It’s been 10 years of A Journal of Musical Things

Back in 2011, I found myself in something of an employment wilderness for the first time in my life. After more than 30 years of having a radio microphone, in front of me, I suddenly had to figure out how I was going to move forward.

The first thing I thought I needed was my own website; after all, if you’re not online, you don’t exist. So with my tech partners Andrew and Nathalia handling the back end, A Journal of Musical Things was created and went online in the summer of 2011 with this post. I completely missed the actual anniversary.

So ten years, then. That’s a lot of blogging.

Another reason we created this site was so I had a way to keep track of things in music that I thought were interesting/important/cool/weird for future reference in whatever broadcasting/writing projects I might acquire. In other words, I spend each day writing a musical diary, a journal of things I want to remember, hence A Journal of Musical Things.

This kind of journaling quickly became an obsession. The site is home to 36,347 posts. Of that number, 33,267 of them (plus this one) have been authored by me. I can’t remember a single day in the last decade when I haven’t posted at least one thing. That includes while on vacation, business trips, hospital stays, and even on 15-hour plane rides to the far side of the planet.

That’s not a brag; it’s more like a cry for help, you know?

But I can’t tell you how much this daily journaling has helped me keep on top of everything to do with music on a daily basis. It’s also made writing Ongoing History of New Music programs much easier, too, knowing that I have this repository of data, information, and facts at my fingertips.

The daily newsletter, which is a summary of each day’s postings before 10 am ET, now has thousands of subscribers around the world. One of the coolest moments came when I walked into an office in Brisbane, Australia, and one of the women recognized me!

I’ve been blessed with plenty of help, too. Mat, Nerhys, Zoe (and Larry, at one point) provide invaluable aid when it comes to sorting through the hundreds of song pitches that come in each with their New Music from the Inbox features. Amber really helps to pick up the slack when I’m stretched thin. She also has some great perspectives on things like music, tech, and the law. Andrei and Ross have been down front taking pictures and filing concert reviews. Gilles drops in with some great profiles and insight. And thanks as well to some of the individual guest posters over the years.

And of course, thanks to everyone who has ever dropped in for a look or made a comment. Your interest in the site has been most validating. And I hope I’ve helped you keep on top of what’s happening in music, too.

Now let’s see how long I can keep this going.