Can I Pod With Madness - Kerrang, Metal Hammer and Rock in the 80s

Are you sure these aren’t Terry Scott’s winners?

No Kerrang (again), but check this out, we played D&D in a castle!* After inexplicably winning in a Comic Relief prize draw, we were off for a weekend of nerdy fun, and have prepared a full report for you.

Massive thanks to @ComicRelief @Walworth_Castle @Kynren, @DnDWizards and most of all our fantastic Dungeon Master David Knight of @NoSmallRolls and @SupportingMyt...

Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you, especially if you remember the heady days of October 1982. John Cougar/Mellencamp is getting chippy about”real” Rock n’ Roll and Lee Aaron is BEING SEXUALLY PROVOCATIVE which may or may not involve shadow puppets.

Neil Young might be patient zero of grunge, but in ‘82 he was all about modern technology - we examine whether this was influenced by his encoun...

Because we’re a 90s bitch, we’re checking out Kerrang from October ‘91. Extreme - are NOT on the cover but Nuno Bettencourt is. Don’t relax, girls, he looks pretty much the same now. Guns N’ Roses are going through some right shenanigans at the moment, Izzy’s about to leave and they’ve just put out Get in the Ring so if *that* doesn’t silence their critics I don’t know what will...

Rock ‘n’ Roll Slut!

It’s a Maiden Month at Kerrang, in which Steve Harris gets low key insulted on the cover, but the mag is talking up Seventh Son of a Seventh Son like nobody’s business, so that’s all right. Prog metal puffery, and some ludicrous statements by Bruce Dickinson aside, we’ve got a Kommunicae from Nikki Sixx, Rush on tour, Judas Priest’s brush with Hollywood, and an introduct...

Tales of Terror!

If you LOVE Can I Pod With Madness but hate all the Kerrang stuff, have I got the podcast for you. Yes we don't get to the magazine this week, so, y'know, it's one of *those*. 

Fresh off a deep dive into the Shudder portfolio we've got some reviews (of the “trying to remember what happened in this one” variety) which leads us into true life tales of mystery and terror. Or at least childhood fears.&...

Watering can news! When we're not giving you the excruciating details about our garden, we're looking at Kerrang 619 from October 1996. It's the most downery, cancelled motherfuckers filled issue we've had yet BUT we're still keeping it light!

Helloween almost get Deep Kutz status AND we realise Coachella is probably not as good as Donnington ‘88.

Korn are our cover stars but never mind that, there's a FREE TAPE which has a s...

Nobody Reads in That Band, Dude!

Here’s another BONUS POD (Or if you’re not a Patreon - a PREVIEW of a BONUS POD) and we’re returning to Metal Hammer 256, from May 2014. Fear not though, we’re not touching on modern music (from 12 years ago)  - most of this issue is centred around a celebration of 1984, and our guides are Steel Panther, so you know, you can imagine what *that’s* gonna be like. Mot...

SIXTY NINE, DUDES! Yes it’s the pod you’ve all been waiting for, although the promised raunch content is pretty limited. There’s some BIG NEWS buried away somewhere in here and it has to be said we don’t talk about the magazine very much  - there is some stuff about a psych rock classic from 1968, though.

We introduce The PWM Megaplaylist - and resign ourselves to the fact that we’re unlikely to b...

Adventures in Remote Recording!

In a special side episode, I'm temporarily leaving behind the world of 80s (and 90s) hard rock and exploring the distant galaxy of late 60s psychedelia. To do this I've roped in my old college buddy, so if you ever felt the world needed another podcast where two middle aged men reminisce about music that was made before they were born, look no further. 

As a very flimsy twig to hang this thing o...

As “promised” very early on in the history of this podcast, we've had a look at the BBC Arts programme Arena's Heavy Metal documentary, from April 1989. Mick Wall and Jon Hotten of Kerrang were NOT IMPRESSED with the programme, and neither were any of the people that wrote in about it. Featured are Ozzy and Geezer, Bruce Dickinson going for the presenting gig, Ax Rose at his most Ax Rose, David “LeRoth”, and...

It's 1988 once again and our cover star is Robert Plant, looking to regain his crown as THE prime hard rock frontman  (it says here). To be honest he's just back with a new album that's a bit more Zeppelin than his definitely not Zeppelin no sir! recorded output from the early 80s. Most of this is about their famously disastrous Live Aid performance, but there's a bit of slagging off David Coverdale for good measure. 

The...

We’re looking at Kerrang from Aug ‘86, so as usual there’s news of another forthcoming Alice Cooper album, and Iron Maiden have a single out (one of their best although we are arguing about that one). Elsewhere we delve into the world of Madam X, and our main feature this week finds Run DMC colliding with Aerosmith, for one of the most bulletproof stone cold classics of the 80s. That’s not a hot take, I know...

Kerrang 233, Apr 89

Come with us as we take a fun nostalgic trawl through the minutiae of the late 80s rock scene, in order to distract from the continuing awfulness of the modern world. Our topic today is Kerrang from April 1989. What were you up to?

Black Sabbath (actually just Tony Iommi) is on the cover and we have yet another New Alice Cooper Album nugget. We’ve missed the birthday of Ray Phillips from Budgie but someone...

It's the Nineties again, and two veteran swordmasters return to the field of battle. Yes, violin bows at the ready, Coverdale Page have embraced their destiny to team up for an album of uh... hoary old blues rock. Meanwhile shock news, Bruce Dickinson has left Iron Maiden, and ‘Arry and the lads are “surprised, to say the least”. I think we all would have been surprised if, as Kerrang suggest, his replacement had ...

We're back for another year of metal memories and deep digressions - taking a look this week at Kerrang, Nov 87. Great White are on the cover but we're far more concerned with this Wolfsbane interview. This leads us to discussing Home Star Runner, whether Wolfsbane does actually repel werewolves and we learn what constitutes "Scram Metal"

Apart from that we've got our Christmas Roundup, ASMR spectacular, Karaoke report and like eve...

Here's a preview of our second Patreon exclusive Pod. 

Our Christmas BONUS pod calls for something unprecedented so we’re unveiling our amazing CHRISTMAS QUIZ which hasn’t got a name, but needs to be heard to be believed.

We watched Krampus and have OPINIONS - and we also reveal our YouTube Wrapped (like Spotify Wrapped but from a company that’s slightly less despicable).

Our feature presentation is a look at...

Shittin Myself Waiting for Santa

Merry Christmas, FOR REALS THIS TIME. When we're not roasting your favourite Christmas movies, we’re delving into a *very* festive Kerrang from 1985. Lemmy, Venom's Cronos and those lads from Ratt are all getting into the spirit, while the mag does its bit for women's lib by getting the top female rock stars of the day together for a photoshoot. And then referring to them as tarts.

Stryper are...

Sexy Snowball Fight

Christmas is rapidly approaching so we're discussing a modern festive Cinematic classic, which you've probably not seen but consider this your recommendation to watch Poinsettias For Christmas- particularly if you're really fucking into Poinsettias. 

In November 1988 we have a news report of an imminent album release from Mötley Crüe- which turns out to be a reality warping mystery. Are ‘ver Crüe a ne...