Surf Nicaragua

Surfs up!

1985 saw Sacred Reich emerge from the dust of Arizona to add their riffage to the thrash storm that was whipping itself into a ferocious shape during those metalastic years.
Two releases in particular stood out for me: their Ignorance album and the EP Surf Nicaragua (remember the coffin surfing dude on the latters cover? See above pic). Both these records I bought on *vinyl and believe me, they both made the *vinyl feel like slabs of concrete when you chucked them under the *needle. From opening pounder 'Death Squad' through to the brillaint 'Violent Solutions', the Reich's Ignorance album easily stood alongside offerings by fellow thrashers Nuclear Assault, Exodus, Testament etc.
As for Surf Nicaragua, well it was short but oh so sweet, and after I had got it onto my Walkman (think iPod but more prehistoric) a few years later, my skateboarding soundtrack was complete.
Sadly apart from a few recent stabs at reuniting, Sacred Reich have not come back on the scene as strong as other old acts have but there is a fantastic cd/dvd boxset available featuring both albums mentioned here with extra tracks, plus a dvd that includes the band appearing on the Dynamo Open Air 1989 festival. It really is a must buy for anyone who loves 80's thrash metal.

**NB ~ to any youngters reading this: before we had the gubbins we have now to play music, we used things like vinyl which had to have needles to make them play. Google it!

Ten Times As Big As A Man

The King in a cartoon

I thought I had imagined it, stirred up the soundtrack and photos from some wild childhood fever hallucination, but no! The King Kong cartoon series did actually exist and heres a picture from one of the adverts to prove it. A lot of folk that ive asked about this have given me blank stares but a trawl through the interwebz has brought forth fruit! The show was made in 1966 and followed the adventures of King Kong as he befriends the Bond family, and helps save the world from other giant creatures and robots.
What I remembered most about this show was the soundtrack which had a thundering chorus with the words "King Kong! Ten times as big as a man!", and was quite heavy for an animated childrens series. (You can probably find it easily on Youtube).
It was on when I was a child in the late 70's and early 80's, along with the Godzilla/Godzookie cartoon but most only recall the lizards show. Im glad I did a little cyber digging if only to prove to myself I hadn't made the whole thing up.

Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja

Been playing a lot of Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja a lot lately, that cool beat 'em up by Data East that hit the shelves back in 1988. Absolutely loved this game back then but funnily enough Id forgotten all about it until recently when I found it on a MAME collection disc I got for my Dreamcast (eBay £2.50).
Ninjas were big in the 1980s thanks to films like American Ninja and The Octagon, and every lad who grew up then wanted to be a ninja. They were even more popular than footballers (they were in my neck of the woods anyway). Not suprisingly videogames followed and a great bunch of ninja games were made including the likes of Shinobi, Durell's Saboteur, Ninja and a slew of others.


When ninjas attack

The story behind Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja is simple; President Ronnie (Reagan was president when it was released) has been kidnapped and its up to the Bad Dudes to save his ass. (Wouldn't it great if every country had a couple of guys like this to sort out the worlds woes?)
Admittedly the Dudes don't have a massive list of ninja moves at their disposal, its mainly kick and punch, but it matters not. This is a fun title which I will keep going back to for some ninjery love now that I have found it once again.
Feels good playing it on the Dreamcast too.

Protect The Innocent

30 Metal Monsters

This compilation was one of my first ever cds back in 1989 and was under the Telstar label. It covers a pretty decent range of metal genres and is still a great listen to this day.

** Track Listing ** CD 1

Steppenwolf ~ Born To Be Wild
Black Sabbath ~ Paranoid
Deep Purple ~ Fireball
Motorhead ~ Ace Of Spades
Judas Priest ~ Breaking The Law
Ted Nugent ~ Scream Dream
Ozzy Osbourne ~ Ultimate Sin
Blue Oyster Cult ~ (Don't Fear) The Reaper
Rush ~ Prime Mover
Cinderella ~ Gypsy Road
Scorpions ~ Rhythm Of Love
Dio ~ Dream Evil
Kingdom Come ~ Get It On
The Dogs D'Amour ~ How Come It Never Rains
Anthrax ~ Metal Thrashing Mad
Mammoth ~ Fatman

CD 2

Magnum ~ Start Talking Love
Vow Wow ~ Helter Skelter
Megadeth ~ Rattlehead
Saxon ~ Back On The Streets
Lita Ford ~ Kiss Me Deadly
Lisa Dominique ~ Rock N' Roll Lady
Exodus ~ Fabulous Disaster
Dream Theatre ~ The Killing Hand
Acid Reign ~ Goddess
Femme Fatale ~ Falling In And Out Of Love
Tigertailz ~ Love Overload
Wrathchild ~ (Na Na) Nukklear Rockket
Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction ~ Back Seat Education
House Of Lords ~ I Wanna Be Loved

Happy Birthday Sonic

The Beers Are On Me!

They grow up so quick these days. Sega's blue hedgepig Sonic is 20 years old today. I was never a huge fan of the nippy little hog, (I was more in the Nintendo camp back then) but of course I realise his importance in the videogames world and I do fire the games up once in a while nowadays.

Best wishes to ya Sonic !!

Boris The Spider

Fot some reason only known to my mind, lately I have been thinking of cool stuff that was available in the 1980's. One of them was a toy called Boris The Spider which my brother had as a Christmas gift in around 1980. I myself got a dragon called Zorgon (I think), that walked toward you had to be stopped by an infra red laser, fired from a remote control gun. (This kind of stuff was popular in the eighties).


Boris The Spider

Anyway Boris was cooler as he came with a plastic sheet designed like a spiders web and as he 'crawled' via infra red toward you on the web, you had to shoot him to stop his ghastly progress. This guy was almost as impressive as getting Hunchback or Xenon 1 games on the Oric 1 for Christmas presents.
Wow, the 1980's really did rule as times for being a kid.

Four Great Albums Worth Checking Out

Sabbat ~ History Of A Time To Come. Napalm Death ~ From Enslavement to Obliteration. The Almighty ~ Soul Destruction. Gary Moore ~ Wild Frontier

Four great late eighties metal albums finally tracked down on CD. (The Almighty was the hardest to find). I know Napalm Death are a little over the top for some but as soon as I heard them on BBC's Arena prog back in 1988 I was blown away. Almost literally, such was the ferocity of their music!
I think its wonderful that some of these albums are getting released on cd when most were pretty obscure even in their glory days. It feels strange to be raving on about the humble compact disc in these days of iPods and Kindles, when CD's themselves seem to be regarded as old fashioned, but to an old metalhead like myself, finding these classics in this format is mighty pleasing. Mosh \,,/

Back to Playstation One

Recently I have shunned my other consoles (even my beloved Dreamcast!) for the delights of the original Playstation. It was like suddenly out of nowhere I had the urge to play games like Die Hard Trilogy, Driver and even the mega hard (well it was for me) In Cold Blood. Its quite strange because its not as if ive been hankering over re~playing these games or seen them at a car boot and picked them up. This urge to revisit the Playstation (which is a great little machine of course) has come out of nowhere.


My very modest PSX collection: it may not be big but theres gems here

Anyway im glad it did because ive been having a ball! Im quite the hoarder when it comes to games so it was only Driver and Grand Theft Auto that I had to track down and buy again. (Only a £1 each too. Have I just been lucky or are Playstation games cheaper than chips these days?) Man I hadn't played these for a while but all the old magic came flooding back as soon as the discs booted up!
Didn't have to get familiar with the controls or anything.
Its the Resident Evil games and Driver that have taken up most of my time, especially the latter. The time limits in Driver don't seem as unforgiving this time around either, im really having a blast with it again.
I have Silent Hill planned once I get the gasoline out of my blood and who knows where after that?
Playstation 3's little brother (or that should be OLDER brother) has given me a breath of fresh gaming air after being bogged down with current gen these past few months. Im even loving the first Tony Hawk's skateboarding game with its limited moves and stunts. There's plenty of life still in this grey dog I tell ya!

United Kingdom Apple Core

Back in 1986 emerged a young British thrash band who brought some cool music and a dose of FUN to the scene. Their name was Acid Reign and they were a bloody great band! They were picked up by British thrash metal label Under One Flag in '88 and released the Moshkinstein EP, which is when I discovered them. The EP cover (shown below) stood out from the rest in that crowded Musiquarium record shop in Swansea and as soon as I got home and played it, I was hooked.
The awesome 'Goddess', the punchy 'Suspended Sentence' and the truly awesome 'Motherly Love', their song to Norman Bates. Brilliant stuff!

Mosh!

They got to support bands like Flotsam and Jetsam, Death Angel, Nuclear Assault and Exodus, touring on Exodus' "Fabulous Disaster Tour".
Sadly they weren't around for long and after releasing just two full length albums, (1989s 'The Fear' and 'Obnoxious' in 1990) they went their seperate ways.
But it was fun while it lasted. Fantastic music to skate to as well! Moshkinstein!

Kung Fu Fighting

Righto, first my apologies for the silence on this little corner of the internet, sometimes 'real' life has a habit of interfering with blogs and my aim of filling it with metal and retro gaming goodness.
So without further ado some more goodness will I write. (Im having a Yoda moment.) I have been playing a lot of Kung-Fu Master in the last few days and as soon as I saw the opening scene the memories came rushing back. I had it originally on the Spectrum and while not being best port of the game, I played it until the cassette wore out. *Games On Cassette Shocker*
Kung Fu Master is a beat 'em up game where you take control of Keiji Thomas (Welsh mother?) as he fights his way through a Chinese temple to rescue his girlfriend Sylvia who has been captured by Mr X. There are five side scrolling floors in all, chock full of dastardly enemies for Mr Thomas to chop suey.
Floor one of the temple contains Grippers, Dwarves and Knife Throwers, wile following levels introduce Tom Toms, poisonous moths, fire-breathing dragons, snakes and not forgetting those 'confetti' balls.
At the end of each level Thomas must face a boss who has different skills and deal him his ass on a plate before going up those wooden stairs. If you've ever seen Bruce Lee's Game of Death (and who hasn't?) then you'll be on familiar ground.


Thomas inspects the enemies foot

Now some are of the opinion that Kung Fu Master gets pretty boring real fast, and I concede that playing it for any longer than say half hour it probably would get rather tedious, but for a quick ten minute blast of arcade fun I cannot fault it. Sure your karate kid only has a few moves but personally I think it adds to the feeling of 'being' a Bruce Lee, king-of-all type fighter. Some guy walks up to Thomas and WHACK! One high kick and its nighty night for the hapless goon, and making you feel as hard as the proverbial nail. Heck in some ports of the game you can even perform a flying kick and literally knock the enemies heads off! Thats power.
Another *thumbs up* for me must go to the music too. I think its catchy as hell and I find myself humming it long after ive played (in fact im doing it now!) It seems to 'go' with the kung fu drama thats unfolding on screen, or perhaps im thinking too much *Grin*
Sadly I don't think many youngsters of today would be very impressed with Kung Fu Master, and you can't blame them when they have the likes of Soul Calibur and Tekken to numb their finger pads to, but its a shame because this title can be a joy in short blasts.