Waikato CD for Ohio

Waikato's rock and metal bands will be in the spotlight at an international conference in the United States tomorrow.

Hamilton's Dr Dave Snell - perhaps best known for completing his doctorate on bogan culture - travelled to the US this week. He will speak at the International Conference on Heavy Metal and Popular Culture tomorrow at Ohio's Bowling Green State University.

While Dave's presentation is titled "Bogan's Heroes: Thrash Metal in the Public Eye", he will ensure Waikato's metal music scene gets a plug. And not only in his presentation. Dave has teamed up with two local DJs to compile a sampler CD of Waikato rock and metal bands' songs to distribute at the conference.

The Feral Crew are Mitch and Frolic - two Hamilton DJs who host a variety of shows on radio stations in the city, including FreeFM, Contact, and Wintec's The Yak. All of their shows promote Waikato bands. Dave is often a guest on The Feral Crew's shows. Between the three of them, the men have compiled a CD featuring 10 songs from eight bands in Waikato and one each from Auckland and Napier.

There is a chance, too, that the songs may be uploaded to the Wall Street Journal's website. Dave was interviewed by the journal about his involvement in the conference before he flew out. He understands the songs may be uploaded to wsj.com after the conference.

Dave, now a researcher at Wintec, will also publish a book about bogan culture in August. He was approached by a publisher to turn his thesis about bogans into a book. However, the company realised the thesis was too academic so Dave wrote the book from scratch.