Way back sometime in 2000-01 I got my first ever domain name1 and the only thing I wanted to do with it was to write about music and use it to talk to other people about music. I learnt how to write HTML and then CSS and a bit of JavaScript and to do a bit of graphics editing and a bit of PHP and a bit of server management and bits of all sorts of other things you needed to know back then to make a website. That was how I became a designer, through my love for music and my want for a place of my own to talk about it.
Once I realised I could design other websites and that people would pay me for it, the focus of my online presence became primarily about that - flogging my services to all sorts of companies and individuals who needed a website back when getting one meant hiring someone like me to make it for you. As designing stuff became a more serious endeavour I found it difficult to retain the musical part of my personal web presence, and it almost completely went away within a few years - to the point where I’d become almost embarrassed about having my music online because it somehow undermined the idea that I was a serious internet design person.
For the 15 years since I’ve played a lot less music, but having recently moved to a new house and having resolved to find ways to nourish my tired and downtrodden soul - I am picking up my guitars again, and buying vinyl, and getting excited about music in that typical dad way which is both entirely predictable and inevitably, excruciatingly embarrassing for my future teenage son. But, music has always been important to me, and now that my career is well established and I’m no longer trying to attract clients I figure I could try and be a bit more like 15 year old me - excited about making, playing and hearing new music.
So - I guess this is all to say, I have a Soundcloud, occasionally I upload stuff there. And I have a YouTube channel which I just started uploading stuff to too. It’s really just for me, just the joy of doing it and the enjoyment of it existing in the world and on the internet - the place I came to for the first time in 19982 to find people who liked the same bands as me and wanted to talk about them. Here’s to making more music.
Here’s a Bon Iver song as I get to grips with my new amp