SceneWiki Madness

Y’all might recall that I’d briefly mentioned The Skyline Network’s SceneWiki a while back when talking about the BandCamp stuff, but I’ve finally, finally started delving into it myself over the past few days. And I have to admit, it’s pretty fucking addictive.

I still have some issues with the interface, I’ll admit, like the lack of a homepage & links on the left side to quickly take you to lists of bands, venues, labels, people, etc. — see Minnesota Public Radio’s MinneWiki for a very cool example of what I’d dearly, dearly love to see (and I swear, ADR, I’d be more than willing to give it a shot myself, if need be). But eh, that’s minor; as a slide in a dull company meeting earlier today proudly proclaimed (in a totally different context), content is king, and with the boost in visibility the SceneWiki’s received from BandCamp & other places, a small crew of devoted scenesters are busy churning out informative/humorous/imbecilic articles for the wiki on every Houston music-related topic you can imagine. (And if you can’t find one you’re imagining, hell, go write it yourself.) A lot of what’s up is junk or scenester in-jokes nobody but the five people involved will ever, ever get, but there’s some darn good info on there, with more going up all the time.

I’ve been attempting to contribute some, for my part, although I’m leery of putting up stuff about people who, um, still play and/or live around here. Not entirely sure why that is — it may be because I honestly just don’t know all that much about a lot of more recent bands, at least beyond the music itself, so I really, really don’t want to write some bullshit about Cool Band A and look like a fool. So there’s that.

Instead, I’ve been attempting to dredge up memories from my own out-and-about, in-a-band days, when I did know more of the folks involved personally and not just as an email address, MP3 file, or Hands Up alias. It’s been an interesting exercise, forcing myself to remember things like, “oh, wait…Gilbert Alfaro was in Refuse To Fall, wasn’t he? Hey, that’s right…,” especially since my memory is godawful bad at this point in my life. Profuse apologies to anybody whose published history I’ve unintentionally screwed up; I’m just putting up what I can recollect, which isn’t always all that accurate.

Haven’t done too many so far, because my OCD nature won’t let me move on until I’ve gotten everything totally fucking perfect, or as close to it as I can manage. I’ve got an entry up for old-school, long-dead indie-rockers Celindine, old-school, long-dead straightedgers Refuse To Fall, and old-school, long-dead emo dudes The Trigger Quintet (sensing a pattern yet?). And after seeing the entry for The Monocles’ Out of Your Mind 7″, I have a feeling that tonight I’ll be attempting to create entries (with cover scans, hopefully) of some of the bazillion old-ass tapes, 7″s, and CDs I’ve got lying around.

I like this whole idea because y’know, there’s a lot of music-scene history floating around out there in people’s brains, and eventually, once we’ve all grown up and/or moved away, it’s going to be lost, gone forever. Which isn’t a major loss in some cases, really, but I honestly believe that this scene deserves to be documented for the vibrant, ever-changing beast it is; that’s part of why music in this town’s always attracted me, really. (Heck, I would never have done the whole “Six Degrees of Pop Deflation” thing otherwise.) I figure the whole SceneWiki thing can work, then, for both old and new — document the old, let people know about the new.

Get on over there & help out…