And now for a quiet rant....

For those hoping for gig info and reviews, or perhaps even a mention of a CD you can tune out now. There follows a quiet wee rant about the way the outside world views metal.

Inspired by the very positive reaction to reader involvement in the blog we ventured forth to see if there was sponsorship available. The aim: get a few quid to re-design the very, very dated look, market the blog and perhaps even get a few pennies distributed to people who wanted to post reviews etc. The longer game plan to provide a hub that would complement existing sites such as Metal Ireland and perhaps even provide an outlet for local acts to sell CDs and merch.

Thus with high hopes we sat down with a marketeer from a respected local firm. We thought that with the visitor numbers, age range, number of comments (on the blog and via email) that it was a viable prospect. Indeed we know of other sites with puny (sorry that almost was a Manowar-style comment!) visitor numbers that achieve significant sponsorship. In pure business terms we were looking at sponsorship as seed funding for longer term development.

The marketing man then asked the killer question: "So what's the site's target demographic?" It was with admirable restraint that no punches were thrown...

It was explained that at recent gigs (Machine Head for one) we had stood in a group that included a 13-year-old, three 15-year-olds, four 20-somethings, a 42-year-old and three people in their 50s, amongst almost one thousand others and this was an admirable range for any marketeer to reach out to as they encompassed the teen market, the 'no-children, large disposable income bracket' as well as parents and grandparents... It was also explain that past contributors ranged from uni students through to business people and that the site was run by an award winning professional...we ran out of steam...and had no pretty PowerPoint graphs at hand!

His response was "that's not a very specific market, is it?"

Being polite sort of people (well most of the time!) we finished the drink, avoided pushing the pint glass into his face thereby avoidin spilling liquid on his very impressive Top Man suit and left it at that.

Another chance to spread the wealth amongst the community of rock and the brotherhood of metal slipped away...

But, on reflection, it did highlight a quandry.

This thing we all love, hard and heavy music, is a difficult beast to grapple with for outsiders. There are the hardcore metalheads, there are the thrashers, there are the hard/classic rock fans, there are the devotees who never miss a Distortion Project gig (all hail James and crew!), there are those who avidly attend the rock tribute acts, there are the many thousands who will flock to Metallica, there are the the couple of dozen in the Rosetta or Auntie Annies headbanging away, there are rural outposts like the Diamond in Ahoghill where the flame is kept alight outside Belfast - in other words there are many faces to this beast.

There are a helluva lot of us!

Psycholgists and social anthropologists would have a field day: but too often the cliched comments focus on the stereotypes. They'll happily rant about Norwegian church burning and murders (see last month's Metal Hammer for a controversial interview!) or will glaze over as we rant about 'last night's gig'. Then there are the rabid opponents who cast biblical quotations like confetti. Worse still are the divisions within the 'scene'. Who else has read a post on a blog or a forum slagging off a local act and thought to themselves "if you can't be positive then don't bother wasting typing time!"

But where does this leave things?

As to this blog, it will continue as regularly as possible. Contributions from readers, information from bands and promoters will be posted. The idea of reader involvement will be encouraged (design comps and other ideas to be developed further!) and perhaps even getting some 'stuff' together to reward readers and potential sponsors alike.

But more important than anything else...thank you all for reading our rambling rants, listening out for news whether it is a breaking story or old news you heard elsewhere, and for being what Stephen King refers to as our 'Constant Reader'.

There - rant over, now it's JAGER TIME! :)