Through the years, we, the metalheads have registered ourselves as probably the most fanatic music supporters. We are the most regular record buyers, the most frequent concert attendees and in a continuous search of something new to listen to. But let’s think about it for a minute. Is this the case or it belongs to the sphere of imagination?

I have no memories of the eighties since I was too young and in the nineties the whole metal thing was supposed to be in reduction. Now, almost a decade into the new millennium, metal is coming back strong again. I mean, we have plenty of new releases, more big festivals are organized, great bands of the past are reuniting and even MTV brought “Headbangers Ball” back. And now it comes to us, the fans. How supportive to the metal scene we really are?

To make myself clear, I don’t believe that everyone that happens to listen to a specific kind of music has to actively support it. I’m referring to all those that define themselves as metalheads. We’ve seen festival here in Greece, away from Athens or Thessaloniki, with a crowd counting less than a hundred people. We’ve seen gigs of local and underground bands that you could count the people in the club with the fingers of your hands. And at the same time, we hear all those that chose to ignore these events, to complain about nothing happening in town and about the quality of the local scene. How supportive this attitude is?

The news guys, is that Iron Maiden are not coming to (your provincial) town. To be more specific, not a single “big” band is coming to town. It could be possible in the future, but first someone has to invest some money to book them. And in order to invest on something, he has to have at least some indications that he is going to get his money back. When someone organizes a gig with a foreign and a couple of local bands, that he could cover his expenses with less than a hundred tickets, and ends up with loosing money, he isn’t going to try again. You will have to wait until another crazy man with money to loose is going to appear. And how often do you really have the chance to see a metal concert without traveling?

But let’s leave aside those living away from the big urban centers, and for which the above apply, and have a look in the way all of us are dealing with our local scenes and the underground bands in general. I often get the feeling we treat them as the outcasts of metal music. We don’t even give them a chance to show us what they got.  I agree that the majority of the bands that are making a demo or manage to make their first gig have little or nothing to offer. The question is how are we going to find those that really deserve to be heard and give them the courage to go on? The answer is really simple. We just have to be there. You have nothing to lose by spending a couple of hours for seeing any underground or local band playing.

Some times I left the place with the thought that I should be checking those dudes every now and then to see what they are up to, and some other times I was left wondering why the hell I hadn’t heard of them sooner. It’s not like you are trying to prove you are a bigger metal fan than the others. It’s just the only way to help more and better music come to surface. It can bring you more satisfaction to discover a band that can possibly get big in the future than having a couple of drinks at a bar. It costs next to nothing to actively support you local scene and you could discover treasures in it.

Fotis Karagiannis.

We are those lucky people who lived our half years grown up with bands such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Megadeth and in general all these years which are often characterized as the golden age of metal music. But the progress in various fields and especially the technological progress helped our ears become more vulnerable and Iron Maiden were replaced by Sepultura or Slayer and eventually by As I Lay Dying and Norma Jean. We became those people with dignity I’d say, by respecting the old ones and always giving the glad hand to the – new and thirsty for fame – blood. But we are also those people who face the gradual but almost total twilight of the respectful way of life we’ve learned.

Our corner’s diskery is now displaced by our web browser and the pocket money we were saving to buy our favorite cd’s without never regretting it, is replaced by the seeds and peers of our torrent engines. The little book of our cds or vinyls is now torned by our ease of having our line connected and simply click to our favorite band’s blogs. And I’m sure there are some reasons that made us turned into that kind of humans we once sang we would never become. Unenterprising.

Is it our fault? Is it the music business’s fault?

Mentioning the music business, I always and still believe that setting this “lady” as an aliby and putting the blame on her was always the easy excuse to not move our asses from the couch and try something more in the name of the thing we keep on saying we dedicated our lives in. It’s like America sometimes where everyone blames George Bush for the economy but all of them voted him. So let’s just imagine the fact that labels did not exist today.

The musical promotion has been far more free and accessible to every artist nowadays via myspace, youtube or other similar websites, which is a fact that leads into a total chaos where the simple fans that count much fewer than band members are so confused, don’t know from where to start their search-try and keep on bombing their heads with crappy staff until…?

Until they get sick and tired of this situation and pay their attention again to a signed artist as this statistically showed all those years that it is the most safe thing to do, (and I am sorry If I make you cry here), as music label’s signed artists per cent is full of bands that have worked hard to succeed from a cool hairstyle to a great production and composition numbers.

And isn’t that what makes you as a latecomer on stage immediately send your debut promo to hundreds of them, checking your mails like a maniac to read if someone found your music interesting and offer you a “whatever” contract? No fellows, you love the music business although you can’t admit it. You love it because deep in you, you recognize that it is almost the biggest chance for you to be heard worldwide, because you know that a good contract is going to be followed by a full promotion and booking require attention.

But let’s return to our main theme by re-examine a new possible answer. What about the price of the cds? Did they hit a so non-approachable phase that precludes any further waste of money than a few years ago?

The answer is definitely NO! We are the beginning of the so called “internet-freaks” generation and we know better than everyone that if we spend some time to look for some external websites we may find our favorite cds in half price or even less sometimes especially if this cd is a review-trusted second hand.

And there is no need I think to mention that in our local diskeries, if we are a little patient, in less than three months from the release date everyone with no exception resume the price of the albums for biggest sales.

And that is finally the honest and my beloved part of this editorial which I always wanted to express, cause it has to do with us, I mean the fans who also have our own bands (or some of us we don’t thank God). What I am about to write at the moment reminds me my daily activities where I meet many friends or people I know and happens to realize that the 80% of them have their own bands and worse than that, most of them are just simple copies of what they are currently listening.

There is one common truth and it seems than not everyone can admit that. I mean not everyone can be rock stars in that life and follow the other bands in the Warped Tour just by wearing a VANS t-shirt or having their high school girlfriends scream in their local shows! And that is what I think I’ll use as a conclusion to the topic theme.

My point is that if everyone have a daily and easy access to promote their bands almost the same way as the bigger ones, a worthy one should stay very lucky in order to escape the obscurity, because us -the fans – are daily bombed of a thousand invitations to check someone’s music and I am really disappointed telling you that I barely find a few bands who play in a fresh and original way, have a well-advised production, do not try to mix 100 genres in order to be a novel, and do not lack of basic imagination. A result to this is that people learn to like the unremarkable because they miss the good.

We truly grab the medium band’s updates in order not to lose them too, buy their cds, listen it a couple of times and then get bored again and start from the beginning to find a needle in the barn.

Does this really worth the cost?

No! It is obviously more preferable to download this band’s cds than spending our money just to gain a few hours of sound pleasure. And there stay some good bands in obscurity, bands who no matter how much is their effort to spread their music worldwide, we are so bored of checking them too in their first appearances and debut works and just convict them to anonymity. Anonymously lost in the friend requests…

So is it the music business’s fault? No. It is our fault cause trying to persuade ourselves that we belong to the group of the “stars” we grow this situation bigger and bigger until we totally lose our personal spot and finally pass the torch on TV and mainstream radio broadcasts. And then we’ll cry over the ashes of Iron Maiden clicking the repeat button on “Wasted Years”.

“Let us be poised and wise and our own today” as some good friends use to say…

Rena Koutsou.

This project is based in Greece, since the founders and most of the editors are from there, the site, however, is going to spread worldwide. This means we are going to have reports and stuff from other countries, too. Hence, the site will be both on Greek and English language. Our aim is to inform, to entertain and to promote, via internet, in a cheaper and faster way than magazines. We will be honoured to be able to help newborn bands to promote their work through our site and we promise that we’ll do our best about it. The news of the rock and metal world from all over the planet are going to be updated daily. You’ll also find many album reviews, interviews, live reports with photo material from the biggest music events to the most underground, interesting tributes, entertainment stuff like comics, several kinds of contests, and of course, all that the internet is about, communication.

All the work is being done for the sake of the music that we all hold dear, the music that burns our heads, the music that became our lifestyle…METAL music.

Keep in mind that we are still seeking for editors and people to join our team. Feel free to contact us and ask whatever it is you want to know. We are broad open to any recommendations. It’s ALL about METAL !

Karagiannidis Panagiotis.