The following Fall I travelled to college and was fortunate to be in the same dorm as a couple of metal fanatics from the Seattle area who turned me on to a whole new world of British bands — Angelwitch, Holocaust, Tank, Blitzkrieg and so many others. The band that really stuck in my head though was Raven with their wild, unbridled athletic rock, crazy screams, tremelo madness, etc. I’ll never forget the joy of bringing that music back to my old high school chums on my first holiday break, dropping the needle down on side 1 of “Rock Until You Drop” and watching how floored they were by the opening combo of “Hard Ride”/”Hell Patrol”.

Nice ‘stache on Wacko in the picture on the back of this 7″ by the way. Reminds me of recently when one of my old friends and I were in the car listening to music, getting ready to go to a concert. The subject of old bands came up and he pondered whatever happened to Rob Hunter. He assumed that too many cymbal blows to the head sans hockey helmet had eventually taken its toll and that he was broken down and desolate on the streets somewhere. Imagine his surprise when I relayed that Wacko was actually a fairly well known producer and had won a Grammy award!

Anyway, thanks again for posting all this great music. I managed to see Raven one time in concert (down in Portland during the summer of ’84 with Anthrax opening). They passed through the Northwest again last year on their 35th anniversary tour, but unfortunately I was not able to make the trip to Seattle to see them again.