We’ve come a LOOOOOONG way baby…and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the primitive advertising methods of “THE coolest metal mag in the known universe” – it must be true, Slash said so! Actually, I really can’t dispute that – unlike the “Nikki Sixx sneezed, film at eleven” boredom of Circus and Hit Parader, RIP really did put together a hodgepodge of metal-related weirdness that included a fashion section, frequently hilarious “best road story”-type trivia, and, at least during the first year, tried to include at least one obscure band before it all got overwhelmed with the same-old, same-old coverage of Dokken and Def Leppard.

Still, though. Would you be convinced that it’s really all that great from the fast-talking announcer and the P.O. Box? It’s probably just my post-’net jaded eyes, because it’s not like this sort of thing popped up on the tube very frequently back then. “OMG!! Metal on TV!! Hells yeah!!”

I mean, all Axl Rose had to do was show up and say, “Don’t be a butthead” and apparently that did the trick. (and that’s a damm fine shot of him in that bathtub.)