Worm Gear

Worm Gear started in 1995 as a print magazine. We published 11 issues before going to a webzine format. Marty Rytkonen and Scott Candey have been the constants since the very beginning, from zine, to website, to blog, but over the years we have had numerous writers help us out and contribute some great work along the way and you will see their work here as well. Worm Gear’s focus has always been to provide a certain depth to the varying types of extreme music we cover. Music that has been our lives for nearly 25 years at this point, and the passion and curiosity that has fed the obsession is what we try and bring to the work.
There has been several years of inactivity where we have let the archive speak for itself, but now with the addition of co-editor Jim Clifton, Worm Gear once again can open its eyes and move forward as an eclectic outlet of ideas and musical coverage that the people behind this website take very personally and seriously. Not sure what the future holds, but we have ideas and the rest depends on fan participation.

For those of you that have followed us for years, and those who have no idea about Worm Gear… stay tuned to this space as we have an extensive archive of reviews and interviews from the spectrum of extreme music to bring you. Thanks as always for your attention. Please feel free to leave comments, share our reviews with friends on Facebook/Twitter. Feel free to get involved.

17 years with Worm Gear. It’s pretty scary and surprising once we realize and experience the passing of time. It has been a passion and annoyance since the beginning, but I still possess the fire and desire to see Worm Gear survive and grow. That is the goal. When the print side of the mag was still functioning, I was the main biped in charge of keeping in touch with the labels to obtain ads (financial), coordinate interviews and also to design/layout the pages. My tastes center around the black and death metal worlds but isn’t limited to them. Hardcore, punk, industrial, some goth and other esoteric styles also appeal to me.
Outside of the webzine, I run Bindrune Recordings and have contributed to other publications such as Metal Maniacs and Digital Metal as a freelance writer. I also play guitar and are currently involved in the bands The Glorious Dead and Kolga. My musical past includes Charnel Valley, Prosthesis and Slaunchwise. I’m sure more music will arise from me once time permits. Like everything… time will tell.

Aside from scrawlings published in a little-known college literary journal, lyric-writing/guerilla marketing for my long-defunct music project, and some personal blogging, what you see on this site certainly represents the beginning of my journalistic endeavors, if not exactly my first foray into publicly-consumed written material. I’ve energetically followed the historical progression of extreme music for the majority of my life, however, and you’ll find my voracious appetite for knowledge about the many genres and sub-genres covered on this site is matched only by my never-wavering need to seek out and share with others the discovery of new sounds. Previously I’d chatter about music to anyone within earshot about my supposedly obscure tastes anyway, so I’m now highly enthusiastic about placing these discussions about metal, black metal, death metal, doom, thrash, grindcore, dark ambient, noise, crust, trad/war/post-/proto-/pagan/folk/ ad infinitum in front an appropriate, and presumably, more appreciative audience.

Hailing from the South, I spent my adult years in and around Atlanta, GA, before moving  to Traverse City, MI, my adopted home.  I was in the Atlanta metal band Shockplate from 1993-2008, and now co-own the Eihwaz Recordings label with Marty Rytkonen.

Jake Moran

Having accumulated a near-encyclopedic knowledge of obscure metal over the years, receiving the offer from Marty and Jim to become involved in Worm Gear was as validating as it was gratifying. I’m incredibly grateful to have found an outlet for my passion for death, black, and doom metal, as well as other edge-walking forms of music. Writing for Worm Gear serves me by deepening my knowledge, appreciation of, and relationship to music, and it’s my intention and hope that what I have to share will do the same for readers.

Beyond analyzing music to an obsessive degree here, I’m a published poet, a mentor in deep nature connection, and a featherbrained twenty-something.

My duties with Worm Gear have included, review writing, webmastering, interviews, and various bits of grunt work. My primary focus lies with Noise, Dark Ambient, Death Industrial, Power Electronics, Crusty Punk, Hardcore and various types of Underground Metal .

Outside of Worm Gear I record under the name Gruntsplatter, and have done collaboritive projects that include Blunt Force Trauma, Triage, Circadian, Umbra etc. In addition I also operate Crionic Mind Records and Distribution, and assist with Bindrune Recordings. I also have done graphic design under the banner of Crionic Media. More recently I produce the podcast “Professor Gruntsplatter’s Spookatorium”, and have been getting back to doing some writing and art .