Apologies to those of you who were unable to download the OGG files. Turns out Nginx doesn't support OGG out of the box (or at least the version I installed didn't). Please let me know if you are still having problems getting to the OGG-versions of the episodes.

Open Metalcast survives solely on using other folks content to create a show that you enjoy. Laws like PIPA and SOPA threaten shows like Open Metalcast because sites like Bandcamp, Jamendo, and Magnatune are vulnerable to overarching copyright protection. Without those sites, this show no longer exists.

Please consider supporting the efforts of the EFF (https://www.eff.org/action) and contact your congress-person to tell them that you vigerously oppose SOPA / PIPA.

Thank you.

Craig Maloney (Head cook and bottle washer, Open Metalcast)

Hello, everyone,

I've updated the server for Open Metalcast to use Nginx instead of Apache. Please let me know if you run into any problems accessing files from the site. Hopefully it'll be transparent to you. :)

Recently Tom Ray and I interviewed Michael from Amity in Fame on the Music Manumit podcast. I had a great time with the interview, and the interview was very casual and interesting. The episode is here if you're interested. Definitely check it out!

Thanks to the Doug and Tom for inviting me to participate!

You may notice something new in the posts on Open Metalcast. Go ahead, look around a bit. Notice anything different?

If you said that all of the posts that have Cyrillic text in them are now displaying properly, you'd be right.

After ~~constant nagging~~ kind prodding by Cyberkiller in the Open Metalcast group, I decided to have a go at getting the Unicode set up properly for this Wordpress instance. You'd think this wouldn't be a herculean task, but man, it's a pain in the ass. Regardless, you should see much better Unicode support in the future.

In all seriousness, I want to thank Cyberkiller for the gentle prodding. This has been a pain point for a while, and I'm glad that's finally over.

If you notice any issues with the site, please feel free to let me know. I might not act on it right away, but I'll at least give it a look. :)

Just a reminder that we're coming up on the release date for Episode 25, so if you want to get in your votes for the Big Four of  Creative Commons Metal, you have less than a week to get them in! Send them my way at craig@openmetalcast.com.

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

Listen to the following special announcement, and send me your Top 4 Creative Commons Metal Bands that you've discovered on this show. I'd like to compile these for Episode #25 so we can have a Big 4 of Creative Commons Metal.

Send them to craig@openmetalcast.com.

And also please consider sending the bands that you choose \$5 each via Jamendo, Bandcamp, or whatever means you can. They really need your support!

And remember to thank them for making their music Creative Commons Licensed!

Open Metalcast Special Announcement (OGG)

Open Metalcast Special Announcement (MP3)

Well hello there! It's been a while since I last wrote one of these, hasn't it? The good news is there's plenty of news and exciting events coming up for Open Metalcast, as well as some show updates.

• I'll be interviewing Cloudkicker this week, and hopefully releasing the results of that interview on Friday (that's the goal anyways). Cloudkicker, if you're not aware, is an amazing band hailing from Ohio, and in my mind is one of the foremost bands in the Djent scene. I'm really looking forward to this interview. If you have any questions you'd like asked during the interview, send me a note over at craig@openmetalcast.com.
• It seems you really like the instrumetalcasts and the Club Metal shows, so expect some more of those in the coming months.
• I'll be recording the 20th Open Metalcast in front of a live audience at Penguicon on April 30th, 2011 at 11am. As Greg Grossmeier put it so eloquently: "For those that do not yet know, Penguicon is a combination Free/Open Source conference plus Science Fiction convention. Not many other events can boast a past participant list that includes Cory Doctorow, Chris DiBona, Neil Gaiman, Jono Bacon, Jon “maddog” Hall, and Steve Jackson". If you're not already going to Penguicon, you'll need to at least register for a day-pass, which you can find on the registration link on the Penguicon Site.

Also, a quick program note: You guys ROCK! Thank you for all of the music suggestions, and conversations on identi.ca. If you haven't joined the Open Metalcast group in identi.ca, or friended the show on Jamendo, what are you waiting for? Check out the links in the sidebar, and be a part of the show! We love to hear from you!

That's all for now. Just finished up episode 19, and now it's time for the pre-flight verification.

Thanks for listening! \m/

Hey folks,

I've noticed that I've been mistakenly marking each of the podcasts for Open Metalcast as BY-NC-SA (By Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike). This is unfortunately not the license that I was intending to use, nor is it compatible with some of the artists that we've released, which use the No-Derivatives license clause.

So, I've gone back and re-marked each of the episodes accordingly.

I hope this does not dissuade anyone from listening to this podcast, nor do I wish you to stop listening to the artists. I think of this show as the vehicle for you to check out the artists involved and have your own relationship with them. I don't want you to try cutting their work out of this podcast to use. Heck, the sound-quality is good, but sometimes it's twice-compressed mp3 files. :)

So, by all means, if you like something you hear on this show, head to the artist's site and download it from there.

Hopefully there's no hard feelings, but if there are, send them my way at craig@openmetalcast.com and we'll talk.

And by all means, please keep your podcatchers locked in to Open Metalcast!

Jono from Severed Fifth mentioned this morning that the album is coming along great. The drum tracks are absolutely rocking. Unfortunately, the guys need about \$2,000 to finish up the album. If you're aware of how studios work, you can't just park where you left off, and pick up later; they need the money soon. If you liked what you heard on the Nightmares By Design album, please consider paying for it. And if you already have donated and can spare some more, please consider sending them some more. Everything you can give helps make the re-release of the album that more of a reality.

Head to https://www.severedfifth.com/pay/ and support the band so they can give you a head crushing album of the highest caliber!

Thanks!