From the Attic: Rare Iron Maiden Canadian Mountie slipcase limited cd's Promo Poster

A new edition to my collection is this beautiful Canadian promo poster for the limited edition slipcase cd's that were available in Canada for a very short time period.  The poster features Derek Rigg's great painting of Eddie dressed in the uniform of the Canadian mounties.  The painting was first used on the cover of the Canadian heavy metal magazine, Metallion during the 80's.  

Of course, these slipcase cd's are now quite rare as the mounties were apparently not happy about the unauthorized use of their trademarked image.  When they first came out, I was lazy grabbing them thinking they would be around for awhile, but just as fast as they appeared they were pretty much pulled off the shelves.  Luckily, I managed to get the one below because of a friend who bought two. 

The limited reissue cd's came out in 1998 and at that time the mountie image was under the ownership of Disney.  Control of the trademarks had been given over to Disney when the RCMP hired the company to promote their image and protect them from being abused in the commercial marketplace.  Thus, if anyone wanted to use the image to put a Mountie on a T-shirt, a mug, or in this case cd's, they had to pay a licensing fee or be charged with stealing "intellectual property." It really is too bad they were not around a little longer as I would have liked to grab more.  Someone has also bootlegged up some shirts with this design, there may have been a few official ones made up for A&B Sound employees, as I seem to remember them wearing one around this time, in fact I got one off of someone claiming it to be such, but the price was cheap, they look great, so what the hell.  Whatever the case, the local market seems flooded with obvious fakes.  Thanks to my friend Jason for giving me this poster to add to my collection.  I think this one will be next in line for a nice frame job. 

The cover of the Canadian magazine, Metallion that featured the first appearance of Eddie in the Mountie uniform, 'tis a shame the moose and wintery scenery were left off the cd's.

From the Attic: March 27th, 1984, Metallica's first show in the UK at the Marquee + Hell on Earth tour poster

Even with the disappointing ticket sales still looming and the eventual cancellation of the UK Hell on Earth tour featuring The Rods, Exciter and Anthrax, Metallica of the days of yore were still able to squeeze one show in at the legendary Marquee and thus, play their first date on UK soil.  Here is the flyer for that show that happened 31 years ago today.  For those interested, this show is available on a number of bootlegs (both cd and LP) and there are also some great photos out there for this show.

The flyer for the show

While we are on the topic of the cancelled Hell on Earth tour dates it seems like a good time to also pull out this poster for the cancelled tour.  This Hell on Earth Tour poster is also one of the first commercially available "mall" posters of the band that could be found, thus there are a few different versions of this one.  The earliest ones seem to be the ones with the white border like mine.  I bought this poster in my local mall in either 1986 or 1987, but this particular copy is a replacement that I bought off of another collector as that one is long gone.  I do not recall if mine had a white border or not.  This is easily one of my favourite Metallica posters largely because of my own personal nostalgia associated with it, but also because it the design of this one is absolutely great.  I have wanted to frame this one for awhile, and will eventually get it done.  

A funny memory I have regarding this poster is that when we were kids one of my friends hooked up two lights that blinked in time to the music of his stereo and placed the two red bulbs in the demons eyes, it looked pretty wild to our young impressionable minds.  A fire hazard to be sure, but still pretty cool.