Metal Sludge celebrates its 25th year anniversary
Metal Sludge celebrates its 25th year anniversary
A quarter of a decade is a long time and Tuff frontman Stevie Rachelle has achieved that milestone with his infamous website Metal Sludge. Impressively, Metal Sludge predates many well known websites including Blabbermouth, TMZ and Metal Sucks.
The following is an excerpt from Metal Sludge‘s article HAPPY BIRTHDAY … Metal Sludge Was Born 25 Years Ago on September 1st 1998 & Here Is How It Came To Be:
“We published stories about who had been fired, who was hired or going to be, and sadly at times who got arrested, suddenly overdosed or died.
It’s not always a great thing to report the news, especially if it’s not all good news, but we’re all living in reality here – not fantasy land – so why not call it like it is.
Fair?
Now back to the summer of 1998.
From the beginning we also decided to do this anonymously.
My idea was to be like The Unknown Comic or The Masked Magician.
Unleash comedy-like content and jokes, along with telling the secrets of the industry but without anyone knowing who we were.
We also looked to some of our favorites for ideas, like Howard Stern, Saturday Night Live and Playboy Magazine.
Over the next several weeks Shawn and I both brainstormed what to include on the website.
Remember, at this time, in the mid/late 90’s, there were very few websites online.
And there were virtually no social media outlets.
Just to give you an idea of where we were at this point.
Metal Sludge launched September 1st 1998.
Bravewords = 2000
Blabbermouth = March 3rd 2001
Kerrang = Summer 2001
Sleazeroxx = 2002
Myspace = August 1st 2003
Facebook = February 2004
YouTube = February 14th 2005
TMZ = November 8th 2005
Twitter = March 21st 2006
Metal Sucks = December 2006
Instagram = October 6th 2010
A big shout out goes to KNAC who actually launched in February 1998 as an internet based radio station.
But in a nutshell, Metal Sludge was well ahead of the curve with our idea.
In truth, we had little to no knowledge about how the internet really worked.”
Congratulations to Metal Sludge on their impressive 25 year milestone!