Twin Terrors Macabre Manor of Mead Metal and Mayhem

Coven!  That most magnificent and much maligned occult rock band.  Their debut album inspired some and frightened many, mostly through a massive misunderstanding of what Jinx, Oz, and Steve, as well as their myriad band mates, were trying to do.  Join us as we get into the wonderful evilness that lurks within this classic piece of music and it's context.  Context!  

We talk about magick, musick, symbols (the horns!), and much more.  Yes, we know we're a few months late for the true anniversary, but it fits in so well with October Country.

Image: promo picture for the album. 

Sit by the fire and enjoy some more vampiric goodness!  We continue our exploration into the blood suckers, moving from folklore (last week) to literature!  We focus mostly on the older writings, but touch on the more recent, knowing that we'll have more to say on those later.  

Image courtesy of Jody's library and the book he's referenced a few times over these two episodes.

Wow!  We almost missed this in the hubbub of our annual Halloween October Spooktacular Evilfest.  Merry 50th, Python Players!  

Image: James' wall paper and sound CD he purchased years ago and is no longer any good except for the few images he saved as JPGs.  

Welcome to October Country in the Manor!  We've already started the season with last week's Trooper 666 (which is okay, as we start our Halloween celebrations in September anyway), but now we're all in for the rest of the month.  These first two weeks are going to focus on vampires, with this week looking at the folklore of our fanged brethren.  What causes, harms, cures, and hampers them?  Listen on!

Image: Le Vampire by R. de Moraine (1864 - public domain) in Les Tribunaux Secrets

Welcome back to the Manor!  This time, with October Country just around the corner, we discuss Iron Maiden's Trooper 666!  A fantastic beer with fantastic numerology for the number of the beast.  Now come join us

"Woe to you, oh Earth and sea, for the Devil sends the Beast with wrath

Image courtesy of James' beer collection.

Another special for Hobbit Day (which is in two days from this episode posting)!  Here we give our own special treatment to those much talked about people and things, Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs' Barrow Wights, as well as Goldberry and the Old Forest.  What we liked, who they are, why it's okay that they weren't in the movies, and much more.  Grab a pint and a pipe and enjoy!  

Image:  we were going to sneak in an awesome Barrow Downs image, but we couldn't get the right (we don't want to steal copyright if we can help it).  We've also used pretty much all our book cover images of Tom.  So here's a picture of James' Hobbit Day celebrations from 2018.

Welcome to the Manor and the second of our "what we do on a holiday" special, this time for Hobbit Day!  Join us, as we celebrate both Bilbo's and Frodo's birthdays on September 22nd.  We wanted to get this episode out a bit early, so you can prepare yourself.  

So listen on, if you want ideas on how to celebrate.  Of course, since it's us, it definitely involves reading and/or drinking, but there's lots more!

Picture:  part of James' 2017 Hobbit Day festivities.  Yes, he had already decorated for Halloween.

Welcome back to the Manor!  This week, we (well, mostly Jody... James is fairly clueless on this) discuss the behind the scenes of the movie Star Beast for its 40th anniversary!  Well, Star Beast... ALF... something...

Welcome back to the Manor!  Today we play "stump the bastard," where James tries to stump Jody on his knowledge of linking musicians of the '60s - '90s to Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.  He does a pretty good job!  Also, we talk about Scrooge McDuck.

Back at the dawn of time, specifically last fall as we were starting the podcast, we recorded a very long episode on our favorite beers and beer styles.  It ended up being long enough to break down into four episodes!  Between that and then recording what we thought were more worthy episodes, it's just taken a while to produce these.  In fact, we've only finished this one so far (which includes a bit of humor beyond ales), but the other three will pop up in the feed as we finish them and as they fit into the schedule.   This is definitely one of the most laid back episodes we've done, so it's best enjoyed sitting back with a nice pint of ale and a shot of Malort.  Slainte!