BEAST IN THE MAZE

    Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast! We've arrived at episode 5, the unrelenting force which is Iron Maiden's third album, the first to showcase legendary vocalist Bruce Dickinson. This is an exciting one for us, and we hope it will be for you, too. Last week we posted some links to help people get acquainted with this treasure of heavy metal, including a few live picks. We'll include links to those below, here, as well.      You can hear the episode on your favorite podcast platform (links are embedded in the menu area of this page), or right here on the built-in player. Feel free to join the conversation in the comments or via email, twitter, or facebook. Matt's live picks:  1.  Hallowed be Thy Name  from the Beast on the Road tour. This was recorded right around the time the album came out, and features the "Beast" lineup in full force. This song is the final track on the album and remains in contention for best Iron Maiden epi

    If you ever owned The Number of the Beast on CD, it may or may not have contained the song "Total Eclipse." Even the recent digipak releases (pictured on the left above) exclude it. The story goes that it was competing with "Gangland" for which song would make the album and which song would be a B-side for one of the singles.      When the album was initially released, "Gangland" was chosen, and "Total Eclipse" was excluded. Since then, band members have expressed that perhaps they made the wrong choice, and it was added to some of the subsequent releases. In fact, while "Gangland" has never been performed live, there are performances of "Total Eclipse" to be found on the internet (such as this one ).     What do you think? Did Maiden make the right decision? Is the 8 song version better, or should they both be on there? Let us know!

Next week on Beast in the Maze,  we tackle one of the most revered and monolithic albums in the history of heavy metal - Iron Maiden's 1982 album The Number of the Beast.  The first Iron Maiden album to feature lead singer Bruce Dickinson, and the last to feature drummer Clive Burr, many consider this record to be Maiden's crowning achievement. If you've only heard one or two Iron Maiden songs, chances are they're songs from this record.  Here are a few quick links to familiarize yourself with the album before listening to our discussion of it: First, the Wikipedia article , which gives all the basic info including track list, singles, etc. Second, the album playlist on YouTube , which is self-explanatory. Finally, Matt's live pick, which is a performance of epic closing track " Hallowed be thy Name ," taken from the Beast on the Road tour. We hope you enjoy the listen, and look forward to seeing you Monday.

Hey everyone! There's no album discussion this week, but we wanted to stop by and address some things we feel we have left out or gotten wrong in the previous episodes. We talk a little bit more about peripheral Phish figure The Dude of Life, and do some general corrections about Iron Maiden, including identifying some songs which do  in fact contain cowbell. If there's anything we touch on that you'd like to hear us go more in-depth on, or if there's anything we've gotten wrong, please let us know - while we are each very enthusiastic fans, we aren't always experts, and part of the reason for the podcast was for us to learn more, so please don't hesitate!  The embedded player on this site will still have our Lawn Boy episode, but you can download the addendum episode on all of the various podcast platforms.

When you have a podcast about two completely different bands like Iron Maiden and Phish, lots of different influences and things which remind us of the bands and their songs tend to get tossed around. In case anyone wants to delve any further into these, here are some of the bands/artists we mentioned in our Lawn Boy  episode, along with a handful of links. The band names themselves are clickable links to their Wikipedia entry, and are followed by YouTube selections. 1. Minibosses - a rock band which does covers of songs from the Nintendo. We bring them up specifically in reference to the Megaman 2 Stage Select theme - here's a link to their Megaman 2 medley . 2. Joan of Arc - an experimental indie / art rock band from Chicago helmed by Tim Kinsella, they are known for clever lyrics over complex, often challenging soundscapes which exist in the margins between music as we view it traditionally, and art in a broader sense. Here's a playlist of their album A Portable Model Of..

    This week, the guys from Beast in the Maze  take on Phish's second studio album, 1990's Lawn Boy . An arguably more light-hearted album than our previous Phish discussion ( Rift), it features a brass section, and contains many Phish classics such as "Reba" and "Bathtub Gin." Join us as we discuss the jazzier feel to many of the tunes, the use of sound effects in the background, and the "true" meaning of "The Squirming Coil." We also reveal which album we'll be taking on next as we switch to Iron Maiden in two weeks.  Note: Our episodes are scheduled to debut at 12:00am every other Monday, but individual podcast platforms take different amounts of time to post new episodes. For most platforms this is less than 30 minutes, but there may be exceptions. If your platform doesn't yet have the new episode, you can always play the current episode via our built-in player on this site.

    Coming up next week, the guys from Beast in the Maze take on Phish's second album, 1990's Lawn Boy . This album is quite different from the last Phish album we discussed ( Rift), not only in terms of songwriting and lyrical tone, but also due to the presence of a horn section. Like Rift , the album contains many tunes which are concert staples. An arguably more light-hearted album in comparison, it would become their first album to be distributed by Elektra records, which occurred a couple of years after its initial release.     You can find the album, and information about it, all over the internet, but we've provided links to  the wikipedia article  as well as  the YouTube playlist . The episode itself will be available a week from today, on 7/13/20. We hope you'll join us! In the meantime, feel free to leave any comments or suggestions below.