THE OLD MUSIC WEB

We need to get back to this.

The site is still active, and some of the links still work, but wow, remember when local scenes used to have websites like this?

I also found this page called Escape. There are lots of broken links, but it is still a reminder of what old websites used to look like.

I love how innocent and pure this bit of text is:

“An amazing unofficial Mudhoney page. It has everything about them, their side projects, and other sordid details.”

Like, there was a time when you couldn’t read every interview a band ever did online, or see all the photos they posted on Instagram.

Makes me think I should start an un-official band page or two!

We are the creative professionals who base our entire careers on making things look interesting.

Why would we stop with our branding, our collateral material, and – for the love of God – our website?

We are in the world of visual excellence. We should make visual excellence the priority feature of our brand.

Don Giannatti 

ACTION IS THE BEST NOISE CANCELATION

Minimalism was a thing for me in 2009.

I loved the idea of owning “just enough.”

I also remember all the questions, the naysayers, the “yeah, buts.” A lot of people in the replies asking about the best lightweight shirt, or how many socks to own.

But there comes a time when the questions are a stall tactic.

There’s a time to do your research, sure. Buying anything for $1,000, it pays to look at some reviews and YouTube videos, but at some point, you’ve got to make a move, which then puts you on the hook.

When I hit the road as a bike nerd in 2010, I heard some naysayers on a bike forum or two (the internet was much smaller back then), but fuuuuck off, I was living my dream while you were posting comments on the internet.

Did I do everything right? Nope. Did I post some pompeous shit? Hell yeah, I did.

I did stuff and learned from it, a constant cycle of learning, figuring things out, adapting, and getting to the next challenge, writing the next chapter.

The online chatter is noise, and the noise goes away when you build up a nice strong sense of self by doing whatever the fuck it is you want to do.

STYLE

This is from Steph who makes Obsidian, from ‘Style is consistent constraint.’

Collect constraints you enjoy. Unusual constraints make things more fun. You can always change them later. This is your style, after all. It’s not a life commitment, it’s just the way you do things. For now.

Having a style collapses hundreds of future decisions into one, and gives you focus. I always pluralize tags so I never have to wonder what to name new tags.

Great example here is this video from 2yn: