Online Metal Radio Station Celebrates 1st Anniversary At Elbo Room

By Dave Pehling

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Bay Area-based online radio station Gimme Radio teams with metal show promoter Lucifer's Hammer for for the station's first-anniversary party at the Elbo Room Saturday featuring a line-up of local metal extremists including Cartilage, Acephalix and Necrot.

Founded in San Francisco last year by a group of industry vets who had worked for such digital services for Apple Music, Google Play, Beats Music, and Rhapsody, the metal-focused online live streaming service Gimme Radio was launched with the expressed purpose of bringing passion back to Internet radio. Aiming to appeal to hardcore headbanging enthusiasts, the online station features a wide-ranging group of DJs including established rock legends -- Megadeth main man Dave Mustaine, Lamb of God singer Randy Blythe, desert rock guitar hero Dave Catching (Eagles of Death Metal, Queens of the Stone Age) and SF's own metal drum great Will Carroll (Death Angel, Hammers of Misfortune, Old Grandad) -- alongside a variety of music journalists, established music industry figures, seasoned studio producers and label affiliates who hand-pick their playlists that get streamed to a global audience.

Having recently launched a new subscription service that gives members access to an archive of downloadable past shows and new content, Gimme Radio is co-sponsoring this anniversary party with metal magazine Decibel, which is hosting it's own two-day metal and beer festival in Los Angeles on the first weekend of December that will feature all three acts playing Saturday. Headlining band Necrot was started in seven years ago in Oakland by talented Bay Area death metal players Luca Indrio (the band's bassist who also plays in Acephalix and Vastum) and Chad Gailey (who also plays drums in noted local outfits Mortuous and Atrament), with Saviours guitarist Sonny Reinhardt joining the following year.

The trio recorded several demo tapes and built up a loyal Bay Area fan base with its raw, blackened songs and the blast furnace intensity of its live shows, eventually getting signed to Oakland-based punk/metal imprint. Tankcrimes would compile the tunes from the band's demos for the 2016 compilation The Labyrinth.

Last year, Necrot released it's proper debut album Blood Offering on the label, garnering widespread critical praise for the corrosive collection of punk-tinged death metal. Since then, Necrot has only raised it's profile with appearances at major festivals like the Northwest Terror Fest and Psycho Las Vegas as well as a five-week tour of Europe that finished last month. The band will also be celebrating another new product, the collaborative Shadows of Light beer made in partnership with the Lower Haight's Black Sands Brewery and Gimmie Radio that will be available on tap at the Elbo Room.

For the Gimme Radio anniversary party at the Elbo Room Saturday night, Indrio will serve double duty, also playing with his other band, Acephalix. That group returned from an extended hiatus last year to issue Decreation on 20 Buck Spin, the band's first new material in five years. San Francisco grind/gore metal band Cartilage opens the show.

Gimme Radio 1st Anniversary Party with Necrot
Saturday, Nov. 17, 9 p.m. $15
Elbo Room