ENTRY 001filed 2026-09-02
This site is the first entry in its own index. Thirty years of tape, paper, and signal, finally filed in one place. More notes as they're written — the ledger stays open.
KT-01
The Story
Filed: ongoingBefore there was a network, there was a kid with a stack of records, price guides, a tape deck, and the conviction that the good stuff never gets played on the big stations.
It started in 1986 with my first idea for an independent zine. In 1989 that became the first edition of What It Is!, and between 1989 and 1990 I put out five issues covering music, collecting, prices and the underground culture around them.
Then life intervened. Child support meant I had to get settled and do something more practical for a while. I moved my publishing into slot-car price guides and parts catalogs: indexed by hand, priced from real sales, compiled on computer back when that was still worth advertising on the cover.
By 1996, with those obligations back on track, I returned to music: underground scene culture and affiliate-style broadcasting. Alternative, hard rock, industrial, and the music commercial radio routinely overlooked.
The habits were set a decade earlier: index everything, verify everything, and pay attention to what everybody else overlooks.
In December 1999, those habits became the U-Rock® Network.
The founder's story is about building that network. This site is the other side: the songwriter, the publisher, the collector, and the guy who still grades condition before he grades hype.
// operating principle: build the real thing first. solve the root problem. mature the system before you scale it.