Eduardo Rivadavia (aka Ed Rivadavia) was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and by his late teens had already toured the world (and elsewhere), learning four languages on three continents. Having also accepted the holy gospel of rock & roll as his lord and savior, Eduardo became infatuated with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and all things heavy, crude, and obnoxious while living in Milan, Italy, during the mid-1980s. At this time, he also made his journalistic debut as sole writer, editor, publisher, and, some would claim, reader of his high school's heavy metal fanzine, earning the scorn of jocks and nerds alike, but uniting the small hardcore music-loving contingent into a frenzied mob that spent countless hours exchanging tapes, talking shop, and getting beat up at concerts. Upon returning home to Brazil, Eduardo resumed a semi-normal existence, sporadically contributing music articles to local papers and magazines while earning his business degree. Finally, after years of obsessive musical fandom and at peace with his distinct lack of musical talent, Eduardo decided the time had come to infiltrate the music industry by the fire escape. He quit his boring corporate job, relocated to America, earned his master's degree while suffering the iniquities of interning for free (anything for rock & roll!), and eventually began working for various record labels, accumulating mountains of records and (seemingly) useless rock trivia in the process. This eventually led him back to writing, and he has regularly contributed articles to multiple websites since 1999, working with many different rock genres but specializing, as always, in his personal hobby: hard rock and heavy metal. To quote from the insightful 'This Is Spinal Tap': "People should be jealous of me...I'm jealous of me...." Eduardo currently resides in Austin, TX, with his wife, two daughters, and far more records, CDs and MP3s than he'll ever have time to listen to.
Eduardo Rivadavia
Why Black Sabbath Struggled on Their Second Ronnie James Dio LP
Fan excitement was high, and understandably so, when the band unveiled their 10th album.
How Rush Looked Back at a Rise to Stardom on ‘Exit … Stage Left’
This live LP arrived on the heels of their best-selling and arguably definitive studio album, 'Moving Pictures.'
How Ugly Kid Joe Came Out of Nowhere With ‘As Ugly as They Wanna Be’
Childhood friends Whitfield Crane and Klaus Eichstadt actually started the band as a satirical vehicle.
30 Years Ago: Stryper Become Metal Stars With ‘To Hell With the Devil’
With 1986's To Hell With the Devil, Los Angeles' Stryper crossed over into the mainstream to become one of the first widely recognized and openly Christian heavy metal bands.
When Billy Idol Updated His Sound on ‘Whiplash Smile’
When this third album arrived, he ranked among the world's most successful and recognizable rock stars.
40 Years Ago: Triumph Release Their Debut Album
If you were to ask most Triumph fans living in the pre-internet era to name the Canadian power trio's debut album, they'd probably tell you it was 1978's Rock & Roll Machine. They'd be wrong ...
When Scorpions Courted Controversy With ‘Virgin Killer’
The original album-cover image was immediately banned and replaced with a group photo.
How Soundgarden’s ‘Badmotorfinger’ Finally Got Some Attention
Despite forming all the way back in 1984, they were the last of the so-called "big four" grunge bands to break.
How Triumph Finally Put Everything Together on ‘Allied Forces’
It took what Mike Levine called a potential "career killer" of an album to get to this point.
When Triumph Took One for the Team on ‘The Sport of Kings’
Label meddling ultimately resulted in some pretty middling songs: