This year would have marked the 11th anniversary of the first episode of Open Metalcast (August 17th, 2010 was the first episode debut). Over that time we've released 192 main episodes, 12 Instrumetalcasts, and 15 Club Metal podcasts. We've featured hundreds, if not thousands of artists during that time. And when I posted that the show was going on a Summer Hiatus I had every intention of continuing to make new episodes. I just needed a break to work on other things.

It's been two years since that announcement. What I thought would be a short break turned into a multi-month break. And honestly I haven't missed doing the show since then. Sure, there were the occasional twinge of wanting to put out an episode here and there but overall I feel like the show has run its course (for now).

Thank you to the bands who make this show possible. I hope you'll not only check out the bands in this podcast but also the bands they recommend. There's so many great musicians out there that need your support, now more than ever. Thank you to the labels that support and surface these bands to make them easier to find (Big shout-outs to Hypnotic Dirge, Discos Macarras, Nooirax, Irish Metal Archive, Torn Flesh Records, Core to the Core, and so many others who are constant sources of joy and great music.)

And most of all, thank you, dear listener, for helping me to make so many episodes for your enjoyment. Your support, recommendations, and downloads kept this show going, even when I was thinking of quitting. You're all the best, and I'm grateful to have such an amazing audience.

This isn't the end of Open Metalcast. The spirit may move me to once again tickle your eardrums with the best in Creative Commons metal music. When it does you'll be the first to know (RSS feeds are amazing for polling sporadic content). And I'm still looking for metal music (I'm a programmer by day, so I need something to help keep the programming flowing). I purchase most of my music via Bandcamp so that has the latest and greatest music that is currently filling my eardrums with music.

Until next time, whenever that may be.

Hey all,

Just wanted to give a quick announcement that Open Metalcast is going in hiatus for a few months. Part of it is because I've been a little burned out trying to get shows together every other week. I got to the point where I wasn't enjoying putting together a show. So I'm taking the summer off at the least. I might release a few odds and sods episodes in the interim so keep those podcatchers locked just incase an episode manages to escape into the wild.

Thank you all for your continued support of this podcast. Hoping to be back soon!

If you're in the European Union I urge you to take part in the Save the Internet Campaign. Save Your Internet is a drive to stop some particularly bad proposals that are floating around in the European Parliament. This will have severe consequences not only in the EU but also outside the EU. Hosting content could become incredibly problematic, and things like Open Metalcast could be affected.

I'm in the USA so I'm not represented, but if you are represented please make your concerns heard. Thanks!

Today marks the sixth year since the first episode of Open Metalcast. It's been quite a journey and I thank you all for accompanying me on it. We've found a lot of Creative Commons Metal Music along the way, and I hope there are many more episodes of discovery together.

Rather than bore you with statistics of how many tracks we've played or hours of music we've generated I just want to invite you to keep listening and sharing these episodes. We've barely scratched the surface.

Here's to many more years to come!

Hey all,

After some deliberation I'm putting the show on temporary hiatus. Reason being life is getting in the way of making the show you deserve to hear.

We've had a good five year run and I fully intend to bring you many many more years of the best in Creative Commons Music. But now is not that time, and the show will suffer in the interim.

That doesn't mean we won't have some special episodes when the mood arises; far from it. But the regular every-other-week transmissions are not happening until further notice.

Nobody is more bummed about this than I am, and I'm looking forward to when I'm able to share music with you. That's important to me, but other things need to take precedence.

Take care and stay metal!

-- Craig

Hi all,

The next episode of Open Metalcast is going to be delayed a bit. Have been pretty busy lately and my will to put together a show has been sapped. I hope this will give everyone a chance to catch up and pick up the albums from the previous episodes.

We'll be back shortly with more of the great Creative Commons metal music you've come to expect. Count on it!

Hey everyone,

Just a quick note that Open Metalcast is taking a brief hiatus for this week. We'll return, ready to bang heads, crush skulls, and give you the finest in Creative Commons Metal music on 7/23.

Hope to see you then!

I just uploaded the last few files to Archive.org this morning. If everything went according to plan, we should have every single file from Open Metalcast up on Archive.org (save for some special announcements). If you notice a link on this site still pointing to this site, please let me know. I'll probably do one last sweep to make sure, and once that's done, I can put that project to bed.

All future episodes will have their audio files distributed via archive.org. Please let me know if you run into any issues.

Thanks for listening!

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I'm moving the archives of Open Metalcast to the best place I can think of for archiving. Heck, it even has archive in the name. Yes, I'm moving the links to archive.org, which should hopefully lighten the bandwidth load on the server (which has been performing admirably in the past few days. Yay, Linode!) and move it somewhere where it can be kept in perpetuity. The new listeners from Metal Injection have literally used up 1/3 of my bandwidth allocation for this month, which is awesome on the one hand, but is pretty unsustainable in the long-term. So, hopefully this will keep the bandwidth bills low, and keep you in the awesome Creative Commons metal you've come to expect from this show.

Note: You don't have to update your links or RSS feeds. This should all work transparently to you.

If you have any problems downloading any of the shows, please let me know (craig@openmetalcast, or leave a comment below). It's a slow process to move everything, but in the long run it'll hopefully nicer for all of us.

Thank you for all of the downloads! You're all making some great problems to have. :)

If you managed to download episode #42 earlier today, congratulations: you have a collector's item. Apparently I forgot to edit out one of the mistakes that I made in the second track announcement. Cherish it. :)

The episode is updated with the correction.