Rockbrat Remembers: Tokyo’s Kosei-Nenkin Kaikan Hall

‘All you boys way over there, and all you boys way down the back……I wanna be where the boys are !’. These very words were uttered by a tough-rock n roll teenager named Joan Jett – on the Runaways 1977 album ‘Live In Japan’. I have worshipped the Runaways for nearly three decades and I [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: Impact Records (Canberra)

One of life’s great ironies is that many clichés are actually true. Familiarity breeds contempt. This does not just apply to people, but also to retail shops. Let me explain. You remember how you when you were growing up, there were certain store that you used to go in all the time – a milk [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: Harry Morgan (1915-2011)

Harry Morgan died yesterday, 7 December, 2011. If you are young, you may not even know who he was. Like the young radio announcer I heard on this morning’s news announcing his death, and that he was best known for his appearances on MASH. Was he? How would she know? What about the more than [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: The Bailey Brothers

The Bailey Brothers, like many other ‘rock journo personalities’ were around at the right time. In the late 80′s heavy metal was the biggest style of music in the world, and there was plenty of room for journos and other professional hangers on to sit on the fringe of the genre and access the world’s [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: My Time As A Loyal Australian KISS Fan – a foot soldier who went AWOL

If you are not a Kiss fan, you may wish to skip this lengthy post, but if you are, you’ll probably find many memories which you can relate to. It’s the story of how I became a Kiss fan – a relationship which lasted for many, many years – just on twenty five years in [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: The 1988 Guns n Roses Australian Tour

By December of 1988, Guns n Roses were a bona-fide rock n roll monster. They had pretty much toured most of the major North American and European cities, in support of a debut album and single (Sweet Child O’Mine) which were continuing to fly off the shelves. As a disciple of all things metal, I [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: The victims of 9/11 – Ten Years On

A flag is draped over a fire truck at ground zero as an unidentified firefighter walks by. What remains of the World Trade Center can be seen in the background. Image (c) http://www.ourcoloradonews.com/ This blog primarily has a rock n roll theme, yet with the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 upon us, I wanted to [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: Dirty Dan Buck and The Boyzz

In the early 1980’s, Mr. Rockbrat and I used to sit for hours spinning The Boyzz – Too Wild To Tame LP on the old ’74 Sanyo – loud. As fans of Australian boogie/hard rock bands such as Rose Tattoo and The Angels, Dirty Dan’s Boyzz were much to our liking. I could go on [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: Vicki Thomas and Burning Rome – L.A. hopefuls from 1982

Whilst rummaging through the old Rockbrat vaults, I spied some old copies of Mr. Rockbrat’s Kerrang! Magazines. With nothing better to do I recharged my coffee cup, tuned into Warren Ryan and David Morrow and began reading some fine old issues of the UK metal bible from 1982/83. I found this old article about BURNING [...]

Rockbrat Remembers: Rick Blaze 1959 – 2011

Rick Blaze (Richard Bloise) passed away on the evening on August 9, 2011. I am saddened by Rick’s passing. I knew he had been experiencing poor health for several years, but am still shocked by his death, at only 52 years of age. Rick Blaze had been active on the East Coast scene, in particular [...]