Angry Metal Guy

Blaze Bayley is quite possibly one of the more controversial figures in modern heavy metal history because of his stint in Iron Maiden as the, unfortunately unpopular, frontman who replaced Bruce Dickinson.  More recently he suffered some very personal tragedies, with the crumbling of his band (the excellent BLAZE) and the death of his wife.  I’ll be reviewing his DVD and live record coming up, but apparently there’s more news that I was unaware of.  A book, called At the End of the Day, will be released on the 25th of September and can be ordered via the band’s website.

Here’s the full press release:

After ten months of intensive touring, the band are back in the studio writing their new album.  Recording is due to begin at the end of September after their headline show at Metalfest, UK.

The double live album and live DVD ‘The Night That Will Not Die’, recorded at Z7 in Switzerland, have been released on Blaze Bayley Recordings; the concert filmed by director Kris McManus and all audio mixed and mastered by producer Jase Edwards.

On 25 September the book ‘At The End Of The Day’ will be released.  This follows the story of ‘Blaze’ Bayley Cooke from Wolfsbane to Iron Maiden to BLAZE and, ultimately, to the current self-titled Blaze Bayley band. However, this book is not solely about Blaze; rather it traces the history of all the band members, back to their roots in New Zealand, Colombia and…Bristol.  ‘At The End Of The Day’ is available to pre-order from the band’s website.

So there you have it, folks. I’m thinking about getting my hands on a copy of that book before the interview. That’d be pretty sweet, right?

According to IronMaiden.com the band’s recent release Flight 666 has been a huge success all over the world.  This is taken directly from the band’s press release.

-In the USA it was not only No.1 debut but also the highest selling first week sales of any music DVD so far in 2009! This release closely followed the US TV Premiere of the movie on Palladia/VH1 which was watched by over three million people, the highest viewing of a music documentary on the channel so far this year.

-In Canada it rocketed into the No.1 position outselling the No.2 DVD by over 6:1

-In the UK, first day’s sales were over twice the total combined sales of every other DVD in the Top 50!!

-In Sweden Flight 666 is currently at #1, #3 and #4 on Sweden’s leading online retailer Discshop chart with the deluxe, standard and Blu-ray formats respectively!

-In Australia it not only debuted at No.1 but was certified Platinum within its second week of release.

-In India, as well as being the No.1 music DVD, it entered at No.6 in the mainstream DVD movie chart, placing it that week ahead of such international blockbusters as “Slumdog Millionaire” and many Bollywood movies!

-In Brazil, where 70% of the market is dominated by local repertoire, it debuted at No.3 in their national chart and is fully expected to reach No.1 by next week. It was a new entry at No.1 in Brazil’s International chart.

-Once again No.1 in Arabia.

The countries in the five continents where Flight 666 flew in at No.1 were Australia, Arabia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil int, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan int, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the USA. Elsewhere in the world it entered at No.2 in Spain and Portugal, and at No.3 in France and Hungary, and No4 in Holland. With more charts still to come from many other Latin American territories who will release the DVD this week, well over 30 countries are expected to achieve No.1 for Flight 666.

Once again, the media machine is a complete success for Maiden.  But I guess being England’s biggest export and having these kind of successes isn’t a big enough deal to get these guys landed in the Rock Hall.  Metallica makes it, but no, Maiden can’t seem to pull it off.  How lame.

Anyway, I’ll be posting a review of this DVD soon enough, but let me say, it’s worth checking out if you’re a fan.  I definitely think that it’s a pretty cool DVD with good features and so forth–I just wish these guys would do this kind of stuff more few and far between.

Congrats to the Money Making Machine anyway, though.  Up the Irons! \m/

Recently, Paul DiAnno, currently touring the world on an album released 28 years ago, went on a rant about how Iron Maiden is nothing but a “money making machine.” He sounded angry, but jealous at the same time. Mr. DiAnno was responding to the question of someone asking him about drugs–he claims that there were no drug problems and that he left the band because Steve Harris is some kind of money-hungry psychotic Nazi-man who writes terrible, terrible music.  This is, as we all know, a little extreme but there’s something to this in the sense that it’s hard not to feel a little frustrated with a band that produces at least one product a year but only new material every third year these days.

Why do they do it?  Well, that I can tell you personally: it’s because suckers like me will buy it.  I happily jumped onto the Flight 666 bandwagon because that’s actually very cool. Non-embarrassing metal documentaries are actually pretty few and far-between and this one was given the extra cred of being filmed by the dude who did Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, which I think was super cool.  So the Maiden guys were smart about this one, which is great.  But then what happened?  Of course, they released a live album with it.  Seriously, a live album.  So let’s actually look at what Maiden has released since the release of their last album.

2006: A Matter of Life and Death – Death on the Road DVD
2007: History Pt. 2 – Live After Death DVD
2008: Somewhere Back in Time
2009: Flight 666 DVD/Documentary – Flight 666 Soundtrack

OK, so let’s see here.. that’s ONE new record versus 3 compilation/live DVDs, two documentary DVDs and two live records.  If one goes back a little bit farther, that’s at least ONE live record for every CD release since Bruce came back and DVD after DVD.  It’s mind-blowing, too, how totally ridiculous these track listings are!  These guys are continually releasing the same record over and over and over again.

Somewhere Back in Time (2008):

1. Churchill’s Speech
2. Aces High
3. 2 Minutes To Midnight
4. The Trooper
5. Wasted Years
6. Children Of The Damned
7. The Number of The Beast
8. Run To The Hills
9. Phantom Of The Opera — Live
10. The Evil That Men Do
11. Wrathchild — Live
12. Can I Play With Madness
13. Powerslave
14. Hallowed Be Thy Name
15. Iron Maiden — Live

Flight 666 Official Soundtrack (2009):

(CD 1)

1. Churchill’s Speech
2. Aces High
3. 2 Minutes To Midnight
4. Revelations
5. The Trooper
6. Wasted Years
7. The Number Of The Beast
8. Can I Play With Madness
9. Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

(CD 2)

1. Powerslave
2. Heaven Can Wait
3. Run To The Hills
4. Fear Of The Dark
5. Iron Maiden
6. Moonchild
7. The Clairvoyant
8. Hallowed Be Thy Name

Yeah. Same fucking track listing.

I just counted and I own 13 versions of the song Run to the Hills.  Seriously, thirteen copies.  AND, if I were to buy the new CDs and DVDs that were coming out, I would in fact own 15 versions of it.  Why?  That’s a great question.  Apparently some of what Di’Anno says is true: these guys are just a money making machine.

This has been building up for me for a long time.  The first crack in this whole thing was these greatest hits tours after spending years bitching up a storm about being treated like  a hit jukebox, these guys are still doing greatest hits tours and releasing greatest hits anthologies every year.  Not only that, but they flat-out REFUSE to play deep-cuts.  Just flat-out refuse.  Why?  That’s a good question.  Apparently a song that not everyone in the crowd has heard a hundred thousand times or owns 15 versions of isn’t worth playing live.

It’s come to the point where I don’t buy Maiden merch (though I did break down and buy Flight 666) and I’m even selling some of my collectibles because I find the whole thing totally insulting.   Sure, I’ll buy their new albums because I think the band is great.  But until they start playing songs I’ve never seen before live, I won’t see them live.  Until they release CDs that contain songs I don’t own live versions of or something novel and interesting instead of a repackaging of the same live album they’ve been releasing since 1993 I just don’t spend money on this band.   It makes me sad, really.  How is it that a band of such high quality could be reduced to such meaningless commercialization?  I thought that spot had been reserved for Kiss.  I wonder how long it is until Steve Harris sells a gallstone on eBay.

Frankly, it just all feels so disrespectful towards the fans.  Metal dudes aren’t exactly the richest dudes in the world and this shit assumes that you’re going to drop 60 bucks a year on Maiden merch, not to mention all the other shit that they have for sale that’s hyper over-priced.  It gives off the impression that Harris and Smallwood really do see the Iron Maiden fan as nothing but a wallet with legs–which is both disgusting and sad.  Everything is “for the fans,” and blah blah blah, but I think that’s crap.  For these guys the fans took a backseat to the dollar, or I guess in their case the Almighty Pound a long, long time ago.  Maybe even in 1981 when Di’Anno bailed.