Who We Be

The Kiddies in the Pool - Not so Much a Staff as We are a Gang

Your Hosts:

Racer: (co-founder; Editor-in-Chief) A true music hoarding freak.  If you need to find him, check under the pile of toppled vinyl smothering him in his office.  He'll be there, his ear pressed against a rare UFO or Black Uhuru bootleg, swearing he can hear the music if he spins the vinyl fast enough.  Has a complete set of Men Without Hats picture discs, but doesn't reveal that to many people.

Top 5 albums: Teardrop Explodes - Killamanjaro /  Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Souls for Rock and Roll (cheating, I know, but it's the first Sabbath album I ever bought)/ Cult- Love/ Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden/ Cat Stevens - Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Fire Cat (sorry, those albums are both indispensable.)  Somewhere on that list should be Echo and Bunnymen - Crocodiles, but I don't know where.

Pope: (co-founder) Pope was exiled from The Church and Vatican City in the early 1300’s, which in itself wasn’t so bad except that he lost his outlet to write religious doctrine. Heartbroken and destitute, he turned to music as an escape from his reality . . . watching and studying its evolution through the ages . . . spending so much time listening to music that soon . . . it became his new religion!  Fast forward to the 21st century and Pope, with an army of synthetic poultry at his side, spins wax, shuffles the silver disc, and sifts through piles of digitally altered music in hopes to quiet the voices in his head. He can be found in Southern California penning his latest musical manifestos and building a compound that can only be called New Vatican City.

Top 5 albums:  In no particular order and all albums are subject to change:  Porcupine Tree – Deadwing/ Iron Maiden – Live After Death (which will change the moment I play any other Iron Maiden album) / Voivod – Killing Technology / Opeth – Ghost Reveries/ Rush – Grace Under Pressure/ Van Morrison – Moondance.

Penfold: (managing editor)  He's a man of mystery.  People have spotted him on every continent and in photos throughout history books.  Some say he is a figment of our imagination.  Intelligence agencies the world over know the truth.  Oh yeah, and he absolutely lives for music!

Top 5 albums:  Mother Superior - The Heavy Soul Experience of Mother Superior/ Mr. Bungle - California/ Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow/ Harry Nilsson - The Point/ Rage Against The Machine - Self Titled

And the Kiddies in the Pool:

All Things Vinyl - Born in San Francisco,I was born to raise Hell. Spirited away from the Psychedelic scene before I could wet my whistle,wee mover to the N.Y. metro area. 1st exposure to live music was at age 10 seeing Blind Faith,Taste and Delaney and Bonnie. Left being a Rory Gallagher fan for life.I am a fan of many genre's.However I am very partial to anything recorded before 1979.I covet it all,and truly enjoy sharing it with others. To me getting the music out for all to hear either brand new or 50 years old is something more than special to me.

Top 6 albums  Rory Gallagher Irish Tour - 1974/ Funkadelic Maggot Brain 1971/  Outskirts of Infinity - Stoned Crazy 1989/ T.I.M.E - Smooth Ball 1969 UK/ Cactus - S/T 1970 UK/ Seedy Jeezus Polaris Oblique 2018

El Pedo Caliente-  I am certain that, in a previous life, I was a Jedi Master.  Racing across the galaxy, with friendly robots, thwarting evil plots and saving damsels in distress.  Or was that just a movie I watched?  At this point, I'm really not sure. 

These days you can find me, in my office, sifting through Facebook, bandcamp or emails.  In search of the finest musical releases that the galaxy has to offer.  Or...  throwing together a playlist for the bi-weekly show that I host (Fistful of DOOM) on Grip of Delusion Radio.  If I'm not doing that, then I'm spending time with my kiddos (two boys and a girl on the way) and wife.  Last, but certainly not least, I enjoy moonlighting as my alter ego El Pedo Caliente (pictured above).  A high flying, championship caliber luchador who takes on any and all challengers in the lucha libre underground.  Although, being a luchador is not quite as exciting as being a Jedi Master.  There is enough mystique and intrigue to keep my adventurous spirit satisfied. 

~All Hail Bacon!

5 Albums that have left a lasting impression;  System of a Down- Toxicity/ Rage Against the Machine- Evil Empire/ Band of Heathens- One Foot in the Ether/ Guns N' Roses- Appetite for Destruction/ The Midnight Ghost Train- Cold Was The Ground

Gwarluvr- As the name entails, he is a lover of Gwar. Starting off in the eighties as a kid that got turned on to metal, by a friend, with his first Iron Maiden album (Number of the Beast), it was all down hill from there. The amount he has and the amount that he has expanded his tastes is staggering. Everything from classical to the latest rock/metal that hits the streets... Should be Musicluvr, but that name was taken. :)

Top 5 Favs: Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast, Strapping Young Lad - City, Gwar - Scumdogs of the Universe, Devin Townsend - Epicloud, Misfits - Walk Among Us

The Huntsman: Born and bred to rip and shred through the online bowels of the musical underworld, The Huntsman is continually on the trail tracking down what could be his next favorite band. Using a wide range of genre styles as a baseline, The Huntsman pitches tents all over the countryside including bandcamp, various online forums, blogs, and social media, where he becomes one with the music in hopes of harvesting a bounty of bands to fulfill his extreme hunger for more. Having never been in a band, The Huntsmen relies on his instinctual listening ability to keep him hot on the trail and amongst the best bands in the business. Excelling at math and science as a child its no wonder that he now desires to write blurbs and reviews for online journalism based blogs. He hated that sort of thing as a kid. He now has 2 children of his own, that he straps into their toddler seats daily and subjects them to mostly hard rock and roll until they get transferred to moms car and are soothed with top 40 music which is more geared towards their 2 and 5 year old IQ levels. They will learn in time.  The Huntsman works as a licensed professional engineer in the construction industry in his spare time. His current obsession in life is hunting the elusive riff monsters.

6 Top albums: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Greatest Hits/ Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South/ Danzig –S/T/ Zodiac – A Bit of Devil / Fireball Ministry – The Second Great Awakening / DOWN – N.O.L.A.

MeteorJadd - Former label honcho and full-time musicsnob, MeteorJadd would like to offer thanks to Ripple Effect for giving him a forum to rant and blather about what he thinks people should be listening to Ronnie James Dio for being the greatest singer of all time, and all of his friends for outgrowing their passion for music, thus inspiring (forcing) MeteorJadd to leave the comfort and safety of his little circle and look elsewhere for music discovery and discussion.  He will ruminate and digress about himself more in the course of future writings, and let the following lists paint all the picture one needs:

Top 5 Semi-current Records: Wild Throne: Blood Maker/ Greenleaf: Trails & Passes/ The Districts:A Flourish and a Spoil/ Torche: Restarter/ Field Report: Marigolden

Top 5 All-time Meatjack:Days of Fire/ Murder by Death: Good Morning, Magpie/ Isis: Panopticon
16 Horsepower: Secret South/ Clutch s/t

Odin: Odin loves metal, pure and simple.  Probably not more than life itself, but you know, metal matters.  And Jameson has to be pretty high on the list too.  Oh yeah and BBQ, good BBQ has to be right up there.  Come to think of it, where would we be without football and hockey? So, you know, metal’s in the top 4 or 5 there somewhere.

Top 5 Albums: Living Colour -Time’s Up/ Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast/ Goatwhore - Carving Out The Eyes Of God/ Led Zeppelin -Physical Grafitti/ The Black Crowes - Southern Harmony And Musical Companion

Old School:  Old School (not his real name) is a member of the Woodstock Nation (he’s 37th from the right in the the upper right hand corner - the guy with the long hair - in the accompanying photograph.)  He almost played with many well-known bands that have come out of LA but decided to sue them instead.

Top 5 albums, at the moment, and subject to change (there’s just too much good music out there for only five): The Band - Music From Big Pink/ Chet Atkins -  Me and My Guitar/ The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced?/ Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Trouble Is/ Pinetop Perkins - Ladies Man

Ollie: Ollie is a rotund mass of hair and tattoos living on the border of wild and windswept Dartmoor in the UK. His free time is spent listening to rock and roll, playing rock and roll, reading about rock and roll, and talking at length to anyone who will listen (and many who won't) about rock and roll...writing about it is the next logical step. If he could snort, inject, eat, drink, breathe or shag rock and roll he would!!!

Ollie also plays guitar and sings in the UK's finest bruised, boozed and bluesed hard rockers Grifter.

Top 5 favourite albums: The first six Black Sabbath albums (I have them as a boxed set so it's not cheating though if pushed for one I'd say Paranoid)/ Led Zeppelin - II/ Deep Purple - In Rock/ The Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street/ Motorhead - No Sleep Til Hammersmith = AC/DC - If You Want Blood...You've Got it

Rider On The Storm - Small town Aussie tripper with a modest but growing cult radio gig, weekend cruiser riding feel-good freak! My love for music far exceeds just listening to it. That's the bare minimum, One must share the hell out if it, feel it and indulge in it like a wet dog rolling around in dirt. No faux-intellectual bs here ladies & men, I call em' as i see em' & write how I feel...Here for a good ride, a long ride would be a true bonus though. outdoor live music, early 70s proto metal & hard psyche is what sets this 1990 model kids soul on fire!

5 albums that change the chemical content in my body:
Deep Purple - In Rock/ Budgie - S/T /  The Stooges - S/T / UFO - 1 / Slayer - Show No Mercy

The Riffcaster: Born the younger brother of a true music junkie, it was inevitable that the Riffcaster would grow strong in the ways of the riff.  Fed from an early age a steady diet of Rush, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult, and Bon Scott-era AC/DC, a desire for the sound of electric guitars screaming from Marshall amplifiers molded the Riffcaster into a being with a solitary craving…a craving for things that rock.  As his powers grew, he learned the ways of the progressive rock, the ways of the hard rock, the ways of the heavy metal until that fateful day in A.D. 1986 when cyborg Eddie looked out at the Riffcaster from the futuristic album cover next to the music junkie’s lp collection and whispered “Iron Maiden’s gonna get you, no matter how far.”  The rest, as they say, is history.  A never ending quest for the next rifftastic album, band, or show, the Riffcaster is always searching, always looking for the next horn-worthy moment.  In his free time, the Riffcaster enjoys collecting electric guitars (though the Riffcaster has no band to play them in save when he is pushing the limits of elderly people’s tolerance for electric guitar Sunday mornings in the church band or jamming in the living room at Riff Manor), geeking out on action/sci-fi/fantasy film stuff, playing beer-league hockey (poorly), avidly supporting his local Bay Area sports teams (Giants, Raiders, Warriors, Sharks), and educating the masses on the glories of the riff.  The Riffcaster is also a member of the Tribal Pinocchios, and the Iron Maiden Fan Club and enjoys gatherings where frosty malted beverages and the occasional cigar are partaken of.

The Riffcaster is loathe to do a “top 5 albums” list because the Riffcaster is a collector who travels the Riffverse assimilating all rifffs unto himself, but since he is pressed to do so, will select these 5 out of 700-something which of course could be 5 alternate albums on any given day:  Rush - Exit…Stage Left, Iron Maiden - Live After Death, Judas Priest - Unleashed in the East, Yes - Drama, Failure - Fantastic Planet, Zed - Desperation Blues.  What?...Oh, is that 6?...Well I couldn’t leave out Zed!!!

Rock Man & Mercy:  With a combined total of 114 years of love, knowledge and understanding for music, this married couple loves the modern rock scene, as well as the many decades of now Classic Rock, Hard & Heavy Rock and even some Heavy Metal!!!

Rock Man is the Harder & Heavier of the team... From that first 45 RPM record by The Coasters (Poison Ivy) that he fell in love with as a kid!!! Which would soon lead him searching through his father's album stash of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Buddy Holly to name but a few...   Loving the early beginnings of rock music in the late 40s and earlier 50s (YES, I mean that time period, before Alan Freed even coined the phrase "Rock & Roll" in Cleveland, Ohio or Bill Haley and The Comets topped the charts for the first time in 1955, with Rock Around The Clock in the US and the UK) to the major explosion of Hard & Heavy Bands in the late 60s & early 70s!!! He has remained true to rock music all the way through to the most excellent modern scene of The Hard & Heavy Underground of today!!!

Mercy started taking music lessons at the tender age of 5... A few short years later she walked into her Grandparents living room and was mesmerized by The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show... She was inspired to continue dabbling in music studies... She went from guitar & drum lessons, to marching bands and drum corps to teaching percussion!!! All these years later she is enjoying the modern Hard & Heavy Underground scene with Rock Man!!!

One more thing Rock Man & Mercy met online on Hunter Goatley's Alice Cooper SickThings mailing list back in January of 1998!!! Rock music is alive and well all over the world and here to stay!!!

All-Time Top 5 albums: Led Zeppelin - II/ Black Sabbath - Paranoid/ Deep Purple - Machine Head/
Uriah Heep - Demons & Wizards /Rush - 2112

Rys: Born in pre-hipster Brooklyn, the daughter of intellectuals, reared on a steady diet of Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Strauss and Bach.  This retired groupie and future ex-wife of Fast Eddie Clarke (or Peter Capaldi - whoever doesn't get the restraining order)  soon discovered the works of Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Rush, Rainbow and Uriah Heep just to name a few.  So strap yourself in and crank it up to 11, because God only knows what's going to fall out of my mouth.

Top 5 Albums this week (in no order)  Motorhead - Ace of Spades, Marillion - Clutching at Straws, Rush - Signals, Pagan Altar - Judgement of the Dead/ Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Elixir - the Son of Odin / Rainbow -Ritchie Blackmore's Raimbow

Soda Bill: Married and a father of 3, loco locomotive engineer and music enthusiast. Fan of all things that rock whether it's stoner rock, hard rock, classic rock, doom metal or even a little country and blues. Not one for rap, hip hop or most new music played on the radio. When I'm not spending my time with work or the family or fixing the house, I'm almost always doing something music related including spreading the word about new and upcoming bands.

Top 5 albums (at the moment), Graveyard - self titled/ Clutch - Earth Rocker/ Mothership - self titled/  Lindi Ortega - Little Red Boots/ Wo Fat - The Black Code

Swedebeast:  Being banished and exiled from his native land of the Norse gods, the Swedebeast found a new home across the Atlantic Ocean. Here he has pillaged and caused havoc ever since mainly to a soundtrack of doom, 70's rock and death metal. And always with a full tankard in one hand and his battle axe in the other".

Top 5 albums of all time: Thin Lizzy - Fighting; UFO - Phenomenon; Pale Divine - Painted Windows Black; The Crown - Deathrace King; Rush - Roll The Bones

The Void:  Just as John Garcia once told this swede how music filled that void in his heart out there in the vast empty desert outside Palm Desert The Void has filled his heart with all kinds of music his whole life, hence his name. His first memory of hearing music was Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention and in his youth he became a metalhead when Twisted Sister wanted to rock in 1984. From there on music has consumed him more or less 24/7 and he enjoys jazz, doom and anything in between. In the late 1980s he started his career as dj at a local radio station, something that he does until this day (www.mixcloud.com/intothevoidpodcast). And he has an ongoing career as a Lester Bangs wannabe rockwriter for the past 13 years in different Swedish magazines. He defines himself as a record collecting beatnik zen warrior.


Top 5 albums (an impossible task): Metallica -  Master Of Puppets, Miles Davis – Bitches Brew, Alice Cooper – Billion Dollar Babies, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention – Roxy & Else Where, Queensrÿche – Operation: Mindcrime

Woody: Woody (not his real name) became a Ripple contributor against his better judgment but is thrilled with the results. Who else would print his distorted fantasies involving Grand Funk, Mountain, The Stooges or any of the current crop of loud, low life bands. He is also a member of Brooklyn's #1 regressive rock act Mighty High.

Top 5 albums: Motorhead - No Sleep Til Hammersmith/ Charles Mingus - Black Saint & The Sinner Lady/ James Brown - Star Time/ MC5 - Kick Out The Jams/ Mothers Of Invention - Uncle Meat

Xroadie: Started my love of music at age 10 with Uriah Heep.  Worked at Hastings, Sound Warehouse, Moby Disc Records and Museum of Rock webzine.  Got degrees in Electronics, Recording Engineering and Harley Davison.  After the Army Roadied at The Whiskey, Gazzarris, The Roxy, The Troubadour, FM Station and The Country Club.  Started The Museum Of Rock, did around 6000 reviews and 500 interviews.

My Top 5 albums (It is really hard to pick. I could do a top 100 albums easily!): Uriah Heep - Live 1973/ Ted Nugent - Double Live Gonzo/ Iced Earth - Alive In Athens/ Iron Maiden - Live After Death / Helix - Walkin The Razors Edge.  As you can see most of my favorites are live where you see the real talent of the band.

With past and at-large contributions from The Rock n Roll Iguana, Koala, Gorgeous Nightmare, Cicatriz, Big Jay, Mr. Brownstone, Bones, Audio Renaissance, Teeder, The Fish, Wino, Malice, and Heddbuzz

Ever since the day Racer and Pope first founded this craziness that is Ripple, there's always been something crazy going on around the Ripple Office.  From bands recording at our Tres Llamas Studio, to singers dropping by for spontaneous backyard summer jams to . . . .well,  somethings that are just too hard to describe (like the Pope in a heated discussion with a pot smoking rubber chicken.)

 May your lattes always rock!