The Metal Shop

Often considered one of the biggest blunders for KISS, the solo albums marked the start of a decline in popularity for the band. We asked ourselves: Could this project be salvaged as a proper KISS album? We cherry picked tracks from all 4 to put together a hypothetical track list, just in time to get sued by their avatars or something!

On this episode we talk about the new Metallica album, and the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame

Little bit of a grab bag episode, we're talking about seeing Maiden live on the recent tour, and our thoughts on Rob Zombie's "Munsters"

We're getting meta with our metal. Talking about our favorite (and some least favorite) metal songs that are about metal, plus some metal news!

Ok, so Covid isn't actually GONE, but apparently we a decided it was anyway.  We do a run down on the state of metal after the worst pandemic in a century, and discuss the Hall of Fame nomination we thought would never come.

We're back! Sorry about the unexplained absence, we both just had a really busy start to 2022.  We're back to recording more regularly and have some fun things planned coming up. This episode we're talking about Rob Zombie. He's solo career and film making one. Enjoy!

The year is almost over, and for this episode we're talking White Zombie, and more!

Happy Halloween everyone! Sorry about the delay (life is hectic lately) but just in time we have our episode on Iommi's most evil riffs, along with some metal news!

You heard the worst, now here's the best! Our favorite cover songs!

For every epic cover song in rock and metal history, there are probably ten awful ones.  We're going "undercover" to unearth 10 of the most heinous crimes in cover song history.

Sometimes even our favorite artists make huge mistakes, these are some of the biggest missteps in rock and metal history (In our opinion)

We're getting close to reopening and summer is around the corner, what better time to talk party songs?

Nothing fancy this time, just talking some more kick ass guitar riffs!

We decided to make this our annual tradition, we break down the 2021 Hall of Fame nominees, and who we think has the best chance of getting it

This is it, the episode VH fans have been waiting for: our final tribute to the legendary Edward Van Halen is a deep dive into the self titled debut of the mighty Van Halen!

We send off 2020 and talk about the goings on in the world of metal in the bizarre year that was.  We'll be back soon with our final Van Halen episode!

We continue our trip in the way back machine, covering the Dave era of the mighty Van Halen!

On October 6th, we lost a legend.  We decided to do an album by album dive into his career, but for fun, we're doing it in reverse!  In part 1 we'll cover "A Different Kind of Truth", Van Halen III, and the entire Sammy Hagar era.

The wind blows through your hair as you slay the mighty red dragon and save the realm!  Not really, but power metal will paint that picture for you! Is it cheesy? Sure, but at least it's fun.

With all the protests and general unrest, we thought this would be a great time to release an episode on one of the most controversial bands of all time, Body Count. This one is a bit more politically charged than other episodes, but, fuck it.  Black Lives Matter.

Last episode we followed the band from its origins to the end of the classic era, when Fast Eddie Clarke left.  This episode we pick up from there, and follow the lineup shifts up until Lemmy's passing in 2015.

We're finally tackling Lemmy and the legendary Motorhead! This week we follow him through his days as a roadie, Hawkwind, and the classic era of the legendary band!

pretty straight forward. We continue our dive into 70s influences on heavy metal with the legendary Led Zeppelin!

This week, we cover the original shock rocker and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Alice Cooper! We discuss his career and influence on metal over the years.

We're baaaaaack.  Had to give Frog a bit of recovery time from his surgery, as well as figure out how we're gonna do our podcast in quarantine! This episode we're just catching up a bit and chatting about metal, how quarantine is going, and the conspiracy theory that the CIA wrote the Scorpions' "Wind of Change"   Hopefully the quality isn't too bad, still working out the bugs a bit.

Big Frog with part 2 of his solo episodes on The Scorpions!

Solo episode from Big Frog that he recorded right before surgery, talking about the legendary metal band, The Scorpions!

We originally meant to get this out around Valentine's Day, but better late than never.  Grab your chick, get your lighters out and check out some power ballads.

The ticket saga ends as Ozzy cancels his North American tour definitively. We decided to review the newest Ozzy album "Ordinary Man", and just talk a bit more about the man himself as his career begins to come to a close.

This week we're keeping it simple: our favorite deep cuts from our favorite bands!

Little bit different concept, but this week we talk "time  capsule albums", albums that for whatever reason defined a specific time and place for us, and some stories to go with it.  Kind of  a fun, shooting the shit episode.  Enjoy!

This week we talk our  personal top 5 controversial songs from metal acts! We also discuss the impact these controversies had on the industry and society, as well as the latest news from Ozzy Osbourne.  All that and Mike piggy backing off of Big Frog's episode on racism.

Just in time for MLK Day.... almost, Big Frog is tackling the issue of racism, in the latest episode of Frogsplaining!

Bit of a loose episode for the new year!  We discuss the name change, Mike's surgery, some album's slated for 2020, update on the Hall of Fame, as well as the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame!

Happy Holidays! We're back just in time to squeeze out one last episode for 2019,  talking about cook fantasy band lineups and our favorite albums if the decade as we go into 2020.  All that, and our concert report for Ace Frehley!

After some technical difficulties and some prior commitments frog Mike, Big Frog returns from an unintentional hiatus with a solo episode  talking about his favorite concert videos!

In another episode of Frogsplaining, Big Frog talks about the Chargers again, as the NFL hits it's mid-season.

Little bit of a different episode than usual, but this week we're talking about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  We go over the nominees, and go a bit more in depth with a few of the notable (for us) bands that have been nominated.  This is your ONE chance to hear us talk about Whitney Houston!

We're talking the best live bands of all time! (In our opinions), some sound glitches early on, so please be patient.

We're officially in "Halloween Season", and what better way to kick it off than with a discussion about the legendary Horror Punk originators, Misfits? We also have our first guest, comedian, musician and host of the Degenerate Podcast, Ryan Shores!

So our podcast tends to skew a bit older with our music taste and listeners, so we thought we'd bust out some "newer" bands (Frog considers anything after like, 1999 new, so beat with us) for folks to check out that they may not have listened to before.

We all started somewhere, so here are OUR picks for metal albums to introduce people to the genre with!

Did you like our solos episode? Want some MORE bad ass guitar? Well you came to the right place. Think of it as a companion peace, but here are some of our favorite riffs of all time!

The long awaited solo episode from Big Frog:  Randy Rhoads!  Mike stepped aside on this one to let Frog have at on  his favorite guitarist of all time.

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, Saxon and the Tygers of Pan Tang!

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 before Tony replaced him on Eternal Idol, and Mike's hatred for the Glen Hughes led "Seventh Star", plus as always, the Week in Metal!  Enjoy!   Also, our apologies for the audio this weak, bear with us.

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 her live show, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Styxx on tour with a surprising opener!     *The San Diego Downtown Library **for the sake of this episode, the band Heaven and Hell is being considered Black Sabbath.

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!

Sorry about the delay, we had some health issues last week, but we're back and better(?) than ever!  For "Yhis Week in Metal", we discuss the new Ace Frehley album "Spaceman", KISS tickets going on sale for 2019, our upcoming Ghost show, and Ozzy's makeup dates announced with NEW opening act!  Then it's on to our main topic: The Grand-Daddys of metal, Black Sabbath!  This episode we're going to talk less about specifics, and more about our personal histories with the music, etc

After a couple of setbacks, we FINALLY get to our long awaited (at least by us) episode about RAINBOW! We're both really psyched about this one as we both have a huge passion for Ritchie Blackmore AND Dio! Enjoy!

Big Frog is flying solo again thanks to Mike being sick! We'll be back next week with Rainbow, but for now, here's Frog talking about the guitarists that influenced him (and the ones he thinks are over rated)

Part 1 of our look at the career of the legendary guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore.  While we will discuss several line ups, the main focal point will be the Mark II lineup.  We also debut our new  "This Week in Metal" segment where we start each episode off with a quick rundown of some current events.

This week Big Frog is flying solo due to some issues w/ transportation. He gives a rundown of recent concerts he's seen.  Mike will be back next week in part 1 of our Ritchie Blackmore episodes: Deep Purple.

Hammer pants. Attitude. Depressed rock stars. Gratitious use of the letter X. It's the 1990s!  This week Mike and Big Frog discuss what the 90s were like for them, the music they loved during that time, and the comics that influenced them. So sit back, shoot some heroin, and pound a bottle of Surge, we're getting X-TREME!

It's Part 2 of the KISStravaganza!  We finish up the history of the band, and Big Frog vents on why he really dislikes the current version.

You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world..... KISS!.  It's part one of our two part KISStravaganza. In part one, we cover a basic history of the band leading up to it's current incarnation (with a detour of Big Frog talking shit on Ritchie Blackmore's hat somehow)

Whether it be because of tragedy or egos, sometimes bands have to do the unthinkable: replace their lead singer, to varying results.  This week Mike and Big Frog discuss replacement singers: the good, bad and ugly!

No catchy title this week, sadly. This week, Mike and Frog discuss what they feel are underrated albums from well known bands, and a special bonus about a band that most of us probably hadn't heard of, courtesy of Big Frog!

Our first episode focusing on comedy.  This week, Mike and Big Frog talk about one of the greatest comedians of all time, and his two landmark specials: Eddie Murphy!

David Lee Roth may not be 'Talkin Bout Love, but Mike and Frog are 'talkin bout Van Halen!  In this episode they discuss how they were introduced to the Mighty Van Halen, their favorite albums, and Mike goes on a slightly unhinged rant about Sammy Hagar.

In this episode, Big Frog and Mike tackle the most succesful of the "Big Four", Metallica.  They discuss their personal history with their music, favorite albums, and go in to detail about seeing them live on their most recent tour.

It's our first episode!  In this episode Mike and Big Frog discuss how they got into heavy metal and comedy, tell stories from their youth, and discuss some of their biggest influences musically and comedically.  Consider this a "getting to know us" session. Future episodes will include things like "themes" and "structure"