I figured I would come out of my self-imposed blog exile with the sad news that Dannie Flescher, one of the co-founders of the influential Wax Trax! Records has recently passed away from complications and illness related to AIDS. Concidentally, or perhaps not, Jim Nash also passed away in 1995, sometime after Wax Trax! filed for bankruptcy and was bought out by TVT. I discovered Wax Trax! myself sometime before that, I believe, after the release of the boxed set in 1994. Prior to that, I only knew of Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, but it was also a high school friend who turned me on to KMFDM and Front 242. After this, I found the boxed set in a local record store and my life was pretty much changed from then on. I tried to buy everything I could get my hands on, minus the vinyl, of course, since I never owned a record player. The Wax Trax! Black Box was also instrumental in introducing me to more experimental music beyond electronic dance to bands like COIL and Controlled Bleeding. It would be quite simple to say that, for me, without Wax Trax!, this blog would have never existed in the first place. Though the label has been long gone, still 20 years past its heyday, the music that was released then still stands up as some of the finest electronic dance / industrial ever, and will never be forgotten. So many classic acts had their record sleeves graced by the iconic power-lines logo. RIP Dannie and Jim.