Snakenet Metal Radio

Snakenet Metal Radio (SNMR) [http://www.snakenet.com ] is a net-based radiostation, which specialises in playing heavy metal music and its subgenres. The station was founded in 1998 by Jerry "Snake" Storch and Jeremy "Ozzman" Hill. The radio station and website has become increasingly popular amongst the metal scene around the world. This popularity is in no small part due to the fact the audio stream is driven 100% by listener requests, the music played is what the members of the site want to hear. There is a vast range of choice from a database of tens of thousands of metal songs. Coupled with an inclusive attitude with the tag line "Uniting the Metal Nation" Snakenet has thousands of active users from all over the world.

Music on Snakenet

Snakenet plays heavy metal music, and music coming from any sub-genre of heavy metal. This covers music like black metal, death metal, power metal, doom metal, thrash metal, and gothic metal. Snakenet focuses on music that could be considered underground, which does not get air play on any commercial radio station broadcasting over traditional means.

This selection of music attracts die-hard fans who use Snakenet as a channel to expand their musical taste and discover new bands they may otherwise never have heard of.

From time to time discussions arise regarding whether a certain band or genre really belongs on the station.Such discussions sometimes occur when talking about hard rock bands, glam metal or hardcore.

The only genre which is prohibited on Snakenet is nu-metal. Removing nu-metal from the station was driven once more by the members of the site who saw nu-metal as an attempt by the industry to commercialise the underground Heavy metal scene. This eroded the very aspects of Heavy metal that the fans were most passionate about. The ban on the music extends to even mentioning the genre, Snakenet's forum (called the BattleBoard) only censors one word, nu-metal.

The playlist of the station is totally controlled by the users themselves via requests. There are tens of thousands of songs in the song database. Users may make requests or "bump" other users requests in order to get them played on the stream.

Snakenet receives promo CDs from many heavy metal and mainstream record labels, as well as bands themselves and listeners. This constant expansion of the available music and the user-selected content of the broadcast makes the station extremely popular with its listeners.

As SNMR is a radio station, it helps promote the bands by providing a way for the public to hear the music they would otherwise be unable to hear without the listeners being able to download or copy the music.

Community

One of the key attractions to SNMR is the community focus, listener controlled audio stream, forums, chat channels and real world gatherings. These lead to a diverse, global userbase.

Battleboard

The Radio Station is accompanied by a discussion forum called The BattleBoard where members from all over the world can socialise. The name stems from its early origins as a political battleground in the early days of Snakenet when a handful of people would argue US politics.

The Battleboard is now split into several areas, with the focus of discussion being music orientated. Debates about bands, new albums, and concerts are the main topics. However there are active areas dedicated to pure socialising, with forums dedicated to languages other than English to encourage international activity. The posting of pornographic images and linking to pornography is banned to avoid offense as well as invoking parental restriction on the younger members of the site.

The Battleboard is used to co-ordinate the many Gatherings.

Gatherings

The friendships established on the BattleBoard are extended into an active snakenet community in the real world. In its early years of growth, Snakenet sponsored several independent metal festivals in the US. After the popularity of these events with the members, Snakenet started a series of annual metal festivals promoting independent and unsigned acts known as Metal Nation [http://www.metalnation.com] . These festivals drew members from across the US, and even some from Europe.

Every year over one hundred Snakenet Members gather at the Wacken Open Air [http://www.wacken.com] in Northern Germany. These are mostly members from Europe; however, members have flown in from New Zealand and the US, showing the tightness of the community.

In addition to these major gatherings on both sides of the Atlantic, there are regular Gatherings all over Europe. This can be as small as three people having a barbecue together or as big as 30 people renting a house for the weekend.

Snakenet members regularly meet up at many other gigs and smaller ad-hoc gatherings.

This diverse and wide-spread membership inspired the creation of a Snakenet World Map [http://map.apokalyptikum.de/] , showing the distribution of members.

Chat

Snakenet also has an IRC channel for people to chat in real time.

Rest of the Site

The Metal Bible

Besides the radio and community aspects of snakenet, members contribute heavily to an encyclopedia called The Metal Bible. The metal bible attempts to list all Heavy Metal bands and their full discography along with official reviews and member submitted content. The Metal Bible is a work in progress.

The Metal Bible allows users to rate artists and albums, and explore the ratings of artists and albums. This enables users to identify other bands or albums similar to the ones they themselves enjoy and provides a powerful tool for expanding the music taste of members.

External links

* [http://www.snakenet.com http://www.snakenet.com] Official homepage
* [http://www.frappr.com/snakenet/map/ http://www.frappr.com/snakenet/map/] Snakenet group at Frappr
* [http://www.myspace.com/snakenet http://www.myspace.com/snakenet] [http://www.myspace.com/snakenetmetalradio http://www.myspace.com/snakenetmetalradio] Myspace pages dedicated to Snakenet
* [http://snakenet.livejournal.com http://snakenet.livejournal.com] Snakenet LiveJournal
* [http://www.last.fm/group/SnakeNet%2BMetal%2BRadio http://www.last.fm/group/SnakeNet%2BMetal%2BRadio] Snakenet Last.fm page
* [http://map.apokalyptikum.de/ http://map.apokalyptikum.de/] Snakenet World Map