Now that we’re four here at Slutty Fringe, we’ve decided to spread our wings and include the ocassional guest post from some of our favourite writers. First off the blocks is Justin Quirk, the award-winning editor of House magazine, and a regular contributor to Esquire and The Guardian where he writes about everything from gruesome murders to geopolitics and puppets.

And, frequently, heavy metal.

He also DJ’s with Alex Rayner and has been a regular feature at our nights over the years, generally playing obscure Level 42 b-sides. Now sit back, get comfortable and enjoy this heroically epic post on the changing face of Iron Maiden’s mascot.

EDDIE   – A SELECTIVE HISTORY OF METAL’S GREATEST MASCOT.

Unless you’re some sort of hermaphrodite, you’ll doubtless be aware that this Sunday sees Iron Maiden playing at Sonisphere at Knebworth. I followed the band around on the North American leg of their Somewhere Back In Time tour in 2008 and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was one of the greatest experiences of my journalistic career. After enjoying two hours of squaddie metal, involving walls of pyrotechnics, Steve Harris ‘machine-gunning’ the crowd with his bass guitar, an Anubis death mask, giant Union Jacks and a stage shaped like an Egyptian temple, it’s a little difficult to go back to watching some ‘hotly tipped indie band’, I can tell you.

Anyway, even if you’re one of that small minority of Soft Boy Walters who find it difficult to get with Maiden’s music, you could still feel the love for their career-long mascot, EDDIE THE HEAD. First realised as a pantomime blood-spewing head hovering above drummer Clive Burr onstage, Derek Riggs’ zombie creation has been through numerous guises. Here is the Slutty Fringe guide to his finest moments…

RUNNING FREE (1980)

A harrowing snapshot of Broken Britain; the kids, defiant, scrawl the names of their metal heroes (Scorpions, Priest and Zeppelin) on a backstreet wall, as well as giving love to The Hammers. But one unfortunate kid – possibly disturbed mid-graffiti – is threatened by Eddie. This early view of Eddie positions him almost as an emissary of punk (short spiked hair, NY punk clothing), sent to attack the forces of metal. His weapon of choice – a broken bottle – gives the scene a nice air of realism. The fact that he’s apparently chasing the unwitting kid towards another Eddie raises the horrifying possibility that… there’s more than one of them.

SANCTUARY (1980)

At first, this appears a nakedly political assassination. But on closer inspection, what’s sealed Thatcher’s fate isn’t her appeals to xenophobia or championing of free market economics. No – Eddie has caught her ripping down a flyposter for Maiden. Clearly, his sole allegiance is to the band; this raises the possibility that the kid on the front of Running Free sealed his fate by tagging the wall with the names of other metal bands. Dissent will not be tolerated by our zombie pal.

WOMEN IN UNIFORM (1980)

Fired up on his bloodlust, Eddie’s gone out on the town and scored a brace of ‘birds’. Interestingly, they’re a couple of square types – one appears to be a nurse – clearly keen for a walk on the zombie-metal wildside. But tragedy awaits; Thatcher’s reanimated corpse lies in wait in paramilitary garb, poised to deliver a lethal, retributive headshot to Eddie.

KILLERS (1981)

The sickly, washed out tones of the Killers album cover make this one of Riggs’ finest early works. Eddie’s hair is getting longer at this point (almost back-combed into an early hair-metal style) and the switch from broken bottles and knives to axes hints at a more theatrical, macabre element creeping in. The white shirt cuffed-hands of the dying victim grasp desperately at Eddie’s shirt, but to no avail. The message is clear – stay off the streets, sqaures.

THE FLIGHT OF ICARUS (1983)

Just two years later and Eddie has taken a quantum leap; gone are the grimy, realist portraits of Britain’s streets. Eddie now inhabits an epic landscape in which he – not the sun – is responsible for the melting death of Icarus. In the legend, Icarus fell into the sea – here, just for good measure, Eddie has taken the precaution of torching Crete with a flamethrower, thus ensuring that Icarus’ landing is even less pleasant.

PIECE OF MIND (1983)

We find Eddie, trapped in an asylum. Lobotomised, bound, straitjacketed. The ragged state of his clothes suggests that he’s been there for some time. Yet the blazing light in his eyes suggests that he is not yet defeated. As Foucault said: ‘People become anxious about madness, about crime, about themselves…about truth.’ He might also have added ‘time travelling, shape shifting zombies from the NWOBHM’ if he was any kind of real intellectual.

TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT (1984)

Sprung from his cell, Eddie enjoys a relaxing smoke in the post-apocalyptic ruins of the UN headquarters. Did Eddie nuke the place himself? Or is he just the only double hard bastard who’s survived the blast? He’s not saying – but we can safely assume that he’s got no love for supranational legislative bodies.

ACES HIGH (1984)

Back into action for the cover of Maiden’s WW2 dogfighting epic. Riddled with bullets, grimacing with concentration and wearing leather flying gloves (do zombies feel the cold?), Eddie recreates Britain’s finest hour. Worryingly, he appears to be flying perpendicular to the ground.

POWERSLAVE (1984)

A return to the grand classical themes of ‘Icarus’ as Eddie is immortalised in sandstone as the sphinx. Egyptologists are generally united in agreement that this temple – zombie faced, with a door under the bollocks and a glowing pyramid on the roof – absolutely shits all over the real ones in Egypt.

SOMEWHERE IN TIME (1986)

A futuristic leap occurs here, with yellow digital fonts, radioactive underpants and futuristic stun guns mirroring an album that was heavy with Adrian Smith’s synthesised guitar sounds. Eddie has by this point been physically and mechanically rebuilt to the point where his very zombie status is called into question. He has wasted one clown (bottom right) who was perhaps just starting to peel down the Iron Maiden poster, in an echo of his original attack on Thatcher.

FEAR OF THE DARK (1992)

Eddie’s zombie status is fully reaffirmed here, with the addition of absolutely massive great hands and a haircut made of twigs. Grunge is now in full world domination mode; Eddie sits, waiting for Mudhoney or some other unsuspecting Seattle dupes to walk under his tree. At which point he will descend to rip out their throats.