|
09/05/2007 It's been nearly sixteen months since I've posted here. The last time I shared with all of you (on 05/20/2006) Karen was very ill and I didn't think it would be much longer until she passed away. It happened faster than I could've imagined. Karen died on June 11, 2006 -- just three weeks after my last post here. Many of you who have visited the site over the past 10 years (God! Has it been that long?!) have found your way to my journal and have followed the journey Karen and I took through her illness and death. I don't want to re-hash all of that here. Suffice to say, we were both warmed by all the support we received through this site. There are some very kind people out there who share a love of synthpop music. Thank you. It's now been over a year since Karen's death and I've spent most of that time trying to recover and figure out what to do with my life. Not everything is crystal clear, but I do know that music still plays a large role in my life. I want to continue to share it with everyone who cares to listen to an old song or swap a story about their favorite 80s band. Obviously MP3s are really not the ideal way to share music any longer (with the various record industry groups having such hard-ons for litigation). I tried uploading a few streaming tracks, but that kind of sputtered out. So, I've decided to start a Live365 radio station. As of yesterday, theFIRSTCUT.net Radio is on the air! It's nothing fancy, but it's a way I can keep in contact with everyone out there who likes this kind of music. On the first of each month I am uploading 100 tracks to the station (and removing the previous 100 tracks). Most of these tracks are rare and out-of-print just as the 'Rare Recordings' used to be. Then again, not everything can be ultra-rare since I'll be rotating 1,200 tracks every year. Plus quite a bit of older "rare" material is being re-released on compilations such as Retro:Active and 12"/80s. I'd like to think most of what you'll hear on theFIRSTCUT.net Radio isn't played anywhere else. Most tracks will be extended versions and remixes with the occassional 7" mix or lesser-known album version. As far as this site is concerned, I am in the midst of making some changes. I am about 1,100 CDs behind in updates to the online CD database, so it's going to go offline and come back with a new interface. I have all of my music ripped into lossless FLAC format and organized using MediaMonkey. MediaMonkey uses an Access database to store all the track information and I've hired a friend to write an interface so the database can be queried online. I'm guessing it won't be done for a little while but when it is, it will be much easier to keep updated. I also intend to have a mechanism whereby listeners can request songs for the following month's broadcast. As I look at the changes that have happened to the internet over the past 10 years, I am amazed. I'm trying my best to keep up with the times. Karen's death really sidetracked me from everything in life for quite a while. However, I'm ready to begin anew. As always, feel free to email with any comments or questions. My new email address is the_first_cut_dj@curbmail.net. |
