The chartsmagazine Rage! hit the Scene first in 1996 and got overwhelming credits for the first issue, also in Generation. A wellmooded athmosphere which soon disappeared when things did not work out as they were thought to do. The misery started when Rage! did not receive the support it needed. Napoleon - then the main-editor and spokesman for the publication - seemingly felt betrayed and searched for the fault at everyone... except for himself. It came to an eclat with the release of the fourth issue. Napoleon started to offend his readership for not fulfilling his demands.

The following battle against the Official Eurochart, started when Rage! used cliparts from EC with neither permission nor crediting, also chewed out big bits out of the Raging Sceners moral. In Napoleons eyes this was - of course - the fault of others. The end was nay so it seemed. For half a year or so no sign of living. Now they bounce back reinforced and with best wishes for themselves. Generation talked with Brainwasher, the programmer of the magnificent Rage! code.




RokDaZone: Who are the main people involved, what tasks do they have?

Brainwasher: Actually the Rage! staff has grown a bit. The main forces behind Rage! can be divided in two categories. The technical part: myself (Brainwasher) for the code, design and some organizing, Photo$ for the graphics, and the release of all my wills.

The editing part: Fishwave is the main editor and is in charge of the contents in Rage! He will in the future focus his articles on the charts and statistics hemselves. He is the one who actually made Rage! come back to live. Dire is a co-editor. His task is to collect some votes, provide the informations on the productions and persons, and write some articles.

RokDaZone: And Napoleon? Is he still onboard?

Brainwasher: Napoleon, though he ain't the main-editor, for personal reasons, still is a part of the crew, as he is in charge of the making and updating of the Rage! web site.

RokDaZone: Are you eager to enlarge the staff for smoother performance?

Brainwasher: The main staff is made of five people, regularly working on the chart. If you add the Raging! sceners who provide us votes and information, you have to add four more. I believe the staff is big enough for a chart. But we do not exclude to enlarge the staff, if ever it would help Rage!, but I don't think we'll do it in a near future.

Furthermore Rage! is a small production, which comes out on regular bases, so keeping in touch with a too great staff and making a good job, in such a short delay seems not to be a possible thing. But who knows what can happen to Rage!. Who would have bet on our return?

RokDaZone: Who are your mainsuppliers for votes, from what countries do they come?

Brainwasher: Our main suppliers are the Raging! sceners and the web, actually: Rahiem /Essence (Germany), Lord/Kenguru (Hungary), Swoop/Rebels (Sweden), Kelson/Ramses (in France), and of course Dire/Eremation (Germany) who teamed up as a co-editor.

RokDaZone: How did you get the contact with Fishwave? When did he agree to join the team?

Brainwasher: I got in touch with Fishwave after the release of Seenpoint#5. I was amazed by the new design of this mag; and the articles. It was the first I really was enthousiast about Seenpoint. I decided to send a mail to Fishwave to congratulate him for the work he had done. After this mail we kept in touch regularly, and everything in our mails was tending to prove that we should work together. Fishwave enjoyed and believed in Rage! and we really needed some new support, as we were quite disappointed with Napoleon.

He first teamed up as a co-editor, as his main editing worked is dedicated to Seenpoint. But his attitude and work and also his moral support, made him the new mained of Rage!


RokDaZone: Will there be a online version and if, when?

Brainwasher: As Napoleon still doesn't want to cut all the links with the Scene, I asked him to work on the online version. Actually the online version is started, but we did not arrest any date for it's opening, but be sure will keep you informed. We have to follow the trend and make a chart online, it would be an error not go online.

RokDaZone: The idea of going online isn't very innovative on its own. What can a Rage! Online offer what the online version can't?

Brainwasher: In a first time Rage! online will be a sort of copy of the disk version. Our main goal is to make it a real time chart. Every two months will publish on disk the current results.

RokDaZone: With Fishwave you have found an internationally requested articlewriter. Will Rage! concentrate more on redactional features from now on?

Brainwasher: We have no intentions to change the meaning of Rage!. It is a chart and it won't change. We won't add classical articles like in the other mags and advise the article authors to send their articles to Generation, Rom or Seenpoint, we will more than certainly never publish them.

The presence of Fishwave and Dire will of course give us the possiblity to add some new rubrics. So you'll get articles focused and dedicated to the scene productions and persons, and to the charts. Moreover: Rage! is not the chart part of Seenpoint!

RokDaZone: How do you value the chances of Rage! in the direct battle against Showtime and The Eurocharts? What do you think of your competitors?

Brainwasher: I'm still thinking like some other persons that we are the number one in the charts category. Their (ST & EC) main weakness, is that they decided to become chart-mags. This means that they have to get articles, to have interesting contents, this can just lead to growing delays. I still believe that a chart is of interest if it's released on regular bases.

RokDaZone: Yes, we can see this from your latest delay of six months...

Brainwasher: What happened to us those last months has nothing to do with the scene, Rage!5 was finished in march 97. Concerning the mag part of both competitors, they are weak. The problem is that they can't focus all their attention on it, and thus deliver some average articles, so why do they have to publish them, they should spend their time and energy in pushing the charts standard higher. We have to innovate, not to copy the charts done by Crusaders in 1990.

Don't get me wrong, both ST and EC could be great charts, but actually they aren't what they used to be. For me there's only one chart valuable: Eurochart by Crusader, nothing will ever be as powerful as this one was, neither the actual EC, ST, nor Rage!, and there's only one good chart-mag: Generation.

RokDaZone: Napoleon called all the other charts inferior and cursed combined charts/diskmags like Generation: Do you agree with his points; should mags be mags and charts be charts?

Brainwasher: The problem is that if every mag does it's own chart, you never have any strong references. A few years ago you could refer to your ranking in the EC, but actually you can be ranked first in the mag your neighbour runs, and that he just spreads to his five contacts. Furtermore - and you know it - to release a correct mag, with good articles and correct english, you have to spend time on it. And it becomes a fact that the mags use approx. four month to get released. Take a good example, Rage! came out with some delay and everyone (me, also) thinks the charts are ot of date. So the chart-mag problem is just a matter of delay.

The thing is not to say the mags do not have the right to make charts, but just to say, that their charts are perhaps a bit less valuable.


RokDaZone: The first four releases where some kind of unfortunate for the lacking response. What do you blame for this and what can you change about it?

Brainwasher: First, when you get 80 votes in 1,5 month it ain't that bad (compared to 150 in four months). You have to consider that the number of sceners is lower than those last years, so there's no real surprise. Furthermore the voters are regularly the same, and if you take a look at them you'll notice that some VIS who never voted in their live supported us, so this is just positive.

We did not get the greatest amount of votes, but we got cover pictures, and modules form the most awarded sceners, we got the support from most adored sceners, so why should we change something.


RokDaZone: So Napoleon never made any mistake?

Brainwasher: I also heard some person complain about the attitude Napoleon had mainly on IRC. The claimed he was too arrogant and they therefore didn't support Rage!. Arrogance was a thought strategy, if it failed then it's really not a good move, and I will never blaim Napoleon whatever he told or did.

RokDaZone: Isn't there a danger that Rage! gets influenced by SeenPoint? Will you accept that?

Brainwasher: There's probably a danger, but you have to keep in mind that Fishwave writes the rare articles I still think that it isn't enough to print a real influence in a chart. But, we are mature enough to make the difference between what could be linked to Seenpoint or not.

It could have been anyone else, and Napoleon wasn't sacked. It could have been you RokDaZone, and other mags editors would have asked if there was a danger that we got influenced by Generation.




RokDaZone: What makes Rage! special in your opinion?

Brainwasher: Mainly the fact that we are the only chart left, and that we claim it. And our somewhat strange and different design. The main thing is that we have the support of most of the VIS, and I can't help but think to Melon Dezign when they arrived. Most disliked them but they influenced the scene.

RokDaZone: Will there be any new features in the future, if yes which?

Brainwasher: There will be always new features. We even implemented many new features no one noticed. We are the first chart with a hidden part (in all issues). We have the starting module played randomly, we have Supertext (though not used by the editors). And we have a few more plans for new tools never seen before. We still are working on a completely different design. Rage! will never stop evolving. Be it the editing part or the technical part. Issue 7 will feature some new kind of articles dedicated to the charts themselves. Analyses, commentars and reviews will fill Rage! in the upcoming issues.

RokDaZone: How long do you need to finish the issue after receiving all votes?

Brainwasher: It depends, really on my will to work. I'm actually working on some PC tools to accelerate the process. Once they are ready you can consider that the whole thing will take four to eight hours, testing included. Actually I need two to five days, considering that I always add some changes to the code during those days. Issue five took five days, as I had all the votes to reformat, Napoleon didn't want to do it anymore, and as I had to make changes and remove a bug from the code. So I guess all in all, you can consider that when we announce a deadline, the chart is ready for release, in the worst cases seven days after.

RokDaZone: Will you rather delay if you don't receive enough votes or will you release ontime instead?

Brainwasher: We delayed enough those last months. As we decided to restart on a two months base we'll be out every two months, whatever happens. The only thing is that we accept votes two to three days after the deadline, but it's rare. We had to make our comeback,though many thought we would never see the light again.

RokDaZone: Thank you for the interview!

Interview performed by RokDaZone