Flashback #4: Fro the Ware & EDT Records.

August 3rd, 2010 by Hexfix93

smokin
*UPDATED, RE READ* Yes, Disease met Fro the ware when he was 15. It was through a bbs system, met on old forums talking about games. As teenagers, Fro the ware and Disease at one time ruled the Atari ST elite underground cracker scene in the USA as TOI(travesty Of idiots, a modern day pc version of a crew like this would be Razor 911 on the PC), we ran several bbs systems(private home computers set up to take calls on the modem, you would log in and you could download and upload files, or read the forums and use the messaging systems or play online text base games), wrote many documentation files for games, cracked games, and distro’d rare euro software to people in the usa, This lasted from 1989 to 1992. This was before VAC. Once Disease and some of the toi members got raided by the cops, toi was dead, Disease thought his life was over, so he started doing drugs and writing music like crazy, toxic coma and VAC were born out of this. Fro was a key part in VAC actually becoming known. Disease and Fro were the ones who recorded all the songs into the pc and made the cd burns, before this was even popular. Fro saved up and bought an expensive 2x cd burner, at the time they were like over 1 thousand dollars and were brand new. We recorded in the songs from a DAT machine. Fro also bought an expensive printer. So Disease and Fro copied and printed hundreds of cds, and cut out the lp covers by hand. over an hundred of each, fate, pestilence and neuralblastoma, these were sold at the local wax trax in down town Denver, we also made fliers, we sold about 100 + copies of each cdm We also branched out to isolation tank, and they started selling our home pressed cds. This was Electric Death Trip Records. It was a ton of work, Fro and i spent months many nights cutting out art and burning cds. This and posts from us on rec.music.industrial are what started VAC in the scene. This was the initial ball that rolled us onto the music scene. The funny thing is we did actually get attention this way before off beat records picked us up. In fact the guys that used to work at metropolis records used to make fun of VAC, as did a lot of the people on rec.music.industrial back in those early days, 1994-1996. Funny how things worked out in the end though. Metropolis would end up making us even more famous in the end. :) Fro was also a part of Toxic Coma. Fro stood by us through all the hard times back then and always helped us out. He also did the most work in electric death trip records, a label we all ran, cept he fronted the money for klinik, and suicide commando.
edt-ad
The first VAC lps were released on Electric Death Trip records before Off Beat Records pick VAC up. The first printed flyers that EDT made for VAC’s cds was hilarious, it was around christmas of 1995, Fro and Disease made this fucked up flyer with all these deformed babies, gross shit, and at the top of the page it said” MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS, FROM VELVET ACID CHRIST”. It was so foul. We had a lot of experience with flyers from the DJ days, we plastered them in parking lots at clubs, and at retail malls lol. This is how we sold our first records, with really foul fucked up flyers. EDT also released Pain Konsept, Suicide Commando, and Klinik. We tried really hard to get aghast view as well and lassigue bendthaus. We failed. EDT was supposed to be everyone in vac, plus hypostasis and fro. Once VAC got signed, Disease ended up doing tons of promotion for vac, and edt was left in the hands of everyone else, fro could not do it all by himself, so it eventually just vanished. Disease was also working with culture shock magazine at this time as a reviewer, the above add was for culture shock magazine, and because Disease worked for the magazine he got a lot of coverage for Velvet Acid Christ in culture shock magazine, another reason why vac got popular back then, we were in the biggest industrial music magazine a lot back then, that magazine was way better than industrial nation. EDT and Culture shock worked together as well, EDT was the ones who helped put together the included music cds for the magazine. The plan was to get VAC back on EDT, edt would fuse with culture shock but that never happened because culture shock vanished off the face of the earth over one weekend, and no one even knows what happened. Our only distribution was through metropolis records, and we didn’t have enough releases to be taken seriously by the other big distributors back then. The sad thing is, that Disease and Fro were the only ones who did anything for it. No one else cared. This was part of the beginning of the end for the people who did not help. This is where the early bickerings and fighting broke out with voevod and baphomet. The only people who were promoting VAC and edt were Disease and Fro. Voevod ran off to do his side projects, baphomet was allergic to work. Fro and Disease had to do it all, with a little help from hypostasis now and then. It’s a shame edt was a cool label and had a lot of potential, but a lack of dedicated staff killed it, and no one would step up to help. :( In the end it is why i chose the name of the vac media blog to edtm, to remember what was, and how we began. Electric Death Trip Records was what broke VAC onto the scene first. EDT was also the first label to release Suicide Commando in the USA with their Contamination LP. Then off beat, then metropolis. The funny thing is this, after fate, pest and nerual, VAC broke up, only Disease was promoting the records and writting new vac material. It wasn’t until VAC got signed to off beat that the former members even cared about VAC, and once they saw how little it made, they cared less and less and less. Once they left. VAC broke out with Fun with knives and changed everything. At one point Disease was thinking about putting toxic coma out on EDT, but that was a short lived fantasy, the world will never be ready for toxic coma. Over and out Disease Factory, aka Hexfix93.

Pirates who like vac and want to pay the artist directly, Please Donate to VAC. Those who love EDT and think its good, please donate to us. Click the Donate Button Below.






I am now adding new articles weekly on the media blog, Reviews, and shining the spotlight on things I like. VAC writes all of these reviews and articles..
NEW ARTICLES:Model: Annis Sangsue., Music: Pigface: Fook. Hexfix93?s take., Games: PC: Mass Effect. Hexfix93?s take.………….

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Category: 22-VAC Flashbacks | 22 Comments »


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22 Responses

  1. Hexfix93 Says:

    Does this work?

  2. ok Says:

    testing when the cows come home

  3. bobby Says:

    I am testing using ie 64 bit

  4. Audax Says:

    incomplete fields test

  5. unzombie Says:

    cool story bro!

  6. Kitana_One Says:

    Great story, Bryan!

    I remember this whole time period. Culture Shock was huge to me. A giant window into the best stuff that was going on in our scene at the time. Great graphics and layout, amazing comp’s that are still some of my favorites along with the Zoth Ommog “Body Rapture” series.

    I think a lot of what is currently wrong with our industry is the lack of effort on everyone’s behalf to put this much work into their art. It’s like they don’t even know it can be done. The true DIY ethic of the early Industrial scene is long gone. On one hand, the internet is a great tool to help promote music, but on the other hand it’s made everyone lazy. People don’t realize that it can’t be done with just making a myspace page and whoring yourself out to as many friends as possible.

    Funny personal note: This goes back to that conversation we had in the VAC IRC room the other day about the old scene. When I was almost signed by Gashed and Zoth a little before they both went under; one of the first 5 demo’s I sent out when I finished my demo E.P. back in late ’99 was to EDT. The address in Culture Shock was an address in Canada, and I guess that’s how Chris Macdonald got the demo. It was originally intended for you though. I really dug how you promoted and pushed the label. Amazing aesthetics and a real passion for what you were doing. It really came through.

  7. magenticka Says:

    swesome read!

  8. johnsmith1261 Says:

    Thank you for this great story!

  9. pathogenocide Says:

    wow, Culture Shock was how i discovered VAC, around the release of Calling Ov The Dead era. they really knew how to make a great looking magazine that was more about the artists than any other since., and the interviews were always great. a huge blow to industrial music when it died.

  10. Hexfix93 Says:

    Very true man. It takes so much work, and I am guilty of putting to much on the internet, the problem is this, there was no profit in culture shock and it was so much work and it wasnt paying his bills. it was a joke. it was like 80hrs a week and no profits. Sad…

  11. Hexfix93 Says:

    This is what is missing in our scene, a good magazine.. it sucks.

  12. impl0dr Says:

    great read. thanks for keeping the flashbacks going.

  13. Ivor_syrus Says:

    WHAT ABOUT repo???

  14. Ivor_syrus Says:

    Maybe wasted….

  15. Graceless Says:

    Hey, I couldn’t find an email contact, so I’m posting this comment. I’m looking to start a magazine called “Graceless: A Journal of the Radical Gothic” that will be a print magazine (available for free download online) that explores, well, radical gothic culture. I’d love to interview VAC, and actually just ask about what would be useful in a magazine these days since you’re clearly someone who thinks about such things.

  16. Will S. Says:

    Hey Hex,

    My fiancee and I are getting married in a few weeks (w00t!). For the reception, we will using our iPod as the DJ with a pre-defined playlist. We have agreed to play only one (absolute max of 2) song from any given artist. We are both interested in having a VAC song play (I turned her into a fan of your work :^) ). Do you have any suggestions that you think might be particularly appropriate for a (secular) wedding?

    Another suggestion: I know you are busy, but we would be happy to commission you to write a song for us for the wedding (on Oct 9). Is this something you would be interested in doing?

    Thanks for your response.

    -Will

  17. icepick method Says:

    I scanned all my issues of Culture Shock, hoping it wouldn’t be completely forgotten over time.
    http://shock-corridor.blogspot.com/search/label/Culture%20Shock

  18. CIBERGERNIC ENERGIES Says:

    congrats on your release, sorry for the money
    FAITH

  19. THE POET THAT GOTHS FUDGE Says:

    DA like culture shock was ment to be there to be connected to techno industrial,
    its more HAPPENINGS then anything, as in, thank god its friday for some its a happening, ever been in distress like the guy, trying to push his music its more healing happening then your fudge the culture… shocking anyone as they read… thats explanatory of the va te faire foutre which really means i luv you these days, and by the way have you thought of reality shows or reality on the net get an album by FEAR FACTORY and you’ll see what i mean and when i mean its any album will do to all lovers of shock for shock which is goth

    FAITH

  20. THE POET THAT GOTHS FUDGES TO DEATH Says:

    EVEN BULLIED BY THE UNDERGROUND

    TECHNO IN DUST TRIAL

    DEATU DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ASSIMILATE SKINNY PUPPY

  21. CIBERGERNIC ENERGIES Says:

    that poet that goth theaters so dearly… oh really, in a world of illusion whats covering your mind or or or
    deathfaith asta loco
    FAITH FUDCE DEATH

  22. CIBERGERNIC ENERGIES Says:

    love th(em) i got it from goneja by skinny puppy it will heal their paranoia of the media that seems going on in your media data and content
    JAVA

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