Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

I agree with most of Ian's points regarding NWOBHM.

Never fashionable, it rarely featured in the pages of Melody Maker and the NME, had minimal airplay and almost never graced the TV. Even to this day, it's unlikely you'll see any NWOBHM retrospectives on BBC4.

Which is a pity, because in its day, NWOBHM was pretty big and spawned a huge indie scene in its own right - small labels, fanzines, subculture etc. Indeed, one of the big players in the UK music indutry in recent years - Sanctuary - was initially banked by Iron Maiden.

As usual, it's punk which dominates the way the media in particular represents that era, but I think some serious historical revisionism is overdue here - the way in which music was heard, and music culture in the late 70's/eary 80's in general - is, as far as I'm concerned, radically different from the way we seem to choose to remember it.