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| Please forgive the carpet wrinkle, having cats that like to claw is a challenge |
It seems somewhat inconceivable to me that I put this website up ten years ago. It's even weirder to me that I was taking pictures of my record purchases on Flickr for about a year before I moved everything here. I know that I didn't think about what this would look like ten years later as I just didn't have any sort of long term idea. In the heat of the moment in 2011, I just wanted to find a better place to put my year end list that year.
When I look back over these past ten years, it is kind of amusing to me. Ultimately, this site is exactly what it was in 2011. I've done one minor design update in that time and have just continually pumped out pictures and write ups. More people read now than they did back then, but my circle of influence is still pretty minuscule and I'm usually preaching to a choir of likeminded individuals that are already interested in this sort of music.
Sharing music has always been important to me. In high school I wrote reviews for my school newspaper. I did the same in college and then transitioned to having a radio show and ultimately being the music director of my college station. My first job was doing radio promotion in the music industry and when I left that job in 2007, I just still wanted to be involved.
I imagine there's probably a handful of people out there that remember when I started doing an internet radio show which morphed into a podcast called Ludicrous Speed. On the old Pop Punk Message Board, some dude was starting up an internet radio station called Punk and Beans radio. Perhaps one of the most poorly named endeavors in the history of the internet, but it was 2009 and I missed doing my radio show when I was in college ten years earlier.
I downloaded a few programs and put together episodes. The internet station fizzled out extremely fast and I shifted it towards being a podcast. It was fun, but honestly it was a giant pain in the ass putting those episodes together. I also have no real interest in hearing myself speak or try to be any sort of on air personality, I just wanted to play songs so others could hear them. It was probably pretty boring, but there were slightly fewer podcasts then than there are now.
Eventually I just wanted to document my collection so a few friends could follow along. Even when I put this website up, I never really meant for it to become a review site. It was just supposed to be pictures of records and a sentence or two. But as I picked up records that I love, I ended up having more and more to say about them. It very quickly morphed into whatever the hell it is now.
I've met a lot of cool people through this site. About four record labels send me records on a regular basis to write about and I am exceedingly grateful for that. But what's always been the coolest for me is when someone tells me that they had never heard of a band I wrote about and ended up buying their record. That's just the best.
I've contemplated not doing this site anymore many times. There are days where I just have no interest in writing. Sometimes I go for months at a time without getting a cool new release that I'm excited about and in 2020 and 2021 that was a real problem. Even though I don't think hardly anyone cares about them, the Wednesday old school hip hop reviews are probably one of the main things that made me keep this site going consistently since the pandemic started.
I don't know exactly how much longer I'll do this. I'm not stopping today or tomorrow or anything like that. I still have a pretty big pile of records that I haven't written about yet, although most are older albums or reissues of older albums. There will undoubtedly be a time where I just say enough is enough, but I guess I'm not there quite yet.
In a couple of weeks I'll be putting up my annual Absolute Best Record Of list. This year was really difficult. Luckily a late flurry of albums came out and gave me enough records to actually put a list together. I'm really hopeful that 2022 lets us return to the days of more new releases, pop punk bands playing shows and a general return to normalcy. I don't necessarily think that's going to happen, but it is what I hope for.
Ultimately what I really want to do more than anything else is say thank you to anyone and everyone that has ever read this site, messaged me about a record or sent me something to check out. I can't fathom doing this for ten more years, but I also couldn't have imagined doing so in 2011 either. I've probably got a bit more in me though, so buckle up and get ready for three reviews of average quality writing a week. At least until the last week of December. I always take a break then and this year will be no different.
Thanks to all.
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