After over five years of continual updates, I've decided to take a rest from this blog for a few months. There are a myriad of rather boring, trivial reasons for doing so (not least the fact that maintaining this is more time-consuming than it probably looks) but two specific things are definitely weighing on my mind at the moment:
1. The purpose of this blog was always to attempt to highlight tracks which were otherwise commercially unavailable, and preferably not available on other sites as well. In March 2008 this was shockingly easy to do, but as time has pressed on it's become more and more difficult. Spotify launched later in 2008 and began expanding their catalogue, then in the last couple of years record companies have become much more adept at exploring the darker corners of their archives (you wouldn't believe just how much obscure stuff is on iTunes is now - Candy's "Baby Baby I Still Love You" anyone? I know, I thought that one would be unavailable as well). This has meant that finding a buried disc which is worth writing about has become an incredibly tough and often expensive mission. You don't want to know how much I paid for a copy of Willy Zango's "Hot Rod"....
2. I do have a pile of odd records sat in my lounge at home, but none are particularly worth writing about. They're largely dull, and would mean that the next two months (at least) would be taken up with me waffling on about discs I doubt anyone will be interested in. If I can't convince myself about them, how will I convince anyone else? That said, if anyone does want a copy of The Best of Noel Edmonds' Funny Phone Calls, I have at least digitised that one...
It may be that I have to rethink the way this blog looks and is run, reverting to Soundcloud or Tumblr or even starting an entirely different kind of music blog with a different tack, or starting a podcast - I'm not sure. But I'll leave these thoughts to settle for a bit, and in the meantime I'd be grateful if you stayed linked to "Left and to the Back" until it's clear what I plan to do.
See you soon.
10 comments:
Your work has been greatly appreciated whatever direction you choose to take stuff. Give me a shout if I can be of use any way. Maybe we could sort a radio show version?
Thanks Ben.
The plan at the moment is to take a break for at least a couple of months and then work out what it is I want to do with this next. A podcast or radio show version has definitely been a vague plan for awhile, and would solve one of my problems - which is that it gets hard to find ways of writing about some of this stuff without resorting to cliches (even if they're your own cliches)!
Anyway, I'll keep you (and everyone else) posted, and I may take you up on that offer of help.
Thanks Dave, I've discovered a lot of good music through this blog either directly or indirectly, stuff I would never have heard otherwise.
Dave,
Just wanted to thank you for the hard work so far. Your blog puts a smile on my face more often than not.
It certainly is a dilemma. It's almost hard to remember back in 2005 when I first created a music blog (actually, a music video one called Sonic Pollutions) music blogging was just getting underway. We were like kids in a candy shop with a built in playground. Tons and tons of music we'd never heard before as the floodgates burst open.
My blog was hugely successful in it's time offering video downloads and intelligently written historical essays, but YouTube came into being at the end of 2005 and gradually took over so my blog ended up becoming obsolete since everyone preferred to watch streamed videos. That was fine, but as we all know YouTube itself has filled in huge gaps with so many obscure discs being posted. So between YouTube and blogs, huge ground was being covered so blogs such as this one - which I've been enjoying immensely for a few years - end up trying to find needles in haystacks.
If you do decide to move on and do something different, that's fine. You've done a great job over the lifespan of this blog... maybe time to reinvent and head in a different direction for more longevity. That's entirely up to you and whatever you decide is fine by me since I understand and appreciate the dilemma that is now involved.
Thanks for all the support above, everyone - obviously I've drawn no firm conclusions about what I'm going to do yet, but it was quite nice to spend this weekend record shopping without frantically worrying about finding material for the blog!
I'm still all ears if anyone has any suggestions for reasonable directions I could head off in.
Check out http://yourrecordplayer.blogspot.ie/
Enjoy your "step off" Dave.
You have mined the vein with energy and gusto.
It has been a pleasure to read your quality postings. I loved your descriptions and background.
I'm sure the creative spirit must be examined in order to remain vibrant and vital. So many ignore this component.
Thanks!
If I haven't updated in so long about what my thoughts are on this, it's for two reasons:
1. I fractured my elbow in June, and typing blog entries online with one hand isn't very easy.
2. I'm moving house at the moment.
Those two things (plus overtime at work) mean I haven't given L&TB much thought of late, but I'll return to this when things settle down a bit.
Looking forward to your return Dave!
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