Andy McDonald

From Vice.com.

With tears and sold-out arenas as Mötley Crüe played their contractual final shows at the end of last year, and excited speculation and controversy as the definitive members of Guns N’ Roses spend the summer on a reunion tour, it’s fair to say that there’s a palpable resurgence of interest in ’80s-style heavy metal. Couple those headlines with the facts that satirical glamsters Steel Panther are headlining London’s Wembley Arena this autumn and that Reckless Love are helping to turn Helsinki into the new Sunset Strip, and it becomes increasingly apparent that people have a rekindled affinity with big hair and big riffs. Continue reading “How Sonic the Hedgehog Kept Glam Rock Alive In The Grunge Years” »

A collection of videos I made for BBC The Social.

I make videos for BBC The Social about the history and cultural influence of video games, which includes writing the scripts and editing the footage. You can find them embedded below in this post, as well as on the BBC website and YouTube. Continue reading “BBC The Social Videos” »

From BBC The Social.

A selection of music reviews from various publications for which I’ve written through the years. This post is subject to being updated. Continue reading “Selected Music Reviews” »

From Official Nintendo Magazine.

What? It’s Evolving!

2003 was a pivotal time for Pokémon, in more ways than one. Already well on the way to its current standing as Nintendo’s second-biggest franchise after Mario, it found its mainstream popularity beginning to wane as its main demographic became teenagers and gradually began to surrender the series to the ages. It would eventually regain popularity, partially in a haze of sepia-toned, 8-bit nostalgia, but a current generation growing up with modern versions, while perhaps aware of its historic significance, will never experience the bona fide phenomenon that was Pokémon in the late 1990s. Continue reading “Pokémon OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire Preview” »

From Playboy.com

It was a cold, dark, stormy November night in the heart of the city, days after Halloween. My friend and I were taking shelter at my place, freezing rain beating down on the windowpanes and tree branches casting spidery shadows across the living room, the wind howling like a lone wolf. A late-night beer and Wii U session proved a reliable distraction from the weather, as did one of our chats about the gaming industry. Nothing heavy or particularly insightful – usually just discussing how the last boss in EarthBound is actually a foetus or seeing who can do the best impression of the ubiquitous merchant from Resident Evil 4. That’s about as cultured as we get.

Continue reading “Maiden of Black Water Will Connect You With Japan’s Morbid Past” »

From Ultraje magazine, ahead of Ghost’s Lisbon show.

“No. No, no, no, no, no. Fuck no. That would have been delusional.”
These are the words of Ghost guitarist A Nameless Ghoul when asked if he would ever have expected the band’s unbridled success, which has seen them pick up numerous awards, enter countless top ten lists and be chosen for a tour with a little-known band called Iron Maiden this summer. It’s fair to say the last few years have been good to the Swedes. The most imminent matter, however, is a European headlining tour that will see them take on Lisbon’s MEO Arena – a modest upgrade from the Paradise Garage gig of two years ago, to say the least. Continue reading “Ghost: “Our Music Provokes People”” »

From Vice.com.

As a child, video games were my main pastime. There were few things that my younger nerd enjoyed more than a journey into a virtual world that was as vivid as my imagination would come to be. I wasn’t lonely; I had many friends with whom I played at school and occasionally in the street, but, for the most part, the non-educational hours of the day were me time with my consoles.

For some reason, however, that had to involve deflecting the nagging of family, whose constant urging me to play outside suggested that our house stood in the middle of fucking Disney World. Sonic didn’t pester me like that. The only way he would ever judge me was tapping his foot impatiently while I stopped playing to get more juice. All Mario ever had to say was “wa-hoo!” as we leapt into another adventure, never, “It’s a lovely day outside, get off the computer.” They understood me. Continue reading “Something In The Water – My Ecco Nightmare” »

From Vice.com.

I remember going to my local shopping centre in 1997. There was a stall hosted by a popular soft drink brand that featured a circle of televisions, all of which were displaying Mario’s first proper 3D outing on the Nintendo 64, the gaming giant’s new powerhouse machine. They offered passers-by a shot at the new adventure from the plump plumber. Players could hit a button on the pop-up wall whenever they found a Power Star within the game’s labyrinthine castle hub, for which they would be rewarded with a cup of said beverage. Looking back, it might have secretly been a horrific Pavlovian conditioning experiment examining the influence of electronic stimulation and positive reinforcement on the mindsets of modern youth, but most likely it was a celebration of Super Mario 64, one of the most revolutionary games of all time. Continue reading “Another Castle – Why Super Mario 64 Still Matters 20 Years After Its Release” »

As soon as I heard the news from a friend – and after a quick confirmation on Google – my first instinct was to reach for the bottle of Jack Daniel’s I’d received for Christmas and spin a few Motörhead videos on YouTube. I’d like to think Lemmy would smile at the fact that his favourite Tennessee tipple and loud music were the legacy he left on me, and that he’s enjoying the same thing now, wherever he might be.

Honestly, though, what’s left to talk about? In a way, it’s comforting that there won’t be much said about Lemmy in death that wasn’t while he was alive. He was a long-since celebrated embodiment of heavy metal’s excessive, supersonic rebellion and nihilistic cool, a sense of freedom that anyone who’s ever grown their hair unsociably long or worn a black band t-shirt will have felt. The seminal screaming of ‘Killed By Death’ scared the shit out of me as a child, and Lemmy’s satanic laugh in the song’s bridge still gave me something of a chill while doing some last-minute shopping with my headphones in on Christmas Eve last week. After seeing them for the first time at 15 years old, I lay awake in bed, sweating and wondering if my hearing would ever be the same again. It felt fucking great. Continue reading “A Good-and-Loud-Bye to Lemmy” »

From Terrorizer.

These days, former Iced Earth singer Matt Barlow is more likely to look down at the bloodied bodies of murder victims than he is a sea of raised hands and smiling faces. Such is the life of one who would trade music for a career in law enforcement.
‘In a band, there have always been spots on the road that have been weird, but you really can’t compare them to what I see now.’ the rockstar-cum-policeman reflects. ‘As a musician, I’ve never encountered somebody who has met their demise in a violent nature, so it’s a very different thing to get used to.’ Continue reading “Ashes Of Ares: The Thin Blue Line” »

Academic essay analysing Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula and its film adaptations.

First sinking his teeth into the concept of the novel in Scotland’s own Cruden Bay, Stoker horrified the Victorian people with Dracula, some of whom went as far as to call it ‘the most blood-curdling novel of the paralysed century.’ When it comes to the theory behind the adaptation of novels into films, studies have been tainted by a ‘narrow one-sidedness that assumes [that such films] are merely cheap imitations’ but, while there has never been a firm explanation as to the reason(s) for adaptation, McFarlane surmises that the answer moves between poles of ‘crass commercialism’ and ‘high-minded respect for literary works.’ Continue reading “Dracula: An Adaptation Study” »

From Terrorizer.

‘It’s amazing to be here!’ bellows Mark Osegueda, while his Death Angel bandmates smile at the Bloodstock Open Air festival crowd before them. It’s a sentiment several acts will repeat this weekend and at the rest of the summer’s events but, for some, it will be rehearsed, disingenuous and, in places, untrue. As the words come from this ebullient frontman, however, it’s hard not to take them seriously, even more so when he’s already expressed such positivity to Terrorizer the night before. It’s also clear that he means ‘here’ in more ways than one. Continue reading “Death Angel: Divide Then Conquer” »