It was a year ago today I responded to my old friend Robert Nevin’s constant requests that I get back into the world of music writing and started “Singles Going Steady”. A coupla days later, April 8th, I ponied up $20 and tried to find the right name for a pop music review blog on blogger.com. I was worried SGS would be too confusing in this internet days -too many disappointed Pete Shelley fans. I wanted rocknyc.com but it was taken so I called it www.rocknycliveandrecorded.com
The first post was a loud throat clearing but I did manage to name check Paul Simon, Titus Andronicus, Los Campesinos. No pics but Robert Nevin lands the first comment. The next day I reviewed Bob Mould at Joe’s Pub and still no pictures.
April 14th and my first trashing of U2 (and Rolling Stone while I was at it -5 stars indeed) and still no pics.
Finally, April 20th, a pic of Peggy Lee.
April 23rd I began to monitor visitors – six for the day!!!
In April I wrote 21 posts (there was only me), in May 41, June 45, July 100 and August 109.
My first big controversy was May 17th, a less than rave of Leonard Cohen at Radio City Music Hall plus? I called him a tenor when he is of course a bass. His fan club ripped me to shreds!! It’s still up if you wanna have a good laugh at my expense…
In mid August I wrote a post about what Jesus Christ would have on his Ipod and it was the first time I thought people liked my writing. Honestly, it was an exceedingly rare popular success. The Jesus ipod was an off shoot of an idea I had at the time to review other people’s Ipods. Mike Nessing was on, I reviewed his August 17th and the same day he wrote a post on Judee Sill. Todd Leibowitz had written about itunes getting the covers of albums wrong on July 23rd and both additions were very important.
But the real change, the thing that made us what we are today, was Helen Bach. On September 3rd Helen wrote a live review of Blink 182 and the rest is history.
And not just because of her writing but also because she loosened me up. The last of the rock critic mantle was finally thrown off and I became a full time blogger. This year, between Wheels and I, we have laid seige to the rock establshment, even each other on occasion.
The final big change happened due to a trip to the UK in late August. I had to cut back my blogging to around ten posts in ten days and saw my readership go from the fifties to the teens. I learned a lesson and learned it fast. Content is king
Here are my post numbers after August:
September 175
October 278
November 409
December 393
January 652.
We never take a day off ever, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, whatever -we posted.
But we were getting worn out so we cut back to 20 posts a weekday and 15 posts a weekend, and we are managing that fine.
In February, Helen and I rampage our way through social networking in search of a band that had broken up a year earlier, the great For Science. We find them as well.
The past couple of weeks have found me writing with Alyson Camus about the death of alt-rock folkie Elliott Smith. I am very proud of Alyson’s work on this story and though I doubt we will ever find out what happened that terrible afternoon, I appreciate the opportunity to try. And I am a child of the age of uncertainy. We are all quantum cats and this is a quantum blog with as many opinions as there are posts.
So there you have it: a year in the life.
People don’t always like me very much. I can hardly blame Chris Owens for hating my guts (and went back and read my Girls post and felt maybe I was a little too rough on him and Dum Dum Girls) . And Emily is right that we consider rock musicians our entertainment though we consider ourselves our readers entertainment as well. And Helen is right, I prefer Patrick to, say, M. Ward, and treat Patrick more respectfully. A form of hypocrisy.
Our readers think I’m a rock critic and can hate me for it. I’m not a rock critic. One person wrote after my Spoon post: “That review was awful”. Actually, it was pretty lousy (I was tired and waljked out half way through) but when you write all the time sometimes you’re gonna get it wrong.
I once reviewed Costello at the Palladium on New Year’s Eve, “Almost Blue, Almost 1982”. It was published in April. I write and post and write and post and occassionally it’ll hafta wait a day. I misspelled a word, something doesn’t make sense, too many commas, it sucks and I missed the story? I don’t really give a shit, I’ve moved on. And if I change my mind an hour or a week from now I’ll just write a new post saying I fucked up.
I started this wanting to be a rock critic again and a year later I am proud to be a blogger. And all these friends of mine, Todd, Mary, Mike, Alyson, Brett, Sciortino, Helen -we are are like Richard II going to battle against everything and everyone who would make us less than what we want to be.
We few.
We happpy few.
We band of brothers.
or
It’s Still Us Against Them