Rick Brindle

If the firing squad in question are utterly inept, then yes. It has happened at least once that I know about. In 1976, there was a civil war in Angola. The FNLA faction recruited British and American mercenaries. 13 were captured by the victorious MPLA faction and put on trial. Four were sentenced to death by firing squad. Of the four pictured, Andy McKenzie died straight away. Costas ‘Colonel Callan’ Georgiu fell to the ground and lay immobile with his eyes open for several minutes before dying. Daniel Gerhart was hit in the upper chest and screamed out in pain for some time before being shot again. So none of those really survived. John ‘Brummie’ Barker appeared to die straight away. He was shot and hit the ground, covered in blood. Then, as the bodies were being carried onto the truck in stretchers, he sat bolt upright and asked what had happened, at which point, he was then shot, dead this time. What probably happened was that he fainted as the shots rang out and was covered in the...

Cold Steel on the Rocks,  the first book in the Cold Steel trilogy, is free to download from Amazon for a short time. Get your free copy now! When the pirate Blackbeard buried his treasure, he could never have imagined that it would fall to the heavy metal band, Cold Steel, to come looking for it.Cold Steel, high-octane British rockers who came close to legendary status, until the release of their fourth album, when their excesses send them spiralling into terminal decline.Struggling small-time band manager Johnny Faslane, in the right place at the right time, lands the dream job of managing Cold Steel, and then has the seemingly impossible mission of turning the band around.Cold Steel’s singer, Maxwell Diabolo, claims to have a treasure map that he thinks will lead him to Blackbeard’s lost riches. With the band bent on a terrifying path of self-destruction, Johnny wonders if they will even complete the tour, much less get to the Caribbean to embark on a treasure hunt. Against all ...

  Motley Crue's  Nikki Sixx was allegedly replaced by a doppelganger called Matthew Trippe. Trippe claimed that he replaced Nikki Sixx in 1983 after he ended up in hospital. He made his claims from 1988 to 1993, then disappeared. It made for a pretty big story in Kerrang! if I remember rightly. There’s the old chestnut about Ozzy biting the head off a bat. During the Diary of a Madman tour, part of the show involved offal being thrown over the crowd, so there were lots of this strewn around the stage. Ozzy thought the bat was either part of the offal or a plastic one, and bit the head off. Ozzy later said the bat was alive and bit his tongue, leading to the double O needing a rabies shot. Judas Priest’s music played backwards Judas Priest’s music was allegedly the cause for two of their fans killing themselves. Weirdly, the accusation was that if the record was played backwards, it would then say ‘do it.’ The was taken to court, and proved to be bollocks. These stories were al...

When I served in the RAF Regiment, I lived in the barrack block and ate at the Airmens’ Mess. It may well be different now, but back then, you paid your food and accommodation charges for the month, automatically taken out of your salary on pay day. That gave you a roof over your head and all the food you could eat. Literally, all the food you could eat. I mean, you had to wait until the Mess was open, but when it was, line up and knock yourself out. You were actually encouraged to fill your face as well. When I was on Basics, I remember being told that it was a chargeable offence to leave the Mess hungry. I for one, took that advice at its word. It's Not For Everyone Cold Steel on the Rocks We Are Cold Steel Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard