Happy Metal Fun Time (Chuck)

In case you didn’t know, the metal festival known as the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Tour rolls into Austin tomorrow. When Ozzfest took a dirt nap back in the mid oughts, it seemed to be a signal of times changing. Huge festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza, ACL Fest and Bonnaroo all decided that parking in a city and letting fans come to them was a better business model than trying to make a nationwide summer tour. For dedicated metal fans there are plenty of destination festivals, Maryland Deathfest, New England Metal and Hardcore, and Europe, who are the patriarchs of the metal festival.

In a nutshell, I hate festivals. They are designed for people who sort of like music, but really want to say they went somewhere cool and ate a bunch of funnel cakes. For those of us who darken the door of music venues almost daily some weeks, they can be cumbersome at best. What they do accomplish though, is exposing people on the fringe of music to the center, if just for a short while. Mayhem Fest ends this weekend, but I thought I should acknowledge the effort to bring metal to the mainstream, and give you a song from almost all of the artists this month. Enjoy!

:Rob Zombie – We’re An American Band:
:Amon Amarth – Blood Eagle:
:Mastodon – March Of The Fire Ants:
:Born Of Osiris – Machine:
:Machine Head – Aesthetics Of Hate:
:Butcher Babies – I Smell A Massacre:
:Job For A Cowboy – Entombment Of A Machine:
:Children Of Bodom – Bodom Blue Moon:
:Huntress – I Want To Fuck You To Death:
:Emmure – When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong:
:Five Finger Death Punch – Lift Me Up: