Next Podcast Episode Uploaded and Reflections On It

So I uploaded the next episode of the Quimby's Bookstore podcast. This episode I interviewed Jon Kristiansen and Tara G. Warrior talking about their book Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries (Bazillion Points Publishers). Jon started Slayer Mag in Norway in 1985 and put out 20 issues over the span of 25 years. The zine covered a variety of extreme metal bands, including Emperor, Slayer, Kreator, Nihilist, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Cathedral, Entombed, Morbid, Napalm Death, and more. The Onion AV Club called founder Jon Kristiansen “one of the best primary sources for facts and stories about Mayhem, Varg, and what really happened back in the day." The Chicago Reader called this book "a chronicle of death and black metal at their births but also a personal coming-of-age story." It's an awesome 744 page hardcover with tons of pictures and reproduction pages from every issue, and there's even material from the precursor Live Wire zine. It's also part memoir. Co-editor Tara interviewed Jon all about his experiences with the zine, and then together they decided what to include.

When it came time for editing, it took me a lot of playing around with the volume since there were 3 people talking, and each of us had different volume. That was very time consuming. I also added some music in it, which I think helps, if you need some help understanding examples of the music. I also edited out anything that was redundant, like if we got interuptted and then had to start again, if one of us, if there was a long pause, and so on. And oh! Another reason I think it was important to include music snippets is because I have this feeling about reading about music without hearing the music -- it doesn't help m much if I don't hear the music. When I read music reviews, no matter how many adjectives you use and in what combination, nothing replaces actually hearing the music. Sure, you can give me an idea like "Sounds like this band" and so on. But even that isn't the same. It doesn't help that I neglected to say who the bands are. Well, I included songs by Bathory and one by Watain.

Also, I know that all the church burning and murder stuff had been covered in a variety of places, so although the conversation touched on some of that briefly, I tried to approach the interview from the angle of independent zine publishing. We talked for a nice long time, and I felt like we had a good vibe going.

I would have liked to record the actual event afterwards in order for putting that up on the podcast but I don't have a very good mic -- in fact, I just use the mic on my Macbook. That would never capture the people speaking at an event.

Something that was really refreshing was that occassionally the conversation would take these unexpectedly hilarious turns, things that were decideldy NOT metal, which I enjoyed, because that was sort of surreal but then also very normal, as if to remind the listener that we're really just three geeks in a basement at Quimby's. I had read that one of the reasons that Jon and Tara became such good friends is because of all the people that would write letters to Jon, she was the only person who brought up the Everely Brothers or something like that.

It’s available for your listening pleasure, in a variety of formats and places for you to stream or download, including a link to I-Tunes where you can subscribe to the podcast so you can hear every episode when they come out, and they're free.


Podcast: quimbys.podbean.com


Book available: quimbys.com