Enter Sadmen: The Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Hall of Fame

So this episode is all about the albums you bought and lisened to and thought, fuck me that's a great album! Or possibly, fuck me, that's terrible! And then, 30 years later, you discovered your opinion had done a 180 degree turn. In this episode, Mark revisits he much maligned Black Sabbath experiment that saw Ian Gillan step up to the mic, Steve discovers that Ratt's Detonator tic

Yes, Sadfans, we're giving over our 75th episode to the unsung heroes of every band that ever set foot in a recording studio or onto a stage - those apparently indefatigable timekeepers without whom there would be little or no momentum. Stuck behind the kit at the back of the stage, these are the artisans of the hard rock and heavy metal engine room. Whether it's a sense of rhythm

Episode 74 sees the lads tackling the subject of inventions. If ever there was scope to push the envelope on a theme this, surely, is it. And so it proved, as Mark fishes out a set of what can only be described as 15th Century blueprints to qualify Dokken's 1981 debut, Breakin' The Chains. (Don't get antsy, America - we know the better known version of the album was released in Ame

The latest episode of the Enter Sadmen podcast finds the boys in more familiar territory as the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes serves up 'Death' as the theme for Episode 73.End of life certainly offers up a wealth of stuff to go at in the world of hard rock and heavy metal, which makes it even more bewildering that Steve and Rich didn't follow Mark's lead and go with some

Sometimes artists feel the need to escape the confines of the environment in which they made their name and give voice to the individuality of their art. Or some such bollocks. In any event, whether going solo or, in the case of Doro Pesch, being forced by a legal ruling to cease and desist using the name of the band which made her famous, rock and roll's highways and byways are cr

So, a question. How maqny albums can you name where the title track is worthy of its status? And of those, how many eclipse even that honour to be classed asd truly epic? That was also the question that was asked of our hardy rock and roll adventurers by the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes for this, the latest leg of the marathon attempt to review the greatest hard rock, h

And on we go to Episode 70, in which the lads work to a brief that shouldn't have been too challenging to meet, even for men of singular taste and discernment. Yes, in this run through another three albums from hard rock and heavy metal's golden era (that's 1970 to 1995, for the uninitiated) the boys were tasked by the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes to find examples of 'P

For their latest journey down hard rock and heavy metal's many-faceted highway, the Sadmen's destination was that utopian land of pianos, synthesisers, Moogs and mellotrons. Yes, friends, having done vocalists, singers and bass players, it was time to pay tribute to some of the ivory tinklers who help to make up rock's great tapestry. But if you thought we were going all Tony Banks

And so following the previous episode, which - according to Rich - featured Diet Cult and Diet Marillion, the Tico Torres Tombola of Topics and Themes rumbled ever on and this time spat out a topic which challenged the boys to find albums that had a 'white' theme. After they all studiously avoided the apparently 'obvious' Whitesnake, they each entered the Sadmen Sound Studio with m

And so to an episode in which Richard, Steve and Mark were tasked with marking important life moments. Mark and Steve opted for a broadly similar seam to mine - that of parenthood. Rich, on the other hand, eschewed the opportunity to reflect on bringing new life into the world, or discovering love for the first time. He spat in the face of death and pooh-poohed the notions of age,