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In October 2002 Chris Price and I entered Nottingham’s hallowed and legendary music venue Rock City. We walked up the stairs to the main room where their in-house metal messiah was, as they used to say, ‘spinning’. (Rock music is, frankly, a piece of piss to DJ. Unlike the trance-trousered ilk of Van Dyk and Tiesto, whose silky-sonic segues must be faultlessly executed, the rock DJ must simply wait until one track ends and then bang in the next one before anyone has a chance to leave the dancefloor.) We ordered beers – plastic bottles, urgh – and surveyed the scene.

Then something rather odd happened. Hearing Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort’ heave from the speakers, Chris took a long swig of his warm Carlsberg, cleared the steps down to the dancefloor in a single bound, and without explanation began wildly swinging his arms around like a marionette under the spell of a drunk and delirious master of puppets. Then he began charging around the perimeter of the dancefloor, bounding and swinging, loping and windmilling.

There was only one thing for me to do. I tripped down to the sprung floor to join him, linked my hands behind my back, hunched down and shifted lumpenly from one leg to the other as though stamping out fires with my feet. After a minute or so we stopped and returned to our beers.

‘You saw it too then?’ I said, leaning against the bar.

‘Yup,’ belched Chris. ‘Genius.’

And we’ve never discussed the incident again.

Why did this happen? Well that’s a slightly longer story.

In 1988 hard rock took over the UK. To read the alternative music press however, whose army surplus combat trousers were all in a twist about the Stourbridge Sound of the Wonder Stuff, you would never have known it. The broadsheet music press were frothing over the likes of The House of Love, but it was Guns ‘N’ Roses, not the Stone Roses, howling from the stereos of second-hand Ford Escort in high streets and car parks throughout the land.

Iron Maiden headlined the largest heavy metal gig ever at Donnington in August of that year, when around 120,000 people gathered to watch a bill which included Dave Lee Roth, Kiss, Megadeth and Axl Rose’s crew. Even the also-rans of that period – bands which nowadays would have quit long ago through lack of sales – shifted enough records, merchandise and tickets to fund a lavish LA lifestyle of cocaine, hairspray and playboy bunnies. Ratt, Poison, Cinderella, Mötley Crüe, Faster Pussycat, LA Guns, Warrant, Skid Row and more – all could sell out an extensive UK tour. Even British bands doing bad impersonations of the Americans found themselves headlining at the Hammersmith Apollo. (Quireboys, anyone?) For goodness’ sake, Def Leppard’s Hysteria, which hails from that same purple patch, has gone twelve times platinum in America. Twelve times!

In the four-channel televisual world of Great Britain however, this explosion went largely unnoticed. With the exception of Tommy Vance’s Friday Night Rock Show on BBC Radio 1, and the occasional guerrilla raid on the charts, there was no reflection of what was happening in the rock clubs. Market stall holders’ money pouches were bulging with the profits of sew-on Maiden patches, but for the most part Thatcher’s Britain looked eagerly forward to the next Phil Collins album or the ooh-cheeky-get-you thrills of the Pet Shop Boys.

But something was happening. And somewhere deep within the offices of the BBC’s flagship cultural documentary strand Arena, a plucky producer had resolved to make a sixty-minute programme telling the story of the genre. On April the 7th 1989, ‘Arena: Heavy Metal’ was broadcast on BBC2.

‘Arena: Heavy Metal’ is not a great documentary, but it is a wonderful document; evidence of a stiff institution like the BBC attempting to embrace something it knows it should, but can’t quite bring itself to do. All the greats are in there of course – Jimmy Page, Ozzy Osborne, Bruce Dickinson (complete with requisite fencing scene and a remarkably Tufnell-esque tour of his stage wardrobe), Maurice Jones guiding us backstage at Donnington, where the only concession to comfort is an orange plastic swing and an empty paddling pool. But for every embarrassing metal moment there is some tremendous live footage of Hetfield’s mob, Slayer, Maiden, Napalm Death and more.

But all that becomes irrelevant around forty-five minutes into the programme. Following a peculiar section on Japanese metal, and a brief chat with a moustachioed Brummie metalhead espousing the delights of music that ‘picks you up and throws you across the room’, it cuts to a circle of air guitarists in a club rocking out. A lone man, lost in the music, bounds around them swinging his arms like an orangutan on acid. The caption reads: ‘Rock City, Nottingham’. It starts at 5.58 in this clip:

So that’s why we did it, and that’s why as we drained our beers we wore the smiles of men who’d fulfilled a childhood ambition. Albeit one that we had forgotten we held. But why am I writing all this now, eight years after the fact? Well, on Monday night a friend and magnificent man by the name of Russell Hancox came to my house armed with rosé wine, fine conversation and a DVD he’d dubbed off for me. It was the Arena show, exactly as I remembered. Except for one thing.

When I first watched it, I hadn’t noticed Raw magazine editor Malcolm Dome – aptly named and pleasingly bald – explaining the genesis of the term ‘Heavy Metal’. The phrase, he tells us, was first used in a musical context by a producer and music journalist called Sandy Pearl in 1968, in a review of the Byrds song ‘Artifical Energy’. He thought it apt to describe the aluminum quality of the Byrds’ guitar sound. ‘Artificial Energy’ comes from the album The Notorious Byrd Brothers, the last Byrds album before Gram Parsons joined and took them all whimsical and country.

So, though I’m week late, ladies and gentlemen please raise your glasses and wish a Happy 64th Birthday to Gram Parsons, the first man to try to kill off Heavy Metal.

The music that moves Chris fills a canyon. Laurel Canyon, to be precise – the location for today’s film shoot with Terra. But the magical musical spot for me in this part of Los Angeles is somewhat smaller. It’s a house. Well, a mansion really, built in 1918 and owned at one time by Harry Houdini.

The Houdini Mansion is now owned by Rick Rubin, a man who has shaped my – and, chances are, your – music collection. On the one hand, Rubin’s achievements in music are so extraordinary that he, more than anyone else in the field, is deserving of the prefix ‘a man who needs no introduction’. On the other, he is such an enigma, and his work so mysterious, that an introduction is precisely what he needs.

Frederick Jay ‘Rick’ Rubin, was born on March 10th, 1963 in New York and started growing a beard on March 11th. Whilst serving in high school band The Pricks he founded a record label and gave it the rather magnificent name of Def Jam Recordings. In 1984 he met an entrepreneur called Russell Simmons and Def Jam evolved into the most exciting and dynamic record label on the planet. With Rubin handling much of the production work, as well as the A&R (‘artist and repetoire’ in record company speak – ‘person who says ‘don’t record that song it’s crap, do record that song it’s good’’ in normal speak), Def Jam signed LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and Beastie Boys. Walk This Way? Yep – that was Rick’s idea. Hell, he’s even responsible for The Bangles’ version of Hazy Shade Of Winter, one of the greatest cover versions of all time.

Having pretty much brought hip–hop to the mainstream – not a shabby first day in the office – he fell out of love with Def Jam, moved to LA and founded Def American Recordings. Which is where he decided to reinvent heavy metal. Rock music was in good health at this point; Metallica, Anthrax, Maiden, Guns ‘N’ Roses were all having considerable success, so the genre wasn’t crying out for a new dimension. Clearly no–one told Rick. Or for that matter Slayer, a band noted for their recurrent themes of death, deviance, warfare, suicide, religion, necrophilia, satanism and nazism. Cliff Richard’s a big fan. Impossibly loud, devastatingly thrashing, and staggeringly technically accomplished their masterwork, their first album with Rubin, is called Reign In Blood. It’s a classic.

So, having done rap and metal (oh, and having completed an Aerosmith revival by producing the brilliant Permanent Vacation album – so that’s rock ticked off as well), he turned to the fusion of genres being peddled by sock–sporting funk–rock chancers the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Which is where the Houdini Mansion comes in. You see, Rick’s vision for them involved recording at his new gaff in LA. The subsequent record, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, beat the sales and acclaim of anything the band or Rubin had produced before. No matter what the hip sneery journos might say, Blood Sugar is a masterpiece. From the mono AM radio-style opening of The Power Of Equality, through the world–dominating Under The Bridge, all the way to the Charleston skip of They’re Red Hot it’s a record of impeccable musicianship, ingenious production and truly awful lyrics.

When I first heard it I found it awkward and terribly long. Yet their tattooed, beachside ne–er do-well appeal prompted me to do something I had never done before. I tried harder to like it. So when the summer holiday came, I decided I would listen to one album and one album only, so that by the start of the school year I’d have a new favourite band. It worked. I planned to apply precisely this logic to item number one on my ‘to do’ list for the trip – learn to love the music of Gram Parsons. A month locked in a car with several albums and a Gram obsessive bleeting in my ear was sure to do the trick.

The Houdini Mansion has since been used as the studio for a range of records including such gems as Jay Z’s 99 Problems and The Mars Volta’s De–Loused In The Comatorium. It’s also rumoured to be haunted. Now I’m pretty sceptical about the whole haunting business, but there’s a big difference between a house that can scare, say, first lady of the paranormal Yvette Fielding, and a house that scares … Slipknot. That’s right – Iowa’s purveyors of finest thrash metal recorded at the house and to this day will not go back there, due to what Joey Jordison  (the death mask–sporting, crown of thorns–wearing drummer) describes as ‘an unsettling incident in the basement’. The record they made there, The Subliminal Verses, is another of Rick’s gems, proving once again that he is a musical alchemist, turning the heaviest of metals into pure gold records.

Everyone owns a bit of Rubin somewhere. If at this point you’re thinking that you don’t, then I’d suggest a quick look at his discography and you’ll find that you probably do. Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie? Rubin. Sir Mixalot bottom–fetish anthem Baby Got Back? Rubin. System Of A Down? Rage Against The Machine? Weezer? Rubin. Lil Jon? Metaillca? ACDC? The Cult? Justin Timberlake? U2 … all Rick Rubin. Trust me, it goes on. And then there’s the reason I love Rick Rubin. Johnny Cash.

Today, Johnny Cash is venerated as one of the greats of American music. His dusty outlaw boom–chikka–boom tales are woven into the fabric of the country’s musical history. The mariachi horns of Ring Of Fire are as familiar to the American ear as the whistle of a distant freight train. They laughed along with A Boy Named Sue, cried along to Hurt, and broke into spontaneous applause when he said ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash’. But it wasn’t always this way. After commercial success in the 1960’s and TV success in the seventies, his star lost some of its shine, reaching its nadir with such country–lite nonsense as Chicken In Black (a song about having his brain put in a chicken – really). Shortly after that particular low point he left Columbia records and exited the mainstream. A little while later, enter Rick Rubin.

In 1993 Rick signed Johnny Cash to his Def American label, and a year later released an album comprising mostly covers, and pretty obscure ones at that. So starts the greatest last act in rock and roll history. Entitled American Recordings, the record reminded listeners of one thing – that Johnny Cash was a singer of songs without equal.

In the ten years that followed, Johnny Cash would release another three albums in this vein, each one providing a mix of gospel, country, and ingenious covers. Much has been written about his rendition of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt, and its quietly devastating video. But for me Johnny Cash did one thing that no one else on the planet could. He made country music sound great. In his hands, with his voice, it no longer sounded like shit–kicking, cousin–shagging fairground music – it was soaring and graceful, evocative and warm. That’s why Johnny Cash is the only country artist I love. And that’s why I love Rick Rubin.

So I was looking for a mansion. Chris was looking for a bungalow.

Extracted from Live Fast, Die Young: Misadventures in Rock & Roll America, available from Amazon and, if you’re in the US, the Missing Parsons shop. If you’re in the mood for some more Rick, try this clip from the documentary ‘Shut Up And Sing’, in which he politely tells Dixie Chick Natalie Maines that her song is ‘ordinary’ and she needs to completely re-write the lyrics: