I’m hosting a metal radio show! Seeing as it’s been 5 years since my last blog entry here it’s time for an update. This is a recent project I’ve been excited about and, if you happen to be a metalhead, you’ll enjoy it.
A couple of months ago Brandon Lipani reached out to me about an online radio station he launched. Brandon is one of the earliest “pod friends” of The Grawlix Podcast crew and among the first podcasters to join us a decade ago on the Electronic Media Collective Podcast Network. He is also an experienced radio guy having worked in terrestrial radio.
Brandon first reached out about broadcasting replays of The Grawlix Podcast live streams on his station, Helix Rock Radio. He was looking to fill some slots during the station’s broadcast day. This got me thinking.
I agreed to send him podcast episodes but also offered to live host an original music show for the station. Modern and classic mainstream rock is Helix Rock Radio’s bread and butter. I personally favor metal when it comes to rock adjacent genres so I pitched him on an extreme metal radio show focusing on the darker, heavier side of rock music. After a short discussion he gave me a two hour slot each Friday evening.
Thus, Edge of the Abyss was born with the first broadcast going live on March 8th, 2024. Its felt like revisiting my early podcast days of hosting EMG Radio. Instead of indie electronic music, though, Edge of the Abyss features death metal, thrash metal, black metal, and numerous other subgenres of extreme metal. Speaking of subgenres, it’s honestly been quite the learning experience for me.
Exploring and gaining a better understanding of the various subgenres has been fascinating. Occasionally, I’ll do a deep dive into a specific era, subgenre, or theme such as on the 40 Years of Thrash broadcast. My favorite aspect of the show has been keeping up on new metal releases each week. Typically, a majority of the songs each broadcast are new tracks that dropped day of the show. While I’ve made a point to not get stuck purely in the music of my teen years, I do sometimes fall behind what’s current. Even more so, I’d fallen out of the metal scene for a long time. Exploring what I’ve missed & keeping up on new releases and bands in metal has been a joy.
Edge of the Abyss broadcasts each Friday from 8pm to 10pm Central / 9pm to 11pm Eastern on Helix Rock Radio at rockradio.live. Replays are available on the Helix Rock Radio website as well as Mixcloud.
