MI, Pitchfork and digital disappearances

[Skott Furys jizz rag]

MI as a desert for a few years before CT pulled the plug. It was grim. Everyone seemed to have dropped off in favor of Facebook etc and there was barely a stir of activity on the forum for two or three years if I remember correctly. Luckily I had the NWN forum which was invaluable a good me through that online drought. NWN caved a few years ago too but, much like Metal Warfare, someone stepped in and started up Revelation of Doom, so both of those voids have been filled. It's encouraging to see this forum cool w roaring back in the past year or two but it's mostly old farts so what kind of life span will it have we'll wait and find out.

It's a shame to see that ZT magazine appears to have gone even though I haven't bought it since moving away. It would be nice to see paper mags make a return.

Big time man, I think it was mainly yourself, Danny, black Shepard and astygl starting topics at the end, long gone are the halcyon days of the old forum (was it pre 06?)

[The Heretic]

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music/2024/01/the-pitchfork-years

(Do the aul interrupt page loading as soon as you see text to avoid the paywall appearing.)

Would any of ye be able to copy and paste the article text here please?  I can't get the interrupt trick to work on my phone.  Go raibh mhaith agat

Here ya go..

https://archive.is/CSuHt

Tip for everyone..if you put archive.is/ before the www of a paywall article you can sometimes  get cached versions of it...

[The Butcher]

Sorry lads, don't want to see any of yizzers boobs.

It's encouraging to see this forum cool w roaring back in the past year or two but it's mostly old farts so what kind of life span will it have we'll wait and find out.

Maybe it will be like Vinyl. But what kind of life span is a good question. Facebook and the rest are just woeful for conversation, it's all quick and disposable while at least with forums have that archival nature within them. This site could get a good 10 years or could come in waves.

[Maggot Colony]

This forum and a couple of blogs like No Clean Singing and Hate Meditations are the only websites I bother with anymore.
I used to go to Death Metal Underground to find new bands, but it's been taken over by white supremacist cigar enthusiasts who think extreme metal died in 1996.
Metal Warfare isn't as popular as the old MI site, but I'm still finding interesting stuff that I wouldn't have heard of elsewhere, like Gjendød and Spectral Voice.

[The Ancient Ones]

I very much respected the way Ciaran went out with Metal Ireland - no pleading, no coaxing or looking for donations - just gone without warning and that was that!

On a similar topic to this thread, the closing down of - *and deletion of the contents of* - the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) forums a number of years back was an act of astounding cultural sabotage. Twenty years of insightful discussion of individual films (and best films to watch if you wanted to see specific actresses' norks) gone at the click of a button.

[Pentagrimes]

Water under the bridge now, but the bone of contention was that while you might appreciate how he did it, it was incredibly disrespectful to the group of us who had put time and effort into writing articles and reviews to delete  our work without giving us a heads up first.

But also to be fair, I don't blame him for shutting down the site now.

[jobrok1]

It was a dose when he killed it, but I do understand his decision.

I'm just glad I never took him up on his offer to roll the Irish Metal Archive into MI.

[Giggles]

I very much respected the way Ciaran went out with Metal Ireland - no pleading, no coaxing or looking for donations - just gone without warning and that was that!

He did ask for donations though, he set up a link and asked people to consider "leaving a tip".

Not that there's anything wrong with that of course, but I remember a few lads whinging about it on fb at the time.

[Pagan Saviour]

but the bone of contention was that while you might appreciate how he did it, it was incredibly disrespectful to the group of us who had put time and effort into writing articles and reviews to delete  our work without giving us a heads up first.

Agreed. Complete Ballbaggery. I did speak to him around the time of the closure of the site and he implied that he'd do something with all the reviews etc but it never happened. The tip thing was insult to injury. His site, his rules and all but thought that element wasn't great. He did sterling work for the scene here over the years, his commitment was unwavering so to just toss all that material away still baffles me.

Having said that, I do miss the site for the reviews. The writing was of a high standard and the reviews were written from the heart by people that were passionate about music. The likes of  sites like Overdrive etc make me sick with obnoxiously positive reviews for everything.

[Don Gately]

I had a few cuts at Eoin for his reviews at the time I remember, jesus we take it seriously

[astfgyl]

I dunno lads, have you all forgotten about the time that CT said that Land of Sunshine wasn't a proper FNM song?

Whatever about closing the whole thing and dumping it unannounced one morning...

... that was unforgivable

[Pagan Saviour]

Lol, I remember that.

Or the 5/5 glowing review for the Steel Tormentor record

[Ducky]

Water under the bridge now, but the bone of contention was that while you might appreciate how he did it, it was incredibly disrespectful to the group of us who had put time and effort into writing articles and reviews to delete  our work without giving us a heads up first.

But also to be fair, I don't blame him for shutting down the site now.

I wrote all of one article for MI (Sol Niger Within for From The Vaults) and was a bit miffed when it vanished into the aether.

Some of ye lads pumped a shitload of time and valuable content onto those pages, would've been properly annoyed about it.

[Mooncat]

Even beyond the reviews, it was a cornerstone of Irish metal culture for years. So much captured, represented, and chronicled on those pages. It was super jarring to just have it all removed. Still though, this site seems to have revived the forum life somewhat. I wonder would that have happened if MI had continued.


Speaking of digital v physical, I have a 97 Corolla and so have a tape deck in my car. Once I mentioned that a shitload of people in work all went into their cupboards to donate their tapes to me. Hugely diverse array of stuff. I keep them all in a big bag behind the passenger seat so I can just reach back and lucky dip grab one easily. I've been using Spotify for a good decade, but the experience of listening to the music in physical form has been so profoundly eye-opening. I enjoy it massively more picking a tape and then listening to the whole thing over several times before moving onto a new tape. Then doing the old school fishing out the sleeve and reading the liner notes/lyrics (not while driving) has brought me right back. I feel so much more connected to the music-listening experience. I even know song titles again. It's made me really reconsider my relationship to digital music and how I consume music. When I moved to Canada I was happy to leave all my collections behind and go streaming and save the space, but now I'm really thinking about starting again...

[Pentagrimes]

Water under the bridge now, but the bone of contention was that while you might appreciate how he did it, it was incredibly disrespectful to the group of us who had put time and effort into writing articles and reviews to delete  our work without giving us a heads up first.

But also to be fair, I don't blame him for shutting down the site now.

Some of ye lads pumped a shitload of time and valuable content onto those pages, would've been properly annoyed about it.

Oh yeah