OK, we started this competition three weeks ago, and no one's submitted ANY BLACK METAL.

Perhaps you don't think we're serious. We assure you, we're serious. To get more of you [some of you] to actually participate, we're officially laying down the ground rules of the Crosstalk Black-Metal Riff-Off:

1. Riffs shall be no more than 30 seconds in length, and submitted in MP3 format [no greater than 192kb/s].
2. Riffs shall be BLACK METAL. Thrash, speed, death, grindcore, doom, drone, viking and/or hobbit metal will not be considered.
3. You must have written the riff you plan on submitting. Non-original material will not only be DQ'd, the submitter will have their email address sold to professional spammers. And don't try and slip one by us; the GW staff has been listening to Black Metal exclusively for the past three weeks.
4. You may add vocals if you like, but they must also fit within the strict definition of Black Metal. SPECIAL NOTE: Yes, some black metal may be associated with things like national socialism and aggressive anti-religious sentiment. . . NB: we reserve the right to disqualify any vocal content that we deem too offensive. I mean, we're pretty liberal over hear at GW, but we want everyone to feel included in our Riff-Off, except for narrow-minded, uncreative, cro-magnon dip-s#!ts. 'Nuff said.
5. No artificial tempo modulation. Again, don't even think you're going to fool us with that 220bpm 64th note run. We know what tempo modulation sounds like, dude, just forget it.
6. All submissions must be received by May 2, 2008. Final judging will be done by the Gearwire staff and a winner will be announced on Crosstalk 43, and the winner will receive a Gearwire T-Shirt and a Folk Album. By submitting your riff, you agree to have it broadcast [podcast?] by us for use on Crosstalk, duh.
7. Email all submissions to crosstalk@gearwire.com.

So that's it. We eagerly await your submissions, weaklings.