The 2009 best/worst/weirdest heavy metal short lists

Well, 2009 was a great year for metal, with almost too many good albums and all kinds of weird and wacky news. Metal legends produced some fabulous new music, while new and/or obscure bands rose to the forefront with killer discs.     
So now it’s time to wrap the year up in a nice, trite little package with my 2009 short lists. Hey, two years of [...]

More Exodus live Webcasts tonight and Friday

If you missed last night’s Q&A Webcast with Exodus guitarist Gary Holt, don’t lose heart.
Tonight (Tuesday, Dec. 15), you can catch a live Web session with band frontman Rob Dukes, at www.nuclearblastusa.com/exodus.
The Webcast begins at  8 p.m. Central, 9 p.m. Eastern (and 6 p.m. on the West Coast for both of my California readers). You [...]

Exodus’ Gary Holt holds live Q&A session

Tonight (Monday, Dec. 14), you’ll be able to ask questions of a metal legend, when Exodus guitarist Gary Holt holds a Q&A session online, at www.nuclearblastusa.com/exodus.
If you missed it, you can still catch the entire session at the Exodus Web site, so click the link above.
Gary and the Exodus boys are currently in the studio [...]

Flash back with a funny 1980s report on heavy metal

The following clips are from an ”in-depth look” at metal by the television show “20/20.”
The episode was shot in the late 1980s. The awesome guy who posted it on YouTube thinks it was broadcast in 1987. That’s probably right: Iron Maiden is featured promoting the album “Somewhere In Time,” which was released in 1986, so we can safely [...]

Varg Vikerness denounces black metal and minorities, thus demonstrating he’s an idiot

Apparently, I can’t follow my own advice.
Several months back when it was announced Norwegian black metal boogeyman Varg Vikernes was being released from prison, I suggested the best thing the metal community could do was ignore him. The hope was Vikernes would fade quietly into obscurity so the metal community wouldn’t be tainted by his loony [...]

This week gets stupider … but Ryan Adams makes it better (??)

This has been the stupidest week since, well, last week.
First, Helmuth from Belphegor missed my phone interview time. Twice. I know he’s all nihilistic, hates humanity and whatnot, but come on, Helmuth – do you want to promote your new album or not? 
Then, to make matters even dumber, I missed my opportunity to interview Udo Dirkschnieder, the ex-Accept [...]

Cliff Burton (how quickly time flies)

I realized this morning that I’d completely forgotten to mark the anniversary of Cliff Burton’s death. Has it really been 23 years? God, where does time go?
The cliche is that baby boomers will always remember where they were when they heard about the assassinations of, say, John F. Kennedy or John Lennon. I don’t know [...]

I’ve been away for a while

I haven’t posted much lately: Frankly, I’ve been tied up with the daily grind.
BUT, I’ll be back next week with interviews from Scar Symmetry’s Jonas Kjellgren and Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine. So check back then.
Also, congrats to Brian Fulkerson of Owensboro, who won himself two passes to see In Flames on Sept. 30 in Louisville. A [...]

Is Dokken Rokken Your Chicken?

I first saw this over at MetalSucks. While reposting is lazy, this is simply too good not to share.
Question: Why is Dokken slumming for Norton Antivirus? It makes no sense to me … except for the fact that a paycheck is a paycheck.
Nevertheless, this is pretty hilarious.

Later, I dug through my [...]

So there’s a new metal sub-genre, it seems

So, Canadian band The Agonist released a video for the song “Thank You Pain” yesterday on the PETA2 YouTube channel.
A link on the channel refers to the song as “Vegetarian Metal.” Is that a new metal sub-genre? Is The Agonist gonna hit the road with Cattle Decapitation on the “Meat Is Murder Metal Tour?” I [...]