In recent months, two metal shows have been created by less-than-qualified individuals. First, the TalkingMetal,com clowns were given a show on Fuse. My loathing for that podcast and its snore inducing hosts cannot be put into words, so I’ve avoided it like the plague. Second, is Eddie Trunk’s new VH1 Classic outfit That Metal Show (co-hosted by comedian Jim Florentine and some guy named Don Jamieson). To give you an idea of how little attention this show warrants, it has been on now since December 6th, 2008 and the date I’m writing this is April 5th, 2009. I know I really shouldn’t expect much from VH1 Classic or anything Eddie Trunk ever does, but when a show comes out and it’s called “That Metal Show,” there is an immense amount of curiosity.
When I started this website, I planned on keeping things relatively metal, but honestly, I just can’t do as good a job as some others. My dedication is ultimately to myself and my ego, so following other people’s careers for a career just couldn’t work for me. Luckily, the word “metal” does not appear in the URL or our tagline (anymore) so I kinda side stepped that completely after a few months of miserable failure. However, if I were, a metal blogger, writer, podcaster, or just a hardcore fan, I would be absolutely insulted that this is what I’ve been handed as “metal on TV.”
I’ll begin by giving you Wikipedia’s description of the episode I watched, which was apparently episode three of season two. Season one had seven whole episodes (Power Rangers’ first season had 65, so the term “season” apparently doesn’t mean shit). Here it is:
They begin the episode by discussing music in the digital age and the differences between listening to an album and downloading songs off of iTunes. They welcome out Nuno Bettencourt and Gary Cherone (who enters through the audience). They discuss several things including the reasons that Extreme is coming back now and how it was following David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar in Van Halen. Don and Jim revisit the “Van Halen TV” bit and go to London for “Motorhead TV.” Eddie got two and a half out of four in “Stump the Trunk.” The pick of the weeks were Danko Jones by Jim, The Binges by Don, and Richie Kotzen by Eddie. They discuss “Whatever Happened to”. The “Throwdown” is “Which is the meaner album: Slayer’s Reign in Blood or Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power. Gary, Nuno, Jim, and Don choose Pantera and Eddie chooses Slayer.
Literally that was it. I took notes throughout and that’s kinda what they look like. You could read that and come away with just as much knowledge as you did going in. But, I’m not here to recap, I’m here to criticize and insult, so without further ado…
Segment 1: Discussion – Digital Downloads vs. Hard Copies of CDs
Not only is this one of the most tired discussion topics in all of metal, but they didn’t even do it right. Did they have experts on sales and marketing on to talk with them? No. Did they make any points whatsoever? No. Did they stay on the topic for more than three minutes? Fuck no. What did they do? They talked about this topic for LITERALLY one minute and 51 seconds. Eddie’s points: “I like CDs, I like packaging, I’m old school.” Real shocking, Eddie. We, as metal fans are thrilled to have such an insightful, thought-provoking, point of view brought to us. You truly are providing a service to the community with a one minute and 51 second discussion of something that has been beaten to death.
Segment 2: Interview – Nuno Bettencourt and Gary Cherone from Extreme
I fucking love Extreme. I got to see them this past summer and they totally rocked my face off AND the new CD is really, really good. So, I was psyched to see them on the show, even though I wouldn’t exactly call what they do “metal.” Fuck, was I disappointed. This segment lasted a little longer than the discussion – three questions totaling 4:06
Question from Eddie:
“Nuno, you have had a bunch of bands, blah blah blah, I’m not a modern rock guy so I didn’t like Satellite Party. Blah blah blah… Why did you get back together?”
WE GET IT – YOU HATE NEW MUSIC THAT ISN’T WRITTEN BY SOMEONE YOU HANG OUT WITH.
“What was it like when you first came together?”
BE MORE BLAND.
From Jim:
“Gary, how tough was it to follow Dave and Sammy?”
HE LEFT VAN HALEN A DECADE AGO.
I know I do shitty interviews, but this is embarrassing for a syndicated “metal” radio host.
First commercial break – I’ve gotten exactly 5 minutes and 57 seconds of actual content buffered by shitty graphics and awkward intros.
Segment 4: “Motorhead TV” (4:13)
This could have been brilliant. The premise was that Don and Jim were in England outside the Hammersmith pretending to be providing fans with a feed to Motorhead’s dressing room. They pretended to get responses via C.I.A.-style ear pieces from Lemmy, Phil and Mikkey. Unfortunately for anyone expecting humor, every time someone asked a question, Jim responded with “Lemmy says that’s an obvious one,” I guess in an attempt to discourage or piss off these fans. Fucking lame. They got one guy to give “Lemmy and Mikkey Dee” his clothes. The highlight of the bit is a fat guy taking his shirt off and then ripping his underwear off himself. Friends is more original and humorous than bland underwear jokes.
Segment 5: Stump the Trunk (3:36 – should have been all 20 minutes)
This could be its own show and it would be a million times better than That Metal Show (it’s taken everything I’ve got not to rip on a show which obviously lifted its title from a mediocre sitcom with an unclever name). So Stump the Trunk lasted 3 minutes 36 seconds and there were four questions. I really could watch this in a different format (one where the correct answer about Slayer’s drummers wasn’t answered by another fan not on a microphone). Remember ESNP’s Stump the Schwab? That ruled. They lifted their title from one show, why not lift an entire format from another?
Segment 6: Pick of the Week (1:00)
Apparently, they usually pick one album, this time they each picked one.
Jim: Danko Jones
This is like a worse version of the already mediocre Velvet Revolver, which was decidedly un-metal.
Don: The Binges
The highlight of the entire show for me was researching this pick in an attempt to break Don’s balls about it. I actually kinda like this song, thanks a lot Don!
Eddie: Richie Kotzen
Ritchie Kotzen’s latest album is Live in Sau Paulo from 2008. Why not just pick the latest Aerosmith Greatest Hits package?
Second commercial break
Segment 7: Where are they Now: Jason Newsted (1:10)
I know where he is, and mother fucking NEWSDAY knows where he is. In their defense, the episode was recorded AND aired before the announcement of him playing at the Hall of Fame, but still… if you’re going to ask a fat loser about some semi-metal musician how about Vito Bratta? What the fuck has he been doing? (Yeah, I know he did two shows in New York in ‘07 which I couldn’t go to because of work commitments…)
Segment 8: Debate – Which Album is Meaner? Vulgar Display of Power or Reign In Blood (2:00)
There was literally a two minute time limit put on this debate. Two minutes wouldn’t be enough to describe either one of these albums or the definition of “mean,” let alone intelligently debate which one is “meaner.” Plus, who the fuck picked this shit? Why would anyone compare Reign to anything? And Vulgar Display is also above this sort of stupidity. They’ve both earned their place among the greatest metal albums of all time, why try to compare them? This “debate” was more of a vote with Pantera coming out on top. Blech.
And that’s the end of our show (donk).
Like anything Eddie Trunk does, he talks about hard rock and calls it “metal.” As much as I love Extreme, the album came out in like May of 2008, how about you go out and get an interview with Mastodon backstage somewhere? The last segment was honestly the most metal thing about the show and it sounded like the first time any of them had tried to talk about either album. Eddie’s big argument was “Slayer IS Satan.” Real original – did you watch the 100 Greatest Metal Bands on VH1 last weekend?
So, I’ve made a big point of noting how long each segment is. I did this because I felt like I was being shortchanged because by the time each segment even approached getting started it was over. Real content took up about 17 minutes and 16 seconds An average sitcom comes in somewhere around 20-22 minutes. There’s a reason every half hour show has two commercial breaks – there’s not enough time to do EIGHT SEGMENTS. If this show were truly taken care of, they would narrow it down to three segments per show. Honestly, I would enjoy it if the first seven minutes were a (clever or at least half witted) debate, then the next segment was a quality ten minute interview and they wrapped it up with their picks of the week.
Hey, maybe one week instead of an interview they do Stump the Trunk with a one on one style game show for ten minutes? Then the next week they skip their pick of the week and give us a “where are they now?” and post the pick of the week on the website? This show is fucking godawful the way it is and Eddie Trunk proves even further he doesn’t give a shit about real metal. And Jim Florentine should be ashamed of himself, he had zero jokes the entire show, and I KNOW he’s funny (even though he flaked on an interview with me in Poughkeepsie – asshole). I’ll leave Don alone, because I feel like the guy is so out of his element and comfort zone it would be unfair to him.
As I’m writing this conclusion, I’m actually watching another episode and the opening discussion is “Why don’t we have heavier bands?” (and they actually cited complaints of no Mastodon). They claim to try to cover all of it – in Eddie’s words: “Some of the more pop-oriented stuff, some of the hard rock, some of the heavy stuff, some of the thrash stuff.” Their examples of “real heavy stuff”? Slipknot and Shadows Fall. I’m shutting it off before they interview Duff “The Reason I Play Bass” McKagan, before they ruin it for me. And to think I ever felt even remotely bad about taking this picture:
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Eddie likes all the packaging and rubbish that comes with the plastic CD? It’s time to go green, Eddie! Usually when people tell you that, they’re encouraging you to eat a fucking salad- but c’mon: respect your earth mother.
Eddie Trunk is a moron, and so are the other two ‘hosts’. That Metal Show has little to do with metal. Then again, some people believe Porcupine Tree is metal. How stupid is that. Headbanger’s Ball on MTV is awful because of the quality of music that is shown. Much of it is too distorted to listen to anymore. Plus MTV keeps moving the show around, changing the length of the show, showing stupid hip hop commercials, etc.
VH1 Classic is a joke. They repeat the same shows and concert videos over and over. They air them any time during the day. There is absolutely no logic to their programming schedule. And you can’t even contact the bastards to complain about how shitty their programming is!
Metal Mania is an embarrassment because it is mostly a rock/hard rock show. There are very few metal videos shown. Bon Jovi? Poison? What the hell?
There is not much true metal around anymore. A bunch of geeks with a guitar and a screaming, incoherent lead singer who can’t sing can be in a ‘metal’ band.