Editorial: The Year in Reviews for 2010

Did anyone get the license plate number on the truck that hit us all and called itself 2010? Wow what a year for the Metal Scene and individuals as a whole this was. It was one of those years that just when you managed to dust off your jacket and get your head clear that something else would come at you and knock you back down. Of course there were those who felt that it was not all that bad for them but the larger consensus that I established was that it was a year that many were happy to see go away so we could hope for better memories and experiences in the coming one. The economy didn’t change for the better for many of us and for those who pursue the medium of being a review scribe there were changes in how we did things that while some viewed as more economical made the task all the more hard. Despite some of the harder moments of the 2010 months I had to say that the focus and resolve of what I do for you on PiercingMetal remained strong. It was a year where more emphasis was based on the concert reports and delivering photos to you instead of just being one of the many product reviewers out there. I have always made it a point about the site being something of a catch all that gave you more than just a standard expectation. We also worked more closely with those representatives of the media who have been our best allies since site launch and didn’t bother with the ones who felt that our voice was not as important to them as some others might now be. Let’s face it; there is a ton of places to surf online and perhaps based on all of the other stimulus available, a little too much. I’ve broken down some parts of the site into segments to speak on them as I have been doing since we started with this little experiment back in 2005. It’s not a best of list or a what I felt was amazing against that which was not, but more my views on the various facets of the industry I am dealing with as a writer and founder of the site and how I see it moving forward for the greater Metal good. There’s a lot to absorb so thanks in advance for continuing along in this. Let’s get down to business with this “State Of The Site” observation.

CD’s: It’s without question that those of us who enjoy browsing the shelves of the rapidly fading from existence music shops are having a hell of a time actually finding places that sell CD’s and especially ones that cater to your wider variety Metal aesthetic. We already lost Virgin Megastore and Circuit City back in 2009 and nowadays even Best Buy offers less and less shelf space for the medium. The space that they do allot will not offer you the greatest selection if you are a heavy music fan so we are thinking that sooner or later all of our shopping will be done via online outlets such as Amazon.com or CD Baby.com – it’s because of this sweeping change that we are very happy about our long time affiliation with Amazon.com but you can read more about that in its proper section. Reviewing CD’s was now officially a 50/50 split between receiving real product and getting an email that said you needed to stream it by X date or download it to offer up a review for your respective brand. To many writers this was terrible as the physical CD was the “give” and acted as a payment for the time spent. Yes we have moved to a largely digital society and everyone has music players, but for some releases I just love having the real disc as this becomes a part of my own personal collection which I enjoy looking through. Another writer friend of mine mentioned in his blog at how this new framework also takes the aspect of discovery of something new away since we always get mountains of submissions in terms of download links nowadays. The chance that an album cover or impressive picture might make you put aside the 14th Aerosmith Greatest Hits that you are reviewing are slim thanks to this. I have to agree. I do understand that some companies fear that the writers are posting music up to file sharing services but those people are not writers and more research needs to be done into just who is getting your product and what the level of quality is behind their overall work. You need to determine better if their voice is even worth being heard in the first place and with all of these outlets you have your work cut out for you. The Internet has opened up a deluge in terms of the amounts of product “reviewers” there are but how many are going to engage you as opposed to insult your intelligence at the end of the day. That being said we had our hands full with CD’s this year as a number of companies released back catalog as well as new stuff. I have never shied away from the older releases on the site and have even occasionally tossed in what I was listening to at a given time to keep things interesting. We have received significant feedback via email that this is very appreciated by the most ardent of readers. It’s a work ethic I hope to continue strongly with in 2011.

DVD’s: The amount of DVD’s continued to rise and we kept a steady flow of them being reviewed for the section. I love the ones that reflect an entire show as opposed to the ones that give you only a piece of them and also am more of a firm believer that DVD’s should at this point allow you the means to download the audio of what you are watching into your I-tunes or whatever other medium you use for transporting music. I say this because there are too few places to actually find Metal music depending on where you are and since the medium shows more and more of a sign of extinction, this might be a good idea. In late 2010 I started reviewing the Blu-ray DVD’s as well and I do admit that I love them but feel that for the customer dollar they need to be a little less expensive. Too many of the Blu-rays feature the exact same content as their standard edition cousins and while the audio and video Sonics are better, the same release does not merit a $10-$15 higher price based on this alone. Our Blu-ray reviews are stocked amidst the conventional DVD reviews as I determined there was no need to do otherwise. A continued hope that we have here at the PiercingMetal Command Center is that more of the future DVD releases jump on this hope of mine about downloading and that the new stuff coming out will also find more and more legacy footage that has never before been made available. I’ve observed that many releases this past year have finally made their way to DVD from long ago out of circulation VHS tapes. Long time fans can finally clear up that shelf space and put all of these up on E-Bay or Amazon.com so the super powered collector and keeper of everything can complete their own collections. I expect a lot more of the conventional DVD’s to be released in the Blu-ray format as well so your credit card will surely be busy if you have a player for those or a gaming station that allows it.

Other: What on Earth is the “other” section on PiercingMetal.com? Simply put this was originally the space used for Books, Demos and Events and the Editorial Musings and “Best Of” Lists. I viewed it as a “catch all” for those things that did not at the time have their own sections. To refresh those who might be new to the site, as we grew in scope and reach as well as content the need required me to create actual sections for the Books and Events while the Demos moved over to CD or DVD, depending on what they were. The Other section remained the home for those aforementioned Feature pieces but not much else until 2010. This past year I decided to use it for the purpose of sharing all of my archival Metal Edge magazine writings because as you know the magazine ceased publication in early 2009 and never returned to the stands. After seeing other writers offering the readers of their blogs actual screen captures of their articles, I decided to deliver it in a different way. We reworked the templates used for CD’s and DVD’s and added the byline that the item was “written for Metal Edge Magazine” and slowly began to code them into the master database of the site. In the end this allowed readers to have the means to search these items better and have them be a part of the larger whole of my writing scope. I enjoyed this immensely because the writing for the magazine was much shorter and hence a lot different from what you would find me expanding upon should I have reviewed the same piece for the PiercingMetal brand. I also felt that this was much better than scanning a few hundred articles as the look is more consistent to what our readers enjoy on the website. I think you will like it.

Book Section: There were some really great books released this year from the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Mustaine and Steven Adler in terms of biographies and this was only some of the icing on the cake. We read a few of them but still need to finalize the review content as of this writing. I apologize for that but admit that It was nice to just sit down and read a few times this year. I hope to have this be the case in 2011 even more. I suggest you Metal maniacs do the same because there is some awesome stuff already available and even more coming.

Concerts: I find it funny at how I always vow to not attend as many concerts in the coming year as I did during the last one and while that was the numeric case in 2010 against 2009, it was really only a small difference so hardly counted. In 2009 I covered 96 concerts while in 2010 only 86 and we still think that is pretty damned cool. We missed a couple of the biggies who came through town because we just couldn’t negotiate the necessary press credentials to bring you this in the fashion that you are accustomed to but the fans of our work in this area were not left for want, as numerous bands that needed our level of attention got it tenfold as result of the additional time. Our completed and posted live concert reviews have just surpassed 450 and while it would have been cool to hit 500 before 2010 ended that was not possible. Don’t worry, this year that will be done for sure and before most of you realize it. Simply put I love the concerts and try to take as many in as my time will allow. Some readers tell me how jealous they are of this accommodation until I denote the level of work that is required to turn this good time into something interesting to read and enjoy visually again and again. We apologize when things post later than they are expected to but when you hit a show and decide to bring the story and image of the opening bands to light as well, you end up creating more work for yourself and hence costing yourself a lot more time. It’s a better practice in our humble opinion and this ends up working better with the next section of the site being discussed – Our Galleries.

Gallery: Sometimes the plan all works out. When the idea to serve up every single concert photo gallery that was ever shot first dawned upon me I knew that it was going to be something both cool and challenging to deliver to the readers of PiercingMetal.com – I would not be incorrect in this assumption as we had already been a live website for around four years at the time of this thought. As readers know, we began to load in these galleries into our database in sequential order of when they were photographed or “shot” as the vernacular says and it took some time as there were hundreds upon hundreds to do. The best part of this was not only were all of the bands and their respective labels fully searchable, but it breathed new life into galleries that might have otherwise gone forgotten in a concert item that does not get as many reads as it used to. For example do you remember who opened up for Amorphis in 2005? The answer to that question is both Into Eternity and Beyond The Embrace and now those galleries are in unique database entries of their own. Long time readers of the site know very well how it is a paramount interest of mine in presenting as many of the bands on a given bill as is possible. What fun is it to only shoot the headliner anyway? You never know who the next big Metal star will be or where some of these musicians might end up over time, so this is our modus operandi and I don’t see it changing any time soon. As the year closed up we had loaded in our 991st Gallery Page and it spans from my beginnings as a professional minded photographer in 2003 until that end of year day. In 2010 we had a lot to deliver to you and while the number of concerts overall were less than in 2009, I believe that the number of bands was surpassed that year because of how these shows were set up. I had wanted to reach the #1000th Gallery milestone by years end but fell slightly short. Once we finalize some other concert pieces and the bevy of bands who performed at them we will make it. Please stay tuned. In terms of numbers these 991 galleries feature a total of 28.983 images. I really like seeing that high a number because it is only going to get higher and higher as the shows continue to be attended.
Interviews: In 2010 I wrote a couple of interviews but didn’t conduct too many and while this area is slightly lacking on the site, it’s not because we don’t think its fun, its just that there are too many other cool things to showcase than this. I’m moving to more fluid levels of questioning so I can zap this out to press reps easier but still think that our other items are what the readership is focusing on. Maybe I will be proven wrong. We are accepting ideas and suggestions on who you would like me to speak to but please be realistic in this. It’s not as easy to set up time to do them and I have had more interviews cancelled than completed over the years than I care to discuss. It happens, even though it’s annoying.

The PiercingMetal Calendar: It is without question that the Regional Events calendar that we keep on PiercingMetal.com has grown by leaps and bounds. Someone once asked me “do you go to all of this stuff” and that made me laugh especially when there are often numerous listings on a single day being presented. When I launched the site, the calendar was for me and me alone. It featured shows I wanted to be reminded of without counting on my Palm Pilot PDA or a notebook. Now it’s something else altogether. It’s YOUR calendar as fans of the Metal and Rock genres and we focus on no less than 20 of the major venues in the NYC area. Sometimes we list a couple of the larger clubs in NJ, but not as often as you would think. The bottom line is we are a NYC based web-magazine and my aim is to promote our own scene as much as possible. The original postings were only of Concerts and new Releases but we have expanded that to now feature Special Appearance, Film Screening, Convention and Art Exhibit. This widens the interest level and almost all of these new categories are based on things that relate to the interests of our core demographic. We always encourage your sharing the calendar but never printing it because it changes so often. I’m trying to keep you folks “green” so save a tree. Be sure to bookmark the calendar as a favorite on your web browser or Smart Phone. You will be happy you did and not wonder about who is playing all that much. Trust me in that.

Events: We did not find a lot of events being covered based on our not knowing about any special ones to come to or being invited to anything that was actually allowed to have some level of coverage being presented to you readers. We did have to bypass two signings that we knew about based on their conflicting with the concert agenda though. That being said I have to admit that writing about listening parties is only fun if the band members are present and our radar didn’t detect any of those nor did we learn of any fan centered meet ups being held by major label acts. Times are tough I guess. Maybe in 2011. Moving on.

Blogging It Up or “PiercingMetal Musings” Our Official Blog: In today’s ever changing music media geography it seems that blogging is all the rage and nowadays you must have a blog connected to your website or you do not matter. Okay, I know I am being a little dramatic in that but its sometimes the impression one is given by a media resource and often the person laying down such decree has no idea what criteria they are comparing the view against. That being said we had already launched a side blog for PiercingMetal.com and used it to discuss side interests and share other stories but it was always separate. As time moved on so did our need to integrate this content into the main website and now the Official Blog for PiercingMetal.com can be accessed via our links page and all of this is under the main brand name domain. This is better as it keeps all of our traffic as our own and in this day of numbers being so important we prefer this. The blog offers readers a lot of different things and the first thing was all of these side stories while the second and largest piece is the leaders into the main concert pieces on the website. We started doing this with the shows attended in 2006 and kept it a premise because using the blog format allowed our readers to leave us topical comments about the same show or different stop on the tour. Sadly our main article design does not allow for such commenting and on shows we want to know what you thought as well so please keep your thoughts coming in via the blog. We have also used this to feature famous deaths in music, stories about convention adventuring and whatever else we feel will interest you or amuse you. The thing people like about our concert headers is the chance to enjoy the side images we capture as well during an event. Bands decompressing with other members of bands who are at the shows or being silly for no reason other than to be so and some behind the scenes footage of things we see at shows in terms of merchandise, odd observances and what have you. All of this is only seen in the blog postings for the show and not in the full on professional review article. That being said we encourage readers to subscribe to our RSS feed and help keep the articles more interesting by commenting in with their own views about what they are reading. We only request that they keep to the topic they are commenting on as this is quite moderated and not some free reign soapbox. I admit that while I was initially hesitant about doing the extra work of a blog I have come to love the feel of it and the response that it gets from time to time.

PiercingMetal Forums: Despite my feeling that all of the Social Networking mediums that we shall discuss in the next section have killed the conventional forums, we have left a relatively clean installation loaded and accessible on PiercingMetal.com – It’s there for you to use it if you like those things and we do pop our heads over to them every once in awhile. It would be rather bothersome to run such a thing and not see what people were talking about on it. The link to this avenue is on the Links page on our menu. Have at it.

Using Other Social Networking Outlets: Okay let’s run down the Social Networking community roll call. Facebook (check), MySpace (check), Twitter (check) and well, those are really the only ones that you seem to need to use nowadays – at least until something brand new and exciting comes along that we get convinced will make our lives all the better simply by signing up for an account. The question remains that even by using all of them, is your enterprise managing to make a difference for itself and is it getting your words out to the larger public? I ask it like this because I run into people again and again and there are always those few that see you all the time and despite you telling them, do not haveany idea about what you are doing. I’m always amused at this when it happens to me since I am not one of those individuals who is quiet about his Metal undertakings. 2010 didn’t seem to toss anything new into the mix in terms of the social net side and while we are employing the aspects of Google’s “Buzz” and Tumblr in addition to the big guys, they are done rather automatically and rely on other outlets to get their information. I’ve decided to expand upon the way in which we make use of these and my perceptions of them so far. Remember that this is only my opinion. Here goes nothing.

* Facebook: I’ve put Facebook on top because it’s become the super juggernaut of social networking sites. For real life contacts I maintain a personal profile, but for the website have created a Fan Page. It’s been put to use in middle 2010 a lot more when one of the numerous changes that Facebook made actually allowed this to be useful for our adventures. We’ve used it to tie a lot of different PiercingMetal agenda items together and it’s been fun watching it grow. I’ve been listing the occasional review item as well as concert reports and announcements about gatherings prior to shows in this space. It’s also been used to share our events calendar and even do the periodic giveaway from venues like B.B. King Blues Club which most readers know as PiercingMetal’s HQ away from HQ. The link to find us is at the end of this article and you can help the site by simply choosing “Like” and then suggesting us to as many friends as possible. Bear in mind we are listed as “Personal Website” because that was the only option we had for the enterprise. Bands and publicity people that we work with on a regular basis are welcome to post items on the Facebook Wall for PiercingMetal.com as well.

* Twitter: I am not yet convinced about Twitter as a means to an end for a couple of reasons. The first is that I just don’t have time to note every single action in my day for the purposes of Tweeting as some people I know do. I would rather be writing or researching my next article for the site. I do use it to tweet as I feel relevant topics come to my mind but I cannot manage conversations back and forth on it so I guess I don’t use it like some peers seem to. I’m also thinking about the Twitter account I saw with something like 40k followers and yet no real solid traffic ranking for their blog site. It made me think that while a lot of people might follow you, they are not looking deeper into your postings or at your brand. Clearly the number of followers you have does not always mean that your brand is getting any attention. Fans of the site are welcome to “Follow Us” @piercingmetal and should be confident in the knowledge that we keep it topical and leave out words about bathroom breaks and other minutia. If you like the website premise we urge you to retweet our postings and suggest us to others via the “Follow Friday” practice. Oh hell, you can suggest PiercingMetal on any day of the week if you want to. Why be one of the lemmings as opposed to starting your own tradition. Perhaps 2011 will make me become a diehard supporter of it but for now I am on the fence about its benefits versus the time spent on it.

*Tumblr: This is a weird one for me because it seems to be geared toward those folks who want a website, but don’t want to go through the trouble of creating one or even a blog. I secured the PiercingMetal brand name in Tumblr and have set it up with a number of “feeds”. All of the feeds relate to what we are doing on the main site, blog or calendar and I seemed to have successfully implemented our PiercingMetal Twitter and Facebook Page. I guess the best thing to say is that if you are on Tumblr and you enjoy PiercingMetal that perhaps you want to add us on your Dashboard by Following us. This lets you keep up to speed and hopefully directs your attention to what is brewing in our world.

* MySpace: “The King is Dead, Long Live The King” is what I sometimes feel like yelling when I see what has happened to MySpace. This was once the ruler of all things and now has fallen considerably behind. The latest changes have made the site arduous to navigate and modify but we keep our account since it posts our Twitter Feed and blog postings. I believe that it will fix itself again and be more functional. In my opinion this is still the best place to examine new music. Many people took themselves off of MySpace to go on Facebook but I left it all alone as there are still links and information about what PiercingMetal is on the profile and to me that still amounts to a free reference resource. Never a bad thing.

That being said I have seen some traffic coming from the gamut of them, but nothing that would make us drop anything else to focus our time on them. Each of these outlets is used to direct your attention to the main website where it is all coming together. They are nice but should not be your prime focus if you are a creative person. At any time these things can be purchased and morphed into something far different than what you wanted it to be. Move yourself off the main grid into your own presence with a blog or simple hobby website because in our humble opinion it also shows more initiative and zeal for the tasks at hand. Having a MySpace or Facebook page alone where you post photos, comment on shows or discuss music releases on them doesn’t necessarily put you in the same league as those who are taking a stand on an established domain or well-trafficked blog site. They might be popular and the news of the day, but if you feel that you should be getting free show tickets or photo passes then you should be ready to do the work that the main providers do for such accommodation. I also feel it’s a cool way to generate extra interest in what you are doing but recommend that you make the stand first by taking the hard road. It’s more rewarding and looks nice on a resume if you do a stand out job. Good luck.

The Coolness Of 2010: Completing five full years as an online presence for the Metal Republic was pretty much at the top of my list of accomplished coolness in the Metal Year 2010 and as the year closed out we had loaded in what appeared to be our 2050th review article. I admit that I thought I had hit that already but alas I was wrong and still it’s not too shabby. Add to this the number of galleries which we discussed earlier and you realize there is a whole lot of content. Being honest, I would rather spend a little more time on the thoughts that you read in our articles as I feel that they will serve you all the better and be something you refer to more. I have a number in mind that I want to achieve in 2011 but I will let you know what it is should I manage to attain it. Despite the minor personal reservation that is still a whole lot of reviews and in the end the content loaded in 2010 amounted to 27% than was done in 2009. Other coolness was our banding together with the St. Baldrick’s Organization who allowed us to help raise money for children’s cancer and gave us a free head shaving in return. I was joined by three Metal brothers and united we stood for the cause. It was truly a rewarding event.

Affiliations & Advertising: PiercingMetal.com remains a DIY or “do it yourself” enterprise in terms of how we are keeping afloat and while Google Ads were once tried, they failed miserably on all counts and were removed from the site. We have found some level of success in the Amazon.com affiliate program and it’s simple for readers to use and have it help out the site at the same time. All they need to do is access Amazon.com from any of the thousands of embedded codes on PiercingMetal.com and make a purchase. The company gives our brand a small stipend for this referral and from pennies come nickels and from nickels come dollars, etc. etc. Some of our staunchest supporters have been using Amazon.com religiously in this fashion and regularly report in for us to watch for their assistance. Since this does NOT cost you anything extra at all, we really encourage you to give it a shot and help keep the site functional. We might establish a Paypal.com account for support donations this year and of course conventional advertising space is available for what we feel is a reasonable amount. Interested parties can reach out to the editorial side about this via conventional email channels. If you have been using Amazon.com for some time via this means, we thank you very much and hope you continue doing it as you are really helping the efforts.

Statistically Speaking: Survey Says…. Despite some digging around I have not yet managed to find a single central point of observation as to the full on attention that the website gets and while Google Analytics, Complete.com, and Alexa.com all have their benefits, it seems as though each of them requires some additional coding be used to be the most effective. Google Analytics suggests placing their code on every page of the site which we cannot do with this model as there are tens of thousands of pages making up the site you enjoy but it is working on the main section pages and our blogs so that is something even if its not a true picture. Many of our media representatives use the Alexa numbers so if that statistical stuff appeals to you, please click the link below to see how PiercingMetal.com is currently doing and what data they pull into the mix to arrive at the tally. I think it’s pretty cool. We can safely report that according to our own hosting company’s AWSTATS that PiercingMetal.com has surpassed all of 2009’s numbers in terms of Unique Visitors, Visits, Page Views and Hits and we hope to continue this into 2011. Only time will tell, so check out our most current standings via the link below.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/piercingmetal.com

In the end websites are all playing numbers games and doing what they can to keep your attention to them. We only ask that if you like what you see that you share it as this attention helps out.

Statistically Speaking Part Two: Where Are They Coming From: As we are a US based site, the largest portion of our visitor attention does come from the states but with that in mind I would like to share with our readers the ten countries who visited PiercingMetal.com the most. In 2010 they were Russian Federation, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, France, Netherlands, Ukraine and Poland.

Reflecting Upon the Music & Entertainment Losses of 2010:

When I first chose to add this section to our yearly overview it only featured a handful of musicians that were exclusively centered in the Hard Rock & Metal scene. My recommendations are to play their songs if you own them or research their videos online so you can do just that. And now let’s bow our heads for the Valhalla Class of 2010:

J.D. Salinger (author), Art Clokey (creator of Gumby), John Forsythe (actor), Peter Graves (actor), Malcolm McDowell (Legendary Band Manager), Peter Steele (Type-O-Negative’s & Carnivore’s bassist/singer), Ronnie James Dio (Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Heaven & Hell, Elf), Alex Chilton (Big Star), Pete Quaife (original bassist for The Kinks), Morrie Yohai (creator of Cheetos, the cheese that goes “crunch”), Mitch Miller (legendary band leader), Chris ‘Rover’ Rybicki. (former bassist for Unearth), Eddie Fisher, T. Lavitz (Dixie Dregs), Tom Bosley, Jill Clayburgh, Dennis Hopper, Lena Horne, Fess Parker (TV’s Davy Crockett), Glen Bell (Taco Bell), Jimmy Dean, Leslie Neilsen, Gary Coleman, James MacArthur, Pernell Roberts, George Steinbrenner, Edwin Newman, Bob Guccione (Penthouse Mag-Main Man), Tony Curtis, Rue McClanahan, Blake Edwards, Teddy Pendergrass, Fred Morrison (creator of the “Frisbee”), Art Linkletter.

Special Thanks To:

To the readers of the site who make this all worthwhile; thank you for your constant and kind attention to our words, images, and in how you keep the engine rolling by telling your friends about what you are enjoying on the website. Without you, it would not be as much of a mission to accomplish and with you we hold the sharpened sword of Metal even higher in battle. Sorry for such drama, I am listening to Ensiferum while I am writing this.

To the Media Illuminati in the music industry whether they are publicists, managers or just someone with their own finger on the pulse of what is happening and are an advocate of the PiercingMetal.com way. Thanks to your efforts this is not only possible to do, but also much easier to do. I look forward to working with you going forward and am happy to bring your own bands happenings to the larger public and my dedicated readers. If you’re own of those who we don’t seem to work with for some reason or another we thank you for giving us more time to focus on your competing labels artist rosters.

To Duke’s Bar (19th Street/Park South Location) for welcoming the visiting Metal fans who are hitting shows at either Gramercy Theatre or Irving Plaza. Thanks for keeping the beers cold and the food tasty again and again. Many have enjoyed your Happy Hour and you are quickly becoming peoples start off point for gigs and even just a space to call home for a few hours. We do need to upgrade the music selection a wee bit in terms of some more Classic Metal being introduced when these shows are and I am available for consult in this area. Metal horns to Senaida, Taryn, Jeremy, Kristen, Jennie, Cara, Lauren, Krystal and Maria for being stars in the PiercingMetal book.

How Readers Can Help Out: Readers always help by checking out the site and sharing articles of interest with their friends. We ask that you sign onto our Facebook Page or Twitter page and use those mediums to keep getting the word out by bringing us your Metal comrades. Also commenting on the blog posts and advising friends to do the same helps us. Share the event calendar if you are a resident of the region we are focusing on, and offering it up to friends who might be visiting from afar. There is also the use of the Amazon.com stuff which we went into detail with just a few sections above. All of this keeps the Metal energies flowing on this thing and with so many different items to address it’s the reason I like to share my state of the site views each year to let you know of key developments and changes. The bottom line is that if you like it, we ask that you keep the word spread and actually to do the same if you hate it because it gives you something to argue about with those who disagree. I will try to keep it as interesting and as insightful as possible going forward.

And Now We Adventure Into 2011:

Thank you and let’s keep the Forces of Metal strong in 2011.

In Metal

Ken Pierce – Editor In Chief
http://www.PiercingMetal.com