The Counterforce No. 80 - Iron Maiden

I was a sickly kid from the age of 12. Coming into it too was a lot of anger that year. Life wasn’t working out as I wanted it to, and it seemed a bit early for that. I can explain it all these days with my knowledge of TCM. The Liver, which controls anger, left unchecked by the Lungs, will invade the Spleen, causing excessive worry and other, more physical, ailments. My lungs have been traditionally weak, which is why, despite months and months of precautions, I almost died when I got COVID. So just after New Year 1988 I was down with that grand old Spleen malady - mono. And have been plagued by spleen issues ever since. They say you’re only supposed to get mono once. I’ve had it multiple times. I work quite hard at correcting my spleen issues these days and hopefully they’re getting better, fingers crossed

Mono is exhausting, or perhaps enervating is a better word. You’re exhausted all the time, a really deep lethargy. So I spent a few months on the couch in our family room, sleeping a lot, reading heavy metal magazines, listening to my Walkman, and waiting for Cheers to come on at 7 and then 11 on WPIX. And of course Headbangers Ball. Where late one night I caught the video for Iron Maiden’s The Clairvoyant. I was hooked from that opening bass line, the triumphant guitar melody being the icing on the cake. I’m a sucker for interplay between the 1,3, 4 notes of the scale - Then He Kissed Me, Joy Division’s Digital, so many songs… - and this coupled with the sheer excitement of the video, filmed at the Donnington festival, brought me great joy in a very dark time. It felt like I’d finally found something, the crystalization of what my rock n roll dreams had been leading to up to this point

When Sunday morning came, I asked my Mom if she would get me the tape of Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son and my life seemed to be rerouted onto a more personal track. From that point on it was Maiden Maiden Maiden for what seemed like forever. In actuality, life would change again in just three months time when I discovered the Pistols, but Maiden were a huge part of things for a good two years at least. It’s not like I was hearing them for the first time. That would’ve been in 1986 when Somewhere In Time came out, which I bought at Merle’s Record Rack when it was at the Milford mall. Something about Bruce’s codpiece in the Stranger In A Strange Land video led to me never fully embracing this record lol. Though all the hidden stuff on the cover art is AMAZING. Powerslave too has some cool Easter eggs on its sleeve like the ‘Indiana Jones Was Here 1941’ and the Mickey Mouse hieroglyph (you can see Mickey poking out from behind the framed photograph on the Twilight Zone single cover too). I had both Powerslave and Somewhere In Time on vinyl and wish I still did but senior year of high school when I was well into the Mary Chain, the Cure, and New Order, I gave both of these away to a friend who was just getting into Maiden. Along with some shirts, VHS tapes, and the incredible Running Free official biography. I had read that thing until it fell apart. But back in the early bedridden days, taking pity on my sorry state, family members were offering to buy me tapes, and I also asked for Live After Death, which was again life-changing. I loved every second of that cassette, the tape version having the five extra tracks from the Hammersmith Odeon, and listened to it multiple times a day. Even now I can’t hear someone mention Long Beach without hearing Bruce in my head shouting ‘Scream for me, Long Beach!’

I had a lot of catching up to do and it was a good year for it because the band had just released their 12 Wasted Years home video. My first Maiden shirt which I also wore until it fell apart featured Eddie from the cover of said tape. I can still remember the excitement of finding it on the small t-shirt rack at our local record store, Graf Wadman. The film shows Steve Harris sat at the bar of The Ruskin Arms talking about the early days of the band, which is where I got the idea to make the pilgrimage as discussed in previous posts. There’s so much great stuff on here. Running Free done live on Top Of The Pops, them winning the battle with the BBC to not lipsynch, “but we were so quiet”. And the big anomaly of their career - the Women In Uniform video. It’s a Skyhooks cover and must’ve been some sort of bid towards the mainstream cuz it really doesn’t fit into their oeuvre. This video however plays a significant role in my Clown Damage book. Actually Maiden (and KISS) are all over this book, and I love it. It’s very much a tribute to the excitement and wonder of all that musical discovery back then. Another important thing about 12 Wasted Years was that it introduced me to my favourite Maiden song of all-time, The Prisoner. There’s a live clip of them playing it in 1982 and it just rocks. That intro, and especially the guitar part when it gets faster and kicks into the song proper, Adrian and Dave’s Explorer guitars, and that huge uplifting chorus. It was co-written by Adrian Smith who always had the more pop sensibilities. The band knew how great this song is, they were still playing it on the Seventh Son tour as evidenced on the Maiden England video. Wish they still were today

When I tell people real life stories they often don’t believe me. I remember sharing a few onstage and folks coming up to me afterwards suggesting edits, walking away baffled when I replied ‘but that’s exactly what happened.’ And I assure you that’s the case with this one about how I met my lifelong friend Jim. We were in 7th grade homeroom together and hadn’t spoken all year until he caught wind that I was also a Maiden fan. Seeing me carrying Powerslave around, the very first words he said to me were ‘Do you know what your name would be in hieroglyphics?’ I’d soon come to realize this is so Jim, he has a very unique mind, and obsessing over Powerslave himself, he’d been studying ancient Egyptian culture. I have also worked this bit into the Clown Damage story

Recovered from mono, I was now record shopping in earnest and devouring all I could about Maiden. Loving the behind the scenes footage on 12 Wasted Years, plus Video Pieces and the Behind The Iron Curtain VHS which I promptly snapped up, as well as reading everything I could find about them, I was incredibly inspired by their work ethic. This seemed to me a life I very much wanted - traveling the world on a tour bus and rocking the fuck out every night with thousands of people. In fact, as soon as I saw that video for The Clairvoyant, dreaming of this life was what got me rallying, hope while it still felt like my body had completely shut down. Not that going back to school was a pleasing prospect at all but having the strength to get up and play guitar again and hopefully one day get on that tour bus and never stop

Maiden are also inextricably linked with my favourite record store of all-time. Brass City Records in Waterbury, Connecticut, sadly now gone. But it’s June 1989 and my friend Ry’s mom is taking me, him, and Jim up to Riverside amusement park in Massachusetts as an end of the school year treat. Ry is also a huge Maiden fan and this very much bonds the three of us. An amusing extra part of the story here that I relished telling on the Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass tour. I’m not quite sure why, as I was allowed a good amount of freedom as a kid, but since I was going to be out with my new friends I thought I’d get up to something deviant. Waiting until my family were asleep the night before and sneaking out to the kitchen to rip pages from my school notebook and raid our jar of tea bags, I did not realize that the line ‘sleeping late and smoking tea’ from Aerosmith’s Mama Kin was a euphemism. GN’R Lies, released the previous November, was still on everyone’s stereos and I loved their cover of this song. As I, very poorly, rolled the joints like my older cousin once taught me to do, I was convinced I was onto some sort of special high. I rolled three, grabbed a book of matches, and stuff them all into my jean jacket inner pocket, the jacket with the big Ozzy Osbourne Randy Rhoads patch on the back. When we got to Riverside though, my new friends were very much not interested in joining me in the bathroom to blaze these up. Excusing myself to a stall, I only made it halfway thru one. It was a weird taste as you might expect burnt tea to be, and it left me feeling kinda funny, though not at all in a pleasurable way. Riverside was okay but not overwhelmingly great and Ry’s mom noticed this, suggesting we knock off early and go check out the new record store she had heard about in Waterbury as it was on our way home anyway

The prospect of buying records has been forever thrilling though I remember a palpable sense of trepidation as we pulled into the parking lot next to a run-down two story building. The feeling increasing as we pushed thru the doors to be confronted with a rickety wooden staircase and the black walls absolutely plastered with xeroxed show flyers and promotional material for bands that were far removed from anything I’d previously been aware of. I remember feeling a bit scared. In retrospect though this was like jumping the mythical Abyss to end up in Heaven. For at the top of the stairs once we turned the corner into the shop proper we were met with a life-size cardboard cutout of Eddie from the Sanctuary single cover, the kind of record store displays you used to sometimes see at the mall. We’d never encountered a Maiden one before. Making this truly feel like Heaven. On our first few visits we always tried to buy the display from Walter but he wasn’t selling. He was awesome to us though and I always say that if I had a time machine first thing I would do would be to go back to Brass City on that day in 1988 and stock up on the records within. It was jampacked with stuff that a few years later I would be searching for. I clearly remember flipping thru the racks and seeing Mudhoney’s You Got It 12” single, the one where they’re all covered in mud on the cover. This was truly a new world I was entering. Although metal wasn’t Walter’s bag - and he would introduce me to so much other great music over the next 26 years - it was what sold so he carried it, and always let us know when he had something we might like. Like the copies of Maiden’s The Soundhouse Tapes which we were over the Moon to find. I’d read about them in the official bio, their self-financed first 7” which quickly sold out its 5000 copies pressed. And when Maiden began re-releasing their singles for the First 10 Years celebrations, Ry’s mom would drive up every week to get them for him, sometimes taking us with her

Ry’s mom also got me, Ry, and Jim tickets to see Bruce Dickinson’s first solo tour in the summer of 1990 at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT. We were 14 and it was of course our first club show. The fact that the singer of Iron Maiden would be playing in someplace so small - about 1000 capacity - and close to our home was simply unbelievable to us. Ry’s mom dropped us off and we had no idea what to expect. Luckily we had brought all the money we could for there was plentiful merch on sale. T-shirts, even a Tattooed Millionaire baseball hat, and what we’d been wondering how we were ever going to get - Bruce’s first novel The Adventures Of Lord Iffy Boatrace, its title even written in the Maiden font on the cover, and autographed to boot!

The show is insane. It felt absolutely unreal to be there. Bruce covers AC/DC’s Sin City - which felt like some sort of vindication heh as Jim and Ry were strict Maiden fans very much displeased that I also loved AC/DC - and we heard Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter for the first time, before it became a Maiden song. Ever trying to prove who’s the biggest fan, Jim, who is standing a couple inches ahead of us, tells me and Ry afterwards that while we heard Bruce’s voice coming through the speakers, Jim himself had heard it before it even hit the mic

I’m off to Florida for vacation with my family the following day and I bring The Adventures Of Lord Iffy Boatrace with me. Which my 14 year old virgin self finds very perplexing. Keep in mind this is 1990, we didn’t really have access to pornography - not that I think porn teaches you the slightest bit about sex - and a lot of the stuff within these pages I really don’t know what to make of. There’s a sort of spurting tank dildo, and one dude has a 15-inch cock that Bruce describes as poking out of his collar. This left me very confused as my torso is 24 inches and proportionally I just didn’t see how this would work. I remember having a lot of questions when I finished the book, but no one to ask except Bruce himself. Needless to say I’m reading it again now lol. I had sold my own copy years ago on eBay for $75, but it’s available on Internet Archive should you care to start a book club with me : ) Kicking myself for selling this, along with the hat and shirts and Bruce’s follow-up novel The Missionary Position that I found used in 2008 at a bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London for only £4. I held onto that one for years then thought I’d never get around to it so I let it go. Of course I very much want it back now

Although I bought Fear Of The Dark on cassette when it came out in 1992, I never actually listened to it until last week, so No Prayer For The Dying was my last real time with Maiden. I listened to it again also last week and it’s better than I remembered. I’ve always liked Hooks In You, an Adrian Smith/Bruce Dickinson co-write so it’s very poppy. This tour would also be the only time I’ve seen them, January 26, 1991, in New Haven, CT, with Anthrax opening. The setlist is actually really good. My main memory from the show is a mosh pit breaking out and Bruce shutting that shit down immediately. After seeing the new documentary, Burning Ambition, I decided I would get acquainted with all the stuff I missed. I had bought most of the ones since Bruce rejoined but only dipped in and out. So I started with No Prayer and have been making my way through, alternating these with relistens of the classic albums. As I had moved on by the time I was 15, it’s been really cool driving around where I grew up with Maiden on the car stereo for the first time

I say ‘moved on’ but don’t get me wrong, I still loved Maiden. When I joined my first band after college, playing bass for Rockets Burst From The Streetlamps, I’d warm up with The Stone Roses’ I Wanna Be Adored and Maiden’s The Trooper. At my very first gig with Rockets at O’Brien’s in Allston, MA, during soundcheck I launched into The Trooper. My friend Vic tells me an old dude at the bar’s head shot up as he turned towards the stage and cried out ‘Maiden!’ I’ve often wondered what he thought of our shoegazey spacerock after that

With a lot of Maiden nostalgia going on while I was in London, I really wanted to see new doc Burning Ambition on the big screen. Checking the listings last week I realized I only had a couple days to do it and it would be a 2.5 hour round trip. No matter, it was totally worth driving out to Yonkers for. I loved it. It really took me back to all that they meant to me. There are a few reviews on Letterboxd that if you’re a real Maiden fan most of this won’t be new to you and while that’s true, it was a great watch nevertheless. I had forgotten things like Bruce smashing his face with his guitar at Rock In Rio in 1985 and manager Rod Smallwood telling me not to wipe it off, that it looked fantastic on the screens. Weirdly I had been thinking about the Victoria Abril film Between Your Legs the night before so it was quite the surprise to see Javier Bardem wearing a Can I Play With Madness shirt and having a ton to say about the band. Very cool though. Getting to see The Cart & Horses in the early newspaper listings after I had just made the pilgrimage to that pub the week before was rad. Extended footage of their 1984 trip to Poland that wasn’t on my Behind The Iron Curtain VHS tape. Very moving, just how much it meant to the people there for them to go. You get a lot of this too with their South American fans in Flight 666. And imagine having Iron Maiden cover Smoke On The Water at your wedding! Though they point out that most of the guests probably had no idea who they were. Sad about Nicko having a stroke and stepping down. Psyched to see he’s got a book out this fall. And the camera angle with which they introduce their new drummer is the same as that scene in Spinal Tap. A very nice touch. When Hallowed By Thy Name came on I was suddenly a very intense 13 year old again to whom Maiden meant absolutely everything

The title of the doc, coming from the b-side of Running Free, is very apt. Steve Harris was always on a mission to make it happen. Adversity from the get-go as they started in the time of punk when no record label wanted a metal band anymore. Grueling tour after grueling tour, dropping back down to clubs again in the Blaze days, but always rewarded by an immense love from their fans. Maiden deserve all the success that came to them. And the film points out that Bruce was the perfect partner to come in and help man the controls as they made their bid for Olympus. Incredibly driven himself, it’s astounding everything he manages to fit into his days. Being also an avid fencer in the 80s, writing a couple books, then becoming a pilot who freaking flies the band around the world to their shows before getting onstage and belting out the songs for a couple hours. That ambition, that relentless drive, was something that very much impressed me as a young teen getting into them. Besides the music that I loved, their making stuff happen was hugely inspiring. It’s only been in the past couple years that I’ve begun to forgive myself for not making my own childhood dreams come true. How I would’ve loved that life. And although I don’t like the idea of consolation prizes, I did finally learn valuable lessons about myself from not getting it. I had that energy in my 20s and 30s, heck I still have a lot of it now, but early on I would stick with things that weren’t working way too long due to misguided loyalties instead of just forging on myself. I’ve made great strides in the past few years and I LOVE all the projects I’m working on, so there’s that. It is largely about the work. This great love of music I have, not just for the sounds themselves but for all the lore that goes with it, from everything that comes from ambition, is a great part of what I do. And having Maiden come back in my life to remind me of all this has been a wonderful wonderful thing