AC/DC’s ‘Iron Man 2′ Soundtrack Tops U.K. Chart. Its not unusual for “Best of” compilations to top charts as far as I can recall but with not a single new track on this you really have to ask who the hell is buying it? MetalSucks did just that last week.

State’s Phil Udell has a go at reviewing said “Best of” compilation.

Cork’s Altar of Plagues and Belfast’s Hexxed (now well and truly back in business – but more about that later) will play Dublin’s Twisted Pepper on Saturday June 12th 2010. That should be a pretty impressive show.

Dead Man’s Headphones has a review of Neifenbach’s ‘Reason Will Falter’ cd.

Via Blabbermouth: Primordial’s Alan Averill will hit the festival circuit this summer with the Bathory tribute Twilight of the Gods. Check out this interview conducted by Norway’s Imhotep.

I thought this was pretty cool. Via Metalsucks, its a limited edition screenprint called ‘Corpsepaint Creatures’ by UK artist and illustrator Bunny Bissoux.

Irish online metal radio station MetalHertz FM is back up and running. Go listen to it people!

Dublin’s Criminal Jammage plan on changing their name. So says their Myspace anyway. Not sure why…

Not metal but! Carlos Fucking Santana is coming to Dublin in September.

The entertainment section on RTE’s website gives a glowing review to Hellbent for Cooking – The Heavy Metal Cookbook. Only a matter of time before they review the new Rotting Christ album…. Not really!

If you missed it, here is Slayer on Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

Bat Kinane from Glyder has a blog.

Death metal fans take note; Dublin’s Warpath have posted two new tracks, Malevolent Reprisal and Point Blank Execution on their Myspace Page.

Ireland’s very own folk metal heavyweights Cruachan have uploaded a rough cut of an as yet unnamed new track to their Myspace page.

Some clips from the new Mael Mordha album Manannán.

Via Nialler9; Cloudeater are at number two in Road Records list of Irish artists they are really into right now.

Here’s the video for AC/DC’s rerelease of Highway to Hell as part of the soundtrack to the Iron Man 2 movie.

Via Blabbermouth. Its now every day you see Jim Carey and Slash jamming down your local pub.

Hasn’t been one of these in a while. How the fuck did you survive??!!??

So here goes;

Jonny interviews Airbourne before their show in Belfast tomorrow night. Check it out here

Objection says goodbye - Dead Man’s Headphones says hello.

In case you missed it, there will be no Slane this year and that means no AC/DC at Slane (there were rumours again this year).

Reports of Iron Maiden’s newly announced Dublin show appeared in all sorts of (mainstream) places. The Irish Times was however the one that stood out for me.

Mael Mordha’s new album Manannán gets a global release on May 14th next

Blabbermouth reported on Phil Lynott’s inclusion in RTE’s (rather abysmal) Ireland’s “Greatest” list.

And finally, not since Jani Lane was interviewed in a Dublin GAA jersey has something this important happened. Yes folks, the official ‘Republic of Ireland Football Jersey’ makes a small cameo in Megadeth’s new video - The Right To Go Insane. Go 2:05 mins in to see it.

On Easter Sunday last, myself and about 20 others made the journey from Dublin to Limerick for the Siege of Limerick All Dayer. What a great day it was; metal, craic and chips from Donkey Fords… Here are some photos:

The unholy pack Baker Place, Limerick on Easter Sunday

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“I met Mustaine in 2001….very nice guy, spent quite a bit of time with him actually.” For Ruin’s John Murphy hints at Megadeth’s reason for playing Cork this year. Photo © www.forruin.com

Having taken some time (ok, ages) to digest For Ruin’s rather excellent Last Light album, I thought that the band’s recent announcement of a UK tour with Belphegor, along with a slot supporting the mighty Bolt Thrower in Dublin, made it an opportune time for a chat with front man John Murphy. That and I wanted to try and rise him about Cork football…

You’ve just announced that For Ruin will be doing a short tour of the UK with Belphegor soon. Congratulations. What do you expect from that?

John: “Yes we’re happy with that announcement, its a while in the works. Fingers crossed that it’ll all go well now and that the shows we be well attended. We’d expect to find a few people familiar with our stuff but for the most part we’ll be playing to people that have never heard us before - we’ve only played the mainland UK once before this, so its fresh meat all round! There’s a few bands on the bills of these shows, we’re not concerned by where on the bill we play, its just a matter of getting there and doing it. I’ve always felt that a band should be able to play anywhere on a bill, and if they can only cut it as headliners then that says a lot…I love Camden, I used to live not far from it 12 or 13 years ago for a while, and I know the Underworld well from playing there in May 08 with Skyforger and from seeing many gigs there myself over the years. Dont know much about the other 3 venues, looking forward to finding out about the scenes in those areas!”
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"Aight biy!!" Mustaine heads for Cork

Old news for some, but as it’s not the kind of thing that happens every day, I thought it worthy of a mention. Yes, in yet another completely unexpected and pretty major turn up for the books, Cork’s metal faithful have found themselves with another one of thrash metal’s big four coming to Leeside. In the biggest Irish heavy metal news shocker (since the last one), Megadeth will play Cork this summer.

Just like Slayer in 2007, Dave and Co will hit the Marquee on June 14th. Tickets will set you back €39.50 and are available right now from the usual suspects.

Here’s hoping Aiken Promotions are enlightened enough to give this show the one support band that it’s completely crying out for - Gama Bomb. Do it!

Long lost Mourning Beloveth interview from 2008 finally appears

"Sometimes we were too drunk to play...." Mourning Beloveth's Darren Moore. Photo: Ryan Marron

Back in May of 2008 I did a little interview with Darren Moore of Mourning Beloveth for a forerunner to Paddy Metal. ‘A Disease for the Ages’ was just coming out and it was the band’s first album since the departure of Adrian Butler. Before I got to post the interview however, I decided the look, feel and name of the Blog was all wrong and I abandoned it. So the interview never appeared.

Given the recent announcement that Brian Delaney has left the band, I thought I’d resurrect the interview and post it on Paddy Metal, rather than tormenting Darren Moore again for an interview that might never see the light of day. As you’ll see, its not all that bad either.
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Legendry W.A.S.P. front man Blackie Lawless on stage in Dublin last month. Photo: Aled Thomas

I promised a few people I’d do a little gig report on the W.A.S.P. show in Dublin last month. That however was before my month went a little crazy with work and a few other things and it didn’t get done. Anyway, better late than never and my apologies to those waiting for it.

Put simply, if you missed this then you are probably still kicking yourself pretty hard. The buzz around this show has been quite immense with the term ‘gig of the year’ being bandied about the auld interweb quite a bit. While I can’t quite tag it that, it was indeed one hell of a show and one that will be talked about for some time to come.

W.A.S.P. have been here a number of times in recent years and the band’s last show, in the same venue, all be it by default (they had been booked to play Tripod but construction work didn’t finish on time) was pretty memorable too. The novelty of seeing a band of W.A.S.P.’s stature in such a small venue wasn’t lost on those who turned up that night despite the late rescheduling.

W.A.S.P.’s Irish Fans came out in force (and brought porn....) Photo: Aled Thomas

This time round the sell-out crowed wedged into the Button Factory were really up for it. The fact that it was a weekend night really added to the buzz for many in attendance, with a very busy bar evident throughout the night. Alas, I was to witness the entire show completely stone cold sober and that might be why I won’t go as far as calling it gig of the year. But it was certainly special. You can often call these occasions by the type people who show up and they really came out of the woodwork for W.A.S.P. with this one. There was a healthy mix of young, old (you know what I mean), Irish and foreign nationalities in attendance with plenty of members of some of the bigger Irish metal bands also knocking around.

The set-list impressed with the more recent material standing well beside the hits of old. Two songs from Dominator might otherwise have seemed a bit much, but gelled well in the set-list on this occasion. Blackie led the band in what was certainly the best performance I’ve seen from W.A.S.P over the past half a decade and even had a little bit of banter with the crowd while he was at it.

If I recall correctly (a month later) the set-list was along these lines:

On Your Knees
The Real Me
L.O.V.E. Machine
Crazy
Babylons Burning – New
Wild Child
Hellion/I Dont Need No Doctor/Scream Until You Like It
Arena of Pleasure
Chainsaw Charlie
The Idol
Take Me Up – New
I Wanna Be Somebody
Heavens Hung In Black
Blind In Texas

The Last Command: Blackie had the audience eating out of his hand in the Button Factory. They were certainly near enough.... Photo: Aled Thomas

Thanks to Aled Thomas for the photos.

The sad news of the untimely death of Paul ‘Skinny’ Kelly, bass player in Dublin based Death Metal/Hardcore outfit Coldwar, broke during the week. Hugely respected in both the metal and hardcore scenes and widely acknowledged as one of the nicest guys you could meet his shocking passing has drawn a flood of tributes on the band’s Myspace Page where his bandmates have also left the following tribute.

“Skinny passed away on tuesday. We are all in shock one of the nicest people you would ever meet. It was always a pleasure to be in a band with skinny .He put his bollox into music,
cheers skinny we had a blast, love yeah.”

I had the pleasure of dealing with Skinny when Coldwar played at D.O.D.’s night of Merry Darkness in the Voodoo Lounge in 2006 and like many others found him to be such a nice guy.

His funeral takes place at 2pm tomorrow at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.