Exclusive interview with RaD Man (Founder of ACiD)
 
By Whodini on January 13, 1997
For Acrylic Weekly Artscene E-Mag

[Interviewer's Note: If you dunnoh who th
is guy is, what the fuck are you 
doing reading E-Mags?  He only does one interview a ye
ar, and doesn't do
IRC interviews.  So dont ask in 1997.  =)  ]   
                   

IRC log started Mon Jan 13 00:01
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i
-> hEY doOdER!  jOIN #iNTERVIEW!%*)@
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*RaD_Man* itS inviTE yOU fUXOR!!
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> So... tell us all a little about yourself!
  
> So... Hello?
*RaD_Man* WHY CANT I TALK???
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<RaD_Man> Damn, I hate this lag
> Shall we change servers?
<RaD_Man> fuCK jEW you hAXOR!!
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meout)   
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<RaD_Man> h0h0h0h0h0
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<RaD_Man> h0h0h0h0h0
<acidbot6> wE oWn J00
<acidbot8> wE oWn J00
<acidbot4> wE oWn J00
<acidbot1> wE oWn J00
<RaD_Man> lATER jERK!
<acidbot2> wE oWn J00
<acidbot5> wE oWn J00
*** Mode change "-o+b Whodin
i *!*wh?d?n?@*" on channel #interview
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*** You have been kicked off channel 
#interview by RaD_Man (RaD_Man
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#interview
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> you fucker
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-> +v me            
*** Mode change "+o Whodini" 
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> Hey, lets take a 20 minute break here from
 this interview shit.     
> Maytricks needs our help in #ansi, apparen
tly someone is trying to 
> start an intelligent c
onversation!!!@$)*!%
<RaD_Man> Good idea.
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n
IRC log ended Mon Jan 13 22:43



Whodini:  Tell us a little about 
yourself, age, what type of music you listen 
to, whatever you want.

RaD Man:  I'm 20 years old, not 47.
  I'm 6'4", 235lbs.  Alot of people mistake
me for this old man with a beard wearing a propeller b
eanie.  That was an old
picture that Soultaker and Asylum took of a BUM.  They
 found this bum off the
streets of San Diego at the ComicCon wearing
 an ACiD T-Shirt.  When I saw the
photograph, I thought it was hillarious and I put it o
n my old homepage
(http://www.acid.org/~radman).  Ever sinc
e, I'd occassionally get someone
asking me "Hey, dont you have a beard?", thinking I'm 
that person on my site.
Rest assured, I'm not a 47 year old man wearing a prop
eller cap with a snarled
up beard pushing a shopping cart.

     As for music, I am open minded to all forms.  P
ersonal preferences of
mine are alternative, hard rock and hard core rap.  I 
also like a little r&b
and techno shit.

Whodini:  I saw that picture, Cyphe
r Hex showed it to me one day when we were
fooling around at a public computer lab.  I thought it
 was you also.  Of 
course, Necromancer set me straight before I talked to
 you.

     Next question:  Give us the who, what, when, wh
ere, and how on starting
ACiD.

RaD Man:  This is probably the most
 frequently asked question of all my 
interviews.  I hate to sound like a broken record, but
 here goes...

     The Who -- The original founding members of ACi
D were The Beholder,
Grimm, Phantom, Shadow Demon, and myself.  All were ex
 <AAA> artists, the
only exception being Phantom, who was a very dedicated
 SysOp of ACiD's
largest distribution site and assisted with ALOT of ou
r PR.  The influential
members art-wise were Grimm and Shadow Demon -- on the
 warez side it was
Shadow Demon, Phantom, and I.

     The What -- What were we?  We were an ANSI grou
p, plain and simple.
Devoted to making BBSes something other than an eye so
re.  We made a name
for ourselves by assisting the best pirate groups with
 the best ANSI art.

     The Where -- Everywhere.  "ACiD" (before we wer
e officially "ACiD 
Productions") was the first ANSI group that started of
f as an international  
one.  Our members were spread out all over North Ameri
ca; from California,
to Texas, to New Year, up to Quebec...  And we branche
d out from there.
Oddly enough, those four regions are still some of the
 biggest playing     
territories in the art scene today.

     The When -- ACiD was started towards the latter
 part of 1990, due to 
lack of support from <AAA> upper management and the su
pport sites.  Anyone
that had heard of <AAA> thought that I was the preside
nt of the group,
because I would spend a great deal of time recruiting 
members and uploading
all our artwork to every BBS I hit.  There was no misc
ommunication, the SysOp
of the <AAA> WHQ made it clear that no locals were wan
ted on his system, even
if they were members of the group he was headquarters 
for.  It was at this
point that the few of us which were still active in Ac
es decided to do 
something which would seperate us from the rest.  (Clu
e #1: We didn't start
aaa!ansi.)

Whodini:  How did you get all the p
eople together and such?

RaD Man:  950-XXXX baby.  Code Thie
f and Fuckin' Hacker were my companions. 
I would let them scan for weeks straight at a time.  P
eople thought I ran
<AAA> for one obvious reason: I did.  I just wasn't ge
tting recognized for it
internally.  Everyone was enthusiastic about starting 
ACiD.  Must've been
the acronym.

[Interviewer's Note: Since doodle
boys can't phreak, 950's are for calling
cards.  Phear my Sprintcard phreaking skillz.]


Whodini:  Sweet.  Ok, next question
.  Are there any group presidents that 
from over the years you really respect or were role mo
dels on how you run 
ACiD?    

RaD Man:  Yes.  My personal role mo
dels who I borrowed from alot during the
early days of ACiD were people like Line Noise of MCM,
 and a local friend
The Zenabyte (both founding members of INC - Internati
onal Network of   
Crackers.)  ACiD really grew up with the people at INC
.  For the most part,
it was pirate groups' actions on the whole which ACiD 
was influenced by --
but I can't really pin down who exactly we borrowed so
me of our ideas 
from.  eg.  File couriers (traders) existed before The
 Humble Guys, but it
was The Slavelord who deserves the credit for making i
t a household name.
They were the ones who made it an actual buzzword, by 
forcing their members  
to change their current existing handles in exchange f
or a number (such as
The Humble Slave #4.)  Alot of people in the PC scene 
were outraged by
this, but I think that was their intention.  In short,
 I owe the idea of
file couriers in ACiD to THG.  We just didn't force an
y name changes.

     I also think there are still alot of role model
s which exist in the  
scene today which should be recognized.  That would be
 every single person     
who has been running an artgroup for twelve months or 
more.  If you're in 
this category, then you deserve some respect.  Notewor
thy individuals which
come to mind are: Napalm of Cia; Mindcrime of Blade; F
orce Ten of iCE; and
Carnifex of Dark.  These people have seen their groups
 the entire way
through, throughout the ups and downs.

Whodini:  ACiD has really made its 
presence known on the net with acid.org
and the artpacks.acid.org archive.  Did you have a gam
eplan in mind in
taking ACiD from a bbs-based group to a net-based grou
p?

RaD Man:  Most definitely.  Everyon
e is maiking the migration from the 
conventional dial-up BBS to the internet, on a global 
scale.  Anyone
who hasn't finally realized this, WAKE UP!  ACiD has o
bserved this fact, 
and has been putting an obvious emphasis on art and ad
vertisements that
can be used in the most widely visible and distributed
 mediums over ones
with a lesser visibility.  If you take a pack from 199
7 and compare it 
to one from say 1993 or 1994, you'll see that the rati
o of ansi to hi-res
art has completely flip-flopped.  This is not because 
ACiD wants to dis-
associate itself from ANSI art, but because the actual
 usefulness and
practicality of this medium is starting to diminish.  
ACiD is and always
will be an art group first, meaning as long as good AN
SI artwork is being
produced, we will publish it.  My stand on this is tha
t we will continue
to support all forms of visual arts in the monthly ACi
D Acquisitions.  
This should be pretty obvious, since we release RIPscr
ips which have  
absolutely no functionality in any environment. 

Whodini:  What process does an ACiD
 application go through?

RaD Man:  Typically, ACiD applicati
ons are received through an email.  More
often than not, they're sent to the wrong person, and 
are then forwarded to
the appropriate advisor.  The advisor of that group wi
ll then review the 
application and then lets the applicant know their sta
tus: accepted, rejected, 
or if they need to submit a trial piece of work.  It's
 a fairly simple     
process.

Whodini:  Ah-hah.  I should apply t
o ACiD.  Maybe an ASCII position or
something.  Next question.  What are your personal opi
nions on dual-grouping?

RaD Man:  I'm strongly against it and I dis
courage it.  If you're going to
join a group, even if it's just "for fun", you should 
dedicate yourself to 
ONE group.  People who say they're not sprea
ding themselves too thin    
amongst more than one group are only fooling themselve
s and hurting all
parties involved.

Whodini:  In your opinion, who was 
ACiD's most valuable member in '96, and
also since ACiD started who have been your more valuab
le members?

RaD Man:  Most valuable in the begi
nning was Shadow Demon, in our early
years it was most definitely JED.  1994-1995 would be 
Beastie.  Of 1996?
That's a hard decision to make...

[RaD Man pauses a while]                  

RaD Man:  During 1996, I would have
 to say Necromancer.

Whodini:  Necromancer is the man.

RaD Man:  Throughout 1996 I've got 
to know him alot, and he's really been
my right hand man.  You may not know by looking at ACi
D on the surface 
level, but this guy has helped out ALOT on the things 
you don't see, the
things "behind the scenes." 

I also have to thank Catbones, Cthulu, Megga Hertz
, Piano Man,
Pinion, Shivan Bastard, Skull Leader, Tasmaniac, and T
osh10 for helping
make 1996 such a great year for us.

Whodini:  Year.  Beastie was the ma
n too.  Channel Zero was elite as hell.
Alright, next question (and the one I've been fearing.
)  What's with this
acid!ansi bullshit?

RaD Man:  acid!ansi is a hoax.  Nex
t question.

Whodini:  I'm all out of questions.

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