The subject was music

[zuzu]

I just figured since my web site is the home on my production house for independent music people would generally discuss subjects related to that. And for years they did jut that.

yes, it was really excellent that way. there\'s a lot of folks who really miss that a lot.

I also have noticed many of my favorite posters and friends on this board for years have stopped posting as well. I miss them but I understand that it can be frustrating to go over subject heading after subject heading and not see any posts related to your interests.

Travis, many Buckethead fans not only stopped posting here, they stopped reading as well. it\'s not that we don\'t still love you bunches, it\'s that your board used to be a place many of us counted on for updates on your current work and music related news that was important to us. after it turned into the personal blog/teen diary/wordsalad zone of just a handful of people, we elected someone for the duty of slogging through each and every post in the pursuit of actual news. we\'ve just been taking turns at that grueling job ever since so that we wouldn\'t all have to read through so much nonsense. you\'ve always done an excellent job, and some of us are real sorry about how your nice board has been abused.  

~ the great smileyface-cutesy .gif plague of \'O4 ~

[caper]

o that\'s right, i do have one constructive suggestion:

please travis ditch those user categories tied to number of posts
they are evil and have an evil ego influence and add nothing of value imo

thanks

[Chris DiCicco]

I need a new hobby, maybe watching haircuts downtown Saturday evenings. D.O.D

Thats real nail biting and intence stuff especialy at Super Cuts Whoohh those guys (localy) almost cut my ear off, D.O.D try people watching it has a lot less stress involved, but learn to look away when looked at. This gets messy sometimes.

Travis also thing about a sub catogory for Viggo and Bucket.. er Bucket and Viggo, Sounds good.

Chris

[Travis]

Thanks to all of you for your input. It\'s good to know my old friends are still around but telling you have chosen to email or PM your suggestions, thank you caper and zuzu (zuzu, I can always count on you to cut to the chase) for actually posting your input here, and everyone else who have contacted me it\'s heartening to know it matters enough to you to do that. Your input is very valuable and will help me to make the changes here that are needed.
Please feel free to chime in if you have ideas you think would help. Most of my time is spent in the studio making music. I\'m currently working on several projects with Buckethead, a new Lysa Flores CD, a Paul iLL solo record and working with Vince DiCloa and Doane Perry on a couple of projects. My focus here is on the music I and the artists I work with make. I would like to keep that the focus of this board as well.

[zuzu]

zuzu, I can always count on you to cut to the chase

no problem. I don\'t have time to waste either.

Most of my time is spent in the studio making music.

here\'s hoping you get to go back to doing more of that, and less of this. thanks for everything.

[oldfolkie]

Just putting in my 2 cents (in foreign coin) on this, Travis.

I\'m a fairly new intro to your board, although I did visit your site before this new format and I think posted a couple of times. Who knows under what name; I certainly don\'t remember. Been around off & on for a couple of years though. I\'m a musician of sorts myself, although not recorded on any official label, just on some home-grown CDs of group efforts. So much for me  

I think your idea of splitting categories is good. We still have the choice of reading them all. And I do come here mainly for the musical discussion, but sometimes I get drawn into the political, the personal, or the silly. There\'s a place for all of those, but I\'d love to see the music headlining this board as it used to. I had to hunt through every single thread before concluding that there wasn\'t one on Vince DiCola, or Lindy Dickerson either, and start them myself. They were both soon buried deep in the back pages. (That\'s not a criticism, but it could be a justification for an all-music category, or even a thread for each artist you list or something like that.)

I\'m a regular participant, hell, I\'m co-owner of another board. It\'s totally irrelevant to this board which one it is.  

I come here to talk about music. Travis, regardless WHY I originally came here, the CDs you have produced by so many different artists have opened my eyes to a new range of musicians and forms. I\'ve acquired many of them, and wandered off to other indie labels too, in search of more by these and other artists. It\'s added a whole new dimension to my appreciation of music!

THANK YOU!!!

Whatever you choose to do with YOUR BOARD, Travis, will be AOK with me.  

[D.O.D]

   Oldfolkie- Beautifully stated!    Older than you   D.O.D

[Travis]

Hello Everyone,

I have been insanely busy in the studio for the last few days but last night I had chance to reflect on the situation here at the forum and more broadly with respect to what we are all about here at this site. In addition to the few posts here, I have had many contacts by long time visitors and newer members of this site. I took time to go over the history of this board, reading posts both since it was first set up and after I changed the format in March and taking in what people are telling me.

First off here\'s my thinking about this site. It was started as the site of a production house for independent music and artists as a way of spreading the word about music you will have a hard time finding in record stores and have a place for those artist to make their records available to those interested, and as a place where you can interact with the people that make that music. This is not a fan site for any one artist, if it became that it would defeat the whole idea about raising the consciousness of those interested in finding  out of the mainstream music. This goes for Viggo, Buckethead and Vince, or anyone else who is represented here. Nor do I want this to be a water cooler or over the fence meeting place for a few people because it again defeats the reason for it being. I don\'t mind if some of that goes on but we must be mindful somewhat of why we are here. I think it would be good for members to check the members list and see how many posts you have made in relation to the average and ask when you post, is what I\'m posting really adding to the cause I\'ve outlined above. Sometimes it\'s good to let the place breath if there is nothing important to say. Again none of this is the fault of any posters because I had not made any of this clear before.

One thing I noticed was that this place ebbs and flows depending on who has a new record out. When there is something to talk about the conversations gets interesting. The other big event of coarse was the Lord Of The Rings. I have worked with Viggo for the last decade. We have done seven records together. Before LOTR the traffic here was around 6 thousand hit\'s a month, after TLOR it went to 60 thousand, with peaks higher then that. That\'s a big ebb, but I expect there will be a flow to follow and the faces will change a bit around here with the next record that comes out.  I would hope there could be a bit more tolerance of the mix of people who participate here. The idea that there is a Buckethead collective of fans that who only two months ago were volunteering to donate money to the cause of independent artist has now decided to boycott my site because of a few animated gifs is disappointing to me and  I hope not true because if thats that\'s case I might as well pull the plug on this forum and perhaps the whole enterprise because that means this whole idea isn\'t tenable.

Forums are just a meeting place for people and the interaction of those people is what makes them interesting. I know of no forum thats not 90 percent humdrum punctuated with moments of real interest and drama. It\'s just like life, it is life, all it needs is a little focus.

I am going to proceed with my notion that there is really not much wrong around here a little direction can\'t fix. Over the next week I will add some categories and define some parameters and lets see what happens.