AlSymerz

Nah touring here for local bands is pretty much open in all states but one. They'll never do a regional tour again because it takes a long time to do the kind of tours that helped them break the scene and head overseas and they'll never make the same amount of cash playing for their home crowds as they will overseas.

Joel is a madman, the things that guy does on stage are just crazy and make for some good entertainment. They've had some great luck in their career and it's good to see them making it big on the world stage. Unfortunately I don't think we are going to see them do regional tours of their home country any more. NP: Heathen and Piranha demos with Paul Baloff

Tainted Aromas Reek Tremendously LEAD

Airbourne - Breakin' Outta Hell

Digging In Nanna's Grave BOLT

DRI - 4 Of A Kind

Yeah Midnight Oil were locally popular when they called themselves Farm, but they didn't record their first album until '78. They were only of those bands that had some success all over the place but never really had enough success to break anywhere but Aust. They did do some big gigs overseas but like most they were bigger here than anywhere else. They were one of the first "white" bands and the first successful rock band to be accepted into aboriginal communities to play and move about. There is a very select number of performers who have earned that right and the stories the guys from the Oils retell are quite stunning. Men At Work is an interesting one they came along later than many others and did have some success with Who Can It Be, Down Under and Overkill. They only released 3 albums and Down Under kept getting revived for all sorts of things which kept their name out there. But Colin Hay, the main man and guitarist actually moved to the US 30 years ago (became a citizen eventually) and spent lots of years doing tv and movie work. He's had both songs and personal appearances in all sorts of shows from JAG to Scrubs, and Zach Braff from Scrubs has not only had in appear singing in the show but used him on multiple tv shows and movies he produced which keep reviving his career. INXS were a manufactured band, not like the Monkees or Spice Girls, but they were manufactured for big hits. They were a big part of the local scene, they drunk, drugged and fucked with most of the other bands. They created nearly as many enemies as they did fans here. But like Alberts Records decided it was time for AC/DC to break the world market and then spent 4 years making it happen INXS management did the same. They wrote and produced the highly polished, too perfect for most, music which the US label knew would sell in huge numbers, the pumped the shit out of the PR and just like sheep the world took to the new amazing act and made them a success and made the record company richer.

Some of the reviews on MA are useful at times, but you're right the similar artists at times seems they have just cut and pasted names from the main players. All thrash bands are like Slayer or Testament. Death metal bands are like Obituary and Death. The site as a whole is not bad as a resource given that it's not 100% fact checked but it does pay to read some bios etc with an open mind.

I'd swap chocolate for that!

stick

Picked up a demo saw from the hire place last night. The patio is going to be full of concrete dust and noise within a few hours. I could start now, given neighbourhood noise restrictions don't really matter out here, but wifey noise restrictions do matter and she doesn't get out of bed before 8am on Tuesdays.

Mechanix - Sonic Point Black

Gunjack - The Third Impact

I saw a band not long back that had an official release date for an album through a major label, but there was no track listing shown, not title shown and according to MA no members still active in the band. I have no idea how things like that would effect the count but it's probably still closer using MA as the data gather than it is any other site.

Not denying the findings but Metal Archives are very hit and miss with their genres a lot of the time. There is plenty of stuff on MA that is listed in completely wrong categories or cross listed through multiple genres. Then there is heaps of bands marked as active that aren't. I've got a mate who's listed in death, prog and experimental but the only album he's listed is none of those genres and the mods agreed to it. It wouldn't effect only one genre but it would have an effect of the totals.

Blaze Bayley - War Within Me

Speed Between The Line - Gama Bomb

The 'first' heavy metal song is a debate that will be had forever and I doubt there will ever be one unanimous answer. Even finding a majority answer will probably be difficult given the number of choices people throw up. The best part about people throwing out bands and songs the could fit the bill is that occasionally someone throws up some obscure band that almost no one has ever heard of and people get to hear something different.

Just reading that Chris Holmes has cancer in the neck and throat. From his wife: This post is not easy to write because of the personal nature of it and we would rather you hear it directly from us before stories and rumours start to circulate and by respect for all of you who love and support Chris, we feel that this is exactly what we need at this time. Recently Chris was diagnosed with a cancer in throat and neck but the medical team have assured us there has been no metastasis and this is a good news. He will have to start as soon as possible a treatment of 7 weeks. Poor bugger, hope he gets better.

Little Shop of Horrors would be a good one

New Kreator out in a few months, single was released on Friday

Not sure if it's common thing because I spent 20 years not going to a dentist by my dentist now has a TV on the roof, it has closed captions so you can read what's going on but he does get a bit narky when you ask him to get out of the way. The first time I saw him he had Sesame Street on the screen so I asked him if he could do better, two days later when I went in there the bugger had the Food Network on!!

My dentist told me when he was pulling my two top ones out that it was going to feel like he was pulling my brain out through my mouth. He wasn't fucking wrong!

I was listening to that album the other day and I can't even remember what the words are. I'll have to listen again.

Not that I really focus on it any more but I made a big mistake of only hearing what I wanted to hear when the dentist told me my wisdom teeth needed to come out. His words were, "we could probably get away with only two now but it would be better to go all four". I focused on less dentist, less bill, less time in the chair and got two out. The remaining to two fucked around in my mouth ruining the teeth beside them and eventually led to more problems. My brother had all 4 done at once in hospital, while he was asleep, I wished I'd taken that option.