Etan Rosenbloom

Ghoul

August 1, 2016

Dungeon Bastards
10-Sided DIEDIEKILLKILL
dB rating: 8/10

Contrarian

December 21, 2015

Polemic
Only death is real
dB Rating: 8/10

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: 4 Music Biz Stories to Watch in 2015

January 14, 2015

2014 was a year of major tumult for the music biz. CD and download sales took a beating as streaming continued to skyrocket; at the same time, streaming services took a beating from many quarters of the industry, and not a single one of them has proven profitable. U2 apologized for the biggest album release in history, and…

Botanist’s Otrebor Interviews Pestilential Shadows

December 11, 2014

I consider Botanist to be one of modern black metal’s great “projects.” Germinated by a solitary San Franciscan named Otrebor, it’s a band whose music is both utterly bizarre (floraphilic paeans from a misanthropic hermit, rendered only in drums, voice and hammered dulcimer) and emotionally devastating. This is all to say that when Otrebor tells…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: Chattin’ Charts with Billboard’s Keith Caulfield

December 1, 2014

Music sales and airplay charts document the most heard and purchased artists, albums and songs in music. Death metal and grindcore never get airplay and barely sell anything compared to less-niche genres. So the logic should be simple: charts are irrelevant to extreme metal bands and fans, right? Not entirely. The fact that almost nothing…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: Music Publishing 101 with Century Media & BMG Chrysalis

October 6, 2014

When you write a song, by default you become that song’s music publisher – the entity that decides how it’s used, and gets paid when it is. Ideally, every time someone buys your album, streams your song on Spotify or hears it in a TV show or movie, you get paid as that song’s publisher. Managing…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: A Peek Inside Profound Lore & Housecore Records

September 8, 2014

From a listener perspective, the most important department at any record label is the A&R department. They’re the folks that sift through demos and pitches from pushy managers and attorneys to decide which acts you can buy at your local Walmart (or wherever you pick up your Krieg records). And while the A&R capacity of…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: Band Managers Ryan Downey & Mark Vieira

July 2, 2014

Think of a band manager as the “mom” of a band. While they’re not necessarily involved in the music-making, they oversee many of the behind-the-scenes logistics that make it possible. As you’ll read below, there’s a whole lot of people and decisions swirling around even a young band, so it pays to have someone that knows…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: PR-Mageddon with Earsplit and Catharsis PR

May 5, 2014

To a music journalist, a publicist can either be a trusted source of the tunes and information we need to get our job done, or an annoying omnipresence in our inboxes, constantly sending mass e-mails with hyperbolic language about shit bands that don’t deserve the publicity in the first place. For a band spending its…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: Scion’s Jeri Yoshizu on the Future of Corporate Branding

April 10, 2014

If you’re anything like me, you’ve welcomed the last five years of Scion’s patronage of metal with a mix of gratitude and suspicion. No doubt, they’ve made it possible for fans to hear new tunes and see lives shows from some of the best bands in extreme music, usually at zero cost to all parties…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: Pig Destroyer’s Scott Hull Talks Corporate Branding

April 2, 2014

Back when I started getting into punk and metal, I was naïve enough to believe that ideals were enough to keep someone making music that barely sold and appealed to almost nobody. Of course, my parents were paying my way through middle and high school in those days. How could I have understood that the…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: Booking Agents Nathan Carson & Dave Shapiro

March 7, 2014

If ever you’ve set up a tour for your band, you know what a logistical nightmare it can be just to make sure your bandmates actually show up to the van, let alone finding venues willing to book you and somehow breaking even each night. Imagine doing that shit. This is the domain of the…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: White Wizzard’s Jon Leon and Attorney Eric German Break Down Breaking Up

January 2, 2014

Being a metal fan means having an opinion about whether Slayer is Slayer without Jeff and Dave, or which lineup of Death reigns supreme. You’re used to haggling over the creative impact of band member turnover. What you might not know is that even the most amicable lineup change can involve a host of legal…

KILLING IS MY BUSINESS: Licensing Specialists Jeff Gray & Sam James Velde

December 5, 2013

So, maybe your metal band ain’t destined for a multi-million dollar CGI family film. There are still opportunities to license your music for movies, TV and other audiovisual media. If you’re serious about it, you’ll need to cozy up to music supervisors (they’re paid to find the perfect music for a project) and licensing specialists (who pitch music…