I was listening to some RTE Radio one documentary with John Kenny on it, brought back memories of his metal radio show in the 90s.
For me as a teen in the mid 90s it was really important because I knew nobody else into metal except maybe Metallica. Extreme metal CDs often seemed to cost a fortune, so this was the show where I first heard stuff like Emperor, Dimmu Borgir etc, which was mind blowing for me at the time as I had never heard anything like it.
Does anyone else have any fond memories of it? Zag used to appear on it occasionally which was pretty funny.
Yep. I listened to it from 92 when it began, right till the end in 98 or 99. Zag did the Christmas show with the top ten of the year. Good craic. It was a weekly fixture for me.
It was John Peel and 'TV on the Radio' (Tommy Vance for you yungers) for me.
I was already earning by the time JK's radio show started so I could afford a couple/few records each week. His show was on a Sunday evening if I remember correctly from the few times I tuned in?
Usually listened to it on the bus heading back to Dublin on Sunday nights. I distinctly remember hearing a (quite awful) death metal version of I Am The Walrus while passing Bachor's Walk one night.
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Ah the highlight of a Sunday evening back then. Zag was funny on the Christmas show. The host didn't really seem to be a fan of extreme metal given his comments about some of the bands.
Sundays from 8 to 10. The only period I listened to it routinely was junior cert year, when it accounted for the two hours of "study" I did a week.
And yeah, was very clear JK didn't really know what was going on with the stuff he was playing, haha. I remember Life is Peachy was a new release one week, not quite a highlight. On the other hand, it was the first place I heard Emperor, among others.
He was doing the top 10 chart thing I guess around 98/99, I remember he played Curse You All Men and I just couldn't believe it, wanted to hear more of this band. Went into HMV to see if I could find anything by Emperor - if they had anything at all it usually had an "import" sticker slapped on it and cost 25-30 euro.
Times have definitely changed....
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Aul 'JK on the Radio' was on twitter recently saying he had some old interviews from the time with the likes of Megadeth, but they were on DAT and he had no way of converting it.
So... eh!
Anyone have an old DAT machine yokey laying about they could loan him? 😛
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I always thought the Metal Show came a few years too late. For me, it was documenting the sound of it all turning to shit :laugh:
Kenny was alright after a while but he was clearly learning on the job in the early days. Tom Hayes' shows on pirate radio from the late 80's were so much better as Tom was into Metal and what you heard was stuff he was into. Still, it gave local bands some time on the national airwaves which was cool. I gave up on it after a few years, though. In my life, 93 was the last great year for Metal and the great albums were fewer and farther between after that. What was played on the Metal Show was less and less relevant to me as it went on.
Listened to it throught the 90s alright ,but definitely got less relevant towards the end.
As was said above ,definitely in junior and leaving cert years it became a religious listen because of 'study'.
Among all the scutter i did discover some amazing bands.
It was grand but as already mentioned here, Kenny's heart wasn't really in it. Always got the impression he was more into more mainstream or traditional rock, as opposed to metal. He did, in fairness, give a bit of exposure to irish bands...i think there was a demo slot every week. The 2nd hour of the show was devoted to the Soundcellar Top 10. I can recall In the Nightside Eclipse occupying the top slot for ages, and Kenny being vocally quite nonplussed by the whole fuss over them. Also announced that he would no longer be playing Once Upon the Cross, in response to whatever backlash it faced upon release. He must have loved Clawfinger (anyone?), cos he played them nearly very fucking week!!
I was oblivious to JK's lack of knowledge or interest as I was so young. I was as interested in the good stuff as the shit at the time too, although I was always sceptical of Clawfinger despite a few friends liking them. I mean, Biohazard were corny, but Clawfinger were absolutely cringe inducing :laugh:
I did love Clawfinger back then i must say! :laugh:
Clawfinger, who billed themselves as the anti-RATM by proudly declaring on the inlay that no instruments were used in the recording, or something to that effect :laugh: :abbath:
Clawfinger got a lot of airtime on Noisy Mothers/Raw power too,i remember buying Deaf Dumb Blind off the back of seeing the Warfare video.
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Yeah State of the world address wasn't good,i liked Urban Discipline though.
State of the World Address was the business.
I remember hearing the intro to Punishment and thinking it sounded class (and it is a great intro, BTW) but then the song starts properly and Evan Seinfeld starts doing his thing and it's just crap. And that's Biohazard really.
The chaos in the Shades of Grey video is what sucked me in.
Clawfinger were a better band.
(Must be a new low on here comparing Biohazard and Clawfinger)
I have one Clawfinger album (the first one) on tape and one Biohazard one (Urban Discipline) copied on tape. They're both shite, but Clawfinger at least sounded slightly sincere about it all.
Clawfinger are a great band....I still love them.
This show was brilliant when I was a kid. Easy to look back at it with a more cynical eye now but at the time it was amazing. I used to tape the Sound Cellar top 10 each week for my walkman. I recall him playing a track from 'Breeding The Spawn' and just being blown away......couldn't believe what I was hearing and of course bought the album.
When did it actually run from and to? I tuned in a few times in 96, a lot in 97, any maybe a few times after that, but couldn't be sure.
Quote from: Black Shepherd Carnage on July 02, 2020, 11:37:03 AM
When did it actually run from and to? I tuned in a few times in 96, a lot in 97, any maybe a few times after that, but couldn't be sure.
I emigrated in 1996 but I think it had been on a couple of years before that.?
It began in 92 I think. I remember a guy I was friends with then excitedly showing me the listing in the newspaper at the time and being amazed! Tuned in religiously for the duration of its existence until 98 or 99 when it ended.
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Pretty sure I still have most of the last episode on a tape at home. Used to be great having something to look forward to other than Glenroe. haha. There was genuine excitment listening to the radio. Seems mental in this oversaturated, easy access day and age.
PRIMICORDIAL
Listened to it most weeks and yeah he wasnt too knowledgeable, but looking back, it was amazing that our scene has a few hrs on national radio... heard so much stuff on it for the first time...
Unbelievable how many albums I purchased from just listening to one song from the Sound Cellar Top Ten. In Flames' Whoracle, Sentenced's Frozen, Hecate Enthroned's Slaughter of Innocence and Iced Earth's Something Wicked.... immediately spring to mind. Remember coming back from the Kilkenny v Laois and Wexford v Offaly Croke Park double-header in June 1998 where the local club from rural Wexford organised for the under ten hurlers to play against their Naas counterparts en route, attend the semi-finals and get treated with a McDonald's on the way home. 2FM was on the whole way down and miracle of miracles I was able to listen to the first hour of the Metal Show uninterrupted. That came to an abrupt halt when the first song played from the Sound Cellar Top Ten was none other than Marduk's Slay the Nazarene. The fact that most of the same youngsters would've been making their First Communion the following weekend probably didn't help. I had to pretend to be as equally disgusted with the broadcast as the parents who demanded the channel be changed. The driver who modelled himself on the Simpson's Otto eventually relented. To this day I've no idea how the same parents managed to decipher Marduk.
I think the metal show was a truly beautiful thing for me as a teenager. No matter what I was at, it was always "right lads, I'll see ye tomorrow in school, I'm heading off home to record the metal show"
Then go in to school the following morning to talk about the stuff we heard on it. Whatever I may think nowadays about the stuff that was played on it, it was still class to have it. It was the less is more thing that made it special. "So the top 10 was shit this week? Well fuck it I'll give the week listening to the tape all the same because it's all I can get me hands on of new stuff seeing as there was ne'er a tape stuck to the front of kerrang this week"
Clawfinger vs Biohazard by the way. lol I never thought I'd see it on here. I liked both of them back in the day as it happens but I own nothing by either of them any more and won't be buying any either but I'm tempted to lash on Use Your Brain on youtube this minute thinking about it.
Edit: I remember the lad out of One Minute Silence gave me one of those massive tour posters from when they supported Clawfinger on a euro tour and it was pride of place on my bedroom wall at the time. It was great to be so innocent.
Quote from: mugz on July 02, 2020, 02:08:46 PM
it started in 92 as others said, I think as a response to pirate radio, though in my head that period was mainly about rave music, there might have been pirate stuff for metal too.
There was a pirate station now and again from Wicklow (I think) Heard more Punk/Hardcore on it, but they did play metal.
Pretty sure Phantom played metal from time to time too.
There was a show in the very early 90s (I think) on the then called 'BLB' station (Bray Local Broadcasting), now called East Coast FM. Two lads who played the heavier stuff (Terrorizer for example).
I liked JK but he always sounded like someone who walked into the wrong studio and had to improvise on the spot, or maybe would have rather been at home. I also remember the theme tune, 'whole lotta rosie', not very metal.
Loved this show 92 to probably 95, never realised it went on til the late 90s.
Remember the sound cellar top 10, basically it was made up of some stuff they wanted to shift as well as new releases!
Heard the Butthole Surfers for the first time as well as lots if great death metal,
Fair play JK obviously not a clue what he was at - some of the mispronounciations were hilarious - but he stuck at it.
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Back on the Clawfinger thing, I did indeed throw on Use Your Brain last night and regardless of the music, listening to the lyrical themes of racism and the rich/poor gap and general inequality it's funny to see how nothing really changes on those fronts, despite the general impression that society is progressing on the whole. Also some of the riffs weren't bad.
Jesus.
I liked Biohazard!
I bought Clawfinger's Deaf , Dumb and Blind and loved it. Biohazard's State Of The World Address is top class with How It Is being a favourite. No guilty pleasure shite. The sound cellar top ten scared the shit out of me. When I heard Waylander on it I didn't know what I was listening to.
I remember him interviewing Cormac Battle just after Kerbdog announced they were splitting and he must have asked Cormac the same question 3 or 4 times but reworded.
I'm sure I heard him saying something like "and that was a song by claw finger called.." then he'd scramble to pick up the cd and read it off the back.
Quote from: Kunt 4 Life on July 04, 2020, 01:28:09 AM
I'm sure I heard him saying something like "and that was a song by claw finger called.." then he'd scramble to pick up the cd and read it off the back.
Haha I'd highly doubt that, considering the only Clawfinger song he ever played was the Truth!! Over and over again. At least, it seemed that way.
I must have rose tinted memories of this show as to me it seemed amazing. I was oblivious to his lack of background knowledge on the music. So much so that when I heard him reading the sports news I thought he probably hated it!
I'm 99% and dare I say 100% that JK was the MC at Sunstroke '94.
I remember talking to Marcus Connaughton after a talk he gave in college. He said they did they best they could with what they had. They interviewed a few musicians back then and no idea what to ask them.
It was amazing. It didn't matter he was a bit clueless about underground metal as long as he was playing it. And to be honest, it meant we got more music and less rambling. In any case, you were assured the rambling when you went into Tommy in Sound Cellar to pick up whatever you'd heard!
Dunno if it's already been mentioned but he's still at it, perhaps in a format he's more naturally comfortable with.
https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/radio/darragh-mcmanus-on-radio-happy-to-be-stuck-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-edged-place-39134267.html
The impression I got was that he was more of a rocker. It was still a great show. It would have been too much of an ask back then to come up with a metal show featuring a mainstream radio presenter who was fanatical about underground metal. I think he he did a serviceable job. Imagine turning on any mainstream radio station, even if it was 8pm on a Sunday, and hearing Deicide. It just couldn't happen now.
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The Soundcellar and also Tommy Tighe was an institution back in the days of The Metal Show as well. I remember going in there as a young lad and I used to aspire to being one of the lads who'd to be in there leaning on the counter. They always looked like they knew fucking rakes of metal and I just wanted to have access to the stores of stuff that I imagined they had from hanging around in there. Sure if you leaned on the counter long enough you'd surely have heard the full top ten and god only knows what else, where I'd have to wait til someone bought a given album and get the C90 off them. Otherwise I'd just have to make do with simply imagining how good an album might be, going off the couple of tunes I'd have from the Metal Show until I got up to Dublin myself. Not being from Dublin or anywhere near there, it was a real fabled place altogether the Soundcellar.
I wonder what is the equivalent mecca nowadays or if there even is one for the young lads. Following on from that then wondering what other places were there around the country like that back in the day as well. Also do ye reckon any of that, like the lack of a metal show equivalent or a mostly inaccessible place to find the music takes from the mystique and stops young people getting into it? Tape only labels or the like I suppose, but all of that is still accessible online and so there is no pilgrimage involved. Gigs I suppose but ye probably know what I mean
I had the opposite feeling of the Sound Cellar. Too trve poser twats. I remember going in there when I was 17 (which was an event for me because I'm from the west and heard so much about it) I bought Dirt and Reign in Blood on CD and they took the piss because I was dressed normally and buying 'mainstream' albums (two fucking all time classics FFS).
Sound lads, I'll just go to any of the other cool record shops in Dublin instead.
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Quote from: Ducky on July 04, 2020, 09:48:33 PM
I had the opposite feeling of the Sound Cellar. Too trve poser twats. I remember going in there when I was 17 (which was an event for me because I'm from the west and heard so much about it) I bought Dirt and Reign in Blood on CD and they took the piss because I was dressed normally and buying 'mainstream' albums (two fucking all time classics FFS).
I went in there anytime I was on a day trip to Dublin. It felt like one of those places I just had to see. I dunno why they would slag anyone for buying stuff in there! If they did; fuck em. I bought Bloody Kisses in there on cassette and I thought I was the shit.
Sound lads, I'll just go to any of the other cool record shops in Dublin instead.
I used to be in there all the time as a kid, buying all sorts of stuff, some good, some awful. I never had any of the lads slag me over my purchases.
Went to the Sound Cellar plenty of times as a youngster in the early-mid 90s and never got any hassle from Tommy, even though we (myself and my friends), never bought much at the time, just looking at the records :laugh:. I did, eventually, get serious with purchases there. Having said that it was a place to go and learn about bands, genres etc., far more fun than the internet because you were with your mates.
Last time I went there was 2016, on a trip home, asking about an Autopsy record (which they didn't have). I noticed immediately how the stairs down to the shop was so worn and how creaky everything sounded underfoot. Historical place.
Same as, I'm a bit dubious of that story there Ducky. Been there countless times over the years, always paid a visit anytime I traveled up from Cork for a gig. Bought lots of classics and plenty of shite, always found the lads there decent enough and helpful when it came to recommendations, but certainly not judgemental. Def did not come across as Trve or whatever.
Always found the sound Cellar lads fairly sound and had a good few chats. I wouldn't dress "metal" either.
There was always a bit of a 'who's this culchie?' buzz to be fair, but nothing too bad. Only hassle I had there was from a pisshead calling me a nazi 'cos I was wearing a Burzum longsleeve, and he got booted out. They had their own clique though, that's a definite and there were certainly plenty of wankers in and out but the staff were generally alright.
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Quote from: Ducky on July 04, 2020, 09:48:33 PM
I had the opposite feeling of the Sound Cellar. Too trve poser twats. I remember going in there when I was 17 (which was an event for me because I'm from the west and heard so much about it) I bought Dirt and Reign in Blood on CD and they took the piss because I was dressed normally and buying 'mainstream' albums (two fucking all time classics FFS).
Sound lads, I'll just go to any of the other cool record shops in Dublin instead.
You should have seen their faces when I bought a Frontline Assembly album in there. They actually said it was shite while taking my money. I remember going to Anathema in Cork years ago and there was the lad from the Sound Cellar in the support band. I also remember on the old forum when someone thought McLove was the lad from the Sound Cellar.
I don't remember that. I have played in bands with him since 2004.
were you playing that anathema gig? I don't think it was that much of a deal, just a fella said he thought he knew who you were and were you the lad from the sound cellar. I remember the most random shit at times. He wasn't too far off anyway from the sound of things
No, that was Ray who drummed in Dreamsfear for a while with Cathal (he of Sound Cellar fame), and the three of us played in WOTH.
Quote from: astfgyl on July 05, 2020, 10:28:36 AM
You should have seen their faces when I bought a Frontline Assembly album in there. They actually said it was shite while taking my money.
Tommy would tell you his least favourite album was a "great record that one" if you were buying it. On the other hand, Cathal saved me quite a few ill-advised purchases by telling me they were shite. Swings and roundabouts! :laugh:
Indeed. Rodge is probably the least elitist and most knowledgeable person you could hope to meet in terms of the vast world of metal and far beyond that too.
Can only imagine what folk who got a bad vibe off Sound Cellar must have thought about Sentinel :laugh: :abbath:
It was actually that Cathal fella who warned me against the FLA album. Tommy is renowned for his "great album" thing. I never got a bad vibe off the place though, I used to love going in there. I couldn't go to Dublin without making the pilgrimage back in the day. Was Sentinel the one in Temple Bar?
Yeah. Then it became Into the Void and moved to Whitefriar Place up off George's St.
Quote from: Black Shepherd Carnage on July 05, 2020, 11:56:48 AM
Can only imagine what folk who got a bad vibe off Sound Cellar must have thought about Sentinel :laugh: :abbath:
I never found a bad vibe in Sentinel or Into the Void.
It was a regular talking point on MI back in the day.
I was never in Into The Void, but I was often in Sentinel over the years. Didn't buy much out of it though as I hadn't a clue what most of it was
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I just saw that I mixed up my quote in the above post.
Point being that anytime I was in there they were grand to deal with. I'd say I wrecked their heads with all the questions I asked.
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That whole elitist nonsense was a regular topic of conversation on MI. I think it reflected more on the poster's insecurity rather than any real experience. Paid plenty of visits to Sentinel and Into the Void over the years, with my short hair, specs and work uniform. Going on some of the old stories, you'd expect to have been frisked at the door to make sure you were wearing the appropriate Bathory tee. Bollocks. The lads were always grand. Sure, yer man Scobes looked like he was permanently hungover, which may have been the case, but always found him and Darragh (Invictus) to be bang on and glad to have the business.
I think there were folk expecting Empire Records or something, whereas it was the opposite; if you struck up conversation they were grand, sound even, but it definitely was the opposite end of the spectrum to any kind of bro metal 'Tallica family vibe, which for me made it just perfect.
Was a pity that ITV couldn't make things work up on Whitefriar place with the tattoo studio. Was a class setup.
Sentinel was a great spot as well, but I can only imagine how horrific the rent in temple bar was.
Funny hearing some of the perceptions of Soundcellar being an elitist hangout - sounds like Euronymous' Helvete shop! Was there an Irish inner circle?
Yeah, Tommy Tighe, Vortex, Judas and that young lad with the leather trench coat and new rocks.
Cathal always seemed like he had no time for any of that shite, just liked the music and got on with it. I don't know him so I could be wrong, but that was my impression of him anyway.
After I left the shop I got the impression Tommy might have been annoyed with Cathal because he would always give you his honest opinion on an album. Syd, who worked there before Cathal, would give you his honest opinion too. Whereas With Tommy everything was great.
It's better to get an honest opinion from someone who is into the good stuff than to be sold a turkey. Unless you're buying a turkey. But even then, you'd want an honest opinion on turkeys.
I was probably a few years late for the Soundcellar heyday, but were the cds and vinyl always locked up? Only ever bought tickets in there since you couldn't have a proper browse through the stuff
The vinyl wasn't in my day, but that was before the vinyl resurgence, the tapes and CDs were mainly in displays on the walls.
Vinyl was there to be browsed, tapes were locked up CDs didn't exist early 90s there anyway!
Yeah always locked up. Proper daunting going down those steps as a young teen. There was likely a couple of older died in the wool lads at the counter hanging out, as a previous poster alluded to. There was some extreme stuff you hadn't a clue about playing. The space was tiny and to try and go in and act like you knew what you were at was fucking tough man. You couldn't browse. It was an absolutely useless set up when you think about it when so many albums at that time were bought off the strength of artwork.
I often felt like I had to go in, make a decisive order and not flute around peering into those ridiculous glass cases where you couldn't see what you were looking at anyway!
Often I ran back out with nothing but sometimes just pointed to one of the cds on the wall display pure pot luck and got that.
Felt like an awful culchie tool most of the time. But an excited culchie tool.
Quote from: Eoin McLove on July 05, 2020, 09:01:41 PM
Yeah, Tommy Tighe, Vortex, Judas and that young lad with the leather trench coat and new rocks.
lol
Quote from: Black Shepherd Carnage on July 05, 2020, 11:56:48 AM
Can only imagine what folk who got a bad vibe off Sound Cellar must have thought about Sentinel :laugh: :abbath:
That lad was the most miserable cunt I ever encountered in a record store.
I spent about 200 on cds in there once and yer man didn't even say thanks and was just a moody cunt the entire time banging boxes beside me and telling me to move out of the way.
Fuckin spa.
He was listening to the biggest pile of wank ever full blast as well.
Never went back.
A bit about Judas and Tommy Tighe at the end of this article.....
https://www.totallydublin.ie/more/i-dublin-city-malcolm-mcgettigan/
Can remember sending money in the post up to Sound Cellar for Longsleeves back when i was a young teenager.The first time i went into the place (95) it was a pretty big deal for me,had saved up about £150 and was like a kid in a candy shop.
Wasnt in there in literally 10 years,but went in for a nose the day Slayer played the 3 arena 2 years ago.Not much has changed,Tommy still giving it the 'great album' to any auld scutter!.
Quote from: Kurt Cocaine on July 05, 2020, 10:18:42 PM
A bit about Judas and Tommy Tighe at the end of this article.....
https://www.totallydublin.ie/more/i-dublin-city-malcolm-mcgettigan/
More importantly though, Tommy knows the music he stocks and regulars value his opinion. "I believe in being straight with people. If they ask, I tell them the truth" :laugh: :laugh:
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Chin up Mugz, mushy season is around the corner
I do honestly understand exactly what you mean as well though, but since I started getting up early in the morning and also taking the mushies every season it has all gotten much less painful and I can almost accept existence as a sort of reality now
Anyone: So what's this life stuff all about then, Tommy?
Tommy: Great Album!
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Back in the mid 90s i was on an overnight school trip to Dublin,so obviously sound cellar was going to be hit.I had gotten cash and a wish list from a few buddies.So i dropped a good bit of cash and got a rake of albums.Next day we went out for the morning so our bags were stored in a room in the hostel.After our morning ramble we went and got our bags and headed to Heuston to catch the train back to Cork.Settled in and opend my bag to go through the mountain of cds i had bought the day before.To my fuckin horror!! ,no fuckin cds!!.I had picked up an identical bag belonging to someone else staying at the hostel!!.Long story short i had to give the bag to a cab driver to bring back to the hostel,and had to wait about 2 months until my uncle( who lived in Dublin and got my bag) came down to Cork.
(Two months of Skippy moaning i might add too)
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Back on the JK Metal Show, I remember hearing Graveyard Dirt track 'the serenity of night' on the show as the featured demo. Personally, it was one of those seminal moments in music where I really felt I had heard 'something'. It was dark, alien, and alluring.
I did not hear that track again until buying the GD vinyls off miserable cunt Scobes a year or two ago.
Funny how life works out.
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It's impossible to recapture that feeling because there's absolutely no way of discovering new music or literature with that barrier to new experience that now exists. What's it called again? Oh yeah, the internet...
There is so much great music our there, even the old stuff like Genesis that someone mentioned in the now listening to thread, fantastic.
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All experiences are by their nature 'hapax' instances, nostalgia being as much informed by the immediate as by the past contexts. I stumbled upon Time by ELO about 8 years ago on YouTube and connected with it so much I went to the conscious effort of reifying it into my regular experience; we have a CD of it in the car, I have a vinyl of it (which was a gift, but that in itself was because I was talking about it so much), and I looked up as much as I could about the making of it, the band's prior and subsequent recordings, and so on and so forth. In brief, although disconnected from the actual time and place of its release, any kind of print interviews or reviews, it was still very possible to create a rich experience around it and thereby anchor it in my being. The possibilities for rich experiences are, let's say, as endless as ever, and judging by the explosion of great exploratory videos about music I see on YouTube these days, there is very much still huge interest among a significant young "minority" to truly sink into the broad and multi-faceted experiential side of the audio arts. Nostalgia can be a good experience, but getting too attached to "missing" things certainly doesn't seem a useful way for making the most of now.
I was reading a book on the experiences of "Digital Migrants" - basically people who grew up without the internet and transitioned to using it in adulthood, which I imagine describes a lot of people posting here.
It made the point that dissatisfaction can come in two forms - from things being too scarce or too plentiful. Back in the days of taping the Soundcellar top 10 off the radio things were too scarce, as you either could barely get that music at all or you could get some of it but it cost a fortune. Nowadays you can have everything ever recorded for free or next to nothing instantly, but again it's dissatisfying because how do you place real value on something that is instantaneous and free?
Kids growing up today will have no experience of the first one.
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Does anyone know if any old shows were uploaded anywhere? Would really love to hear them back again just for the nostalgia factor.
Have very fond memories of this show... yeah, everything JK played wasn't always his cup of tea (and he a varying job of concealing it at times), but still my first exposure to the likes of Testament, Overkill and so many others over the years. Any old tapings must surely be nearly toast at this stage (or at least degrading)... anyone have any breadcrumbs that could be followed to hear back any of the shows?
I'll be returning to Ireland in August for a week. I'll see if I can find any of my old tapes when I visit my folks
It was a Sunday night show . He played Pro Pain a lot, 'Foul Taste of Freedom' , though that may have been the 'Sound Cellar top 10' segment. Never bought their album though. Sorry John.
He definitely played Pro-Pain a lot :laugh:
Quote from: Thorn on July 12, 2026, 07:44:33 PMHe definitely played Pro-Pain a lot :laugh:
Ok so I wasn't imagining it then, I mean I can't remember where I put my keys sometimes but I remember stupid stuff like that :laugh:
I remember him playing Ænema by Tool a lot.
Quote from: leatherface on July 12, 2026, 07:51:19 PMQuote from: Thorn on July 12, 2026, 07:44:33 PMHe definitely played Pro-Pain a lot :laugh:
Ok so I wasn't imagining it then, I mean I can't remember where I put my keys sometimes but I remember stupid stuff like that :laugh:
Yep, mid period Gorefest as well when they were rocking out a bit more, if memory serves.
Lots of Propain and Gorefest, yup. I started listening to it when in it began in 92 and followed it religiously till the end. As a very young kid who had no money to spend so only got a handful of tapes or CDs every year, getting to hear what was going on in the mainstream and underground worlds of metal every week, and occasionally hitting record on the old tape deck, was invaluable.
I remember him playing Cradle of Filth's She Mourns A Lengthening Shadow. He obviously hadn't listened to Vempire beforehand and sounded a bit confused when the song ended😂
I used to tape every show on one tape, then copy the stuff I liked onto another one.
Was raging when my oul buck binned the multiple shoeboxes of tapes when the house was getting renovated.
JK gets a lot of shit for not being knowledgeable about metal, and maybe not even being remotely into it. I think that's completely beside the point. It was incredible as a young lad to have access to all that music.
Amen Mclove. He dropped the odd informational clanger but in an era where you couldn't simply head to YouTube or whatever or afford to be buying albums every week, that show was a godsend. Like where else could you have heard an interview or track from Primordials Journeys End for example?
Just with the Pro-pain album and it wasn't the only one. I heard (could be myth but sounds plausible) that if Tommy had quantity of a shit album it would appear in the "top 10" ensuring air time and guaranteeing shifting a copy or two.
He liked Skyclad a lot
Like logically the fact there was a period where the man gave weekly air time to Beherit's "Drawing down the moon" and Sentenced's "North from Here" on the national broadcaster is pretty nuts if you think about it.
I can only imagine what my 12/13 year old ears must have made of Beherit back then :laugh: DDTM is one of my favourites now.
It seemed Victimised, from Kilkenny, were always on the Irish demo of the week segment.
and Hollow Point :laugh:
A teenage band I was in made it on twice with the same demo under two different names :laugh:
It was scutter...
Quote from: Eoin McLove on July 13, 2026, 12:38:44 AMJK gets a lot of shit for not being knowledgeable about metal, and maybe not even being remotely into it. I think that's completely beside the point. It was incredible as a young lad to have access to all that music.
Agree, we have to remember that this was pre-internet days mostly where unless you access to MTV Headbangers Ball and the likes, getting to listen to any metal was difficult
And the odd metal video on The Beat Box!
And not forgetting Suicidal Tendencies on Jo Maxi!
Quote from: The Heretic on July 13, 2026, 09:30:18 AMQuote from: Eoin McLove on July 13, 2026, 12:38:44 AMJK gets a lot of shit for not being knowledgeable about metal, and maybe not even being remotely into it. I think that's completely beside the point. It was incredible as a young lad to have access to all that music.
Agree, we have to remember that this was pre-internet days mostly where unless you access to MTV Headbangers Ball and the likes, getting to listen to any metal was difficult
Big time... had mates with MTV at that time and would occasionally see HBB, and even get shows on VHS tapes when I was very lucky. Jesus, that seems so insane now... I feel like an oul lad reminiscing about the oil lamps before electrification! :laugh: I think it genuinely was better in many ways though - as others have mentioned here, when you have to work to get it, any music you did get was like gold and actually appreciated. Not like the attention econony nowadays where a song might have 30 seconds before someone will flick to the next. Do people even listen to full albums anymore?
Quote from: Emphyrio on July 13, 2026, 08:48:41 AMIt seemed Victimised, from Kilkenny, were always on the Irish demo of the week segment.
Jesus yeah! ;D
And always putting the shout out for DAT tapes from any bands that had them. They must've been in the minority that did :D
Quote from: The Great Cull on July 13, 2026, 11:33:38 AMAnd not forgetting Suicidal Tendencies on Jo Maxi!
I missed that at the time but someone posted it here or on MI years ago. So fucking bizarre :laugh:
As already said, it was mad that Beherit, Sentenced, Darkthrone, Emperor, Enslaved, etc., got airplay on Sunday evening on a national radio station in my last year of primary school and first year of secondary. It was mental to hear stuff on the radio you were reading about in the likes of Ultrakill and Terrorizer, and it was only because of the Metal Show that I wasn't completely lost when I picked up those magazines for the first time.
I remember being delighted when it was mentioned on the Beat Box that there was finally going to be a Metal Show on 2FM, starting that night, even if it took until the second week to tune in (I remember him playing Body Parts by Sodom in the first hour a couple of songs in and As the World Burns by Bolt Thrower in the second). It was always great when John Kenny filled in for Dave Fanning before that, as he would play a few metal songs. I taped Ministry's Just One Fix and two Richard III songs in August 1992 when he filled in for him, and I suppose positive feedback to that led to the show starting in September or October.
It really should have started earlier, as 1992 was when loads of lads were getting into rave and yokes, which decimated the potential listenership.
I have a few tapes from the early years still. Lost the best one in 1994, alas.
Was it perfect? Of course not, there was no way he could keep everybody happy, and while he was not really into the extreme stuff, he was certainly into many of the metal bands he played. Several of my tapes have him saying things like "I like that album, I must say" (e.g. Always).
I also had the feeling the poor chap was rarely given press-releases or any other info to go with some of the albums and had to wing it and try to figure out what the logos said. To this day, I've not been able to figure out what he meant by the name one of the Irish demos he played in 1994 or 1995.
It did get a bit worse as time went on, but that was as much due to the way metal was moving as to the show itself. There was rarely anything in the first hour worth taping after 1996 or so, but it was still essential listening to hear about gigs, etc., as for the likes of myself in Ennis, it was the only way of hearing about anything (and even then, it was only a fraction of what was going on, at times), especially before the great leap forward in the Irish scene in 1998.
Quote from: Dr Rockso on July 12, 2026, 05:57:00 PMI'll be returning to Ireland in August for a week. I'll see if I can find any of my old tapes when I visit my folks
Good man.
Jeez lads if anyone has any old tapes of shows lying around, please do at least consider digitizing them before they degrade to the point where it's no longer possible (if that ship hasn't already sailed indeed - 30 years on, it's going to be down to how they were stored at this stage I'd say).
Marcus Connaughton spoke at a college lecture one about music, the music business, radio etc.
When he opened the floor up for questions myself and 2 others bombarded him about The Metal Show.
He seemed to know more about that was in and out when they were doing it.
He said the best person he met was Max Cavalera, quite intense but zero bullshit.
Remember Kenny struggling with Deicide's Feasting the beast , think he called it Featuring the beast more than once. Great show got into the Butthole Surfers because of it amongst others. And ProPain of course.
'JK on the Radio's was like a religion in my school days.
Then Monday was all the lads discussing whichever bands were featured.
He did a top 100 at Xmas time too.
I remember on of the entries he said was Warrant's 'Dog Eat Dog", but then plays WASP's "Animal... FLAB"...
Obviously couldn't say the proper band and song name, like.
Does anyone remember Zag hosting an episode of the show in JK's absence? I'm fairly certain it happened unless it was a fever dream.
Yeah!
He guested on a few shows, I think.
Ya, that definitely happened and maybe a few times.
The lad who did Zag was a metalhead, he was no stranger to the Sound Cellar.
I remember that tv quiz show 2 Phat on rte with Zig and Zag - one episode they had Andy Cairns from Therapy? on dressed up as Santa Claus.
Zag was on every year, I think, for the top twenty or whatever it was. He was certainly on a few times. Rodge said he used to be in the Cellar from time to time, yup.
Quote from: jpm4 on July 01, 2020, 05:18:59 PMFor me as a teen in the mid 90s it was really important because I knew nobody else into metal except maybe Metallica. Extreme metal CDs often seemed to cost a fortune, so this was the show where I first heard stuff like Emperor, Dimmu Borgir etc, which was mind blowing for me at the time as I had never heard anything like it.
Same. Some of favourite 90s albums I first heard through that show: Tiamat's Wildhoney, Death's Symbolic, Annihilator's King of the Kill. Some of these I would've never eventually found without the show. For me as a teen trying to get into the music, it helped that he would play the most accessible songs on the new albums, likely as they appealled to his somewhat naive ear too. Two things I recall was him asking a member of Slayer why they didn't put a Sex Pistols cover on Undisputed Attitude(!), and I remember him reading out a formal statement from Alan Averill clarifying that their music is black metal not death metal. I also won one of their competitions and was sent a framed cover image of Metalllica's Reload signed by the band, which I still have somewhere. Good memories!
Jesus lads, you've some memories. Strangely enough, I was slow to pick up on some of the leads from listening to the show. Much of the good stuff, bands I would later get into, were too obscure and dark for my tender ears. I was 10 when it started and 17 when it finished up so maybe in the last year or two of it I began taking a few more risks with underground bands. But that said, maybe just having so much dark music pumped into my brain at such a young age ended up shaping me for better or worse later on!
Forgot to mention the listener-voted Top 100 metal songs (in association with Hot Press?), I think it was in the later part of the first or early part of the second year of the show. It was the first time I ever heard Bathory's Call from the Grave, which was a fairly life-altering few minutes.
It would be class to see that list now.
Quote from: Taranis on July 14, 2026, 02:53:14 PMForgot to mention the listener-voted Top 100 metal songs (in association with Hot Press?), I think it was in the later part of the first or early part of the second year of the show. It was the first time I ever heard Bathory's Call from the Grave, which was a fairly life-altering few minutes.
It would be class to see that list now.
I haven't heard about that list at all before now. I still have tapes of the metal show knocking around somewhere or if I don't, the brother does
Yeah, that must have been before I started regularly tuning in, which unfortunately wasn't until 96.
If anyone does have a mind to rip any of their old tapes, the link below is the most straightforward guide I've found so far (see "Method 3") - looks like all that's needed is a cassette deck and a sound card with a line-in/microphone jack (no affiliation with the site or any of the software used, etc.):
https://www.hollyland.com/blog/tips/transfer-audio-cassette-to-computer
There's walkman-like devices that have USB cables off them that can be used as well, but a fairly bespoke piece of kit most folks would have no need for.
Not tried this myself as yet (have nothing worth ripping, sadly) but looks like it should work.
Right... there's lads on here would lose me and find me again when it comes to audio recording/conversion, but just putting it here in case it's useful to anyone. I'll STFU about it now ;)
A line from your deck to a Zoom recorder at a low volume input to prevent clipping is the cleanest method I've used.
Can rip it direct to WAV and edit it with something like Audicity to clean it up more and amplify.
I got into metal around the end of the 90s so think his show was just a bit before my time, would have always listened to Ray McGowan on Phantom though and got turned on to a lot of stuff through that
Fairly sure I've a pile of tapes of his show somewhere in my parents house
Quote from: jobrok1 on July 15, 2026, 05:44:34 PMA line from your deck to a Zoom recorder at a low volume input to prevent clipping is the cleanest method I've used.
Can rip it direct to WAV and edit it with something like Audicity to clean it up more and amplify.
Very good!
Lash them up on the Internet Archive too!