The end of livingwithmusic.com as you and I know it is neigh.

As if you didn’t see that coming.

Now, I could blame it on my health which has taken I don’t know how many hits these past years and has it made exceedingly difficult to sit in front of a computer screen for longer than absolutely necessary (yes, I do have a day job that requires lots of PC work on top of the work I do for this site).

But I won’t.

I could blame it on the cost of this site, which has risen quite steeply when I passed the I don’t know how many million visitors mark. This site has been around for a long time and most visitors fall into the category of “Google noise”, which is not bad at all for me (for others it might be). Apparently I have quite a lot of info on my site that people are interested in, and that was what the plan was for this site all along.

But I won’t blame it on that either.

I could blame it on my Dell PC (Dell sucks!) which caused nothing but problems until first my damn expensive monitor burst into flames and then, a few weeks ago, the fan took off within the case and trashed both mainboard and processor. I’ve only this week completed the installation of a brand-new dual core system which has more hard disk space than you can shake a forest at.

No, not that either.

It’s much simpler than that: I just don’t feel like it anymore. I think I’ve said (= complained about) enough about collecting and I had the feeling I was starting to repeat myself all too often.

I’ve also been spending a lot more time with the music itself instead of writing about it. At the moment, I’m ripping my entire collection to a positively huge array of new drives, and I’m properly cataloging my collection for myself. For fun. Just to see how many sessions I actually have at least two copies of. ;)

Yes, there are a million recommendations I still have, both in regard to music and in regard to storing it all, but I’m simply lacking the incentive to keep it up in a steady stream of posts. You’re gonna have to call me from now on to get any of that info.

In addition, I’m simply tired of fighting with different software packages to achieve the simplest of goals which is … wait for it … publishing a bit of text and a few photos on the Net. I’ve grown out of the phase in which experimenting, learning new software and remembering a trillion new commands and tricks was fun. I just think it has become tedious and it surprises me to no end that nobody has really managed to put out idiot-safe software to accomplish that simplest of tasks. If you want to stay independent of Blogger and whatnot, you have to make choices, all of which lead down the road of proprietary madness and time-wasting:

I’ve tried at least 10 different programs to keep this site well-groomed (since it appeared in its first incarnation more than 10 years ago), but all had their pitfalls, especially when you have to commit to tons of proprietary stuff once you decide to use one specific package. Starting over on another one - if your site has more than the most basic functionality - requires moving back to “Start” and learning everything over again. Yes, approaches are similar, but there comes a time when you throw Expression Engine tags into a WordPress project, spiced with a healthy dose of CSS tags that are - of course - not even available in some browsers yet. You tweak, you try to make sure people can read it and in the end, some object on the page disappears from the sidelines, isn’t displayed anywhere or attracts some evil geniuses that try to spam your inbox with a trillion porn messages (since I switched to Wordpress in April or so, we’re talking a 7 figure number which I don’t even have a look at anymore. The other day I noticed by accident that at least three good comments died in the purging of spam that had accumulated over a period of wild two (!) hours, but I couldn’t care less anymore).

In short, you spend more time running the software than writing anything whatsoever.

Stupid.

You could say I graduated from being a geek to becoming someone who simply doesn’t feel like either getting with the program or staying with anyone of them.

I’m also a bit disillusioned with the lack of any coherent information on the Net in regard to more eclectic topics. If it’s “in”, you’re swamped with (mostly trite) info and if it’s not, you have to drag your tired eyes through a myriad of astonishingly bland nonsense that - worst does usually come to worst - was put out by one person and then copied a trillion times by other imbeciles who are just too dumb, too profit-oriented or just plain lazy to add anything useful themselves. It’s really a sign of the times … and it’s not about to go away.

Danny Glover put it best: “I’m too old for that shit.”

Those who do have knowledge seclude themselves in small elitist clubs and keep it to themselves or, worse, make you waste more time on forums that are mostly ego boosters for those who try to make other people trudge through all the nonsense they publish just to find the good bits.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Case in point: I announced a series on Danish pop a while back which I started researching and because I was there at the time and know a bit more than others, I could tell right away that the info available is so superficial and error-riddled that I didn’t dare write anything without checking and double-checking. And that takes time and, most importantly, forces me to annoy people who have better things to do than answering questions all day long. In short, only the people involved care and the rest copies the same incorrect info time and again. I learned a ton while researching the topic, I reestablished contact with a load of people I once spent lots of time with, I got to know some idols of my youth and - to be brutally honest - I don’t feel like sharing any of that. It’s a waste of time.

What was it? The information on the Internet doubles or triples every few, err, days weeks or months? Yes it does. But so does the garbage on a waste dump. Same difference.

So, yes, I could start to look for better software (no effin’ way), I could move to a cheaper host (no bloody chance) or I could come up with some way of making things run more smoothly. A definite no to all of the above because they require that I spend more time researching and wasting more time on battling spam, malicious code, security holes, etc., ad infinitum.

I could spend entire weeks trying to find out why band 1 actually gave up and turned into band 2, minus - of course - the sessions that were recorded by that hybrid band 1/2 inbetween.

Err, no.

Life’s become a bit too precious for me to waste more time on this stuff.

I’ll leave that to the younger crowd which, I’m quite sure of that, will have nothing substantial to add.

Call me egoistic and you’ll probably hit the mark quite well.

Will livingwithmusic.com die then?

Of course not.
It’s been around too long for that.

But - and you’re just going to have to wait for it - it’s going to fold in on itself in a way.

See, my statistics show that there are certain posts on this site that attract all the attention and that there are others that don’t. Big surprise.

Those posts that do have thousands of eyes on them each month will be repackaged (and expanded, if necessary) and the rest … will drift into the bits and bytes that are the known dark corners of the “Internet”.

No big thing, but I thought I’d announce it here.

So, what you will be getting (and certainly not before I’m done) is a single-page download site that will offer *.pdf downloads of documents outlining the “Jazz in Paris” series, the “Universal Deluxe Editions”, Mosaic discographies, etc.

A repository of sorts … so you don’t have to trudge through the other “dreck” that is out there to find that precious information.

One file which collects some better reviews.

And that’s it.

I’ve spent a lot of time these past years doing layout work for magazines, books and other print material, so I’ll just apply that knowledge in a safe environment without having too worry too much about the programming aspects or technical deficiencies. Hell, I even found a good article recently that shows me how to bridge the A4/US-Letter gap successfully so all those having to live with an outdated Letter format will be able to print the stuff.

So, yes, life as we’ve known it on this site is no more.

I’ll keep this site the way it is until I’ve completed what I have in mind and you only need to stay subscribed to find out when things are redone. I’d also like to put out one specific call for help within a few weeks (for those of you who have them: I’m looking for Mosaic discographies that were downloaded from their site when they were up) and after that, the new site will pop up one day.

If you don’t feel like waiting, I’m sure you’ll end up here again via Google, Yahoo and all those other evil crawlers once the new stuff has been indexed.

Until then, relax, have a beer or whatever your poison might be and, most importantly, get - perhaps - more of a life than you had previously.

And, thanks for hanging around all this time.

Volkher

P.S.: Since putting together a well-rounded download file with all the necessary info (I’m about one third done with the “Jazz in Paris” series) and a decent layout takes time, don’t get impatient. It’ll be done … in my time. :)

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Tags: features