Bev Davies we have a picture here that you took of Duran Duran, when they weren't as popular?
Yeah, this is from The Commodore and they weren't a really huge band at that time, July 27, 1982. They were playing the same night as some other groups were playing so I went down to the soundcheck in the afternoon and took some photographs and noticed that they were drawing. Some of them had this tape out and they were measuring out, very carefully, this strange shape on the floor of The Commodore Ballroom in masking tape. So I couldn't resist. After a while I went over and said "What is that that you're doing there?" And they had just that day been made the opening act for Blondie on the North American tour and that was the amount of stage that they were going to be allowed to use for all of their equipment and their whole show.

And that same night another band was playing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, right Bev Davies?
Yeah, Girlschool. We're looking at a picture of Girlschool now. I particularly like, just the concept of them being a heavy metal all-women's band. I really like their music, um...

They had their mic placed the same way that Lemmy had his mic?
Yeah, evidently the lead singer of Girlschool was Lemmy's girlfriend. She used the microphone in the same position he did, where it sort of hung down from the ceiling except there's no ceiling in The Coliseum. So I was photographing them backstage in this photograph, and mentioned that I'd been down to the Duran Duran in the afternoon and they said "Duran Duran, they're in town?!" And they jumped in some car and headed down there and evidently partied most of the night away in Vancouver with Duran Duran.

Who would've thought, Duran Duran vs. Girlschool?
I know, I know but you know they're both from England, both in Vancouver, all of them.

Right now, another British band and, of course, you didn't only take pictures of British bands did you Bev Davies?
No, I took a lot of pictures of Vancouver bands and a lot of pictures of other bands.

And this particular picture I just totally love. It's a very early Iron Maiden pic and it's a picture of a miniature Eddie. I love it. Please explain this Bev Davies.
Well, it seemed to be every time that I saw Iron Maiden, Eddie got larger and larger.

Eddie is their mascot.
Yeah, Eddie. So probably the last time I saw them, they would have a huge Eddie. But this is just a guy onstage with an Eddie mask. So it seems to me that this is a really early Iron Maiden one, at least with Bruce Dickinson singing. I never saw them before he was the singer.

Yes, I guess I meant this is a low budget Eddie. Like early, low budget, Bruce Dickinson-era Iron Maiden.
Yeah, I think they were all a little bit low budget at that time. But they did get larger and larger and larger and everyone waited to see how big Eddie was going to get. I told you something today that you didn't know about Bruce Dickinson.

Yes, please, tell me about that.
Yeah I read in the paper that he's a pilot for an airline that flies from England to North Africa on tours and he takes people on their two week vacation or whatever. He's just a pilot and he comes on the air and says, "I'd like to welcome you aboard. I'm your pilot Bruce Dickinson" and then evidently quite often people wander up and say, "Is that the Bruce Dickinson that used to sing for Iron Maiden and he's in that band?" And he is.

Here's another great rock 'n' roll band of the metal persuasion. Blackie Lawless of WASP.
Yeah, this is amazing. He's standing there in a lot of leather and things hanging off of him. But I think the important thing in this picture is that he was drinking blood out of a skull on the stage.

And you can see the blood dripping down his chin there, and you can also look down and see what I think are buttless chaps.
I can't imagine that I would have missed photographing the buttless chaps but it does look like that.

And he's drinking the blood from a skull.
Yeah, and it's one of those times that black and white, you just have to imagine what it would look like in full colour.

Right over here Bev Davies, we have the complete opposite of Blackie Lawless of WASP. We have Joe Strummer at where, the US festival?
In San Bernardino, yes. It's at a backstage press conference that they called, I can't exactly remember why they called it. They were the headlining band on the first night of the US festival and as you can see not all of them are involved in talking to the media but there are a lot of media out there.

And that was one hell of a gig wasn't it? There was like Van Halen, there was Motley Crue and Bev Davies was there right?
Yes I was, I seem to have a pass that said 'Ben Davis' from the Georgia Starlight. Now I figured it was just a typo, and it didn't get me everywhere that I thought I should be able to go. It wasn't until right near the end that someone said "I know the Georgia Starlight," and it evidently was some newspaper in Georgia. Some poor sap probably had a "Bev Davies Georgia Straight" pass on him, and he was being pushed into backstage areas and he didn't know why he was there to take photographs. I don't know. Or maybe it was just a typo error that somebody printed wrong on the pass.