[Beardo is echo-ey for the first quarter of this episode - calm your tits]

Jim went to Brutal Assault. Beardo went to Beyond the Gates. Neither of them wants to talk about the bands.

Instead: 5G across a fortress for five days, toilets with a traffic-light system, a wristband that means you never queue for a pint, and a round that came to £3.91. Then the harder question — why the UK can't do any of it, and who actually owns that problem.

Also: the £10 band you've never heard of, why every town needs a Big Gary, and a Swedish man with a bag of maggots.

No guest this week. Just a stock-take.

Tony Boden put on death metal shows in Brighton — four mates each risking £500 on a Tuesday to get Nile through the door. Twenty years on he's at Out Of Line in Berlin: booking, promoting, some A&R, some management, and teaching music export at Berklee.

He tells Jim and Beardo how it actually works. What an agent does that a promoter doesn't. Why your dashboard numbers don't predict who turns up. Why Facebook still outsells everything for tickets.

Also: a venue two hundred over capacity, the police at the door, and the time Watain sat down in catering.

Part Two of our Earache Records deep dive — and this one went off-script. We sat down with Al Dawson (Earache US) to fact-check twenty years of label history… and then founder Digby Pearson, who it turns out was one of two people watching the stream, texted his way into the call — bringing an announcement with him: a new signing he describes as "one of the biggest pop producers in the world", making a death metal album for Earache.

Also in this episode:

– The tennis match that put Entombed on MTV

– What Columbia really spent marketing Carcass's Heartwork — and what it sold

– The Bring Me The Horizon Warped Tour merch call: "$50,000… a night"

– The Repugnant demo Tobias Forge sent Earache, and never got a reply to

– Skindred vs Universal: twelve staff against four hundred for a UK number one

– Why Digby passed on Blood Incantation. Twice.

0:00 Preamble & setup

1:20 Part Two begins — picking up Part One's questions

12:54 Entombed, MTV, and a tennis bet

18:42 Why the Columbia deal really ended

54:26 "$60 million to sell out" — the last independents

1:05:47 Digby crashes his own label's interview

1:10:06 The announcement: the secret Swedish signing

1:13:07 The Ghost demo Earache ignored

1:35:27 Blood Incantation: the one that got away

1:38:44 BMTH: $50k a night in merch

2:04:56 Skindred vs Universal: the chart war

2:14:02 "I shunned all the -tions"

Temple of Bleh EP 42 — Earache Records: From Scum to Sofa, Part Two, ft. Al Dawson & Digby Pearson.

Get yer tinfoil hats ready - we're discussing Earache's transition from Grind to Grandad.

@BeardODoom

@beardodoom

Documentary banter is about 53 minutes in.

Sorry for the audio - the podcast version will be normalised.

Ducking out the Bullets and Octane rehearsal studio to guest host this episode, Gene Louis spills his passion for drumming with Modern Drummer founder and CEO, David Frangioni.

https://pipemanradio.com/

https://blacklitedistrict.net/

https://auxiliummusic.com/

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/believes-board-backs-takeover-bid-from-ladegaillerie-led-consortium1/

https://audioassemble.com/distrokid-vs-tunecore/

State of play going forward.

https://store.decibelmagazine.com/collections/books/products/the-scott-burns-sessions

Scott and David pop by to discuss their new book ‘The Scott Burns

Sessions: A Life in Death Metal 1987 – 1997’, and take a stroll down

memory lane.

https://wearesovereignband.bigcartel.com/

Laura pops into le ToB for distinctly millenial discourse.

https://www.msk.com/attorneys-Eric_German Eric pops in to do Bleh's favourite thing - engage in extremely long form conversations about the commercialisation and elevation of outlier cultures and heavy metal music. :)

https://ipecac.com/ Marc stops by to talk about his extensive career in music, the challenges of the modern day industry... and we also talk a little bit about Roadrunner, as is standard.

Michael joins ToB to talk about his time at Roadrunner Records as Head of Sales.

http://www.escapethefate.com/

Rob takes a pew to discuss ETF's newest album - Out of the Shadows. Check it out now!

In which I also spill beer on my keyboard, like a dick.

Matt and Joel join ToB to discuss the possible resurgence of Nu-Metal, and their own experiences of the movement.