First, the news. In the middle of May, we received word from John (bassist) that he needed to hand over the Vienna Award to someone because he was going to be unable to keep it up. A complete reworking of our award system ensued, with the Vienna Award basically taking the place of the Vanguard Award and the Vanguard Award taking the place of the Site of the Month Award, which had been handled by Ben (musakmaster). You can read more about it in the Vienna Award page. We are still working out the details of the Vanguard Award, but should have it in place in a few days.

This first "refreshing" features several firsts. High atop the list is CL Florian's official first "Austrian Insights" column. This fascinating column is presented in both English and German versions, and contains two examples of beautiful yodels, not at all like the Hollywood or country-and-western version of yodeling many Americans may be accustomed to hearing. Be sure to check it out.

CL Florian is also the responsible party for "Austrian Surfing Music," a RealAudio format background listening file for viewers to open while reading the zine. Other singers and musicians are invited to submit files for this feature.

The ever-busy musakmaster, Benedict Chiu, has found time to update us on his past year as a community leader. Way back last July (1998), he was the first subject for the CL Interviews, which became the Zineterview. (Credit to Klassiks for coining that term, at least to my knowledge.) You'll be amazed at all that Ben has accomplished since then.

We've begun advertising for graphic artists to submit designs for Vienna links. These will be collected and uploaded to the Resource pages, along with links to the creators' sites.

Robert "cl_kaulana" Farley
Editor