I'm sure alot of you on irc lately have heard a great deal about a new group called Root. It may have been from my annoying topics in #ansi or from our annoying xdcc bot which offers all of our packs. In anycase this article is to let everyone know that Root is in no way a NEW group, and to give everyone a little bit of history on what I, and apparently many others, feel is the best kept secret in the scene today.

It was not too long ago that the area code that I live in was just like every other in the scene today, dead. There were no boards, and deffinately no groups. Sure we had our share of members in other large internet based groups, but not a single group that we were all part of. Around November or December this all started to change, a few boards that were once a big part of the scene opend up again and actualy had a bit of activity. I was happy to see the scene being brought back to life, but was a bit sceptical of how long it would last, I had seen attempts like this before work for about a month or so and then fail miserably.

There was a small difference this time though, there seemed to be alot of new faces I had never seen before, and a genuine interest showd by all of them. It wasn't too long before I had heard of our first group since new life was brought to the ac. This group went by the name of DeadKrew and had very minimal talent but alot of enthusiams and an excitement that can only be found in people just recently introduced to the scene. Their work was unimpressive at best, and their president had absolutely no experience. Despitethese flaws it was still good to see that there were actualy people willing to make a serious attempt at bringing life back to the scene.

A short while later I got news of a second new group being made by two of the more respected artistsin our scene, defiant and dislogic, and that also had all of the relatively known artists from our ac. This sparked my interest, I knew the talent that was present in our area and was glad to hear that someone was making positive steps to group it together with some real leadership. I was even more excited when I was asked to join the group as 'co-ordinator' (I have absolutely NO skillwhen it comes to art).

Our first pack was released with a great deal of excitement, and a slight rivalry with our counterparts Dk, although we were easily the better group. We continued and released our 2nd pack during which defiant announced he may have to give up his seat as prez and let dislogic rule alone. The third pack had came around and defiant had finaly decided he didn't have enough time to be prez and stepped down. Dislogics computer had died so one of our members, Flight, stepped forward and released the pack. We were now in our fourth month and dislogic had all but dissapered, he had found out he wasmoving to Edmonton so his time was spent more with his friends than his computer. Flight again took the reins and did what was needed to put the pack together. Dislogic eventually realised that he wasn't keeping up with the group and made an announcement on The Source (a local board run by Flight) stating that due to his lack of involvement he was placing Flight and myself as presidents. His name was left in the memberlist as president and he was still able to release a few pieces for us in our 04 pack.

With the release of the 04 pack I think our group finally realised the potential we had. It was a fine display of the talent in our area code and would rival the quality of many of the internet based groups. We were starting to be recognised and people were asking us for our packs on irc now. It was quite and exciting time and I was hoping that things would continue to improve.

Unfortunately things just didn't work out that way. Some of our members weren't happy with the lack of recognition that comes with being in a 100% local group that didn't release on the net. Others were offered positions in larger groups. Our 05 pack was released, with myself and flight as the presidents, but the pack unfortunately had very low content. The quality wasn't too bad, but the pack was a bit small for our liking. With this Flight and myself had a decision to make. Did we want to compromise what our whole group was about and go the route or taking longdistance members. Eventualy we had decided that if the group were to stay the way it was eventualy there may not BE a group. We formed our channel on irc (#ro0t) and this is where we stand today. If you have any interest in joining our group you can find myself or Flight on irc and have a chat with us. If you would like a sample of our packs you can find them via xdcc #ro0t or just find a member in #ansi. So with this Root says hello to the world of the internet.

Dark Spawn (Root Prez)