September 2011 marked RoughEdge.com's 13th year online, and Rough Edge's 22nd year of existence. We began as a weekly column in the weekly Ventura County Reporter back when hair metal ruled and we're still around in the much more complicated metal of today.

As I mentioned last year in this anniversary column, the past couple of years have been kind of tough for us, as it has for so many of you. We've suffered the loss of writers through injuries, work pressures and more. Our "Three New Reviews Daily" has been sporadic at best, and our news updates, until recently (thanks to Jeff Rogers) had been nothing less than bad. We're still pounding away, however, and will continue to do so until doing this bores us ... which won't be for a long, long time.

As regular readers are no doubt aware, Rough Edge (the newspaper column) begat RoughEdge.com (the online webzine), which begat Rough Edge Radio (internet radio show) which begat Rough Edge Studios (internet radio/podcast recording studios). So, in addition to our literally thousands of hard rock, heavy metal and punk rock CD reviews, we now offer several Internet radio shows as well, including Rough Edge Radio and Rough Edge Classic, airing Tuesdays at 6PM Pacific Time. In addition, Rough Edge Studios also produces The Backseat Mogul Show and The Friday Shot Day Show, and all of these shows can be heard live each week on ErrorFM.com and many are also available via podcast. For more information, just click on the highlighted links.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone involved with Rough Edge for their continued support and hard work. Thanks to our East Coast Editor Christopher J. Kelter; Senior Staff Writer Steve "Snidermann" Snider (who you can also hear on Rough Edge Radio);  the astonishingly prolific and talented Mike SOS (check out Mike's band at www.sosnyc.com) and the tireless Jeff Rogers, who reminds me every day that writers write. Do yourself a favor and check out Jeff's other work at www.associatedcontent.com). Thanks also to Spudbeast, who still doesn't write enough reviews for us but has written some of the best. The kid's got a full-time job, goes to school full-time and still serves as Associate Editor for an online 'zine, and we hope to hear more from him in the future.

I'd also like to thank Barry Funkhouser of ErrorFM.com who, not only built Rough Edge Studios, also infected me with the radio bug.

Thirteen years of RoughEdge.com also means seven years of Rough Edge Radio, our companion Internet radio show. Rough Edge Radio is a hard rock/heavy metal/punk rock Internet radio show that broadcasts live each Tuesday night at 6:00 PM Pacific time on ErrorFM.com. Please join us each week at www.roughedgeradio.com or through our internet broadcast station, ErrorFM.com. And, please check out our other Rough Edge Productions: Rough Edge Classic (Tuesdays, 5pm-6pm Pacific Time); The Backseat Mogul Show (Saturdays, 9am-10am Pacific Time) and The Friday Shot Day Show (Fridays, 3pm - 5pm Pacific Time).

Last but definitely not least, we thank you, our loyal readers. Because you keep coming back and reading Rough Edge, we love to keep doing it for you. We love the suggestions, the comments, the fury when we diss your favorite band. And even the hatemail is important because it's communication from the people who keep Rough Edge going. So, should you ever have any questions, suggestions or just want to tell us to go to hell, please don't hesitate to drop me a line at rsb@roughedge.com.

Keep it Rough!

Sincerely,
R. Scott Bolton
Editor