The Pedal To The Metal tournament has remained one of the most controversial tournaments in history mainly due to certain fan bases arguing over the legitimacy of the tournament. People have always questioned how certain bands have defeated other bands and it always seems to center on Iron Maiden. They have been in the tournament every year and they have never won the tournament yet. We’ve seen Motley Crue, Judas Priest (2X Champs), Kreator, Destruction, and Queensryche claim the title, but never them. The fact of the matter is that I post the article on every band’s Facebook page to try and alert the various fan bases, but it’s up the band to share the posts. If they do not then you obviously do not see it and therefore when you finally catch wind of the tournament, you cry foul that Iron Maiden was eliminated. I changed the tournament up the last couple of years to include newer bands, but this year we are going back to the beginning when things were simpler. First, we have shortened how many bands are in the tournament from 32 to 16 and the last thing we did is that it is only going to involve 1980’s hard rock and heavy metal bands.
In fact, we are only including the bands that could be considered the elite of the list and while it’s up for debate, we have chosen the bands. The following bands will be in the tournament this year: Queensryche (defending champions), Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Dio, Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, Motorhead, Def Leppard, and Scorpions are the qualified bands. The last four spots of the tournament will be contested between eight other bands with the top four qualifying for the tournament. The eight bands are Twisted Sister, Skid Row, W.A.S.P., Dokken, Ratt, Accept, Y&T, and King Diamond. The voting will occur in two places: one place you can visit to vote will be on my Twitter page @TheMonsterHour with the second being the blog’s very own Facebook page. We’ll also be hosting the vote on my radio show page for Pedal To The Metal Radio which is what the tournament was named after. You will have 24HRS to cast your vote and the top four bands will move on so choose wisely. Stay tuned for the rest of the tournament news and brackets to follow!
One of the hardest deaths to deal with in the last two years or so was the passing of the great Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead. It signified the true end of an era in the rock and metal world as one of it’s most prolific and battle tested veterans had passed away. The question moving forward from that was what were the remaining members of Motorhead going to do and we have an answer for at least one of them. Phil Campbell who was Motorhead’s guitarist from 1984 all the way to 2015 started a band with his kids and vocalist Neil Starr called Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons. The band is preparing to release their first album together entitled The Age Of Absurdity which will hit the shelves on January 26TH via Nuclear Blast. To hold fans over until then, the band has unleashed the performance based video for Welcome To Hell and fans will not be disappointed. The track is fierce and you can definitely hear the Motorhead influence in the track, but this is more guitar driven than Motorhead was. Starr talked about the album saying, “Writing and recording this album was a lot of fun. We got to record at Rockfield studios where so many great artists had been over the years, it really was inspirational. Hearing the blistering riffs that the 
We are feeling generous here at Moshpits and Movies considering there hasn’t been that many posts lately. So, we figured that we would give you a second album of the week and we wanted to cover a band that we hadn’t done before and they had to be a classic metal band. So, we looked no further than New Wave of British Heavy Metal band Saxon who in October of 1981 would release the last of what fans have called a part of a trilogy in Denim and Leather (Wheels Of Steel and Strong Arm Of The Law came before it). The band which was made up of Biff Byford (Vocals), Graham Oliver (Guitar), Paul Quinn (Guitar), Steve Dawson (Bass), and Pete Gill (Drums) who subsequently this would be his last album as he would break his hand and then join Motorhead right after. As far as I can see the album went gold while it peaked on the Billboard charts at number nine. The album spawned two hit singles while remaining one of the most legendary albums the band ever produced with it’s classic lineup.
1.Princess of the Night– The opening track on the album that deals with the narrators love and obsession with a steam locomotive of the LMS Princess Royal Class. 5/5
6. And the Bands Played On– A track that the band wrote in tribute to a show they did on the 1980 Monster Of Rock festival as they name check every band on the bill. 5/5
There is a significance with today’s date and the newest edition of Cover Battle and I’ll explain it to you because it’s a special one. A couple of weeks ago, we had Van Halen take on Mott The Hoople as to who did You Really Got Me by The Kinks better. Well, you all voted and chose Van Halen as the better version. So back to today’s cover battle which is very special because on December 11, 2015 Motorhead would play their last ever show with Lemmy Kilmister who would sadly pass away on December 28, 2015. The last song that they ever played together was the classic 1979 track Overkill and we have chosen it as today’s cover battle track. This one maybe one of the best battles yet because it features a couple of juggernauts of metal as Metallica does battle with Overkill in who did the track Overkill better. It’s east vs west as Bay Area thrash legends Metallica take on New York thrash legends Overkill.
Last night was Alumni Takeover Weekend over at Bridgewater State University’s radio station WBIM 91.5FM. The reason it’s special and why I did a show is because that is my Alma Mater and I was a DJ at the radio station where I hosted the show Pedal To The Metal. It’s a tradition that has been going on for some time at the school during Homecoming weekend where alumni of the station will come and take over the station for a weekend. It’s an awesome tradition that I wish was more than just one weekend a year because it’s so nice to run into some familiar faces and hear some stories from some of the guys that came before you. I want to go ahead and thank John Coombs for putting this together once again and I hope he feels better, it wasn’t the same without him there. I also want to thank the school for allowing us to do this and the current staff at WBIM for allowing us to come and takeover the station from them. Here is my playlist from that featured a special Black Sabbath medley (of sorts).