him], we were hoping to disguise when it was created, but some hacker got in there and found it, as we knew they would sooner or later. It did create quite a buzz, people going, “Who the fuck is Benjamin Breeg?” [[And what’s his connection with Billy Bunter??]] It was fun while it lasted. [[Not for Benjamin though!]] Is Benjamin the seventh son of a seventh son/ Well, you can debate that until cows come home, but I’m not answering!”
Find it: A Matter of Life and Death, 2006

When the Wild Wind Blows
“I think that it’s different from what we’ve done before. The way we recorded it, the whole process of it was different [the song was recorded in stages]. I just said to the buys, “Indulge me, cos I want to try something different here”, and I think it turned out really well. The actual inspiration came from the Raymond Briggs animation. I remember watching it years ago on VHS, and it made a real impression on me. [[I challenge anyone to watch that and not have a real impression made, even though it’s a cartoon.]] I just took what I remember of it – I know there was this very British old man and lady talking: “Oh year, well, there’s going to be a catastrophe and the world’s going to end, but shall we have another cup of tea?” And that just stuck in my mind, that’s what really started it all off.”


Seventh Topic of A Seventh Topic.
The John McMurtrie photo book is finally coming out. Its been rumoured at the end of the Somewhere Back In Time World Tour, and after the rumours in the forum died down I though this book was cancelled but here it is, and we got the Final Frontier Tour too.
The book is going to be fabulous from the samples and Bruce is writing the foreward. There are fans who already pre-ordered it but I think there is no rush. I went to a Kinokuniya branch in Singapore the other day and I found the Ultimate Metallica by Ross Halfin lining the bookshelf, at about $60. I don’t know, I am still waiting for the Library to get the book so I can go thru it without paying for it, not really interested in the photos of the new lineup of Metallica anyway, and if I ever see Metallica live one day, I sure know where I wont be standing anyway haha. Anyway, Ross Halfin was quoted as saying his latest coffee table Def Leppard book is his best ever. I hope the Library gets this book asap too. I saw the samples on youtube, and its attractive. Tangkap Jambu kind of attractive haha. Anyway, Speakng of Def Leppard, I hope to check out Mirrorball if I got the chance. But no StageFright? And from later 90s albums No Promises? No Long Long Way To Go? Nothing from Slang? No lots of my favourite pop rock songs haha.

EIGHTH

I got this spectacular magazine from 1992. It’s a very special Metal Attack issue 100% on Iron Maiden to celebrate the release of Fear Of The Dark album and Maiden headlining Donington Monsters Of Rock one more time, and it has a special article on the tragedy of Maiden headlining the 1988 festival in front of 107,000 where they were kept in the dark of the deaths of the two fans which happen in the day until after their performance.

Its fabulously super freaking wonderfully thick magazine about 80 pages loaded with nothing but Maiden… I was looking for this magazine for years but its always expensive on ebay, until I search ebay thru countries and wala…ebay.au has this haha and its magically cheap.





so tired

so tired.. ( yes, I really hope for a Bark At The Moon Legacy Edition next )


I will share the content more next time…