Entertainment Earth

2/03/2016

Amon Amarth's Johan Hegg at St. Vitus in Brooklyn, NY

Last night, I, along my fellow esteemed members of the world of NY based heavy metal press, went to a special listening party. It was for the latest release from viking/ melodic death metal masters, Amon Amarth- Jomsviking. Held at heavy metal bar St. Vitus in Brooklyn, where signer Johan Hegg as present at the event. Later that night he was going to DJ for the fans. He was there with his wife and was very friendly, talkative, and personable.
Horns up! Here I am with Hegg, himself. Like I said above, he is a very cool and awesome dude in person.
 This lyric booklet was given to the press on hand. Hegg signed it for me!
 Metal Blade founder and all round legend Brian Slagel!!! I was honored to meet him.
That's Don Jamieson of That Metal Show in the awesome Amon Amarth hockey jersey. I do hope they find a new channel, cause that show needs to come back on and now! 
I gotta say that I really liked the new album. Jomsviking is clearly another solid entry in Amon Amarth's tremendous discography. I also should mention that the tenth track "A Dream that Cannot be" has guest vocals from metal legend Doro Pesch! I can't wait to get it myself and give it a good listen. The album is officially released on March 25, of this year.

For now here is their latest video, for the album's first single, "First Kill":

2/18/2015

That Metal Show Season Premiere Recoding 2/17/15

 
Yesterday, Feb. 17, 2015, my friend Alan and I got to attend a taping of VH-1 Classic's That Metal Show. I hadn't been to one of their tapings since 2009! Mostly cause, they ended up moving the show to LA and then when they came back, I just couldn't get chosen to be on the show. For, my friend Alan, it was his first time at a taping. Well, we got picked this time, and off we went! You can see us to the right, by the way.

As you can see in the pic above they have added some stuff to the set. The taping itself, which airs this Sat, Feb. 21, 2015 at 9PM is the 14th season premiere!
Dream Theater's guitarist and Long Island native John Petrucci provided us with kick ass music, as a he played guitar during breaks. He is a huge Rush, so he was super excited to meet him for the first time in his life bassist and signer of the prog band, Geddy Lee! I am not a Rush fan (sorry! not my cup of blood...), but it was still cool to hear him talk about some interesting subjects including their upcoming 41st anniversary tour. It should also be noted, as you maybe able to see in the pics above and to the let, this must be the first time girls were at any show involving Rush! A joke made by myself and the hosts!

Also, on hand was Def Leppard Joe Elliot who came out to join our returing guests Don Jamieson, Jim Florentine, and Eddie Trunk as they did the Top 5 British Rock Act of the 70s. This segment was my favorite of the show and not without controversy!
After the show was over, I got to meet Don (the only one of the three guests that we had yet to meet) and John. Both of them were cool as hell! Alas, Geddy had already left, as had the beautiful Miss Box of Junk, Jennifer. Anyway, it was a blast last night, and I hope to come back to another taping in the future! And, can't wait to see this episode on TV and the rest of the new season!!!

 Here I am with Don Jamieson!!!
John Petrucci of Dream Theater's beard is as epic as he is cool!!!


5/02/2011

Chiller Theatre Con 4/30/2011

After having missed out on last year's October show my friends and I were determined not to do the same this year! And, so we headed off to New Jersey for another adventure at the world's greatest con!! I went with Alan and Baldwin and met up with Pat and Matt at the show.

The first celeb I went up to was the very pretty Mercedes McNab. Her character and her portrayal of said character, Harmony, had long been one of my favs on Buffy and Angel. She signed the back of my season 5 of Buffy, as Clare "Glory" Kramer had already signed the front of it at the Big Apple Con, last year.

The next person that I went up to was the one, I most wanted to meet the most: the beautiful Bai Ling!!!! Bai looked stunning, and she signed my DVD of one of my fav movies, The Crow. I got pic with her, as well!

In the pit, was also the very pretty Mariana Klaveno, aka Lorna from True Blood. She signed my blu-ray of season 2. I told her that I loved her on the show, but that I was definitely cheering when she died. She laughed, and said something to the effect of the fact that she was a villain.

Next on my list was Eddie trunk. I'm a HUGE fan of VH-1 Classic's That Metal Show, and while I had been to one of their tapings, I had never met any of them. Being that Eddie had his first book out, Eddie Trunk's Essential Guide to Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, I felt now would be the perfect time to do just that. I requested that they bring the show back to the East Coast, and that they have Doro on the show. In the end, though, he said it is up to the execs. Regardless, he's a cool guy, and Jim Florentine, sitting next to him, was funny as fuck!

We decided to take a break and chill for a little while, and for my friend Pat, it meant that Dr. Satan could come out and play!!

I manged to get a shitload of things at the dealers room. I bought on DVD: Nikkatsu Roman Porn Trailer Collection (which I reserved at Diabolik), House by the Cemetery, Female Demon Ohyaku, Combat Shock (two disc special edition), and on blu-ray I got City of the Living Dead and Santa Sangre.

I got one more autograph in the form of A Nightmare on Elm Street's still beautiful Amanda Wyss. I had meant to meet her earlier, but the line to just get into the room that she was in was to fucking long!! But, that changed late in the afternoon and I just walked in. She is so sweet and nice in person. She talked to fans, and asked about their horror flick T-shirts! She's so awesome!! And, like I said still so beautiful!! She signed my now out of print version of the special edition of the aforementioned Wes Craven's classic.

With that I got the most autographs in recent times, if not ever at Chiller! I topped last year where I got four, but admit ably one (Sherilyn Fenn) was not for me, as it was a gift for my friend Kristie. Anyways, all were for me this time around, so yay!

After chilling and pizza and whatnot we went to the party!!! The Dead Elvi opened up and kicked major ass!!!

The Cool Ghoul Zacherly joined them for The Monster Mash next! As is always the case with this, it was all kinds of awesome!!!
Next to join them was Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Gos. She sang some of their classics. After she was done Bai Ling sang a song!! Total awesomeness!! This proves it, anything with Bai Ling were the highlights of the day, well to me anyways. I kept screaming, "I love you!" Cause, well, I'm a geek! =D
The Dead Elvi continued their ass kicking ways and Mother Chick (aka the babe from the original Mother video from Danzig), dressed as Supergirl, rocked out onstage with them!

Next up came Tony Clifton, who my friends Alan and Matt were insane about!! Anyways, he was pretty funny, I must say, although my knowledge of him is, admit ably limited.
We saw Akihiro Kitamura of The Human Centipede at the party. Rollie (who came with his girlfriend Rachel and Wally later in the day) wanted a pic with him, and so did I. I went up to him, and we got it! He's a real cool guy, by the way!!! Anyways, Rollie had missed last April's Chiller, but when he saw the aforementioned Sherilyn Fenn pic that I got with her, he knew he had to come this time around.

The last band that played were the awesome Ingrid and the Defectors. Man, they sure kicked major fucking ass!!!! Their signer, Ingrid (duh!), is a major hottie, I think. Their set was just awesome. They covered my all time fav L7 song Shit List and a Iggy Pop song, and they just fucking ripped it!!! Awesome!!!!
And, so another Chiller closes. But, it gave us all great memories and fun times. Here's to Chiller THE best horror con in the world. Until the next one, we love you, Chiller! :)

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Now playing: Warlock - Speed of Sound
via FoxyTunes

11/16/2010

The All Time Best Heavy Metal/ Hard Rock Logos

This past Saturday's episode of That Metal Show had a segment where the guys voted for their picks of the best metal band logos. I gotta say while, they picked some good ones, they stuck with classic/ iconic ones. Well, hey it is VH-1 Classics, after all. That said I felt like making my own list. I, though, decided to break into the best of the classic/ iconic ones and the all time fucking coolest.

The Best Iconic/ Classic Logos
10. Megadeth is one of the coolest looking of all time. In particular cause it evokes a metallic almost 3D feel to it.

9. Anthrax might have the most awesome logo of the Big Four. While, the look changed slightly over the years it is still pretty fucking awesome.


8. AC/DC's lighting blot is iconic enough. This logo is all fucking classic!




7. Few logos are classic and ironically evil as Slayer's wheel/ pentagram. You look at ,and you know what this band is all about. Truly one of the 80s most fucking awesome logos!





6. With the S's written like lightning bolts, the Kiss logo is one of the most recognizable in the world.









5. Iron Maiden's logo is so iconic that the font itself frequently is used for all things metal. You can't get more classic than that!!








4. The Misfits logo, along with the Crimson Ghost, can be seen just about everywhere. Easily one of rock's best merchandised bands, the Misfits have a legacy all their own. And, their love for horror is very apparent. THE greatest punk band, ever, also have THE best logo in ALL of punk. End of story.






3. The biggest band to come out of the thrash metal scene, Metallica, has one of the most recognizable logos in the history of music. BTW, I hated when the logo changed for those "shitty" albums, you know which ones I mean!!!

2. While not as popular with the mainstream as the others on the list, King Diamond's classic logo is one of the coolest around. I mean it has a fucking bat (note how many abnd on this list have a bat wings on this list) and a symbol on it. That makes it a top place holder on any fucking logo list!!!!





1. The top spot goes to the metal god's band, Judas Priest!!! This one is easily the coolest of the classic/ iconic logos. It's probably the most complex of the ones on THIS list, but just wait till the next list, starts...






The Coolest Fucking Logos Ever!
Unlike the group before this one is NOT based on icon status but rather just how fucking cool the logo looks. Notice all will be black and death metal bands, cause, well, they have the best logos, usually.
NOTE: I wanted to stick to logos you can still read, hence some of the crazier black/ death metal logos are not here.

10. The fathers of black metal, Venom, have what is one of the coolest logos of ANY 80s band. Definitely a sign of things to come.





9. Death are the first true death metal ,and their fucking awesome logo has a reaper, a cross (inverted in the early days), fire, a spider and a web, and blood! In other words it FUCKING RULES!!! They also happen to be my all time fav death metal, act, by the way.





8. Thrash masters Possessed could be said to be have the first death metal album. What is definitely true is that their logo, with two inverted crosses, fire, and a pointed tail surely tell you about the evil contained in the lyrics. You knew this band, for sure, was, and did, sign about good old Lucifer.

7. Speaking of Satan, the first true black metal act of the list comes in the form of Sweden's evil Dissection. One of my personal favorite black metal acts, they had a cool logo, that could still be readable.


6. The best of the 80s logos has to belong to thrash/ speed metal masters Dark Angel. Come on, the fonts are cool and it has bar wings for fuck's sake!!!!



5. The first death metal that I ever owned every album of, has super cool fonts. And, depending on what album or shirt you are looking at, a dragon for a T or dripping blood!!! Now THAT is fucking metal!!!





4. Impaled has some of the coolest fonts in the metal world. This one proves you don't need blood, pentagrams, bats, inverted crosses, whatever, to make a cool looking logo.


3. Cradle of Filth's logo gives you a good idea of the gothic, black metal music you are in for. You know these guys will surely sign about scary, evil, and gothy things. Like all the best logos it simply fits the band.

2. One of THE most infamous bands in all of metal, Mayhem, have a logo that is just legible and cool enough to make the list. This one has wicked fonts, bat wings, and upside down crosses. You see this one works. Unfortunately, too many black metal bands decided to make impossible to read logos, after seeing this, probably...


1. The first death metal act I ever got into, Morbid Angel, has my ALL time fav logo. This one is just a greatest hits of satanic imagery: inverted crosses, pitchfork, pentagram, pagan symbols, and two pointy tails. In other words, definitely a band to piss your mom off. To me, this is THE definitive logo with complex fonts. As it is easy to read, cool, and evil as fuck.




So, there's my list. Do you agree? Was I missing a band? Who would you have put in here? Tell me. I would love to know. And, remember keep metal and hard rock alive!! Horns up!!!

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Now playing: Anthrax - Pipeline
via FoxyTunes