Welcome to Royal Carnage
- Thread starter JayKeeley
- Start date
Papa Josh
Minister of Propaganda
Whatever dude... I have been working with CM and Metal Blade for a few years now, and as of the last 5-6 years, Metal Blade has almost always tried to follow in the footsteps of Century Media, and rather poorly.
They wanted to have a Shadows Fall type band on their label... the problem is, Metal Blade does not have near the promotion power that Century Media has. The Shadows Fall street team alone is HUGE! They have gotten where they are because of their work ethic and their dedicated fans, which would include their label.
I have always complained about Metal Blade's capabilities of breaking a band..
Destiny's End, featuring James Rivera of Helstar, case in point, went on the road with Nevermore and Iced Earth, got amazing reviews.. When their Transition album came out... zero promotion. It's like they expect to just throw the cd on the shelf, and it's going to go gold..
I'm ranting aren't I.... ?
I need my own label.
They wanted to have a Shadows Fall type band on their label... the problem is, Metal Blade does not have near the promotion power that Century Media has. The Shadows Fall street team alone is HUGE! They have gotten where they are because of their work ethic and their dedicated fans, which would include their label.
I have always complained about Metal Blade's capabilities of breaking a band..
Destiny's End, featuring James Rivera of Helstar, case in point, went on the road with Nevermore and Iced Earth, got amazing reviews.. When their Transition album came out... zero promotion. It's like they expect to just throw the cd on the shelf, and it's going to go gold..
I'm ranting aren't I.... ?
I need my own label.
Shadows Fall happen to be personal friends of Smotherd Hope. I think they're in Japan right now, so when they get back SH should get an interview. He should raise this as an interview topic (re: promotion etc) because it'll be interesting to see how the band sees it.
MadeInNewJersey
nursing my wounds
I'm not disagreeing with you; in fact, you'll note that I mentioned many of the same items (just in fewer words).
IMO, it's criminal that an overhyped band like Shadows Fall is being pushed to the moon while a badly underhyped band like Beyond The Embrace is being as you said "left on the shelf and expected to sell itself."
My argument is that Beyond The Embrace sounds next-to-nothing at all like Shadows Fall, and in fact bring more to the table. I'm actually shocked you don't like them, given your much-publicized love for the old-school sound.
IMO, it's criminal that an overhyped band like Shadows Fall is being pushed to the moon while a badly underhyped band like Beyond The Embrace is being as you said "left on the shelf and expected to sell itself."
My argument is that Beyond The Embrace sounds next-to-nothing at all like Shadows Fall, and in fact bring more to the table. I'm actually shocked you don't like them, given your much-publicized love for the old-school sound.
MadeInNewJersey
nursing my wounds
Nate The Great
What would Nathan do?
phyre said:
NO!!!
Don't change your name! I think you should keep the nickname. It is part of you now.
By the way, are you going to provide a MUCH needed underground edge to the site? I noticed most of the other staff were pretty much on the straight and narrow path.
Your stuff should provide some much needed variety.
TO ALL THE STAFF AT ROYAL CARNAGE
What will Royal Carnage offer that 100's of other metal sites don't?
npearce said:NO!!!
Don't change your name! I think you should keep the nickname. It is part of you now.
By the way, are you going to provide a MUCH needed underground edge to the site? I noticed most of the other staff were pretty much on the straight and narrow path.
Your stuff should provide some much needed variety.
TO ALL THE STAFF AT ROYAL CARNAGE
What will Royal Carnage offer that 100's of other metal sites don't?
Good question npearce.
First of all, to address the first part of your message re: Erik, I think that he of course will add a darker side to RC with his style of preference, and that kind of summarizes the entire RC team with all our differing tastes.
I'm very pleased at the fact that we went live with 8 staff writers on board from the get go, so that should add more content and therefore more frequent updates. That is a must - the difference between a magazine and a webzine is the ability to update on a hourly/daily/weekly basis.
So look at the team:
Me and my crap
Haddsie and her thrash and old school
markgugs and his ability to see the good in everything
Dark One and his ability to see ditto
Papa Josh and his death metal/old school/everything
Chief B and his power/melo-death/old school
Erik and his black metal resonating out the forests
Smothered Hope and his ability to live within the realms of Inside Out and other prog labels (where nobody else will even venture for now unless its for Symphony X and Evergrey).
I also think we have good writers on board. Beyond reviews and interviews, I think we'll have some interesting articles coming up...stay posted, but again, this is a reflection of strong writing skills. Furthermore, we will also have some of our articles/reviews etc translated into Japanese at metalmadjapan.com and as you can imagine, western bands and labels are going to be drooling over this little touch of added attention.
Finally, and there's probably a load more attributes here, but I'm really pleased with the layout of the site - in particular the reviews area. Most of our reviews always reference the songs in the tracklisting, so to be able to scroll down the review body and still reference the playlist and label etc on the left is a nice touch. And the index is handy too so you can get to any review pretty easily.
And since we're only 3 days in, I think the whole site will get better over time. On the agenda is to implement a PHP database so you can do searches etc.
All in good time though...like 2 weeks.
MadeInNewJersey
nursing my wounds
npearce said:TO ALL THE STAFF AT ROYAL CARNAGE
What will Royal Carnage offer that 100's of other metal sites don't?
I would also like to address this, only shorter than JayK.
Nathan, I'd like to think that IN TIME, Royal Carnage will soon be a destination for people, metal fans generally, who prefer to read truly professional quality writing. Before deciding to take this plunge, I obviously spent a great deal of time religiously visiting and absorbing how other sites work. And you're right, there are a ton of them, very few of which manage to differentiate themselves from each other. Most of them are marked by mediocre writing, mediocre coverage, mediocre knowledge, mediocre-to-poor layout, etc. There are but a handful of quality webzines around.
You will find very few cookie cutter "questionnaire" interviews on our site. Hopefully, you will find very few poorly written reviews (or anything really) on our site. And as JayK pointed out, in time you will begin to see that it's not just the standard reviews/interviews/coverage stuff. We're planning on "branching out" into actual magazine-style writing with feature articles, diary reports, spotlighted artists, how-to's and more. Sure we're full of excitement right now, but you must realize that a site and undertaking like this needs time to grow and be nurtured. Rome wasn't built in a day, as they say.
I hope you do decide to stop by on a regular basis, and make us part of your "rotation," but hey, we didn't jump into this thinking we could please everyone. But I do truly & strongly believe that with dedications and perseverance, Royal Carnage will blossom. BTW, and this is not the sort of thing I generally like to point out, but I'm willing to wager that currently on our staff exists quite a bit more technical/computer/journalism/literary background than the average site. I guess we'll have to prove it. I'm up for the challenge. Cheers.
Hmmm, I guess that wasn't shorter than JayK's answer after all...
ProgMetalFan
In the attic
markgugs said:
So true. I am consistantly shocked at the mediocre quality of most metal webzines... even ones that are "respected". It's amazing how many of these writers fail to do any research and mix up the facts. Many don't seem to have much knowledge of the wide world of metal. And many interviews feature drab questions and sometimes quite bizarre questions that make me cringe. I am confidant Royal Carnage will be a welcome refuge from the sea of metal webzine mediocrity.
ProgMetalFan said:
Hey man - that is very nice of you to say so. I know it's still early days, but we are really excited. Enthusiasm, integrity, and pride are virtues (and sins) the RC team are not short of.
Nate The Great
What would Nathan do?
I don't doubt Royal Carnage will be one of the better sites. I was simply wondering what you might have up your sleeve.
Here's one suggestion on reviews:
Don't review something you are completely unfamiliar with and you absolutely hate. If you happen to find a new band or new style that you fall in love with, feel free to review that album. HOWEVER, I will totally discredit an entire site if I find reviews of bands that the reviewer has absolutely no knowledge of. I was recently looking at the Deadtide site. While the CD's reviewed cover everything from Agalloch to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, I found several of the review to be completely uninformed. I won't review a CD if I'm completely unfamiliar with it and it bores the crap out of me. I recently got a promo for God Dethroned. I find it very boring, but I know lots of people out there don't. I probably won't review it, unless I have a sudden change of heart. That's just my view.
Here's one suggestion on reviews:
Don't review something you are completely unfamiliar with and you absolutely hate. If you happen to find a new band or new style that you fall in love with, feel free to review that album. HOWEVER, I will totally discredit an entire site if I find reviews of bands that the reviewer has absolutely no knowledge of. I was recently looking at the Deadtide site. While the CD's reviewed cover everything from Agalloch to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, I found several of the review to be completely uninformed. I won't review a CD if I'm completely unfamiliar with it and it bores the crap out of me. I recently got a promo for God Dethroned. I find it very boring, but I know lots of people out there don't. I probably won't review it, unless I have a sudden change of heart. That's just my view.
MadeInNewJersey
nursing my wounds
npearce said:
Thank you Nathan, you're one of the folks I respect around here, and your voice matters to me.
Here's one suggestion on reviews:
Don't review something you are completely unfamiliar with and you absolutely hate. If you happen to find a new band or new style that you fall in love with, feel free to review that album. HOWEVER, I will totally discredit an entire site if I find reviews of bands that the reviewer has absolutely no knowledge of. I was recently looking at the Deadtide site. While the CD's reviewed cover everything from Agalloch to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, I found several of the review to be completely uninformed. I won't review a CD if I'm completely unfamiliar with it and it bores the crap out of me. I recently got a promo for God Dethroned. I find it very boring, but I know lots of people out there don't. I probably won't review it, unless I have a sudden change of heart. That's just my view.
Couldn't agree more with this piece of advice; in fact, this sort of thing is already in place. It's one of the benefits to having a large staff of writers. For example, I wouldn't possibly be able to adequately review a Spock's Beard album. Or for that matter, I might struggle with a completely underground necro black metal band. But we have writers on the staff who are well-versed on those styles and bring that knowledge to the staff, making us - I believe - extremely well-rounded.
And I guess you won't want to read my God Dethroned review then...hehehe.
Nate The Great
What would Nathan do?
MadeInNewJersey
nursing my wounds
npearce said:I already read it. Amon Amarth also bores me.
LOL, you're hopeless. Versus The World OWNS me, you, the guy down the street, his pets, and the barfly at the local pub.
There's one little thing that's a bit annoying. If you open a review in the main frame, you have to use both the page and the review scroll bars to get to the bottom of the review. It's a little annoying. If you open the review in a new window, it doesn't happen, so maybe if all review links opened in a new window it might be a bit better??
This could just be because I have a small monitor. It's just a suggestion anyway. Don't get me wrong, the whole site looks really cool.
This could just be because I have a small monitor. It's just a suggestion anyway. Don't get me wrong, the whole site looks really cool.
Yeah it's because you have a small monitor - I have the same problem because I'm on a laptop.
If I open the review in a new window (to itself) then you lose the index buttons on the left.
To resolve it all, press F11 in your browser to remove titlebars. When you want them back, press F11 again.
If I open the review in a new window (to itself) then you lose the index buttons on the left.
To resolve it all, press F11 in your browser to remove titlebars. When you want them back, press F11 again.
Doom said:
Doom - I've reduced the size of the lower frame - does that help at all? Let me know.
Of course, I forgot to mention that the F11 trick probably only works for IE users, and you might have netscape or something else dodgy.
No problemo. The F11 trick is perfect.
Although I've reduced the size of the lower frame, I may just put in a note somewhere indicating the F11 trick for IE users...I think more people need to know about that because I press F11 even when not needed (because I have a laptop).
Although I've reduced the size of the lower frame, I may just put in a note somewhere indicating the F11 trick for IE users...I think more people need to know about that because I press F11 even when not needed (because I have a laptop).
MadeInNewJersey
nursing my wounds
Well....everyone....how's the site looking? Without feedback, we just run along our merry way like um, like a dictator! Yeah, that's it...
