Speaking of MySpace

Call me crazy, but I just went on a little trip sideways in time through my estranged MySpace friends, fans and bands of note.

Let’s backtrack a bit, and don’t stop me if this sounds familiar — for a few years there, I spent an unexpected amount of time chatting up strangers, future friends and fans and listening to music I never would have heard of if not for MySpace. I posted my first ever recording there, made my first fans there. And was pleasantly surprised when a few of these connections became real flesh and blood friends — friends I’ve gone to shows with, hung out with, collaborated musically with. A few more have become solid ‘internet friends’ and we connect daily on Twitter, Facebook, and now the gangly Google+, which is having its backlash-y growing pains period start right about… now.

What did I find on my trip through the not-so-distant past? Partly what I expected — some bands have broken up, some have become quite successful. Some pages are mere cobwebs or placeholders for other more active sites. Sadly, at least one of my regular connections has died when I wasn’t looking. And that… that was a bit of a jolt. An unexpected emotional moment from a much-maligned internet site that has become a punching bag lately, yet no one argues that it was a real touchstone for the changing music industry. I did of course happily reconnect with a lot of music that I really enjoy but have lost touch with because it’s not on the radio or played on Pandora.

There are so many sites now that do so many individual things better than MySpace tried to do all at once, but there aren’t ANY sites now that have that unique combination of near-realtime ‘hey I like your stuff, what are you listening to, let me check that out, here’s my stuff…’ all in one sloppy crazy wonderful free-love kind of spot. Kind of like a free online music swap meet where everyone trades their mixtapes and shows their stuff off, trading comments and chatting daily like we do on Twitter now but with the music right there. I have come to love Twitter but I miss the music.

I went through my whole friends list and made a list of the bands I want to reconnect with, bands whose stuff I really enjoyed listening to and whose members I felt I connected with, if just for a moment in time. Here are a few, give them a listen and a shout if you see them around: