The State of Heavy Metal

My wife and I watched a TV show last night on a metal concert called Sonisphere in Knebworth England. I have to say while the show was decent we noticed a trend in the advertising during commercial breaks – erectile dysfunction, beds to reduce back pain, pills to make you feel young again and home insurance. Wow. Heavy Metal shows will soon have Depends advertising on them or maybe Metallica’s next tour will be sponsored by Preparation H or Metamucil.

Yes, the metal bands from the 80’s and 90’s are all approaching their 50’s and 60’s in age, but there are still a few in their late 30’s. Some have fared better than others. San Francisco was the epicenter to thrash metal in the 80’s and early 90’s before grunge pushed them underground. We had Metalica, Testament, Death Angel, Exodus, Laaz Rockit and that’s just off the top of my head. Apologies to my buds who I left out. Bands from out of town found San Francisco a must stop place to play. The Record Vault was where every metal band had to put in an appearance.

When out of town bands lost a member they usually turned to the San Francisco bands to find a replacement. Now we’re relegated to VH1 Classic. Classic rock was what you referred to bands who stopped recording albums and performed only reunion tours. The Rolling Stones first reunion tour was in 1975. That today is Classic Rock, not Slayer or Metallica.

I have noticed a few changes over the years in metal’s appearance and part of that has to do with the grunge movement. As the metal heads get older and their hair starts to thin, if you cut your long hair then you must grow facial hair. If you still have thinning long hair then you grow a goatee. If you shave your head then you need a ridiculous amount of facial hair [Scott Ian, Kerry King] Lemmy of Mötorhead is the only exception because he’s had the mutton chops and mustache since he was born. He eats nothing but red meat and potatoes and downs a fifth of Jack Daniels a day and his liver is still in perfect health and he doesn’t look a day older than he did in the 80’s.

If you have gray hair you either dye it [Joey Belladonna] or wear a beanie. Not the propeller head beanies, but a black one preferably with a skull and crossbones on it. Sadly there are few metal bands left in the San Francisco Bay Area. We have Metallica that’s usually off touring somewhere just like Death Angel who at least puts in a showing at the Haight Street Fair [special note, Will and Ted of Death Angel were in a band called Warfare D.C. I used to manage and the pre-Death Angel reunion group when they were the Organization I recorded their demo so I have to give them special props].

Heavy metal isn’t dead, but it isn’t growing the way it was pre-21st century. It’s mostly the same bands from the old days reforming. If you want to find new metal bands you have to look to Europe or more specifically Finland for new blood. That’s how things started  with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the 80’s so maybe by 2020 we’ll see something new pop up in the states and specifically San Francisco. We have lost a few from back in the day, but in most cases it’s not been from drugs, but cancer or some other failure of a body part. Yep, we’re getting older, but the advertisers don’t have to remind us every day.

KUSF Dead: Rampage Radio, what’s next?

This is really early on, but it appears that as of this morning it was announced by the regents at the University of San Francisco that KUSF has been sold. From the USF website they posted the following:

“The University of San Francisco (USF) announced today that KUSF, the university’s radio station, is moving to an online only format, effective immediately. The university has reached an agreement to assign the FCC license for radio frequency 90.3 FM to Classical Public Radio Network, which is launching a non-commercial classical music station in the Bay Area. CPRN is owned by University of Southern California.

Read the press release from USC and Entercom Communications.

The call letters KUSF were not sold, and the KUSF logo and all music inventory will remain USF property. All KUSF staff will be offered similar positions at KUSF.org.

The move to online-only distribution gives KUSF a powerful opportunity to grow its worldwide audience. Previously, the station was limited to 100 online listeners at a time, but capacity will be increased to accommodate thousands of listeners.

The station will go dark briefly for necessary engineering work. It is possible the electrical work could take several days.

As it shifts to an online-only format, USF will focus on the station’s primary purpose as a teaching laboratory for students. The university is evaluating ways to improve the student learning experience and enhance its curriculum in digital media and audio production. USF is also pleased to announce that CPRN will make internships available to qualified USF students interested in radio broadcasting.

USF will invest the proceeds from the sale to support its mission, and will continue to offer a valuable learning experience for its media students. USF is pleased that it can also help ensure the long-term presence of high-quality classical music programming in the Bay Area.

The sale must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission.”

OK, I’m sure not a whole lot of you remember KUSF or even heard of it [great if you did though]. I discovered it through a friend I met in a nightclub early in the 80’s, Ron Quintana who started and is still a DJ with Rampage Radio. While I tried listening to it during the day I hated the really bad alternative rock they played that out of the thousands of songs maybe only a couple of bands were good enough to get record contracts. On the other hand, when Rampage Radio started up late night on Saturday it was all about the hard rock and heavy metal scene that was building up steam.

I was not much of a late night guy so staying up late was always kind of difficult for me. I was able to make to the studios a couple of times after club shows and it was almost like it was the after hours party for the metal shows locally. Ron and Ian Kallen who started the show worked hard to get in contact with the rising metal bands around the world before there was internet or skype so they had to do it all by hand and they were instrumental in getting a lot of these bands to come to San Francisco because we actually knew who they were from listening to Rampage Radio.

[mappress mapid=”1″]As it turns out Rampage Radio is looking into online streaming “radio”, but for some reason when you go to their page and click to enter it’s redirecting you to Facebook. I’m sure they’ll fix that soon. From the little info that’s trickling out I’ve heard that the station was sold for $3.75 million dollars. From what I can tell, that’s what USF gets out of the deal. The station is owned by the city of San Francisco and apparently sold it for $80 million dollars word has it at the moment.

In the end, KUSF may end up doing better. I certainly hope Rampage Radio does better. Non-profit radio has been going downhill for years. It’s all about the internet now and I’m hoping the Rampage crew embrace that wholeheartedly. It costs less that operating a broadcast station, reaches people all around the world and decentralizes the staff so that they can work from their own homes. Best of luck to them all!