Nick Menza documentary This Was My Life Screening dates announced

Everyone who was able to see drummer Nick Menza perform will remember his tight way of playing drums. He was one of those performers who knew how to put a spotlight on his drumming at the proper timing and to play the rhythm straight forward at other times.

A documentary has been put together that is described as a in-depth exploration of the life of Nick Menza, the former drummer of Megadeth, and one of the greatest thrash metal drummers of all time. It is a collection of stories from his childhood all the way through to the end of his life, recounted by those who knew him best. The documentary, authorized by the Menza family, will be the first to memorialize the drummer's legacy.

The poster for the Red Carpet premiere of "This Was My Life".

Two screening dates have been set up so far. The first one is going to happen on Thursday, April 10th at the Laemmle Royal theater in Los Angeles, CA. Located at 11523 Santa Monica Blvd. West L.A., CA 90025. Members of the cast and crew will be in attendance for a Q&A session after the screening of the film.  

Tickets for the screening are available at https://www.laemmle.com/film/was-my-life-nick-menzas-metal-memories-megadeth-and-beyond

The second one has been announced for Thursday, April 17th, at Hawthorne Theatre , located at 300 Lafayette Ave, Hawthorne, NJ 07506. Members of the cast and crew will be in attendance for a Q&A session after the screening of the film. 

Tickets for the event may be purchased at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/this-was-my-life-east-coast-premiere-hawthorne-theatre-tickets-1255857727269

Here is a trailer showing some scenes of the documentary.

Final Coil to document journey and recordings for upcoming second album

Sometimes it's crazy what happens in your life. This morning I held the "Persistence Of Memory" CD of Final Coil in my hands. The constantly evolving sound of the alternative / dark grunge band as well as the special artwork keep me coming back to this record again and again. The following exciting news piece reached me as well today. Sometimes it feels as if things should be this way...

In just seven days the band will be heading out to Italy, more specifically to Real Sound Studio in Langhirano, where they will begin recording their second full length album. We've (Imperative PR) heard the rough demos for the new tracks and can assure you that this album is going to be nothing short of spectacular. 

The band Final Coil, Photo credit Ester Segarra

The band will be documenting the whole recording process - including the journey to Real Sound - and will be keeping you all updated with regular video posts from the studio and the road. Front man Phil sent us these few words about the upcoming adventure...

"We're incredibly excited to announce that, next week, the band will be relocating to Real Sound Studio in Italy to continue the creative partnership we began with Persistence of Memory. Watch this space for regular updates, video clips and more from the studio and join us as we begin this next chapter of our journey together as Final Coil."

So stay tuned and follow Final Coil every step of the way as album number two is brought to life!  

What would Jesus sell?

Also Metal music is often associated with darker parts of life there is in fact a sidearm that has a look upon the christian side of our music. It's called White Metal and I became most aware of it when I went to a show of Narnia.

They opened up for Dio and had this lion as a backdrop. I remember they played "The Awakening" that evening and it talked about the spiritual side and how we start to face it.

Back in present day I nearly forgot about this until this documentation knocked on my door. There are some guys out there that call themselves BadChristian. They want to take a sharp and critical look upon how Christianity is connected with (Metal) music. What is going on behind the curtains of this business? This is what the documentary will be about in my eyes. It will be told from the view of those who have been involved into this business themselves.

The campaign picture of "What would Jesus sell?", (c) by BC Media, used with kind permission

 A quote of the Kickstarter page tells more details about what this documentary aims to be:

"As the music industry has declined over the past few decades, dwindling returns have incentivized the profit-securing practice for Christian artists and labels to project an image that is often contrary their individual values.

Our goal is to craft a documentary that

    Uncovers the truth about dishonest image control
    Explores the profit motives that influence faith-based music
    Redeems the honest aspects of the industry & artists involved"

Matt Carter, CEO of Bad Christian, explains, “I’ve been involved with the Christian music industry for 15 years. There are these huge gulfs between the insiders and the consumers, and between the consumers and the general mainstream  public. This creates so many weird, interesting, and often depressing realities and stories. We are excited to bring some of it out into the light of day.”
 
The documentary is being directed by James Wightman, a long-time filmmaker for Emery and BadChristian. “Internally we’ve been brainstorming and developing this idea and proof of concept for almost two years, and it seems like the perfect story for BadChristian to be able to tell like nobody else can. Everyone involved with this project has at different times, benefitted from, believed in, and been burned by this crazy industry. The whole goal with the documentary is to tell those stories honestly, because it seems that the public is largely unaware of the inner-workings and the nature of it, both good and bad.”

Have a look at the trailer for a better idea of the project.

Currently a Kickstarter is running asking to support them on their mission. Producing quality stuff takes money no question but the team has already started to work on the project out of their own pockets. By now the time has come to go into final production stages so more cash is needed to finish things. In return there's a wide range of rewards. They go for a reasonable price that's compareable to what needs to be paid at local stores.

Full Metal Cruise 2013 documentation still online

Besides the traditional metal festivals with stages and often a proper camping ground these days a new form of festival seems be more and more popular. I'm speaking about all of the cruises that put a bunch of bands, lots of lights and stages plus all the fans on one big ship and let them do a trip of their very own.

Besides other big festivals like the Sweden Rock the biggest one called Wacken Open Air has also done a cruise of their own entitled "Full Metal Cruise". It took place from  5th to 12th  Ma 2013 and did feature 20 Bands on three stage on stage and also at the boarding location. Among others the following bands were performing: KREATOR, SABATON, AVANTASIA, DORO, HEAVEN SHALL BURN und FIREWIND.

If you'd like to see how this turned out, hurry and head over here. The german TV station ZDF did broadcast a 77 min. long documentation about the event that still can be seen for some days in their media streaming service. Check it out!

Wacken 2012 documentary and all bands from Wacken metal battle online

Meanwhile the german documentary "Heavy Metal trifft Karniggels" has been uploaded to this location. Having taken a look at the stuff it seems to me that the documentary stuff has been left in but the videos from the band performances have been cut out. Guess that's because of legal rights missing to stream this stuff. Anyway, nice they did put this one up at least as (optional HD) flash videos and additionally also as Windows Media Stream in three qualities.If you want to know more about the director Detlev Buck, there is another german sub-website from NDR station describing his life and work quite in detail.

In addition to this they also did set up a subpage with all the performances of the bands that played at the "Wacken metal battle" Contest. So if you saw a band there that you liked a lot or just wanna checkt out some fresh new bands, this is the place for you to go. I counted 17 videos on that page. Great so see they support young bands that much.

If you like to see some interview footage (in german language) there's pretty much online from Wacken 2012. You can see bands like Overkill, Paradise Lost, Hammerfall, In Flames and more talking about their performances right here.