Metal Maniacs & Metal Edge, R.I.P?!

NvmbrsDoom5

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Jul 24, 2002
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I'm reposting this from a Myspace blog I put up, because I wanted to share it with everyone here at the forums as well....

My good buddy Wiley (lately aka THE GEETUS!) just posted this in a bulletin this afternoon. Some really unfortunate news.....

METAL MANIACS And METAL EDGE Magazines Reportedly Closing..

According to a mass e-mail sent out yesterday (..Tuesday, February 3) by Liz Ciavarella, editor of Metal Maniacs magazine, both Metal.Maniacs and its sister publication Metal.Edge have shut their doors effective immediatelyy. "The exact reasons are still a little hazy but it appears that no one is immune to the crashing economy," Liz writes. "..We've been told we are on '..hiatus,' which. means the coffin hasn't been shut just yet. Our ad honcho, Dov Teta, and I are scrambling for a potential solution, and with any luck, I hope to be sending a far less grim e-mail in the not-so-distant future. For now though, the March/April 2009 edition [of Metal Maniacs] (..KREATOR cover on sale February 24) will be the last published issue (no goodbye issue, unfortunately).
"

Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs, two of the leading heavy metal magazines in the U.S., have been publishing for 24 years and 19 years, respectively. The two publications were acquired by Zenbu Media in February 2007.


Covering bands across the hard rock spectrum — from classic metal to thrash to punk . MetalEdge is considered a leading voice in the mainstream metal media. In existence since 1985, Metal Edge was published twelve times a year — providing in-depth coverage of current musical acts, including band profiles, news of the latest releases and coverage of the biggest tours...


Metal Maniacs has given exposure to the best underground metal bands. Scouring the globe.. for the greatest unheard-of artists, Metal Maniacs has, for nearly 20 years, provided one of the few outlets for these acts and a way for fans to unearth the greatest unheralded hard rock outfits.


Based in New York City, Zenbu Media is a music..-oriented multi.-prong.d media company that specializes in print, digital, events and recording......


This is a real bummer for those of us in bands who look forward to seeing articles, reviews and ads posted there. And also a bummer for us as fans who practically grew up with these magazines and were turned onto alot of new artists because of it. I realise that the internet has seriously cut down how many people even buy magazines anymore, but still.... This magazine (as well as METAL EDGE) has had some very cool people involved in the writing and production of it every month. Excellent folks like Liz C., Jeff Wagner, Mike G., Scott Alisoglu, Dave Brenner, Ian Christie, Chris "Professor" Black, JWW, Kevin Stewart-Panko, and many more that have made the magazine such a good and worth read over the years.
MM has featured Novembers Doom many times, even giving us a cover photo spot on three different occasions over the years, and we're extremely grateful to them for the support and exposure. I hope that they are able to eventually rectify their money problems and get back into circulation again, even if it's in a different situation (maybe 6 issues a year instead of 12, etc.?)

I wonder if there's any chance that they could also come up with a different format, and have just one magazine instead of two? Yes, I realise that alot of people out there might want to read about Mudvayne, but not Gorgoroth, and vice versa. But honestly, I can't see any reason why the two formats (Maniacs and Edge) couldn't somehow be combined. You see rags like Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles covering a fairly wide spectrum of hard rock/metal within their pages, so I don't see why it wouldn't work. I might not personally be too interested in reading articles about the new Evanescence release or something like that, but I'd definitely tolerate it in order to still get the other stuff I do care about. Then again maybe I'm a bit more open-minded and tolerant than the average metalhead these days, who seem to spend far too much time arguing and debating over what "sucks" and how such-and-such band aren't cool anymore because they're not underground enough for them anymore *sigh...*

In any case, I wish Liz and co. all the best and I hope that things turn around eventually for them. Given the current state of the economy, I'd say things are likely to get worse before they get better, so hang in there folks.
 
I suppose they could combine.
Though the only reason why I ever purchased Metal Maniacs was because it featured solely underground bands.

The internet of course is the main driver for the dwindling sales of zines, of all kinds.

You have seen all kinds of magazines provide "extras" to help push copies (IE - porn rags coming with DVDs, music rags coming with CDs).

If you were to tell me about some cool new band, I can within 45 minutes become an expert on that band after reading their official site, my space, metal archives, and any other review I could find on the band.

When I was getting back into metal in the late 90's, I did purchase Metal Maniacs multiple times a year. Though, every year, more and more underground bands make their way to highly visible sites, like My Space, Bravewords, Blabbermouth, etc.

Unfortunately, not much new is learned from reading a hard copy zine.

I am with you Larry. I grew up on CREAM, Hit Parader, Kerrrang, etc.

The times have changed.
As far as the economy goes, the impact probably was more on generating fewer advertising dollars than actual zine sales. Everybody first cuts back on marketing, especially when marketing online isn't even a fraction of print advertising.

It is sad indeed.
 
You're right, the truth is that times have indeed changed. I am still a big fan of the printed word on paper but I realise that I'm probably in a sincere minority these days. I grew up being such a fan of music magazines, reading about artists on websites just isn't quite the same thing. Plus another thing is, almost ANY dumb jagoff can put up a website now and call themselves a "journalist/writer", and so much of what I come across online is just so poorly written and conceived. Alot of the people writing in the print publications may have started out that way, but I think the cream of the crop are the ones who were good enough to make it into mags like Maniacs and stuff (with exceptions *coughmetalgeorgecough*, lol). I often found the interviews and articles printed in Metal Maniacs to be of a far higher caliber than 90% of what I read online.

And while I don't care about this quite as much nowadays as I once did, it was always cool to be able to get pin-ups and centerfolds of bands too. Many Voivod, Celtic Frost, Carcass and Morbid Angel pics adorned my walls and rehearsal rooms over the years thanks to mags like Metal Maniacs.
 
In all seriousness, it's a valid point. I like being able to carry a book or magazine with me when I go places, whether to the bathroom or on a trip. And you don't have to worry about a battery dying, or no electrical outlets available, or no wireless connection where you're at, and so forth. I'm not knocking modern technology and all that because it's truly amazing. But I do still find magazines and books to be pretty handy.
 
I purchase Metal Maniacs and Terrorizer most of the time for the contents and album reviews, and I used to purchase Unrestrained! for the same reasons. Something like Metal Edge these days cover the bands that younger kids might be into, to reach the "metal mainstream" so to speak, that the younger crowd would be into. It more or less is the difference in publications between the aforementioned "underground" and "mainstream" in the world of metal. I read Metal Edge up until about 16, 17 years ago, and after that, started paying attention to the heavier, faster, etc bands that Metal Maniacs would cover, and the rest is history. The older I've gotten, the more death metal I've listened to. Who said you have to go backwards as you get older? It's all BS! This definitely puts a dent in the publication world of metal as we know it. Hopefully it is only a temporary issue as stated.
 
When I got out of metal in the late 80's and more into the punk / HC scene, I read MAXIMUM ROCK N ROLL religiously. Not sure if any of you have ever read that, as it was a EXTREMELY DIY, yet semi-professional, publication.

Anyhow, one of the main attractions of the zine was seeing the latests ads which displayed the most recent mail order offerings from the underground labels. That was the sole place for finding out about new releases.

Now, with the internet, the combination of news sites, as well as mail orders, more than fills that need for me.

Larry and Pate - I do certainly see your point. I guess I don't really go many places where I would need printed media. I suppose if I flew more, or rode the train daily, then I am sure I would purchase magazines and books more than I do. Being in a car for 2 + hours a day, and sitting at a PC for 10 hours a day has made my life become VERY digital.
 
I remember buying issues of Circus when it was still a popular magazine, around the same time I started reading issues of Metal Edge. Back in the day, and I should check to see if I have any left somewhere, I bought a few issues of RIP magazine.
 
I have hundreds of magazines. It's almost ridiculous, lol. I still have some (though not nearly all) of the old magazines from my youth....Hit Parader, Circus, Creem Metal, Metal Mania, RIP, etc. I still buy alot of magazines every month, like Guitar World, Decibel, Classic Rock, Uncut, and Metal Maniacs...
 
I've been reading maniacs like most of you from Katherine Ludwig, through Alicia, all the way up to Liz. It's killing me now thinking about it - when i was a kid all my friends and I wanted to do was get our demo in Metal Maniacs. That mag was everything to us, there wasnt much of any other real metal mag we had access to. The reviews were always biased and varied so no matter what tastes you had, there was alway a reviewer you could find that you could trust for good referrals. I just hope that the underground finds a way to compensate outside of the internet til maniacs gets on their feet. There is something really nostalgic about waiting for the next release of your favorite zine, running to the store and picking it up and sitting back with a cup of coffee, diving headlong into new releases and interviews. I guess there's always others terrorizer and more stateside local zines, but I am gonna miss Metal Maniacs.....:cry:
 
The internet of course is the main driver for the dwindling sales of zines, of all kinds.
Yep... magazines are dinosaurs. The information is three months old and there's always the question about the correlation between advertising dollars and positive reviews/press. Although I read Circus and Hit Parader as a teen, I've had no use for magazines since the Metal community became an online community. That said, it sucks to watch good people lose their jobs in these difficult times.

Greg
 
Couldn't care less about the reviews (you guys here know what I think of most critics anyhow...), but there were still some damn fine articles, and most of the interviews in MM were done intelligently, unlike alot of the articles I read online by alot of these amateur writers. Hell, I mean just going by alot of the internet interviews we've had to do over the years, getting asked the same questions over and over, and the poorly thought out questions as well. The interviews we've done for the magazines like MM with more seasoned writers has almost always been better.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate any and all press we get, and I realise that the amateurs have to start somewhere and learn their craft. I just don't like the idea that soon we might be left with nothing more than a bunch of amateurs.
I also tend to find myself reading about artists whom I might not have bothered looking into before when they're in a mag like MM. I don't find myself doing that so much when perusing online.
 
Do you guys know if Metal Maniacs or these top metal mags have online podcasts? I think podcasts are great, and easy to do it yourself. It would be cool if these magazines offered an online site to download podcasts where they do actual "live" interviews that you can download on your computer and transfer to CD, or ipod. I know some of you guys were saying that battery life and connecting online can be a hassle sometimes, but I think this route is a great choice.
 
Ok, I am going to ask a question that has been on my mind for years.........

WHAT THE FLYING F*CK IS A PODCAST??????

Is it basically a video you can download to an IPOD or other like device?