Where do I begin? Born in November of 1970, I guess my love for heavy music started back in high school when I met a kid named Scott Helig who just happened to put out the best fanzine in Philadelphia. Scott was the first kid I knew that liked Slayer over Black Flag, and we bonded immediately. This was probably around 1986, a banner year for metal heads! Man, between Kreator's Pleasure to Kill, Voivod's Killing Technology, Slayer's Reign in Blood, not to mention Bathory, Celtic Frost, Death, and the slew of German Thrash bands on the scene, we had it made! Things progressed in the metal community, thrash giving rise to the new generation of metal bands, during which Scott and I graduated high school in 1989. Parting ways, I moved down to Sarasota Florida, while Scott entered NYU majoring in journalism. We kept in touch a little but I haven't heard from him in over 7 years (Scott, where are you???). Florida was the palce to be for metal, but alas, it was off to college for me, and in the fall of 1990 I packed up and headed off to Yellow Springs Ohio to attend Antioch University.
2 days after I hit Antioch I met Rob, and after initial testing ( you know this band? What about this band?) we found that we had both just gotten the Num Skull Ritually Abused album, and a friendship was forged. The similarities in our personas began to come out later, as we realized that: A. We were both drummers, B. We both shared the same views on many of life's issues and C. We were both pretty damn crazy. Rob and I played in many different bands throughout that year, and continued to hang out talking music, trying to hit the record stores that would carry metal and such. In the fall of 1991 we both got radio shows playing metal on the campus public radio station. Ah, good old 91.3 WYSO, a true NPR station if I ever heard one. The valium just flowed until midnight, when Rob or I would storm the station and subject those within the 75 mile listening radius to whatever the most brutal shit was that we could find at the time. In the spring of 1992, Cardial Extrication was born, a metal band the likes of which Antioch had never seen. Granted, all we did was play a bunch of Maiden and Sabbath covers, but we were good, dammit! Rob with the pipes, and me trying to keep up on the kit, it was kick ass! But alas, all things must come to an end, and Rob graduated, leaving me as one of the only metalheads on campus. I graduated in 1994 with a Biology/Chemistry degree and headed down to Miami, Florida to start graduate work in Marine and Atmospheric Chemistry. Not much in the way of music then, just keeping up and doing work, until 1996, when I got my masters and moved out to where I am now, Honolulu, HI...
The site was born in January of 1998 with about 5 pages, so I guess it's safe to say that things have grown a bit since then. Lately I've been busy with the zine and my band, Crucible, but the page still gets updated every so often. So, check back often and remember to keep it heavy...