Via: Beautiful Decay

Via: Motorparade

Via: World Music Central

Via: Bamboo Trading

Via: Topless Robot

Music: The Meatmen.

The Meatmen are a Michigan, United States punk band headed by Tesco Vee originally from 1980 to 1997, and reformed in 2008. They are currently still touring, and are working on a new album. The Meatmen made fun of the hardcore punk scene of the time. The band was known for their stage antics, and for songs with colorful song titles such as "I Sin For A Living", "1 Down, 3 To Go" (a reference to the murder of former Beatles member John Lennon.

"Wanna bark a saga of the night the bikes went wild.
Four husky gladiators suited up for a war self-styled.
The Interceptor, Ninja and 1100 primed to score
But me and my Suzuki knew we had so much more.

They thought it would be just another clandestine late night road rally.
But it was the WAR OF THE SUPERBIKES
Red hot pipes and rumbling high tech power plants inch up to the starting line,
but when the dust cleared up on Devil's Backbone,
One man/one bike/one dream would scream across the finish line.

I layed it down into turn one, cranked it down full bore.
With my air-cooled transverse in-line Four Stroke Four.
I knew the 1100 was the man to burn.
I ruled the straightaways, he had me in the turns.

As they blasted out of the high bank
The Ninja smoked a clutch
"Only two to beat," he thought
As he laid it down to those greasy 'S' turns
In the distance those oversized Japanese leg burners sounded like
some sort of mutated gigantic insects.
Three men on monster machines SHOT OUT OF GOD'S SLINGSHOT!!!

The interceptor faded as we hit the hill W.F.O.
All I had to do was hold on, seven miles to go.
But there were red lights flashing, the cops were gaining fast.
In our high-powered way awesome road-smoking 12 mile dash.

The FJ 1100 made his move on the inside
As the speedometer bounced over the 100 mile-per-hour mark
But he got a little too deep in the curve,
and didn't see the pothole.
All he saw was a burning, hurtling ball of death
as he blasted off into cool night air.
Just him and his GS 1150.

It's the WAR OF THE SUPERBIKES(3X)."

(Thanks to Henry for the tip!)

Via:Lady Bunny

Album covers: Painkiller.

Cover design Illustration by Mark Wilkinson

Wiki:

"Painkiller is a 1990 gold-certified album by British heavy metal band Judas Priest. The album was recorded at Miraval Studios, Brignoles, France in early 1990, and mixed at Wisseloord Studios, Hilversum, the Netherlands later that year. It was the first album with current drummer Scott Travis. The original LP, cassette and CD versions were released on September 3, 1990. A re-mastered CD was released in May 2001. The album received a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance at the February 20, 1991 33rd Annual Grammy Awards.

The Painkiller itself is one of a series of fictional messiahs created by Judas Priest. The Painkiller is described as a metal messiah sent to the world to destroy evil and rescue mankind from destruction. The Painkiller is believed to be inspired by the fallen angel from the Sad Wings of Destiny album cover that Judas Priest recorded early in their musical years. He also makes an appearance along with the Hellion (from Screaming for Vengeance) on the cover of Metal Works '73-'93, and a reappearance on the cover of Angel of Retribution.

The most noticeable feature of the Painkiller, besides his metal body is that he 'rides the metal monster'; a motorcycle with a dragon for the chassis and two circular saws for wheels.

Via: Judas Priest Info Pages

"The idea for the Painkiller cover was inspired by the Sad Wings cover. I approached the band with the idea that, 'How would that angel in hell look like now in the future, robotic, riding a bike?' It's all about floating ideas, and it worked."
· Rob Halford, online chat, November 16, 2002

"I think the basic concept came out of conversations that we all had about taking the concept of an angel from the SAD WINGS OF DESTINY cover in a ROBO COP type of mode. We put all this armor and stuff on it but it still had the wings - but they were made of steel and everything, and then we thought about the motorcycle that we always use and thought about making that into something unusual, like a man-machine kind of animal thing and then the dragon-bike developed out of that and all of these things came together."
- Rob Halford on Metal Shop, 1990

"It's a typical fantasy Priest character, you don't know whether it's from heaven or hell but you do know you wouldn't like to meet him on a dark night or to upset him. We did feel that maybe we'd over-used that type of image, but it¹s sort of expected from us. And it¹s just a bit of fun really."
- Glenn Tipton, The Masque

"The band originally suggested a Hell's Angel-type character on a motorcycle, but also with a metallic creature. My recollection is that he would have been a pillion rider, or maybe even made into part of the bike. Eventually, I had the idea of flipping the idea on its head and having the metal creature sitting on the bike; making the bike the living creature instead. And the chainsaw idea came to me because my studio at the time was above a hardware shop!"
- Mark Wilkinson, The Masque

Fun Fact: During the tour for Painkiller, Halford rode onstage on a large Harley-Davidson motorcycle, dressed in motorcycle leathers, as part of the show. He collided with a drum riser and fell off the motorcycle, breaking his nose. After regaining consciousness, Halford returned and performed the whole concert.

Thanks to Supercycles for the tip

Hibria's cover "Defying The Rules" by artist Daniel HDR

Wiki:

"Hibria is a power metal band from Brazil known for their technicality and speed. Their debut Defying the Rules was released in 2004. The band cites traditional metal bands such as Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest along with Thrash bands such as Metallica and Megadeth as influences. Also, they cite influence from more progressive groups such as Dream Theater. The band toured across Europe is 1999, in the "Against The Faceless" demo tour, playing 29 concerts through Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Poland. "

pict of the Australian-only cover via album-art.net

Wiki:

"Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC for short) is an American garage rock band from San Francisco, California, now based in Los Angeles. Formed in 1998, taking its name from Marlon Brando's motorcycle gang in the 1953 film The Wild One. BRMC is known for its catchy brand of garage rock, blues, folk revival, neo-psychedelia and often religiously inspired lyrics, and its influences are groups and musicians such as Matthew Hilferty, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, The Velvet Underground and The Jesus and Mary Chain."

Wiki:

"Sailcat was a short-lived American rock and roll band. They were a one-hit wonder who scored a hit single in the summer of 1972 with the song "Motorcycle Mama".

The cover art was drawn by comics illustrator Jack Davis and featured a series of motorcycle related drawings for each song on the album. The concept album's songs loosely tell the story of a motorcycle vagrant, who apparently steals for a living, meeting a woman and settling down to start a family. However, he apparently keeps some of his selfish behaviours as the last drawing shows him reclining on his porch while his wife hangs the laundry and his child hoes the garden.

Wiki:

"Bat out of Hell is an album by Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman, released in 1977, and produced by Todd Rundgren. Its musical style is influenced by Steinman's appreciation of Richard Wagner, Phil Spector and Bruce Springsteen.

Although not an immediate hit, the album has become one of the biggest selling of all time. It sells about 200,000 copies per year and has sold an estimated 37 million copies worldwide. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at number 343 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Steinman is credited with the album cover concept, which was illustrated by Richard Corben. The cover depicts a motorcycle, ridden by a long-haired person, bursting out of the ground in a graveyard. In the background, a large bat perches atop a mausoleum that towers above the rest of the tombstones. In 2001, Q magazine listed the cover as number 71 in its list of "The Hundred Best Record Covers of All Time."