A rant about a couple of Metal shows.

Though I should be grateful that there is still an effort out there to promote metal and hard rock music I can't help but just chafe at a couple of shows in particular that I have been checking into from time to time. One is Talking Metal which does a podcast.
And the other is That Metal show on VH1. I'll start out with Talking metal first.

I was hyped that a podcast got it's own t.v. show however it's on Fuse so it's hard for me to catch it. I decided to check the pod casts out and see what these guys are about.I must have gone through 20 episodes and I have to tell you, what a boring piece of crap this is. The two hosts,John Ostronomy and Mark Strigl, sound like they're doing a podcast about fishing or something instead of metal music. They will literally go on and on about who they're seeing or what they're doing in New York , cut to a song, then come back and talk about random events then interview their guest. If you were to hear every podcast you would think these guys love every band and every album ever put out. The amount of ass kissing these two do is outstanding. Watch this vid of these two being interviewed about Chinese Democracy and you get a feel of what their podcast is like.




That is what you get to listen to for over an hour. Not to mention they are so way off the mark. They're baffled that people are calling a album that only sold 300,000 a failure? 15 years of hype was blown out of the water by this scrapbook of tunes. And then to top it off here is why there is so much ass kissing. Because these two get to live their rock n' roll dream by doing jams with their guests on their tv show. Mark is on guitar and John is on bass.



Embarrassing.

Embarrassing not because they can play it's embarrassing that these two guys can't just be real and honest like metal is supposed to be. They want so bad to be part of the scene that they will say and do anything it takes to be a part of it.



The pandering here is amazing, just be fans. But be passionate fans. Don't be afraid to speak your mind, I doubt seriously bands will not stop by your shows if you give honest but possible negative criticisms.

Alright on to the next rant. VH1 classic does a weekly show called That Metal show hosted by Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine, and Don Jamieson. Now while I don't have a problem with the guys on the show I do have a problem with the format. MTV damn near killed hard rock and metal music back in the 90's by halting videos and putting in crappy non music related programming. Now a decade later they're obviously throwing a coin in the cup of all of us "beggars" by putting a show on a seldom viewed cable channel with an hour time slot. these guys do the best they can in that time but it's not nearly enough as you get a sense that they want to keep on talking and doing segments but can't.

I will give the guys on the show credit for one thing. This is what the Talking Metal guys should be doing on their show. Check out this heated debate about Death Magnetic and then a fun interview with Yngwie Malmsteen.



Now Eddie Trunk has credibility within the industry since he used to be Vice-President of Megaforce records and has been a radio DJ for many years. The other two guys are basically comedians that play pranks but are metal fans. The trouble is with commercials all you get is 40 minutes of quick segments and interviews. Hardly makes up for what you did in the 90's MTV/Viacom, put this kind of programming on your flagship channels and make it daily. You might be surprised on the ratings. Oh and mix in some current artists and stop having the old timers come in.

Maybe if we had more attempts at shows like these then somebody would get them right but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen and that's a shame.