HARDWARES

Neil’s been cranking out the books (Priest, Plant, Al Atkins, Linkin Park, Bon Jovi) as fast as me or McIver plus he’s got periodical work, so he’s naturally had an interest here. Rockcritics.com got the ball rolling online years ago, but Neil’s gone whole hog, interviewing 65 different metal journalists past and present (some aren’t metal, but big general legendary rock guys) about their gig. First, some disclosure – Neil had me write the Foreword to this, plus I’m interviewed. But hey, doesn’t stop me from giving the goods, which is this: the aggregate of this book is an at minimum interesting and at max fascinating read for any rock fan, ‘cos you get the whole deal, the history of Sounds, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, BW&BK, all the mags, plus the mechanics of book writing, and more mainstream, who’s a good interview and bad plus proof, crazy road stories (best are from all those UK guys who had first-hand pint-lifting access), a look at the humanity of nutty headbangers trying to make a living at this, but more so throwing countless hours at it simply for the glory and yes, a small measure of immortality – academic working of that head-muscle as well. But yeah, I tried to separate myself and do a little litmus on this, and I really did come to the conclusion that most metalheads would treat this as a page-turner, which is a little odd, but then again, there is so much to learn here about the trade-offs between getting access and then dishing press, good, bad, buddies, impartiality, venom. One big negative though – the type is so small, I actually tried with a magnifying glass, and then with glasses off and squinting through one eye, and then finally – f*** it – I read and read and read and got a headache. If possible (and it might be, ‘cos it’s new media print-on-demand), Neil’s gotta try reformat this thing and use all that wide margin space all around to pop up the point size (because I presume he can’t afford to have it go more pages). But man, this is a vast book, at 349 pages, and the effort of reading grimly scrunched is, in the end, bloody worth it. And no, I’m not just saying that because I’m deep inside the machine. I thought hard, tried to remove… friggin’ well all of this would be interesting to any rocker. Period.