[Music] Funeral For A Friend - Broken Foundation.

My latest current favourite tune. Heard it for the first time on ScuzzTV whilst flicking around the music channels on Sky.  Heard of FFaF before but not really liked their stuff.  This, on the other hand, I really like. Currently sync-ing their latest album on Spotify and the iPod.

[Music] Kerrang! turns 30.

Kerrang! Issue 1

The onomatopoeic sound that comes when a finely gripped pick is powered against 6 tense, steel strings, picked up by an electromagnetic coil and amplified to an ear splitting volume.  Kerrang....

That sound epitomised my life for a few years. Kerrang magazine was read from cover to cover rabidly in my teen years, right up 'til I was at Uni. It was a bible to me and some of my friends. The most important moment of the week was getting the new issue.

This week, K! reaches the grand old age of 30. Thirty years of filling the minds and ears of youth with metallic goodness. The first stand-alone issue was put to press and sold on June 6th (or 7th?) 1981. On that cover was Angus Young of AC/DC (see image left), a man who's guitar playing style epitomises the sound that titles the magazine.

This weeks cover stars are Metallica, probably the biggest band that K! have had on their radar; but usually I don't have a clue who the band on the cover are any more.  You see, me and the metal scene moved in different ways just over a decade ago when I found indie, techno, hip hop, hardcore, jazz, blues, country, punk, pop... classical! I matured, my tastes broadened. Metal is still there, but now surrounded by a lot of other sounds. A genre-specific magazine like K! just didn't fit with me any more, and to be fair the latest crop of bands they started to feature meant nothing to me - bands I couldn't relate to, bands that were not 'real' metal or rock to me. Odd, but true. In the last few years I have found myself drifting back into more metal sounds, and more modern metal too.  Hell, I follow Kerrang on Twitter (along with a load of other music magazines). But that's not to say I can't offer a salute to something that meant to much to me and my friends.

Kerrang! 30 Years

The first issue back in 1981 was overseen by editor Geoff Barton, and was a spin-off from the established 'Sounds' music magazine. There is an excellent interview with Mr Barton here, in which he details those early years and later dates. Some choice quotes:

On the birth of K!: "It was Sounds Editor Alan Lewis's idea to launch Kerrang! Along with the likes of Garry "Cockney Rejects" Bushell and Dave "Pink Military Stand Alone" McCullough, I guess my rock/metal ramblings were one of the mainstays of Sounds--but the tabloid newspaper format hampered the scope of our coverage. We needed glossy paper and we needed garish full colour! I remember.....He finally thought he'd got the go-ahead in 1979 or 1980 (can't remember the exact year) and asked me to write/commission/collate the first edition, which I did from a small, damp cupboard adjacent to his desk. But then management got cold feet and we had to divert everything into a pullout section within Sounds itself. (I think the pullout was called something like Kerrrrr-annnggg!!!!--later shortened to Kerrang! so the title would actually fit onto an A4 page!) Kerrang! was finally launched in 1981 as a stand-alone one-shot with Angus Young of AC/DC on the cover. It was an instant hot-seller and monthly frequency was established shortly afterward."

On K! staff writer Mick Wall : "I used to work with Mick Wall on Sounds and I always thought he was at his best when he wrote long, in-depth, atmospheric, rambling pieces. Mick was a typical money-hungry freelancer insofar as he would always come back from an exotic foreign trip and say, "I can't possibly write just 1,000 words. So much happened, this has got to be a two- or three-part epic!" But invariably he was right and the results were riveting--although Axl Rose might not think so."

Kerrang! KC Issue

The period I can relate to K was edited by the excellent Geoff Barton and then by current Mojo editor Phil Alexander. The days of Jason Arnopp, Xavier Russell, Ray Zell, Paul Elliott, Malcom Dome... So many important albums from my formative years were read about in K! either before buying them or whilst listening to them.  The Wildhearts 'p.h.u.q.'; Pantera 'Far Beyond Driven'; Rage Against The Machine's debut; Green Day 'Dookie'; The Offspring 'Smash'; the list is endless. I've still got some old Kerrang!s in the loft. Some choice issues. The Kurt Cobain memorial issue (see left), some with Wildhearts articles, maybe a special edition I think (maybe a 10 year special, not sure)

30 years is a long time for a magazine dedicated to a subset of a subset of society to last. It's seen off many a competitor - RAW, Terrorizor... A few like Metal Hammer have stayed on and are still alive now. So congratulations, K!, on 30 years of metal mayhem.

Here's to another 30. \m/

I might just pop down the newsy and pick up the latest 30th anniversary issue...apparently it comes with a free 15 track CD of choice metal cuts.