do you remember when?

hey, so i've kind of been re-thinking things for this blog over the last week or so. I started it in 2007 - i originally wanted it to be about being a punk rock dad, and kind of a creative journal. it ended up being much more of the latter. more recently as technology has changed, it's often felt like an unnecessary duplication of things i was doing in other places. i started releasing new songs via bandcamp, and the stories about the songs went there. i started a tumblr blog where i occasionally post songs i like and whatnot. and of course there's twitter. it's crazy. it's everything all the time.

okay, this all feels like an unnecessary explanation. here's what we're planning on doing here. Dan Bills, who some of you may know as our synth/keyboard player in beat radio, is coming on as a contributor. he listens to a ton of music, has excelllent taste, and is going to be posting regularly about new stuff he's listening to. you'll like him - he's super honest. he's not afraid to be critical of things. i think i shy away from that sometimes - i'm sort of a people pleaser. i think it has something to do with my childhood and my Dad being rude to waitresses and stuff but that's probably a much longer story than i should get into here. Sometimes people write about Beat Radio and say how super nice i am but then i get worried that they're just giving us a good review because i'm so nice or whatever. like maybe i should be a little cruel. like Lou Reed that time when he made Susan Boyle cry by not letting her sing his song "Perfect Day."

Well, anyway, whatever, that won't happen. And i think our songs are good anyway, so it's fine.

But, Dan Bills, yeah, he has impeccable taste and i look forward to his contributions.

As far as what i'm doing here, it will be more like essays, long rambling things about music, kids, the music business, movies, books, whatever. i feel like music blogging used to be awesome, and now there too much people just trying to be the hot blog on the elbo.ws charts by posting the same song that everyone posts and not really having all that much to say.

i like real writing, not just posts about bands unveiling vlogs or exclusive co-premiers and all that. i feel like the PR machine that sends every blogger hundreds of emails a week sort of took the fun out of it. anyway, things used to be exciting, people used to have something to say.

i'm hoping it will be like that. it's probably change as we go along. i've learned not to make promises about blogging. if anyone out there wants to contribute, please hit me up at brian@beatradio.org. would love to get some great guest posts going. Here's a Minor Threat song, feels like the right way to kick things off.