A note from your host

No band this week. A few observations instead.

When I began this blog, I didn’t give a whole lot of thought to what writing it might entail. I thought I’d use it as an excuse to learn to make my own WordPress themes. Then I got impatient and decided to just dive right in with a prepackaged theme, the admirably unbusy “Clean Home.”

I knew that scanning flyers and digitizing tapes would take a while. What I wasn’t prepared for was the emotional toll involved in embarking on a nostalgic venture as colossal as this. I have a pretty good memory, but like anyone else I don’t tend to know where its flaws lie. When, facing the task of telling a logical and chronological story, I find myself staring at indisputable evidence like names and dates on flyers, release dates on CDs, postings at other websites, and handwriting on cassette labels, I realize that the stories I’ve carried around for years about my own life are, to a shocking extent, wrong. Nothing earth-shattering—I don’t have a first wife I’ve forgotten about—but the cumulative weight of all these small corrections is daunting.

Prior to writing an entry here, I’m wired; I spend a night digging up all the evidence, making scans, listening to tapes (for every track I post here I wade through many more), digitizing tracks. Then I can’t sleep, plotting the post in my head. The next night I devote to writing. It always goes late. Afterwards, I’m exhausted and even more wired. The next day, comments roll in—gratifying, flattering, surprising, hilarious. I’m thrilled and don’t get much work done, popping back in to respond to comments. (There’s usually also a thread among my Facebook friends about each post, as well as email from folks who choose not to comment publicly). It wipes me out. I love it. I’ve heard from long-lost friends, acquaintances, strangers. I’m so happy people are reading.

I’ve learned that posting on a Tuesday or Wednesday helps people actually read the posts. My non-chronological approach to all of these bands makes my job a little trickier, but makes for smoother sailing for the reader/listener, as I can bounce around between projects of varying degrees of musicality and renown. Since readers suffered through 35-year-old tapes of the teenaged me last week, I suspect I’ll write about something current in my next post.

Please keep reading, get in touch, sign up for email updates about posts if you’d like (in the sidebar to the right), and keep commenting (or start commenting!).

-M.

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