Excuse me while I ramble on a bit about recent events involving hasty decisions and poorly thought out actions here at TATSOL H.Q.About a week ago I mentioned in a brief, if not dramatic post that there would "
most definately be some changes coming to this blog!"
First off, you can't read the particular post where I wrote that anymore - it's gone. I deleted it. Along with the one from a day or so later promising that "
we would continue on without interruption" - you know, the post with the video of the guy with the jackhammer? Don't look for it, it's gone now too. A few changes HAVE been made here in recent days, but not on
nearly the scale I was envisioning last weekend. A bit of explanation follows.
I had been thinking for quite some time
(about a week maybe) that it might be a good idea to "spin-off" another blog from ThisAintTheSummerOfLove. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to give all the New York City related content that we feature here it's own space so it wouldn't be jumbled in with a bunch of crazy "rock and roll" stuff, which we've really been featuring quite a bit more of over the past few months. I thought that a separation of those "two-of-primary interest-to this-blog" topics (
New York and
Rock and Roll) would be a good change. Maybe less confusing for someone who comes here and wonders why one post is about Revolutionary War era New York City and the next is an ad for "Rock Fest 2002."
So I set about figuring out what to call this "all new, all New York, all the time" blog. I settled on a name for the blog and then I actually began to set it all up. I did a few introductory posts on it and then I began moving a bunch of New York City content from the 3+ years worth of archives here at TATSOL over to the new blog. The intention was to pull nearly
all NYC-related content from
here and put it
there and then possibly make TATSOL an "all music all the time" blog. I was pretty gung-ho on the idea at first, initially moving over 200 posts from here to there - all the old NYC postcards, my NYC vacation pieces from 2008 and 2010, a bunch of NYC book reviews and NYC videos and random photos and a ton of links were moved. It seemed a good idea...but quite a bit of work as well. But I plugged away, happily, content that this was all a good idea.
But by Wednesday of this week, I'd had a complete 180* turn in my feelings about my decision. It just wasn't necessary I decided. In fact thje whole idea and process by this point was fairly headache inducing. I ultimately came to the idea that I had lost track of something: why I started TATSOL in the first place -to celebrate New York -
and rock and roll. That's what I've
always done here, and I decided that is what I will
continue to do here.
You always see reference to the "NYCDreamin' Archives" in my posts. Usually in regard to the accompanying image for whatever I'm writing about. Well, the NYCDreamin Archives in reality contain literally thousands of pages on rock bands and rock and roll history - and the history of New York. I've been a ravenous collector of both topics for many years and have ammassed several 3" thick, 3-ring binders
full of photos, articles, magazine clippings, concert flyers, posters...tons of stuff, too much stuff. It's heavy and takes up a lot of bookshelf space.
Part of the reason you've seen such an increase here in the number of old concert ads/ flyers/etc that I've been posting is that I've got so many of them. And I decided earlier this year to reorganize them, some will be purged from the collection and never see the light of day here. But many many more will be scanned, appear here in the coming months, then be filed away back into the archives under a newly restructured, space saving system of organization.
In addition to that, another reason that I had thought about starting an "all New York" blog was that I'd recently decided to start another series here on TATSOL, I was gonna (and
am going to) call "A New York Minute." You can read a few of the first of many of these to come following my little tirade here. I'm going to begin sharing all the cool old New York City history I've collected in old magazine articles, clippings from old books, etc. The New York portion of the NYCDreamin Archives dates back only to about 1996 or so, but contains so much great stuff I've been wanting to share with my fellow NYC enthusiasts. I thought a new, all-New York blog would be the perfect vehicle for that project. And it very well might have been.
But in the end I decided I really wanted to keep TATSOL as it has always been: a place for people who have insatiable lust for ever more classic rock, hard rock, heavy metal and punk -
as well as a love for all things New York City.
A blog
I'D read if I didn't write it myself.
So a few changes did actually occur here at TATSOL after all. The 200+ posts I moved? I moved them
back here. Only now they appear in the July and August 2011 post archives. Then I deleted the new blog, killing it after only a few days. Through the process of moving all this stuff back and forth I managed to learn what the "import/export" feature that Blogger offers is capable of - wish I'd figured it out sooner - would have saved me a sevearl hours of messing around moving posts the hard way. Anyway. I also went through the TATSOL post archives and removed approximately 50 posts I deemed to be absolute junk taking up space needlessly. I've changed our color scheme here a bit. I also taken down the photo of myself near the Brooklyn Bridge that graced the top of our front page for the past few years, opting for the "logo only" look for now. And, finally, I've added a new links page. Many of the links that use to appear on our front page under "Of Interest To The Enlightened" now appear there. You can access this by clicking on the "TATSOL Links" page tab near the top of the screen. Yes, after 3+ years, I finally figured out how to use the "Pages" feature as well. Give me another 3 years and who knows
what I'll be able to do with this thing!
In closing, I'd just like to say once again how much I appreciate
each and every person who takes a minute or more of their busy day to have a look around here and see what we're doing, whatever
that may be. To new readers who are just finding us, thanks for checking us out, we hope you continue to come back... and tell your friends too! And to our long time readers who've been with us for a while - thanks for your continued enthusiasm and support. We couldn't do it without you.
Well, maybe we could...it just wouldn't be as fun.
