Blood and Iron Records

         Heavy Metal Label & Mailorder

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DR18: BLOWN FREE-Maximum Rock and Roll CD £13 (Texas Rock Dyamonds Series - Limited Edition of 300 Copies)

David Mathews started his career way back in the late 60s, in the Psychedelic scene. In 1978, he formed Blown Free, in Houston/TX. Moving on to a heavier, more direct approach, clashing the fuzzy acid guitar sound with high-energy riffing, brilliantly shown in "The Wizard" single, which became over the following decades, a holy grail for 70s & 80s Metal collectors. 

Presented on Digipak CD includes band history and band photo plus cover of the second single. Digitally remastered from the original tapes. Another Texas Rock Dyamond, limited strictly to 300 copies!


Blown Free were a Houston band active between 1978 and 1982. Their history is almost completely unknown, what is known is that the band’s leader and main songwriter, David Matthews, has a long history in music. He got his start in Wisconsin, playing in some underground psyche bands as early as 1968. When he moved to Houston he immediately put together his own band and the resultsof this can be heard on this disc, what recordings survived anyway. If there ever was a band that could be classified as “obscure, underground rock” this is surely one. The only known release on this band is a sole 45 released on Excelsior (the label owned by the late Bill Holford, SR. of ACA Studios in Houston). Mr. Holford would sometimes take a band under his wing and help them through business deals and publishing deals, which is what he did with Blown Free. After the dissolution of the band, and the break-up of Matthews’ marriage, David took off for greener pastures back in Wisconsin where he started his own label and put together another version of Blown Free, this time under the moniker of The Matthew Davis Project.

Tracks 1-4 Recorded at ACA Studios in Houston, TX, 1982.
Track 4 is an alternate mix of the version on the 7" single.
Tracks 5-11 are taken from a rehearsal tape recorded sometime in 1978.
Track 12 taken from the band’s only official release, the Excelsior Records
 7" single, recorded at ACA Studios and engineered by Bill Holford, SR.

File Under: 70's Hard Rock, Psychedelic Hard Rock. 

For fans of: Josefus, JPT Scare Band, First State Bank and Highway Robbery. 

OUT OF PRINT!!

DR17: AFTER DARK-Rock Diamonds: Live 1980 CD (LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!)

After Dark is no strange name to the NWOBHM aficionados. The band's debut EP from 1981 "Evil Woman" featured throughout the years in many Heavy Metal/Hard Rock collectors wantlists.

The names Mick Hare and Steve Annetts are no strangers too, for those who bought our Heartbreaker & Ironheart releases. 

Steve Annetts fronted Heartbreaker and Mick Hare was the guitar hero behind Ironheart. 

Confused? Before After Dark, they were called Ironheart. Formed in the late 70s by Mick Hare. Mick changed the name to After Dark after the quick dissolution of the band for musical differences with the other band members, invited Steve Annetts to sing (after Heartbreaker had finished) and other members to complete the line-up and after two 7"s and a few demos recorded, After Dark terminates in the mid'80s. At that point in time, Mick reactivates Ironheart with a different line up, releasing a 12"EP in 1988 then disbanding again in the early 90s. For a while, After Dark were active in the mid'90s when the band released the album "Masked by Midnight" (a collection of old songs re-recorded) and Ironheart resurfaced in the early 2000s for a few special gigs and a self-released issue of their complete 1988 recordings on CD. 

Now back to After Dark: Fast forward to the 2000's and after the demos + 7"s collection released with the same name of the 1995 album, its time for a completely unexpected surprise: An excellent quality live recording from 1980 on the famous Reading club Top Rank, where the band performs 7 tracks all never released in the studio except for "Johnny" who featured on their first EP. To add more excitement to this release, we included 4 studio tracks recorded in 2021, where the band pursues a classic Hard Rock style, rooted in the 80s, not interested in compromising, to sound modern. This release was carefully remastered, with a 16-page booklet, full of rare photos, lyrics and band history. Strictly limited to 300 copies!