There is no shortage of great music here in Austin, TX. Pretty much anytime I want, I can go downtown and find a great live show. Last week, I was lucky enough to end up at a great Irish pub called Fadó. The band that was playing that night was called Blaggards from Houston, TX, and my Irish blood warmed quickly to the thought of listening to a nice, mellow Celtic traditional band.

Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise.

I was given the opportunity last week to listen to Bigelf’s new CD Cheat the Gallows, and I absolutely love this band. While most of their songs wouldn’t be considered “metal”, one of their jams, titled “The Evils of Rock and Roll” is featured on Revolver Magazine’s free 21 song Metal Mayhem Compilation, which is the first song I heard by the group.

As part of the Progressive Nation Tour, Bigelf is currently touring with Dream Theater, Zappa Plays Zappa and Scale the Summit. Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy says:
Los Angeles’ Bigelf are my personal favorite new band to come along in …read more

The last week has been kind of crazy being back actually working for a living. I’ve tried to update here when I can, but time has been tight. This will be my last Scrap Metal Report and my last post. However, this isn’t the end of my metal blogging. As I’ve said before, blogging has renewed my faith in metal and I want to keep updated on it and have an outlet for that. For that purpose I started my new, personally owned blog called HookInMouth.net. If you would like to continue to read my metal bloggings, you’re more than …read more

Stupid people are like a plague, they make you sick and wish they would just be eradicated already. A rock station out of Raleigh, NC has something they do during NCAA March Madness that they call “March Bandness”. They pit two bands against each other and you get to call in and vote for which band gets played, or some shit like that, I’m not sure.
The bands that day were Guns N Roses Vs. Black Sabbath. People were calling in and one dude voted for Sabbath and said; because if it wasn’t for Sabbath there would be no Guns N …read more

Universal Music out of the UK will be re-issuing Black Sabbath’s classic Paranoid in a deluxe 3 disc set. You have disc one, which is just the original 8 tracks of ground-breaking, classic metal. Disc two is the same thing, only in a quadraphonic (kind of like old-ass surround sound), and disc three will be the same tracks except Paranoid and Planet Caravan have alternate lyrics, but for some reason War Pigs doesn’t. The rest of the songs on disc three are “instrumental”, meaning they just didn’t lay down the vocal track.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I still …read more

Tony Iommi recently issued an update concerning progress on the recording of the new Heaven And Hell Album:

The Rock Of Love Charm School has got to be one of the most pathetic “Reality” shows on television, right up there with “The Hills” and a handful of other shows where people publicly exploit their tattered lives for money. You’d think that after 13 years or however long this craze has been going on that people would get tired of reality shows. Sadly people thrive off of watching reality TV because it makes them feel better about their own crappy lives.
Metal Hammer is reporting that according to TMZ that Sharon allegedly attacked one of the Rock Of Love: …read more

Holy crap!!! Ozzy Osbourne has lived long enough to turn 60 today. Although most of us hate Sharon, we can thank her for Ozzy actually living this long. If she hadn’t turned him around after the Sabbath fallout he would probably be dead by now. So wish the Prince Of Darkness a Birthday-Bloody-Birthday!
Image Source: Newscom.com

Heaven And Hell, pretty much the Ronnie James Dio version of Black Sabbath , have entered the recording studio and the new release is expected out in the early part of 2009. They will also be touring in support of the new album and  tour dates have been scheduled so far for Hellfest and Swedish Rock Festival. Iommi told Billboard.com the reason they are touring under the name Heaven and hell instead of Black Sabbath in this statement:

As a metal fan we are all collectors of band swag whether we like to admit it or not. We see something new come to the market and we want it. Not just because it looks cool but we like to pay tribute and show our pride and fanhood of our favorite metal bands.