Eduardo Rivadavia (aka Ed Rivadavia) was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and by his late teens had already toured the world (and elsewhere), learning four languages on three continents. Having also accepted the holy gospel of rock & roll as his lord and savior, Eduardo became infatuated with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and all things heavy, crude, and obnoxious while living in Milan, Italy, during the mid-1980s. At this time, he also made his journalistic debut as sole writer, editor, publisher, and, some would claim, reader of his high school's heavy metal fanzine, earning the scorn of jocks and nerds alike, but uniting the small hardcore music-loving contingent into a frenzied mob that spent countless hours exchanging tapes, talking shop, and getting beat up at concerts. Upon returning home to Brazil, Eduardo resumed a semi-normal existence, sporadically contributing music articles to local papers and magazines while earning his business degree. Finally, after years of obsessive musical fandom and at peace with his distinct lack of musical talent, Eduardo decided the time had come to infiltrate the music industry by the fire escape. He quit his boring corporate job, relocated to America, earned his master's degree while suffering the iniquities of interning for free (anything for rock & roll!), and eventually began working for various record labels, accumulating mountains of records and (seemingly) useless rock trivia in the process. This eventually led him back to writing, and he has regularly contributed articles to multiple websites since 1999, working with many different rock genres but specializing, as always, in his personal hobby: hard rock and heavy metal. To quote from the insightful 'This Is Spinal Tap': "People should be jealous of me...I'm jealous of me...." Eduardo currently resides in Austin, TX, with his wife, two daughters, and far more records, CDs and MP3s than he'll ever have time to listen to.
Forty years ago today, '60s flower-power icons Jefferson Airplane were denied permission to perform a free concert in their hometown of San Francisco. The slight cut much deeper than your average bummer in the summer; it was a huge insult to the band, which had been instrumental in making the City by the Bay an integral part of the counterculture, thanks to hit songs like 'White Rabbit' and 'Somebody to Love.'
‘Sultans of Swing’ was both the first single from Dire Straits’ debut album and a revealing first-person account of the average working band’s hardscrabble, often thankless existence playing British pubs during the '70s. It’s only fitting, therefore, that Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler was inspired to write the tune in a pub, pint in hand, whilst watching just one such band calling themselves – you guessed it – the Sultans of Swing.
When Judas Priest released their 11th album, ‘Ram It Down,’ 25 years ago today, few people outside of the band’s inner circle had an inkling that the storied British heavy-metal institution was standing at a crossroads.
Arguably, no heavy metal singer wielded greater influence over the length and breadth of heavy metal’s long history than the sorely missed Ronnie James Dio. Now, now, don't get worked up! Simple math tells us this is so, by
As of today (May 16, 2013), it's been thirty years since Iron Maiden’s lovable mascot, Eddie, lost his mind (not to mention his grizzled mane) and heavy metal fans across the globe lost theirs over one of the most beloved heavy metal albums of all time -- 1983’s 'Piece of Mind.'
Above all else, Billy Squier’s career is a story of perseverance and ultimately beating the odds to achieve stardom. Like other classic rock solo artists such as Bob Seger, Warren Zevon and Eddie M
On May 11, 1973, Wishbone Ash’s steadily accelerating career momentum took a turn for the worse with the release of the fan-and-critic-polarizing ‘Wishbone Four.’
This pictorial list of the Top 10 Gatefold Album Sleeves shows just what we lost when we let CDs take over for vinyl albums back in the '80s.
It was on May 7, 1998 that stadium rockers Journey earned a guaranteed episode of VH1's then ultra-popular 'Behind the Music' series when singer Steve Perry broke ranks with the band for a second time.
