AlSymerz

Diamond Head - Lightning to The Nations

Pre-pandemic the kids used to buy me a band t-shirt for my birthday. I'd get in a few months early and order it from wherever it came from, give it to the kids when it arrived and then forget about it until they turned on up the day with a wrapped parcel. But shit it's hard to do that these days. I went looking the other day and the cheapest I can get a shirt or hoodie mailed to me is about $18 from the Helloween shop in Europe. Every other label or band shop wants up to $40 just for shipping, with many of the US labels starting at $45 and getting as high as $125 for one single hoodie. One of the costs of buying from overseas has always been our dollar against the world. Long gone are the days of the 00's where the Aussie dollar was hitting 90c. It's just something we have to accept, but $40 to send an item worth only $20 is just not going to happen. US post, DHL mainly, was always expensive but never as expensive as it has been since the pandemic. Labels like Roadruunner etc used to have a reasonable supply of stock in their Aussie store but these days even that's diminished when bands don't have albums out or on tour.

Phil Campbell And The Bastard Sons - Kings Of The Asylum

Besieged - Violence Beyond All Reason

Slough Feg - Traveller

Motorhead - No Sleep Til Hammersmith 40th anniversary

Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard

Wraith - Absolute Power

Helloween - Walls Of Jericho

Yeah, they've been recording for a little while now. In the last 18 months or so they have been playing less gigs than they were so I guess it's given them some recording time.

Lazy bloody Aussies should give us a new album, 5 yrs is too long. NP: Lord - Fallen Idols

Gamma Ghouls - No Recollection EP

Nah not really. To be honest I really loathe Dee Snider these days but it came on while I was out walking. I think I'm over Twisted Sister again for a while. About to go shopping, I'll see what niceties the car stereo has for me.

Twisted Sister - Come Out And Play

M.O.D. - Surfin' MOD

One doesn't get more metalhead than Bender.

Kind of like Bender from Futurama

Leave Scars - The Arrival

Ozzy - Bark At The Moon

"Actual" metalheads is even better.

Orange Goblin - Coup De Grace Dan wrote more of the second album than he was credited with too. And if you believe some of the stories none of them wrote the first album. It was mostly session musos who did the writing and recording. It's heavily refuted by Scott and Charlie now days but one guy claims to have evidence.

I love the idea that Slayer are mainstream and that people who like what Kerry or Slayer have done aren't metalheads.

Scott Ian claimed for years that Neil fired Lilker for being too tall, and that they should never have given Neil so much power. But it's been rebutted for years and most suggest Scott had more of a hand in it that he wants to admit so as not to ruin whatever friendship he had with Lilker who wrote/co wrote most of their songs back then. NP: Sodom - In The Sign of Evil

There's a lot of fat, old and ugly men in metal now. There is also bean poles out there. Picture of Lilker back in Anthrax for a few shows. The dude is 59 and tower over his short arse band mates but he's not fat. I don't have instagram so I don't know if links work, but here's the link to a blabbermouth article with the instagram pic posted at the bottom. https://blabbermouth.net/news/anthrax-shares-first-new-photo-with-original-bassist-dan-lilker

Lawnmower Deth is just thrash/crossover. Probably not worlds different from all the other 80's crossover bands just they came from the UK where humour is a little different. They had silly names, sung about silly topics, did a cover of Kim Wilde's Kid's In America which was weird for a band growing up in the UK and no longer kids. They weren't particularly great at anything they did but they had fun. The reformed a few years back (even had Kim Wilde sing with them in 2015), but fat, balding, 40+ year olds (now probably 50+) don't seem to have the same amount of fun. NP: BAT - Wings Of Chains