The most special item in my collection is probably the Fear Of God "Demo ´92"-tape, not so much because of the music (there are lots of albums I like better;and Fear of God´s "Within The Veil" is still my favourite metal album of all times, though since 2002 it has got to share this position together with Atrox´ "Terrestrials"), but because it is rare and it has a short dedication on it written by Dawn herself. Dawn had sent me this tape somewhere in spring 1993, some months after I´d managed to get into (snail) mail contact with her. (Unfortunately this contact broke up in the middle of 1993 - probably because Dawn "wasn´t much of a writer", as she had told me in a previous letter...and about 3 1/2 years later she was dead.

)
As far as vinyl is concerned, I could perhaps mention the picture disc of Helloween´s first mini-album (featuring a short surprise track - not a "proper" song, but more some kind of joke - introducing Michael Kiske on vocals) and Metallica´s "Creeping Death" picture disc maxi-single. (Though I stopped buying their albums after "And Justice For All..." and don´t listen to them very much anymore, "Creeping Death" is still one of my alltime favourite metal songs, and I always liked the cover version of "Am I Evil" on side B of this maxi-single very much.

)
Finally, I´d like to mention two CDs, but they have absolutely nothing to do with metal, so if you are only interested in metal, stop reading now and jump to the next post !

grin: )
The first CD is a live-bootleg by Tori Amos, titled "Saint And Sinner", recorded on her German tour in 1996 in Berlin. This bootleg really has got an excellent sound quality and I like it much better than any of Tori´s studio albums. (IMO, Tori should just release live albums, because playing live is what she´s definitely best at!) It´s just her and guitarist Steve Caton (insofar it´s comparable to her official "Live From NY"-video) and what you get is - among other stuff - an entirely different version of "Bells For Her" and a version of "Father Lucifer" including excerpts from "Tubular Bells" and "Smalltown Boy" (amazingly, she makes it sound as if these parts had been incorporated in her song right from the beginning!).
The second CD - a mini-album titled "Voggesanger fra ondskapens akse" ("Lullabies From The Axis Of Evil") - isn´t something special in itself, because it is officially available, at least in Norway, but there are very special memories connected with my copy. Because last November I took this CD with me when travelling to Oslo to see a concert under the same heading by five (female) vocalists (from Palestine, Iraq, Iran and Norway) who are also featured on this CD. The evening before the concert I had the pleasure to meet two of these vocalists (two sisters from Iran) at their hotel lobby and talk to them for about 1 1/2 hours (mostly about music of course). With one of them I also exchanged some CD´s and tapes. (There were also some metal albums among the CD´s I had brought along, but I still don´t know if she liked any of them.) However, it was a very special moment (just like the concert the next evening) and I also had my CD-copy signed by these two vocalists. The memories of this special trip will always also be connected with this CD-copy. Well, the entire story is a bit longer, but as this is an "old school metal thread", I don´t want to bore you more than I´ve already done so far.

grin: )