Rainbow Was 8th Level D&D in 1976

Plus Mazes and Monsters Dungeon Synth and Rabid Dogs RPG Zine w/ 80s Punk & Thrash Playlist

There are still a few weeks left in 2023, but I am ready to award the Critical Hit Parader RPG & Music Quote of the Year. This Classic Rock article about Rainbow touring with AC/DC in 1976 features the following from Rainbow keyboardist Tony Carey:

“We were Dungeons & Dragons Level Eight”

-Tony Carey, Keyboards, Rainbow

Here’s the full quote from the article:

Carey: “It was a great billing. Nobody was going to blow Rainbow off the stage in ’76, so I wasn’t afraid of AC/DC. They went over great, they were great, and they were a lot like they are today. Whereas we were ‘Dungeons & Dragons Level Eight’, a whole different thing. It was an entertaining show, I’m sure. Our band was on fire in ’76, and so were AC/DC.” 

I wish I could have seen that tour. Tony Carey went on to have a creatively successful solo career after he left Rainbow. Whereas the appropriateness of Dio-era Rainbow for fantasy RPG inspiration has been well documented, if you’re looking for sci-fi ideas, you would be well served to check out Tony Carey’s Planet P Project. I’m especially a fan of the album Pink World.

Mazes and Monsters Dungeon Synth

Dave Thaumavore has created a dungeon synth EP inspired by the 1982 made-for-TV movie Mazes and Monsters:

Here is how Dave describes the music project:

The album aims to capture the essence of '80s dungeon delving, that exhilarating feeling of venturing into the unknown with your trusted party members. At the same time, it serves as my interpretation of an aural tongue-in-cheek commentary on the "Satanic Panic" era film that unfairly stigmatized D&D and its community.

You can read more from Dave about the Mazes and Monsters film in his Thaumavoria newsletter. I also recommend the Dave Thaumavore RPG Reviews Youtube channel, and he wrote a great resource for Runehammer’s Index Card RPG called Age of Snakes.

Age of Snakes by Dave Thaumavore & Index Card RPG Master Edition by Runehammer Games

Rabid Dogs

Nick Baran has launched a crowdfunding campaign for his Rabid Dogs Vol. II zine, which has a music connection that Nick describes in the following:

“Rabid Dogs is set to return with a brand new collection of classes & rules for Dungeon Crawl Classics that I use at my table. This zine collates 2 years of articles from my Patreon page sets them to an 80s punk & thrash playlist, like its predecessor.”

The first issue of Rabid Dogs is available at the Breaker Press Games website.