Vibrations of Doom

Vibrations of Doom is considered the world's oldest and longest running internet based music magazine. Started, created and almost entirely maintained (with a few notable exceptions, listed later) by Steven Cannon around 1992, the online publication is unique in that it covers not just all forms of metal (speed, death, thrash. black, doom and power), but also electronica, industrial, punk, hardcore, gothic and whatever else was considered not part of the mainstream music culture in the United States. The name was taken by Steven's fascination with German metal band Samain and their one and only album release "Vibrations of Doom." The majority of reviews and interviews are with bands from outside the U.S. borders, with a heavy European slant. The website itself has had many homes, starting with the antiquated travels around the Usenet newsgroups and FIDO message feeds, all the way up through its current and presumably last home, vibrationsofdoom.com.
The site is unique in that it features not only reviews and interviews, but a massive soundfiles archive where at least 4 tracks from every CD reviewed are digitized, in Real Audio format. The classic albums page itself has over 1200 rare, classic and out of print metal albums the listener can hear (once again, in Real Audio) in their entirety, and more recently the second incarnation of Doom Radio was unleashed (this time, in streaming MP3 quality).
The magazine is published roughly once every three months. (the magazine used to be on a bimonthly schedule, as of issue #6 however, the magazine moved to its three month schedule). There have been numerous delays in the magazine's 15+ year history, but eventually issues get out (the latest issue, for instance, was over three months late). The web design, coding, music digitizing, and writing of all articles is all done by Steven Cannon.
To this date, there are still several issues of the magazine missing from Steven's personal archives. The debut issue is gone, as well as issues #3, #5, #8 and #9.
Magazine Timeline
1992: The magazine first starts out after a series of concert reviews and CD reviews is published by Good Times Metal Magazine, which was a division of Creative Loafing magazine in Savannah (as a side note, Creative Loafing started off as Good Times Magazine down in Savannah. The Good Times Metal edition was published in Savannah and distributed throughout New York and New Jersey). Some of the CD reviews for issue #2 include copyright dates for 1992 and 1993 (such as Suffocation's "Breeding The Spawn," Bathory's "Jubileum Volume 1," and Beyond Reason's "Beast Of Change" demo). Exact dates are hard to find, as these earliest of issues did not have a web presence. The debut issue, as well as issue #2, were released through the commodore 64 demo, cracking group and 'zine community.
1993-1994: The magazine has a unique idea to start incorporating digitized soundfiles, though at this stage distribution of large files at 1200 and 2400 baud is difficult, especially considering the fact that these are .wav files, not the real audio format to be later used. At this point, CD and concert reviews are still being written for Good Times Metal (The February 1994 edition features a concert review of Hawkwind and Sleep at Congress Street Station in Savannah, which is obviously when the 4th issue of the magazine is released, featuring interviews with both bands). A few reviews in the electronica category are written by Joe Glessner, a DJ at the Netherworld in Savannah where Steven used to frequent. This club catered to the rather dedicated gothic/industrial scene.
1995: Vibrations of Doom Magazine has its first web based presence on grand.central.org. This would not last very long. Issue #10 is noteworthy for the massive amount of industrial and electronic material covered in the issue (more than nearly any other issue, including interviews with Norwegian industrial band Industrial Heads, and reviews by bands like Cubanate, Noisebox, Haujobb, Klinik, Birmingham 6 and others).
Right around the time of issue #11, Steven Cannon starts a collaboration with Megan Irvine, which resulted in the transarc.com being the first real web presence for Vibrations of Doom Magazine. All the magazine work was still done by Steven Cannon, and files were uploaded to Megan Irvine. This site was later assimilated into a site for IBM.
1996: As of issue #13, Vibrations of Doom Magazine incorporated RealAudio into the soundfiles section of the magazine, which meant a massive decrease in file sizes and longer audio clip times. Longtime friend Chris Waters also helped to write some reviews, a collaboration that would last a short time. Issue #13 also marked the first time that a numerical rating system would be utilized to "score" the albums in question.
Another website change, from transarc.com to kmf.org, which was facilitated at the request of Megan Irvine since she no longer worked at the place that hosted transarc.com
Vibrations of Doom Magazine would enter into a collaboration with a site known as the musikbahn, where albums would be offered in their entirety for listeners to hear in streaming real audio. Several titles were offered, including rare industrial from Zero Defects, as well as some classic 80's metal. Though a rather impressive visual site was created, this also would become a short lived partnership, leading to the uncertain future of a web home for the magazine.
And probably one of the most important and noteworthy features in the magazine's history: The classic albums section is started with Iron Angel's "Hellish Crossfire" being the first title ever added into the section. Only a few songs from each release were done, not quite incorporating the entire album into the classics section.
1998: After the demise of the musikbahn, where Vibrations of Doom Magazine had moved their files, members.spree.com became the new home for the magazine. Steven decided to learn HTML coding and continue sole operations of the magazine, including all HTML coding and website design. At this point Steven also became the sole writer for the magazine, as partnerships with other writers came to an end.
Issue #18 was strangely devoid of interviews, planned ones were with Morbid Angel and Entombed, the latter being done by Chris Waters. Chris' final contribution to the magazine came with issue #19, an interview with black metal band Abigor.
1999: Steven makes his move from Savannah, Georgia, to Suwanee. Suwanee is located about 35 miles north of the city of Atlanta, which has a much better exposure to underground music than the somewhat small city of Savannah.
Issue #22 also marked the first time graphics were incorporated into the previously all text format as graphic logos of the band names for the interviews section.
2001: Two issues that had been missing for several years were recovered on an antiquated ftp server in Germany. Issues #6 and #7 were found intact and complete due to Steven doing an extensive websearch for any information pertaining to Vibrations Of Doom.
2001: After numerous problems with spree.com, XOOM and spaceports.com, vibrationsofdoom.com is finally unleashed. Hosting is done with softerweb.com, and later on dot5hosting.
2002: The first ever incarnation of Doom radio appears, albeit done in RealAudio 5.0. The show would last from around April/May and end about the middle of July, due to bandwidth restrictions and Steven not being happy with the RealAudio format. This marked the first appearance of co-host Chris Miller.
2003: Friday, October 11 marked the first time Steven Cannon made an on air appearance at the WREK studios. This was back when WREK had their metal show on the air from 10 PM - 6 AM. Bob Vincent was the DJ on air at the time, which started by getting classic album cuts from the Vibrations of Doom classic albums page played for the first time ever on WREK's Friday show. This would become a very important milestone for Vibrations of Doom, as it increased their connectivity with record labels through a second source for working label's materials, and it also increased Vibrations of Doom's profile in the Atlanta area amongst WREKage longtime listeners.
2006: After numerous problems with dot5hosting, Steven ends a 5 year collaboration with them to move over to IX Webhosting. This sees an increase in bandwidth AND disk space, which prompts Chris Miller and Steven to bring Doom Radio back to the "airwaves," this time in a 2 hour format in streaming MP3 quality, like WREK in Atlanta. Sadly, Chris' co hosting duties were limited to about three shows, prompting Steven to do the show solo.
On June 6, 2006, WREKage had a 24 hour broadcast for the 06/06/06 show, which marked the very first time that Steven Cannon was able to man the boards to actually host the WREK show and hold down the broadcast for roughly 2 hours.
Thursday, July 20, the classic albums section received its 1,000th title, which was Cirith Ungol's "One Foot In Hell." Steven celebrated by making Sunday, July 23's Doom radio show 2 hours of nothing but classic 80's metal from the classic albums archives.
2007: To further note the collaboration between Vibrations of Doom and WREK, on June 30, Steven for the first time ever opened up the WREK broadcast. It was actually pre-recorded the previous weekend due to the entire WREKage staff attending a concert on the same night. His broadcast lasted approximately 2 hours, and due to an error on the system was the only broadcaster that night.
References And Historical Background
Vibrations of Doom website: http://vibrationsofdoom.com
Background information from Vibrations of Doom Magazine hosted at Spree.com: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://members.spree.com/vibrations
WREKage website (searched the playlists to see actual on air dates for Vibrations of Doom): http://www.wrekage.org
Verification of album release dates corresponding to timeline (via the Encyclopedia Metallium): http://metal-archives.com

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