On some of the shorter RIP stories, you'll see a notation that says (Fresh Blood). That's because there was a special section in the magazine for new bands called "Fresh Blood." In fact, I was in charge of that section, along with the record reviews, Indie 500 (for cool indie discs) and multi-media reviews. There were usually about three Fresh Bloods per issue, and the articles ran about 500 words apiece. Looking back now, it's easy to see why most of these bands wound up in Fresh Blood instead of getting a full feature — after all was said and done, they just didn't get very far. Occasionally a band would graduate up to a full feature (and even more rarely, bona fide stardom), but not that often. Still, there are a few bands that should have been more successful. Sometimes I wrote about them.