Back to black

J: have you pre-ordered this?

M: i won't lie -

>I.C.S. VORTEX - "Don't Tread On Me"

* BORKNAGAR - "My Friend Of Misery"

am actually looking forward to hearing those, altho not sure they'll work......

the others, fuck it. altho may be interesting to see how finntroll work god that failed....

shame it's black album, i don't like most them songs :(

J: it sucks that the last two metallica ones of these metal hammer have put together have been for the two albums i dont give a shit about :/

 

M: yeah they should do thrash bands doing kill em all or something - i guess they're interesting enough projects, to see how bands work on other stuff, especially popular stuff - but i'm just not keen on the black album :/ or most of the artists that take part :/

   

J: or they should do st anger and try and make it better :)

 

M: that would actually be a cool feature :)

 

J: yeah, open it up for fans to do it :)

 

M: that would be really cool :D come on guys - lets re-record it and show them what people can actually do who have spirit and passion for the music :D

 

J: as if they'll admit to it being a duff album tho :)

 

M: yeah metallica won't, but everyone else does :) the music press should grow some balls and organise this :D

 

J: yeah ;O

 

Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash

M: back to the "problems with monthly mags" that we have - everything is old news! you have a choice of thousands of interviews of everyone online - bands have their own websites etc etc etc there's no point in magazines anymore - even weekly is too late for me. i suppose there are still people out there that aren't into the internet so much and are happy to pay stupid money to get the bullshit news people have copied from online anyways...but as times goes by, magazines ain't gonna exist anymore, at least not as we know them. if they want to survive, they're gonna have to come up with something else for us to pay for, just like bands are having to do.

J: > in magazines anymore - even weekly is too late for me
This, and everything you said
> if they want to survive, they're gonna have to come up with something else for us to pay for, just like bands are having to do.
I think they make money from tour sponsorship as well, since yeah,they're effectivly obsolete.

M: I think they make money from tour sponsorship as well, since yeah, they're effectively obsolete. yeah and online stores and shit...but i just can't see how long they're gonna hold out actually selling the magazine. even with them offering free cds and shit - as soon as the copy hits stores, it goes online straight away. any super amazing content they can come up with goes online straight away....there ain't anything magazines can do. except maybe go online, do it for free and make their money from advertising, same as nearly all online free press. i give em 10 years at best. i could check some of the figures here [at work], market research into the magazine industry would be pretty interesting - to see the figures and shit. in fact i might just do that :D

J: :D
> there ain't anything magazines can do. except maybe go online, do it for free and make their money from advertising
I was gonna suggest that, it's all they can really do..

M: well metal hammer are owned by future publishing and just from wiki the sales for MH are 49,143 from jan-jun 07 - before the recession stuff, so i imagine current figures are down from that - compared to vogue uk which has a circulation of 220,000 it's not doing so badly.

terrorizer does 13,786 - classic rock, 70,301 (figures for this from 2009)...

hmm... i dunno, when you think 49,143 x £4 (i'm assuming its about 4 quid) = £196,572 per month, so about £2,358,864 per year, not including special issues, the fact that it may cost over £4 and all the other merch and sponsorship.,...

okay they're making pretty sweet money from it. and MH is a pretty big name of the future publishing books - classic rock is bigger, but their magazines generally focus on specialist press so the MH figures are actually pretty good.

this was a more complicated email than i intially planned.

J: > this was a more complicated email that i intially planned.
I know :D
Classic Rock used to be really good - yeah, it's monthly and the news is old, but it had good interviews in it and other bits, as you say, it's specialist. MH and Terrorizor are more or less the same, with T being the less mainstream per say.
But yeah, they still seem to be doing okay, and i'm sure a lot ofpeople will still buy them, it's just the cheap fuckers like you and me that wont :D

M: > it's just the cheap fuckers like you and me that wont :D

LOL i guess thats true :) i guess i just get caught up in what i do - i just don't understand why there's so many people out there spending money on stuff they don't need to. i also don't understand why there's so many companies spending so much money on protecting material they won't be able to protect forever - i don't get why they don't spend the money finding ways that they can move with the times.

like with illegal downloading - how many milions of fucking pounds have been spent trying to stop it when its essentially impossible to stop? why don't they just realise that and save the fucking money they're throwing at an unsolveable problem - and think of the ways in which they make money outside selling the music itself.

itunes was genius in the sense that at first, you had to download stuff from itunes to be able to listen to it on a ipod - everyone has an ipod, so everyone uses itunes, it's brilliant for making money - although even that couldn't last.

J: > don't understand why there's so many people out there spending money on stuff they don't need to
This.
> like with illegal downloading - how many milions of fucking pounds have been spent trying to stop it when its essentially impossible to stop?
Yeah, they never will, but they can't seem to grasp that and just admit defeat and yeah, do shit to increase revenue.
But a lot of people still buy music. we might joke about it, but people still buy lots.

M: i think we're kinda out of touch with that - because me and you never do it, i forget that people do actually spend money on stuff. i think there are a lot of people that see you downloading stuff and figure that you're taking money away from that band and so damaging the thing you like, in that sense,

J: say, for example, you were buying metallica records from when they started - every album they released was wicked - that goes for pretty much any other band at the time - you just get album after album of good shit. now it's like, they never release anything that's even worth buying. downloading might be killing it, but they're effectively killing it themselves with content.
also, downloading music is free - yeah, it's not legal, but it's free... it's a no brainer really, huh.

M: totally. like...whichever blog it was the other day that was saying how in 1985 - you have about 300 metal albums recorded. and 90% of those are fucking cool. ffwd to 2009 - over 10,000 different releases - and a good 70% EASILY are fucking bullshit. you think i'm gonna want to pay with those odds?

J: also most bands still going are doing the music for the money, yeah, i know, that's obvious and people who want to make money from music can, it's fair game, but to release horseshit for the money is not fair.

M: if i download your album for free and i like it, then in turn, i'll pay to see you play. and if you're really fucking good, i'll buy a t-shirt or some other kind of merch and that way, you could get up to about £40 off me. times that by 200 people and you got 8000, right there. and most people who charge 20 for tickets and 20 for tshirts are playing bigger venues than 200 people. you think of the o2 (don't know why i'm all figures obsessed this evening) - if it seats about 23,000 people - if you charge £40 a ticket, that's £920,000 - then if even half of them buy a t-shirt at £25 a pop, that's an extra £287,200 - so you've already made over a million fucking quid.

J: Yeah, you'll still go see bands play. I think also it's why a lot of bands release ltd vinyls still, because there's still a market for it. Although i think vinyl is dollar to press though :
> you think of the o2 (don't know why i've got all figures obsessed this evening)
Yeah, I thought that when i opend this email ;)
O2 is making bear cash tho :/

M: well with vinyl, you're selling something there that people can't just do themselves and its something that's actually cool - you can have pictures and fold outs and stuff. if you made a cd that came with some insanely awesome case* or whatever, yeah i'd still buy that, like people always buy box sets that come with some cool kind of crappy merch.

>O2 is making bear cash tho :/

fuck yeah, considering that most of their events are easily £40 upwards to go to - the foods costs DOLLAR, the shops/restaurants have to pay rent etc etc etc the o2 are fucking made, that place makes people haemorrhage money :O

*I hate AC/DC...but props to whoever came up with this. It's an undeniably cool cool idea to make some cash.

Lameness

M: http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/news/metal-big-brother-day-1/

1. LOL @ vikernes vikernes. dummies!

2. this is one of the most pointless pieces of tripe MH have come up with so far

J: what the fuck!!!! >_O

M: i know, srsly, is there no end to the crap they come out with?

J: someone commented that it was full of win.
it just kinda distances me from people that claim to like metal but think all this stuff is cool. it's not, it's lame. these are the sort of "individuals" that claim to hate Big Brother as a rule, but a metal version? hey, that's okay, we don't mind.
yeah, fuck off!

M: it is full of LAME. people are full of talk, what they mean is that they'd love big brother if it was people they're interested in.

i'm torn between thinking that people who think everything should be in some way metal related are retards or just big metal fans and that's okay?

i.e. at first i was thinking that "ohh people who try and make everything metal or want everything to be metal are lame" YET - thats pretty much me and you. we play metal who is, we went to see razzle's grave, we want to go to festivals and have metal holidays, we dress...not normally, however you want to describe it (i look like a magician today!), we read books about metal, talk about metal, go to metal pubs - its our hobby and we're really into it. people who like golf wear golf clothes, go to golf bars and would like big brother if it was made up of golfers... :???

J: yeah, but we don't think, "oh, it's be cool to have a metal BB" or"Metal sports", or a "Metal Soap Opera" or anything like that.

M: yeah that is true. so is that where the line is drawn?

J: between us and them? we might like metal to a fanatic level, but we keep some order to it. these people take it overboard and do horseshit like a metal bb, guitar hero and take metal into the commercial stakes where it shouldn't be.

M: ahh. so is part of the reason why we like it because we enjoy it's non commercial status. and altho we complain there's no good metal anywhere - is it really just that as soon as something gets big we hate it...catch 22 etc. sunnnnnn being a perfect example.

J: i've always hated metal being in the mainstream. this is the issue i have with classic rock for going away from a specialist magazine to a regular mag to cater for the fact that people are now into rock music.
> it really just that as soon as something gets big we hate it...catch 22 etc. sunnnnnn being a perfect example.
this. i was gonna say what you said last night but forgot when we were talking about Southern Lord. sunn is a great example of a band i liked that i hate because they're got big in such a way. but maiden is big, and we love them, but it's the way it happens. bands now that get big start to sell themselves out.
you think of bands that have never gone mainstream still are cool, like seth and anal cunt.

M: thats a good point - the way they get big. riding on hipster coat tales and becoming people they're not....or building bigger and bigger effigies of eddie.... i like metal because its what i like - and it doesn't bother me that much if a band get really famous or not - but you're right, it would bother me if they changed so they could be famous or if they started to do things differently as a result of the fame. for one thing, they wouldn't be the band i liked anymore and also because it would show up their lack of integrity...

J: > or building bigger and bigger effigies of eddie....
eh :?
the thing with sunn is that they're still doing the same shit, metallica changed, maiden never (well, they got a new singer), motley never changed (see maiden), etc etc. so you kinda see the bands we still like opposed to the next band.

M: sunn getting famous is them doing gay interviews and posing for photoshoots and charging a million pounds to get into the same shows they were doing before they got big.

iron maiden getting famous is them building super awesome giant eddies and putting on a show that's actually worth £50 to get into. they didn't change, they remained the same band, just super rich and they used it to do awesome cool things and it just made their fans love them more.

metallica changed - i still don't believe they changed due to the fame, but without a doubt and whatever caused it they turned sucky.

It descends from there on into us being rude about Metallica: one of our favourite ways to pass the time.

But points well made (esp the ones by me obvz): what do you think divides us awesomely cool people from posers? Is there really anything between us? Metal has traditionally been populated by outcasts and rebels...but by seeking to define what is cool and what isn't, it seems we still yearn for some kind of validation. After rejecting one culture because we didn't fit in, we're creating the same sort of elitism in a place that was originally set away from that social hierarchy.

When I'm in a good mood - nice and peaceful - I like to think that Metal is music that doesn't care who you are or what you look like...but more often than not, that's just not the case and it never has been. From the very beginning "being cool" was a big deal.

Metal Wars

M: MH† - LOL looks like a post about machine head (from the title)

J: that or metal hammer :)

M: yeah, with that stupid cross and everything :) it's like their sword they have now (dunno, they never used to have it that i remember, but they always have the defending the faith sword logo on the header now)

J: who do, machine head :?

M: nah, metal hammer.


J: i've never noticed - i like their old logo whereas it looks like a band :D
the only faith metal hammer preach is that of the one against my metal law :D ;)

M: :O a war breaks out!

J: a metal war!
that'd be awesome!

M: we'd never win :( we are too few in number :((

J: yeah, there's too many metalfags that like fag stuff.
rob darken can lead the first battalion :[

M: he'd be ace to lead us in!

J: basically, any obscure BM band... and Abbath ;)

M: flag of the legions:

Really Really Old News: Megadeth

(Metal Hammer; Feb 12th - Feb 25th 1990)

New Ink

M: New Ink..................
A) that is a shit tattoo
B) i hate people who gets tiny tiny tattoos that you might as well not bother getting
C) i hate it when people refer to them as "ink"

J: another americanism!!! ;(

M: stupid sharpies disease :(((

J: isn't that crap von dee the host or owns a shop called something ink?
hollywood ink?

M: la ink and miami ink are the two shows, i dunno which one she's on. i saw an episode once, it was rubbish :D i hate all those tattoos they're all just the same as everyone else's. i like your one (not jesus) it's cool :D

J: i like A's and fenriz's tattoo's. badly done ones are the way to go

M: what does A have? what does fenriz have for that matter? i've never met either ;)

J: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5tY-XfbgJe0/SLbG854r1iI/AAAAAAAABAg/l6Ge3ubUr-k/s1600-h/fenritz_tattoo.jpg

A got his done with the same guy i had - he's got a west ham
tattoo, ildrughi, a dragon wit a rose and the same one bruce willis
has in die hard, which is a skull in a tophat smoking. it's so bad
it's great

M: ohh yeah, fenriz has the hanoi rocks one :D :D

andrews sound pretty cool, you should get him to take some pictures of them and send them to me :D the skull one sounds genius :D

the interview with soctt ian in metal hammer i told you about - its the bit where they interview people about their tattoos :) his are boring, they're all samey and average

J: what does he have?

M: umm...some old man face on his knee, angus young, ugh, he got a guitar hero one at la ink D:

J: wtf

angus young?!?!?!

M: I KNOW. fucking AWFUL.

J: :/ almost as bad as the crab rob flynn has on his back :)

M: D: i don't think i've ever seen that either :O i'm so ignorant of people's tattoos :O

J: i saw it at a gig, it's all i know he's got :)

M: he always has that stupid t-shirt on when i've seen them

Nod to the Old School

M: http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/uncategorized/join-our-bring-back-bush-campaign/ what new rottery is this? D:

J: > witnessing John Bush absolutely nail ‘Indians’, ‘Caught In A Mosh’ - yeah, just like among the living is their only fucking album. it's cunts like this that love john bush - he's only good in armoured saint, he sucked in anthrax and scott and charlie made it shit for him when he was in there before. no one seems to point this out....
ffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

M: its all complete tripe. which would you fucking campaign to bring him back? there's loads of better people out there. ahem, joey belladonna, i'm looking at you

J: as much as i'd love that for him, because he IS the only singer for them, i'd rather he told them to get fucked if they asked him on the basis of principle. anthrax is like metallica where you have the two key members, and as in metallica, they're arseholes now, why leave this, to become a scab singer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEyFqO6R7og

M: i remember you showed them to me before and i liked them :D it's true, if he leaves, it's for the money and fame, like robert trujillo joining metallica as a hired hand :( it's not so bad with the megadeth people because you know that band's all about dave and he's the frontman via guitar and vocals so no-one can step ahead of him

J: i love armoured saint, even if i do spell it correctly ;)

except rob only had scab fame and is famous only for being in the shit version of ST :)

yeah, megadeth, it's dave, no one really sees the other dudes as scabs tho, well, i don't

M: no, i think the guys in megadeth are just that - and they always have been, so it's okay. its when you have bands like anthrax and metallica who've had very very famous members and people just step in to take their places - it's not right :(((

J: until the 90's, most members in megadeth were famous, as they had a semi-tight line up, after the classic band left, it's just been random dudes :)

M: the elaphantson man? now it's the bendover people :D

J: elephant man :)

dave jr was pretty much like rodney is to del boy in megadeth, but no more, he was the only real core member.

M: i think no-one really minds tho, it's all about megadave.

gaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy hollllllllllltttttttttttt!!!!

J: and gary holt is fucking exodus up with rob douche.

they need zetro back :D

M: hey, it's not necessarily gary's fault >:( he's in that dublin death patrol :D HA!

also, this band http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_(metal_band) with fucking GENE HOGLAN!!! that man is everywhere!!!!!

J: > hey, it's not necessarily gary's fault >:(

it's his band, he needs to sort it out

> he's in that dublin death patrol :D HA!
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

> also, this band http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_(metal_band) with fucking> GENE HOGLAN!!! that man is everywhere!!!!!
no surprise there then :)

M: did you not know he was with ddp? i knew about that, never heard about tenet though. what the fuck kind of a name is that? LOL tried looking on youtube - only found this band http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bflsHK4GjoA who i think are definitely not the same.....

J: i know ddp is all bay are people, i think i knew it, but i dunno. they got shit reviews on marchives and the name just sucks

that band look like some school band :)

M: it's chuck billy and a lot of his mates - his brother eddie is in it :)) ummm.....they're not that great :/ i like chuck billy's vocals, but testament are the better band so far so you might as well just listen to them for the good stuff.....i dunno, i want to like them, because i LOVE chuck billy ("raaaargh" :D) but they're just not that great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F875_HhMJ-Q

J: you read the comments? about chuck billy being the best vocalist inthrash.... hmmmmmm :) he's good, but not the best

M: one of the best, as far as i'm concerned :D i dunno, who's your favourite? chuck billy is great, but he's got quite an unusual vocal style for thrash, he's very deep and 'crushing' , for want of a better word. all the thrash singers ever have left my head as i try and think of the best...all i can think of is the dude from bonded by blood :) who i do like :)

M: probably james from kem or rtl, paul bayloff (and zetro), Sean Killian from vio-lence, Mike Sanders from Toxik.

and joey, but he doesn't sound thrash....

J: he's very singy, which i normally don't like :/ but he's my favourite anthrax man :) yeah james' voice used to be AWESOME, he was my favorite singer for a long time. even after he changed his style, i liked the stuff he did.....recently he's been really fucking bad tho :( i was pretty fucking lenient in liking all the s&m/load stuff which most people shat all over, but even i gave up after a while. reading last year was a sad, sad moment for me, his voice sounded BAD :(

Endgame

M: http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/news/megadeth-new-album-cover-spoofed/ - it's fucking JULY thats the worst shop ever. if it was december it'd make sense, but that's shit, it doesn't make any sense*

J: it's shit anyway, it's made a shit album cover still shit and unfunny

M: exactly. i hope that dude's photoshop explodes and destroys his computer from within. its all he deserves

J: pig destroyer have a song called endgame, i always thought it was a
cool title... but megadeth have kinda shit all over that with that
album over

M: rem have a song called endgame, i always thought it was cool too. it still does sound cool, it's just a REALLY BAD cover

J: 1) ed repka
2) vic rattlehead
3) nuclear stuff
4) ??????
5) rick profit!

M: My thoughts exactly, it's not hard to make a good thrash cover (attached picture)


J: :D :D :D :D

the two pictures top right and bottom left look like the dri dude
being electrocuted :)

M: if i ever release an album, that is so top choice as the cover



*In hindsight, I realise he did it because the normal cover looks a bit like it has a wreath around it. But it's still shit.

Join Metal Hammer At Sonisphere!

M: Join Metal Hammer At Sonisphere! - wanky wank wank

J: so is MH playing now? :/

M: i guess so, if mr demmel says he's okay, the others don't have a reason not to. its just the kind of gayfest they'll love anyways

J: but their reason was limp bizkit being above them :/

M: oh yeah! i forgot about that. i dunno then :s

J: everyone seems to love machine head nowadays

M: they're the new pantera, but shit

J: i was gonna say they're a scab band, but they have the original bassist, their drummer (who was in a band called Slayer that had to change their name to S.A. Slayer, gays, was in from the 2nd album) and phil demmell who was in vio-lence with rob, so they're not that scabby....

M: yeah i know about that sa slayer

yeah they're not really a scab band, but they are a bunch of wannabe wigger wankers that have only become metal again so they can be friends with metallica and ca$$$$$$h in

J: > yeah i know about that sa slayer

sorry :)

Machine Head just follow trends - I'm sure if nu metal was still big
they'd be rapping :)

M: agreed, they're a bandwagon band to the core. note how they were pantera-ish in the 90's hwne that was cool, then went nu metal, now they're back to being all metal again, they're completely transparent

J: it just annoys me that people actually still like them, even though they're effectively laughing at their fans :/

M: a) metal fans in general are pretty gullible b) they still release some good songs

J: > a) metal fans in general are pretty gullible

true

> b) they still release some 4 hour long songs

fixed ;)

M: halo is stupidly long. but i like it. but it doesn't have any awesome metal credibility, it's just an epic celine dion sort of warble, really.

J: what album is that on? i get confused with ashes and blackening :/

M: Halo is on the blackening, but could easily be on ashes, the sound is
the same

J: see now i thought halo was on Ashes.... though Ashes in my mind is only 4 songs long :)

M: me too, same with blackening :)) actually the copy of the blackening that i first had really did only have 6 songs on it, TM made me a shit copy :/

J: how does one make a shit copy.... on CD? that's impossible! ;D

M: haha, i dunno, basically after like the 5th or 6th song it just fucked up and wouldn't play :/ i think he did me a fear factory compilation too, but i confess, i did not listen to that :D