OK, here's what I'm slaving away at currently.

Obviously I've got my ongoing periodical work which is the following: Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles: editing the whole thing, writing many stories and reviews, at the mag's site, www.bravewords.com: editing the whole thing, writing many stories and reviews, www.hardradio.com: writing many stories and reviews, Lollipop: just reviews, Goldmine - reviews and interviews, contribution to Record Collector (mostly Diggin' For Gold section), Editor's Pick reviews for Guitar World, and finally an assortment of album/artist bios, the odd liner note, and other weird metal things that come up.

With respect to The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal, here's the story so far. The original book had 3,750 reviews. May sound like a lot, but that is about 10 to 12% of all the metal albums out there as of '97. The book came out in '97 and my files now contain maybe 5,800 reviews.

What we decided to do in terms of an update is this: split it into the three decades of metal thus far, and finish off with a box set. The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal - Volume 1: The Seventies came out in '03. Suffice to say it's sick. The rarities are sick. It's pretty much the final word for anybody who wants a survey of what was heavy or even slightly heavy from that decade. I flip through it and I can't believe I did it. It's like it's from another planet. The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal - Volume 2: The Eighties came out in '05. A mammoth undertaking. Again, rarities are everywhere.

The Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal - Volume 3: The Nineties is also now out, comprising about 3100 reviews. It's been a huge amount of work, and still there's a sense of defeat that I had to leave a lot of stuff out, mostly due to page count constraints. Oh well.

Anyway, the idea then was to put this into a box set. Not sure if that will include re-writes and additions to the original three books. This is a long ways off, but it's one of my sick goals, to see these three books tight and tidy in a box. Sorta like me in a coffin, which might accompany such an accomplishment. By the way, the box thing might work, because both the '70s and the '80s are very close to all gone. They MAY not get a reprint, so if you want one, act now. The '70s book is only available in a price-reduced store return capacity.

And the '00s and beyond, you ask? Well the plan was to pass the torch to impressive, productive, and egregiously younger than me, writer for Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, David Perri. But now it looks like it's going to comprise half his efforts and half mine, i.e. in and around 1500 reviews each. The publisher wants me to be part of it, and fact is, I've got about 1300 reviews hangin' around, in the can, for use in that damn thing. So that's the plan.

So yeah, second Ye Olde Metal just came out and I love it and I'm working on the third one every day right now. In the second one, Rory Fiorito has done some killer cover art, and there's a bevy of rare photos from Rich Galbraith. Killer stories in there. Priest book out now (gorgeous with over 500 photos and memorabilia shots!). On the way: a coffee table book of backstage pass artwork, that our mag's awesome designer Hugues Laflamme is working on right now.as a coffee table book of backstage pass artwork!

And in the back of my mind, I'd really like to climb that Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs and either get back to painting, or get into fiction. The regular flight path of guys I aspire to in this respect (well, essentially Nick Tosches, a god, essentially the meat puppet on which I base my future life - except for the drinking!), is a move into non-music related non-fiction first, but hell, I'm really feeling that I better skip that step. So yeah, if you are wandering around the top floor of Maslow's Old House Of Needs, and happen to spot me there, I'll either be painting or writing fiction. Oddly, I'm pretty much 50-50 on which way to go, although I think my heart's with the painting. By a country mile, I feel that my greatest work accomplishments ever, in any field, are my favourite ten or 15 paintings from what I've done over the years. I've sold a bunch of them - in fact now all of the ones I'd be willing to let go - and I think I can be a success at it. And the trade off of hours spent and pay received is the best I've ever had, and man, you want to see a driven individual... put me in that position and I'd be on fire.