The Metal Shop

We're doing things a little differently this week: first up, the new home of Frog's 100% solo podcast, "Frogsplaining"!  If you've listened to it before you know what to expect, it's just in a new spot to listen to.  In this episode, Big Frog gives his opinion on the Chargers as this NFL season starts. 

This week we decided to just talk about some of our favorite guitar solos, and to make it easier for everyone, just insert the damn solos in the episode so you don't have to look it up.  Longer episode than usual because of it, but who complains about kick ass solos?

Our second episode on Ozzy Osbourne, we're talking favorite songs, album covers, guitarists and some metal news!(about Ozzy)

So, we've done Black Sabbath, but somehow, after a year JUST got around to the man, the myth, the legend, the Prince of Darkness ™: Ozzy fuckin' Osbourne!  We jump in soon after his dismissal from Black Sabbath and run from there.  This episode is very Randy Rhoads-centric as well, stay tuned next week for even more Ozzy goodness.  All this, and some metal news!

In this episode, we say goodbye to recording at the San Diego Downtown Library with our Iron Maiden finale! This is another fairly loose episode, but we had a blast recording it. Enjoy! 

This week is a Big Frog solo outing (Mike was a tad busy moving into a new apartment).  Frog does a deep dive into the guitarists of Iron Maiden.  So if guitarists are your thing, this is the episode for you!

Ok, so maybe part 2 SHOULD actually be part one, but we had so much fun talking about the NWOBHM it ended up an episode on its own.  In this episode we talk about the beginnings of the band,  and of our own fandom, as well as discussing the set list of their current tour and our opinions of that and a controversial decision made in the set list. 

We decided to wrap a discussion about the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) into our first episode on Iron Maiden.  As they are generally considered the top band to come from the NWOBHM scene of the late 70s and early 80s, we wanted to shine a light on the scene that birthed them, and the bands that influenced so many metal bands afterwards that don't always get their due, like Diamond Head...

This is one of out more fun episodes, where we take an objective look at the hair/glam metal scene that emerged from the Sunset Strip in the 80s, why it blew up the way it did, why it died, and if it's really fair that it still gets shit on so hard compared to other music genres.  

This podcast goes to 11!  Today we're talking about the classic heavy metal mocumentary: "This is Spinal Tap", some of the stories that influenced it, and our favorite gags/jokes in the film.  All that and some metal news!

Our last epsiode on Priest!  This is our "list" episode, so we just talk favorite albums and songs, along with some corrections from the two previous episodes by Mike.

Back at it with Judas Priest part 2! This is a, ahem, "looser" episode than most but we go more into detail on the Priest albums of their peak, and Mike learns why former drummer is "controversial", to say the least. 

Part 1 of our Judas Priest retrospective.  In this episode, we do a general overview of the band, and what the mean to us.  Think of it as our "fanboy" episode, before diving deeper into their most important albums.

On the 9th anniversary of his tragic passing, we sat down and discussed the solo career of the metal legend, Ronnie James Dio, and his influence on the music we love.  If you are new to the podcast, check out our episodes on Rainbow and the Dio years of Black Sabbath to the full scope of his career. 

We're back with Part 2 of AC/DC!  This week we delve a bit deeper into the albums and eras of the hard rock legends!

We're back at full strength after a brief hiatus, this time with Part 1 of a two part series on AC/DC.  In this episode, we talk about what AC/DC meant to us growing up, how we were first exposed to them, and discuss a bit of the Bon vs Brian debate.  All that and some personal updates and a discussion about seeing KISS during their "End of the Road" tour. 

One last solo episode from Big Frog, talking about one of his biggest inspirations: The maestro himself, Yngwie Malmsteen! So hold on to your buts, and get ready for some shredding!

Another solo Frog episode on Queensryche! Once again, we hope to be back at full strength very soon once Mike's crazy ass work schedule lightens up!

Sorry about the delay folks! Big Frog is solo on this one again, as Mike was on vacation in Florida! Talking Rush this week, and hopefully we can get back to our regular schedule soon!

More than anything else other than comedy, metal is best experienced LIVE.  Last episode we talked about our favorite live albums, this week we're talking live concerts we've been to.  We're talking a few of the best shows we ever saw, some of the worst, and ones we wish we could have seen. This and the metal news, and a concert report from Big Frog!

This week we're all about live albums! We talk some of our favorite live albums, and discuss what they meant to us over the years.  Sadly, it seems like the live album is not as big as it once was, so who knows when the next great one will be!  All this, and our "Week in Metal"!

We kick off the new year proper with a bit of a companion piece to our underrated albums episode: Underrated bands! We each have our own list, and Frog brings out on online list he came across as well.  For "This Week in Metal", we talk about an article that turned out to be fake that had Frog messaging all his friends before realizing it was bullshit.  All this and MORE!

Happy new year, metalheads! We're kicking off our 1st episode of 2019 (recorded in 2018, it's like time travel) with our final episode on Black Sabbath! We decided to get some BONUS Dio talk, before our main topic of discussion: the last Black Sabbath leg, pre-reunion. We're talking the massively underrated Tony Martin albums, Ian Gillan's one year in Sabbath, Ray Gillen's stint as live vocalist b...

We're back!  After taking some time off for Thanksgiving, and dealing with a few transportation issues, we finally are back in the *studio!  This time we're talking about Ronnie James Dio's **three different tenures with the band, and how he reinvigorated them before it fell apart twice.  Also, for our "Week in Metal" (more like 2 weeks plus), we talk Nita Strauss' album, Big Frog's impressions of...

We take a more in depth look at the classic Black Sabbath lineup, talk about our favorite albums and songs  and some off the riffmaster's greatest riffs.  In our "Week in Metal" we walk about seeing Ghost live at the Speckles Theater in San Diego!