Tom Morello is 49 years old today. Well done, Tom! Please stop playing as The Nightwatchman and get back together with Zack and the boys to make a new Rage Against The Machine album before it’s too late, yeah?

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58 years ago today, Nathan Roth and Sibyl Roth celebrated the birth of their son, David. The young David would, in time, grow up to be one of the most important frontmen in American rock history. Okay, so the guitarist in his band is a more important figure in the overall history of rock, but Roth’s showmanship can’t be underestimated when it comes to the reasons how and why Van Halen became one of the biggest bands in the world during the 1980s. Anyway, it’s not his birthday today.

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Philip Hansen Anselmo, frontman of Down, former frontman of Pantera and Superjoint Ritual, and member of more side-projects and various guest-spots than we could concisely mention, is 44 years old today. And since Anselmo has spent more than half his life fronting some of the most influential metal bands of the last quarter-century, the least we could do to mark his birthday is to post a video of one of those bands, right?

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On 14 April 1980, Iron Maiden released their self-titled debut album. It was an album that marked the start of a career that would go on to change – and in some ways define – the very firmament of what we call heavy metal. Since it’s now 14 April 2012, we’re going to use this handy-if-irrelevant anniversary as an excuse to go back and watch the band playing a single from the album on the now-departed BBC institution that was Top Of The Pops.

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Ten years ago today, it is generally believed that Layne Staley, frontman with Alice In Chains, died as a result of injecting himself with a mixture of heroin and cocaine. He was juts 34 years old when he died. While Alice In Chains would later reform almost a decade later, it is their early albums with Staley on vocals that placed the band into the hearts of fans around the world. And it’s with one of Staley’s last ever recordings with the band that we’re choosing to remember him by on this, the anniversary of his death.

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As far as we’re aware, March 10 (that’s the day we’re publishing this, for anyone who’s late to this particular party) isn’t a particularly important date in the calendar for any of the four members of Slayer. It isn’t any of their birthdays. It isn’t the anniversary of the release of any of their records. As far as we’re aware, it isn’t the date of their wedding anniversaries, or their children’s birthdays, or the anniversary of the first time Kerry King realised that it’s better to shave your head entirely once you start going bald, rather than suffer through the ignominy of trying to maintain the long-hair look once male pattern baldness takes hold.

It is, however, the birthday of producer Rick Rubin, arguably Slayer’s most influential (and in their early days, most frequent) studio collaborator. Which from our perspective makes it the perfect opportunity* to look back at the video to one of Slayer’s more overlooked numbers.

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32 years ago today, Bon Scott, frontman with rock legends AC/DC performed his final ever concert – somewhat sinisterly, the final show of the band’s Highway To Hell tour. Just over three weeks later, on 19 February 1980, Scott would be found dead after suffocating on his own vomit, following a night of drinking at The Music Machine (a club/venue that went on to become The Camden Palace, and is now KOKO).

With today being the anniversary of Scott’s final show, we’re revisiting the final ever live video shot of AC/DC before his tragic death.

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30 years ago today, on 20 January 1982, an anonymous fan of Ozzy Osbourne took a live bat to a concert of the then-ex-Black Sabbath frontman in Iowa, Des Moines. He/She threw it onstage, and the rest, as they say, is history. While (thankfully) no footage of Osbourne’s unwitting chiropteracide, it does give us a good excuse to go revisit the album he was promoting on that tour – 1981’s Diary Of A Madman

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Saxon! It’s a band name that only a metal band could use! Saxon! They’ve used probably the laziest album cover art of any release in 2011! Saxon! They’re about to start their UK tour! Saxon! The video we’re revisiting today is so old that Biff Byford’s hair hadn’t gone grey yet.

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When Cathedral announced back in May that they were going to play their final ever live show on 03 December 2011 at the London Kentish Town Forum, a little part of us crossed its fingers and hoped that something would come along and change Lee Dorian and co.’s minds. With the gig now a mere handful of days away, we’ve had to accept that it’s actually happening. It’s little solace, but at least it gives us an excuse to post a video that’s stuffed to to the britches with Satanic orgies and some truly spaced-out dancing from Lee Dorian.

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