Last week's show.

You can doubtless see that there's been no playlist posted for last week's show.

That's because Tapping the Ether was pre-empted to broadcast an evening football game.

Such interruptions are rare, but do occasionally happen. We apologize to anyone tuning in expecting to hear the show. Unfortunately we only found out about the pre-emption about 30 minutes before the show was scheduled to start, and due to technical difficulties with the game it looked like Ether might be on after all, before the problems were sorted out and the game went on as planned.

I'm working on a way of getting some advanced notice of such interruptions to the show in future, so that I can post such programming changes here on the blog.

Playlist for Sept 16

It was Homecoming Weekend here--an excuse to get nostalgic and have fun. So the playlist is "classic"heavy and thrash light for this week. I picked up some cool stuff from the 8o's (Judas Priest and Queensryche) and slipped it into the show.


Triumph...............Little Boy Blues
Lizzy Borden........Eyes of a Stranger
Judas Priest.........Johnny B Good
Ozzy Osborne.......I Don't Know
Black Sabbath.......Heaven & Hell
Consortium Project....Immigrant Song
Queensryche............Gonna Get Close to You
Dream Theater........New Millenium
Queensryche............Breaking the Silence
Ascension Theory....Lockstep
Cloudscape................The Last Breath
Rush...........................Ghost of a Chance
Rush...........................Alien Shore
Triumph....................Time Goes By
Judas Priest..............Saints in Hell
Pagan's Mind.............Dimensions of Fire
Savatage.....................This Isn't What We Meant
Savatage.....................Mozart and Madness
Iron Maiden...............Reicarnation of Benjamin Breeg

Playlist for Sept 9

Well, despite the confusion caused by the new schedule, we managed to play a nice mix of music tonight. A little less of the thrashier stuff, but we slipped in some new bands (Ascension Theory) and some old favourites.

Kiss.........................Going Blind
Van Halen................Mean Street
Yngwie Malmsteen...Anthem
Ascension Theory.....Saturn's Reign
Iron Maiden..............Caught Somewhere in Time
Helloween.................Mission Motherland
Helloween.................If I Knew
Kamelot.....................Nothing Ever Dies
Rush..........................Finding My Way
Rush..........................Freewill
Queensryche.............Empire
Iron Maiden..............For the Greater Good of God
Iron Maiden..............Lord of Light
Judas Priest...............Judas Rising
Cloudscape................Shadowland
Type O Negative.........Cinnamon Girl
Voivod.......................After All
Voivod.......................Odds and Frauds

Bands in italics are Canadian

Programming Announcement

Apparently there's been some confusion over the new broadcast schedule at CFRC. Tapping the Ether was moved from 8-10 to 9-11--unfortunately nobody thought to tell me.

We will have the situation cleared up this week, and hopefully the show will be staying in it's current time slot. In the meantime, I apologize for both the confusion and the inconvenience. Thank you especially to The Christopher Currie for coming in early at short notice to start his show.

Forgotten Treasure

Largely overshadowed by their more successful Operation: Mindcrime and Empire, Queensryche's criminally underrated Rage for Order sounds as fresh today as it did in 1986. There's a near-perfect balance between accessible and experimental. Songs like "Walk in the Shadows" and "The Whisper" are straight-up metal tunes--dark yet catchy. "Screaming in Digital" and "Neue Regel" on the other hand, are like nothing every heard before or since, and the cover of Dalbello's "Gonna Get Close to You" has to be one of the most disturbing cover tunes I've ever encountered. Even the mandatory ballads (Rage has three) are far above and beyond the standard mid-80's hair band power ballads. Although the band changed direction for their phenomenal breakthrough release, Operation Mindcrime, I can't help but regret that the band dropped the direction they were taking with Rage after only one release.

Granted the critics thought it was pretentious, and a lot of metal fans couldn't cope with it, but time has proven it still a classic after 20 years. The fact that the band's tour last year featured several songs from the album, and that Operation: Mindcrime II contains some strong "Rage"-era undertones, suggests that maybe the band might not totally disagree. Although the band has never claimed it to be the case, I've always thought Rage was a very subtle concept album, based around vampires in general, and Anne Rice's vampire novels in particular. The songs, the band image, and the videos all contributed to this, but maybe I'm just reading something into it that ain't there.

Playlist for September 2

I think we struck a nice balance this week. Classic and obscure, new and old. A little prog, a littl thrash, and little doom and gloom...

ZZ Top................................I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
AC/DC................................Back in Black
Triumph.............................Rock You Down
Scorpians...........................Media Overkill
Van Halen..........................Don't Tell Me What Love Can Do
Accept................................Balls to the Wall
Rush...................................Bastille Day
Cloudscape........................1000 Souls
Pyramaze..........................The Bone Carver
Iron Maiden.....................These Colours Don't Run
Iron Maiden.....................Brighter Than a Thousand Suns
Kategory V.......................Risk and Sacrifice
Terrasphere.....................Under the Black Moon
Voivod..............................Odds and Frauds
Lacuna Coil......................Swamped
H.I.M................................Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly
Katatonia.........................Burn the Remembrance
Opeth...............................Deliverance

THE NEW IRON MAIDEN IS HERE!!! And it rocks! It should be processed and available for airplay next week (I snuck a couple of tracks in this week). We also have the new CD from the mighty Motorhead, titled Kiss of Death.

The new releases from Nightmare Records continue to impress. The Cloudscape CD is very impressive and the Pyramaze is really growing on me.