I've had an amazing week in Minneapolis--I leave for Portland, on a 36-hour Amtrak trip, late tomorrow night--but I'll be going with some bittersweetness, having just found out that Earl Root died on Friday night. Earl Root was the host of "Root of All Evil" on KFAI (90.3 FM), one of the longest-running shows on local radio (some 20 years) and, I'm willing to bet, one of the longest-running metal shows in the world. He ran a metal record store and a label also. I never met him (that I'm aware of), but he was always someone I admired greatly. Even as a non-metal guy, I was always impressed with the passion and breadth (and sense of humor) he brought to the radio show on my occasional tunings-in. I can't think of a single time I heard a negative word said about him; he was plainly one of the good guys. Here's a 2004 feature by Cecile Cloutier from City Pages that gets at what I mean. R.I.P., Earl.