HARDWARES

When perusing this monster of a book, I’m left wondering just how long it takes to compile information like this, and the methodology used. Like, does Eric Danville have a file on his hard drive called “band names with the word ‘blood’ in them.doc”? If so, we salute you, man. This book is non-stop entertainment, collecting tons of fun and frivolous metal minutia into over 130 helpful lists like 11 Heavy Metal Gigs That Ended In Riots (and only 4 were Guns n’ Roses!) and Metal’s 5 Gnarliest Deaths, all separated into PMRC-inspired categories (both of those examples were from book hotspot Violence). There are also lists written by members of Gwar (which were incredibly intriguing, surprisingly), Biohazard, Vixen and more. Awesome. Personal favourite is 10 Things Ronnie James Dio Is Older Than (credit cards! Polio vaccines!), but also awesome is 32 Great Moments in KISS Merchandising (Destroyer diaper bags, Hotter than Hell kitchen aprons) and 11 Things That Have Happened Between The Release Of Guns N’ Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident? And Chinese Democracy (Slash, Duff McKagan, Izzy Stradlin, and Matt Sorum release 22 full albums between them. Even Steven Adler releases an EP.). Also awesome: Circle Of Power frontman Alex Mitchell’s list of top three metal moments, which was a pleasure to read (dude writes poetry, after all… seriously). Not so awesome: finding out how big Cinderella’s Fred Coury’s cock is (8.5 to 9 inches, if you must know) and sifting through a lot of local bar-band references while some obvious things get left out here and there. But it’s mainly great: a list of 108 metal subgenres is gut-splittingly hilarious, and, oddly, Ted Nugent’s own list about himself actually made me like the guy a bit more.