LAZARUS A.D. is the most recent casualty in a slew of unfortunate band robberies to claim theft of their personal items and money from their touring van. The incident took place last night in Southampton, UK. After breaking a window to enter the band´s van, the burglars stole roughly $1,500 in cash, all of the bands personal items including Social Security cards, birth certificates, and clothing, and even their personal hygiene items. The band members luckily had their passports in their pockets and their gear inside the venue; otherwise they fear that those items would have been taken as well.

LAZARUS A.D. have many dates remaining on their tour with Bonded By Blood, so having no money or personal items will be a great strain on the band financially and personally. A PayPal donation link has been set up in order for fans to donate to the band in this time of need. Please head to this link to donate what you can spare.

Check out their latest video:



The band has released one of 2011's best albums, and will appear shortly on Mars Attacks.

Please do what you can to help them out.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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During the latest episode of Mars Attacks Podcast I had the pleasure of speaking to Russell Allen of Symphony X and Peter Ellis the ex-lead singer of such bands as White Wizzard and The More I See. The interview took place roughly four days before Mike Portnoy announced that he would be working with Russell on a new project. He brings the project up for a moment, but then decides to not disclose any information, as if he was unsure that the project would actually get off of the ground. This is backed up further, when reading the comments he released shortly after Portnoy made the announcement via his Twitter account. It´s all in the episode, so you make the call. He also discusses his jousting past, The Showdown by Allen/Lande, and his involvement in Star On. There are some issues with the audio, but we´ve done the best we can to clean everything up. That said, there are still a few spots I wish we could have improved a little more.

Peter Ellis was a very interesting interview for me. So many things have been circulated in the press regarding White Wizzard and their leader Jon Leon. I honestly didn´t know what to expect. For those of you keeping track I´ve interviewed several former members, James J. LaRue, James Luna, and Erik Kluiber. They all have had their issues with Leon (money, creative differences, unfulfilled promises, etc.), but Ellis is doesn´t hold the same sort of things against Leon. I don´t know this for a fact, because obviously I´ve never been in the band, but from the sound of things Peter was approached in a different way, than perhaps the others? Again, I can´t say this for sure, but given the four interviews, it seems as if the impression he was given regarding his role in the band was slightly different than the others. You also feel for Peter as well when you hear him discuss why he isn´t in the band anymore. Although he doesn´t come out and say it, you can tell he is disappointed by the way he was advised to procure his visa. Hopefully this doesn´t affect being able to enter the US in the future. Although I tried getting information out of him, he wouldn´t mention anything regarding his new band. What he did mention is that they´re working on demos, and that a big name producer and label are interested. The one thing he did mention to me (that isn´t included in the interview) is how he was out all night, and partied all day with his buddies before his home town gig (in London) with White Wizzard. Unfortunately, this is where the majority the footage you currently find on YouTube of him fronting the band comes from. You can see from other videos of him with the band, and from his time fronting The More I See that these London videos aren´t indicative of his live performance. I´m sure our voices would have been just as messed up given the situation.

The interview can be downloaded or listened to here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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The latest episode of Mars Attacks Podcast, features interviews with Dan and Scott LePage from Hades. The show is split up into two segments; one for each guitarist. Obviously both discuss the upcoming Hades reunion show (March 26th at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ), but we also get to hear Scott discusses his new project The Freeze Tag Assassins, what it was like to record with them (the three of them play guitar), and how his gear has evolved (or not) over the years. The episode contains two songs by the band.

Dan Lorenzo has always spoken his mind, and so he should! During his portion he discusses not only the reunion, but the new Hades/Non-Fiction DVD (shot by Jay Bones), an updates on The Cursed, Screaming Metal, and gives us a tidbit regarding Anthrax possibly ripping off one of Hades ideas.

Dan has always been great to the show, and has accommodated us with every request. As a result we are more than happy to have him back on and help do our part to help promote any project remotely connected to him.

The episode can be listened to or downloaded from here.

If you´re a wrestling fan, you´ll be able to hear columnist Martyn Nolan and I preview the Elimination Chamber pay-per view later today on my Victor M. Ruiz Podcast. You´ll find more information regarding that show here.

Both of these podcasts and my Spanish language show Fusion Sonica can also be found in iTunes. Please subscribe, and help spread the word.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Among other things discussed during the latest episode of Mars Attacks Podcast, Greg Prato reveals that he is assisting Carmine Appice with his biography. He mentioned during the interview that Carmine has given him the complete details of what really took place during the legendary Mudshark story detailed in the non-authorized biography of Led Zeppelin called Hammer Of The Gods. Prato discusses how there have been all of these rumors circulating about the story, but Carmine sets the story straight during his book. Carmine was actually there when everything went down.

Why Greg Prato you ask? A few months back I read a post online (probably on Blabbermouth or Brave Words) about a book called The Eric Carr Story. At the time the book was about to come out (late 2010). Being a lifelong Kiss fan I was instantly intrigued. What I didn´t expect was how much I would enjoy the book. I´m not the world´s fastest reader, and really have never really read a book up until three years ago when I started reading biographies about musicians, war heroes, and professional wrestlers. This book´s format was new to me, and very easy to read. It isn´t Greg stating "and in this year Eric did this" or "Eric stated this to Circus Magazine". Greg tracked people down that where part of Eric´s life to help construct the events for readers. You get all of these little tidbits from Bruce & Bob Kulick, former Kiss keyboard player and close friend Gary Corbett, Eddie Trunk, late Kiss manager Bill Aucoin, Michael James Jackson who helped produce and shape the massive drum sound on Creatures of the Night, Eric´s ex-girlfriend Carrie Stevens, his sister Loretta, and a multitude of other musicians like the aforementioned Caremine Appice, Charlie Benante, Mike Portnoy, etc. This made the book very insightful, and extremely easy to digest. I wasn´t expecting to find out much regarding Eric, just a time line of events perhaps. But I pleasantly surprised at how in depth the book actually is, how much ground it covers, and the incendiary nature of some of the.

Greg released another book called When MTV Ruled the world, so we concentrate a bit on that book as well. I instantly went out and purchased it after conducting the interview, as well as Grunge is Dead. I am eagerly awaiting both books!

The interview can be downloaded or listened to directly from here.

You can also subscribe to Mars Attacks Podcast in iTunes.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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During my interview with Issa, and Amanda Somerville, it becomes apparent that neither one was a fan of hard rock or metal up until a few years ago. They're both full fledged hard rock and metal fans now, but both admit to not listening to anything that remotely sounds like rock growing up. Considering how finicky some fans are, this takes a lot of courage for both to admit. Both interviews are fairly short, and feature songs from Issa's Signs Of Angels, and Amanda's album Windows, as well as her project with Michael Kiske.

You can listen to or download this episode from here.

Check out VictorMRuiz.com for the Royal Rumble Hang Over show. Should be posted either today or tomorrow.

Remember to subscribe to all three of my podcasts Mars Attacks Podcast, Fusion Sonica Podcast and Victor M. Ruiz Podcast on iTunes. Also remember to leave a message on iTunes regarding the shows.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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For those of you that don´t know, I have a third podcast called the Victor M. Ruiz podcast. It is up on iTunes, and can also be listened to and downloaded from my newest web site www.victormruiz.com. The reason for starting this podcast up was to be able to discuss pretty much anything I have on my mind, thus the name The Incoherent Ramblings of Victor M. Ruiz. Like a lot of other people, 2010 really sucked me and I found myself semi-venting during episodes of Mars Attacks. When listening back I realized that a lot of people are tuning in for an interview, and don´t want to hear me moan about this or that. But I still needed an outlet to talk about these things. To talk about other things outside of metal, like sports, tv, movies, wrestling, etc. I initially was only going to do one show a month, but it´s been too much fun to just keep things to that once a month limit. If you listened to the last podcast, I interviewed wrestling columnist Martyn Nolan about a pay-per view event that took place this past weekend called the Royal Rumble. When I signed off I said, we´ll do this before next month´s PPV as well. But what happened, I watched the PPV and instantly started writing all of these points down, and asked Martyn if he wanted to come back on and do a recap show of the event. So this will probably be a recurring event, once or twice per month. Aside from that, again, I´d like to expand, and play music and discuss bands that don´t fall into the hard rock or metal categories. I also want to use this blog to discuss general things. Case in point, I just posted an article called Number One Low which covers a topic that a lot of people have recently discussed. Namely Cake´s new album only selling 44,000 copies, and still coming in on top of the Billboard Charts. So this article has a bunch of theories based on input people have given me, and from listening to various podcasts which discussed this topic.

If interested you can go here to read the article in questions, feel free to leave any comments you might have regarding topics we cover.

Other items that have recently taken place concern my Spanish language podcast Fusion Sonica. Last year the site was nominated for an award, but lost out to the incumbent, who has won this award every year since the inspection of these awards. Right then the wheels started to turn, what can I do to evolve the site, so that I can add must read/listen content that people frequently want to check out? Then it came to me, adding guest columns where members of local and national bands discuss their bands, other bands they dig, etc. You can find these types of things in Guitar World, where an artist discusses their riffs, or what got them into music, and so on. The results so far have been good, and although we have had a few growing pains along the way; I do feel that we´re moving in the right direction.

With regards to Mars Attacks, a new episode will debut tonight featuring nothing but live music. Some people love hearing song live, other hate it. I picked a wide assortment of tracks that come from classic, and not so classic live albums. The episode debuts tonight at 8PM EST / 5PM PST on Stream A of MarkStriglRadio.com. The show will repeat tomorrow, and during the weekend, check out MarsAttacksRadio.com for more information. Remember that the podcast version of the show is not available on iTunes.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Some of you may be asking who James J. LaRue is? He´s the guitarist behind what is arguably White Wizzard´s biggest hit, High Speed GTO. He can also be heard on one of last year´s most anticipated debut albums, Holy Grail´s Crisis In Utopia. Although he is listed in many places as their current guitarist, James confirms that he left the band during the recording of the album. He also mentions that he had yet (at the time of the interview) to listened to the completed album.

The album was recorded by former Nine Inch Nails member Danny Lohner, this is his first attempt at producing a metal album. From what James describes; Danny anticipated receiving something else from the band when recording began. It seems as if this is where a lot of the problems arose. James goes into great detail describing the difficulties he faced when recording the album, issues with his bandmates, and with their label Prosthetic. He also specifies exactly why he decided to leave the band.

As mentioned above, James was also a member of White Wizzard, during the interview he also discusses his time in the band, and his relationship with Jon Leon. Given the track record with the band´s various lineups, and all of the things that have been mentioned, I was somewhat surprised to hear his current opinion on Jon.

This interview is a must listen for anyone trying to get into the music industry. James is very frank and direct regarding the issues he ran into with both bands, and has no delusions of grandeur when discussing everything. He is very honest, and details at great length what it´s like to be in a band that is on a prominent metal label that is at the same time putting a considerable amount of promotion behind a band and album.

I have enjoyed listening to everything I´ve heard from both White Wizzard and Holy Grail. Obviously there are some things that I like more than others, there are things on Over The Top that blow songs off of the High Speed GTO album away. There are also things on Crisis In Utopia that are as good or better than anything White Wizzard has put out. But that´s just my opinion. It´s too early for me to throw WW Mach 3 into the mix since we´ve only heard one new track from them called Shooting Star. Jon Leon has confirmed that the band has started recording an album with the new lineup. They should be done sometime in February. So we´ll have to wait a little to see what this line up has to offer.

It will also be interesting to see how James moves forward; I do think he has a great future ahead of him, as does Eric Kluiber who is currently working with a band called Shotgun, and Wyatt Anderson former White Wizzard lead singer who is supposed to be making an announcement regarding his future shortly.

If you are interested in downloading or listening to the interview you can find it here.

The episode will also be up on iTunes shortly, so make sure to subscribe!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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This week we bring you the second part of my interview with former Helloween lead singer Michael Kiske. He gave me a lot of great quotes to choose from for a headline, as a result, it was difficult to choose one. But after reading interviews where he supposedly turned his back on metal, I thought it was apropos to go with the one I chose "Metal reminds me a lot of the Catholic Church". It is rather ironic that a lot of music, rock, rap, and metal specifically were created to display displeasure in what was taking place. Bucking the system if you will, turning your back on the system, etc. But for a good while now people have decided what metal is, and isn´t. You read about what is "true metal", which in a lot of cases is just plain humorous and just b.s. elitism. Similar to any form of organized religion, people have shifted to creating organized music that has to follow a certain set of guidelines or commandments if you will to pertain to their version of metal.

Michael goes into this in greater detail and discusses what he calls fascism within music.

Recently I read someone´s post stating that Iron Maiden was not a metal band, and never was. This person mentioned that they have always been a classic rock band. I found this proclamation to be rather interesting, considering they are asked/paid to headline a good portion of the metal festivals that are run every year. I´ve actually heard this about Motorhead, Kiss, Judas Priest, and even Metallica. As much as I love a lot of newer music, I think it´s just plain dumb to pan something because your friends don´t think it´s cool, it isn´t underground, or all of the cool sites or magazines aren´t talking about a specific band. I also found it rather comical that people recently got up in arms because a few of the writers on MetalSucks.com proclaimed Ratt´s Infestation to be their favorite album of 2010. I thought it was great that they stood by this choice all year, and they didn´t care if other´s thought it was "true" or not. Interesting that without bands like the aforementioned Ratt you wouldn´t have bands like Lamb Of God, God Forbid, etc. that are popular today. Perhaps they weren´t fans of the band directly, but their playing surely influenced someone (perhaps Dimebag Darrell) who was actually influenced Robin Crosby and Warren DiMartini´s playing style.

In any event, another item Michael discusses is a rumor that has been floating around for years, which is being asked to join Iron Maiden. Both parts of the interview are a music listen to if you´re a fan of Helloween, Michaels, or music in general. As with the first part, he speaks his mind, and really does not care whether other deem it to be cool or not.

The episode can be listened to or downloaded from here.

On a side note I want to thank everyone that voted for the best albums of 2010. Below you will find links that pertain to the various categories that where voted on.

Top 30 Metal Albums

Top 15 Pop / Indie / Rap (essentially non-Metal Albums)

Top 15 Spanish / South America Albums (mostly hard rock/metal, some folk)

Thanks again, and enjoy!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Very busy week for Fusion Sonica, Mars Attacks, and my new podcast The Incoherent Ramblings of Victor M. Ruiz. What I´ve done is begun listing on the various sites what listeners of the show voted as their top albums of the year, for the following categories:

- Top Metal / Hard Rock / Punk / Hardcore Albums
- Top (essentially non-metal) indie / Rap / Hip Hop / Folk / Country, etc.
- Top Song Of the Year
- Top Greatest Hits Album / Live Album
- Top Reissue of the Year
- Top Spanish / Latin American Albums

The best part about doing these types of polls is seeing what others voted for. I always stumble across albums I forgot about, didn´t get a chance to listen to yet, or didn´t know existed. As a result I spent a good part of the last few days checking out bands or albums that fall under any of these three categories I just mentioned.

Getting back to the voting, almost all of these races where close, the only one that wasn´t was top Metal album. The winner in that category received close to three times as many points as the second place artist. Everything else was separated by a few points. The easiest way to explain how an album made the list is by taking a look at chart displayed below. If an album was placed first on a list it received 10 points, etc. So the scoring went like this:

1st – 10 Points
2nd – 9 Points
3rd – 8 Points
4th – 7 Points
5th – 6 Points
6th – 5 Points
7th – 4 Points
8th – 3 Points
9th – 2 Points
10th – 1 Point

Anything that appeared above the 10th spot, or was an honorable mention was not included. Some people only sent the name of one album in, others just 5. Other nothing at all! In total close to 600 albums where voted on. With the metal category we cut things off at 300 although we will only list 200 on the site. Above 200 a lot of albums received very few votes. Maybe they received one mention on someone´s list, and that´s it.

In any event Wednesday go to www.victormruiz.com to check out the top 15 non-metal (for lack of a better term) albums.

Thursday go to www.fusionsonica.com to check out the top 15 Spanish albums.

Thursday also check out MarkStriglRadio.com Stream A at 8PM EST / 5PM PST to check out the top 30 Metal albums of the year. Friday you´ll be able to download a podcast version of the same show from www.marsattacksradio.com.

All three shows are now available on iTunes as well.

You can currently check out various countdowns on each of the sites pertaining to the podcast/radio shows mentioned above.

Enjoy, and thanks for voting!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Before interviewing Michael Kiske I was sort of apprehensive. Not that I didn´t want to interview him, but that I had read so many things over the years. He´s temperamental, he doesn´t want to talk about certain things (specifically Helloween), and has turned his back on metal, etc. As a result, I decided to only put together two questions regarding his former band, since chances where I wasn´t going to be able to discuss much about them. WRONG! A few minutes into the interview Michael starts talking about his time in Helloween, and the questions just kept flowing.

As I mention during the interview, one of the reasons why I love being able to record these interviews is that you actually get to hear someone´s voice. With print, or with a with a web site you are not able to notice the inflection of someone´s voice, whether they´re being sarcastic or not, or just being a dick as many have been unfairly labeled in the past.

With regards to turning his back on metal, or no longer liking metal, he mentions that he has a problem with the a certain mentality within metal, and likens it to the Catholic Church. Mentioning something to the effect of their being a series of Popes that dictate what is metal, and what isn´t. He also states that he finds it odd that after all of these years people are so conservative within the rock and metal community, and will only allow certain things to pass as either.

The interview is split up into two parts; it actually comes off more as a conversation between two people as opposed to a straight interview. I always make it a point to have my interviews sound this way, although it isn´t always the case.

The one thing I do have to apologize about is the recording itself. The software I use has been giving me all types of problems. As a result I´ve had to record this interview in a single channel instead of two. What that does is prohibit me from editing the interview as much as I´d like. As a result you´ll hear plenty of ums and ah-has that you normally don´t during my shows, sorry. In any event, it was great fun talking to Michael, I hope all of you enjoy it.

The interview can be listened to or downloaded from here.

By the way if you haven´t done so already please send me your top albums of the year, more information here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Join John and  tomorrow for another LIVE edition of Talking Metal and Talking Rock starting at 7pm EST / 4PM PST. Mark Strigl Radio - stream A
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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Where are a few things I have learned about Mark Morton (Lamb Of God) from his Tweets:
 
1.  He likes Lady Gaga much better than Justin Bieber.
2.  He listens to Jay Z.
3.  He dose not listen to much metal.
4.  He has never heard of Charred Walls Of The Damned.
 

-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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Mars Attacks Radio returns with new tracks from Monster Magnet, Return To Earth, The Cult, The Damned Things, Madball and Municiple Waste among others.

Show airs exclusively on Stream A of MarkStriglRadio.com 8PM EST/5PM PST. Or you can simply go to MarsAttacksRadio.com and use the Live365 player.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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During my interview with Dave Wyndorf lead singer of Monster Magnet he talks about how difficult it was to catch a break in the states when the band started out, especially in New York City. He mentions how being from New Jersey made things difficult for the band. He alludes to the fact that there was always a stigma placed on them as a result of being from Jersey, and that the band was always offered the worst time slots possible as a result. Due to this Dave up and left and traveled to Germany to establish the band. After doing so, Monster Magnet resurfaced state side where they have felt various levels of success world wide since then.

During the interview we discuss the bands excellent new album Mastermind. We also touch on Dave´s health, his political views, his love for comic books, and the various terms used to describe the band over the years.

To listen to or download the interview go here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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If any of you caught last weeks episode of the Fox show The Good Guys, you'll of heard Charred Walls Of The Damned's song Ghost Town for a few seconds. I reached out to CWOTD's Richard Christy to congratulate him for this, and he wasn't even aware of the fact that they were going to use the track!

As a matter of fact, sent this along:

"It's so funny too cause I know the girl who´s driving the car in the scene! She was in the film Albino Farm in a scene with me! What a small world."

Richard also mentioned that pre-production on the new CWOTD album will start shortly.

Hearing CWOTD follows up hearing groups like Dio and Farflung on the new Hawaii Five-0. Cool to see that people in the TV world are paying attention to hard rock and metal!

New episode of Mars Attacks Podcast tomorrow with Dave Wyndorf from Monster Magnet.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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We are being told that former Mushroomhead guitarist and founding member JJ Sekula (JJ Righteous) has passed away.  Our thoughts are with his family and friends.  For more information click here.


-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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Among other things during the latest edition of the Mars Attacks Podcast. We actually have a twofer in the dysfunctional department as James Luna from Holy Grail talks about his time in White Wizzard during this episode as well.

Ripper talks about pretty much all of the band he was involved in, and explains the differences in how he was approached to join Judas Priest, and Yngwie Malmsteen, as opposed to how John Shaffer approached him to join Iced Earth, and the promises Shaffer made that where never kept. He also touches upon how he was fired (via e-mail), and how at the time when the episode was recorded that there was no dialogue between the two of them. Tim also goes out of his way to discuss Play My Game the great solo album that was released in May of 2009. He mentions how he is very proud of the album, and will keep plugging it as long as he is possibly able to do so. We touch on the Spinal Tap like rotating line up in Hail! and Charred Walls Of The Damned project with Richard Christy. Check out the link below for more details.

During Luna's portion of the interview we discuss everything from Danny Lohner (best known for his work in Nine Inch Nails, and Reinholder), producer of Crisis in Utopia, how Klaus Meine influenced him to become a singer, his side of things in the White Wizzard debacle, and how Jon Leon stole the song High Speed GTO from him. Oh yeah and he causally drops how the band played Waken, as if it was no big deal! Only the biggest metal festival in the world!

Touching back on White Wizzard for a second, I did try and reach out to several former members, and to Jon Leon himself. In fairness to Jon I wanted him to get his side of things across. I go as far as including a part of their new song Shooting Star in the episode. That said, Luna is very direct with his responses regarding the band, and is very much along the lines of what others have already said. Without hearing what Leon has to say, well, it just seems as if it is pretty unanimous as to what is taking place within the band. And what he is ultimately subjecting band members to. On a side note, I find it funny that the White Wizzard camp prides itself on comparing themselves to Iron Maiden, when they've had more lineup changes in 8 months than Maiden has had since 79!

In any event, check out the great new album by Holy Grail called Crisis in Utopia, it is on Prosthetic Records and was released earlier this week.

Go here to listen to or download the episode with Ripper and Luna.

While your there remember to sign up for the Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace groups!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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I met up with David "Rock" Feinstein from the Rods yesterday in
midtown Manhattan.  We recorded an interview for episode 327 of the TM
podcast which will be posted sometime early next week.  We spoke about
his new solo album Bitten By the Beast which includes a song called
Metal Will Never.  The song includes lead vocals by Feinstein's late
cousin and former Elf band mate, Ronnie James Dio.  It is one of the last
two last songs RJD every recorded.  The second song will be included
on a new reunion album by the Rods which will be released through Niji
Entertainment in 2011.  Ronnie recoreded the songs with Fienstein in
New York State and he also attended the mastering session for the Bitten
By the Beast album in California two months before his death.  Be sure
to tune into our podcast next week for the full interview.
 
 
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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We will hear more new music from Ronnie James Dio next year.  Stayed tuned to the Talking Metal podcast next week to find out the exact where and when.
 


 
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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“When Izzy left the band Axl called me to be a member of Guns.  There is a number of reasons that didn’t work out.  If I could pick one it would be my own herion addiction.  We have always had a great respect for one another."
 
Check out Dave Navarro on the next episode of the Talking Metal podcast.  It will be posted sometime in the next 48 hours.
 
 
 
 


 
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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NEW YORK RANGERS KICKOFF 85^th ANNIVERSARY SEASON WITH A PAIR OF ACES
New York Rangers Home Opener at Madison Square Garden - October 15^th, 7PM
 
 
New York, October 15, 2010 – To kick off the historic 85th anniversary of the New York Rangers, the original six franchise is bringing a host of exciting new entertainment elements to add to the in-game action for the Rangers home opener. On Friday, October 15th, at 7PM, Blueshirt fans will get to experience Ace Frehley, founding member and lead guitarist for the legendary rock band KISS, perform his hit song "New York Groove" live at MSG.
 
During the first intermission, Food Network will introduce their very own "Ace of Cakes", beloved baker, ChefDuff Goldman who has created a special 85th anniversary cake to commemorate the team's history and celebrate the Rangers longest running season ticket holder, who has been a loyal fan at the Garden for 60 years. Duff will be filming an episode of Ace of Cakes in the arena throughout the Rangers game, and will be joined by Ranger greats Rod Gilbert, Adam Graves, and children from the Garden of Dreams Foundation to unveil his latest confectionary creation on the ice. The Cake will also be presented to honor the Rangers longest runningseason ticket holder, who has For the first time ever, Duff has included cupcakes in his cake design, which will be made available for a select number of fans to enjoy at the concourse during the game.
 
 
 
The New York Rangers take on the Toronto Maple Leafs at 7PM at Madison Square Garden.

 
 

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Episode 21 marks the one year anniversary of the Mars Attacks Radio Show and Podcast. As a result, I wanted to make sure that we had a special interview lined up for this show. During this episode we have none other than John Bush the legendary lead singer of Armored Saint and Anthrax. As you can tell from listening to the interview he is very sincere and forth coming. He doesn´t dodge any of my questions, and answers everything in a very matter of fact manner. He talks about Joey Belladonna, and how he feels that Joey should be singing more Bush era songs. I actually ask him if he thinks they should record The Greater Of Two Evils Part 2? He discusses listening to the material that Dan Nelson recorded, and in his gut not wanting to be part of the process. I actually want to mention (before people look too far into this) that he explains that he was more turned off by the touring cycle than the recording of the album, although he had issues with the album as well. We also discuss being asked to join Metallica, and he mentions how joining Metallica made no sense at the time, but joining Anthrax made all of the sense in the world. He also discuss being involved in the NY Steel benefit show, some of the collaborations he done over the years, Armored Saint being brought up erroneously in Motley Crue´s The Dirt, and Metallica´s Some Kind Of Monster among other things.

I am also in the process of scheduling various interviews at the time that will hopefully allow year two of Mars Attacks to be bigger than the first one.

You can listen to or download the podcast from here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Sort of bummed out, was originally supposed to interview Bumblefoot this weekend. But he needs some much needed rest before playing San Sebastian that night. That said, I´ll still be making the three hour trek to see them play. Interestingly enough when living in Jersey I wouldn´t go to Manhattan to see some bands play because I felt it was too far and here I am constantly going to see bands that are playing 3 to 7 hours away. Go figure! Just goes to show that you tend to take for granted certain things when they´re within reach.
In any event during episode 20 of the Mars Attacks Podcast we have two special interviews, one with Patrick from Heaven Below and Chris from In This Moment. Both guys were great to talk to; they allowed me to ask pretty much anything I wanted. Patrick let me discuss such things as his past in Union Underground, while Chris let me discuss Maria Brink (for those of you that aren´t familiar with the band In This Moment´s lead singer) and all the press surrounding her and the hottest chicks in metal, and how this ultimately affects the band. We also touched upon a bunch of other things, Patrick discussed working with Ben Moody, his gear, and what having a song featured on weekly tv show means to a band. Chris discussed meeting Ozzy, Rob Zombie, Dave Mustaine, their goals for the new album, and being part of Talking Metal On Fuse.

This episode can be downloaded or listened to from here.

Next week´s episode marks the start of season 2 if you will of the Mars Attacks universe. And as such I have switched things around a bit, and as a result my interview with John Bush will be coming out next week to celebrate the first year of Mars Attacks.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Apparently they are looking to move the Jason Becker documentary into edit.  This film looks interesting.  I hope they get it made.  Check out the site here.


 
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

---

Here's a link to an album review I did for for Metal Army America. The group is called City Of Fire, it features Burton C. Bell and Byron Stroud of Fear Factory. This is actually the second review I have put together for this album (the previous one can be found here). You can read the review here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

---

 
 

We have got some great guests tenatively scheduled for TM.  Ron Keel, Dave Navarro, and Amanda Somerville.  Stayed tuned to the Talking Metal Podcast!

 
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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Tonight's Mars Attacks episode features music that contains an electronic/industrial influence.

You'll hear everything from Nine Inch Nails, to Filter, Ministry, KMFDM, etc.

Tune into stream A on Markstriglradio.com tonight to hear the episode 8PM EST/5PM PST.

On the Fusion Sonica side of things you'll hear some of the same bands, just different tracks. Finally getting some Spanish acts interested in the show, was close to shutting everything down a month back with all of the person things going on. Slowly but surely things are getting back to normal (hope I can stop using that phrase shortly!)

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Tonight's episode of Mars Attacks Radio is based on books I have read recently regarding various artists. As a result you will hear music from the following acts:

Ozzy Osbourne, Aerosmith, Slash, Motorhead, Fozzy, Motley Crue, Sixx AM, Brian "Head" Welch, Andy Taylor and Pantera

The episode debuts tonight at 8PM EST / 5PM PST on stream A of MarkStriglRadio.com

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Talking Metal Live returns Tuesday October 19 at 7pm EST. Please tune in to MarkStriglRadio.com stream A to listen live.

 
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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No new Mars Attacks Radio this week since I'm technically on vacation. That said, I'm backed up with episodes of the podcast so I put one together earlier today.

During this episode we speak to Blitz from Overkill and Jose from Bonded By Blood. The original intent was to release this episode sometime back in July, but with all of the circumstances revolving around my life it made things difficult to do so. For those of you that don´t know my wife had been pregnant, and was bed ridden for most of two months. Unfortunately she had a miscarriage a little after this interview was conducted, and life was pretty much put on hold. A little after this happened my company had to make some difficult decision to help the company stay a float, and anyone that had unemployment benefits was let go. And you guessed it I was given the pick slip at the time. With all of this said, things could be worse and as my brother always says, no matter how bad things are, there is always someone that´s worse off than you are. Luckily, things are looking good for the future, so I can´t really complain.

In any event, the interview with Blitz was done back in January before Ironbound, Overkill´s latest album came out. Among the items discussed during this interview are Ironbound, and subsequent tour, the early days of Megaforce Records, the "Big Four", his 30 year musical partnership with DD Verni, Randy Blythe of Lamb Of God, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, the NY Steel Benefit Show, the project he did with Dan Lorenzo called The Cursed, Hail! and his involvement in Turtlehead!

During Jose´s segment we discuss how the band was started, comparisons to other bands, some of the festivals they were about to play when the interview was conducted, and the recording of their latest album Exiled To Earth.

To listen to or download the episode go here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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During this episode we have two very special interviews, one with the legendary Chuck Billy of Testament and Dublin Death Patrol and another with Liam Cormier of the Canadian band Cancer Bats. Items discussed during the Chuck Billy segment include the Rust In Peace Tour, the recording of new albums by Testament and Dublin Death Patrol as well as the expanded rerelease of DDP´s debut album. He also dispels any rumors regarding Alex Skolnik´s original parting with the band, discusses how cancer has changed his life, and gives his opinion on the term "The Big Four". During the segment with Liam we discuss the recording process of Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones, the multitude of sub-genres associated to the band, and covering various acts among other things.

To listen to or download the episode go here.

You can also hear an interview I conducted Fusion Sonica with Spanish Black Metal act Bittencross. Remember this show is done completely in Spanish, although the band is signed a US label, and sing in English.

To listen to or download the episode go here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Tonight's episode of Mars Attacks consists of a plethora of new tracks that have been recently released. You'll hear tracks from the following bands:

Filter, Iron Maiden, Mushroomhead, Soundgarden, Murderdolls, Disturbed, Street Sweeper Social Club, The Cult, BXI (Boris & Ian Astbury), Sully Erna, Stone Sour, Witchery, Mose Giganticus

Mars Attacks airs exclusively on MarkStriglRadio.com (stream A) 8PM EST / 5PM PST.

I have also done a bunch of album reviews lately for Metal Army America. In the event that you're interested in reading them you can read reviews on the following band:

Witchery Witchkrieg here

Mose Giganticus Gift Horse here

Feel The Pain Feel The Pain here

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

---

 
 

Tomorrow night on Mars Attacks Radio you'll hear a solid block of metal and hard rock that originates from Spain! I figure if people are down with Rammstein, well why not? Some of the bands sing in English others in Spanish. You'll hear a wide array of music, black metal, stoner, progressive, etc.

Over at Metal Army America you'll find two new Q&A interviews I conducted, one with God Forbid's Doc Coyle which you can read the interview here.

And another with Quiet Riot's Frankie Banali which can read the interview here.

Congrats to Frankie for getting enough backers to get the Quiet Riot documentary off the ground!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

---

 
 

It has been a while, after a very rocky few weeks, I am actually back for an update here on the wire. Starting I want to mention a new episode of Mars Attacks Podcast which contains an interview with Filter's Richard Patrick. I have been a huge fan of the band since they released the album Title Of Record. As you'll hear during the interview there are tracks off of this album that have become some of my all time favorites. This band's music has helped me get through some hard times (as Trouble With Angels is currently doing). In any event, for anyone that want to listen to or download the interview go here. Hopefully things are now back on track and we'll have episodes up on the web on a weekly basis.

One the Metal Army America side of things I have been playing catch up as well, you'll find a Q&A interview I did with Richard Christy here. And a review that I did for a new album by Serenity Dies here.

Congrats to Mark Strigl and his wife Emily on their new baby boy!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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QUOTES from Janick Gers Talking Metal 7/11/10 NYC interview:

"Ian Gillan has always been one of my favorite singers.  He still makes me shiver, even toady, when he gets that scream."

"Paul DiAnno is a great guy and really fun to hang with."

"We have to take the blame for pushing Blaze Baley's voice to levels that he really struggled with.  It wasn't his natural voice, he had a much lower voice than that."

Watch the interview on Talking Metal's You Tube page.

-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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The Monday August 23rd - 3am  (technically Tuesday August 24th)
edition of MTV2's Headbangers Ball will feature Iron Maiden music
videos.  The show will also include exclusive interview clips with
Janick Gers, Mike Portnoy and Talking Metal's John Ostronomy.  Janick
shares some great memories of filming such videos as The Wicker Man
and discusses the new Iron Maiden album, The Final Frontier.

Stay tuned to Talking Metal's You Tube page for more interview footage
with Janick coming next week. youtube.com/talkingmetal

Please spread the word.

Thanks!


 
-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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John Ostronomy, Mike Portnoy and Janick Gers host MTV2's Headbangers Ball next week 8/23 - Monday night/Tuesday morning at 3am.  Expect to see lots of great Iron Maiden music videos.  Jay Bones and I produced the clips and picked the music.  I hope you enjoy it.  Spread the word!
 

-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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When scheduling interviews I try not to go after the same people Mark & John going to be interviewing. After all, there is only so much you can normally get out of someone. One of the things that I try to do before an interview is read up on the artist, and listen to some interviews they´ve recently done to try and not touch on all of the same items. Quiet Riot is one of my all-time favorite bands, easily in my top 10. The second I saw Frankie was going to be available for an interview, I jumped at the possibility to speak to him. Everything was fine and dandy until I found out he would be on the live show Talking Metal was doing to commemorate their five year anniversary. Being the TM fan that I am I tuned in at 1AM local time to listen to the show, the whole time thinking I hope our interviews aren´t similar so people actually have a reason to tune into the episode I had recorded a day earlier. What should come as no shock to anyone, the guys killed the interview, it was so awesome, 90% of the items they touched on were different from what I discussed with Frankie. I actually didn´t stray much from QR, while Mark and John discussed W.A.S.P., Ozzy, Randy Rhoades, etc. The idea behind Frankie being on both shows was to promote a documentary he´s trying to put together regarding Quiet Riot. What he´s come up with is a unique idea where he´s pairing up with Kickstarter.com (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/795871699/frankie-banali-quiet-riot-documentary-0) to try and obtain backing for the documentary. In return backers will receive a bunch of cool Quiet Riot related items which vary depending on the amount they pledged towards the film.

If you´re like me, you´re probably looking forward to downloading the podcast version TM´s interview with Frankie, in the meantime you can check the interview I conducted with him earlier this week by going here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/08/audio/mars-attacks-podcast-episode-16-frankie-banali-from-quiet-riot/

Items I discussed including Kevin DuBrow´s omission from the Grammies list of deceased, rumors surrounding Marilyn Manson and the band, the iconic Quiet Riot mask, etc.

A Q&A interview with Frankie should be up on Metal Army America shortly, covering such topics as the Party Ninjas.

On the Fusion Sonica side of things I have an interview with Emboque, a national act from Spain, who´s new album Voy A Por Ti features current Black Country Communion and ex-Dream Theater/Kiss/Billy Idol, etc. keyboard player Derek Sherinian. He plays the keyboard solo on the track Anibal (Hannibal translated into English). Interesting note Raul Galvan (Emboque´s lead singer and bass player) mentioned that they tried contacting ex-Deep Purple keyboard player Jon Lord, and ex-Yngwie Malmsteen/Dio keyboard player Jens Johansson, before getting in touch with Derek. Much to their surprise Derek answered back, but initially needed to hear the track before proceeding. For someone of his stature it only makes sense that he make sure that the song was worthy of his signature style. Once everything looked good on both ends, files were exchanged, and the band had the solo they were looking for. If interested, the track can be heard towards the end of episode 47 of Fusion Sonica Podcast. You can listen to it or download the episode from here:

http://fusionsonica.com/2010/08/12/podc ... 7-emboque/

I would honestly say that the album is the best thing to come out of Spain this year.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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I was lucky enough to interview Frankie Banali from Quiet Riot earlier this week. His interview got me thinking about some of the hard rock and metal bands that came out from California around the same time they exploded, or shortly after. As a result tonight's Mars Attacks episode will contain tracks from the following bands:

Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, Ratt, Dokken, Y&T, London, W.A.S.P., Bullet Boys, Vain, House Of Lords, Hurricane and Great White.

I realize that some of these bands were around before QR came out, or became popular, what I did want to do is stress the California connection between all of the bands. Some of these tracks will also be uploaded to Mark Strigl Radio shortly.

Mars Attacks airs tonight exclusively on the A-Stream of MarkStrigleRadio.com 8PM EST / 5PM PST. Check MarsAttacksRadio.com for alternate play times.

My interview with Frankie will be available in the next day or two....I'll keep you posted!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Busy week on my end, have a new interview up on Mars Attacks with Bumblefoot. This was my first time talking to him, we spoke for about two hours. We cut roughly 45 minutes out for the podcast. This is a must listen to (in my opinion) if you're on the fence with this new version of Guns N Roses or GNR as he puts it. He has no issues discussing some of the non-sense that people ask about past members. In all fairness to him, if you're asked by Axl Rose, or the lead singer of one of your favorite bands to join up, how do you say no? This is something I actually discuss with him as well. In any event if you want to listen to or download the episode you can do so from here

On Fusion Sonica side of things look for the first anniversary show which will be up this weekend.

With regards to Metal Army America, you can find two reviews I put together that were posted recently. You can read a review of Sabaton's Coat Of Arms here and Pain's Cynic Paradise
here.

Any questions, comments or concerns regarding any of the items posted above, send them to marsariesattacks @ live.com (all together).

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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And when it seemed as if Murphy's Law was going to prohibit me from making this post, or posting the latest episode of the Mars Attacks Podcast, patience has prevailed! After about two hours of tech support and finding out that one of my ISPs has banned the Mars Attacks Radio web site, I was able to post the aforementioned episode. This episode was actually supposed to go up, about 10 days ago, but we found out that my wife is pregnant, and have had my hands tied with helping her out. I will do my best to get all of the other interviews I've worked on recently up on the site, plans are to have them all up shortly, hopefully one to two per week. These episodes will include interviews GNR's Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Filter's Richard Patrick, and Armored Saint/Anthrax lead singer John Bush. You'll also be able to hear interviews that originally aired on Mark Strigl Radio late last year, early this year. Case in point, the latest episode of Mars Attacks Podcast contains interviews with Age of Evil's Jeremy Goldberg and David Roads from Airbourne. I spoke to Dave early this month, and interviewed Jeremy late last year. In any event both were fun to put together and both guys were very down to earth.

If you're interested you can listen to, or download the podcast from here

New episode of Mars Attacks Radio and Fusion Sonica will be up within the coming week as well.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

---

 
 

Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth will join John and myself on tonight's Headbangers Ball.  We will play lots of great music videos by Overkill, Non-Fiction and many up & coming bands.   This is a fun epsiode on at 3am (check your local listings) on MTV2.

-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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Back in September 2008 Talking Metal had the honor of interviewing one of the greatest rock managers of all-time.  The audio from this interview was part of podcast episode 234.  We plan to give you the full interview here in text form.  Here is Part 1.  Highlights include Bill telling us that he wanted Paul Stanley to be the guy who flew on stage not Gene and how loosing Ace and Peter from the band was like seeing your children fall apart.  Enjoy!  Thanks to Victor Ruiz for transcribing.  Part 2 coming soon.  May Bill Aucoin rest in peace.
 
Bill Aucoin (BA)
John Ostronomy (JO)
Mark Strigl (MS)
 
JO: Hey this is John Ostronomy and I am here with Mark Strigl, and we are here with one of the most legendary music managers, TV mogels in the world, I’ve known about this guy since I was in second grade, Mr. Bill Aucoin.  How are you Bill?
 
BA: How are you?
 
JO: I’m doing great, what a great office you have here.
 
BA: It is fun, I’m waiting for the hard questions.
 
MS: Well this isn’t too hard, I hope it’s not too hard.  We want to get into your history which is amazing, and very interesting.  But first, let’s talk about modern times, a great band that me and John have been fans of for a while, Fixer, has recently announced that you are managing them.  How did you hook up with these guys?
 
BA: Well, I’ve known Evan for years, I was kind of a mentor, and someone that would give him the bad news for years, and it’s kind of hard, when you see someone as talented as he is, you really want to help.  And of course part of helping is tell an artist when it is not quite up to par, or when you think things need changes, things that could help them succeed.  I think from Evan’s point of view unfortunately he’s heard a lot of that from me for years.  And finally the band settled down, and the music really came up and they had the chance to get their first deal.  I really enjoy them very much, I really love the band, but I really admire Evan tremendously.  Not only is he a good singer, and an extremely talented artist, but extremely bright and very aware of what’s going on 24 hours a day in his career, and that to me is part of the elements that are necessary to become a success today.  So, when we started talking about management finally, we found that, for year, I kind of pushed it off for years, but since we started a new company called Aucoin Globe, I really wanted to manage them.  So it finally happened.
 
MS: What an amazing voice on Evan, and definitely a personality too, we’ve done interviews with him.
 
JO: Yeah, Evan’s been on our Talking Rock Radio show, and we had a blast, and the Rev the drummer was on as well.
 
MS: Now Bill, you are known for a lot of your history, of course Kiss, from the 70s to the early 1980s.  Billy Idol, you were his manager when he was exploding, and then in the 90s, you seem to someone like me to not really be too present in the music industry.  What where you up to in that time period?
 
BA: Well, a couple of things, I was out raising money for independent film makers, my background is I started in film and television.  But also to be honest with you I was totally out of my element with hip-hop.  You know none of the A&R people at the labels wanted to sign rock-n-roll.  I made a couple of small attempts to say hey, I think this band may work if we all get behind it.  No, no, rock isn’t working, we’re not really signing rock-n-roll acts.  There is some hip-hop I really like, but for the most part, I was really a fish out of water for that.  So it wasn’t until the end of the 90s, 2000, 2001 that I really started feeling that rock was really starting to come back.  It might have taken a couple of more years, but you really could tell this time.  Plus there was a generation that grew up with rock-n-roll, classic rock-n-roll, the generation knew about rock-n-roll, but it was hip-hop, so it was there underground.  The other side of this was that metal never really went away, you know you too probably know that better than anyone.  And that I started going after again, and seeing what was happening, and I briefly signed a band called nothing Rhymes with Orange which was kind of an English sounding band, but they were from Miami, where I was living.  And we brought them over to England, and I hadn’t been over to England in a couple of years and I just started to realize that music never went away there.  You know they never gave up on any music, and generation after generation still goes to the clubs to listen to new music.  You know here sometimes if it isn’t a well known band, or someone that isn’t being promoted, no one really cares about seeing them.  In Europe that seems to be the opposite where kids still seem to be excited about new talent they run into or hear at a club and they hear a new band so they stay and listen.  So that excited me again.  I also started talking to a band called Lordi, which is a band from Finland with my partner, I thought this might be interesting, they were going to be in Eurovision, and then won Eurovision, which is unusual for a monster metal band.   Then I found out that their manager who originally worked with them was no longer managing them, he had gotten ill so we headed over and spent a couple of weeks and nights on a tour bus, which I hadn’t done in like 20 years, so that was exciting.  In any case, by the end of that they asked us to manage them, I said yes, and ironically Mr. Lordi was the president of the Kiss fan club in Finland so we had some ongoing things that were mutual, so that developed.  We brought them over here, we put them on Ozzfest, they toured with Megadeth, and they’re going to come back again in November to do their new album.  The single was just released a couple days ago and went to number one in Finland, so far, pretty good.
 
JO: I’ve seen performance footage online of Lordi playing in Finland, and it looked like Time Square, in Finland they’re huge.
 
BA: Well when you win Eurovision they take the whole network show to your town.  But the year they won Eurovision 200,000 people showed up in the main square in Helsinki to see them.  The next year of course the whole network television unit came in and they where the hosts of the show.  What happens is we went and shot a movie film opening, and then that film opening went into a live performance of Lordi.  For those first five minutes of Eurovision for that year, 130 million people saw them, so they’re very well known outside of North America.  At least the United States cause Eurovision doesn’t play here.
 
MS: Bite It Like A Bulldog is the single that is number one in Finland by Lordi, and this is a band that John and I got into, and we love the big hooks that they had.  We saw them at Ozzfest in 90 degree weather and they’re probably sweating their asses off in their costumes and it was just later that we found out that you were involved with them.  And it kind of made sense, they king of brought back that big rock vibe of the 70s in a kind of contemporary way.  Is that something that attracted you to them?
 
BA: Yes, obviously, one of the reasons that we established such a big Kiss show back in the 70s was one they wanted to, and two I came out of television and film, and I didn’t see myself behind the desk working as a manager.  If you look at the Aucoin records in those days they’ll say direction and management.  At that point I wanted to direct something, I wanted to continue my feel of direction and every time we came up for an idea for the show, the great part about Kiss was that they always went along with it.  You know some artists you say let’s try this, and they look at you like you have three heads and it just doesn’t happen.  But in Kiss’ case the great thing about those four guys was that they were will to try anything, anything to make it happen, and their dream, and I can tell you one story when they were making maybe like $25 a performance, if that.  They would save up their money and for a performance they really wanted to feel good about, they would put their money into a limousine so they could drive to this club, or bar and they would think in their own minds that they were going to play Madison Square Garden.  And you know, that’s really very special, some people might say, why would they do that, but when you have that in your mind’s eye from the very beginning, and I’ve always told artists, you better see that success in your mind’s eye because there will be many hills and valleys in between. As long as your mind’s eye is pointing in the direction you want to go, where you want to get to you have a really good shot. 
 
JO: I was going to ask what attracted you to Kiss, but that’s got to be the answer, the fact that they were always looking ahead to success, and they were also willing to try anything.  From breathing fire to all of the other show ideas that you guys came up with.
 
BA: There’s lots of good stories, it wasn’t always quite as simple, but almost.  I had a fire breather come into my office and he setup his little can of kerosene or whatever it was, and he blew flames, he darkened one of my walls actually.  And the four guys were sitting there, and their eyes were as wide as could be, and I said, well who wants to try it?  I don’t think they believed that I was really thinking about it, and finally Gene raised his hand, and that’s why it finally went to Gene.  I’ll tell you one other story, Gene was always like that, you know he if he thinks it can work he’ll be out there and do it.  I had really developed something for Paul Stanley because Gene was getting so much attention with the fire and the spitting of the blood, that I wanted Paul to fly to the top of the lighting rig and sing a song.  I’m describing this, and Paul said, I don’t know if I really want to fly, and of course the minute he said that Gene said oh I’ll do it.  So again, that’s why Gene flew!  My main concern was many areas, and all of that was fun, and creating and making it work, and we were involved with the first radio guitars, and the first air guns for confetti, and all of that other stuff that no one had ever done before, and lasers as well, which didn’t work out.  There was an issue when we first tried it, but all of that we went through, and doing those shows especially with a group that would do it, although Gene would do all of these spectacular things, Paul would do all of these spectacular jumps and all of these other things that would be unbelievable.  And Ace would do the guitars with all of the lights, and shoot, and Peter would go up on the drum riser.  So everyone really had their thing, everyone went along with it, and it worked, it was great.
 
JO: Literally bands today still take cues from the stuff that you guys did, I think you guys were innovators of a major, big rock show like that.
 
MS: Even the 80s metal bands all of that was on the coat tails of what you guys were doing in the 70s.
 
BA: It’s really interesting seeing all of the things we developed way back then, and we see them almost in every show now.  You know the fire pods, how many times have you seen the fire pods go out with everyone?  We’re the ones that developed it back then.  It’s kind of hard.  There are a lot of new things that are happening, not only 3D screens, and walls that can conform to all sorts of things, which will be exciting in the future.  But, what we went through, and again, it was all because everyone was willing to say yeah let’s try it.  Whatever it is, if we can do it we’ll do it.  You may not thing this, but I’ve found out that there are a lot of artists that will not take changes, they’re really stuck in their own world.  A thing that I told Kiss and other artists is look, we’re going to fail sometimes, and as long as we win more than we fail, we’re going to be fine.  With Kiss we were very lucky, I would say we won I would say 80% of the time.  Even if we would have won 51% of the time, we would have been ahead of the game.  That 20% failed, that fell apart, or that just didn’t work, no one even remembers.
 
MS: Did you stop managing Kiss when you started managing Billy Idol?
 
BA: No, it’s very interesting from my perspective, when a band starts having problems, when Peter Criss left the band, I made a contract for him leaving the band.  Then there were questions about Ace coming or going, and it’s almost like seeing the love of your life, or children falling apart.  It was hard, so that bothered me, and then Gene and Paul really wanted to take off their makeup.  And I understood why they wanted to, because everyone else that was having success was known, and they could go out and weren’t known, and they could go out and get that kind of feeling where people were coming up to them.  So I understood why they wanted to do it, but on the other hand I had spend ten years protecting the Kiss logo and the Kiss faces.  It was the first time that a band had their faces copy written in the library of congress, it took years to do that.  Plus the merchandise was a big part of what they were doing, and that was a big part of the money that was coming in for them, and for all of us.  So when they started talking about that, on top of that Peter had left, and Ace had been missing from the band, it was kind of depressing for me.  How was I going to keep my energy up, while this was happening, it’s not really like this was the Kiss I had began with, it’s changing, so am I going to feel good about it or not?  Gene and Paul came into my office one day and said, it’s not quite the same, and we all just sort of sat there going oh my goodness, we knew this was going to happen, and we discussed it and knew we were going to split.  That’s how it happened, we’re even closer now, than then, cause then it was more like manager artist, and now it’s really just friends, really, really, close friends.  But that was that, at the same time, I had gone to see this band called Generation X, in the middle of winter playing on the Isle of Wright.  In the middle of winter which is not a fun place to be, and the reason is one of the owners of Chrysalis had said we’re going to let Generation X go, but we have this front kid named Billy Idol who’s really talented, but we have no idea what we’re going to do with him.  So let’s see if you can think of something or see how you can work with him, so I went to the Isle of Wright, in the middle of winter and saw him and said oh yeah, he’s a star.  I went back to the company and went, I think we’ve got something here.  Let me come back to England when Billy is off tour, so I did, and I asked him would you consider coming to the states?  He responded, no, no, I’m going to do another Generation X album.  Now I already knew they were going to let Generation X go, so I didn’t want to disappoint Billy, but I asked if the next Generation X album doesn’t work, would you come to the states?  He said yes.  So I went back to Chrysalis and said we’re going to do another Generation X album, and they looked at me cross eyed and said, no Bill, you don’t understand, we’re going to release Generation X.  I said, no you’re going to release another Generation X album, and I’m going to use it to put a team together for Billy.  And so we did it, songs like Dancing With Myself came out, and a few others.  So I brought Keith Forsey in, and he was the drummer and assistant to Giorgio Mororder on Donna Summer’s albums, and Georgio kept telling me, you know I have this young guy who’s just so super talented I really think he’s going to be a great producer.  So I sent Keith three tapes, I forgot who the other three artist were, and I said, pick one and you’ll have a chance to produce, and he picked Billy.  Which is what I wanted him to pick, but I wasn’t sure.  So I brought him to England where he did the Generation X album, and I started putting the team together. Of course I knew that Chrysalis wasn’t going to promote it, so that kind of died so I brought Billy to the states and signed him to Chrysalis Inc. over here from Chrysalis LTD in England, and they hated me actually.  They thought it was over, they said just because you know the owners of the company, doesn’t mean we have to deal with this artist.  It was over!  They were releasing Gen X and you know punk music was working in the states, we have to deal with it.  Wow, that wasn’t a great awakening, so they wouldn’t even let me do a new album, so we made a compromise and we only did an EP.  That EP ironically had Mony, Mony, the first song we recorded.  After we did the EP, and if you remember the picture of Billy with the spiked hair, I get a call from the head of promotion from Chrysalis in LA and said are you going to be in LA?  I said if we’re going to talk about the release I’ll come to LA.  And so I went to LA, and he said, I’m going to be very honest with you, cause I know you know the owners of the company, but I’m not going to promote this album.  I have a very dry sense of humor, so I was thinking we’ll get along fine, he’s got a good dry sense of humor, and then I realized it wasn’t the sense of humor, he was serious.  I’m sitting there in shock, and he says look, this isn’t the image for us, we have really significant artists and I can’t have this kid with spiked hair, this stuff is punk rock, and it’s just not good for Chrysalis.  I don’t want to ruin Chrysalis’ reputation at radio.   So I’m sitting there going woo (whistles).  Now in those days, I knew if any significant single would have significant money behind it, and in those days, that was the beginning of the 80s, if a company was behind a singer, the promotional budget would probably be around a quarter of a million dollars, $250,000.  So I said, ok, well I want the promotional budget, and he said oh no, this can’t go to radio, I will not spend a penny on radio.  So we had to give into that stuff, basically I wound up saying, what are we going to do.  So we came up with an idea that actually worked, but we didn’t know it at the time, which was to bring in certain DJs from the big clubs from around the country and said listen, come out to New York, we’re going to wine and dine you, we’ll give you your own mix of Dancing With Myself, and you’ll go back and have it with you.  So everyone yes of course, they went into the studio and mixed it with Billy and Keith, and left with our mix, but they didn’t know that, and they played it day and night. So two weeks later I get a call from the head of promotions, and said I don’t know how you did this but we’re getting calls from radio stations asking why we haven’t serviced the Billy Idol.  So it worked in reverse, radio started calling Chrysalis, and saying how come you have serviced this?  Everyone wants to hear it, so you never know what’s going to happen.  With Kiss no one liked Kiss, no makeup band was ever going to make it, radio thought for sure it was a loser, most magazines, I have to tell you Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone started a creed saying no one will ever put Kiss in Rolling Stone.  As of today, he still won’t do it, and in fact, he’s on the Grammy Board, and always votes against Kiss for the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.         
 

p> 
 

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During the latest edition of Mars Attacks we revisit an interview I did with Bruce Kulick earlier this year for MSR. This is the first time we are releasing this material in a podcast format. This show was done using a "story tellers" format, where we discussed ten songs, five from his solo album BK3 and five from his Kisstory. During the interview segments we discuss each of the songs at great length. I hope to conduct similar interviews in the future with other artists.

You can listen to or download the episode from here

Today you'll be able to hear a repeat of last night's Mars Attacks Radio Thrash Special. This was put together to commemorate the "Big Four" shows done recently, and to shine a light on others that are equaly as important to the evolution of thrash.

The show airs today at 4PM EST / 1PM PST / 9PM UK / 10PM CET on MarkStriglRadio.com

The show's playlist can be found here

If this wasn't enough for your holiday weekend, check out the interview I did with Dani Perez from the band Khael for my Spanish Language Podcast Fusion Sonica.

You can listen to or download the episode from here

Have a great 4th of July weekend!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Just a reminder that we offer 2 other podcasts beside Talking Metal.
Be sure to listen to the Talking Rock podcast and the Mark Strigl Podcast.




-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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THE HEADBANGERS BALL!!!!!
 
Talking Metal’s John Ostronomy and Mark Strigl team up with two of
their favorite heavy metal icons for some very special editions of
televison's longest running metal show.

On July 12 they welcome the Metal God himself -  Rob Halford!

Expect to see classic and rare music videos by Halford, Fight, Judas
Priest and others.

Then on July 19th, thrash metal legend Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth
discusses and plays his favorite videos by Overkill, Non-Fiction and
others.

The Headbangers Ball airs on MTV2 every Monday night at 3am EST
(technically Tuesday morning).  Talking Metal is found online at
TalkingMetal.com and on iTunes.


 
 

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Rob Halford, Metal Mike, Ostronomy and myself will appear on MTV2's Headbanger's Ball on 7/12.  I picked some of the videos - Fight, Halford and JP.


-- Mark D. Strigl
 
 

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Ostronomy spent Saturday night in the emergency room after falling off a skateboard.  His right hand is broken.  No guitar playing, no computer typing for some time.
 
Get well soon John!
 
 



-- Mark D. Strigl
 

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Tonight´s episode of Mars Attacks is dedicated to the World Cup. You´ll hear 13 bands from nations that are currently competing in the tournament. The following countries will be represented:

Brazil, France, Spain, Switzerland, England, United States, Germany, Australia, Denmark, Holland, South Africa, Japan and Italy.

Mars Attacks airs tonight 8PM EST / 5PM PST only on MarkStrigl Radio.com

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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For those of you keeping score I've been doing my assorted podcasts and radio shows for about a year. Back in September we debuted Mars Attacks Radio, on what was then called Bionic Strigl Radio. The show leading up to MA was F-Bombs for Everyone, this show was co-hosted by Dan Lorenzo and Mike Cristi, both members of Non-Fiction and The Cursed. The two of them made the show highly entertaining, and a must listen to in my opinion. F-Bombs was the first new show that had really caught my attention in a very long time. Unfortunately things didn't work out and the show only had a limited run. Hopefully they will revisit the F-Bombs at some point in the future.

With all of this said, Dan brings that same wittiness to the interview I conducted with him as he did to F-Bombs. He was funny, honest and forthcoming with any answer he gave me, putting me in my place in more than one instance! He has always been gracious enough to come on Mars Attacks any time I have contacted him. We had previously discussed Pete Steele shortly after his passing, and at the time had agreed to do a follow up interview, that focused on him and his music. Which is what this episode is about.

During the episode we touch on a bunch of things, including why he formed each of the bands he's been in (Hades, Non-Fiction and The Cursed), why he decided to release his three solo albums, Hades upcoming show at the Bang Your Head Festival, and why he'd prefer to be playing basketball than recording or touring! For all of you die hard Talking Metal fans you'll get a kick out of the Screaming Metal portion of the episode. By the way, speaking of Pete Steele, Dan has resurrected an interview he conducted with him for Steppin Out Magazine, you will find it in the blog section of www.danlorenzo.net

This episode also has an interview with Long Island's Misery. They are a relatively new band that has been working with Joey Z from Life of Agony on their debut album. He actually worked with them on their independent release 15 Years Of Aggression as well. Joey helped set everything up, and like Dan, will always have an open door to plug anything they'd like on my various shows. This interview segment was conducted with brothers Joe and John, bass player and lead singer of the band. It was done as an introduction to Misery, so that listeners can hear about why they got together, what their song writing process is about, etc. The idea was to bring you guys all of the basic info this time around, and do a follow up interview once the album comes out, delving deeper into the band and album. We also talk a little about sports, which leads us to talking about Free Reign whose drummer I interviewed episode 4. Although it sounds like I throw the band under the bus, you can listen to that very episode and hear what I'm referring to when talking to Joe and John. By the way the two Joey episodes are 2 and 6 (the Pete Steele tribute which also features Dan Lorenzo), not 9 like I mention during this episode. Sorry for the mix up.

You can listen to or download the episode 12 which features Dan and Misery from here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/06/audio/mars-attacks-episode-12-dan-lorenzo-misery/

Enjoy!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Follow the past few week's trend, tonight's Mars Attacks will contain nothing but new music, including new music from Iron Maiden, Danzig, Stone Sour, Accept, Nevermore, Nonpoint, Hellyeah, Rush and Anew Revolution among others.

Mars Attacks airs exclusivly on MarkStriglRadio.com 8PM EST / 5PM PST

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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NEW YORK, June 8, 2010 – Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced today that it will publish legendary rocker and KISS guitarist Ace Frehley’s memoir NO REGRETS. The book, to be published under the VH1 Books imprint, is scheduled for publication in Summer 2011. Ace Frehley is known worldwide as the legendary original lead guitarist for the seminal rock band KISS and respected as a solo artist who has influenced generations of guitar players. KISS is known for its wild make-up, spectacular costumes, and theatrical live shows (not to mention their music)! Frehley will delve into his life as a kidgrowing up in the Bronx, his ups-and-downs and influences which catapulted him into a life of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and reveal what is was like to be one of the founding members of one of the most influential bands in the world. Ace Frehley said “I think Sinatra said it best…‘regrets I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.’” Jennifer Bergstrom, Vice President, Editor-in-Chief of Gallery Books, said "NO REGRETS is sure to be the next must-read rock-and-roll memoir.” Gallery Books’ Senior Editor Jeremie Ruby-Strauss negotiated the deal with Frank Weimann, President of The Literary Group International, which includes world rights.


 
 

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A lot going on in the Mars Attacks world. First and foremost tonight's Mars Attacks features a bunch of new tracks from Rush, Korn, In This Moment, Filter, Hellyeah, Trent Reznor's new project How To Destroy Angels, a Sabbath melody by Jorn, etc. for more info regarding this episode go here

This episode debuts tonight 8PM EST / 5PM PST only on MarkStriglRadio.com

Second thing on deck is episode 11 of Mars Attacks Podcast, where I have the pleasure of interviewing Robbie Crane bass player of Ratt, and Frank Salvaggio bass player of Anew Revolution, hence the title of this post! Anew Revolution is made up former member of Slaves On Dope (including Frank) and Joey Duenas former lead singer of Unloco. Frank discussed everything from the demise of Slave on Dope, to the writing and recording process of iMerica. As usual I ask about his gear, his expectations for 2010 etc.

Both were very open about things, and Robbie Crane especially didn't pull any punches. He could have easily shot down certain questions, but he was very direct and honest with all of his responses. I start things off with a little tidbit regarding his career and Motley Crue, which he apparently never realized. He discussed how he got into Vince Neil's band, and later Ratt. Discusses original Ratt bass player Juan Croucier, the drama surrounding the band these past few years, recording Infestation, and the inclusion of Carlos Cavazo in the band among other things.

You can listen to or download the episode from here

The plan for next episode is to have Dan Lorenzo from Hades/Non-Fiction/The Cursed on with Joe & John from the Long Island band Misery. The latter will be putting out a new album shortly, and this is an intro per say to wet your whistle for a follow up interview that will be conducted when the album is released in a few months. Dan is great as usual, a shame he and Mike Christi are no longer doing F Bombs For Everyone, it was really entertaining show.

On the Fusion Sonica side of things I have an interview that will be released in the next few days with the Spanish band Cuming Soon. Great new young band that sings in English, and is in the vein of the Black Crows. They have been winning a few national/regional awards as of late, including for the track Chalk (best rock track of the year). You can actually check the song out on MarkStriglRadio.com along with a slew of other new music that has just been added to the rotation.

With regards to Metal Army America, I recently reviewed albums by Svarsot & The Ghost Inside.

Svarsot is a pagan metal band, you can find the review of their album here.

While you can read about The Ghost Inside's Returners here.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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During this episode we say thank you and celebrate the music and lives of Paul Gray, Ronnie James Dio, Pete Steele, and Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, in the event that you have been living under a rock, all four of these men have recently passed away. We also celebrate the fact that Metallica´s Kill Em All wrapped up its recording today 27 years ago in 1983, as well as the US Version of the Monsters Of Rock Festival which featured the aforementioned Metallica, Kingdom Come, Dokken, Scorpions, and the Sammy Hagar lead Van Halen. The festival tour kicked off in Alpine Valley Wisconsin 22 years ago today, back in 1988.

If you tune in you will hear the following bands:

Slipknot, Type Of Negative, Avenged Sevenfold, Heaven & Hell, Metallica, Kingdom Come, Dokken, Scorpions, Van Halen and Gary Moore.

Tonight 8PM EST / 5PM PST only on MarkStriglRadio.com

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Hand the pleasure of interviewing Robbie Crane from Ratt earlier today. He was open to talking about everything, we spoke about his gear, the drama surrounding the band, Juan Croucier, the new album Infestation, and many other items. I really feel like we had a conversation, and not your run of the mill interview. Really reminded me of the interview I did with Blitz from Overkill in the sense that there was a good vibe between us, and we were constantly laughing. Hope you guys enjoy the interview once it is posted.

Check out Infestation, I honestly think it's one of the best albums to come out this year. Also be on the lookout for new albums from Y&T, Danzig, Sick Of It All and Ihsahn, which to me are the best albums to have been released during the first half of the year.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Such a monumental album was released 27 years ago today. I did a write up on the album for Metal Army America celebrating the released of this album. To check it out go here:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=4816

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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During the latest episode of Mars Attacks Podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking to Zach Broderick from Nonpoint. If you aren't familiar with the band they've been around for about ten years, and are one of the many bands at the forefront of modern radio friendly hard rock/metal. They just released their new album earlier this month called Miracle, the album was produced by Chad and Greg from Mudvayne. You can hear their influence right away on the album. Especially on the title track and first single where Elias (the band's lead singer) sounds a hell of a lot like Chad during the song's chorus. The album is chalked full of modern metal influences like the aforementioned Mudvayne, Slipknot, Disturbed, Pantera, Sevendust and a hint of Tool. Stand out tracks in my opinion are "Miracle", "Crazy" (both of which are featured during the episode), and their cover of the Pantera classic "5 Minutes Alone".

During the end of the episode I also discuss all of the recent deaths in the hard rock and metal community. I don't remember any other time in my life where so many prominent artists have passed away in such a short time. I'm referring to The Rev from Avenged Sevenfold, Pete Steele from Type O Negative, Ronnie James Dio, and now Paul Gray. It is a terrible shame, I am honestly a fan of all of them, and if you listen to the interview you'll hear me mention that I listened to nothing but music RJD related music for about a week. Coincidentally, one of the first non-Dio related tracks I listened to on Sunday was Slipknot's Snuff. I also played both Snuff and Vermillion a bunch of times yesterday without knowing of Paul's passing. I can't consider myself a diehard fan of Slipknot, but I do appreciate their music, and have listened to it quite a bit over the years. It is such a shame that someone that was only a few years older than me is no longer here. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the aforementioned artists, their families, band mates and fans. I would also like the thank the four of them for leaving us with their music, and impacting so many people's lives.

On a side note, what now? We've seen that A7X has recorded, and will tour with Dream Theater's Mike Portnoy. But what will happen to Type O Negative? My guess is that it is the end of the band, as Johnny and Kenny are both involved in Seventh Void, and at times Danzig. What about Sabbath/Heaven & Hell? Could Ronnie's death be the catalyst to bring Ozzy back into the fold? Would the band try and continue the fly under the H&H moniker with Tony Martin or Ian Gillan? What about Slipknot? To my knowledge the band was formed by Paul and Joey. They have also been close to hanging things up on several occasions. Will Paul's death become the tipping point? I mentioned this on the Talking Metal Forums, if Slipknot does disband, this could open up the possibility for Corey to take on the lead singer spot in Anthrax, something that was in the works before Dan Nelson joined the band. Would this entice Scott and Charlie to kick Belladonna out once again? Who would be the bigger draw Belladonna or Taylor? What about the band Dio? Could you see the remaining members putting a Thin Lizzy type band together where you have everyone but Ronnie himself involved? Could you imagine? I doubt either of these things will happen, but it does make you wonder.

In any event, you can download or listen to the podcast from here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/05/audio/mars-attacks-podcast-episode-10-nonpoint/

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Tonight 8PM EST / 5PM PST you'll hear a three hour tribute to Dio. Like mentioned previously there are going to be people that feel that certain songs were left out, but given all of the material, and the time I'm given to do the show this is honestly the best I could do.

Electra (no K folks, I have the actual CD) is the last track he recorded and released (to date) with Dio. The track is played early on in the show. As you might expect you'll find tracks from Black Sabbath, Rainbow and Dio. Some standards, and some lesser known tracks.

Anyway, hope I did the man proud, and hope you guys enjoy the show.

Long live the memory and music of Ronnie James Dio.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Hey, I just wanted to mention a cool Metal interview book I am reading.  It is called From Satan to Sabbath: The Metal Interviews 2000 to 2009. It is by Joel Gausten.  It features interviews with members of Black Sabbath, Kiss, Killing Joke, Prong, Non-Fiction, Aerosmith and more.  Check out Joel Gausten's site here.

-- Mark Strigl
 
 

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I´ve been trying to figure out for days what I should say regarding Ronnie James Dio. I personally did not know the man, nor have I ever had the pleasure of interviewing him. That said, I did have the pleasure of seeing him in concert back in 2008 with Dio, and have also had the pleasure of growing up to his music. There have been several music related deaths that have affected me, Def Leppard´s Steve Clark, the tragic loss of Dimebag Darrell, Pete Steele, but three in particular stand out, they are Eric Carr from Kiss, Freddie Mercury from Queen, and now Ronnie James Dio. Why these three stand out is simple, I grew up on their music.


Although my cousin´s had the 45 for Paranoid/Iron Man, my first real intro to Black Sabbath was hearing the song Heaven And Hell on someone´s K-Tel compilation. The moment I heard that opening riff I was hooked. How could you not be? The legendary bass line, the aforementioned riff, the various tempo changes in the song, and Ronnie´s majestic singing. Unfortunately at that age I was too young to go out and purchase the album, but was lucky that in those years radio was very free formed, and you could hear tracks like Die Young, and later Mob Rules on the NYC airwaves.

Not long after a friend of mine (Kim Gladish) bought a K-Tel compilation for me called Masters Of Metal, I´ve done a show based on this album, due to the fact that this album had such an impact on me. One of the tracks on this album was Dio´s Rainbow In The Dark, again another classic track that instantly hooked me. By this time MTV had taken off, and you could watch videos for songs like Holy Diver, The Last In Line, the aforementioned Rainbow In The Dark. At this same time radio was giving you album tracks like Don´t Talk To Strangers, Mystery, and later on in the decade Sacred Heart, Rock N Roll Children, I could Have Been A Dreamer, etc. The power of his voice was immediately identifiable when it came on the airwaves.

My love for music in general really took off towards the end of the 80s, my high school years, the advent of CD and the death of vinyl and cassettes. What this meant was that I could buy a boatload of vinyl or cassettes for very cheap! As a result I was able to get my hands on such classic albums as Heaven & Hell, Mob Rules, Live Evil, Holy Diver, Last In Line, Intermission, and Lock Up The Wolves.

But the tipping point for me was Dehuminizer. I loved everything else that came out, but that album just had something about it. It is by far my favorite Sabbath album, and without a doubt is my second favorite album of all time. It has raw aggression, it has power, melody and harmonies, it is just a crushing album that was originally panned by a lot of critics, but also loved by many, including me. Tracks like Computer God, After All The Dead, Letters From Earth, Master Of Insanity, I, Buried Alive, etc. all classics in my mind!

After Dehuminizer his work with Dio reconvened, and he continued to put out monster albums Strange Highways, Angry Machines, and the very underrated Killing The Dragon. I realized that I haven´t mentioned some; I´m just touching upon what stood out most in my opinion. Again, a lot of these albums were panned by some because he was traversing different territory, but it seemed like a reenergized Dio with the inclusion Tracy G to the lineup and later Doug Aldridge.

I was elated when I heard that Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath) was getting back together, touring, and putting out what to me was one of the best albums of 2009. I was really upset when a prominent host trashed the album without listening to it more than once, and then mentioning that he had only listened to parts of the album. To me The Devil You Know has that same classic feel that previous albums like Heaven And Hell and Mob Rules. If you´re a fan how can you not like Atom And Evil, Fear, Bible Black, Eating The Cannibals, Neverwhere and Breaking Into Heaven? To each their own, but I think these albums stand up well in comparison to other classic tracks that have been released by the group.

Recently I have been able to get my hands on Tournado which contains what is up till now the last recorded material released by Dio, a track called Electra. I immediately uploaded the song to MarkStriglRadio.com so that all of you hear this great new track.

It was very disheartening to hear that Dio had cancer; I have unfortunately seen too many people around me die from this disease. Like everyone out there we all wanted him to pull through, and it looked as if he would. H&H had announced summer dates throughout Europe, I immediately started planning my trip to Madrid to see them take part in this year´s Sonisphere. As you all know by now, the dates were cancelled, and a short time later the rumors started flying around that he had passed away. The following day I read the heart breaking news that he had passed away. I have been shocked, and at a loss for words since then, and really didn´t start to collect my thoughts until I put together my Fusion Sonica, and Mars Attacks tribute shows for Ronnie, and was able to listen to the interviews Eddie Trunk had conducted with so many great artists that had come in contact with him.

I could have done something similar to the Pete Steele tribute, after all I had previously interviewed some of the same people Eddie spoke to, but honestly didn´t feel like it was the right thing for me to do. Instead I felt the best thing to do would be to put the show you´ll hear tomorrow night on MarkStriglRadio.com. And believe me this show was not easy to put together. Seriously, how many great tracks did Ronnie sing on? From Elf, to Rainbow, to Sabbath and Dio, but what about Stars? How about collaborations with such groups as Queensryche, Deep Purple and Dog Eat Dog? The Mars Attacks tribute show lasts three hours, and contains over 30 songs, celebrating the legacy of Ronnie´s music. Again, to me this is the most fitting tribute that I can offer, and hope that you the fans of not only my show, but of Ronnie´s music enjoy what I have put together.

Long Live Rock N Roll, Long Live Ronnie James Dio, truly the King Of Rock N Roll! He will live on for an eternity in our hearts, and minds.

Mars Attacks Thursdays 8PM EST / 5PM PST exclusively on MarkStriglRadio.com check the top right hand corner of MarsAttacksRadio.com for replays.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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We have lost the best metal singer and songwriter of all-time.    He didn't spit blood or do acrobats on stage, instead he sang great and wrote perfect songs.  He really helped invent the music style known as heavy metal.   Sad news.

-- Mark Strigl
 
 

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Have you ever listened to a song and instantly been taken to a certain time period in your life? Well that´s what this episode is all about. It also helps further the fact that hard rock and metal were alive and well in the 90s, and that the decade offered a lot of great music. This episode is centered exclusively around songs that came out that year, or tied to events that took place in 92. You´ll hear tracks from the following bands:

Kiss, Iron Maiden, Lynch Mob, Vince Neil, Motley Crue, Ratt, Exodus, Pantera, Tool, Bad Religion, Alice In Chains, Testament, W.A.S.P., Black Sabbath, Ministry, Beastie Boys, King´s X, Manic Street Preachers, Faith No More, Def Leppard, Biohazard, Body Count, Rage Against The Machine, AC/DC, The Offspring, Manowar, Warrant, Ugly Kid Joe, Nine Inch Nails, Suicidal Tendencies, Kyuss, Megadeth, Dream Theater, Motorhead, Fear Factory, Extreme and White Zombie.

Episode debuts tonight 8PM EST / 5PM PST exclusively on MarkStriglRadio.com

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Ace Frehley inducted Les Paul into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on Sunday, May 2. Ace jammed with Les' son Rusty Paul and Aerosmith's Brad Whitford. Ace and I posed for this photo backstage!
 
-- John Ostronomy
 
 
 
 

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Tonight's episode of Mars Attacks features a bunch of new tracks that have just come out, or are about to. You'll hear tracks from the following:

Soulfly, Vince Neil, Y&T, Ratt, Ihsahn, Ozzy, Bullet For My Valentine, Armored Saint, Anew Revolution, Deftones, Danko Jones, Annihilator, and Godsmack.
If you're interested check the show out tonight at 8PM EST / 5PM PST only on MarkStriglRadio.com.

This week's podcast will feature Kittie, should be available within the next few days, check MarsAttacksRadio.com for more information.
Still working on getting the podcast on iTunes, may have to revert to Feedburner, and just keep my fingers crossed that they post every episode in iTunes. Again check the Mars Attacks web site for updates regarding this matter.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Conducted another Q&A interview for Metal Army America, this time with Bruce Corbitt from Warbeast.

To read the interview go here:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=3159

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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We are having technical issues with this site.  Hope to have everything back to normal next week.  In the meantime check out podcast episode 308 by clicking here.

-- Mark Strigl
 
 

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During the latest episode of the Mars Attacks Podcast we bring you what was the last interview to air (sans the live show) on the Mars Attacks Radio show. The interview in question was conducted with Bobby Rock the ex-Vinnie Vincent Invasion drummer. Let me just mention that I am a huge Vinnie fan, have not only every official album he has put out, but also have a bunch of bootlegs as well. The reason behind me interviewing not only Bobby but Robert Fleischman a few months back was to put together either a Kiss or Vinnie Vincent special. Mark and I have been discussing this for a while, and if you listen to episode 306 of the Talking Metal podcast you'll hear us discuss this with John Ostronomy.

It's no lie that we'd love to have Vinnie on either Talking Metal or Mars Attacks, but what are the chances of that happening? After all he has been in hiding for quite some time now, right? Well it looks as if might be some new Vinnie news coming out shortly. Dino from Double V a Vinnie Vincent Tribute Forum contacted me when the Bobby Rock interview originally aired. At the time he mentioned that there would be some big Vinnie news coming out shortly. Well the forum (http://doublev.forumco.com) has just changed their policy making you register in order the read anything that's posted. The explanation for this is simple, registered users will have access to the Vinnie news before anyone else! So go over and sign up so that you don't miss out. During the Mars Attacks live show John Ostronomy had mentioned that new Vinnie music would be coming out, but he didn't have any additional information. Let's see if this is was Dino was referring to.

The podcast can be downloaded from here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/04/uncategorized/mars-attacks-podcast-8-interview-with-bobby-rock/

Also, check out the Talking Metal Forums (http://talkingmetalforums.com), sign up and discuss music with me, Mark, John, Xcitor, Zman, Shot, the Sgt., Aaron, Ali, Met87 and a whole bunch of others that meander throughout the forums. Newbs have to stick around for a little before they can start a thread, this is done to deter trolls, but it's worth the "initiation period".

Check out a repeat of episode 29 of Mars Attacks Radio, the show consists of a complete set of live tracks. Show airs today 4PM EST / 1PM PST MarkStriglRadio.com for more info go here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/04/radio-show/recap-of-episode-29/

Other things that have occupied my time lately, over at Fusion Sonica you'll find new episode this weekend that contains an interview I conducted with the band Propaganda. The band let me hang out with them while they rehearsed, and wrote new material. Interestingly enough I was asked for my opinion on several occasions but refrained as I felt like the Metallica's psychiatrist! In any event check them out at www.myspace.com/propagandadohes

Over at Metal Army America you can check out an interview I did with Cary Geare from Sons Of Aurelius, you'll find that here: http://www.metal-army.com/?p=3168

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Tonight's Mars Attacks features a complete set of live tracks, you'll hear tunes from Life of Agony, Overkill, Fight, Iron Maiden, Candlebox, Filter, Nine Inch Nails, Anthrax, Faith No More, and what live show would be complete without a little Kiss? During the episode you'll also hear tracks off of the upcoming live releases from Tesla and Extreme.

Episode airs tonight at 8PM EST / 5PM PST only on MarkStriglRadio.com

I'll be back tomorrow with info on this week's Mars Attacks Podcast.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Fuse TV has a new documentary style series in the works. I am told the first episode will be about Axl Rose. I sat down with Fuse, in front of the camera, to share my opinion on why the new GnR is awesome. I also told them why I think Axl is an incredible talent. Not sure if my interview will make the final cut of the show...??? I look forward to watching it.



-- Mark Strigl
 
 

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I have to mention that when going into the interview with IWABO's Steven Bradley, I knew very little about the band. I remember hearing "Tastes Like Kevin Bacon" at some point last year, but it was one of these deals where I was working and had little time to pay attention to the radio. I had read about the band on Blabbermouth, and Metal Sucks, but hadn't listened to enough of their music to form an opinion. Paco Fernandez from Century Media gave the green light the night before to do the interview, so again, while working, I went to their MySpace page, and did what I could to absorb the band.

Music aside, what I didn't expect at all was how humble and down to Earth not only Steven, but the entire band, and their manager Eli was. After the interview there was roughly a two hour gap before the first band The Eyes Of The Traitor hit the stage. As a result, I hung out with IWABO, pretty much up until their performance. We discussed all types of things from the language barrier (people, don't roll your eyes or sigh if the crowd doesn't form an immediate pit, or wall of death, and Scott Ian remember chicken ends with an O not an A) to the movie Outside of Providence, the reason behind why I live in Spain, etc. At the end of the night, Mikey their drummer made it a point to find me, and have me say good-bye to the entire band. Really nice people all and all, and can't say a bad thing about them.

If you haven't seen them, The Chariot, or The Eyes Of The Traitor, do so, it'll be worth your wild, trust me. I did a review of the show for Metal Army America, you can find it here:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=2764

The other part of the episode contains an interview I conducted with Rasmus Booberg from New Keepers Of The Water Towers. This is a band I was introduced to a little over a year ago by my friends over at Meteorcity Records. It is sort of an unknown gem in my opinion. People try to classify the album as stoner, but I think Chronicles offers much more than paint by numbers stoner. There is a definite hints of various types of metal, including some thrash like riffs, to flat out acoustic tracks, separating it from the pack. I personally voted their song "Pursuit of Yeti" one of the best songs of last year.

I'm sure there are people that are going to pan both albums without giving either a chance, but you really have to go into both with an open mind. In so many instances we have a predetermined notion as to how something is supposed to sound. This is either due to what someone has mentioned or written on a site of some sort, radio, a magazine, or just word of mouth. You'd be surprised at how many times I've asked why someone doesn't like for example an album, and their response is "well I don't know, I honestly haven't heard the entire thing" or "my friend says, etc.". I never write or talk about things thinking I'm the be all end all. I know that there are others out there that are a lot more versed at certain aspects of music, and think it's great when they share their opinions and help turn others onto something you might of not know previously. That's sort of what I try doing, I also welcome everyone's comments. So leave them on the site (marsattacksradio.com).

Take a listen to or download the interview from here, and let me know what you think:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/04/audio/mars-attacks-episode-7-steven-bradley-from-iwabo-rasmus-booberg-nkotw/

On the Fusion Sonica side of things, I have a new interview with Oskar Sanchez host of Noche De Rock, a highly successful Spanish radio show that airs weekly on various stations around the world. For more information on what Oskar does go to his website NocheDeRock.com

You can listen to or download Fusion Sonica Podcast number 41 from here:

http://fusionsonica.com/2010/04/23/podcast-episodio-41-entrevista-con-oskar-de-noche-de-rock/

On the Mars Attacks Radio side of things, we have a show that consists of newer tracks from groups like Sick Of It All, Soulfly, and a few others, go to the site to see a recap of the episode. It will air today at 4PM PST / 1PM PST / 10PM CET exclusively on MarkStriglRadio.com

Oh by the way over at Metal Army America you'll also find a review I did of Avantasia's two new albums The Wicked Symphony and The Angel Of Babylon, to read it go here:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=2833#more-2833

One last thing, happy birthday Ace Frehley!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Just like the title suggests, and similar to last week's episode, tonight's Mars Attacks consists of nothing but new songs. Some maybe a few months old, but they're for the most part new to me! This episode will be somewhat heavier than the last, and will include bands like The Chariot, IWABO, Soulfly, Sick Of It All, Fear Factory, etc.

The show will air tonight at 8PM EST / 5PM PST MarkStriglRadio.com

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Metal Army America has just posted two reviews that I have put together, one for the special edition reissue of Fates Warning Parallels, which can be found here:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=2459

And a concert review I wrote up for a show whose lineup consisted of The Chariot, Iwrestledabearonce, The Eyes Of A Traitor and Toumai can be found here:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=2764

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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This article is probably the only time Lemmy from Motorhead will ever be mentioned on the pages of the Wall Street Journal. The article isn’t about heavy metal.  It was supposed to be about the Hummer but  it is really  about freedom. I thought it was a good read.  Check it out here.


-- Mark Strigl
 
 

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This episode is a special joint release between Mars Attacks and Talking Metal. I touch upon this during the episode mentioning that it was put together as a tribute to Pete Steele. We deliberated at great length regarding this as it wasn´t the original intention. If you listen to Episode 306 of Talking Metal you will find part of the Mars Attacks live show I did with John and Mark last month while in the states. That episode contains an interview we conducted with Anthony Esposito from Ace Frehley, Lynch Mob fame. The next episode of Talking Metal, and Mars Attacks for that matter, was supposed to contain the first half of the live show. During this segment Mark and I interview Joey Z from Life of Agony, Stereomud, and Carnivore.

Joey was nice enough to come down to the studio, and sit in with us. He came in early, and sat on the couch while Mark, John and I did our opening monologue if you will. During the podcast you´ll hear me reference a few songs, one by Warrior Soul, and another by Slash. We spoke to Joey off mic while these songs where playing, immediately he started talking about Pete Steele. He mentioned what an honor it was to be asked to play with Carnivore, and he also spoke about how funny, and quick witted Pete was. He said Pete could come up with things right on the spot, and could roll with the punches during any given situation. I mentioned this during the Dan Lorenzo segment. He also started talking about what good man Pete was, which seems to be a common theme with all of the comments that are being posted on the web. Unfortunately this was off mic, and we had so many things to talk about (we spoke almost twice as long as we originally intended), we never really got into Pete or Carnivore on mic, except for a quick mention by Joey. Due to this, I have included part of his previous interview where he talks exclusively about Carnivore.



Joey is a great guy, who will always have an open door on any of my shows. I a big fan of his music, and have come to learn what a genuine, and nice person he truly is. He was the first person I turned to when I heard the rumor of Pete´s passing. He spoke so genuinely about Pete; it was hard not to think of him when I started reading the posts on the web. During the episode I read an excerpt of the response he sent me.

The reason I included Dan was because I read his comments on Blabbermouth.net. I reached out to a bunch of different people from the NY/NJ music scene to see if anyone might be interested in providing me with a statement regarding Pete. People treat death in different manners, I know for a lot of people this has to be a difficult situation. As a result, it would be foolish for me to be upset over people not wanting to partake. Maybe the situation is difficult for them, other are on tour, and couldn´t come on with such short notice, etc. In any event, Dan immediately came forward to share stories, and help celebrate the memory of Pete.

There are no ulterior motives here, like so many others out there we just want to celebrate the life of Pete Steele. By putting this episode together, I feel that we are doing our part to pay homage to the man, and his music. I´m sure some will say that we´re doing this to ride the publicity surrounding his untimely death, but it can´t be farther from the truth. Mark and I spoke at great lengths yesterday deliberating over whether we should release this episode now, or wait a few months. I personally think that we´re doing the right thing by releasing the interview in the format we have chosen. As a fan, I don´t want someone´s memory or music to ever die. I truly believe that both Joey and Dan have helped us to do this by sharing their thoughts, and experience with Pete.

Over the course of the next few weeks/months we´ll start to hear about Pete, hopefully all good things, but I´m sure some bad will come out as well. All I can say is remember him for what he meant to you, and don´t let others sway your judgment.

Episode 307 of Talking Metal will be released next week. Mark has informed me that their version will vary slightly as it will include booth John & Mark's commentary. If you're intersted in hearing my podcast you can find it here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/04/audio/mars-attacks-podcast-episode-6-joey-z-dan-lornezo-tribute-to-pete-steele/

I´ll close this in the same fashion that I closed the podcast, long live the memory and music of Pete Steele.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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As mentioned previously, I have begun doing some free-lance work for Metal Army America. If you go over to their site you'll find all types of interesting information, including a not so favorable review of the latest RAVEN album. You can find out exactly what I thought here:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=2581

On a side note, the new Ratt and Y&T absolutely kick ass, they both have everything you'd want and expect from classic bands like these. Raven, please take note!

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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First and foremost I'd like to send my condolences out to Pete Steele, his family, bandmates, fans, etc. Although I can't say that I was the biggest Type O Negative or Carnivore fan, I have almost everything the man has released. And no I do not own the Playgirl issue. I enjoyed every album, ever since I heard "We Hate Everyone" on WSOU for the first time. Over the last few years I've revisited the band on a few occasions, namely because of the Seventh Void album, and my brother suddenly becoming very interested in them.

Pete had a one of a kind voice, over the years he and Type O have backed up Ozzy for the Private Parts soundtrack, he also sang "Descent" with Doro Pesch a track that was featured on her Fight album. Although he struggled with addiction, it seemed as if he had finally started setting things straight in his life by the time the band's last album Dead Again came out. Interestingly enough a lot of people thought it was a hoax, due to the fact that back in 2005 a rumor was spread eluding to the fact that he had passed away.

In recent years he had put Carnivore back together, and my good buddy Joey Z from Life Of Agony talked to me about Pete on several occasions. While off air during last month's Mars Attacks Live show he discussed how Pete was so quick witted, and remarked about how funny he was. He stated that Pete could come up with almost any remark on the spot. He also mentioned how much fun it was playing with Carnivore, and how honored he was when asked to join the band. His ties to Type O Negative go back before Life Of Agony even recorded their first album. Their drummer Sal came from Type O, and Josh Silver produced River Runs Red.

The original plan was to use the aforementioned live show tomorrow. In light of today's events, I may actually switch things up. I discussed this with Mark Strigl earlier today. I'm sure if the episode is released the token hater will mention that we're doing this to take advantage of the situation. Which is far from what Mark & John or I am all about. If you've ever listened to any of the shows we do, we're fans of the music first and foremost.

My reason for releasing the show would be to share how others feel about Pete. As a result, I've asked people that I've interviewed from the NY/NJ area to send me their thoughts of Pete to have them included during the opening piece of the episode. If any fans are interested in sending their stories along regarding Pete Steele, please drop me a line at marsariesattacks @ live.com (all together, just trying to avoid spam). I can't promise that I'll use everything, but will do my best.

Condolences also go out to Vinnie Chas' family and friends, the ex-Pretty Boy Floyd guitarist recently passed away as well.

On a side note, tonight's episode of Mars Attacks will focus on newer tracks that have been released recently and have caught my attention. You'll hear Ratt, Slash, Godsmack, Non-Point, Wildestarr, among other things. Show airs at 8PM EST / 5PM PST MarkStriglRadio.com. For more info go to MarsAttacksRadio.com.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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1st Pete Steele.... now Vinnie Chas (ex-Pretty Boy Floyd) - DEAD!#mce_temp_url#

http://www.bravewords.com/news/136746



-- Mark Strigl
 
 

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Rest In Peace.  I was just tweeting with Blasko about this.  He is bummed to hear about Pete's passing.


-- Mark Strigl
 
 

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Well its official, I can now let the Metal Army America cat out of the bag! For those of you keeping score, I have various shows that I host and produce. Mars Attacks (http://marsattacksradio.com) and all of the Fusion Sonica shows (http://fusionsonica.com). I also help Mark out with programming and content on his Live365 network (http://markstriglradio). If you haven't noticed I am also a contributor to the Wire section of the Talking Metal site (why this very section). If that wasn't all enough, I am now also a free-lance writer for Metal Army America (http://metal-army.com). I honestly have to thank Mark for hooking me up with Kyle Parsons from MAA, and I hope all of you enjoy the content that I bring to the site.

Incidentally if you go over to the Metal Army America site you will now find a review I did on Brian Posehn's Fart and Weiner Jokes album. Go here to check out my review:

http://www.metal-army.com/?p=2445#more-2445

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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David Starr was nice enough to come onboard and discuss his band Wildestarr with us. The album Arrival was actually reviewed this week on Blabbermouth, and received favorable reviews from both critics and fans alike. During the interview we discuss London Wilde's singing style, and mention how her approach to singing is atypical compared to what you find nowadays in the metal community. There are some gothic stylings within their music, but London is far from a Scabia or Lee wannabe, something that is unfortunately rampant in today's metal. Actually, based on her approach, Rob Halford is the first person that came to mind when I was introduced to the song Arrival. But don't let me sway your decision check out the podcast and find out for yourself what Wildstarr is all about.

The podcast can be found here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/04/audio/mars-attacks-podcast-episode-5-david-starr-from-wildstarr/

On the Fusion Sonica side of things, we've just released an episode of the Podcast that furthers the whole metal in the 90s theme. You'll hear the following bands during the episode:

Iron Maiden, Metallica, Motorhead, Guns N' Roses, Helloween, Kiss, Armored Saint, Danzig, etc.

For more info on this episode go to here, remember Fusion Sonica is a Spanish language show:

http://fusionsonica.com/2010/04/09/podcast-episodio-39-hard-rock-metal-de-los-90/

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Tonight's Mars Attacks episode features nothing but cover tunes, you'll hear the following:

Anthrax covering Cheap Trick
Sebastian Bach and Dimebag Darrel covering Ozzy
Halford covering the Scorpions
Metallica covering Budgie
Rattlebone covering Blue Oyster Cult
Cradle of Filth covering Twisted Sister
Fu Manchu covering Van Halen
Fear Factory covering Head of David
Static X covering Motley Crue
Iron Maiden covering Montrose
Sound Garden covering Black Sabbath
Arch Enemy covering Kiss

Tonight 8PM EST / 5PM PST

Show repeats Friday and Saturday, check http://marsattacksradio.com for the exact times.

On the Fusion Sonica side of things we're extending what we did for Mars Attacks last week, and showcase hard rock and metal from the 90s. You'll hear:

Dio
Nine Inch Nails
Accept
King's X
Killer Dwarfs
Bullet Boys
Dokken
Quiet Riot
Sacred Reich
Bruce Dickinson

Fusion Sonica airs from 12AM to 3AM week nights.

Both shows can be heard on MarkStriglRadio.com.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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These are some of the items I touch upon when interviewing Cory Proctor of the Dallas Cowboys/Free Reign. Come on football/music, you know he's had to of been asked before. With regards to Romo, you guys have seen the YouTube videos of him singing with Steel Panther, if not I'm sure you're on your way to do so right now!

This interview forms part of Mars Attacks Podcast episode 4. Cory takes up the second half of the show, while Rane and Jason from the Finnish band Kings of Modesty are interviewed during the first half of the show. Topics include the recording of their first full length album, what it was like for them to work with Emppu Vuorinen from Nightwish on a previous EP, influences, gear, etc.

Go here for more info, or listen to, or download this episode of the podcast:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/04/audio/mars-attacks-podcast-episode-4-interviews-with-kings-of-modesty-free-reign/

A recap of yesterday's 90s themed show can be found here, it includes the show's playlist:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/04/radio-show/mars-attacks-radio-episode-25-90s-metal/

The show repeats tonight, and over the weekend.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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As promised during the Mars Attacks live show, tonight's episode will consist of nothing but 90s metal. Everything from 90s thrash, new bands that came out during this decade, the industrial influence in metal, the updating of sounds for some bands, and the reformation of others. The show airs 8PM EST/5PM PST exclusively on MarkStriglRadio.com.

New podcast tomorrow featuring Kings of Modesty and Free Reign.

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Join me for Mars Attacks first ever live show tonight at 7PM EST / 4PM PST / 1AM CET. I will be joined by John & Mark from Talking Metal, along with Joey Z from Life of Agony, and Mark Esposito ex-Lynch Mob, current Ace Frehley bass player.

The show will air exclusively on MarkStriglRadio.com

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Had the pleasure of interviewing Ivy and Tara from Kittie last night at BB Kings in NYC. I had interviewed Mercedes from the band right at the end of last year. I have to say that her interview was one of my favorites, as we talked for close to an hour, although about half of that was edited out. Although this interview originally aired back in January, I do intend on releasing both of the interviews together as a podcast during the course of the next few weeks. This was the first time I have caught the band, and they did not disappoint. They played fifteen songs total, you can tell that they are extremely happy with their last album In The Black, as they played six songs off of the album. During the interview Ivy and Tara confirmed that Kittie will indeed be touring with Insane Clown Posse.

 

Opening for the band was God Forbid, this was my second time seeing them, as I had seen them at the Kobetasonik festival in Spain last June. For those of you keeping score I interviewed guitarist Doc Coyle back in November. At the time things were somewhat in limbo with the band, they were looking for new management, a new label, and working a new guitarist into the fold (Matt Wicklund, who I saw back stage). Byron announced during the show that they were recording a new album which should be out at some point during this year. The set list focused on Earthsblood and IV: Constitution of Treason. Aside from songs off of their previous two releases, they played Pantera’s Mouth For War during their set. After their show I had Doc right behind me sporting a Metal Sucks t-shirt, he was watching Kittie’s show and had someone with him at the time. I didn’t see it prudent to walk up to him and bug him, in any event, will be posting his interview shortly as well.

 

Opening act was Gwen Stacy, unfortunately, didn’t get to catch much of their show, although they did sound great as well. Thanks to Bill from E1 for making everything happen. Tomorrow night’s Mars Attacks will go live, I will have interviews with Joey Z from Life Of Agony/Steromud/Carnivore, Anthony Esposito from Ace Frehley/Lynch Mob, and Mark & John from Talking Metal. This is my second go round with Joey; the last time we spoke was right before L.O.A. went out and did the shows in Jersey and NYC commemorating the twenty year anniversary of the band. The podcast version of the interview is available here: http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/03/audio/podcast-episode-2-life-of-agonys-joey-z/ The show starts at 7PM EST / 4PM PST exclusively on MarkStriglRadio.com
-- Victor M. Ruiz
 
 

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Hello to everyone from sunny New Jersey! That's right I'm on this side of the Atlantic for a few weeks. Although I'm technically on vacation, I wanted to keep momentum going and put together a new episode of Mars Attacks Radio and Podcast.

First off we have Mars Attacks Radio which debuted an 80s themed show last night. You can expect to hear bands like Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica and Guns and Roses among others during this episode. The show last two hours, can be found on MarkStriglRadio.com and replays today at 4PM EST / 1PM PST / 10PM CET. For more info go here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/03/news/80s-theme-show/

On the podcast side of things we debut an interview I conducted with Blaze Bayley a few weeks back. He discusses how happy he is with Promise and Terror his new solo album. How his band has really come together with this release. What he experienced when transitioning from a member of one of the biggest bands of all time to a solo artist. He also provides us with some left field comments regarding Ripper Owens, Judas Priest and Rob Halford.

The podcast can be downloaded from here:

http://marsattacksradio.com/2010/03/audio/podcast-episode-3-blaze-bayley/

-- Victor M. Ruiz
 

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Talking Metal is offering audio advertising on our podcast.  Our weekly
podcast is the number one hard rock/heavy metal podcast iTunes.

Each show generally receives over 10,000 downloads in its 1st week and and about
15,000 downloads in its first month of being posted.  We have listeners
around the globe.  
 
Email me at striglmark@gmail.com for rates.
 


-- Mark Strigl
 

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