October 1985

KEVIN DUBROW

LOUDNESS

CHAINMAIL

STRANGE WAYS HAS FOUND US Don't you think this whole controversy over Gene Simmons's personality has gotten a bit out of hand? I’m the editor of one of the band’s many fan magazines (Strange Ways), and though I’ve never had the honor of meeting Gene, my connection with the ’zine has led to meetings with Peter, Bruce and Eric.

ULI JON ROTH too hippie or not too hippie, that is the question

Andy Hughes

It's the easiest thing in the world to write off Uli Jon Roth as some sort of time-warped sky-pilot; a guy who still walks around in flares (!) and wears a hat with a feather in it in 1985 just has to be disconnected. right? Uh-uh, far too simple. Writing off Uli Jon Roth as an anachronism is rather like condemning Bob Dylan to a section label-ed "protest," or filing Jim Morrison under "unsuitable for parental consumption."

Bullets

Sylvie Simmons

We’re sitting in the Palm Court lounge at the Ritz, Lee Aaron and I, sipping cappuccini as the golden cherubs hop and cavort around the naked gilt god pouring an urn of fluorided water into a fountain. We’re talking about bathrooms, David Lee Roth, having David Lee Roth pouring an urn of bubble-bathed water in the bathroom.

MOTLEY CRUE SPACE BEINGS OF INESTIMABLE POWER

Sharon Liveten

“This place has the most disgusting bathrooms in the world," observes Tommy Lee cheerfully. As drummer for Motley Crue, which some people consider the most disgusting band in the world, he should know. “No, really," he insists. “Let me tell you about some of the graffiti.

BEFORE THE RIOT WAS QUITE, THE METAL WAS GLITTER

Toby Goldstein

And there arose from the stage such a thumping and a pounding that our eardrums were sore afeared: the clash of cymbals in the neon-lit night, the steady cascade of drum rolls that posed the unfathomable question. “Dave Clark isn’t still on the road, is he?”

METAL Q & A BOBBY BLOTZER SPEAKS HIS MIND

Annene Kaye

(ring... ring...) Hello? This is Annene Kaye from CREEM magazine. Hi, howareya? Is this Bobby? Bobby Blotzer? You bet. What’s your name again? Annene. Oh, OK. I just woke up, so I’m a little...y’know? From a little what? From a little long night last night.

RATT

SUCK OUT THE VENOM!

Andy Hughes

Geographically, the northern England industrial wasteland of Newcastle-onTyne is a distance of some 360 miles from London. Culturally, it might as well be the dark side of the moon. Its notable features? Its high unemployment level, the friendliness of its inhabitants, the incomprehensible local accent and a band called Venom.

THE LEFT-HANDED DICTIONARY OF THE HEAVY METAL

Rick Johnson

OK, metal mutts, let’s set all our illegal playthings aside for a minute. Hey—you guys in the corner gangisolating that vibrating grommet, cool it a sec, will ya? It’s time for some EDUCATION. I mean, like the guy on NIGHT COURT said, a filthy mind is a terrible thing to waste, so listen up.

THE PHENOMENON OF PHENOMENA!

Sylvie Simmons

Professor Limit is dead. Hoist by his own petard, mashed in his own microwave, sucked up the cosmic drinking straw into his own little can of worms. Done to death by his life’s work: building a computer capable of absorbing brarnpower and reading minds, fueled by telepathic energy.

RECORDS

Gary Graff

RATT Invasion of Your Privacy (Atlantic) On its second full-length effort, the band that last year announced “We intend to conquer the earth” gets ambushed by its own inexperience. It’s nothing more or less than the second-album blues, a case of too much too soon with too little thought about what comes next.

DZZY OSBOURNE

BRITMETAL: Krokus Eats It

Sylvie Simmons

Some are born to columns; others have columns thrust upon then. A good deal more comfortable than having women thrust upon you, but such is the lot of today’s HM (“We are not heavy metal!") band! Take Krokus’ Fernando Von Arb. Go ahead, you wouldn’t be the first.

LESLIE WEST OF MOUNTAIN

VIDEO KILLERS OF RADIO STARS

Richard Riegel

Back in my June column, I requested postcards from any readers who actually had caught the elusive video of Motorhead’s "Killed By Death” on their tighttubed MTV. I didn’t receive a single postcard, which means that either 1) nobody reads my column all the way through, or 2) MTV hasn’t been showing Motorhead anyway.

THE INEVITABLE!

Having been endowed with the powers to see and change the future, Accept certainly have their hands full, what with being a great metal band, as well. For instance, there was the time they had to cancel a show when Udo went into a trance and saw a small kitten stuck up in a tree—an event that actually took place that very night!

MAGNETS

Do you know why this part of the magazine is called "Magnets"? Is it, you ask, because we devote this space to upcoming, so-called "Metal attrac-tions"? Or are we speaking in slang about our "MAGnificent NET Sales"? Or, most deviously, are we referring to that infamous tribe of sociopathic youth that prowl our inner cities with actual nets in search of automobiles with mag wheels?

AUTOGRAPH

SCORPIONS

CREEM CLOSE-UP