I'm sure alot of you on irc lately have heard a great deal about a new group
called Root. It may have been from my annoying topics in #ansi or from our
annoying xdcc bot which offers all of our packs. In anycase this article is to
let everyone know that Root is in no way a NEW group, and to give everyone a
little bit of history on what I, and apparently many others, feel is the best
kept secret in the scene today.
It was not too long ago that the area code that I live in was just like
every other in the scene today, dead. There were no boards, and deffinately
no groups. Sure we had our share of members in other large internet based
groups, but not a single group that we were all part of. Around November or
December this all started to change, a few boards that were once a big part of
the scene opend up again and actualy had a bit of activity. I was happy to see
the scene being brought back to life, but was a bit sceptical of how long it
would last, I had seen attempts like this before work for about a month or so
and then fail miserably.
There was a small difference this time though, there
seemed to be alot of new faces I had never seen before, and a genuine interest
showd by all of them. It wasn't too long before I had heard of our first group
since new life was brought to the ac. This group went by the name of DeadKrew
and had very minimal talent but alot of enthusiams and an excitement that can
only be found in people just recently introduced to the scene. Their work was
unimpressive at best, and their president had absolutely no experience. Despitethese flaws it was still good to see that there were actualy people willing to
make a serious attempt at bringing life back to the scene.
A short while later I got news of a second new group being made by two of the more respected artistsin our scene, defiant and dislogic, and that also had all of the relatively
known artists from our ac. This sparked my interest, I knew the talent that
was present in our area and was glad to hear that someone was making positive
steps to group it together with some real leadership. I was even more excited
when I was asked to join the group as 'co-ordinator' (I have absolutely NO skillwhen it comes to art).
Our first pack was released with a great deal of
excitement, and a slight rivalry with our counterparts Dk, although we were
easily the better group. We continued and released our 2nd pack during which
defiant announced he may have to give up his seat as prez and let dislogic rule
alone. The third pack had came around and defiant had finaly decided he didn't
have enough time to be prez and stepped down. Dislogics computer had died so
one of our members, Flight, stepped forward and released the pack. We were now
in our fourth month and dislogic had all but dissapered, he had found out he wasmoving to Edmonton so his time was spent more with his friends than his
computer. Flight again took the reins and did what was needed to put the pack
together. Dislogic eventually realised that he wasn't keeping up with the group and made an announcement on The Source (a local board run by Flight) stating
that due to his lack of involvement he was placing Flight and myself as
presidents. His name was left in the memberlist as president and he was still
able to release a few pieces for us in our 04 pack.
With the release of the 04
pack I think our group finally realised the potential we had. It was a fine
display of the talent in our area code and would rival the quality of many of
the internet based groups. We were starting to be recognised and people were
asking us for our packs on irc now. It was quite and exciting time and I was
hoping that things would continue to improve.
Unfortunately things just didn't work out that way. Some of our members weren't happy with the lack of recognition that comes with being in a 100% local group that didn't release on
the net. Others were offered positions in larger groups. Our 05 pack was
released, with myself and flight as the presidents, but the pack unfortunately
had very low content. The quality wasn't too bad, but the pack was a bit small
for our liking. With this Flight and myself had a decision to make. Did we
want to compromise what our whole group was about and go the route or taking
longdistance members. Eventualy we had decided that if the group were to stay
the way it was eventualy there may not BE a group. We formed our channel on
irc (#ro0t) and this is where we stand today. If you have any interest in
joining our group you can find myself or Flight on irc and have a chat with us.
If you would like a sample of our packs you can find them via xdcc #ro0t or
just find a member in #ansi. So with this Root says hello to the world of
the internet.
Dark Spawn (Root Prez)