Let's fire up Mosaic and start crawling. First stop is the History of Rock and Roll.
We discover, when the page starts loading, that it's a piece of flackery for a television documentary. I should have known. To quote a line from one of my favorite "WKRP In Cincinnati" episodes: "Well, that's it fer 'im, then." <defenestration follows <ggg>>
Apparently, this series is a Big Deal in Hollywood. They have Gary Busey, the poster boy for motorcycle helmet laws, as the narrator. (Which is not really fair. Busey makes a dandy bad guy, and I enjoy him in those roles, but as a stand-up narrator, he's no Edward Herrman.)
But we're here to crawl the Web. ON TO THE NEXT SITE!
Let's check back with the Mammoth Music Meta List. You'll remember from last month's issue that this is a Yellow Pages kinda site (similar to Yahoo), whence you can head nearly anywhere in the world of music. As I type this, I see in the background that they have some nifty new graphics. Let's go explore.
Well, the page logo is new, but nothing to write WWWiz about. <g> But that's not why we're here. Meta lists are about going somewhere ELSE.
Popping through the keyhole to the Alternative/Pop Music page, I peruse the list of sites and find one...Australia's Inter Music scene. Hmm. I've always been an Ozzophile. Let's check that one out.
The opening page is another meta list, but we're drilling down farther. Let's check artists. This link takes us to YA meta list, this time with names of bands. Wowie, zowie! I haven't heard of ANY of these bands. Better get with it, Alger...you're outta step, here! Hmm...Baby Sister. Could be interesting.
The server reports that the file you have selected does not exist. Ooh. Bad news. Of course, it's early Sunday morning in Oz—maybe they're doing maintenance. Okay, here it comes. One of the GIFs is gone. But here's another one...a high-res B&W, it looks like. These guys look like the kind of folks Mom warned me about, uh-huh. (This is a key sign of great potential in a band, BTW. Very few clean-cut types ever produce anything interesting.)
The bio sounds like a pretty typical story of a struggling band. It is raw and immediate to the people involved, but we've heard it before. There is an audio clip, but my sound card has fried and the new one won't be here until after the deadline for this issue, so you'll have to check it out for yourself. <evil grin>
On to the next one. (Say! This is fun!) What's a Gellyfish?
Oh, boy! The clip they have on their site is "All Day and All of the Night" which, unless I miss my guess, is an old Kinks song. Could be good, could be bad, but the GIF is not coming over, so ONWARD!
Hmmm. Borderers. Sounds vaguely political. Aboriginal rights and all that. It says the Borderers hail from Adelaide and play Celtic Rock. Could be good, could be...well, you get the point. The clip is "Fighting for Peace," which is the kind of oxymoron that only a support act on tour with Midnight Oil could love.
That's it fer 'im then. <defenestration follows>
Say! Let's see what we can find about Midnight Oil. They're a bunch of cool, hip, happening guys! Back through Vibe's MMML to the Individual Artists pages (you did bookmark the MMML, didn't you?). Down the list to the Ms.
Whoa! We have HIT the MOTHERLODE! This site is called Oilbase. (As opposed, I suppose, to Waterbase. <wg>) And it is YA meta list. What is Oilbase, History of Oilbase, discographies, lyrics, photos. EeeeeeYA-Haaa! Let's check out pictures. Well, this is cool. We start out with three shots of Peter Garrett. (What did you expect, the bass player? Whose name is Bones Hillman, BTW.) And a clear, plastic Truganini sticker! Too cool! Where do I get one of THOSE?
I want to throw in a small plug here for Win95 and Spry/AIR Mosaic (a.k.a. CompuServe NetLauncher). Short of an ISDN line, the combination seems to give me about as sprightly a performance on the Web as can be expected on a Saturday night (Labor Day weekend). The above was written in real time, while online, in over 35 minutes. I just kept the notepad open and, while waiting for images to load, clicked the document's button on the Task Bar, and typed my impressions into a Notepad document. You could do a lot worse than this. Microsoft is taking all of the usual heat (some of it deserved), but it looks to this aging rocker like they have a winner.
Places I'm told are worthwhile:
The Internet Underground Music Archive. This site is getting so much buzz (it's been featured in Wired and a British mag called Mac Format) that I really don't know that I could add anything. But the graphics look way cool and a good deal of original thought has gone into the design of the pages. It's well worth checking out.
And Adam Curry's mtv.com is on the Web. I don't know if this is recent, but it came to my attention the other day. This is, of course, a font of hipness on the Net and should be checked out, if only to say you've been there.
And that's it for this issue. I have a new computer coming next week, with a GOOD sound card and decent speakers, so this job should get to be a bit more fun in the future. Be sure to be here next issue when I rock the Web. <ggl>