Iron Maiden’s mascott, Eddie has had a long and varied career, fighter pilot, future assassin, pyramid, tank driver, killer of Margaret Thatcher… And now he’s a Dark Lord Of The Sith. I’m not quite sure if the above image could be any more dorky. It’s a perfect storm of nerdy passions. Quite brilliant.

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Having a vast and universally well know back catalogue has led to Maiden being covered by some of the metal elite. And a man who makes fart noises with his hands. The hero of the above video is Gerry Phillips, and he has been making music with his hands for 38 years.

Impressive.

Did Iron Maiden think when they wrote this song that one day a man in a jumper would play it with handfart noises on the internet? I like to think – Yes.

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It’s Iron Maiden week here at ES, and while the guys have many things to recommend them, fashion sense is not one of them, a trait they sadly seem happy to pass on to their fans. A quick look around the net found the items above on open sale! Now I know for a fact there are literally millions of fans out there, and the large percentage of them that are teenage boys from rural communities are probably thinkin “wow-those are awesome!”.

Sorry guys, but fingerless gloves will never be the way to a woman’s heart (let alone her pants), buy these instead.

This has been a public service announcement.

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As the Spectre likes nothing better than to open a bottle of rum and stick on ‘Somewhere In Time’ really, really fucking loud at 3am, we thought it was high time we celebrated the sheer genius that has given us..well, an awful lot of songs about airborne dogfights and swordfighting, and given the gift of confidence in spandex to 40 year old men everywhere.

So it is, in honour of their first cinema release (and Janick Gers being in the pub the other night and reminding me to do this), Electric Spectre proudly presents our very first themed event: IRON MAIDEN WEEK!

Each day this week we’ll give you a bunch of videos, facts, figures and general crap on the best band ever – and thanks to the nice people at EMI Music, maybe even the chance to win a few things too – Check the site daily for updates, and follow us on twitter to increase your chances.

LINK (official site)

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In my spare time, I have often thought about powering my Marshall stack with a hydrogen bomb, but it seems I’ve been beaten to it by Andrew Murray, a physicist at the University of Manchester, UK., who has found a way to trap atoms using his old amps! Now, while this has obvious applications for stadium rock pyrotechnics shows, it may also help in the development of quantum computers. Previously scientists used a complex system of lasers and force fields (much like an Iron Maiden concert) in order to trap super-cooled atoms so they can be examined – very useful if you’re into your physics, but hard to do, and not terribly accurate. The solution? Use an old amp speaker instead! According to Murray:

“The alternating [magnetic] field can be used to trap atoms as long as we ensure that the laser beams change polarisation along with it,” says Murray. “We can switch the fields off about 300 to 500 times faster [than before].” That’s fast enough to ensure that the atoms have not had time to escape the trap when they are zapped with an electron beam.

Basically producing an instant, accurate atom-trap! Good news for physicists, and if can be adapted to hold punters still, then great news the next time I play a gig and the audience tries to leave!

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