I was thrilled when MTV2 brought back the Headbanger's Ball, their Saturday Night two-hour block of heavy metal videos.

Wendy was pretty happy about it, too. But, as with all things associated with MTV, our excitement was for naught.

For one thing, MTV2 keeps changing the time and the length of Headbanger's Ball. Sometimes it's still two hours, but often it's just an hour, and sometimes it's an odd 90 minute program.

And they keep pushing the time back further and further. There's just no way to know when or where they'll be playing it. TIVO gets it for us, but we never know when TIVO will be finding it. Lately it's been running in the deepest night when other stations are playing infomercials.

And then, once we get a chunk of Headbanger's Ball metal videos on the TIVO, we end up fast forwarding through damn near all of them because most of them suck.

There is still plenty of good metal out there, old and new ... but MTV2 seems hell-bent on programming bands based, apparently, on record label relationships. So we fast-forward through the whole program, finish it in twenty minutes, and feel disappointed. And we go through this once a week.

Well, to hell with it. Thanks to the beauty of blogs and YouTube, I'll be hosting Headbanger's Ball here at SouthCon whenever I feel like it. And I feel like it now.

Welcome to the first SouthCon edition of the Headbanger's Ball, featuring some of the best heavy metal out there, old and new, but stuff that MTV refuses to play for some damned reason.

We'll start out right with the band that ya always hope to hear when you tune in to Headbanger's Ball... Slayer:

Up next is one of my favorite new bands, unfortunately a band that just broke up this past August after ten years together. Maybe if MTV2 had given them the attention they deserve, they'd still be together. This is HIMSA, the song is Big Timber. MTV2 did play it on Headbanger's Ball a couple of times, but HIMSA could have benefited from exposure at an hour when there are still some people awake.

That last video was a classic from Pantera, Mouth For War, the first track on Vulgar Display Of Power. It's hard to go wrong with Pantera.

This next track doesn't offer much in the way of a visual, it's not a proper video at all. A fan put this together and the only visual image is the cover of the album from which the songs were drawn. The band is Opeth, the album is Watershed, and this is eight minutes or so of outstanding prog metal called The Lotus Eater, my favorite track on the album. Let it play, it's worth it. There's some amazing soloing in there, and the band goes down some surprising alleys musically:

Opeth, followed by Judas Priest, the awesome title track from the 1990 album Painkiller ... lest anyone get the idea that Priest was done after the mid-80's. Not so, my friend.

Up next, a great metal band with an interesting history. Original singer Jesse Leach left Killswitch Engage after their second album, but rather than break up the band recruited singer Howard Jones and continued. Jesse's departure from the band was under the best possible terms, and he even came back to sing harmony vocals on some of the band's first tracks recorded with Howard. For my money, Howard is the better singer ... I think the band traded up. Nonetheless, they did some awesome songs with Jesse, and this video is for one of them. From the album Alive or Just Breathing, here's Killswitch Engage with My Last Serenade:

That was Alice In Chains, their classic Would, from the album Dirt. That track is also on the soundtrack to the film Singles.

Up next, Richmond Virginia's own Lamb of God. This band never fails to bring the heavy in a serious way. For example, the track Now You've Got Something To Die For:

That was the CRIMINALLY underrated band Sevendust, one of two videos for the song Enemy. The other video doesn't have the band in it at all, I like this one better.

And I'll wrap up this ten-video, first addition of the Headbanger's Ball at Southcon with one last vid. I hope you heard something you enjoyed that you're interested in checking out a band or two based on the songs here. This last one is from my favorite lyricist in metal today. Every YouTube copy I saw of the song I really wanted to close with, Disposable Teens, doesn't allow embedding. So I'll go with my second favorite. Here's Marilyn putting our vacuous pop culture on notice, This Is The New Shit:

Labels: Headbanger's Ball, Music, You Tube