The Dark Ages...

Things have been a bit crazy lately. As the world tries to get back on it's feet from God knows what the hell happened and why... the metal community tries to get back to some sense of normality. A lot of tours have been cancelled, but most others go on. It's the best thing to do, we must go on with life. But sometimes it's hard to know what life is. Close to me...a few of my friends have been suffering their private battles. I guess these are dark times, so the news will seem dark. Chuck Schuldiner is showing signs of progression, but he has such a long way to go, I feel so helpless for him. The money contributions and the well wishes through mail and the internet are definitely good for his spirits, but yet he suffers. He's going through physical therapy as well as still staying on the experimental drugs for his condition. I've heard he is showing signs of progression, but it's frustrating to me the unfairness he has been dealt [Get well soon metal brother, we miss you!!!].

Chuck Billy has done very well in his battle with his tumor. But even here weeks after the chemotherapy, he goes in for surgery tomorrow morning to remove what's left. It could be scar tissue, it could be dead tissue and it could very well even be cancerous tissue - so the doctors are taking no chances and cutting that bastard out. It's major open heart chest surgery, so we're all bearing down and hoping things will turn out fine in his long road of recovery once again. He has the most positive attitude I can ever imagine, and I don't know how he has such strength to take this head on. Now James Murphy, I talked to him on the phone a couple days before he said he would be released from the hospital. He had a massive pituitary tumor removed from his head. We only talked a few minutes so the details weren't discussed at length. But they went in through his face and behind his eyeball. He seemed, under the harrowing circumstances, to be in relatively good spirits and he was totally James. By this I mean, after he was rushed into brain surgery to save his life from the tumor putting pressure on multiple points on his brain and eye and was able to talk on the phone, I mean he still has his wit and his memory. This is another good sign, and he is feeling positive as well as his tumor is benign and was told to remain hopeful for a full recovery. We're reeling a bit here from all of this. Makes us feel just a bit more mortal. But always gotta remain hopeful, stay supportive and just always be there with a positive attitude.

In musical news..."First Strike Still Deadly" has a release date of Oct 23rd. That's the album of the Testament remakes. It features the return of Alex Skolnick and John Tempesta as well as the "main men" Chuck and Eric...oh, and me. We just got back from Andy Sneap's place over in England from a mixing session, it came out pretty good, really heavy sound. Considering Chuck sang during the end of his chemotherapy is amazing, his voice sounds killer. We (me and Darren) have a tape full of tunes for Chuck when he's back in business for our side project with him, so we're taking this little window of time to work on some new Sadus tunes. We hope to get in the studio early next year and kick out our fifth studio album. But until then we have a few other things brewing. We're contributing to a Dark Angel tribute. We're releasing, through Hammerheart Records, the 1986 D.T.P. demo on vinyl and most likely on cd too. There's been talk of doing an EP before the album that will contain one new one, a couple live ones and a cover tune. So maybe this time we can expect something from Sadus once again. Also during this period of little time demands I've been working a little with the Dark Hall guys to come up with some new songs. So that's about it...Just want to thank everyone who came out to Thrash Of The Titans. It was a huge success (literally!). And the Sadudes were out in full force...thanks for the killer support everyone! It was great to be included with the Bay Area greats and have such a killer response, it got us noticed that night for sure. We had some sound problems that night, but we pumped out the old ones for the die-hards. And it got us pumped up for doing new shit...thanks once again for reminding us that we owe you another one!