(NCS supporter and occasional contributor Grant Skelton is looking for help… )
Fellow NCS Comrades –
I was recently brought on board with Local X Radio, a station here in my hometown of Memphis, TN. I run the station’s metal format, Metal X, which airs a show each Monday from 7pm – 9pm CST. Our April 20th show featured music from No Clean Singing alumni Beyond Grace (“Omega Point”) and Godless Angel (“Containment Breach In Sector 6”). With Islander’s permission, I wanted to tell you a little about this opportunity and my vision for it.
Hosting a metal radio show has been a dream of mine for more years than I’d like to admit. I initially contacted the station back in November (ironically, right around the same time I began contributing to this lovely website). Fast-forward to February. Evidently my email had been lost in the cyberbowels (if Austin Weber can make up words, I can too) of the Internet. Alas, it was rescued and my query was answered. After a couple of initial meetings, the station manager offered me a chance to make a dream into a reality. I have carte blanche when it comes to Metal X. But this isn’t just about me playing what I want. It needs to be about something more than that.
To that end, with the aid of this site, I am launching an open call for submissions for airplay. All genres are welcome: thrash, death, black, grind, power, viking/folk, doom/sludge/stoner, and all points in between. However rare, unsigned, obscure, underground, eccentric, or elitist it may be. It’s all welcome. As long as I can fit it into a 2-hour show, it’s fair game. Feel free to circulate this article among your local/regional scenes. Local X has international listeners as well, so if you’re not in the US, please do not exclude yourself! International submissions are very welcome! See the email address at the end of this article for more details.
This isn’t just another streaming music service. It’s a real radio show made by a fan for fans. Musicians pay a heavy financial investment on the front end of their careers, especially if they want to record. And there’s no guarantee that they will break even, let alone make a profit. I want for fans to be able to sample music that they love and then easily find where to purchase it. Metal fans are a zealous lot, and our dollars control this industry that we love so much. It is equal parts art and business. Metal is a legitimate art form. It requires skill, passion, talent and an investment of time. It involves practice, practice, practice, practice and then still more practice. It is a creative outlet, an emotionally therapeutic catharsis, a transcendental experience. But it’s also work. And people who work deserve to get paid.
That’s my aim for Metal X. To give listeners samples of music that they then go and buy. If musicians make money, they keep making music. If they don’t, they quit making music. And that just sucks. Thanks for reading.
P.S. I’ve been corresponding with Noel Mueller of Grimoire Records about doing a special showcase on that label, featuring various bands from its roster. Expect more on that soon.
Send music/mp3s/Bandcamp download codes to me, Grant, at grant@localxradio.com.
Listen to Local X Radio at localxradio.com or download the FREE app (works for Android and Apple) at localxradio.com.tap-that-app.
Metal X on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/locaxradiometal
Local X Radio on Facebook:
20 Responses to “AN INVITATION FROM GRANT SKELTON”
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Awesome dude! Just got a radio show this quarter here at UChicago too – it’s a great experience, and luckily it seems like you don’t have the inhuman 4-6 AM time slot 😛
That IS an inhuman time slot. Although if you’re an early riser, waking up to metal might help out even more than caffeine.
Since I don’t have class the next day (I do it Friday mornings), I tend to just stay up til 6:30, and then sleep til something like 2 in the afternoon. It’s probably ruinous to my health, but that’s what college is for, right? Though I gotta say, I tend to feel pretty lively when I’m bumping some Noisem or whatnot in the studio at 5 AM, possibly moshing solo in the studio (not gonna let definitive proof of that ever get out if I can help it) 😛
I work weird hours myself. I go in around when most people are going home and get off at 1 am. So I get home in the middle of the night. That’s why most of my comments on NCS posts are about a day behind. I do all my writing/music/networking stuff at night after I get off. Day time is family time. Point being, I’m no stranger to seeing 5 am (or even 6:30) from this side of it. Either because of work itself or side hustle activities.
Someone somewhere probably does have video footage of your moshpit soliloquy. And I’d pay money to see said video.
That’s a really cool idea to feature a specific record label on a particular show.
I agree, and there are so many other small underground labels beyond Grimoire that would make great candidates for that kind of showcase and extra exposure.
I ran the idea by the station manager and he was all over it. I wanted to try something that hadn’t been done before. H.R. 1733 (or the Fair Play for Fair Pay Act of 2015) is a bill that’s being presented in this current congressional session. If it passes, FM radio stations would be required to pay royalties to any artists whose music they play. Digital broadcasters (Internet radio stations) are already required to do so.
Point is, Local X does pay royalties to all artists. I take pride in saying that. I love Grimoire Records. They put out excellent art and have a unique business model. CDs are becoming a thing of the past, so showcasing a label’s roster on a radio station is a way to use modern technology to get the label’s music to a changing consumer culture.
Man! I did a radio show at my college… way back.. way…. back. It was called “Hard Times” and was devoted to hardcore. (and often Night Train by Guns and Roses)
But we never had the vision that you present here.
I’m very interested in hearing the show and will be looking for stuff to send yr way!
Thanks for the support man! I really appreciate it. And please DO send submissions.
I know I said thank you via other channels, but seriously, thank you!
No problem! Glad to help out.
I’ve been really liking these “Best Albums of [Month]” posts that NCS has been publishing this year and I think it would be a cool idea to do something like that on a radio show, as well.
That’s a great idea! I’m always open to new ones.
Exploring the breadth of a relatively unknown band’s discography like Andy does in his “Synn Report” series would also be pretty cool, IMO. If I ran a 2 hour metal radio show I would probably try to split it up into 2 one-hour long “programs”. Play a random assortment of stuff during one hour, and then do a themed program like a label/artist feature or “best of the last month” during the other hour. It would also be cool to get interviews with artists and play clips of the interview interspersed among the songs or something like that. I’ll definitely try to check out your show sometime, though!
Typically, the shows are recorded in 1 hour blocks. I’m brand new at this, and my third show (1 hour long) just aired this past Monday. The station will typically run the previous week’s broadcast at 7pm CST, with the new broadcast following at 8. But this week, I have enough material for my first 2 hour show.
Thanks so much for the support. The more people that listen, the more exposure the bands get.
Sweet!! Congratulations Grant! And thank you so much for including Godless Angel, that’s so awesome! 🙂
I emailed you the link to my promo kit for “Harvester of Shadows” 🙂
Thanks for the opportunity! Your comments are always encouraging, Derek!
Maybe towards the years end do a playlist of each of NCS writers top 5/10 songs of the year?
Gets some PR for both the bands AND the site 😉
Not a bad idea at all!
Greetings from the darkest depths of west wales. You were kind enough to review our band (IRONCLAD) recently, may I offer you my sincere thanks and gratitudes for the kind words you said about our ‘alchemy and chaos’ ep. Yours was the first published review of this recording and such a positive response to our humble offerings is much appreciated….keep it metal!
Steve Taran (Ironclad).